Everything you didn’t know or forgot about Captain Marvel, you’ll find here. The tangled history of this character, its male and female image, embarrassments connected to Miss Marvel aka Carol Danvers, and so many more. And also, when will we see the new Captain Marvel in her first solo superhero movie?
If we're actually gonna do a big Marvel family photo, we should introduce the newest member of the Marvel family, the newest person joining us – Captain Marvel herself, Brie Larson!
Hey, friends. Greg here.
Avengers: Infinity War is upon us and it features a ton of Marvel fan favorites going toe-to-toe with the mad Titan Thanos. The film will be a major turning point in the MCU as it bids farewell to the old guard and ushers in a new class of heroes. One of the new heroes happens to be Captain Marvel.
This video will be a crash course on the cosmic heroine and how she fits into the MCU’s future.
Before we dive into Carol Danvers’ iteration of Captain Marvel, we will be remiss if we didn't mention that there have been several versions of Captain Marvel over the years. The list includes the OG Captain Marvel, Mar-Vell, Monica Rambeau, Genis-Vell, Phyla-Vell, and Noh-Varr. Danvers wouldn't officially make the jump from Miss Marvel to Captain Marvel until 2012, when Captain America urged Carol to take on the new mantle. But, in fact, the Captain Marvel name goes all the way back to the 40s, during the Golden Age, when Fawcett Comics used the name for Billy Batson's alter ego who we all know today as “Shazam!”.
Following the trial in which DC Comics sued Fawcett Comics for breach of copyright claiming Fawcett’s Captain Marvel was just a tad too similar to Superman, Fawcett stopped publishing Captain Marvel. By 1991, DC had acquired all the rights to the Fawcett character, yet decided to switch the name to Shazam because in the late 60s, Marvel gained the trademark “Captain Marvel” with their first series.
Carol Danvers origin
Created by writer Roy Thomas and artist Gene Colan in 1968, the original non-powered Carol Danvers first appeared in a Captain Marvel story in the 13th issue of Marvel Superheroes. In the comics, she was already an ace fighter pilot, a former officer in the US Air Force, and a former CIA agent when she was hired as the head of security of NASA's headquarters at Cape Canaveral. One of Carol's co-workers at NASA was Dr. Phillip Lawson who was secretly an alien Kree super-agent named Mar-Vell aka Captain Marvel. Danvers became a supporting character and Captain Marvel's own title, where the idea was born that Carol could one day play a starring role.
Fast forward to the mid-1970s, Marvel decided that it wanted a powerful new female superhero who could carry her own title and who represented the modern liberated woman. This came to fruition in 1977 when a dormant Kree robot, that NASA had been studying, activated and went haywire. Mar-Vell defeated the rampaging robot and saved Carol's life in the process. Soon after, Carol became drawn to Mar-Vell and a romance developed between the two.
Kree Warrior Yon-Rogg which soon learn of the relationship and kidnapped Carol as bait to lure Mar-Vell into a trap. When Captain Marvel came to the rescue, Yon-Rogg deployed the forbidden Kree technology called “The Psyche-Magnitron”. During the battle, the machine exploded and Captain Marvel shielded Carol from its radiation with his own body, causing Carol to absorb much of his own genetic template. Danvers would soon discover that she had gained superhuman powers, much like those of Captain Marvel, and would take on the name Miss Marvel. She even wore a costume patterned after that of the Kree hero.
Now, Danvers was initially unaware of her alter ego, as she would have blackouts whenever danger was near. During those blackouts she would actually transform into Miss Marvel. The blackouts wouldn't last long as, over time, Danvers and Miss Marvel would become one and the same when Ronan the Accuser would fuse her fragmented minds.
Over the years, Danvers has spoted under multiple different aliases, including a run as Binary which was a god-like entity that was unleashed by an alien race that inadvertently unlocked the full potential of Carol's unique Kree-human genetic configuration. And yes, this looks very similar to another godlike hero in the Marvel Universe, you may have heard of: Jean.
Now, as you know, most superheroes have a few storylines that writers would hope that you would forget. And Carol Danvers has a doozy of a story in The Avengers 2000s issue. In the comic, Danvers went through a 9-month pregnancy in a matter of days and gave birth to a baby boy named Marcus. So, who was the lucky father? Well, the father turned out to be Marcus himself who was trapped in a Limbo dimension. Okay. He eventually discovered that he could live by teleporting someone from Earth to Limbo and impregnating them, thus being reborn on Earth. To do that, he teleported Danvers to Limbo and tried to put the moves on her but she rejected his advances. He would then use his mind control tech to make her fall for him and then afterward wiped her memory of the event and sent her back to Earth.
Thankfully, Chris Claremont would come around and throw that storyline in the trash. This was criticized by many, including comic book historian Carol A. Strickland, who wrote an essay devoted to the controversial story.
Captain Marvel has a mighty long list of abilities, including super strength, agility, flight, super speed, energy manipulation, and absorption, which gives Carol the ability to absorb a wide variety of energy and utilize it to further augment her own super strength, speed, and other powers. She also has a precognitive sense called “the seventh sense” which allows her to subconsciously recognize danger before it occurs, which is very similar to Peter Parker’s Spidey Sense.
Role in the MCU
Carol Danvers will appear in her first feature film as Captain Marvel in 2019 and will be Marvel's first female lead solo superhero movie. The film will star Oscar Winner Brie Larson as Carol Danvers, set to be directed by “Mississippi Grind” filmmakers Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck. The Captain Marvel movie is set in the 1990s and features Samuel L. Jackson as a younger Nick Fury when he still had two eyes and is expected to tackle the Kree-Skrull War.
While she may not appear in Infinity War, Josh Brolin and the Russo brothers have gone on record to point out that Larson has filmed a few scenes for at least one of the two Avenger films, so it's become highly likely that fans will get to see Captain Marvel in action in Avengers 4, before her very own solo film release. Just like Spider-Man in Civil War.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjhKqrCUrjM
