The Captain Marvel movie was a huge box office success bringing in over one million dollars from ticket sales.
So If somebody was to tell you some people really hate Captain Marvel, we wouldn’t blame for finding that hard to believe or understand. The Movie was clearly a huge success and we’re going to get more Captain Marvel on our screen and in the MCU whether some fans want her or not.
With that said some fans have a huge issue with Carol Danvers, and her overly cocky attitude. However, this character trait may be the key to discovering why comic book fans are having a hard time connecting with the character.
Putting aside the movie portrayal of the character or Brie Larsons Depiction of her. I really believe the key to this may be sitting with the source material that Brie is actually doing a really good job of portraying well.
So let’s take some time to look into the history of this newer addition to the MCU Roster and try to work out why she has so many issues making friends and to understand that we need to dive deep into comic book history to the beginning of Captian Marvel.
Constantly Rebooted
The Capitan Marvel has is one that has been constantly used with different versions of the character being published throughout Marvel Comics over the years leaving long-standing comic book fans confused why this seemingly over recycled character is suddenly being advertised as Marvels strongest Avenger lets have a look at the versions of Captian Marvel before our latest edition.
Mar-Vell
This is the first version of Captain Marvel printed by Marvel Comics and was created by Stan Lee and Gene Colan.
This character is an alien military officer, Captain Mar-Vell of the Kree Imperial Militia, who is sent to observe the planet Earth as it is developing its technology to travel into space.
Mar-Vell eventually wearies of his superiors’ malicious intent and allies himself with the people of Earth, and the Kree Empire from then on brands him a traitor. From then on, Mar-Vell fights to protect Earth from all threats.
He was later revamped by writers Roy Thomas and Gil Kane. Having been exiled to the Negative Zone by the Supreme Intelligence, the only way Mar-Vell can temporarily escape is to exchange atoms with a human named Rick Jones by means of special wristbands called Nega-Bands.
This gives rick jones superpowers and a form-fitting costume like all superheroes should have.
This entire revamp made the character feel a lot like the original Fawcett Captain Marvel designed by rival DC Comics, which had a young child Billy Batson saying the magic word “Shazam” to transform into the hero Captian Marvel, Latter to be renamed into SHAZAM.
With the title’s sales still struggling, Marvel allowed Jim Starlin to conceptually revamp the character, although his appearance was little changed. Mar-Vell is freed from the Negative Zone and becomes a cosmic champion, the “Protector of the Universe” appointed by the cosmic entity Eon. Together, Mar-Vell and Rick continue to battle against evil, most notably battling the Death-worshipping Thanos.
Marvel was killed off from Marvel Comics when sales continued to drop but the official story is he developed inoperable cancer, the result of earlier exposure to toxic nerve gas during a battle with Nitro. He died from this cancer on Titan in the presence of the Marvel Universe’s superhero community in The Death of Captain Marvel, published in 1982.
Monica Rambeau
The second Captain Marvel as also featured a character in the new captain marvel film was created by writer Roger Stern and artist John Romita, Jr.. Her first appearance is in The Amazing Spider-Man Annual #16 (1982)
The character is Monica Rambeau, a police lieutenant from New Orleans Louisiana, who possesses the power to transform herself into any form of energy.
Her powers were briefly altered so that she cannot transform into energy but instead can generate a personal force field.
The Character Grew in popularity so that sometime later a character named the Stranger returned her energy-transformation abilities.
She then went on to become a member of the Avengers, and at one point she served as their leader. She ended up no longer using the Captian Marvel Name and instead took on names like Photon & Pulsar causing her character to be heavily distanced from the Captian Marvel mantel making her a superhero in her own rite.
Genis-Vell
The third Captain Marvel is Genis-Vell, who first appeared in Silver Surfer Annual #6 (1993) using the codename of “Legacy”. The character is the genetically-engineered son of Mar-Vell and his lover Elysius, created from the late Mar-Vell’s cell samples and artificially aged to physical, if not emotional, maturity. Genis, like his father, wears the Nega-Bands, possesses Cosmic Awareness, and is, for a time, bonded with Rick Jones. Although the pair do not get along at first, they eventually become good friends.
Genis goes insane and threatens to destroy the universe.
After dying and resurrecting himself Genis-Vell joins the Thunderbolts under the name Photon. Until he dies to prevent the inevitable destruction of all existence. What a way to go right?
Phyla-Vell
The fourth version of Captain Marvel is Phyla-Vell, Genis-Vell’s younger sister. She was created by Peter David and Paul Azaceta in Captain Marvel (vol. 5) #16 (January 2004).
Phyla-Vell appears in the Annihilation event, fighting alongside Nova Core in an effort to stop the destructive armies of Annihilus. In the process of the series, she becomes the new Quasar after the original one is killed by Annihilus leaving the Captain Marvel Title behind.
Khn’nr
The fifth Captain Marvel is Khn’nr, who first appeared in the first Civil War event in March 2007.
In this event, he is a Skrull sleeper agent who is bound with Mar-Vell’s DNA to lock itself into Mar-Vell’s form and given technological replicas of the Kree Nega-Bands.
However, conveniently his mental conditioning was botched, causing Khn’nr’s personality to be erased completely leaving the Mar-Vell persona dominant during the Secret Invasion, this Marvel decides to fight against the invading Skrulls. As of now, he is apparently dead due to the conflict.
Changed for the Cocky Confident
In July 2012, Carol Danvers, the longtime super-heroine known as Ms. Marvel, assumed the mantle of Captain Marvel in an ongoing series written by Kelly Sue DeConnick with art by Dexter Soy.
In this series, Danvers dons a jumpsuit and explores her own past. DeConnick said at WonderCon 2012 that her pitch for the series could be described as “Carol Danvers as Chuck Yeager”. She said the series would contemplate what Captain Marvel’s legend means to Danvers, how she will wield it, and how the rest of the Marvel Universe reacts.
And the rest of the Marvel Universe reacted.
With so many different versions of the character to come beforehand, it was decided that in order to make the character memorable and really take on the mantel of captian marvel well writers gave her an overconfident cocky style of personality that reflected a strong-willed military captain that has caused her to rub shoulders with a lot of other characters and by extension fans alike.
This new version of Captain Marvel is ex-military with lots of combat experience and takes her responsibilities as Captain Marvel very seriously a lot more seriously than previous versions. As such she definitely has an attitude, but not an attitude problem she is strong-willed and tough and can be likened to that Steve Rogers (Captain America)
This new strong-willed character came as a shock to a few comic book fans with like all things some liking it and others not but let’s be honest haters be haters and we just want carol to be herself.
But the Biggest Shock Came During the Civil War 2 Storyline.
Nobody Comes out a Hero From Civil War
*Spoilers From Civil War 2*
Carol Danvers played a predominant role in the storyline “Civil War II”, the core miniseries of which was written by Brian Michael Bendis and illustrated by David Marquez.
In the Civil War story, Danvers is the leader of a faction of superheroes who wish to use Ulysses’ precognitive power to profile people who in his visions, will commit future crimes.
Carols Described by her writers as choosing this side because:
“From Carol’s point of view, she is like, ‘You’re telling me the world is still turning at the end of the day and everyone is safe? I don’t care… If it keeps us safe, that’s fine”
This is in direct contrast with fan favourite character Tony Stark who was the leader on the other side of the hero registration act during Civil War 1.
After Ulysses has a vision of Miles Morales killing Steve Rogers the heroes go to war with each other as Carol Tries to arrest Miles (not knowing that Steve is a Hydra Agent after being Changed by the cosmic Cube) and when tony tries to stop her she almost kills him bashing him into a coma.
The series ends with Captain Marvel meeting with the President of the United States and is offered unlimited resources to lead the superhero community into the future but also ends with tony in a coma and a lot of superheroes hating her and fans alike.
Future Ahead
The fallout of Civil War 2 has been very huge in defining the Captain Marvel Character in the comics along with her new strong-willed personality and continual growth in power and popularity in the comics has lead to this character being featured more and more.
Tony was not liked a character for a lot of years and look at him now so who knows what the future holds for Captain Marvel but at the moment the string of civil war 2 and the constant change of mantel might take a while for people to really warm up to her but i am sure we will.