Captain Marvel (Vol. 7), Issue #1

* Part 1 of 6 of the In Pursuit of Flight storyline *

Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Captain Marvel (Vol. 7), Issue #1!

Ms. Marvel is probably my favorite superhero other than Spider-Man and Batman. She’s so precocious and nerdy and often incompetent! And Captain Marvel is her direct influence, so let’s read about Carol Danvers and see what makes her so GODDAMNED special. This better be worth it, lady.

Captain Marvel (Vol. 7), Issue #1 [September, 2012]
Written by: Kelly Sue DeConnick

The cover advertises Captain Marvel as “Earth’s Mightiest Hero”, which is quite a lot to live up to. I mean, I’ve seen Jeff Goldblum hold his in Law & Order: Criminal Intent. Who’s to say he’s not just as mighty?

A special commemorative issue of the Daily Bugle advertises “Ms. Marvel UNMASKED! An exclusive with Earth’s mightiest hero!” Do you think she’ll sit down with J. Jonah Jameson and lay down the hard business of fighting supercrime? Tune in!

We begin at the Museum of Natural History in New York City. I think she is still Ms. Marvel right now, but it’s unclear. All I know is that she and Captain America are fighting an entity named “Absorbing Man”, which I was going to make fun of myself until Marvel beat me to it by calling him a brand of toilet paper. He wants a “moon rock” for “moon powers”, which is something literal that I’m not making up. Marvel slams Absorbing Man against a concrete column.

On Marvel’s command, Captain America throws his shield with a HWISSSSS and it misses the target badly. Absorbing Man asks why Captain America is taking orders from some broad. Marvel says she’s a Colonel, so she technically outranks Patriot Pants. “I’ve been trying to get you demoted for years,” he mumbles.

Absorbing Man seems injured after getting slammed into cement. He shambles up the steps of the museum to get his moon rocks, presumably. Marvel and Cap try to egg him on.

“Say, Cap – what would happen in Creel were to get his hands on that shield of yours?”

“No stronger substance on the planet – or the moon! Why, I can’t imagine how powerful he’d be!”

Absorbing Creel Man chuckles softly to himself, like “got ‘em”. And when his guard is down for a split second, Captain America yells “NOW!” and Ms. Captain Colonel Marvel throws a red blanket over head.

BE THWARTED BY THE POWER OF TARTAN.

As it turns out, this rug is an impenetrable Stark-designed fabric. It does nothing but make Creel flail around angrily and blindly, but it doesn’t do much else. I don’t know what Marvel’s endgame is here. Make his face comfortable? TO DEATH??

Then Marvel flips him over backward and makes him crash into dinosaur bones. Bing bang boom, Creel is unconscious and everyone wins except for the dinosaur bone scientists. The media is there in a jiffy, asking Cap what he thinks of his “new ally”. This makes him smile with brain ideas, which is rare considering that Cap ain’t got no brains.

Later at Avengers Tower, Cap tries to get Marvel to consider becoming his sidekick. She tells him to suck ten ugly dicks. Then he suggests changing her name to Captain Marvel so he can follow in her hero’s footsteps! *waggles eyebrows* But she doesn’t want to because the real Captain Marvel, who was a man, is dead. He was a real hero. She’s just some nobody named Carol Danvers.

And Cap tells Carol Danvers that she should be Captain Marvel! “His name wasn’t Captain Marvel. His name was Mar-Vell. And I don’t mean to be unkind here, but you took his name a long time ago.

So she considers it for a moment. Apparently, at some point, Mar-Vell wanted Ms. Marvel to have his name. His legacy. His underwear.

“So you’re saying you don’t like ‘Ms. Marvel’? You’re so old-fashioned, Cap.” And Cap reminds her that she has led the Avengers and she has saved the world, so she earned the title. Fucking take it before Cap blows a gasket.

Spider-Man swoops in looking ravishing, as usual.

A landline? What year is this, grandpa? Do you want me to adjust your rabbit ears so you can watch your stories?

Spider-Man tells Carol that he likes her shitty, weird mullet hair. They spend some time training in the gym while they let Cap talk to Trump about hamburgers and sex crimes. Carol asks Spidey what he thinks of the name “Ms. Marvel”, and he only says he loves it because he doesn’t want her to hurt him. Then he tries to ask her out on a date, but Carol claims that she’s visiting a sick friend for dinner and doesn’t want to be late. Sounds like a flimsy excuse to me, but I’d turn down Peter Parker too. Every chance I got.

Carol flies through town, and it’s soliloquy time! “I was a lucky kid because I had two heroes – my dad and a pilot named Helen Cobb. Helen held fifteen speed records when she retired. Fifteen. I’m not prone to envy, but those records… I envy those records. I can fly. Fast. Real fast. But these ‘abilities’ come at a cost. For one thing, I’ll never be able to hold a record like Helen’s. I can’t even compete. Wouldn’t be a fair fight.”

Oh, she’s not done talking. I think she’s recounting her origin story, maybe? Caught in the blast of an alien psyche-magnetron device. The particle bombardment grafted the genetic structure of Mar-Vell onto her own DNA. That old chestnut.

Flying fast is boring now. One minute and fifty-eight seconds to the end of the atmosphere. Ho hum. “I know Helen would have given her entire world to reach out and touch the end of space.”

Then she free falls at Mach 3. The heat of the atmosphere burning her up is nothing less than thrilling. It’s like a big brain orgasm, sir.

It’s settled. She’s going to be Captain Marvel from now on! Fuck yeah! *horn fanfare*

Uh, let’s try to keep these comics PG, ok Burke?

The next morning on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, Carol Danvers makes one hell of a cup of coffee. The kind of cup of coffee that would make Dale Cooper from Twin Peaks yell from a mountain with his dick erect. A woman named Burke comes down to join her; complains about how cold it is in the apartment. “My presence in the apartment should raise the temperature 2 – 3 degrees,” Danvers says, “for whatever that’s worth.”

“Really, I don’t remember feeling a difference at the magazine when you worked for me.”

“You worked for me.”

“Keep telling yourself that.”

These two banter for a while about roommate livin’ and possible relationship issues, I don’t know the history of these two. Danvers is about to run out and buy some food for the house when Burke directs her to look at the paper. “NEW CAPTAIN MARVEL! AND HE’S A ‘SHE’!” it says on the front page, but that’s not what Burke’s pointing at. “That,” Burke says to a page with a picture of Helen Cobb. “Iconic Pilot Dies in Fire at Historic Aviation Club.” Hey, that’s not something I can make fun of! What’s going on here!

Years and years back at the Whiskey Tenor Flyers Club in Friendswood, Texas, a younger Danvers visits Cobb with her brother Steve Danvers. “Helen, I got somebody here dying to meet you,” he smiles while Carol looks intimidated.

“Quiet one,” Cobb says later to Steve. “She always this good with people?”

“Pretty much,” he responds. “Carol! C’mon, you’re embarrassing your kid brother!”

Carol becomes a little more conversational and they discuss Cobb’s trophies, the Mercury 13 program, the finer points of muff diving, and how to make a damn good cup of coffee (fill it to the brim with chocolate syrup). Cobb compliments Danvers’ good taste in heroes.

Danvers invites Cobb to fly with her, teach her a thing or two. “Got under your skin, didn’t I?” Cobb says jovially. “You are on, kitten. We will duel at sunrise!”

Now, in the present day, Carol Danvers ain’t getting taught a thing or two from no one. She’s in a fucking cemetery watching her idol get buried.

And later, she flies up to the edge of space and scatters Cobb’s ashes.