Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Captain Marvel (Vol. 7), Issue #4! In the previous installment, the Japanese forces are using Kree spaceship technology as offensive weapons against Captain Marvel and the Women’s Air Service Pilots Banshee Squad Class of 1943!

But it doesn’t matter, because Captain Marvel and the Women’s Air Service Pilots Banshee Squad Class of 1943 are really good at kicking the Japanese forces’ collective ass.

When Captain Marvel thinks she just wiped out all the Kree spaceship “prowlers”, in comes a giant one that won’t be stopped by brute force alone! Or at least that’s what they want us to think with our puny, squishy little “Captain Marvel”-reading brains of ours.

Captain Marvel (Vol. 7), Issue #4 [November, 2012]
Written by: Kelly Sue DeConnick

Rare cover art speech bubbles! “You want to take another shot at an American soldier? You’re gonna need a bigger gun!” You go, gurl! Americans can’t be taken out by small guns, it’s a worldwide fact! Bullets bounce right off of our 400-pound guts!

“It’s 1943. I’m on an island off the coast of Peru staring down a gigantic mechanical eyeball from outer space. A woman named Jerri Quimby – who, for all I know, was dead before I was born – pilots the commandeered alien vessel to my left while the rest of her banshee squadron try to hold off the Japanese troops advancing on the ground.”

That’s about the size of it. Thanks, Captain Marvel, for catching us all up!

The giant eyeball is made up of four “prowlers” — Kree spaceships. Captain Marvel blasts the eyeball with not much success. She gets knocked back in the fuckin’ dust, son. The other women are like “nooOOooOOOOoooOOOo!” Captain Marvel is either unconscious or she phased into the 8th dimension. “Is she dead?” asks Daisy as one of the other women who may or may not be nameless tries a little bit of CPR. “No, but I think she’s hurt real bad.”

“If the captain can’t take that thing… Jerri doesn’t stand a chance.”

Meanwhile, Jerri’s trying to stand a chance. She’s flying that Kree ship every which way and attempting to blast it out of the sky with ultra space lasers!

Captain Marvel is suddenly very much not unconscious or dead. She’s back in the 3rd dimension, in fact. “Can’t see straight. Feels like I got smacked with the broad side of a planet.”

Shit. I shouldn’t have gotten awesomely drunk as hell before this fight!

Captain Marvel is woozy while she attempts to pick herself up, dust herself off, and get back to Eyeball-Fightin’. Jerri’s going to try crashing right into the eyeball, I think. Seems like a dumb idea, but I’m not part of the Women’s Air Service Pilots Banshee Squad Class of 1943, am I? Captain America thinks she’ll die. Otherwise, it’s a fine plan!

Just as Jerri is about to kamikaze herself, Captain Marvel flies into the air, clips Jerri’s ship, and knocks her off course. “Tough break, Jerri,” she says. “Turns out this is not your day to die.”

Well, thanks for ruining everything, bitch.

Captain “Marvel Danvers” “Carol Marvel” Marvel hovers right in front of the eyeball and revs up a huge Samus-from-Metroid phaser charge. She successfully blows up the eye, along with the rest of whatever was connected to the eye. Mission accomplished! Let’s all go to the 1943 equivalent of Denny’s!

“You stole my move, Captain,” Jerri says coldly. Captain Marvel is like “Yeah. I did.”

Now it’s time to round up the Japanese pilots and ground troops, march their asses back to their camp, and make the rest surrender. They are successful at making the rest surrender. Their commanding officer hangs his head in shame right in front of Captain Marvel like the Bad Boy that he is.

Later, they try interrogating the commanding officer without success. While that doesn’t work whatsoever, Captain America pulls Jerri outside to a nice, cozy hill and asks the hard questions.

Grrr! My old nemesis Astronomy wins again!

Jerri says that she didn’t know they were near Peru! They were trying to get to Hawaii! How did they all end up so off-track? Jerri begins her story…

The Women’s Air Service Pilots Banshee Squad Class of 1943 aren’t military. They’re volunteers. Civil service ferry pilots helping out the cause. They banded together and, before they knew it, they had the best record in the whole corps. So good, in fact, that they got to be tasked with flying all the updated and new-fangled vehicles and equipment from California to the troops based in Hawaii.

Their instruments froze about halfway there.

Then the engines went.

Then they all started to spin out.

Then the microwaved beeped. Their Hormel chili was ready.

Then they all blacked out and woke up off the coast of Peru, apparently.

Captain Marvel can relate with this cockamamie nonsense. After all, a similar thing just happened to her! Flying, frozen instruments, tailspinning, then BAM! Peru.

And, similarly, all their planes are now missing. Very strange stuff. Not at all sexy.

Captain Marvel believes that the Japanese poking their noses around her might have something to do with it. Jerri makes a joke that maybe they buried their planes hoping to grow more, which sounds racist to me! But Captain Marvel likes that line of thinking. She runs to a clearing and digs into the ground randomly for some reason, but she immediately finds a glowing piece of metal shaped like a horned helmet. An explosion happened that that was big enough to throw shrapnel through space… and time. I have no idea how she is deciding all this off the cuff, but I’m rolling with it, because hey. Comic books.

A T6 plane flies overhead. Rescue has come! But wait, that plane looks awfully familiar… isn’t that the plane that Captain Marvel was in the middle of crashing like a dingus before she phased into 1943? Who’s flying the plane now?

“If I’m right…” Captain Marvel says, staring dumbfounded at the plane. “…I am.”

In other words: Fuck y’all kids. Time to part ways. Nice knowin’ ya.

She leaves the squad in the lurch as she flies up to investigate the plane. She tells them all good luck and have fun, signaling the end of their involvement in the storyline! And not a moment too soon! We were all getting tired of these awesome, badass characters, apparently.

“Helen Cobb, what kind of Pandora’s Box did you leave me when you left me your plane?” Captain Marvel thinks. “What’s the secret hidden inside? What did you do to me… Helen, what did you do…?”

Meanwhile, in 1961 (as meanwhile as one could be in this issue), at the Whiskey Tenor Flyers Club, Helen Cobb is swapping stories with all the female patrons, drinking heavily, playing cards, and having a gay old time. She regales her audience with a tale about talking to her commanding officer, George Howard, about having a bunch of women fly in the Mercury Program. And Howard relented. She just had to talk to him in terms he could understand, namely using one-syllable words! HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!!

Talk about old-fashioned, right? Fucking men.

Cobb advises the women – her troop – to get their butts in bed soon. They have an 8am appointment to fulfill requirements for the astronaut training program. “Tomorrow, ladies…” Cobb says. “We fly jets.”

Soon, Cobb retires to her quarters and finds a bunkmate. Cobb talks to her – mostly to herself, actually – about flying planes. Cobb doesn’t have many other interests, as it turns out.

“That’s quite a union suit you got there, Roomie–” Cobb extends a hand. “I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name…?”

“C-Carol… Carol Danvers,” says a perplexed Captain Marvel, still donned in her costume.

“Helen Cobb, kitten. Glad to know ya.”

Final Thoughts

The time-hopping continues! What’s next? The Year 3000 so she can fly around space with Fry and Leela? That would be the worst crossover ever. Who do I have to call to make it happen?