AVENGERS 348: Mending fences

[starwolf_oakley]

The new LIFE OF CAPTAIN MARVEL miniseries is supposed to cover Carol Danvers' past. Including something we've never seen as a result of something most Carol fans hate.

Even though AVENGERS #200 is a blight on the history of both the Avengers and Carol Danvers, AVENGERS ANNUAL #10 attempted to salvage the story. By Carol saying she hated the Avengers and some stuff about them needing to do better, whatever that meant. And then she went into space with the X-Men, got Binary powers, and spent some time with the Starjammers. And after a while she rejoined the Avengers.

So, how did she mend fences with the Avengers?



Well, it has been said Carol made up with the Avengers while she was recuperating after Operation: Galactic Storm. QUASAR #34, to be specific. She used her Binary powers to save the sun from a Star-Gate, and then Quasar saved her and brought her to Avengers mansion.

From AVENGERS 348:


This recouperation has been used as the point Carol made up the Avengers (the ones that were arond in AVENGERS #200) and rejoined the team later on as Warbird.

AVENGERS #351 had Carol deciding to stay on Earth and not rejoin the Starjammers. She doesn't end up rejoining the Avengers until the Busiek/Perez run, where she takes the codename Warbird.

The thing that puzzles me is we never SEE Carol make up with the Avengers. This is something that could be done in a flashback at some time. And even though we would all rather pretend AVENGERS #200 didn't happen, "Carol had a falling out with the Avengers, left Earth, became Binary, and then saved the sun, returned to Earth and made up with the Avengers" sounds interesting. Shouldn't we see HOW she made up with the Avengers?

I'd like to see "Carol made up with the Avengers after the Marcus fiasco" in LIFE OF CAPTAIN MARVEL.

Another fun theory I'd like LIFE OF CAPTAIN MARVEL to explore:

The psyche-magnitron device that granted her powers rewrote Carol's brain. "Ms. Marvel" was a separate personality distinct from Carol for a while. Heck, Carol probably understands all the Kree languages. A "Your understanding of Kree history is why you are such an effective (if controversial) leader" retcon isn't too farfetched.

http://www.marvunapp.com/Appendix4/psychemagnitron.htm

Comments

[crinos]

I think the whole thing could be....well not be made better but at least less WTF, if they explained that Carol's Baby rapist was using his mental powers on the rest of the Avengers to make them cool with him dragging Carol to Limbo to be his creepy brainwashed wife mommy.

Also, I almost want to see this referenced in Ms. Marvel, if only so we can have Kamala be like "Wait... that happened!?!"

[tcampbell1000]

Agreed that Marcus "persuading" the Avengers and not just Carol that hey, it's all good is probably the best salvage job, continuing the work Claremont began by having Carol call the Avengers out in the first place.

The best thing my contrarian brain can say about the Marcus "thing" is that it does portray an issue that I grapple with in real life here and there: how to tell whether a (non-close) friend is being abused and brainwashed into thinking they're in a normal relationship. Because you don't want to be patronizing, you don't want to come off that way, and weird does not equal bad, and taboos shift, and social awkwardness is common, and so on.

One metric I apply a lot is that taboos are worth keeping when they involve a major power differential. Sex with minors and animals is wrong, not merely "perverse," because the adult human holds a much greater percentage of power and the other cannot consent in any meaningful sense. But the super-powered world presents problems there, sometimes. It's unthinkable to us that Lois' life would be anything but enriched in a relationship with Clark/Superman, but that's because we know Clark so well. What about someone else on the same level, whose full powers are unknown and who keeps his narcissism behind a veneer of charm?

I mean, it still doesn't really work (Carol's change is way too abrupt and the Avengers are just bone dumb about it), but you can see how it might inspire a story that would.

It's kind of interesting to speculate just how much Kamala already knows about Carol's less ideal history. On the one hand, she's an obsessive fan and is gaining the sort of wisdom that lets her accept contradictions: "My hero had some real dark times in her life and she's all the more a role model because she got through them."

On the other, it's not like the Avengers send out press releases about all their most humiliating moments, and signs point to both Carol and her friends wanting to just put Marcus behind them. And since Marcus died quickly and had zero impact on anything beyond Carol's mental health, they don't have a duty to share his story with the public, as they might if he were some super-stalker hounding her today. (There was that near-double of his, Kang's son, but he died pretty fast, too.)

Betting Kamala does know about Carol's bout with alcoholism, though, and given her devout faith, I'd love to see her unpack that one.

[thenicochan]

I love like, all of what you've said. I think you've put more thought into it than a lot of the hired writers. Which means we need to either direct them to your post, or Marvel needs to give you a call.

[tripodeca113]

In the actually story isn't it just Hawkeye who's okay with Captain Marvel leaving with the creepy guy? The rest of the Avenger were off fighting stuff from the past.
Of course none of them seemed interested on why she was pregnant, and treated it very jovially, so it's not actually all that much better.

Also I was reminded that Avengers #200 exists, and now I need to curl up in a corner and shudder for a while.

[crinos]

IIRC the entire team see's Carol off, and they hope Carol has her "Storybook ending."

[tripodeca113]

EDIT. I watched the AT4W review of this, and correction only Thor, Ironman and Hawkeye, were there when the creepy man explained his shit.
Also eeeeeeeewwwwww.

[crinos]

Even if not all the adventures saw her off, a lot of them were acting pretty flippant about the whole affair (In particular Jan and especially Beast. I mean what even the fuck was Beast even doing here?)

[coldfury]

This is one of those stories that probably gets pitched at an editor every few years at Marvel, and gets rejected with a hard No.

This is one of those continuity knots that everyone is better off just pretending it doesn't exist. No Marcus, no space baby, don't even retcon it, just don't make eye contact with it and pretend it doesn't exist.

[deh_tommy]

Didn’t Kurt Busiek tie this thing up during his Avengers run?

[tcampbell1000]

He... did something not terrible with the fact that it happened, but that's all.

There's no need to tie it up, though. There's really nothing TO tie up.

[crinos]

I know that Carol brought it up when Jessica Jones was giving birth to her and Luke's daughter. So its still in continuity, and I guess Carol is comfortable enough she can talk about what happened. But now its basically a "Oh God this actually happened" thing that gets referenced now and then, but nothing else done with it.

[starwolf_oakley]

The thing to tie up would be why Carol eventually rejoined the Avengers. If Carol was that angry at the Avengers, why would she ever rejoin the team?

In AVENGERS ANNUAL #10, she says she hated them and never wanted to see them again. How do you come back from that?

[tcampbell1000]

Yeah, that makes sense, and it is the original point of the thread, after all! Guess I read "tie this thing up" as implying more plot in need of resolution, as if Marcus were still running around somewhere and maybe pulling his same routine on others.