As a child, she would read Clarke and Heinlein, Pohl and Asmov. She would stare up at the sky at night and dream of flying among the stars, of visiting and meeting alien races. In part, that dream came true.
From the cancelled Ms. Marvel v1 #24, printed in Marvel Super-Heroes v3 #18 (1992), by Chris Claremont, drawn by Mike Vosburg
Carol Danvers isnât just a symbol of women in fandom, she is one. Like so many people in the tumblr community, she grew up reading stories about adventures in space and dreamed of rising up to meet the stars, of being something more. The things sheâs learned from those booksâcourage and imagination and desire to experience the alienâhave informed her life ever since.
But as a passionate feminist, her relationship with these books must have been complicated. She grew up reading specifically Golden Age SF, a tradition thatâs often tinged with sexism. (Even though there are some good women character in the Golden Age/hard SF traditionâshe would identify a fair amount with Susan Calvin). The sliding time scale means that now she probably grew up reading Niven and others as well, but the basic literary taste this quote hints at still holds true. As someone who used to write for a feminist magazine, she can appreciate Le Guin and Butler, sheâs also the kind of person whoâd most enjoy the kind of SF that tends to revolve around engineering and explosions, a generally male-dominated tradition. So a lot of her life is based around engagement with work sheâd know is (in contemporary fandom terms) hugely problematic. A lot of that is likely down to her contrarian streakâsheâs the sort of person whose favorite books are the kind she can argue with, full of passionate marginal notations taking issue with certain points even as she . (And Heinlein, a writer who was all over the place in terms of his social and political views and prone to lecturing, is particularly good for that.)
Perhaps the way she dealt with that informed her later career as a superhero. Carolâsomeone whoâs fierce and direct, who grew up in a hyper-masculine family background, who was always drawn to the militaryâwould have a natural affinity for the kind of action heavy genres that are usually centered on male protagonists. So when she grew up she probably spent a lot of time imagining herself as a female version of male heroic archetypes. And thatâs part of why her wish upon the Psyche-Magnetron took the specific form that it did, giving her the memories of the person she would have been if she had lived Mar-Vellâs life.
And this transformation has a clear affinity with a form of fandom activity that many women have engaged with in their youthâthe infamous âMary Sue.â Itâs not uncommon in canons that are centered on male protagonist for girls to make up characters based on themselves into the narrative, since there are so few characters they can identify with. These can take up the role of love interest, but they can also be female versions of the existing protagonists (âCopycat Suesâ).
Thatâs exactly what Carolâs initial Ms. Marvel persona is. She eventually developed from there she was and became her own hero, just as the Mary Sue, the avatar of primal fannish passion, was the beginning of a journey for so many women writers in fandom who go on to mature and develop their own voice. Even though she started out in as part of a manâs story, she wouldnât settle for just being a supporting character; she forcibly took control of the narrative and Mary Sued herself into being a hero. (via creepingmonsterism)
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