We should always look to historical records when we can, of course... but I have to admit, it's fascinating how deities can have new symbols and meaning assigned to them over time.
I recently found out that spiders & corvids are associated with Hecate by some modern practitioners. Today, I saw a huge murder of crows, a few magpies and a jackdaw. My immediate emotional response was that she was with me and I felt comforted.
But no, I said. Corvids are a modern association.
So, I silently hoped for another sign that she truly was there with me. I've made no attempt to hide my feelings about searching for signs before. I don't like it. It makes me anxious. I don't even know why I did this tonight.
But lo and behold, the moment we pulled out of our friend's street later that evening... exactly 3 completely independant dog walkers literally seconds away from one another. No more, no less. 3 exactly 😂
My goal is to cover as many narratively cohesive issues as I can in one post, but in this case that's... 2. These were pretty action packed, and there's a solid shift at the beginning of the next issue.
Key topics:
Goons
Carol vs Ms Marvel (vs Esmeralda)
The horrors of Ms Marvel making Carol look incompetent
Hecate (Baddie of the week)
Carol's love of space‧ ₊˚✩ ⏾ ✩˚₊‧
Carol's love of Salia ♡
Goons
We open with some goons. I liked them, so some panels:
Goons reminding us of the proper pronunciation of Ms. ("Miz"). Carol trounces them. "Come to Mama."
She also mentions around here that she is not bulletproof; her post-Brood powerset is in fact bulletproof, but apparently not yet. Not sure how she knows, though. Maybe she's been nicked by shrapnel.
Ms. Marvel threatens to crumple a man into a human ball, successfully freeing a hostage. A decisive victory, against all but her alter ego......
Carol vs Ms. Marvel (vs. Esmeralda)
Ms Marvel "drops Carol off" on the roof at work, in her nightclothes. They're still talking about each other like different people, but they mostly share a memory, and can even remember the other's sentiments, if not their active thoughts. Carol gets to live this hell again with Rogue someday, although the line between them less clear and variably permeable.
She wills Ms. Marvel back easily enough, sending her to fly back to the hotel she's been living in after her apartment fire. Ms. Marvel arrives to find Esmeralda, the housekeeper, already cleaning the room. She sneaks Carol into the bathroom, sticking her with just a truly horrifying social interaction.
Carol, ex-spy, bluffs her way through it well enough. She has bad social skills at times, in the... well, social category, but the woman's confidence is tremendous, so she can get through basically any kind of challenging communication alive, at least.
Carol looking fucking stupid is a big theme in this series
The true horror of Ms. Marvel (1977) is how often Carol is perceived badly or judged by other people due to forces out of her control (disability metaphor?). Thanks to Ms. Marvel's antics and Carol's medical issues related to the change, Carol has been:
Disappearing from work in the middle of the day, for hours
Showing up late to work
Fainting in front of people and/or suddenly yelling in pain
Ending interactions mid-conversation because she's in blinding pain
Investigated by NASA for disappearing on their base
Chastised by a SHIELD contact for wasting his time
Forgetting important life and work events (abandoning a date, forgetting a work trip)
Escorted out of her burned apartment building by the police
I'm not going to count Tracy watching her almost beat a man to death, because I think Tracy thought that was awesome.
"Carol, oh Carol. Keep playing the no-show editor and your magazine's had it.
Your magazine... and me."
(Some of the panels in this section are from the issues before this, but I didn't want to fit this section into 2 separate reviews.)
"...Like part o' me wants to see things blow up in your face.
Then you'd be out, an' I'd be boss. I think I'd rather be dead."
(I love Tracy.)
She reminds Carol that she's got a business trip, even packing her a bag, grousing about the whole thing the second she's out the door. Testy but caring is a character trait that stays with her in future appearances.
Captain Marvel (2012) #1
(for the record, Carol wouldn't have raised the office temperature because she doesn't get her energy powers until after the Brood.)
In addition to being difficult to work with for reasons that are not in her control, Carol is difficult to work for for reasons all her own. She loses her temper often, chewing people out and raising her voice.
Carol being an asshole; Tracy finds some humor in it because she is also an assholish woman.
A lot of this is resulting from stress, but losing her temper in a bad way is a pretty consistent character trait forever. It's probably still stress. I think she's just almost always stressed.
Hecate (Baddie of the week)
Quickly noting the main plot of issue #12 -- This is Hecate and her boys, the Elementals. At times, they take up entire pages amongst themselves, and their presence was kind of jarring to me.
Hecate introduces herself as Dark Angel, a title Claremont gives to Jessica Drew later on. Jessica's first appearance was in 1977, the same year as Carol's first comic as a superheroine, and her first solo series was a year later. Looks like Claremont took over her series at issue #20, in 1979. We're currently at the end of the year 1977.
Carol's love of space ‧₊˚✩ ⏾ ✩˚₊‧
"Hey I've got a great idea -- want to come along for the ride?"
"More than anything."
We will later learn it was Carol's dream job to be an astronaut. She got near it, previously employed at NASA (as Chief of Security), but her encounters with Captain Marvel killed her old career.
"When I was a teenager, I hitchhiked to Cape Canaveral to watch an Apollo launch. My dad whaled the tar outta me, but it was worth it; I wanted so badly to be an astronaut -- to explore space, discover new worlds, alien civilizations.
As Ms. Marvel, I almost made it."
............This was later retconned, for some reason. I really like that Carol didn't ever manage to achieve her dreams before becoming a superhero, it was a fun part of her backstory.
The visual was just this one flashback montage, so I'm deciding it was a daydream and non-canon. Or after Carol was already a superhero, she borrowed a ship and a suit. Yearning for a dream you'll only achieve under twisted and unexpected circumstances 4eva.
Carol's love of Salia ♡
Carol and Salia are very close and touchy. It's cute.
Carol's relationships with women and Wolverine (and sometimes Tony) have always been more compelling than the random guys they often give her. So far, comparing Therapist/Boyfriend Mike and Astronaut/Sparring Partner Salia, I know who I like more. ¯\_('_')_/¯
Just some panels that mean nothing... Carol taking a shower at Salia's place and calling dibs on buying her dinner as soon as she gets back. :)
Random fun fact, Sally Ride, famous female astronaut was gay (good for Sally Ride). Salia actually pre-dates Sally going to space, so if anyone inspired anyone to be gay and in space I guess it would be Salia -> Sally. That's probably true.
"The second image brings Carol aboard -- and her foreseeing dream becomes a nightmare....
...
As pure and intense as that of a new-born star reaching the core of Salia Petrie's being and turning her soul inside out."
Carol receives a vision of Salia's horrible death via her 7th sense. Extremely distraught, she desperately tries to keep control of her body so that Ms. Marvel doesn't abandon Salia to die, but to no avail.
Ms. Marvel takes over forcibly, confirming that she has no intention to help Salia, with the greater threat being a risk to more than only Salia's life.
Carol fights back all the while, hatred seeping through their shared-personhood.
If Ms. Marvel is a metaphor for Carol trying to escape her past, this is Carol hating herself for knowing what problem she needs to prioritize.
[A tale of two women, we called this -- a tale of triumph and tragedy, of death... and now, of madness, born of pain and grief... and hate...]
"Damn you, Hecate! You and Ms. Marvel both! Because of you two, my best friend is dead!
Well, I hold your precious Skarab now-- and before I'm done, you'll pay for Salia Petrie's murder-- WITH YOUR LIVES!"
Finally, Carol, enraged with grief, wrests control from Ms. Marvel, vowing to kill Hecate with the powerful object the Elementals were fighting over.
The issue ends.
Review: Owgh Salia... Agh Elementals. Ooh Hecate.
Carol kicks ass in these issues; it's the first time I've really appreciated her and Ms. Marvel acting as different people. Still excited for the split to end after this, though.
Salia was suuuch a good part of all of this!! It was sweet watching her interact with Carol so... intimately (Carol playing with the little piece of her suit...).
In the whole of Carol's comic history, there are not a lot of people she cares about that she met before her first appearance. There's Wolverine, Salia... Michael Rossi.... and notably rare family interactions. As of current day, the list really drops to just Wolverine, but I'd love if people remembered Carol was close to Salia.
Salia's life being at risk was real stakes, and I loved Carol's fear for her friend and resulting rage. Excited to see the rest of this plotline play out; I remember it being fun.
The actual villains themselves are not my favorite, this issue. Hecate is fun by default, but the Elementals were not very interesting imo, and they took up a lot of pagetime on their own in a way that I wasn't very interested in, what with the more interesting Salia threat occurring simultaneously. I get it, Carol.
When the burden of proof is greater than the crime a republican can roast whosoever does the crime to prove it can be done, because it lacks the original motive of a political punishment to free stone from liabilities he cannot afford to repay as I don't think one has to do the crime for slandering another a crime he won't do because slandering a person won't make him commit the crime aginst his will but I want to make a movie where a witch has power to do that but no one can do anything about it because they won't believe in witchcraft and even if they do it is because they can't do anything about it being so orderly to tempt them to do unlawful acts if they beleive in the end it is the case because there ain't any laws against it and so it would only fuck the minds over who had a lawful mentality to corrupt them into doing unlawful behavior as I would call it the Chaos Witch because she exists to make the most honorable of people appear evil to us civilized people who can't believe in it because they would easily be tricked into doing wrong because fiction can wonder why a lady of chaos would wish to corrupt only orderly men as i say synchronistic coincidence for reasonable doubt to why I would be a rare character to not even care in giving reasonable doubt for the witch that might apper to have made me her puppet to humilate me with her mind control of doing the slander she say i do but now that I can get angry my mind realizes why most could be damned by such a lady because they believe in the hoodoo of injustice so my disability is a rare gift indeed that I still have in duality of awareness of the illusion of injustice power has over the minds of human beings to their injuried and ruin way by what appear pure evil to us like an innocent lady always made to look like a Chaso Witch by fate who uses her way to teach the most honorable aren't so any more to those less so, because i loathe the idea of exceptions like my self as I love witches a lot because I am like an evil warlock myself because fate loved me so giving me types of immunity to the evil illusion of injustice because I would suffer a great deal and so witches are my favorite characters because a male witch is a warlock and not a tranny witch, as I can understand why people might think me a witch but a male witch is a warlock so I won't appreciate the slandering wrong to my sexual identity because my dick was not lost but the pelvic bones connected to the soft tissue of dick were tore off so the bore did not change my sexual identity at all because fate tolerates medicine that allows for a man to stay a man for his manly way of providing for ladies and the needy if they are a democrat.
Anyway I think fate can trick people and so tricking the best people to make them confess to themselves I am had and ruined in such case might comfort those ruined by fate because I beleive fate can ruin anyone completely if in the right place and time set up for the ruin by fate so society needs rites of passage that might help them if they choose it as I don't like anyone thinking they are the exception to tragedy that can suffer us as I don't know if luck is a value people have but as tolerance goes I can't say anything is a virtue as the diversity that damns us saves us too.
