By all the Gods, could it be--
-- that she truly doesn't know the truth about herself?!"
Look man it can be hard to figure some kinds of stuff out about yourself in 1977....
"Think a moment. The answer's obvious if you'd only open your eyes to see.
Look within yourself, Carol-- and know the truth. For it will truly set you free."
...🏳️🌈🏳️🌈🏳️🌈🏳️🌈🏳️🌈
"I feel giddy and alive. Floating on a cloud, for the first time in months, I feel like a whole, sane person!"
Depression cured, Carol just needed to embrace some truths about who she is....🏳️🌈....
Thank you to this tall, beautiful woman in heavy makeup and voluminous hair for helping Carol find herself.
(Carol was going to kill her moments before, but they're cool now.)
"I've seen you smile-- genuinely smile-- more today than in the past year."
After this beautiful revelation about herself, Therapist Boyfriend Mike tells Carol he's literally never seen her genuinely smile as much as she is now. (She only moved to NYC about a year ago.)
Anyway, from this point on, the split between Carol & Ms. Marvel is officially retconned. They're the same person, and Carol can access her Kree memories (whatever those are supposed to be) and powers herself.
Carol's Parents
This is Marie Danvers, later retconned to be (secretly) Kree, making Carol half-Kree from birth. Her personality over time reads as evolving but still very consistent to me, up until exactly this moment:
which I could live with except like every image of Marie we glimpse after this has her in this outfit so the reader doesn't forget she's Kree.
Man, Mike fucking sucks. Part-time psychiatrist, part-time boyfriend. How do you you think they started "hanging out"? Did Mike slip her is number after a session where Carol opened up about her recent bout of depression?
Mike is a psychiatrist, an MD, meaning his job is to prescribe specific treatment plans and medication. He did hypnotism once.
Do you think Carol takes anti-depressants? I've always liked that her mental health is not great, I think it's a fun character trait. Despite her momentary relief, it will continue to not be great, for a myriad of reasons.
Your father wouldn't be caught dead reading "woman". Unless, of course, Jonah Jameson gets some "sense"--
--and turns the magazine over to a MAN."
Our first introduction to Carol's dad is that he's so sexist that he barely tolerates an issue of his daughter's own magazine in his house. Mike is understandably shocked by her mother's casual recounting of a rather mean comment he made.
It's later established that Carol carries some anger at her mother for putting up with her dad like this, instead of leaving him or holding him accountable for his awful presence in Carol & her brothers' lives.
When we first meet her dad in person, Joe Danvers is heroically saving a member of his construction crew from falling to his death. He's a multi-faceted, beefy man.
"What every dutiful daughter should, i guess.
Looking out for her old man.
Ha!"
Carol saves Joe from being killed by falling beams, herself struck hard in the process. Her dad walks away without checking to see if she's alright.
Joe's got a temper. Carol's inherited it, hence the "times she's angrily punched someone" category on the achievement tracker.
The panels in the current issue give a solid implication, but Joe is later confirmed by Claremont to be physically abusive.
[Uncanny X-Men (1963) #164]
Pacing around Boston, expositing about her dad, Carol hears footprints, belonging to.......
What The Fuck? Dracula??
Dracula is gone after this, which is just as confusing as Dracula appearing in the first place.
"Sorry, Dad-- but that's something you've had coming for a long time anyway!"
Seconds within interacting with him anonymously, Carol hits her father, knocking him unconscious. Must have been very therapeutic.
Does this count for the achievement tracker? I don't think she had to knock the man unconscious, lmao, and she is clearly angry. Counting it!
The art got less good here.
I automatically interpreted Carol's "all of a sudden, I don't care" as being like, "fuck this guy, it's never going to be enough", but it's occurring to me that maybe she made peace with his behavior.
Marie stops Ms. Marvel to reveal that she knows it's Carol.
Post-retcon, she would have recognized the Hala symbol right off the bat; she's pretty calm about her daughter suddenly wearing the symbol of her oppressive, home planet's military.
Bonus:
Mike's not actually her boyfriend at the moment, but they do go on outings that they do call dates, and kiss cheeks and such. It's more overt than flirting. Carol tends to date "casually"; it's fun that that characterization started so early.
Review: Mom And Dad, I'm Gay And Also Stronger Than Both Of You, So Don't Try Any Shit
Congrats to Carol for discovering some traits about herself... may she continue to do so...
Interesting enough first look at her parents; Carol's attempting to maintain a relationship, but it frustrates her to do so with her father, and her mother doesn't seem to begrudge his faults.
Plotwise, the stuff with Joe was pretty interesting, and the robots on the ship not very interesting.
I'm glad Jess is here. I wish they would give her her baby back. That's what Carol should be investigating with her in this comic.
Jess yells Carol's full title when she gets zapped. I don't know why; she saved so much time with "Car" earlier. It's cute that there's an attempt at a nickname, but I try to say "Car" aloud in my head and it never sounds right. Why not "Kirk"?
Funny and in character. Fun movement in the art.
In issue #1 (which I have not reviewed yet), Jess mentions having a spidey-sense (she does not) and also her apartment looked too clean, so I am evaluating her appearances here very critically. (I'm distracted by Jess appearances post-Big-Anthonyed Gerry in general.)
Anyway I'll take more Jess if they want to keep including her. I'm thrilled that she and Carol pretty consistently come as a set these days.
Whump
For those unaware, whump is when your favorite character gets the shit kicked out of them, and it rules.
Pretty good whump 👍
Eric Danvers
This is apparently Carol's cousin, Eric. He tells Carol he knew her dad before she was born.
"We were taught to hate 😈... to be as strong as our purity 👼. ... Your father knew this to be true. He knew his place, and he knew his race. 🏁
And he destroyed it all by marrying Paloma, an Argentine 🇦🇷 Immigrant. ❌
That woman -- the mother of your two half-breed brothers -- was an an act of rebellion against our cause. That was dear Uncle Joey's greatest betrayal. 😔
Now imagine: what was grandmother supposed to do? Ours was a movement based on purity of the blood. Clearly, the Argentine had to go. 🚗"
OK well. A lot going on there but:
If they had scaled this down to specific issues and not the exaggerated actions of a supervillain org, this could have been meaningful, but alas.
Seeing as Joe's most established canon quality was being extremely misogynistic, Joe being not racist seems like the retcon here to me. Or more likely, by introducing Joe's Ultra Racist Family, we are now able to view Joe as being Not That Racist, by comparison. Carol, you should be grateful that your abusive father was not AS racist and misogynistic as he could have been.
Life of Captain Marvel (2018) retconned Carol's brothers as both being older than her, and also as being her half brothers. Presumably so we didn't have to deal with superhero JJ Danvers. Their mother was not really elaborated on, so this issue closes that open thread.
(Originally Carol was oldest, then middle, now youngest.)
Eric is angry that Joe left him alone with his abusive grandma. Eric seems all-in on the racism, but does hate her.
It actually reminded me of Joe Jr in Life of Captain Marvel (2018). Overall, I have some pointed issues with the comic, but there were definitely pieces I liked, including this scene.
Carol has kept her distance from her family in adulthood; she enlists in the AF "without a word to her parents, or a backwards glance", and when she comes to see her dying father, she has not seen them in years.
It's reasonable, to me, that Joe Jr would hold some resentment for that. It bothers me that he's older than her now, for a lot of reasons, but one is that it was always kind of sad that Carol disconnected from her little brother when she left their abusive home. Pre-LoCM, Joe Sr was already established as physically abusive, and JJ was years younger than Carol was, so after Steve was killed off, it would have been just JJ at home with his parents, suddenly losing both of his siblings around the same time. Could have been interesting to explore more.
Not only "scold the wicked girl for something you imagine her father did".... she doesn't even LIKE her father. That could come up more explicitly.
Anyway, Eric is like Joe Jr but worse, and Joe Jr was already kind of wasted potential. We'll see how it goes.
Bonus:
Explosion! The lightning bolt suit again. I actually have seen it drawn well occasionally in the past, and I don't hate it, but the amount of ass and tit shots in Ms. Marvel (2006) means that it has to go up on a high shelf for all but the most trustworthy of artists. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I like time shenanigans when they unveil or explore meaningful aspects of a character that they would never tell you outright... good when handled by a good writer....... anyway new issue next month.
Review: Frustratingly ungrounded; Whumpy at least
It was great in Ms. Marvel (1977) when misogyny and the Women's Lib movement was a recurring topic; what made it impactful was that it was actually progressive for its time, and challenging current social norms.
The issue with new narratives about exaggerated supervillains spouting old-timey racism is that it fails to challenge current social norms, and so it ends up not really saying much, while still positing itself as an anti-racist story. Just like how a lot of Captain Marvel stuff over the years has been frustratingly shallow Girl-Power stuff without including any modern, progressive feminism.
@50cyg replied to your photoset: All I ever wanted was for Dad to accept me as I...
this is the kind of growth characters with abusive parents should have! Not the howard/ tony crap we got in endgame
I agree! I was personally very dissatisfied with the scene between Howard and Tony in Endgame. I felt like it gave Howard more credit than he deserved. And I wish I saw more visible evidence of Tony coming out of that scene with real closure of no longer caring what Howard thought.
These panels in Ms. Marvel #14 on the other hand were much more satisfying. I was very proud of Carol here.
