Captain Marvel: Dark Past (2026) #4
This series continues to irk me. I really do try to like it each month, but... nope! The critique continues below the cut.
The Art ☀️
I'll lead with a good note, so you know I'm trying to give it a shot.
I'm enjoying the art! My favorite Carol is more buff and not so makeuped, but it's really pretty, it's definitely carrying this series.
I thought I'd have more good things to say, but they're too buried in with the bad, so... oh well.
Writing Style 📉
We'll start with my least important critique, something I could ignore if the rest of it was good: I don't like his writing. Not just like... his plot or choices but the words on the page... not a fan. It's neither natural nor particularly poetic.
"I've been falling since the moment I was born. Headed in the direction of my only exit. But I've never been afraid of the fall. See, the trick is in learning how to fly."
Look, I like to write. I respect that sometimes you want to say something cool and it turns out clunky. So I read this a couple times, with best intentions in mind and... still not good. He was too focused on a falling/flying metaphor (because she loves to fly haha get it) and forgot to actually say anything meaningful.
"Because if you never accept the fall... you may never know where you stand."
This is insulting to me personally as a Carol fan, because I think she writes better than this, and these are her thoughts, so it's misrepresenting her skill.
(reprise) "But I've never been afraid of the fall. Only the ground."
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🎤
The mic is droppin'. It's not afraid of the fall, but it is afraid of the ground... because it knows the mic drop moment is unsatisfying.
Steve (go girl give us nothing)
Look Steve is here.
For those who don't know Steve: he was introduced in her first very series in a flashback— her younger brother, who her misogynistic father intended to send to college instead of her. He was later retconned to have been drafted and killed in Vietnam, then later retconned to have been older than her. The MOVIE Captain Marvel (2019) gave them a cute relationship, with him seeming much older and nice.
Since Steve is actually a rather unexplored character, one might hope that his appearance might be significant and interesting. Even though this is a ruse by Eric, maybe some cool insight into how Carol feels seeing her dead brother again. Nope!
Instead, we get "Stevie" implying that Carol gets people killed just by being around them, even though he was (as they say in the same panel) killed in the military in an event 100% unrelated to her in ANY way. Sure, her Therapist-Boyfriend Mike Barnett died by association, but she's not Spider-Man levels of proximity-dangerous; there are usually external factors involved if someone she knows dies.
If Anthony Oliveira was writing this, he would have had something to say about the misery the US Military has wreaked on Carol's life, and the things she and her brother were complicit in, even as it actively harmed them... but there's nothing to be said here, so moving on.
I like how Anthony writes her and I will continue to spread propaganda until they give him her next miniseries or ongoing. Or me. Give it to me.
A heartbreaking confrontation between Carol and her dead moth— oh nvm they're talking about an outfit
GREAT OKAY. Let's use our valuable page count not to explore the complicated relationship Carol has with her mom, but criticize a fictional woman for the outfit that real men put her in.
It's inverted here or whatever, because it's actually Eric being a dick, but it doesn't matter because it is literally now in-universe dialogue. Look my simple comic rule is I don't care if they put women in sexy outfit sometimes, but we cannot acknowledge it as if the woman herself chose it.
"Yeah. Wow. I've never seen your bare legs before... I mean, in real life. Of course I've seen them a million times on the internet because you used to fight crime in a swimsuit."
Unless it's funny.
(Thank you Kelly Thompson, Captain Marvel (2019))
And most infuriatingly, this moment is used AS AN EXCUSE TO PUT HER IN THE COSTUME. Lotta bare ass on this one. I think it was a great idea to put this costume up on a high shelf because most artists cannot be trusted with it.
Example: FIRST issue of Ms. Marvel (2006). I can see 1/3rd of this woman's spectacularly clean-shaven crotch.
Carol was literally originally written to be an Annoying Feminist (affectionate), so I think it should be a little wild down there; at least in Dark Past, where she wasn't expecting to be pantsless. Anyway.
This is giving so much "Power Girl has a boob window because she doesn't have a symbol like Superman".
"People always ask me why I have this hole right here. They think I'm showing off... or just being lewd. ... I wanted to have a symbol like you. ... I thought eventually I'd figure it out. And close the hole. but I haven't. 🥺"
Carol punches an illusion that looks just like her dead mom, a woman who she had a complicated relationship with due to her refusal to leave Carol's physically and emotionally abusive, misogynist father; also she never told Carol that she and her were aliens. And also she recently died violently in front of her. But the punch causes Carol no weird feelings and their whole convo was about an outfit. That's fine.
Joe Danvers (Carol's dad)
As I've complained about before, the portrayal of Joe Danvers, and Carol's relationship with him, has been my biggest gripe with this mini-series.
"Dad... about what happened back in the diner. Look, we all say things we don't mean sometimes. I'm sorry I pushed. I just want to know what happened with you and DNVR. It's part of my job."
First of fucking all, there's no way in hell that Carol would APOLOGIZE to her dad for pushing a topic, even if she liked him and she was in the wrong. Her biggest character flaw is being a stubborn asshole, especially towards people who do kind of deserve it. I'm not saying she'd never apologize to anyone, just not to her dad, and not for this.
'Someone once said "You always hurt the one you love." If so, her father must have loved her very much. Even now, she can't remember a time they weren't fighting.'
Case in point.
"I'd say just like old times, but... mostly all I remember about growing up is you yelling at me. How sad is that? When I ... think about my dad, the first thing I think of is him yelling at me."
And another. I also completely disagree that they'd go out for a meal for any reason. She may visit him at home if she wanted to know something, but they explicitly are not close.
We see Joe being angry and threatening, scaring her, but oddly there is no mention in this series of his being canonically abusive towards Carol and her brothers.
Which brings me to my next point...
Eric Danvers (Carol's [new] cousin)
Despite the appearances of all of Carol's family members (sans JJ), there is a shocking, complete lack of exploration about how she feels towards any of them, or her childhood.
But we get Eric's backstory. We learn how he feels about THEIR family, and his childhood, and even though it's the perfect opportunity for Carol to empathize, it's STILL not used to connect them at all.
Eric, a member of the Danvers family, was physically abused as a child, and felt hurt and abandoned by Joe Danvers. HEY, GUESS WHO ELSE FEELS THE SAME WAY?
CAROL. OUR MAIN CHARACTER.
In Uncanny X-Men (1963) (an issue in the 1980's), Carol references her father beating her as a teenager. In Life of Captain Marvel (2018), we learn that Joe also physically abused her two brothers, and that Carol has PTSD stemming from her childhood abuse.
Yet in the end, there is no mention of any of this in Dark Past. Carol almost seems to come to the realization that Eric was right to hate her father, instead of empathizing with this point from the get-go.
I would have liked to see her reveal to him that she also suffered (in different ways) by being born into their fucked up family, and that blood and who you're related to ISN'T the most important thing in your life, and leaving them for kinder people and choosing a kinder path is an option.
"But in the end, you're just a bully, Eric. Chock-full of psychic memes. Yelling all your pointless ideas about purity in all caps."
It would even tie nicely into the one theme that I do think Dark Past is TRYING to touch on, which is the modern white supremacist movement in America, and the White men who have been indoctrinated into it. He's been told that purity is important, yet his "pure" family is cruel and violent to him.
It ultimately leads to THIS moment, where Carol extends kindness and empathy towards this abused child. Unfortunately, Eric is NOT actually a child, he is a grown-ass, racist man, and I do think Carol can tell the difference between the two. I wouldn't mind this as much if Eric was even like... a young adult.
"We're all damaged, we've all been hurt. it's an explanation, but it's not an excuse. Abused people make the right choice every day. People who suffer unimaginable things are still good guys... all the time." (Carol in Star 2020)
Another thing that would have really cleaned up this whole plotline would be if JOE JR, Carol's OTHER brother (who was not mentioned in this issue at all), was here instead of Eric. Instead of this convoluted and messy DNVR plotline, we could have had Joe Jr join Hydra. Then we could have had a realistic discussion about the way white supremacy entices White men who feel disadvantaged.
We would understand Joe Jr's backstory, since it's the same as Carol's minus the misogyny. We could see how her father's bigotry and violence drove Carol away, but how it became something JJ clung to, desperate to be accepted and loved by his flawed father and the culture he was raised in.
But instead we get Eric.
Review: Bad. Sexist.
Ultimately, my review boils down to this: Dark Past cares far more about developing Eric and Joe Danvers than it does Carol. It might not be because the writer is sexist, but I have a feeling he wouldn't do this if he was writing Spider-Man.
It goes out of its way to ignore established details about Carol in favor of softening her abusive father and leading her to forgive her racist family member, and for that, this has quickly become my least favorite Carol series, surpassing the previous loser, "Dark Tempest". Hilariously similar name on those. No more "dark" anything titles for Carol please. And also, give Anthony Oliveira her next book, please. Or me. I'll take it.
One more issue to go...
