The Marvels movie review part 3: COSTUMES AND CHARACTER NAMES!

Here is the third part of my 3-part review of "The Marvels," focusing on the costumes and charcter names, revealing some Easter Eggs and other details that may fascinate you!

THE MARVELS Movie Review Part 1

HEre is a "video preface" to my upcoming review of "The Marvels"

GENIS, PHYLA, AND MONICA: Marvels in the New Century (Part 15 of the blog history of ALL Captain Marvels)

As the first decade of the New Century ground forward, Marvel Comics found itself with several Captain Marvels and a seeming lack of ability to make any of them "stick."

The most game, and outrageous, attempt, was Peter David's version of Genis-Vell. To catch us up on his status at the time, here is the "splash page" from an issue of that era...

Genis-Vell, as written by Peter David, had gone mad from his constant "cosmic awareness." He also had omnipotent power. This made him a self-described "mad god." He killed himself to end it all, but it didn't stick. He wound up convincing Entropy, (one of the Cosmic Entities of the Universe), to kill his brother Eternity, thus ending the universe. The only survivors were Entropy, Epiphany, Genis-Vell, and Rick Jones. The resultant nothingness was boring, so Rick and Genis convinced Entropy to remake the universe exactly as he knew it, and Entropy became the new Eternity.

    

This was actually the origin of Marvel's next Captain Marvel. Try to stay with me on this...

In this new universe, things were ever so slightly different. Genis-Vell was not quite as insane as he was in the original universe. However, the Genis that had existed in the past of this new universe that was just created (complete with a past and everything, so the experience for Genis and Rick Jones was rather like picking up a familiar book and opening it in the middle) was replaced by the Genis that had existed in the original universe (the titular character in this eponymous comic book).

Also in this new universe, Genis-Vell's mother Elysius, who had died in the original universe, was alive here, was aware of the Universal Recreation, and did not like the new Genis-Vell. So she cloned Mar-Vell again, this time into a female named Phyla-Vell, artificially aged her  (as she had Genis-Vell), gave her nega-bands, and made sure she had her father's cosmic awareness. She was to replace Genis-Vell as "The New Captain Marvel."

 

  

The obligatory conflict ensued, and when the dust settled, Genis-Vell claimed that he was no longer insane and would work to improve himself and make the universe a better place. Was this the truth, or was he now just going to hold his insanity closer to the vest? Only time would tell.

Or would it? Genis and Rick went on to have a few more adventures, one that proved to make him the most tragic superhero ever. It was a time-travel story that led to him deciding to kill his baby son in his crib to  prevent him from growing up to be a super-powered evil galactic emperor. This story confirmed that he would marry and have at least one child with the reformed super-villain, Songbird.

  

The series was cancelled with the following issue, in a finale that revealed that Rick Jones actually knew that he was in a comic book. In that final issue, it was also revealed that Phyla was a lesbian and she hooked up with the psychic superhero Moondragon, daughter of Drax the Destroyer.

 

Expediency, one of the "Friendless," personifications of aspects of the universe, informs Genis-Vell of the end of his series.

Matthew Younker wrote a great little article about Genis-Vell's insanity for PopOptique.

Genis-Vell then joined the team of reformed super-villains known at the New Thunderbolts (in their self-titled series), of which Songbird was a member. He was killed by the team's giant, Atlas, in a manipulated rage over a her, then came back to life with a new power set and took on a new name, "Photon."

   

This last part pissed off Monica Rambeau (again), but in a discussion over beers, she decided to call herself "Pulsar."

Genis eventually proved to be an unstable element in the space-time continuum and was torn into pieces and sent to the far corners of space and time by Baron Zemo. He has not been seen since, despite not yet having married Songbird.

 

Phyla, meanwhile, spent a brief time as a Captain Marvel, but then gained the quantum bands of  Quasar, Defender (not "protector") of the Universe, and took on that mantle. She served with the Guardians of the Galaxy and went through more drama (at one point, Moondragon actually became a real, space-faring dragon, and the two became the hottest cross-species lesbian superhero couple in comics). She was involved in several company-wide crossover events with the Guardians. Eventually she changed her name to "Martyr," and ultimately got killed. Twice.

  

Phyla-Vell getting killed by Magus, the future, evil version of Adam Warlock.

Meanwhile, in 2006-7 Monica reappeared as the leader of a new, satirical superhero team, NextWave, Agents of H.A.T.E., in their eponymous, possibly-not-in-canon 12-issue limited series.

   

In the course of their (mis)adventures, the team faced the satirical character Forbush-Man. When exposed to his "Forbush-Vision," she faced herself as a mash-up with Mar-Vell and the Ultimates Mahr Vehl with just a touch of SHAZAM! and Superman...

In 2009, she appeared in a mini-series titled Marvel Divas, a sort of Sex and the City take on the friendship between several female superheroes in New York City.

      

Then, in 2013-2014 she became the field leader of the Mighty Avengers, a new version of Marvel's premiere superhero team, this time led by Luke Cage, Power Man, and notable for having not one member who was not female or a person of color for a time.

  

More about Monica Rambeau, and how she teamed up with Carol Danvers, to come!

There is a nice "pull list" of Monica Rambeau at the ScyFy Wire.

Part 16: CAPTAIN AMALGAM!
Part 15: GENIS, PHYLA, AND MONICA: Marvels for the New Century!
Part 14: Power of SHAZAM!
Part 13: The Legacy of Mar-Vell!
Part 12: The New Beginning for SHAZAM!
Part 11: SHAZAM's World's Finest Crisis!
Part 10: The Marvelous Miracleman!
Part 9: Miracleman! The Marvelous Revival of the British Captain Marvel Rip-Off!
Part 8: Marvelman!
Part 7: Death and Energy!
Part 6: Whatever Happened to Carol Danvers?
Part 5: The DC Revival!
Part 4: Marvel's first Marvel!
Part 3. I Gotta SPLIT! XAM!
Part 2.  The Silver Influence
Part 1. The First Marvel and the World's Mightiest Lawsuit

The Legacy of Mar-Vell! (Part 13 of the Blog History of ALL Captain Marvels!)

When last we left the heroic name of Captain Marvel it was being used by Monica Rambeau in Marvel Comics and Roy Thomas' re-interpretation of the World's Mightiest Mortal in DC Comics. But all things (good, bad, and indifferent) must change or die, and in the early 1990's, that's what happened.

Monica Rambeau, last we saw, had lost her powers and nearly died in an incident on the ocean. She lost her status as leader of the Avengers (mentally manipulated by Dr. Druid), but recovered and with her recovery, developed a set of powers subtly different from what she'd had before.

However, she was no longer a regular member of the Avengers, so her fans did not have a regular place to see her. She was kept on the team's "reserve" roster, and often helped  them on adventures cosmic in scope and scale. In such cases her ability to fly at light speed helped.

There were two eponymous "one-shot" issues at the beginning of the next decade in which she was featured. One of them was about racial prejudice, making it the first time that the fact the the hero was black was ever a plot point.

Then came the collector's boom and Image Comics.

Here's the short version:

 Marvel Comics began the policy of always listing the staff that created a comic book in the 1960's. Fans started following artists and writers and buying comics because their favorites were involved. In time, certain artists became so popular that collectors were buying prodigious quantities of comics. By this time also, the mainstream had heard that old comics were worth a lot of money, so many people began buying comics as an investment. At the same time as all this, some of these artists did not like the fact that characters that they had created were the property of the company for which they were working. A consortium of these artists left Marvel Comics and formed their own company, Image Comics, which became incredibly popular. Demand for these comics both because of the popularity of the artists and as an investment, inflated the market and comic book shops were opening up all over the place.


The next thing you knew, new comic book companies were starting and comic book shops, trying to keep up with demand for anything new and "collectible," stocked their shelves with everything. In response, Marvel and DC flooded the market with new titles and had big "events" to maintain their market share and relevance.

So here is the relevance of all this to Captain Marvel:

One of the big "events," was in the summer of 1993, when Marvel decided to introduce a brand new character in the "Annual" issue of every single non-reprint title they had. The only one of these characters that managed to have his own series for any length of time was Marvel's next Captain Marvel, Genis-Vell. He was not called Captain Marvel at first. He was called "Legacy" and first appeared in Silver Surfer Annual #6.

He later appeared in another issue of Silver Surfer, and in 1994 was featured in the Cosmic Powers miniseries (in which he tried to kill Nitro, the villain who killed his father).

 

He got his own series titled Captain Marvel in 1995, but it was cancelled after only six of a planned 12 issues, before the story in it was even finished. He still went by the name "Legacy," but Rick Jones had him on his talk show and insisted in calling him "Captain Marvel," There was an implication that Monica Rambeau was not pleased by this, but they only showed her from behind, in shadow, and referred to her as a caller to the show named "M. Rambeau."

     This issue of the character's second series completes the story that was not finished when his first series was cancelled.

The cancellation of the series may have been a result of the collapse of the speculator's market after the 1993 Death of Superman saga at DC (of which more will be spoke in the next chapter) was literally the incident that had people buying comics like they were going out of style. The issue in which Superman died sold out completely on its first day, and there were reports of it being sold as high as $75 in on particular county in Pennsylvania. People continued to buy the following issues that introduced four new potential Supermen, and even when he returned, collectors still clamored for copies. But many of these people did not read the comics and cared not for the characters, stories, or art. In time, some of these collectors would try to sell the comics, only to find that everyone already had them, so no one wanted them.


             

Thus did the bottom fall out of the market. Titles were cancelled. Comic companies shut down. Marvel, who had gone public a few years before, declared bankruptcy. Many comic book shops closed. To hang on to what market was left, both Marvel and DC attempted to create company-wide "events" to drive sales.

It was during this period of collapse that in Avengers Unplugged #5, Monica and Genis had an adventure together, battling the Collector (who, of course, had fought Mar-Vell in years past). In the end, Monica declared that Genis was living up to his father's legacy and should take the mantle of Captain Marvel. She would then call herself "Photon!"

  

Genis appeared in a couple of other mini-series, most notably Avengers Forever (12 issues, Nov 1998- Nov 1999). In that story, it was a version of himself from the near future who appeared. He was married to the reformed super villain-turned-superhero Songbird. By then end of the story he also became attached to Rick Jones in the same atom-switching arrangement with the nega-bands that his father had had, swapping places between Earth and the Negative Zone (which was later revealed to really be the Microverse, the home of the Micronauts).

 

That series was also significant in Captain Marvel history for a sequence in which alternate-universe/history Avengers, both good and bad, fought each other, revealing several Captain Marvels and their variants.

In 1999, Genis got his own series again. Written mostly by Peter David the through-line was Rick and Genis having an uneasy relationship as Rick tried to teach him how to adapt to Earth culture and Genis trying to be a superhero. Genis' look had changed at the end of Avengers Forever into the new look he bore in this series.

            

 
The balance of this dynamic was altered when Genis realized that he was omnipotent, but unlike Mar-Vell, he could neither turn his "cosmic awareness" off, nor did he have the maturity to handle it.

The title carried on with very good stories and art, but was not a top-tier seller. In a big "event" move. Marvel released three new titles, and re-started this Captain Marvel with a new "First Issue." A challenge was made that the title with the best sales would continue and the others would be cancelled. Captain Marvel won handily. However, each issue would show both the number it was from the new "first issue," and the original "first issue."

 

Let us now take a break from this Captain Marvel and look at what was happening over at at DC (POWERFUL STUFF)...

The True Story of ALL the Captain Marvels! DEATH AND ENERGY! (part 7 of a bunch)

Some of the sources of and publications mentioned in this post can be found among these fine products:
      

By the early 1980's, comic books had regained a lot of the creative diversity that had been lost since the establishment of the Comics Code in the 1950's and were exploring new territories of creativity and publishing formats. Independent comics companies were publishing stories with creator-owned characters that included content that would not have passed the Comics Code. Writer/artists like Will Eisner and Gil Kane were creating stories in formats that came to be called "graphic novels." Marvel Comics decided to get in on this trend.

For several years, Marvel had been producing Epic Illustrated, a slightly toned-down version of the adult sci-fi/fantasy magazine Heavy Metal (itself an American version of the French Metal Hurlant). Now they decided to launch a new line of comics with creator-owned properties under that same "Epic" imprint. At the same time, they decided to launch a line of "graphic novels," which would basically be large, premium format, self-contained, novel-length comic books.The first of these would be The Death of Captain Marvel.

 

Jim Starlin, who had made a name for himself, and Mar-Vell, with his Thanos War, agreed to take the job, provided Marvel would publish his creation, a character and comic series named Dreadstar, in their new Epic Comics line (This was the latest of a continuing epic that had been preceded by an ongoing series in Epic Illustrated called Metamorphosis Odyssey and a graphic novel called The Price). Starlin had been the one who had given Mar-Vell his cosmic awareness in the Thanos War, and was the writer-artist most strongly identified with the hero.

 

Starlin used the job the help him deal with the recent death of his father by cancer. In the story, Mar-Vell succumbed to a cancer he had contracted, ret-conned into an incident in which he had sealed a poison gas canister with his hands. The graphic novel is very highly regarded, often making it into top-ten lists.

So Marvel Comics had this trademark, but no living character to cover it. It was noted that the name was no-gender-specific, and there were not many black female superheroes around, so it was decided to make the new Captain Marvel a black woman.

First appearing in Amazing Spider-Man Annual #16 (1982), Monica Rambeau was a New Orleans harbor patrol officer facing the "glass ceiling" (for her gender, not race, as was apparent because her boss was black). In the course  of investigating suspicious doings on an off-shore rig, an explosion bathed her in extra-dimensional radiation that gave her the power to become electromagnetic energy (visible light, x-rays, gamma rays, ultra violet, etc.). A Mexican guard had overheard a friend calling her "Mon Capitain" and, slipping into unconsciousness after witnessing the explosion, mumbled "El Capitan es un maravilla..."

 The next day the newspapers read "Who is Captain Marvel?" and the name stuck. She was invited to join the Avengers as a "probationary" member, but proved herself quickly enough. She studied all the records of their foes and was able to direct the battles against them. Eventually Captain America selected her to replace him as leader of the Avengers.

In my personal opinion, she made a better feminist role model than Carol Danvers/Ms. Marvel. She was strong and independent without being socially aggressive. She dealt with her uncertainties (should she be a superhero? Should she lead the Avengers?), maturely, seeking opinions from those she trusted, making up her mind, and not losing sight of her objectives. She also did not have that whole "Schizophrenia" thing that Carol Danvers had in her early days as Ms. Marvel. Or any of Danvers' soap opera drama, for that matter.


In time, however, the decision-makers at Marvel wanted to bring back Captain America as the leader of the Avengers. This bothered Roger Stern, whiter of the book and co-crater of the character. He did not feel it would look good to get rid of a black, female superhero from the lead position of Marvel's premiere superhero team. Stern quit the book, and a story was concocted about how a character named Dr. Druid used mind powers to manipulate events to get himself elected leader. As part of that storyline, Monica lost her powers and nearly died battling a sea-creature, and was a wasted husk of herself afterwards.

She eventually recovered and regained a slightly altered version of her powers...but that is a story for another time.

NEXT: The Crisis of 1986!

The below items also contain material mentioned in this post: