Carol Danvers Continued; Part 19 of the Blog history of ALL the Captain Marvels)

Meanwhile...

When last we left Carol Danvers, it was 1982, and she had just gained the power of a "white hole" (a theoretical astronomical phenomenon that must be the opposite of a "black hole") and became the superhero "Binary" while in outer space with the X-Men.

First appearance of Carol Danvers as Binary.

She returned to Earth where, with the help of Professor Xavier, she regained most of her memories, and started to regain her Ms. Marvel powers.

In 1998, she rejoined the Avengers, went back to her second costume (the black leotard with the lightning bolt), and started to lose her Binary powers. She changed her superhero name to "Warbird," became an alcoholic, and was court-martialed out of the Avengers.

 

Carol Danvers picking her name with a little help (Avengers #4)

       Kindle Edition (4 book set)

Carol Danvers explaining why she turned to drink (Iron Man #7)

 

Carol Danvers' court martial not going well (Avengers #7)

Carol Danvers getting the wake-up call. (Avengers #7)

She then recovered from her alcoholism and joined S.H.I.E.L.D, switching to a more militarily-practical costume with utility pockets and an armored vest.

  

She eventually returned to the Avengers, redeeming herself and regaining her status with the team.

In 2005, Marvel Comics' big company-wide, history-changing crossover event was "House of M," an alternate reality created by the mentally unstable Scarlet Witch in which mutants had become the dominant species. In this world, her friend Carol Danvers was Captain Marvel, who, despite being of human birth, was the greatest hero in the world. In short, she was this reality's Superman.

 

When the storyline concluded and reality was shifted back to normal, she remembered what it felt like to be that successful, confident, and popular. She liked it, and felt that if she could be that there, she could try to be that here, too. She changed her superhero name back to Ms. Marvel, got a publicity agent, and struggled to fight threats cosmic and terrestrial.

In the 2006-7 company-wide crossover event "Civil War," she sided with the government, supporting superhero registration, despite an appeal from Captain America.

It was during this last event that a return apparently occurred. Captain Mar-Vell.

The person who seemed to be the once-dead hero appeared through what appeared to be a hole in time, and he had come to the present day from before he died. He was given the assignment of guarding the orbital prison for unregistered superheroes while he wallowed in melancholy about why he was in a future in which he was dead.

  

More on this in the next chapter...

Some of the titles in which these stories can be found are taken from a very thorough list about 

How to Collect – Carol Danvers’ Captain Marvel

Don't Ms. the Next Captain Marvel!

Meanwhile, Carol Danvers had eventually come back to Earth, rejoined the Avengers, lost her Binary powers, became an alcoholic, was court martialed and kicked out of the Avengers, sobered up, rejoined the Avengers and changed her name to Warbird, faced an alternate version of Marcus and, in the heat of a battle over Earth during the Kang Dynasty wars, killed him. An Avengers court of inquiry found the killing justifiable, and she was vindicated. Then came the House of M.

In the first decade of the New Millennium, the major comic book companies were bringing out massive cross-over epics apparently designed to keep readers thinking that something “important” was happening. For Marvel Comics in the summer of 2005, this was the House of M.

Mutants had come a long way from the time that the X-Men was one little comic book parabling the struggles of the outsider in society. Since the Chris Claremont/John Byrne run that led to the Dark Phoenix saga, the X-Men had become wildly popular, leading to several spin-off titles and a never-ending, ever growing, roster of mutant superheroes and villains. One of them, the Scarlet Witch, became so powerful and mentally unbalanced that she was able to change reality. She did this and the world she created was called the House of M.

In this world, her Father, Magneto, was a benign leader of a world in which mutants were the dominant species and humans were basically biding their time as second-class citizens slowly awaiting extinction. In this world Carol Danvers was Captain Marvel, the world's greatest hero.

When the storyline ended, and the world was brought back to normal, Danvers remembered what it was like to be the world's greatest hero, and she liked that feeling. She realized that she had been shortchanging herself, underachieving, and that she could be that hero again. She has since taken back her Ms. Marvel name and has been fighting to fulfill her potential while being beset by problems and adversaries from the mundane to the cosmic to the esoteric.

Death and Other Changes

Over the next couple of years, a confluence of the growth of independent comics and the rise of the comics specialty shops and conventions, and the increasing recognition in America of the potential for comics to be serious, quality literature and art led to the rise of independent comic book companies, creator-owned comic book properties, and graphic novels. By 1982, Marvel Comics was jumping on this bandwagon. They used their Epic imprint (which had been so far used for their Heavy Metal-inspired , adult-themed magazine) to start a line of creator owned comics, and they began a series of graphic novels. They asked Jim Starlin to do their first graphic novel, The Death of Captain Marvel, and he agreed if they would publish his Dreadstar series in their Epic line of comics.

Jim Starlin used the feelings he had been experiencing over the recent passing of his father to write a very moving story about Captain Mar-Vell dying of cancer, a very un-heroic death for a very noble character. The source of his cancer had been established in the last issue of Captain Marvel that Jim Starlin had written, in which the hero had been exposed to a toxic gas while battling a villain called Nitro. His nega-bands had held back the cancer for years, but by the time he told anyone about it, and despite a team of the most brilliant scientists, doctors, and magic users in the Marvel superhero pantheon, it had progressed too far to be operable. Ironically, this story came out on the eve of the breaking of the AIDS epidemic, in which many, many people would know the tragedy of loss to such an illness.

Thus ended that Captain Marvel, for the time being.


Meanwhile, Carol Danvers was fed up with her old friends, and planet Earth for that matter. She made friends with the X-Men, and wound up adventuring in outer space. There she developed a latent power, bursting into a form with the energy of a binary sun. She then took the name Binary.