Captain Marvel, or Mar-Vell as he is known to his race of origin, the Kree, is arguably the most revered character ever to grace the pages of Marvel Comics. From his early appearance where he turned his back on his people to become the protector of the human race to the day nearly every hero stood by as he succumbed to the cancer that ravaged his body, Mar-Vell was the epitome of heroism. But as is the way within the realm of comics, you can’t keep a good hero down and Captain Marvel was reintroduced into the Marvel U. during last summer’s epic, Civil War, in which he was plucked out of space/time after his ill-fated battle with the villain Nitro (where he was exposed to the nerve gas that would give him cancer) but before he began to show signs of his illness.
THE MINI-SERIES
In the beginning of this mini-series, we find a Mar-Vell that is trying to cope with the death that awaits him and a world that is terribly different than the one he knows. Pretty much from the start, you’re shown a Mar-Vell not seen in the past; harsher, more ruthless, as evidenced by his letting the villain Cyclone apparently fall to his death as well as the cold finality of his thoughts as this is happening.
“For just a second…I think about flying down and grabbing him…But in the end…I decide against it.”
Despite the wishes of Tony Stark, Mar-Vell decides to reveal himself to the world, sparking wonder throughout the Earth and even a religion devoted to him.
As the series progresses, we are given glimpses that something is off with our dear Captain. For one, he seems to be even more powerful than ever, easily surprising and besting villains that, like him, were supposedly dead. Then there’s an underlying obsession with an old painting (Charles Le Brun’s “Alexander in Babylon”) that he is inexplicitly drawn to as well as visions of some event that just comes short of showing what happened to him. The mystery both deepens and begins to clear as Marvel and Iron Man are set up and ambushed by a group of Kree warriors that are soon found out to be Skrull agents. Armed with the knowledge that Skrulls are involved, Marvel heads to the Negative Zone prison to confront Cobalt Man. He gets him to reveal himself as a Skrull but is faced with the accusation that he isn’t Captain Marvel.
The Skrull tells Marvel that he (Marvel) is really a Skrull named Khn’nr and that he was genetically grafted with the DNA of Mar-Vell and given all his memories. His purpose was to be the ultimate weapon of the Skrulls…one that could be activated by mere words alone…but he escaped before he was complete. An enraged Marvel kills the Skrull in denial, leaving the prison in a fit of rage and confusion. He eventually finds himself with Julia Starr, the founder of the church that reveres hum. But his time with her is short as she is killed in an explosion.
The anger of the death of Starr combined with the frustration of the holes in his recent past leads Marvel to declare that he will allow no more wars to be fought upon his adopted planet., backing up his claim by attacking the armies responsible for the bombing that killed Starr. (And, as a testament to the respect that Marvel commands, there are no shots fired for 24 hours.) It’s this action, and his declaration, that leads Tony Stark and Ms. Marvel to trick Marvel into the Negative Zone using the Nega-Bands taken from the gravesite of Captain Marvel.
Temporarily trapped within the Negative Zones, Marvel is angered and hurt by the betrayal of Ms. Marvel until he stumbles upon a strange light which he enters. With his entrance into the light, he regains his lost memory and learns the truth of his reappearance. The truth is that he IS a Skrull sleeper agent that was created to be the exact copy of Captain Marvel and that the painting he was obsessed with was to be the trigger to unlock the truth of what he is. But things went wrong when a Skrull scientist, in a hurry, made an error in the final programming, allowing “Marvel” to escape without the safeguards the Skrulls were going to implant..
Faced with the truth behind his origins, the former Skrull named Khn’nr decides to honor his implanted memories and follow in the footsteps of he who he was made to be, foregoing intended purpose and his people to become the protector of Earth. With that cold finality that I associate with this Marvel, he makes this pledge as he tosses three Skrull agents into space, to burn to death as they reenter Earth’s atmosphere,
FINAL THOUGHTS
I took a second before writing this to scan the message boards, gauging fan reaction to this newest chapter in the legacy of Captain Marvel, and the results have been mixed. Some love it and some hate it, but I guess that can be said about anything. Personally, I like this new Marvel. It allows you to bring back a beloved character without dishonoring his touching death. There is a place in the current Marvel U. for this Captain Marvel and I can’t wait to see how this plays out over the coming months. Oh, for those who are getting into Secret Invasion, this mini-series is a great bridge between it and Civil War.
Writer: Brian Reed
Pencils: Lee Weeks
Number of Issues: 5
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Price: $2.99/issue
THE CORNER RATING: 8 out of 10
