Captain Marvel #25-34

Captain Marvel #25-34

Originally released in 1973

Written by Jim Starlin (#26-34), Mike Friedrich (#25-28, 32), Steve Englehart (#33-34)

Art by Jim Starlin

I know very little about Mar-Vell, Marvel's original Captain Marvel (as opposed to THE original Captain Marvel, Billy Batson), and the only story that I've read which features him is The Death of Captain Marvel, a graphic novel by Jim Starlin which touchingly and realistically goes over Mar-Vell's slow and painful death from cancer.  The quality of the graphic novel made it so Mar-Vell's death is one of the very few comic book deaths that has never been undone as of now, which speaks for itself.

However, there's more to the character than just his death.  I thought I'd look into Jim Starlin's run on the character; it's shorter than I expected, but with Jim Starlin being the one who wrote about Mar-Vell's death, I wanted to see what he wrote about the character's life.  Much like Billy Batson, Captain Marvel switches between a teenager (Rick Jones) and an adult superhero (Mar-Vell), though whoever's not active is stuck in the Negative Zone, which isn't a pleasant experience to say the least.

Most of Starlin's run concerns a storyline called The Thanos War, where Thanos attacks Earth in order to get his hands on a Cosmic Cube which will allow him to fulfill his desires.  During the Kree-Skrull War, the Supreme Intelligence implanted knowledge of its location in Rick Jones's brain as part of some sort of elaborate back-up plan, so Thanos needs Rick Jones captured alive and sends the Super-Skrull to do it.

The Super-Skrull and another Skrull, who prefers brains over brawn, try to cause Mar-Vell to have a mental breakdown by shapeshifting into his various enemies, making him think he's gone mad, and tricking him into switching back to Rick Jones.  At this point, Mar-Vell is stoic but extremely prideful, to the point where he refuses help because he feels like he needs to accomplish everything on his own.

Thanos gets the knowledge that he desires, but Mar-Vell escapes, and in an attempt to finish him off, the non-super Skrull tries to trick Mar-Vell into fighting Ben Grimm, a.k.a. the ever-lovin' blue-eyed Thing, after dousing the Fantastic Four member with a chemical that renders him mute.

Captain Marvel and Rick Jones were lured into the trap by Rick's girlfriend Lou-Ann, who is under the control of a villain called the Controller.  The Controller is Thanos's minion on Earth, having used discs to control the minds of various figures in positions of authority along with possible hostages to use against heroes such as Lou-Ann.  He believes that Thanos will let him rule the world once Thanos carries out his plans for the universe, but even if we don't take into account Thanos's love of Death (which isn't revealed until later on in the story), that seems like a hollow promise coming from the Mad Titan.

As Mar-Vell tracks down the Controller to save Lou-Ann, Thanos finds the Cosmic Cube on Earth, though it's being guarded by Drax the Destroyer, who is single-mindedly obsessed with killing Thanos.  Thanos faces Drax in a mental battle, or as he calls it...

The battle between the two is filled with some trippy visuals, and while Thanos ultimately wins, he spares Drax's life for reasons that even he is unsure about. (curiosity over why Drax wants him dead seems to be part of it)

The Controller is able to hold his own against Mar-Vell, thanks to his control discs giving him the strength of their thousands of victims.  A building collapses as Rick becomes the one in control, and he can't seem to bring Mar-Vell back.

Mar-Vell has been taken by a cosmic entity called Eon, who intends to break him down and remake him.  Mar-Vell has been a warrior, but he's usually fought from a ship, rarely seeing the effects first-hand.  Having witnessed the devastation that Thanos caused on Titan, Eon feels like Mar-Vell is ready to be reforged into a protector.

Eon forces Mar-Vell into a conflict for his very soul, forcing him to see and reject the darker parts of himself.  This leads to a battle with his darker side, where Eon uses some wording that comes across as accidental foreshadowing for Mar-Vell's ultimate fate.

In the aftermath of this, Mar-Vell has gained cosmic awareness, a sort of inner peace and enlightenment.  He's fully aware of everything that's happening around him even if he can't see it.  He's more compassionate to his enemies and his pride is vanished, with him being more willing to ask others for help.

After beating the Controller, Mar-Vell intends to stop Thanos's plans in a more direct manner.  However, as Mar-Vell gathers the Avengers, along with Moondragon (who seemingly met Mar-Vell in a Daredevil tie-in of all places) and Drax (who came to the Avengers Mansion looking for Iron Man or Mar-Vell), Thanos teleports Mar-Vell, Drax, Moondragon, and Iron Man to Saturn's moon of Titan using the Cosmic Cube.  These four (along with his father Mentor and his brother Starfox) have opposed him in the past, so he plans on holding them captive on Titan so they can witness Thanos's plan firsthand.

Despite their best efforts, they are ultimately unable to stop Thanos from draining the Cosmic Cube of its power in his first of several attempts to become omnipotent. (Also, Thanos proves to be surprisingly knowledgeable about Earth stories)

However, even though Thanos is seemingly all-powerful, that won't Drax from carrying out his master plan: shooting Thanos in the face.  He doesn't care if that face is flesh and blood or some kind of cosmic display.

Thanos is not used to this power yet, allowing Iron Man and Mar-Vell to escape and try to come up with a plan to beat the Mad Titan.  Meanwhile, wanting to know the source of Drax's rage, Thanos probes his mind to learn about his backstory, which is much stranger than I expected.

Drax the Destroyer: canonically a big Elvis Presley fan. Tony and Mar-Vell figure out that Thanos's big weakness is his ego - he could have easily killed his gathered opposition, but he left them alive because he wanted an audience. Thanos sends mechanical demonic figures that will continue to attack Mar-Vell as long as he's nearby, so switching places with Rick Jones fixes that problem, but leads to Rick facing down a virtually omnipotent Thanos and using what Mar-Vell had determined about the Titan's weakness.

Somehow, this actually works. Thanos proves to be too much for Mar-Vell, and his defeat comes rather swiftly, with most of it crammed into the last four pages of issue 33.  At this point, I'm one issue away from the end of Jim Starlin's Captain Marvel run, and it feels more like a Thanos story featuring Captain Marvel.  Mar-Vell gets some nice development with getting cosmic awareness and overcoming his pride and devotion to the Kree, but it feels like Thanos gets the lion's share of the focus, with his genius and power on full display as everyone is completely outmatched by him, with his defeat happening due to a mix of luck and his own flaws.

The final issue of Jim Starlin's run, issue 34, is kind of prophetic in a way.  The cover says "Introducing Nitro: the Man Who Killed Captain Marvel", and while this isn't true in the immediate sense (Mar-Vell survives and the series continues for quite a while afterwards), this encounter ultimately serves as the source of the cancer that kills him.

Nitro's power causes him to blow himself up, though luckily for Nitro (and unluckily for everyone else, especially once Civil War rolls around), he can reform himself after exploding. He encounters Carol Danvers, who explains why the canister of nerve gas that Nitro stole is so deadly.  I'm not sure if she's Ms. Marvel at this point (her fateful encounter with Yon-Rogg happened in issue 18), though from how she's portrayed here, I doubt it.

Mar-Vell manages to defeat Nitro and stop the nerve gas after the canister started to leak, though he passes out afterwards, leaving his fate ambiguous. From how cosmic awareness was described, I was concerned that it was going to make Mar-Vell infallible and therefore less interesting to read about, though that didn't turn out to be the case.

This run was all right, with the empowered Mar-Vell feeling like a test run for what Jim Starlin would later go on to do with Adam Warlock. It was much shorter than I expected, consisting of one storyline that lasted nine issues plus a standalone story. Starlin's art, particularly when the story gets into psychedelic cosmic territory, was a highlight here.