Trivia / Captain Marvel (Marvel Comics)

• Ash Can Copy: Captain Mar-Vell in various forms was never the best-seller of Marvel Comics at its height, but titles are published every so often just so they can hold on to Captain Marvel as a brand and prevent DC from giving Shazam! his name back, until Carol was given the name and quickly became one of Marvel's most popular heroes, with a comic starring her coming out almost every month since the Kelly Sue run in 2012. Technically nothing is stopping DC, or anyone else from calling their character Captain Marvel, they just can't publish comic books with the title without Marvel Entertainment's permission.
• Creative Differences: Editor Mark Gruenwald drafted an arc where Monica Rambeau would be elected leader of The Avengers, but be shown to be unable to perform the job. The idea was to establish that only an original founder, or Captain America, had the leadership to effectively steer the team. Roger Stern objected, even with the cushion that the new team recruit (and pawn of Nebula) Dr. Druid would actively undermine Rambeau, as he felt she should be able to overcome that since he had already had her successfully lead the team twice in emergencies. He objected some more when the story line was to end with The Avengers dissolving because of her, as he thought it was tasteless to have them broken up because of their first black leader being incompetent. So Gruenwald, thinking Stern's concerns were unfounded, fired him and had Walt Simsonsen write it instead. If their words are to be believed Gruenwald and Stern otherwise remained retained professional respect for one another, but how to treat the Monica Rambeau character was something they just could not reconcile on.
• Creator's Favorite:
  • Al Ewing clearly loves writing Monica, since she's been a staple of his team-based Marvel work since his first volume of Mighty Avengers.
  • Roger Stern was also very fond of Monica during his 1980s run on Avengers, to the point where she went from a novice superhero to the team's chairwoman over the course of a few dozen issues.
• Creator's Pest: As mentioned above, Mark Gruenwald didn't like Monica. This intensified when Stern dared write not one but two separate issues where Rambeau successfully lead The Avengers during an emergency, since Gruenwald was writing Captain America and didn't want to acknowledge that Captain America had willingly taken orders from a rookie. It basically lead to Stern being booted off the book, Stern leaving Marvel, Rambeau being written out of Avengers, then Monica losing the titles of "Captain Marvel" and "Photon" to Genis.
• Dueling Works: Peter David's run on the series was this with Bill Jemas's Marville and Ron Zimmerman's Ultimate Adventures, all 3 series having been created as a result of a bet in a contest called "U-Decide". To say that Peter David's run was the winner (both critically and commercially) would be an understatement - Ultimate Adventures ultimately wound up suffering from Schedule Slip, and was ultimately forgotten, whereas Marville is widely considered to be one of the worst comics of all time. David's run also outlasted both, going on for 25 issues (whereas the other 2 series only lasted for 6 issues^note technically 7 in Marville's case...albeit only technically since the last issue was a submission guide for Epic Comics, which didn't even feature the cast of Marville).
• Magnum Opus Dissonance: The success of Carol Danvers, to the point of getting an actual film, was an unexpected surprise for Gerry Conway, the creator of the character. He thought that the whole comic book industry would come to an end by the end of the 1970s.
• What Could Have Been:
  • When Mar-Vell first appeared he wore a white and green costume with a finned helmet that vaguely resembled that of a gladiator. The white and green color combo was one of a couple of test color schemes by the artist, the preferred one being made up of primary colors, but Stan Lee chose the white and green color scheme after looking them over, presumably to help differentiate Mar-Vell from all the other Marvel superheroes who were running around in primary color schemed costumes. Some fans liked it, but the artists themselves never did, so when the chance came to make a new one, they made sure that it would be red and blue.
    • For that matter, Stan Lee and their team might've come up with something rather different had they known they had a full five years before DC and Fawcett would get their acts together and revive their Captain Marvel.
  • In the 80's, there were plans for an X-Men animated series which would've seen a teenage version of Carol as one of the main characters. She would've been renamed "Lady Lightning," and presumably would have been a mutant.
  • Before the show was picked up by Netflix and officially announced as part of the MCU, there were plans to have Carol as a supporting character on Jessica Jones (2015) (the two being friends in the original Alias comics). She was subsequently Adapted Out and replaced by Patsy Walker, presumably to avoid conflict with the upcoming Captain Marvel movie.
  • Kevin Feige has confirmed that Carol was present in early drafts of Avengers: Age of Ultron as Captain Marvel. She was written out after they realized introducing her without providing an origin or context could lead to Continuity Lock-Out for casual audiences.
    • The Russo Brothers and Feige have confirmed a similar scenario for Avengers: Infinity War, where she was originally meant to appear, but was cut for both the reason above, and there were already too many characters fighting for screen time. However, Brie Larson was seen on the set of Infinity War and Endgame, and appeared in the latter.
  • Before settling on Warbird, Kurt Busiek considered giving Carol the codename Nemesis during his Avengers run.
  • Carol Danvers almost didn't get to become Captain Marvel. Bendis had wanted to graduate Carol into Captain Marvel ever since House of M, but the bigwigs weren't convinced. At one point, the character Gravity was supposed to become Captain Marvel, explaining his death in Beyond!, but when that fell through, the character was revived instead in Fantastic Four.
  • Kelly Sue DeConnick originally wanted to use Anya Corazon as a recurrent character in her Captain Marvel run, but was denied her use. Anya's role would been the one Wendy ended up doing.