YMMV / Captain Marvel (Marvel Comics)

• Adaptation Displacement:
  • Now that Carol's using the name "Captain Marvel", the most frequent response to the question "Who is Captain Marvel?" is yet still "Oh yeah, he's the guy in the red suit with the lightning bolt who says "Shazam", right?" But she's beginning to be better known as the holder of the name due to media exposure like Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite and of course the MCU film, and DC Comics downplaying it for their character.
  • Thanks to the media exposure, Carol has started to become a more well-known heroine, but that in turn has led to even more people not knowing who Mar-Vell is, or worse, seeing him as a character that only appears in Carol's origin story. To be fair, in the comics he's been dead for most of 40 years, only appearing since in flashbacks, time travel appearances, and one apparent time travel appearance in the case of Secret Invasion (2008), with a Skrull who was made into a Manchurian Agent who genuinely believed he was a temporally displaced Captain Mar-Vell. Even fewer people seem aware that five other characters have held the Captain Marvel mantle in between Mar-Vell and Carol, though Monica Rambeau's time with the title has been acknowledged.
  • The MCU making Thanos a more well-known character has led people to get Jim Starlin's classic stories, including his run on Captain Mar-Vell. Though they would more likely read it for Thanos rather than Mar-Vell.
• Angst? What Angst?: In Ms. Marvel #12, back in The '70s, Carol Danvers and Ms. Marvel are two characters that exchange bodies, like Thor and Donald Blake, or Captain Marvel and Rick Jones. Ms. Marvel has to decide: save Carol's best friend from a crash, or save the world from some villains with a reality warping object? She chose the latter, retrieves the object then changes back to Carol, who is angry with both the villains and Ms. Marvel (but especially Ms. Marvel) for letting her friend die. Then Hecate reveals they are not independent entities; Carol Danvers and Ms. Marvel are one and the same (the transformation sequence is just a quick clothing change). She's so happy and relieved about this she overlooks that this means it wasn't "someone else" who left her friend to die, but herself.
• Arc Fatigue: The Insane Genis-Vell arc in Peter David's run. Initially, it was supposed to run for 6 issues as part of the U-Decide contest but when Peter David won the contest, he kept the arc going and it took almost a year and a half for it to be resolved. After awhile, people stopped caring about Genis and grew to dislike him and the direction the book was going, leading to it being cancelled and Issue 25 reflecting on this.
• Audience-Alienating Era: For some, after Carol took the mantle of Captain Marvel, Marvel Comics heavily pushed her as their response to DC Comics' Wonder Woman and as a strong and independent Feminist Icon. However, many fans took issue with a perceived change in personality, to being more smug, entitled and confrontational with the other heroes and her stories becoming more Anvilicious. This, combined with her role in Civil War II (which didn't go well for anyone), turned her into a very controversial character with the older fans, something that Marvel editorial and her writers weren't very fond of to say the least... This has made it very hard for many older fans to take Carol seriously on her own, even In-Universe she doesn't get along with the other heroes most of the time, giving the feeling that most of the writers don't know how to write her properly without making her into a self-righteous jerk. On the other hand, newer fans quite liked the changes/argued that they weren't really changes, and pointing out that she was being blunt, assertive, and forceful, which she'd always been to one degree or another, and that these were traits that people usually didn't complain about in heroes.
• Base-Breaking Character: It isn't much of an exaggeration to call Carol Danvers the most controversial female solo superhero of the Marvel universe, at least since the 2010s.
  • Carol's fandom adores her as one of Marvel's longest-existing solo female superheroes, cherishing her for her strongly feminist attitude and her status as one of Marvel's relatively few Cosmic tier superheroes and see the surge of attention and publicity she gained in the 2010s as a long-overdue upswing for an Ensemble Dark Horse character who had long been overshadowed by the likes of the X-Ladies and She-Hulk. Additionally, Carol's more overtly pro-feminist character slant is seen as a very welcome step forward, especially when combined with Marvel's attempts to make her more of a flagship character. This is particularly prominent amongst the camp of Marvel fans who feel Marvel has always lagged behind DC Comics in terms of superheroines.
  • Carol's detractors tend to fall into one (or more) of several camps. One camp believes that Carol's increased presence in the 2010s is simple Character Shilling, born out of a desire to promote cross-ties with the Marvel Cinematic Universe and accuse it of being a marketing ploy by Marvel/Disney to shortchange the more traditionally popular Marvel superheroines that were under Fox's or Universal's ownership for superhero movies (Susan Storm, She-Hulk, Jean Grey, Storm, and Rogue). A related camp feels Carol's identity as Captain Marvel was simply another ploy in the long-running feud over the rights to that name between Marvel and DC. Another camp dislikes Carol because they feel she is too prone to falling into the negative stereotypes of the "feminist jerkass" and the "social justice warrior" ironic, because she has increasingly been portrayed as right-of-centre. And a final camp dislikes Carol simply because they feel she tends to be bland at best, and an unlikable Jerkass at worst, as seen in her infamous involvement in the Civil War II event.
• Broken Base: Over which Captain Marvel — if any — was a worthy successor to Mar-Vell. Monica, Genis-Vell, Phyla-Vell, Noh-Varr or Carol?
  • With Monica, it mostly stems from her not getting a chance to have her own title. Some fans were simply interested in seeing where the writers would go while trying to create challenges for someone moving at light speed in the form of any light on the electromagnetic spectrum. For someone who also had military discipline, in stories that could have unexplored extra dimensional angles. These fans tend to think Genis and Phyla were contrived and unnecessary characters. Genis and Phyla do have their fans though, and not just for Peter David's run, but on a conceptual level. Monica certainly had potential to bring a lot of new and different things to Marvel comics, but not everyone thinks those new and different things should have been forced into a Captain Marvel book. Genis and Phyla lent themselves more readily to the style of cosmos spanning story telling that made the first Captain Mar-Vell popular, and there is an argument that a completely unrelated character undermines the point of having a successor.
  • Some fans argue which Peter David Genis-Vell series is the best. Some prefer the first book for its comedic elements and chemistry between Rick Jones and Genis, but some find that Genis is a guest character in his own comic book, while Rick and his supporting cast are essentially the stars. Conversely, the second series focused mainly on Genis and Rick while it went down a Darker and Edgier route, which some praised for being interesting and unique while some found that it meandered after issue 6 and Genis became progressively more and more unlikable as the Insanity Arc dragged on.
  • There have been many arguments that Noh-Varr was a pointless addition to the Mar-Vell legacy by the time he showed up. People with this view point are divided on whether it all should have stopped, or at least slowed down with him, or whether it should have skipped him entirely and gone back to Monica, to Carol or even Genis. Still, some argue for the merits of a fascist kree that stands in such stock contrast to Mar-Vell, and like that the fascist Kree learns to appreciate what Mar-Vell stood for.
  • When Carol got the title there were fans who collectively said "finally", believing she should have gotten it after Mar-Vell died and it all should have been left at that. Then there are fans of Carol who thought she was fine as Ms Marvel already, and thought giving her or anyone else the Captain Marvel title was just another pointless step in a pointless conflict with DC Comics, who owned the original Captain Marvel character(but lost the rights to use his name purely due to their own misuse of the property). Fans of Carol as Ms Marvel also tend to like Monica or Genis/Phyla as Captain Marvel and dislike the notion those characters shouldn't have existed, or couldn't have gotten the title back.
  • Carol's costume and shorter haircut in her ongoing solo series starting in 2012 is a major source of contention. Everyone agrees that it makes her look less traditionally feminine than her classic long, blond hair, but does it makes her a stronger and more distinctive heroine, or is it just plain ugly? Depending on the Artist, the effect can vary. It also inverts her old red and blue look to a blue and red look which ties into Marvel remodeling her into a Superman-esque poster girl, which itself has led to arguments as to whether she deserves this treatment over Marvel's other female heroes.
  • Carol's classic black leotard costume is also this, in what's a mirror for the modern costume and look. For some, the costume is iconic and the sex appeal is seen as a means of showing Carol's self-confidence in her figure more than anything, and it should be celebrated. For others, the costume is highly impractical and exploitative, not to mention completely out of character for a trained military woman who tries to be seen seriously.
• Bizarro Episode:
  • Of the 2014 run, issue #9 has gotten some heat due to being this. It's a Musical Episode... in a medium that doesn't have the ability to convey sound, so it leads to some truly bizarre moments. Likely this is due to being Filler for the next Milestone Celebration issue.
  • The Flerken storyline would be this - revealing that Carol's pet cat Chewie was in-actuality an alien pest known as a Flerken, that can spew tentacles and open pocket dimensions, and birthed hundreds of Flerken kittens — if not for the fact it built off of a running gag of Rocket Raccoon being convinced it was a dangerous alien being until revealing he was right, something that ended up being repeated and made plot-relevant in the MCU. However, Carol's cat being such an alien has seldom been brought up in further comics, and nothing has been seen or heard of the Flerken kittens they dropped off on some planet.
• Can't Un-Hear It: The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes presented Carol as a major character in its second season, voiced by Jennifer Hale. Partially due to the popularity of that series, and that Hale herself is an acclaimed voice actress, this became a voice many people latched onto.
• Complete Monster:
  • Vol. 4 issues #17-18: Walker, or He Who Walks Beyond Life and Death Like a Colossus, was a death god of a distant galaxy who, seeking to impress Mistress Death, murdered every soul in his galaxy and entrapped them within him, in horrible torment. When Death was repulsed and turned from Walker, he decided to murder her out of spite, hunting her to Earth where he attempts to get her attention by killing people close to the current host of death, even resorting to Cold-Blooded Torture to draw her out. When Death refuses to show herself at first, Walker reveals he will happily take the Earth apart "molecule by molecule", willing to annihilate everything in his path solely for being spurned by the object of his obsession.
  • Vol. 5 issues #9-12—"Coven" arc: Karl Coven is a sick, sadistic Serial Killer who tortured 17 people to death—men, women and children, entire families at a time—for the purpose of Satanic rituals. Coven gloats to Rick Jones, who witnessed Coven skin an entire family alive, that he knew Rick was watching and that he enjoyed displaying every second of the carnage. When Coven ends up supernaturally revived at his trial and he's let go on a technicality, he begins trying to kill people again, including a random alien whose neck he snaps and the wife of a cop whom he'd killed years ago.
• Crazy Is Cool: Insane Genis-Vell for some. After losing his mind to his Cosmic Awareness, he killed a sociopath hiding in plain sight by making him explode, conquered entire races by himself, punched his father’s former mentor to death and looted his corpse for his armor, entered Shi’ar, and later Skrull and Kree warships, and curbstomped them, came back from the dead, destroyed the universe by chaining and crushing Eternity to death and brought it back after shooting Entropy in the face.
• Critical Dissonance: One of the stranger aspects of Carol's status as a Base-Breaking Character is that, whilst her 2010s storylines tend to have positive critical reception, the actual sales numbers tend to be average at best, on-par with more lower-tier characters with far less push and commotion, ranging between 35K at best to 11K at lowest. At the same time, this is largely due to the issue of sales figures being down everywhere, and outside of characters like Spider-Man and Batman, most tend to only sell up-to 40K at best.
• Designated Hero: Genis is quite controversial. During his Insanity Arc, he was sympathetic after being driven insane with the overuse of his powers though a bit extreme in his actions such as his conquest of a barbaric alien race or the brutal murder of a pedophiliac serial killer, all while keeping Rick Jones trapped in the Negative Zone for months. When Genis was resurrected after killing himself and his Kree comrades, he lashed out at the apparent spirit of his father, battering his father to a bloody pulp with his handgun and crushing him under a gravestone. Fans of the original Captain Marvel weren’t pleased in the letters page but it only becomes more extreme when Genis destroys and recreates the universe under the manipulation of cosmic beings, attempts to conquer Asgard to show he’s God, empowered a serial killer to explore the concept of justice, dominated an alien planet after killing another invader and forcing every single person all throughout the universe to confront their past selves. All of this isn't helped that after Genis destroyed the universe, he was possibly faking his insanity and acting out of boredom. Needless to say, Genis has his share of detractors both in and out of universe for these stunts.
  • Carol gets these acusations from fans mostly for her actions in Civil War and Civil War II. Her role in the former starts with her and Wonder Man hunting down a fast food worker who just barely has a secret identity and used her spider-powers to fight a few criminals in the past, but she really gets it for a merciless beating of a superhuman but still far weaker Julia Carpenter, in front of Julia's watching daughter no less, for the crime of striking Carol when she tried to arrest Julia over a bill not yet signed into law. Her role in the later involves Carol again performing less than legal arrests based on the visions of a precog, meaning the criminals haven't even committed their crimes yet. Worse still, it's later revealed these precognitive happenings don't have to come to pass and can even be wrong entirely, but Carol won't stand down. Civil War less so, as Ironman gets most of the blame for the event(it should have been Nitro first and foremost, or perhaps The Man Behind the Man supplying Nitro with mutant growth hormone, but moving on), Captain Marvel Danvers gets far more of the blame for Civil War II than Ironman, even though once again Tony Stark was no paragon of morality during the event either and it was once again ultimately all the fault of a super villain(Thanos and The Red Skull in this case).
• Ensemble Dark Horse: For having started off as a Love Interest to Mar-Vell before becoming his Distaff Counterpart, Carol's actually made quite a name for herself. And of course she's now the Captain Marvel.
• Fanon Discontinuity:
  • A lot of fans like to pretend the whole Marcus Immortus thing never happened, and rightly so.
  • Equally, people like to ignore Carol's involvement in Civil War and Civil War II due to Carol making very morally questionable decisions in both events and because both stories were... extremely ill-received, to put it mildly.
  • In fact, a minority also try to ignore her run as Captain Marvel due to perceived changes in her character had taken ever since she took up the mantle which said fans disliked.
  • It is thought that the revelation of Carol being a half-Kree hybrid having very little effect on Carol's characterization in the long run is the result of this; with fans not being fond of what they consider ripping-off Superman ("Car-Ell" could pass as a fanfic attempt to fit her into his mythos), it being another addition to an already convoluted backstory, and unnecessary baggage when Carol has more interesting beats and themes to explore than the tired tropes associated with half human hybrids.
• Fan-Preferred Couple:
  • Thanks to Brian Reed, Carol was a potential love interest for Peter Parker. Since their first date, nothing came of it outside of them becoming close friends and mild flirting from Spidey, though when Carol herself was taken over by Venom, he hints to Spidey that his crush might not be one-sided - Carol was non-committal afterwards. They also have much more in common than one would think, such as their status as The Chew Toy and not getting as much respect from others. A lot of fans thought of her as a better replacement for Mary Jane as Spider-Man's love-interest post-One More Day than his actual ones at the time.
  • She's also very commonly paired with Jessica Drew due to the massive amount of Les Yay between the two. It's even joked In-Universe that Carol is the father of Jessica's baby.
  • Although nowhere near as abundant as the mentioned pairings above, but recently there has been other people who like to pair Carol with Steve Rogers because of their interesting relationship chemistry and dynamic interactions with one another when they were on the Avengers that had fans hooked on this pairing since 2010's where Carol became Captain Marvel and the two do have quite a lot of things in common mainly with the two having a military background and gaining powers, along with both of them having the "Captain" title as well.
• Fandom-Enraging Misconception: Some critics say that Captain Marvel keeps being relaunched all the time, because Captain Marvel (Kelly Thompson) (the current run) is vol. 10. Actually, most of the older volumes belong to other characters that had the name. The Captain Marvel comic has only been about Carol Danvers from vol. 7 onwards. And before that, Carol only had two dedicated runs, the Ms. Marvel comics of the 1970s and the 2000s. Only five runs is not that extraordinary.
• Fandom Rivalry:
  • One-sided with some Monica fans and Carol Danvers, as some believe Monica is the one Marvel should have promoted instead of Carol. It's one-sided largely because Carol fans love Monica and wish she got equal billing (similar to a situation found in the Batgirl fandom between Cassandra Cain fans and Stephanie Brown fans), and it's questionable how much of this is actually genuine, or if they're just using Monica as a vehicle to attack Carol with. Notably, some have complained that Carol got introduced as the MCU's Captain Marvel first instead of Monica, but then when Monica got properly introduced and had her superhero origin story, she became just as divisive with the sorts of people who disliked Carol.
  • "Earth's Mightiest Heroes" or not, The Avengers originally were not Marvel's premier team. That spot alternated between The Fantastic Four and X-Men until Fox got the rights to those and Marvel started doing movies independent of Fox. Then and only then did The Avengers get pushed to usurp both. Even more so after Disney bought Marvel. While this has been mostly successful, there are fans, not even necessarily Fantastic Four fans, ranging from incensed to merely annoyed that Miss/Captain Marvel is being promoted as the first lady of the Marvel Universe, claiming that spot should not so casually be taken from The Invisible Woman. Carol Danvers has gained many new fans, who can sometimes shutout these voices...sometimes.
  • Minor one with fans of Monica Rambeau and Genis-Vell, mainly because the main rivalry between the Monica and Genis fan bases is with each other, then with every other Marvel Comics character given the Captain Marvel title after them. Still, there are fans who think the legacy should have "stopped" with Monica or Genis, some who even liked Carol just fine as Miss Marvel. The friendly overlap among the rivalry is also why it's minor.
  • Pushing Captain Marvel as Earth's/Marvel's mightiest superhero is mainly a continuation of The "Earth's Mightiest Heroes" Tag Line used for Avengers comics, similar to the association with The Mighty Thor. That said, there are fans of Thor who still take exception to the idea Captain Marvel is mightier than he/she. Since Captain Marvel's famous trump card is reigniting her binary powers, there are fans of Silver Surfer who like to point out he "bathed in the light of a thousand suns". Some even bring up Sentry's "power of a million exploding suns" claim, despite Sentry being a rather reviled character otherwise.
• Friendly Fandoms:
  • Despite the fact that she more commonly works with the Avengers, fans of Carol tend to overlap with X-Men fans and the character is typically more well-associated with them than the Avengers. This is partly because both series were made great by Chris Claremont. Of course, it could also be because a lot of people still think of Carol as "the blonde woman Rogue stole her cool powers from" and there are others who find Carol's "honorary X-Man" status to be rather silly given that she has very little in common with them, friendship with Wolverine or not.
  • Nextwave was not the most popular comic ever printed, but it was cost concerns that cut it short more so than sales, and a good deal of Nextwave fans jumped on Miss Marvel's book after Civil War just because Machine Man showed up after the first act of the "Lightning Storm" arc. Others were only there because 1990s Ensemble Dark Horse Sleepwalker also happened to show up after the first act. Finally, Arana Heart Of The Spider was an unpopular series, but readers saw potential in it's main character, Anya Corazon, after seeing her written by Tania Del Toro rather than "creator" Fiona Avery. Marvel wouldn't bow to fans and give Del Toro a book, but they put Corazon in the "Lightning Storm" arc too, where readers adored her relationship with Danvers. Fans of all three characters were perfectly okay with seeing them inevitably overshadowed by Miss Marvel if it meant seeing them again, and seeing them do something interesting until the climax.
  • Most fans of Monica Rambeau and Genis-Vell tend to be tolerant of Danvers's existence at worst, and even among those who don't like the fact Danvers has the title of Captain Marvel rather than them, there are still many that enjoyed her run as Miss Marvel or Binary, who find enjoyment even in Carol's run as Captain Marvel. There's plenty of annoyance at Marvel's (admittedly somewhat understandable) refusal to even try and give Rambeau a solo run, in Marvel's insistence that Genis is Deader than Dead, in their respective fanbases, but it doesn't always manifest as hatred of Danvers. There's an even mix of rival and friendly fans.
  • With fans of Matt Fraction's Hawkeye book. At least partially due to Kelly Sue and Fraction being Happily Married.
• Growing the Beard
  • The first few issues of Captain Mar-Vell's adventures were considered aimless and lackluster. When Jim Starlin took over and made the character truly cosmic — up to and including the first major arc of Thanos and the Cosmic Cube, and Mar-Vell attaining cosmic awareness to combat him — he became one of the most popular and influential characters in Marvel's roster.
  • Applies to Genis-Vell as well after his stint as Legacy was over and he was updated in Avengers Forever with the Peter David series following afterward.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • The incident of Captain Mar-Vell closing off a leaking container of nerve gas seemed to have been resolved satisfactorily when a friend arrived to administer the antidote, but it turned out later that the gas was carcinogenic, which results in incurable cancer that later killed him. As such, when the cover of Captain Marvel #34 introduced the brand-new villain Nitro as "the man who killed Captain Marvel'' (by blowing himself up and thus damaging the gas canister), it was an accurate description, just with a delayed reaction.
  • During Civil War II, Carol Danvers' complete disregard for legal precepts of Habeas Corpus, Actus Reus and Mens Rea — not to mention the First, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, and Eighth Amendments to the US Constitution — are hard to swallow given the concern of the erosion of civil rights that have happened since the days of 9/11.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • Stan Lee created Mar-Vell so that the rights to the name of Captain Marvel would go to Marvel after DC let the rights expire. Stan Lee later wound up working with the DC character when he started Just Imagine... Stan Lee Creating the DC Universe.
  • As put up by The Editing Room, Carol's Air Force callsign "Cheeseburger" when she's portrayed by someone with a cheesy name, Brie Larson (the movie itself subverts it, as there Carol's callsign was "Avenger").
• Ho Yay: Moondragon and Rick Jones' wife Marlo. The latter was so poorly received it was retconned as Marlo being overwhelmed by Moondragon's psychic power.
• I Am Not Shazam: Before the New 52 was set into place, a lot of confusion between DC's Captain Marvel and Marvel's Captain Marvel permeated discussions about the characters. Of course, once the Trope Namer had his name officially changed to Shazam in the Continuity Reboot, Marvel gained exclusive rights to the title.
• Iconic Sequel Outfit: Carol's first outfit was a red and black bodysuit that showed her legs and was basically a femme version of Mar Vell's costume. In Issue #20 of her original series, Dave Cockrum gave her the black Leotard of Power, gloves and boots that the character was identified with for decades. These days, Carol is more well known for the red, blue and yellow costume she wears as Captain Marvel.
• Informed Wrongness: During Civil War Gil Corazon is presented as wrong for protesting that Anya register with and work for SHIELD or never use her spider-powers again. Wrong for taking issue with Anya enroll or not be allowed to see him anymore. Besides the fact that Ms Marvel and Wonder Man don't explain how they are making his daughter anything less than a child soldier, Anya's spider-powers can activate involuntarily in the event any form of danger comes in Anya's direction. At worst it would require Anya wear "keep distance, unintentional contact may hurt you" stickers. Anya wasn't even purposefully concealing her identity, her carapace just so happens to cover up any areas it feels may be vulnerable. Anya doing a poor job of hiding it when they "caught" her shouldn't make her a criminal. Running from the scene of a violent crime she just so happened to be around and resuming her business is at most ground to seek her testimony. Not only was the registration act not yet law, not only is SHIELD technically a United Nations organization rather than a United States one accountable to USA citizens who may otherwise agree with the bill, but when Anya had been fighting crime she was working for a public enterprise, which she had since quit. Anya wasn't the kind of vigilante the registration act was aiming to eliminate, and demonstrates why the bill needed revision. But Gil is wrong. Even when working with Ms Marvel and SHIELD get Anya in more peril than she had been in with The Web Corps, Gil is still wrong. One could argue that rather than continue to lash out at Carol Gil should have stuck to more productive protesting, but it is hard to fault him any more than that.
• Jerkass Woobie: Carol may have become more abrasive from Civil War II onwards, but given the constant crap she had to endure throughout the years, you can't help but understand why. Issue #7 of Secret Empire also reveals her frustration to live up to everyone's expectations, only to let them down and screw things up even more.
• Les Yay:
  • Carol Danvers and Jessica Drew got oddly close for supposedly heterosexual women during their time on The Avengers' ever rotating roster. Perhaps more impressive for this one not being Claremont's fault.
  • Carol Danvers appears to have a little chemistry with Scarlet Witch as well, at the very least more chemistry than any other Avenger besides Scarlet Witch's brother Quicksilver and husband Vision.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • Carol Danvers' Captain Marvel outfit as designed by artist Jamie McKelvie has gotten this reaction from fans, with plenty of fan art and cosplays of said costume popping up since being introduced in the summer of 2012. Encouraged by the comic itself; one of Carol's friends makes her a hat based on the outfit's design.
  • "Yaas, Queen!" It comes from the solicit for The Mighty Captain Marvel #1, and gained traction because of how Totally Radical it was. It's usually used as a sarcastic insult for Carol, though.
• Moral Event Horizon: Two with the main character doing this - both in big crossover events, unsurprisingly.
  • During one of the side-stories for Marvel's original Civil War arc, Carol attacks Julia Carpenter, and gives Julia a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown where her daughter can see. For a number of fans, this destroyed any possibility of Danvers being seen as a hero, even though it was followed by a My God, What Have I Done?.
  • In Civil War II, which mangled various characters nearly as much as the original Civil War event, Carol crosses this line when Tony Stark reveals that Ulysses' precognitive powers aren't predicting the actual future, but a possible future, has this confirmed by the Beast and she still opts to continue to believing the predictions and pushing her "Change the Future" stance. The thing that kicks off the fight is when she and S.H.I.E.L.D. arrests a woman with the only evidence of something bad she could have done being Ulysses' vision of her and an empty suitcase. The prior example, from the first Civil War, at least had the excuse that Julia broke the law (however controversial that law was) and endangered the lives of SHIELD agents. Here, Carol's the one breaking laws, and her targets haven't even done anything yet. And if that wasn't enough, there is the matter of her final fight with Tony resulting in Tony nearly dying (and depending on later retcon, possibly actually dying).
  • An alternate reality version of Carol who failed to conquer her alcoholism had long crossed it by trying to murder every alternate version of Rogue, whom she blamed for her misfortunes, as well as trying to murder 616 Carol herself for the crime of forgiving Rogue.
  • Genis seemingly crossed a new one every issue in his Insanity Arc. See Designated Hero above.
• Mis-blamed: A lot of DC fans hate Carol for "stealing" the name Captain Marvel from DC's Shazam!, as some seem to believe Marvel and DC had a legal battle in the 2010s that resulted in both characters' name changes. The actual situation is very complicated, but it ultimately falls onto DC for the blame. Firstly, DC's Captain Marvel wasn't even originally theirs but belonged to Fawcett Comics, who published the original Shazam!Captain Marvel comics. Due to the character becoming more popular than Superman, DC sued Fawcett into bankruptcy with frivolous lawsuits, then bought their IPs when they were broke, then buried the character rather than push them, all out of what amounted to corporate spite. Marvel then introduced Mar-Vell after the copyright expired, long before DC realised the potential in their character, resulting in a legal battle that Marvel won decades ago. Unrelated at all to Carol, Geoff Johns decided to rename DC's Captain Marvel to just "Shazam" because of the I Am Not Shazam trope being in play. In short: it was DC's terrible corporate practices that cost them the name in the first place, then it was DC's own decision to change their character's name to avoid confusion with the book title. Marvel deciding to promote Carol with the name was just coincidental timing.
• My Real Daddy:
  • Jim Starlin for Mar-Vell and Peter David for Genis-Vell.
  • Roy Thomas created Carol Danvers, but Chris Claremont made her awesome. It's also why she's more or less an unofficial member of the X-Men. Either Kelly Sue DeConnick or Brian Reed (or both) deserve credit as well, depending on who you ask.
  • Monica Rambeau was fairly popular as initially written by Roger Stern, but after he was removed from The Avengers over Creative Differences no one ever used the character as prominently and at least one guy at Marvel went out of his way to make her look bad. Because of this Monica Rambeau owes most of her fan base to Warren Ellis making her the leader of Nextwave. For better or worse "I used to lead The Avengers" is also what lead to renewed interest in seeing her be Captain Marvel again, but since editorial didn't care much for Nextwave during the 2000s and 2010s, outright declaring it Canon Discontinuity, these sentiments weren't quite enough to put her back into prominence. Fans who resigned themselves to canon Rambeau tended to default to Al Ewing, the writer doing the most outside of Nextwave to keep Monica Rambeau visible. Ewing even found a way to make Nextwave canon, albeit through a Cerebus Retcon.
• Never Live It Down:
  • Mar-Vell is best known as that guy who died from cancer, both in-universe and out.
  • The "Marcus Immortus" incident, combined with Rogue stealing her powers and memories, sidelined Ms. Marvel for years until Kurt Busiek brought her back as a main character in Avengers. It took her own series to undo a lot of the damage.
  • As Miss Marvel it was when Carol Danvers attacked Julia Carpenter during the first Civil War in front of her daughter. While Julia and Shroud had been irresponsible, and resisted arrest in a manner that understandably angered her, Carol was trying to arrest Julia for refusing to acknowledge a bill that hadn't been signed into law yet and while it looked bad, hadn't actually harmed Carol in any way, given the wide gap in their strength and power. The severe escalation in conflict and unnecessarily overwhelming beat down of a genuinely altruistic citizen who had some lapses in judgment but was genuinely trying to do right by her child caused many readers to turn on Danvers, who was supposed to be one of the heroes of the book. Carol does admit she was out of line and doesn't try to defend herself when Julia screams at her about it later.
  • The fact that her book has been retooled and relaunched four times since taking over the mantle of Captain Marvel in 2012. That, plus her increased prominence in marketing, has led to her current Creator's Pet accusations.
  • Calling Magneto "the guy on internet who compares everything to Hitler" is brought up a lot by her detractors due to the author having not done his research. Later issues attempt to rectify this by saying that she didn't know he was a Holocaust survivor at the time she said that.
  • Going all-in with Ulysses' visions in Civil War II, attacking anyone who had any kind of crime reported, regardless of likelihood and motivation. Much like with Iron Man during Civil War before her, a lot of books would have her cause bother for their characters in order to show why her stance was wrong, never mind the things she did in the main book, too.
  • Monica Rambeau couldn't get past being reduced to an emaciated husk, being held down by her overprotective mother after that despite being a grown woman who was a harbor patrol lieutenant, and losing both of her titles to Genis-Vell. Not being able to handle vampires without Black Panther, despite having all the tools to make them a non issue, and Joe Quesada's unsatisfying "Universe A" explanation that it wasn't really her almost became this too, but Nextwave coming out a couple months later did let her live down her Black Panther appearances and of everything else except for her name changes. But with Nextwave Monica now she had to live down whining about no longer leading The Avengers until she finally lead a makeshift team that became The Mighty Avengers against Thanos's vanguard.
  • Genis' insanity is often a point of derision for Genis both in and out of universe.
• Nightmare Fuel
  • Genis-Vell going insane, becoming an all powerful mood swinger whose thought process was literally at odds with reality and then going to great lengths to intimate that Rick Jones is basically only living because Genis allows Rick to.
  • Carol Danvers's association with the X-Men in turns leads to an association with The Brood, the aliens so disturbing their own inspiration took inspiration from them. Even when she has her binary powers they don't bring much comfort if Danvers can't use them before her friends are impregnated.
  • Doomsday Man became a far less goofy villain when he got moved over from Silver Surfer to Miss Marvel, as Carol is already far weaker than Surfer and had the added handicap of no Binary powers at the time. While she does defeat him in the end it's not before he snaps her ribs and hospitalizes Danvers's "daughter" Anya Corazon, by ripping Corazon's exoskeleton right off her body.
• Older Than They Think:
  • The Captain Marvel rename and costume switch is actually just the latest of several name and costume changes in Carol's history, rather than the first one like many assumed; in fact, the identity she went by for most of her existence was Binary. Ms Marvel is the identity most people have heard of because it's her first, and the fact she returned to it at the beginning of Brian Michael Bendis' tenure on the Avengers, which saw a Newbie Boom for the fandom and as such, many assume it's the name she always went by.
  • Carol's feminist slant is nothing new. Her original series was a landmark feminist title, and she was pushed as, more-or-less, Marvel's answer to Supergirl and Wonder Woman. This didn't die down much when she joined the Avengers, though different creative teams with different views on gender politics caused her to instead be portrayed as a Straw Feminist, but when she jumped to X-Men and was once again in the hands of Chris Claremont, he had her evolve into a cosmic powerhouse as a meta-reward for her mistreatment. It wasn't played up much during Bendis' run because he largely used Carol as a worf who was subject to fat jokes.
  • Her power billing in the MCU and 2010s too, is something assumed by her detractors as Character Shilling and performative politics on behalf of Marvel by presenting their most powerful character as a woman. As noted above, she was even more powerful back in the late 80s and early 90s when she was calling herself Binary (as in, Binary Stars, which she had the power level of), which is nowadays reserved for an 11th-Hour Superpower moment.
  • Some think that Carol Danvers became more of an entitled jerk after becoming Captain Marvel. While it is a bit of character regression on her part, it is nothing new. Carol Danvers was written to be a somewhat unlikable side character from the very beginning, even after becoming a solo hero she went through basically the same "drunk dick" arc that Tony Stark did, and was almost as much of a Knight Templar in Civil War as Tony. The kinder Carol who cares for the X-Men and Starjammers, unwillingly but nobly fell into the role of Anya Corazon's surrogate mother and even became a defender of her attempted murderer Rogue might be the most popular take on her character, but it doesn't represent the majority of Carol Danvers's publication history; the traumatized pilot who lashes out as a confrontational jerk does.
• Romantic Plot Tumor:
  • The Una/Mar-Vell/Carol Danvers love triangle was... awkward to say the least, even by Silver Age standards.
  • In the early Captain Marvel stories Carol Danvers appeared in, when she was just an ordinary human supporting character and not a superhero herself, she often came off as something of a blonde Lois Lane towards the main character, Captain Marvel/Mar-Vell, right down to the fact that she didn't get along with his civilian identity Dr. Walter Lawson while being infatuated with his very manly and heroic Kree warrior self (and she did manage to kiss him at least once). Unfortunately for Carol he already had a girlfriend so the whole thing was quite awkward. Once she became a superhero herself, this trope was shaken off.
• Ron the Death Eater:
  • As the "most controversial female character in comics", Carol has garnered a lot of this in recent years. Her hatedom tend to treat her like she's a Smug Super and A Nazi by Any Other Name, which even at her worst is a huge escalation of her character's flaws, and she's notably given full blame for Civil War II, even some saying she started the conflict, while ignoring how Tony Stark was a Designated Hero during the story as well. Ignoring that Red Skull and Thanos were the actual villains behind the events.
  • Note, that Civil War II in itself can come off as a canon example of this given the tremendous amount of Took a Level in Jerkass she got for it combined with the fact the event was written by Brian Michael Bendis, who was both writing Iron Man at the time (so making her look bad was likely an attempt to make Tony look more heroic), and has a history of treating Carol badly, being that he spent years making a Running Gag about her being called "fat" and tends to make his favourite characters say and do shitty things to her.
  • Her MCU counterpart also gets this, and strangely so does her actress, Brie Larson. In the former case, Carol's cockiness, cheeriness in the face of combat, and Remember the New Guy? status makes people treat her like she's a raging Jerkass who is attracted to minors and will just attack anyone on-sight. In the latter, Larson made a comment about how some movies aren't made for straight white men and that there should be more diversity among critics, which earned her so much vitriol from conservative and alt-right bloggers that she became the centre of conspiracy theories that presented her as being a sociopath.
• Smurfette Breakout: Carol Danvers, even before she actually became Captain Marvel, was always more visible and popular than Mar-Vell and his successors, which made her promotion to the title something pretty much everyone agreed made perfect sense. Now, with her numerous outside media appearances as Captain Marvel, including a billion-dollar movie, she is undeniably the main character of this corner of the universe. Not bad for someone who began as an unwanted love interest.
• Squick: The Marcus Immortus incident, a.k.a. the "Rape of Ms. Marvel". It's already bad enough that Carol was pregnant with the man who is the father of her child, but what makes it even worse was the revelation that Marcus brainwashed Carol into procreating the child. It shifted from a badly written romance to outright rape.
• Strangled by the Red String: A Tropes Are Tools example! When the KSD Captain Marvel run was relaunched after a time skip, Carol had, out of nowhere, hooked up with Rhodey, despite the two never interacting. However, this has largely been accepted by the fandom, due to the fact the two have nice chemistry and have quite a bit in common (their shared military background, being experienced pilots, and snarky and tough demeanor), and the fact the run avoids making a big deal out of it, with the two only having occasional scenes where they flirt or work together, making it feel far less forced than many SBTRS examples.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
  • A possible romantic relationship between Carol and Mar-Vell could have been a genuinely compelling subplot, but she was never so much as a blip on Mar-Vell's radar.
  • Carol's relationship with Peter Parker. The idea of Spidey dating a heroine, being post-One More Day not withstanding, had potential to be explored. Peter could date someone who knows his secret and saves the day alongside him, while Carol dates someone who is friendlier and more jovial than her usual boyfriends. What stopped it? Spider-Man's then-current writer Dan Slott was against it.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic
  • The epilogue of the Odyssey arc in Peter David's run forced Genis into having to murder his son in the crib since he will someday grow up to be a mass-murdering monster... except that a good chunk of Ely-Vell going evil rests on Genis' shoulders. In the future, Genis' future self wasn't present during the invasion of the Earth and spent some time sleeping on the job, leading to the Earth being invaded. It’s not helped when Genis disappears to go forward in time to help Marlo, not realizing that he left Ely behind without a father for centuries. Ely even calls Genis on this, saying he can’t just up and disappear to go help people centuries at a time. Due to Genis being absent for most of Ely’s life, this naturally lead to Ely finding a way to fill the vacuum his father left behind with The Magus. None of that justifies the Moral Event Horizon Ely committed by killing billions of people to free his newfound master but Genis is completely to blame for what took place with his son. Had Genis not ignored his own son, he might not have needed to kill him at all.
  • It's made worse since Genis didn't even need to necessarily kill his son. In the Odyssey arc's ending, Genis shows he can influence the timeline with a decision he will make in the future which he uses to someday murder his future son. This is a power that can potentially be used to shape a better future for himself and his family but, instead of resolving to do better, Genis instead decides to murder Ely in the crib. This ultimately makes Genis a bit of a hypocrite, since Genis did far worse when he went insane. It's possible that the Magus would have potentially done worse than him but Ely's own actions didn't come anywhere close to what Genis did when he destroyed the universe and later restored it. It brings to mind what if Mar-Vell knew he would someday have a son that would commit so many evil actions even despite the possibility that he’ll try and redeem himself. If Genis got a chance to redeem himself, why is it that Ely doesn't get one?
• Values Dissonance
  • Carol's two most notable costumes reflect the changing sensibilities of the times. The black one-piece swimsuit, thigh-highs leggings with heels and arm-length gloves from her Ms. Marvel days would be considered a mere Ms. Fanservice outfit today by newer fans for overly sexualizing her, by showing some skin and highlighting her curves. Hence, for her rebranding as Captain Marvel it was replaced by her current unisex space military outfit which covers everything up (and downplays her curves, Depending on the Artist) and this was used for the MCU. However, in-universe at the time, Carol designed the black outfit herself to "look great", as a display of self-confidence. In short, what may be seen as empowering and progressive then may be seen as still problematic today, Fair for Its Day at best.
  • Her classic name, "Ms Marvel", also falls into this. At the time, it was a reference to "Ms" being a title for women who didn't define their identity by their marital status, and thus calling herself Ms Marvel was a sign of her feminism. In the 2010s, though, "Ms" is no longer really commonly used or seen as a big deal (now, merely keeping your name after marriage is seen as a stronger declaration of showing independence), and it's been increasingly conflated with "Miss", to the point Ms has became a short form of Miss (the fact it's pronounced more-or-less the same, and that people do typically refer to Carol as "Miss Marvel" when saying her old codename aloud doesn't help). As such, the name is seen as quite patronising, as it instead portrays Carol as a young unmarried girl instead of honouring her status as a military officer like "Captain Marvel" does (even if she's higher ranked than Captain, but then again so is Steve), not helped by the number of people who refer to her as Ms Marvel out of protest of her name change, in a manner that often sounds akin to Stay in the Kitchen.
• The Woobie:
  • Genis' whole life seems to be centered on this. He was aged to adulthood so he’d be strong enough to face his enemies (which cost him much needed maturity and experience), he accidentally detonated a Nega-Bomb which killed billions after trying to deactivate it in a set up by the Kree and Shi'ar, felt the Silver Surfer, his mentor die and used all his power to revive him on finding his corpse, fought his mentor when he believed Norrin was letting the people of Zenn-La perish until he was trapped in his surfboard and saw Zenn-La fade away into nothingness and was forced to confront the reanimated corpse of his father who killed his mother. This is all before he became Captain Marvel, where his problems just got so much worse.
  • Carol's had her fair share of Woobie-worthy moments — screwed over by a jerky father, crappy boss, brainwashed and raped repeatedly by a super-villain, lost her powers and was left to drown while in a coma, more problems with powers coming and going over the years, struggled with alcoholism, depression, on again/off again inferiority complex, unfulfilled love life, misguided and ridiculous jokes against her body, may or may not have been forced to float naked in space by the Brood (and was actually experimented upon while naked by the Brood), repeated memory loss etc. But she's survived it all and become the new Captain Marvel, so she is probably an Iron Woobie.

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