Poor Image: Comic Book.Ms Marvel

Currently, the image from Carol Danvers' page is of her first issue, depicting her in her first costume. Except that it doesn't really reflect her any more. since her costume is completely different - and in many ways, so is the character. Now, more emphasis is placed on her military experience, so it follows that a more uniform style suit would work better.

With her ongoing having been going continuously for three years now, along with co-starring roles in The Avengers and Guardians of the Galaxy, the ensuing explosion in popularity of the character, never mind the announcement of her solo film and her upcoming appearance in Avengers Assemble, I think that it would be more appropriate to change the image to her current costume, since it's popularly recognised and quite clearly here to stay.

The same applies to the name. Ms. Marvel can be kept as a redirect, but most people new to the character through De Connick's run and other media, likely to be One Of Us, will be confused at a) the costume, b) the name.

Therefore, I would suggest either the first image to replace it, or, in keeping with the whole 'first comic' theme of the current image, the second one.

edited 30th Jun '15 6:01:52 AM by Willbyr

I don't mind the current pic, but combining it with one of the suggestions and a "Then and now" caption wouldn't be bad, either.

EDIT: I changed the formatting of the pics to keep people from having to scroll so much.

edited 30th Jun '15 6:02:32 AM by Willbyr

That would be good - sorta like the Took a Level in Badass image of Sue Storm as helpless Damsel in Distress compared to her modern portrayal of an Action Mom. Any objections?

How's either of these?

edited 30th Jun '15 8:30:04 PM by Willbyr

I like the second one. (It looks better if they are both comic cover art, or neither is, IMO.)

Second one from Willbyr's is better, yeah.

Maybe is better (for the left part) her iconic costume than the first [1]◊

Yeah, I was gonna say the same, the black & yellow costume is the most iconic and long-lasting of her costumes. If you do a Google image search for "Ms. Marvel", most of of the results show that costume.

edited 1st Jul '15 5:08:29 AM by Tuomas

I dunno... I like the historicity associated with comparing her original and her "Captain Marvel" costumes. Especially with the titles and issue numbers in view. Perhaps something like these: [1]◊[2]◊[3]◊

Along with the caption "A promotion 35 years in the making".

While 9.2 might come off as a touch long, the length of the article might allow for it. That said, I think 9.3 works best as a compromise while keeping the costumes recognisable and the issue numbers legible.

edited 1st Jul '15 11:13:32 AM by peasant

I think the current is fine. The right character, as she started. It's not invalid just because she's changed outfit.

True. However, along with that costume change came significant Character Development; namely becoming more than a Distaff Counterpart by taking on the mantle and becoming the new Captain Marvel.

edited 1st Jul '15 11:44:47 PM by peasant

Whether it's more than one or just one image, I'm in favor of the lightning bolt suit, since that's her most prominent.

Even if I really hate that one shot just because her body looks a little too twisted in it.

I like it, Willbyr - though those mentioning the iconic nature of lightning bolt costume have a point. Perhaps it should be the one paired up with Carol's current gear.

And 'A promotion 35 years in the making'. I like that.

Now, I feel the line only really works with the original costume.

The iconic costume is a very recent invention - debuting in 2006 - by which point she had already experienced significant character development; including no longer being treated as "Mar-Vell with ovaries". As such, the line would be more like "A promotion 6 years in the making".

The reason why the original Ms Marvel costume works is because it shows her beginnings as a simple Distaff Counterpart (right down to costume) of Mar-Vell.

Uh, no it's not. The iconic costume, lightning bolt and all, was designed by Dave Cockrum in the late 1970's. Easy mistake to make, though - she got her previous series in 2006.

Yeah... The iconic black-and-yellow costume has been around since the 70s, and back then it already symbolized her becoming more than just "the female version of Captain Marvel" by not having his colours anymore. She had a different costume for many years in the 80s, because she lost her powers and gained new ones, but the iconic costume returned in the 90s and she wore it until the Captain Marvel revamp in 2012.

But I would suggest using other pic of that costume than the one Rafi posted, because that one is a very OTT and cheesecakey example of Most Common Superpower. Maybe some image from the 70s comic where the black and yellow costume debuted?

edited 6th Jul '15 1:26:36 AM by Tuomas

Oops, my bad. Critical research fail.

That said, it still has the same drawback of not showing the full breadth of Carol Danvers' evolution. As described in Tuomas' post, there was already some character development taking place by the time she received her iconic black outfit. Both, it and the costume change helped differentiate her from Mar-Vell as two separate, independent characters with distinct traits.

As such, the "A promotion 35 years in the making" caption wouldn't quite ring true if we use the black outfit since the significance of the costume change is less meaningful.

Well, I don't think "a promotion 35 years in the making" is a very good tagline to begin with, because it makes it sound like Carol Danvers was merely a Distaff Counterpart of Mar-Vell for 35 years, until she changed her name in 2012, which isn't really the case. Besides already changing her costume in the 70s, there was also also a period of years in the 80s and 90s when she had wholly different powers and different costume and went by the name Binary. So juxtaposing pics of her first costume and the latest costume with that caption makes it sound like nothing happened important happened to her character between the original 1970s title and the "promotion" to Captain Marvel in 2012, which just isn't the case.

Personally, I'd go with just the picture of her current look. It's a great costume, a dynamic and powerful design, and it's better than any of her earlier ones. There's no need to try to tell whole history of a character in one page illustration, you can't really do it with someone who has as long a history as Carol Danvers does.

edited 6th Jul '15 11:08:20 AM by Tuomas

Maybe using her current costume and then creating an Image Links page with its variants is the way to go.

Good call.

So, now how do we go about changing it? Because not gonna lie, my edit-fu is very poor when it comes to pictures.

I know how, but not what exactly. Specifically, what should go on Image Links, and what should they be labelled?

I'd honestly rather we just change the page to Carol Danvers. Because while there's only one Superman and only one Batman, there's been multiple Ms. Marvels, and that's not even what Carol goes by anymore.

I've been wanting to change the name for years, originally to Captain Marvel. That said, changing it to straight up Carol Danvers has merits. Perhaps another thread should be started about it?

As for the picture, working on it.

Okay, fixed the image and added a caption - feel free to change the latter, I just came up with it off the cuff.