This is "How Can I Explain?", which is a feature spotlighting inexplicable comic book plots.

Today, we look at how Carol Danvers somehow missed out on Mar-Vell's funeral (heck, his death period).

Carol Danvers made her debut in Marvel Super-Heroes #13 (by Roy Thomas, Gene Colan and Paul Reinman), which was also the second appearance of Mar-Vell, the hero who soon became better known as Captain Marvel. Mar-Vell was stuck on Earth and so he adopted an Earth identity, that of scientist Dr. Walter Lawson, who worked at a secret government base that Carol Danvers was the head of security for...

So yes, having your major love interest also have to be bad enough at her job to not realize that her top secret government project has been infiltrated by an alien was a very narrow line to master, but whatever, it worked well enough.

When Jim Starlin took over writing duties on Captain Marvel, Carol Danvers had already pretty much been written out of the book as Roy Thomas and Gil Kane had revamped the book to become more of a buddy book with Mar-Vell and Rick Jones, who would switch places with each other by clanging together these powerful Nega Bands that Captain Marvel would wear into battle. Thomas and Kane gave Carol one final major story in Captain Marvel #18.

When Jim Starlin took over the book, he did not use Carol at all until RIGHT at the end of his run, when she made an appearance after being gone for 16 issues (and seeing as how the book had taken two separate two-year breaks and then was bi-monthly for the rest of that time, a 16 issue gap was not a short period of time).

Still, after appearing a few more times, Carol then turned out to have gained superpowers from that appearance in Captain Marvel #18. She then became a superhero in honor of Captain Marvel named Ms. Marvel...

Although it would be quite a while before she had a real team-up with her old friend...

Okay, so her book gets canceled and she gets written out of Marvel Comics period. Some time after that, Captain Marvel's book gets canceled, as well.

Then Marvel gets Jim Starlin to return to Captain Marvel to tell one final story featuring Mar-Vell to help launch their new graphic novel line. The first graphic novel was written and drawn by Starlin. It is a brilliant meditation on life and death. Starlin's own father was dying of cancer at the time and he really brought that feeling into the work beautifully.

Carol Danvers had been brought back to the Marvel Universe in Summer 1981's Avengers Annual #10. She then began staying with the X-Men in July of that year.

However, she is not in the Death of Captain Marvel at all.

Heck, Starlin erases her from Mar-Vell's early history entirely...

Later, we see that the news made a big deal out of Captain Marvel dying all through the galaxy (including Earth)...

Then we see pretty much EVERY SUPERHERO show up for his final days...

There's a great bit when Spider-Man really just can't deal with it all...

Finally, all of the superheroes are around him when he did. Especially his closest friend, Ghost Rider (Ant-Man couldn't even be bothered to be human sized for the occasion).

So yeah, it really didn't make sense that Carol wasn't there.

However, what probably made even less sense was when Chris Claremont then tried to explain WHY she wasn't there!

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1986's Marvel Fanfare #24 tells a short story by Chris Claremont, David Ross and Bob Wiacek that is set after the X-Men and Carol Danvers returned to Earth in Uncanny X-Men #167 (which came out about a year after Mar-Vell died).

She meets the new Captain Marvel and Carol makes a joke about Monica using the name of Carol's friend, Mar-Vell, and she is then told that Mar-Vell is dead...

They explained that they tried to contact everyone he knew, but they couldn't find her. She freaks out...

She flies to his grave and notes that she can't even fully mourn because Rogue has stolen her personality, so this inspires Carol to leave Earth behind and join the Starjammers...

However, WOLVERINE WAS THERE! He was AT THE DEATH OF CAPTAIN MARVEL!

Even if you wanted to say that Carol somehow missed this major news that reverberated around the galaxy, then that meant that the X-Men just lied to her about it.

But even there, then that means that Wolverine lied to her about it but then took her to a place with a bunch of Mar-Vell's friends where his death was bound to eventually come up!

It's just a simple matter of Starlin not having her there when he probably should have. That's all it is. Which is fine. It's not some big deal. It just doesn't make sense in the context of the story.

If anyone else can think of a good inexplicable comic book plot, write me at brianc@cbr.com!