WARNING: The following contains details about critical plot points in The Life of Captain Marvel #1 by Margaret Stohl and Carlos Pacheco, on sale now.


Carol Danvers, otherwise known as Captain Marvel, has changed a great deal since her debut in 1968, but there are a few constants about her story. Perhaps the most well-known constant is the origin of her superhero powers. A friend and colleague to the superhero Mar-Vell, Carol was caught in the blast from a Kree device and her DNA was fused with Mar-Vell’s. The blast caused Carol to become a Kree-Human hybrid, and she was gifted staggering cosmic powers as a result. She took up the moniker of Ms. Marvel for a time before fully embracing the title of Captain Marvel. Since then, she has become a pivotal player in the Marvel Universe. It's the story everyone knows. Right? Perhaps not.

The Life of Captain Marvel #1 by Margaret Stohl and Carlos Pacheco delves once more into Carol’s backstory, and at first it appears the issue will focus on Carol alone, narrowing in on her complicated familial relations rather than her ongoing role as one of Marvel’s resident superhero bruisers. But the last few pages in the issue make an abrupt about-face and reveal something unexpected: Her superpowers and her family are far more intertwined than she could have ever imagined. As it turns out, Carol’s father, Joseph Danvers, very likely had some connection to the Kree, possibly before his daughter gained her superpowers.

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The issue starts off with Captain Marvel suffering from a panic attack in the heat of battle. Carol’s affliction is the result of it being Father’s Day, which dredges up some unsavory memories about her dad, who, it turns out, was an abusive jerk to her and her brothers. Carol’s ruminations inevitably draw her back to her hometown, where her mother and surviving brother, Joe, live. One thing leads to another and Carol’s brother is left crippled and noncommunicative by a drunk driving accident.

While helping her brother get situated, Carol stumbles upon a shoebox containing a love letter someone apparently never got around to sending. The letter is signed “Joseph,” which leads her to believe it was penned by her father. That’s salacious enough, but it’s hardly the strangest thing in the shoebox. Beside the letter is an odd piece of tech that Carol tries to open -- in typical Captain Marvel fashion -- by bludgeoning it with a hammer. That’s when things get weird.

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The little device is apparently a beacon of some sort, because, once struck, it emits a signal that travels well outside of the solar system to a cloud of spherical devices hanging suspended in space. The signal activates one of the devices, which causes it to… start making a baby at an accelerated rate. The device fills the child’s head with a strange cocktail of information (William Shakespeare’s “Sonnet 29,” facts about the ancient supercontinent Pangea -- which is real in Marvel canon -- and a breakdown of the concept of mythology) to help it “understand this foreign world.” Then, of course, the baby-carrying sphere makes a bee line for none other than Earth. Whoever, or whatever, this kid is, it must be pretty important to warrant the priority gestation treatment -- and it knows how to fight. Chances are very good we’ll get to meet the results of that process in The Life of Captain Marvel #2.

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The presence of Kree technology (and we know it’s Kree technology because the gestation pod specifically introduces its artificial intelligence as “Mother Kree”) in the hands of a Danvers other than Carol is a surprising twist that could have numerous ramifications on the Captain Marvel origin story. Perhaps the most pressing thing to point out is that we don’t know who really penned the letter. The debut issue is just as focused on Carol’s dad, Joseph, as it is on her brother, who shares his father’s name. Carol assumes the letter was written by her father, which could imply that the man had some hand in her becoming Captain Marvel, intentionally or not, if it was penned before that fateful explosion. It could just as easily mean that the Kree infiltrated her family through her brother, though it’s unclear to what end. Either outcome would be wholly plausible.

Something else to ponder is the identity of the recipient. It would seem as though the letter’s intended recipient got close to one of two men in Carol’s life and then… gave them an extremely powerful weapon. Captain Marvel has tangled with the likes of Doctor Minerva, a brilliant, rogue Kree geneticist, for years, and the Kree Empire is known for dispatching spies to Earth whenever it suits them. Whoever is behind the strange new attack, it would seem as though they are trying to destroy Captain Marvel from the inside. The final panel sees Carol lament that her faith in love as a perfect force has waned because of her recent revelations. Regardless of what comes out of that gestation pod, it would seem as though some measure of the intended damage is already done.


On sale now, The Life of Captain Marvel #1 is written by Margaret Stohl with art by Carlos Pacheco. The issue’s cover is provided by Julian Totino Tedesco.