Introduced in the early 2000s, Phyla-Vell is a character that's integral to the story of Marvel's space comics for the last few decades. She started out as someone seeking to live up to the legacy of her father, the original Captain Mar-Vell. She also had the spectre of her brother hanging over her head, someone who boasted immense power yet was consumed by it.
Over the years, Phyla-Vell more than lived up to her legacy as a member of the Guardians of the Galaxy, though the character was taken out of the picture for a long time, only recently resurfacing to join the team again.
10 Originally Didn't Exist
Interestingly, Phyla-Vell was originally supposed to be a character that didn’t exist. Genis-Vell was supposed to be the only successful genetic engineering project, and this was actually one of the sticking points that stopped Genis from understanding where she came from. But eventually we learned that Genis had actually destroyed the entire universe and recreated it wholesale. In this new version, Phyla was created because her brother was such a successful attempt.
9 Went Into Battle Against Her Brother
Phyla was pretty confident when she first arrived. So confident that her first appearance involved fighting her brother Genis at the behest of her mother. Though she didn’t exist until that comic, they quickly gave her a backstory: Genis was constantly seen as the “superior” brother because he was older. Once she got the go-ahead to fight Genis, she was all too happy to prove that she should have been the real Captain Marvel.
8 Became Quasar
Phyla’s next major appearance after the Captain Marvel series was during the Annihilation storyline. There she wound up working with Drax, Nova, and Star Lord against Annihilus and his forces. Though Annihilus was incredibly powerful, Phyla took the quantum bands off of him, altering the tide of battle and allowing Richard Rider to put him down once and for all. Phyla-Vell would go on to become Quasar herself for a time.
7 Defeated the Super-Adaptoid
During Annihilation: Conquest, she got her own mini-series. Working alongside Moondragon, we got to see her traveling to discover a savior that could help the Kree from the Phalanx, who were actively possessing everyone in the galaxy.
During that time, she wound up battling against the Avengers foe the Super-Adaptoid. He absorbed even the power of her quantum bands and adapted to it, but in the end she managed to defeat him by using her superior imagination to overwhelm him.
6 Became Oblivion
After losing her love to the Dragon of the Moon, Phyla-Vell goes on a quest to recover her. She winds up traveling to another realm where she loses the power of the Quantum Bands, and instead makes a deal with the Dragon to bring back Moondragon and become the avatar of oblivion. This grants her a brand-new costume and makes her into a darker, more aggressive fighter for the remainder of the series.
5 Attempted To Kill Adam Warlock
Eventually, Adam Warlock wound up using a unique power to save the multiverse from yet another threat. This power resulted in him taking on the role of his villainous self from another universe, the Magus. As it turns out, this was specifically planned for, as Phyla-Vell was meant to work with Oblivion to kill the Avatar of Life. This turned out to be Adam Warlock, and while she tried to kill him, she was far too late and instead he killed her with her own sword.
4 Trapped Inside The Soul Gem
Though Phyla was supposedly killed by Magus, she would eventually make a return to the Guardians after some recovery time. This wouldn’t last long though, as once they accidentally awoke Thanos again, Phyla lost in a battle against Thanos and wasn’t seen again for some time. She would later be discovered to be trapped in the Soul Gem with Adam Warlock, where we learned a part of her never got to leave.
3 The New Phyla-Vell
Currently, what we have is a new Phyla-Vell that came from an entirely different universe during the Infinity Countdown storyline.
They were seeking out the Reality Stone from their universe, but in the end wound up traveling back over to the main Marvel universe when they realized their universe was going to be wiped out. Since then, both Phyla-Vell and her universe’s Moondragon have been working with the Guardians of the Galaxy.
2 Voiced By…
We’ve seen Phyla-Vell in two different cartoons over the years. Her first appearance was in Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes where she was voiced by Moira Quirk, with the Guardians working to fight against Michael Korvac. She also made a handful of appearances in the Guardians of the Galaxy cartoon. There, she was voiced by Ming-Na Wen, who’s best known for her role in Disney’s Mulan.
1 Her Powers
Without the Quantum Bands, Phyla-Vell is still a superhuman being. She has super-strength, flight, and can she can absorb any energy thrown her way. She’s also got a limited level of cosmic awareness, because the level her brother had was enough to make him lose control of his powers and his mind. She eventually gained the Quantum Bands which allowed her to travel through space and create solid constructs of quantum energy. Though she lost this power, she was still able to tap into some of the Quantum Bands using the quantum sword she created.