Carol Danvers has been using the moniker Captain Marvel since July 2012, a mere two years. With anyone else at the helm, the character might’ve flown under the radar and may not have reached the audiences that it could have, but Marvel entrusted Carol’s life to Kelly Sue DeConnick.
Every few months, Marvel pops up and touts the phrase “Here’s an event that’ll change the Marvel Universe FOREVER!” and we roll our eyes and say “Oh good, another event…”
Without even trying, Marvel did manage to change the Marvel Universe forever simply by hiring Kelly Sue DeConnick to work on this series.
All the comic companies are currently trying to cater to new audiences and to usher in a new generation of readers. What Captain Marvel did was not just usher in new generations but it ushered in a new era of comic books and set a high bar for creators to come. DeConnick, with her take no prisoners attitude, challenged other writers to stop trying to write female characters as strong protagonists and to instead just write them as people. After all, women (contrary to popular belief) are people just like anyone else, complete with vices, flaws, fears, hopes, dreams and ambitions.
And may I just say “A-fucking-men!” to that. Seriously, the whole “We need strong female characters” thing has been driving me nuts for ages. I don’t want strong women; I want women that I can relate to and women that have a struggle to overcome. I want them to make mistakes. I want them to fail. I want them to hit rock bottom so that we can see the whole journey.
Captain Marvel is iconic because she is a person and she is written by someone that loves the character and that, in turn, makes Carol beloved by the readers, along with the fact that there is so much honesty in the book and so much of Kelly Sue herself in there.
After The Avengers and Black Widow’s role in Captain America: The Winter Soldier, it seemed incredibly likely that the first female led Marvel movie would most definitely be hers. However, it seems that since she got a pretty big role there, Marvel thought it was time to showcase a new leading lady and that will be Captain Marvel.
I couldn’t be happier with this decision. It’s been rumoured for a while that Carol would be making a cameo in Avengers 2: Age of Ultron and it seems likely that that’ll be the case now. Kelly Sue DeConnick tweeted that she’s working on a comic script for the movie and I just hope that her involvement with the film is fairly in-depth and she gets a chance to be as big a part of it as Ed Brubaker was for Winter Soldier, which was arguably the best Marvel movie to date.
Captain Marvel is not only great for the Marvel U because she’s a great character but she’s great because she’s going to be showing non-comic book fans what they’re missing out on and what they could be getting monthly if they just step into a local comic book shop. Guardians of the Galaxy saw a huge rise in sales and this could be HUGE for Carol as well.
With DC and Marvel, creators never get to own the books or the characters but at this point in time, I can’t imagine any other person writing Carol Danvers the way that Kelly Sue writes her. She IS Kelly Sue’s character and she feels like an extension of her as a person and I doubt that we’ll see anyone else with that sort of connection to her. I can’t wait to see what the movie holds and what comes of it. Hopefully nothing but good things.
Carol and company will have the chance to be the stars they were always meant to be.
As a final note, this blog took a bit more of a serious turn than I had intended when I started writing it, but make no mistake… I am HELLA stoked for this film. To illustrate that a bit better, I’m going to leave you with a series of GIFs that show that a bit better. But BEFORE that, make sure you leave me a comment and tell me who your dream actress for Carol Danvers is. Mine is Katee Sackhoff.
