Captain Marvel #1 (November 1989)

Since March is Women's History Month (not to mention that this week also saw International Women's Day), I thought it would be nice this week to look at a comic that focuses on a superheroine. Also, since last month was Black History Month, and I forgot to look at a comic starring a Black character (my apologies for that), I thought I'd also make up for that by looking at a comic starring a Black heroine. And I knew of one that had gotten more mainstream prominence in recent years: Monica Rambeau, aka Captain Marvel II/Photon/Spectrum. 

Ms. Rambeau has graced the pages of this blog before. I've looked at her debut, and her rise to leadership of the Avengers. However, like any superhero, Monica has had her fair share of highs and lows in her over 40 years of adventures. The comic we're looking at is a one-shot tale from 1989. Monica's tenure as Avengers leader had ended with her being a powerless civilian. But just because she lost her powers doesn't mean that she can't continue to fight the good fight. This is Captain Marvel #1!

The cover is a Mark Bright piece. It's well done, if a bit basic. It shows our heroine flying over a city. Not much else to say about it, really. It's a nice cover.

"The Dream is the Truth"
Writer: Dwayne McDuffie
Penciler: Mark Bright
Inkers: Stan Drake, Frank Bolle
Colorist: Paul Becton
Letterer: Ken Lopez
Editors: Mark Gruenwald, Gregory Wright
Editor-In-Chief: Tom DeFalco

The story seemingly starts with our heroine fighting some kind of giant serpent monster. This is a normal Tuesday for her. She admits to being intimidated by the monster, despite her powers allowing to take on energy forms that would make the beast unable to harm her. She blasts at the creature with some hard radiation, and her powers...glitch out. 

This is what happens when you don’t use moisturizer.

Thankfully, it was just a nightmare.

She lost her powers back in Avengers #293 (July 1988), and the nightmare is clearly from the events in that comic. Since then, she's been staying with her parents Maria and Frank Rambeau. This has clearly had an effect on Monica, as she's becoming more withdrawn and having the nightmares. But today is a new day, and our heroine has a nice new job.

“The difference between you and me? I make this look good.”

Monica isn't just wearing that because she looks good in it, this is her new uniform. She's got a job as a captain of a cargo ship named the Tea Cake. Mmmm...cake...

She's also now working for a shipping company started by one of her former Harbor Patrol comrades: Ron Morgan. The ship is delivering some wheat to Rio de Janeiro, and then will return a couple days later with soybeans. There are also some passengers on board. It's seemingly a simple cargo job, going off with no hitch whatsoever. In fact, the job goes so well, she is able to give herself a bit of R&R. 

Monica liked to refer to Thor as "girly-arms".

The man there is her first mate and former fellow Harbor Patrolman Carlos Goodman. The two do some catching up, Goodman recalling that in their Harbor Patrol days, she was known as the "Super-Cop". But that's not Monica anymore. In fact, she seems to have a lot more fears than she does back then. Goodman gets a bullet to the back, thanks to a group of hijackers. Two of them lead Monica away at gunpoint, but there's something they need to realize about Ms. Rambeau. She's an ex-Avenger. She served with Captain America. And he taught her some things...like how to just plain beat the tar out of mooks.

“Aw God, my Mohawk! I just got it perfect!”

Monica finds that the crew are dead, and the passengers are tied up. And she has an idea on how to fix this mess. 

It's not much of an idea, but it's all she's got. She ended up packing her old Captain Marvel costume, so she decides to put it on and intimidate the hijackers into surrendering. After all, it can be presumed they're unaware that not only was she a former heroine, but she is also powerless. However, her plan gets a complication. In the form of the hijackers' boss.

"CANDYGRAM!"

Meet Frank Skorina, aka Powderkeg. In fact, this is his debut. Skorina is superhumanly strong and durable. Another power he has is explosive sweat. It can be implied that he is a mutant (This comic was originally published in the 1980s, the X-Men were hot, and he says he's not sure how he has this power). Anyway, Powderkeg and Monica fight...well, more like Powderkeg fights, and Monica tries to live. She manages to lure him into the hold of the ship and traps him in some wheat.

"Oh, no! The glutens! I'm not supposed to have any glutens!"

She rescues the hostages and ferries them to lifeboats. Just in time, too. Powderkeg blasts his way out of the wheat, and she goes to find him. She finds the man tearing his way through the ship, looking for something. She threatens to blast him if he doesn't come with her. He calls her bluff...and she vanishes.

She finds herself flying again...which she finds weird as she's supposed to be powerless. She alerts a nearby helicopter to the lifeboats and flies back to the sinking Tea Cake. She tries to turn into X-Rays so she can enter the ship by going through the hull, but...

"OW MY BRAIN!"

Yeah, that's likely a concussion right there.

Monica finds this very weird. Evidently, she had turned solid. It appears that her powers have been altered. But before she could puzzle this out further, Powderkeg busts in. The two brawl, which allows Monica to discover that she's quite a bit more durable and physically stronger than she was in the past. She gets Powderkeg out of the sinking ship and gets to a rescue craft. 

Over in Rio de Janeiro, a woman named Kristina Ramos is altered to Powderkeg's failure to find what he was looking for...and that Captain Marvel was involved in said failure. Ramos orders an agent be sent to New Orleans and search Morgan's offices. Captain Marvel's involvement may be coincidental, but Ramos is not willing to take any chances. If she shows up, Ramos wants her in the same state Al Capone wanted Elliot Ness.

A couple days later, Monica is getting examined by Reed Richards of the Fantastic Four. He confirms to her that her powers have been altered. When she tried to go through the ship's hull, her body instead created a thin interface between her dimension and the energy dimension that fueled her original powerset. This interface shunts any mechanical energy that is directed towards her into that dimension. 

It's full of typical Reed Richards technobabble, but what this basically means is that Monica is now much more durable and physically stronger than she was before. However, she needs to actively have this interface active, so she can be ambushed. And she's not invincible. She still will feel some impact from blows. A powerful enough blow can hurt or even kill her. She was able to fly by riding the interface like a wave. And it can be presumed she no longer can change herself into various forms of energy anymore like she used to. 

Now knowing her new limits, Monica flies to New Orleans, where Morgan's offices are located. She finds the place is a mess, and Morgan himself ain't much better. 

She wants to know what this is all about, and Ron has a story for her. 

Back in his Harbor Patrol days, he found a box filled with discarded Stark International circuitry shortly after the company was bought out by Obadiah Stane and renamed Stane International. So that means that he likely found these circuits after the events of Iron Man #173 (August 1983). Surprisingly, Stane wasn't interested in it. Morgan got approached by Kristina Ramos, who made a deal with him. Give her the circuits, and she'd co-sign the loan he took out to fund his shipping company. However, he discovered she was actually a gangster. But not just any gangster, she was the biggest organized crime don in Brazil. He told her the deal was off when he discovered this, and she's been waging a campaign of terror against him and his business since. And he was just beaten up by a superpowered woman. 

At the hospital, Ron gets checked out, and it turns out his injuries aren't as severe as he feared.

However, based on the description he gave Monica, she has a very good idea of who attacked Ron, and she could do worse. A lot worse. She goes to Brazil to take care of Ramos, and she trusts Ron to do the right thing. When she leaves, Ron goes to a pay phone and calls Stark Enterprises. 

Three hours pass, and Monica confronts a woman disembarking from a plane.

"Where's my money, Moonstone?"

This blonde beauty isn't here to sunbathe on Rio's famous beaches. She is Dr. Karla Sofen, aka the malevolent Moonstone. Monica and Karla have crossed paths before, back in Avengers #276. The encounter left Sofen with a broken neck. 

Monica and Moonstone fight, but Monica is not quite used to her new powerset, and it allows Moonstone to hand her a beating. Moonstone tries to choke our heroine out, but Monica is able to turn the tables and give her a nice long nap. And then she gets ambushed. 

"I'm thinking of repainting this suit in a nice cerulean."

Ramos herself has decided to step in, wearing a set of Guardsman armor. The crime boss is after the circuitry because she believes that it will make her suit of armor much more powerful, allowing her to truly rule Rio like a queen. Monica tries to take her on, but she's beaten up thanks to her battle with Moonstone. Ramos blasts the wing off a stationary airplane, threatening to cause it to fall on a security guard. She saves the guard, but that was a distraction. 

While Monica was saving the guard, Ramos managed to get the circuitry and installed it into the armor. And true to her prediction, the circuitry gives her armor a power-up like Popeye after eating spinach.

“BOOM, BABY!”

A nearby craft's occupants see Monica get sent flying towards a nearby hangar. The two men run to the hangar where Monica is getting the cobwebs out of her head. The men are Ron Morgan and James Rhodes. Rhodes is there thanks to Morgan's call about the circuitry. He gives Monica one of the negator packs that Stark used to destroy the armors of other villains during the events of Iron Man #225-232 (December 1987-June 1988), aka the Armor Wars. Newly armed, Monica is ready for round two against Ramos. Ding, ding!

Monica finds Ramos rampaging in her powered-up Guardsman suit, clearly power-drunk.

Our heroine gives Ms. Ramos a car to the helmeted face. She then rips off Ramos's helmet and attaches the negator pack to her armor, frying its circuitry and making it junk. And that takes care of her. The story ends with Rhodes taking Morgan back to America as he plans to turn himself in. Rhodes offers to fly Monica home, but she's good. She wants to fly on her own for a bit. As she does, the narrator quotes African-American writer/filmmaker/anthropologist Zora Neale Hurston. 

I enjoyed this little one-shot very much. It does feel a bit rushed in places, but I think that's because of the page number constraints. I also really liked the subtle nods to past continuity, and the one-shot does a good job setting up her new status quo. I also liked Mark Bright's art. I think he is a rather unsung hero of Marvel in the 1980s. His art is very nice to look at and does the job. 

If you want to read this for yourself, I suggest tracking down the 2018 trade paperback Captain Marvel: Monica Rambeau. Thanks for reading this blog entry! If you liked it, show it off! Take care of yourselves, and each other! Stay safe, stay healthy, stay home, wash your hands often, wear a mask, and get your vaccine/booster! See you next time!