The All-New, All-Insane Captain Marvel

In late 2002, the current Captain Marvel title took a sharp but interesting change in direction which almost made it seem as if the previous 35 issues never happened. With that change came the decision to "relaunch" the book with issue #36, with only a change in its masthead design and its numbering reset to "1" to mark the occasion. If memory serves, there were a number of other titles experiencing the same flux in issue numbering, particularly those books that had reached such a pinnacle in numbering that they were also being rebooted as first issues--though not long after, Marvel appeared to renege, and adopted a dual numbering display which kept the new numbering sequence but also displayed the issue number as it would have appeared had the book never been rebooted. And for added confusion, eventually the book numbering was dialed back to the original sequence. It was a dizzying time to be a comic book collector.

The Captain Marvel relaunch, however, at least began with the dual numbering display, perhaps to make sure that any readers who overlooked Assistant Editor Marc Sumerak's notice on the final page of the prior issue that the book was "starting over" wouldn't be confused. Though if you were a reader of other Marvel titles, that ship had likely already sailed.

As for the title character himself--Genis, the "son" of Mar-vell created by Elysius of Titan with technology and clone material from his predecessor after his death--writer Peter David makes a number of changes that return the book's focus to Captain Marvel, who had virtually become a supporting character in his own mag. Gone for the duration were characters like Moondragon and Rick's wife, Marlo, whose histrionics (along with Rick's) reduced Genis to a cosmically-aware stand-in who would save the day mostly on cue when the others' drama had been exhausted.

And in case you're thinking that "histrionics" is overstating the matter:

Peter David and Chris Claremont--at times it seemed as if they were two sides of the same coin.

The character of Genis first caught everyone's eye when, as Legacy, he donned the same nega-bands that his father wore and swore to carry on his tradition of heroism. But being awarded his own title in 2000 was likely in response to the bump he experienced from his exposure in the Avengers Forever ten-issue series, after which he merged with Rick Jones in order to save Rick's life--a process which also triggered Genis's latent cosmic awareness. Factor in the decision of Monica Rambeau to pass on her title of Captain Marvel to Genis (while rechristening herself as "Photon"), and we had ourselves a new hero, and a new series.

Yet in 2002, after 30+ issues, it becomes apparent that a change in direction is needed, though some changes are already in effect by the time of the 2002 relaunch. For instance, while it's true that Genis and Rick still switch atoms with each other, it's more of a voluntary act than anything triggered by X number of hours, with the two having agreed to switch when no later than 24 hours have elapsed. Nor does the one being switched out wind up in the Negative Zone; instead, they're sent to the Microverse, in what seems a "been there/done that" wave-off to the N-Zone, with its explosive atmospheres and distortion zones and its living death that walks having apparently overstayed their welcome.

But also, Captain Marvel has become impossibly powerful (by "manipulating photonic energy"--that's all we're really told), and has been using his cosmic awareness far more proactively than Mar-vell did by keeping it constantly "on" and tuned to disturbances anywhere in the universe that require his intervention--much like the Sentry's behavior on Earth, but obviously on a much broader scale. Yet, just as was the case with the Sentry, Genis's power threatens to overwhelm him--and therein lies part of the problem.

And then there are the choices he must make. In an ideal situation, his cosmic awareness--which now is akin to prescience and lets him see the past, present, and future in relation to the subject--would function in a way that allows him to act responsibly when he intervenes in a situation, by giving him the whole picture all at once. Yet that isn't the case; instead, he sees enough to know he must act, but must count on his interpretation of what he's become "aware" of to act responsibly. As a result, the use of his power in this way is almost certain to yield tragic results.

For instance, given that he can't be in two places at once, Genis is inevitably forced to choose between using his might to halt an invasion of a world by the Brotherhood of the Badoon, or instead to prevent an alien girl from being beaten to death by her boyfriend. To him, the choice is clear: thousands of lives at stake, vs. the life of one girl. He chooses the Badoon conflict--and only realizes after the fact the repercussions of his misjudgment.

Overwhelmed by his power, Genis crashes to the ground and lies in a catatonic state for days, until Rick is finally able to snap him out of it. Unfortunately, the damage is done, with Genis having been driven insane--a startling development to be sure, but, from a reader's standpoint, fascinating at the same time. But his state of mind doesn't become clear until we see how his priorities have changed--specifically, exploring the use of his cosmic awareness in ways that demonstrate a voluntary and deliberate pivot from goals and methods that once were altruistic and instead substitute the sadistic.

Frank Castle, a/k/a the Punisher, sums up Genis's new character colloquially, but right on the money: "A lot of these supertypes are a few bricks shy, but I think this guy's missing a whole fireplace."

Genis's intervention begins by effectively dismantling the gunman Tomas's advantage of using a human shield, by using his cosmic awareness to completely invalidate the hostage's self-worth. And in Genis's current state of mind, you can probably guess what comes next.

With that, Genis incinerates Mr. Fisher, and allows Tomas to flee, to Castle's outrage. But Castle isn't given much time to process the scene, when Genis reveals his true purpose in seeking him out: to learn from him, having found appealing the Punisher's method of going about his business in an organized, ruthless fashion. That doesn't bode well for the future vis-à-vis Genis--but at this point, any reader of the previous Captain Marvel series is probably more interested in the character than they've been in quite awhile. In fact, more than a few of us were probably checking the cover again for a MAX Comics designation, Marvel's imprint for its mature content comics line.

With Genis's help, Castle is led to confront Tomas's employer, in a scene which makes Mr. Fisher's execution look pale by comparison. At the end, Genis grants Castle a few moments of cosmic awareness to close the circle of events--and it becomes clear that Genis is now on a course which he has every intention of embracing.

By the third issue, David's changes for Captain Marvel take visible shape as well, with a new costume designed by Alex Ross that returns the character to his Kree roots--which Genis himself never had, though that's beside the point. The nostalgia card for Captain Marvel has only been played through Mar-vell's dealings with the Kree both prior to and following his metamorphosis by Eon, but never to the extent of donning his old uniform and reclaiming his commission. Those opportunities present themselves a month later, when Genis confronts a Kree task force sent to conquer a planet strategically placed in relation to the Skrull Empire--a planet the Kree are shocked to discover has already fallen to a ruthless, and familiar, conqueror.

Genis's time in Ross's modified uniform would last another fifteen issues before it finally played out, by which time the character's supporting cast had already begun returning to the book with a roar. By the time Genis ditched his Kree uniform and returned to being Genis--"Marv is still somewhat nuts; he's simply playing it closer to the vest and is channeling his energies in positive instead of negative directions," as the book's introductory narrative puts it--it really does feel as if the insanity angle was ready to be retired. There were only so many of David's quips that Genis could recite while constantly getting the drop on his enemies--and only so many scenes of Captain Marvel's superior might crushing them--before it all started becoming stale. Captain Marvel was never in danger of being surprised or outgunned, with the combined assaults of entire star fleets proving to be wasted effort before he would turn the tables on those who opposed him--appearing in their midst with calm, mocking words meant to punctuate the fact that these otherwise formidable races were helpless against his power. Captain Marvel had a bad habit of winning all the time, and his wit well was second to none--which proved entertaining until it wasn't, and limited him to repeating the same behavior ad nauseam.

Captain Marvel ended its second run after 25 issues (or 60 issues, depending on which numbering system you're paying attention to), as David humorously writes finis to the character by breaking the fourth wall and folding the comic in a striking-the-set issue. By this time, there's a new Captain Marvel (Phyla, his sister), who exits with Moondragon to new adventures. As for Genis, who might have once held promise but whose staying power didn't hold up as expected, David dresses down the character in brutally blunt language: "[Your readers] became bored. Bored because they didn't know what to make of you. Your unpredictability became your liability. Furthermore, they didn't really care about you that much in the first place. That, combined with boredom, was fatal." Good lord--after taking on and writing this character's entire series from the ground up, whose fault is that? There were readers paying between $2.25-$2.99 a pop every month who probably wished they'd had a little of that cosmic awareness themselves, so they would have known going in that even the book's writer would come to condemn the direction the character had taken.

BONUS!

A few pages from Alex Ross's sketchbook on the new Captain Marvel.