Marvel Comics is Retconning CAPTAIN MARVEL's Long-Running Origin Story
Marvel Comics is making a big change to Captain Marvel’s long-running origin story. Since the 1977 Ms. Marvel No. 2 was released, the origin story for the character has always been that she obtained her awesome powers through exposure to an alien device known as the Psyche-Magnitron. When it exploded Captain Marvel shielded Carol Danvers from its radiation with his own body, causing Carol to absorb much of his own genetic template.
Well, in the the fourth issue of the “Life of Captain Marvel” series by Margaret Stohl, Carlos Pacheco and Erica D’Urso it’s revealed that the hero did not gain superpowers this way. Apparently, she’s actually been a member of alien race the Kree all along.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, “the comic established that Carol’s mother is, in fact, a member of the alien race the Kree, making Carol a Kree-human hybrid from birth as opposed to the result of an accident related to a male hero. The Psyche-Magnetron, instead of altering Carol’s DNA, ‘activated’ Carol’s inherent superpowers, her mother explains, making them in her words, ‘not borrowed. Not a gift. Not an accident’ — a purposeful shift that befits the company’s repositioning of the character as a model of female empowerment.”
So, now Captain Marvel’s 40-year origin story is defunct. Obviously the reason for the change is the upcoming movie. Maybe Marvel doesn’t want to confuse people with two different origin stories so they are ditching the original and replacing it with the new.
I am curious to see how the origin of Captain Marvel will play out in the film. I imagine it will be something very similar two what we are seeing here in the new comic. What are your thoughts on these changes to Captain Marvel’s origin?
The Captain Marvel movie is set in the 90s and it follows Carol Danvers (Brie Larson) “as she becomes one of the universe’s most powerful heroes when Earth is caught in the middle of a galactic war between two alien races.”
The film will debut in theaters on March 8, 2019.