The daughter of Joe Danvers, a former US Navy officer, Carol has always had one foot in the military world. She dreamed of being an astronaut, one eye always on the stars. Disappointingly, her father couldn’t fathom why any daughter of his needed a college degree. Joe Danvers believed Carol’s perfect place was in the kitchen as a housewife. However, that was not Carol’s destiny. Was this belief spurred by his time in the Navy, or by his upbringing in the mid-twentieth century? My own parents have some fairly old-fashioned beliefs, but I don’t think either of them believes a woman’s place is in the kitchen. I think this may have been a time when the creators who developed Carol’s origin didn’t want to fully form Joe Danvers as a real character. Rather, they imagined him as an archetype or obstacle to Carol’s destiny. So, basically, Joe Danvers was a woman-hating curmudgeon and nothing more.
In order to prove her father wrong, Carol sneaks off and joins the Air Force. As an airwoman, Carol soon becomes a pilot and adopts the call sign “Cheeseburger.” This training will be a springboard to her ultimate goal—skyrocketing to other planets as a full-fledged member of NASA.
It’s here that I must admit a kinship with Carol. As a small boy, I, too, wanted to join the awesome ranks of NASA, half-spurred by my constant viewing of Star Trek: The Next Generation and half by the wanderlust that ultimately drove me from my boyhood farm in Kansas. I was ever-present in this dream until my third-grade teacher—Mrs. Hazen—told me I’d soon have to develop an aptitude for math if I ever wanted to count myself among NASA’s ranks. (Fun fact: to this day, I have the mathematical knowledge of a caveman.) This revelation scuttled my rocket-ship dreams faster than you could say “Pythagorean theorem.” Since then, any time a fictional character seized their dream and gained the very exclusive rank of “astronaut,” I’ve always stood up and applauded.
Carol threw herself at her dreams and her military career. Was this because she unconsciously emulated her military father? Studies have shown that a high percentage of military children form strong connections with the ideals of military bases, culture, and personnel. I would theorize that this happened to Carol. At the funeral of her father, when asked to say a few more words, Carol only says this about the man who raised her: “He was a worthy opponent.”
What a perfect window into the soul of Captain Marvel this statement is. Even after his death, Carol still viewed her relationship with her father as a battle. At each turn in her life, Joe Danvers was her opponent. A father and daughter as enemies and not allies is quite sad when you consider it. Nonetheless, it does illuminate how this superhero operates. Writer Kelly Sue DeConnick bestowed upon Carol Danvers a motto while she was penning the character. That motto is: “Higher, further, faster, more.”
Another way to interpret that motto is “Never surrender, never give up”—a positive motto when applied to an airman or a soldier. I can almost hear them chanting it as the trainees run across the base for their morning’s physical training.
Yet, the words “higher,” “further,” “faster,” and “more” can lead a person away from humility. Why do these values matter to the story of Carol Danvers? Well, humility is one of the United States Air Force’s core values. Each military branch has its own set of values that help service members get the mission done while inspiring them to the very best at all times. These values are integrity, courage, honesty, responsibility, accountability, justice, openness, self-respect, and humility. Airmen are taught to study them, follow them, and encourage others to do the same through their actions and words.
These would have been drilled into her head during her training, and the word “more” flies in the face of it all. (Yes, the pilot pun was intended.) This conflict between humility and fighting for “more” lies at the very core of Captain Marvel. It can illuminate the many times she has fallen and succeeded as a superhero and as an airwoman.
It wouldn’t take Carol long to go from airwoman to cosmically-powered superwoman. She retired from the Air Force to take a position at NASA as head of security. This allowed her to leave the service a full colonel. (Take that, Captain America! She outranks you.) It was during her stint at NASA that Carol first encountered the man who would change her life, Mar-Vell. He was a soldier of the Kree, an interstellar empire that bowed down to a giant talking head called the Supreme Intelligence. (No jokes there; sometimes superhero comic books get silly.) Carol was eventually kidnapped by another alien called Yon-Rogg. Mar-Vell attempted to rescue her and, during his battle with Yon-Rogg, Carol was exposed to the Kree Psyche-Magnitron. The Psyche-Magnitron’s only purpose was to confer superhuman abilities to people! Of all the alien supermachines in all the galaxy Carol could have bumped into, she sure picked the right one! Although Carol was unaware of her new abilities at first, she would eventually don a costume and join the ranks of costumed vigilantes as Ms. Marvel—a tip of the hat to Captain Marvel, the alien hero who had rescued her.
Recently, the Life of Captain Marvel mini-series, written by Margaret Stohl, revealed that Carol’s mother was actually a Kree alien. So, instead of the alien device giving her superpowers randomly, the origin has now been changed to the Psyche-Magnitron activating her latent Kree abilities. Overall, I predict this small change will do little to alter the arc of Carol Danvers stories going forward.
Another one of the United States Air Force’s core values is justice: “Those who do similar things must get similar rewards or similar punishments.”
It’s this value that, I think, led Carol to seek out—and later join—the Avengers. This team of “Earth’s Mightiest Heroes” gathered to fight the foes no single hero could withstand. Carol would be drawn to this team because it has a very militaristic culture. (She does outrank Captain America, remember?) The Avengers have a team leader who gives orders, they take votes on who can join, and they even have access to the government’s criminal files. This core belief of justice in Carol’s head, the one that probably has been nagging her since her time in the Air Force, can finally be honored by joining a super team.
It takes years for Carol to adopt the moniker and rank of “Captain Marvel” officially. Maybe it is a sign of deference to Mar-Vell—a man she very much admired—or maybe she didn’t want to be accused of being a superhero copycat. (Marvel isn’t as fond of legacy characters as DC Comics is.) It wasn’t until Steve Rogers insisted that Carol began to call herself by that designation in the field. All it took was a simple dare from an old Army soldier.
Writer Kelly Sue DeConnick threw Carol into a situation where she had to directly confront the nature of the military. Not content with giving Carol her promotion from Ms. Marvel to Captain Marvel, DeConnick wished to send Carol directly to war—World War II, that is. In Captain Marvel Volume 7, through a series of time-travel shenanigans, Carol finds herself in a hairy combat situation on a battlefield. She has no way out. Suddenly, she’s rescued by the Women’s Air Service Pilots Banshee Squad, Class of 1943!
First, I have to admit my bias. I generally do not enjoy stories about characters being lost or thrown into a time period other than their own. However, having Carol confront airwomen of the past is an intriguing turn in the plot. How will she react to their decisions? How will they react to hers? The possible issues are endless, as we see two generations of servicemembers from different times, with different points of view, confronting combat.
After spending some time with the Banshee Squad, Carol admits to the group that her problem-solving methods generally involve “blasting it, punching it, outrunning it, or throwing it into space”—meaning that she is an attack-first-and-ask-questions-later type of woman. Interestingly enough, she directly contradicts this statement two issues later. In issue three of the DeConnick run, Carol