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Comics You Might Want to Read Before Seeing Captain Marvel

Captain Marvel is out on Friday, March the 8th. You don't need to have seen or read anything before to enjoy the movie, but you might want to anyway. Here are a few things that might enhance your enjoyment even more.

Marvel Movies: Avengers Assemble. The first Avengers movie written and directed by Joss Whedon. With major roles from Sam Jackson and Clark Gregg as Nick Fury and Agent Coulson, in many ways, Captain Marvel works as a prequel for this movie. And very specifically, Captain America: The First Avenger also works as a prequel to Captain Marvel. While Guardians Of The Galaxy features characters who also appear earlier in their lives in this film, and help set up the idea of the Kree defence forces. And, of course, Avengers: Infinity War has that scene with the pager, which does get referenced here. You will definitely get more from this movie if you are familiar with these four films for obvious reasons once you have seen it. But also, if you've never seen them, you won't know what you missed.

Other movies: Top Gun is the big one, with Carol Danvers and Maria Rambeau playing the Maverick and Goose roles. And yes, the cat is called Goose. You know, that's probably all you need.

The other big movie to watch would be Kevin Smith's Mallrats, in that you get to see a Stan Lee de-aged to 1995, the time when he would be making his first movie cameo.

Marvel Comics: Okay, there's plenty here, and you really don't have to read decades worth of comics. But if I was to pick a handful of things to know going in…

Comics You Might Want to Read Before Seeing Captain Marvel

Carol Danvers was first created by Roy Thomas and Gene Colan in Marvel Super-Heroes #13 back in 1968 as a talented fighter pilot, a former Air Force officer and CIA operative hired as security director of NASA.

Comics You Might Want to Read Before Seeing Captain Marvel

After being caught in an explosion caused by the Kree's Yon-Rogg with the Kree warrior Marv-Vell, dubbed Captain Marvel in 1969's Captain Marvel #18…

Comics You Might Want to Read Before Seeing Captain Marvel

…she resurfaced almost a decade later in Ms. Marvel #1 in 1977 with brand-new superpowers as result of her human DNA having merged with Captain Marvel's Kree DNA in the explosion…

Comics You Might Want to Read Before Seeing Captain Marvel

..in the new series written by Gerry Conway and later by Chris Claremont.

Comics You Might Want to Read Before Seeing Captain Marvel

It cannot be overemphasised what a radically feminist thing it was to do for Marvel to publish a character with that name in 1979. It was full social justice warrior mode. Now, it did have a new Marvel hero's power base reliant on the agency of a male character (albeit it a Kree man) as well as the branding, along the lines of Spider-Woman and She-Hulk, but it's good to read that original story – and then see how it differs in the movie. It differs less than some think.

Comics You Might Want to Read Before Seeing Captain Marvel

Claremont would later transform Carol Danvers into the cosmic being Binary, in Uncanny X-Men #164 in 1982, as well as have the mutant character Rogue absorb her powers and get part of her personality in the process. It is notable that in the movie, Captain Marvel demonstrates powers closer to her Binary character.

Comics You Might Want to Read Before Seeing Captain Marvel

After the death of Mar-Vell, Marvel got a new Captain Marvel in Monica Rambeau, created by Roger Stern and John Romita Jr for Amazing Spider-Man, who could transform herself into electromagnetic energy, She became one of Marvel's most powerful characters and led the Avengers. In the movie, Carol Danvers' fellow pilot Maria Rambeau is the mother of a young Monica Rambeau.

Carol Danvers returned to her Ms Marvel identity, by way of Warbird for a time, before being persuaded to take on the Captain Marvel name by Captain America.

Comics You Might Want to Read Before Seeing Captain Marvel

And so everything was reinvented for Captain Marvel Vol 8 #1 from 2014. The one where Kelly Sue DeConnick and David Lopez took over and reinvented the character, with Jamie McKelvie's new costume design, and it is the version that has run since. It is these creators who get the biggest credit in the movie, after Stan Lee, with Kelly making a cameo too, and it is the way Carol Danvers appears in these comics that most informs her character onscreen. And yes, it is surprising just how many scenes are picked up from this volume and cut and pasted into the movie. The first volume, dubbed Higher, Further, Faster, More, sets up so much from the film which in no way being a slavish recreation. As we said, it even has her cat.

Comics You Might Want to Read Before Seeing Captain Marvel

But damn, if you have read the first couple of volumes, there is one specific joke you'll get and think is a red herring for people who have read this comic – and then see it play out just as it you never thought it would…

If you read nothing else before seeing Captain Marvel, these are the volumes to fill up on. And you should enjoy, whatever you've read or not…


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Rich JohnstonAbout Rich Johnston

Founder of Bleeding Cool. The longest-serving digital news reporter in the world, since 1992. Author of The Flying Friar, Holed Up, The Avengefuls, Doctor Who: Room With A Deja Vu, The Many Murders Of Miss Cranbourne, Chase Variant. Lives in South-West London, works from Blacks on Dean Street, shops at Piranha Comics. Father of two. Political cartoonist.
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