LIFE IN FOUR COLORS #37
CAPTAIN MARVEL: DEAD OR ALIVE?
by Bill Gladman
No your eyes do not deceive you. This is a brand new edition of my Life in Four Colors column. It was this column that brought me to the Comic Related site three years ago as Chuck Moore promised me a place where I could have a voice in regards to my love for comics, a debt I can never fully repay him for.
The column went on to run every two weeks (every other Friday) for over a year before I had to scale it down to once a month for personal reasons. The column actually stopped at one time before I started it back up only to formally kill it off with column #36 which was a special tribute to good friend Ron Fortier. At the time the column had ran for the better part of two years and I felt it had a good run. Computer problems and an increasingly busy schedule which included helping establish the first comic shop in Springfield, Ohio in over ten years, the first comic book convention in Springfield in almost twenty years, and the first creative comic book studio in Springfield in over ten years kept getting in the way of me actually making time to work on writing new columns.
Needless to say with the time constraints brought on by those feats, family life, and a new job...Life in Four Colors remained dead and buried for over a year.
But as we all know, in the world of comics, nothing and nobody stays dead forever. There were people who really loved this column and really wanted to see it return. I did do a few special editions of the column but I never really had any real thought of bringing the actual column back, until a recent phone conversation with Chuck Moore. He suggested it, again, and for whatever reason this time around I was open to the suggestion, but the best answer I could give him at the time was, "let me think about it a little."
And I did think about it and pretty much came to the decision I was going to try and do it again. Dust off the column and write a new one at least once a month. This train of thought cruised on down the tracks when talking to good friend Dustin Carson while he dropped by to support Joe Pruitt and I at a recent book signing at Main Street Comics and Games. We talked about a few things and I filed a couple of those conversations under "that would make a great column" mental file. And my favorite conversation with Dustin that day which I was going to make my "Back To Life" column and that I intended to call "One Voice" was on it's way.
Then something very strange and quite unexpected happened. Chuck Moore sold Comic Related to Robert W. Hickey. Suddenly I had no idea where I fit into the how "New" Comic Related scheme of things. Rumors spread like wildfire. Bob was out to clean house. Then I got the news that the RaynMan podcast that I work on with Frank Raynor and Brant Fowler was going to be "axed", then came the news of the web comic I started with Eric Ratcliffe and Chad Strohl two years ago (New Comic Day for those of you who ,like Eric, live in a cave) was also a victim of the new "Darklord"...Price For The Asking, my second weekly web comic that I am fortunate enough to work with Ron Fortier and again Brant Fowler was next to be killed off.
It appeared that my connection to Comic Related was quickly coming to an end. This was indeed a new era for what I considered the best comic book web site in the world, and the good ol' G-Man was feeling very much like a dinosaur staring up at a blazing asterroid. There was apparently no room or interest in my "voice" at CR any more, and it looked like my planned resurrection of the LIFC column was stopped dead in its tracks. I was on the verge of being weeded out and just about ready to close the door on three years of my life.
Until a week or so ago...a couple of other things happened. The first of which was at Champion City Con 2011...
..but I'll get to that one in just a moment. The second being the fact I listened to the Related Recap podcast # 291, which featured Chuck Moore having a sit down discussion with new Comic Related owner Bob Hickey. Let me quickly add here I had met Bob at least three times, the very first time a few years ago a S.P.A.C.E when his table was next to the Comic Related table, and I believe at least once if not twice before at Gem City. Maybe even one time the very first year of Champion City...I'm not sure about that. Champion City is always a blur to me. Anyway Bob seemed like a good guy. And I was sure he did have a reason for doing everything he was doing. This podcast revealed that Bob did have a long term plan to make this site even better, and signs of that are already evident. And he explained why he had eliminated a few things around the site with a great sense of professionalism.
I was getting very excited about the future of Comic Related listening to this show...and Bob went on to mention the site would be needing as much written material as possible, material from some of the people involved with projects no longer tied to Comic Related would be nice. John Wilson mentioned the same thing to Frank and I at Champion City when he was man enough to tell the two of us in person the live episode of RaynMan we had just recorded was going to be our last "hoorah" as far as RaynMan was concerned at Comic Related. And I did fit into the category of past writer...possible future writer who no longer had other outlets at the site. So...maybe there was room for the relaunch of LIFC after all?
But...let's go back in time about an hour...the recording of the very last RaynMan episode for the site, which was recorded live at the Champion City show. Chad Strohl had made a comment during the recording of that ill-fated podcast about Captain Marvel being alive again. And that he should be the "one character" that Marvel Comics should just leave dead.
I couldn't agree more. The Death of Captain Marvel as seen in Marvel Graphic Novel #1 written and illustrated to comic telling perfection by the masterful Jim Starlin was a true classic that should never be watered down by the needless resurrection of the noble hero who died of cancer in those same pages.
But as Chad quickly learned as another member of the studio audience and I informed him, the Captain Marvel that had returned from the dead a few years ago right at the end of the "Civil War" and right before the "Secret Invasion" was a Skrull. The only good thing about Secret Invasion was this Captain Marvel series written by Brian Reed and illustrated by Lee Weeks, which I recently discussed on the RaynMan podcast.
The true Captain Marvel had escaped the fate of Adam Warlock, Bucky, and Jean Grey where these characters were brought back to life, nullifying the conclusion of some of the best comic stories ever told, only to go on to do nothing of real importance in the Marvel Universe before getting killed off a second time in a cheap death that insulted the character, the readers, and the creators associated to the first story. This is of course most true with Jean Grey. I did enjoy "a few" stories since Warlock's resurrection but none were strong enough to justify ruining the conclusion of Avengers Annual #7, and I was a big fan of Bucky as Captain America but his recent second death...or first real death (depends how you look at it) in the dreadful Fear Itself storyline is simply inexcusable.
But the confusion about the fact if Captain Marvel was alive or dead during Champion City got the wheels turning. IF I decided to bring my column "Back To Life" I wanted to write about this. And don't worry other topics including "One Voice" and about four others will soon be featured in Life in Four Colors columns of their own.
Right now...we continue to look at the strange life after death Captain Marvel has had. Most notably I suppose is the revelation that Mar-Vell had three children...two sons and one daughter. One son was the product of a brief love affair with Princess Annelle of the Skrull race, hated enemies of the Kree. Mar-Vell was not aware of any of these children at the time of his death, and actually two of them were not even alive when he died...but that's a story to be discussed another time.
Two of his children would go on to carry on the Captain Marvel "Legacy"...
...and both would get killed off in deaths not quite as heroic or noble as their own father.
And as for Captain Marvel himself...he's had quite an unique existence since his death. I mean for a dead character he does pop up quite often, without the writing crutch of being brought back to life. And for the most part the stories the character has appeared in have been pretty good. I think the first time I can recall reading a story featuring Captain Marvel...and with the character remaining dead was in Avengers Annual #16.
This was the conclusion of a two part story that started in the West Coast Avengers Annual of the same year and The Captain found himself along with several other dead characters manipulated by Death and The Grandmaster as pawns in a contest against the Avengers.
As seen on this cover we see yet another character that died an epic death that was later ruined in a weak re-writing of the story in question. That would be the Green Goblin and like the characters mentioned earlier he should have just stayed dead. The details of him "surviving" his death were less than spectacular and everything he's been involved with since are nothing of any real merit. Same goes for the second Green Goblin...he should have stayed dead as well. His death in Spectacular Spider-Man #200 was well...spectacular. His return to the land of the living and what has come afterward...a waste of staples.
But we were talking about Captain Marvel, weren't we. And the next time he would show up...still dead...was in Silver Surfer # 63...during the Ron Marz and Ron Lim run on the title.
Later in a story created by the man that was famous for the stories featuring Captain Marvel's son and the man responsible for the classic stories of the original Captain...Peter David and Jim Starlin ...the son would actually battle the father...to the death...that is if a dead character can really die...in the "new" Captain Marvel (old Legacy) # 11.
The name "Captain Marvel" has always been around in one form or another, being used by one character or another at Marvel...
...including his own son or daughter... for licensing purposes more than anything else, that's why another Captain Marvel has to referred to as Shazam after all...the true Captain Marvel would not appear again until Guardians of the Galaxy #11...
...this time it would be the father versus the daughter (now calling herself Quasar seeing how that name was momentarily available) in the land of death and psychosis.
From there he would lead the most bizarre group ever...the Dead Avengers in a limited series of the same name.
A surprisingly well done and entertaining story that tied in with a Marvel cross over event called "Chaos War" and like the Captain Marvel tie-in to the Secret Invasion...
...Dead Avengers was by far the best part of the entire "Chaos War" fiasco.
But perhaps the most interesting use of the character since he died was in the cosmic epic entitled ';Thanos Imperative."
In this story written by Cosmic Marvel writing team supreme Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning the tables are turned on the long standing feud between Captain Marvel and his bitter rival Thanos as The Mad Titan is the only thing that can save our universe from a Captain Marvel who is the ruler of the Revengers and an iron clad space tyrant from the "Cancerverse."
The guy sure does get around for a guy that's been dead for over twenty years now.
But you know what? I think there's a way to keep using Captain Marvel...and keep him dead at the same time. The time is right for a character like Captain Marvel to return to the Marvel Universe. In the correct hands (like mine, Ron Fortier's or Mike Luoma's) Captain Marvel would the perfect star in a series that features him as a champion of the "Afterlife." His noble duty this time around would not be a soldier of the Kree...or the Protector of the Universe. No, instead his new role would be to ensure that the cosmic balance is maintained and when a character is killed...that same character stays dead.
Forever.
And there you have it the first of a series of a brand new Life in Four Colors columns...where I kick it off exactly where I left it...talking about The Captain.
Until next time...see you in the funny papers. (been a while since I said ...or typed...that)
Bill Gladman - Bill is a writer and illustrator and currently working on several different projects including the first issue of an ongoing comic book series (Prodigy), an illustrated fantasy novel (The Book of Noheim), and the first of four illustrated science fiction/fantasy novels (Jack the Rabbit, Living Legend of the Purple Plains) as well as a light-hearted on going mini-comic (Three Wise Men), and co-creator of the hit webcomic New Comic Day. Bill also writes the column Life in Four Colors and contributes reviews and such from time to time.
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