The Heroes Formerly Known As…

A few posts ago I detailed how Carol Danvers was the seventh holder of the title of Captain Marvel, due to the Marvel Comics tradition of reusing and passing around a name just to keep it relevant.

And that ended up leading me to what I’ll be looking at this month. It’s another Marvel trope: the constantly rebranded hero. Because in addition to reusing character names, Marvel also has a long tradition of creating characters who go through name changes more often than Batman goes through Robins (different company, I know).

This was partly inspired by that previous post because the one thing that almost all (five out of seven) of the various Captain Marvels seem to have in common besides sharing the same name is that they’ve made their way through multiple other names as well. Two of the seven Captain Marvels have gone by four different aliases during the colourful careers, and they’re not alone. Here I’ll rundown a short list of some of the notable Marvel heroes who’ve found themselves facing more than one identity crisis over the years.

Carol Danvers (aka: Ms. Marvel, Binary, Warbird, Captain Marvel)

After getting her powers absorbed by Rogue, Ms. Marvel unlocked new, cosmic level powers and took on the name Binary. After reverting to her original powers but keeping a fraction of her Binary powers, she rebranded herself as Warbird. Eventually she reclaimed her Ms. Marvel title before moving on to take the mantle of Captain Marvel.

 

Monica Rambeau (aka: Captain Marvel, Photon, Pulsar, Spectrum)

Monica gave up the mantle of Captain Marvel to pass it on to the original Captain Marvel’s son, Genis-Vell. She then started calling herself Photon, until Genis-Vell felt it was time to move on from Captain Marvel and started calling himself  Photon — and suggested Monica take on the name Pulsar…so she did.

Not too long after that Monica decided that a name that was more descriptive of her light-based powers was in order, and she has since been known as Spectrum.

 

Tabitha Smith (aka: Time Bomb, Boom-Boom, Boomer, Meltdown)

As a trendy teen, mutant Tabitha Smith started her “X-Men adjacent” superhero career bouncing from one name to the next (Time Bomb, Boom-Boom, Boomer) before finally settling on what appeared to be her “grown-up” moniker, Meltdown.

She eventually ditched the code name schtick altogether, but for her recent return to action she’s swapped the trendiness for nostalgia, and is once again answering to Boom-Boom.

 

Hank Pym (aka: Ant-Man, Giant-Man, Goliath, Yellowjacket, Dr. Pym, The Wasp, Ultron)

Oh, Hank. Hank, Hank, Hank.

The original Ant-Man, Hank Pym’s first name change was a practical one. Rejiggering his patented Pym particles, instead of shrinking down to the size of an ant, he used them to grow as big as a giant. Accordingly, he started going by Giant-Man. Apparently realizing that it wasn’t a very creative name, he went for something a little catchier. Enter: Goliath. Eventually he went back to Ant-Man, but then his erratic behaviour and growing mental issues triggered not just another name change, but a persona change, in the form of Yellowjacket (fun fact: all four of these names would eventually be taken up by at least one other person at some point).

Later, a clear-headed Hank decided to ditch the shrinking and the growing and the hanging out with insects, and return to his science-y roots, becoming simply known as Dr. Pym. Of course, this didn’t last for long and he reappeared as both Giant-Man and Yellowjacket before retiring from super-heroing again.

That is, until he decided to suit back up for service following the presumed death of his ex-wife, Janet Van Dyne. Wanting to honour her, he carried on her legacy by taking on her codename, The Wasp (making him the second of three people to go by that alias). Alas, one more name change loomed ahead, and as with the first, it was for a practical (and unavoidable) reason. After merging with the murderous A.I. that he himself created, Hank Pym (or what’s left of him) is now known as Ultron.

Hmm…maybe this should be taken as a cautionary tale for all of the denizens of the Marvel Universe; do the multi-name mambo if you must, but if you keep trying to change who you are, eventually you might end up literally losing yourself, forever. Or rather, “forever” (this is comics after all, where nothing—not even death—is permanent).

Captain Marvel and Marvel’s Problems with Establishing Legacy

Thanks to the latest MCU blockbuster, the whole world knows of Marvel’s premiere female powerhouse, Carol Danvers, aka Captain Marvel.

Personally, I have issues with Captain Marvel. Namely, that Carol Danvers doesn’t deserve to be called Captain Marvel.

She deserves better than that.

Although she’s been around for over 40 years, it was only recently that Carol Danvers became known as “Captain Marvel”. But she deserves to be known by the name she debuted with: Ms. Marvel. What Marvel (the company) would like for everyone—movie-goers and comic fanboys alike—to believe is that the title of “Captain Marvel” is a step up from Ms. Marvel, that it’s a prestigious and honourific title, one that is on par with “Captain America”.

But it’s not.

And the reason it’s not is all due to Marvel’s ongoing practice of not treating their own creations with the respect they deserve. Of not establishing meaningful legacy. And its why Carol Danvers, who was established and known for decades as the original Ms. Marvel is now the seventh Marvel character to take up the mantle of “Captain Marvel”. SEVENTH.

And YOU get to be Captain Marvel, and YOU get to be Captain Marvel…everybody gets to be Captain Marvel!

Marvel has a history of using and re-using established names on non-related properties for strictly commercial reasons. The first being to simply reap the benefits that come with giving a new property a name with built-in consumer recognition, even if said name makes no sense character-wise and only seems to offer up confusion and spur misrepresentation. What results then is a Marvel Universe where a character like Spider-Woman is created strictly so Marvel can copyright the name, which it then passes around over the years from it’s originator to three other, completely unrelated, characters (and one Skrull), each time making the name feel less significant—and the new name-holders less unique—before finally returning it to the original owner.

The second reason is when Marvel needs to reuse a character’s name in order to keep its trademark on it, which brings us back to Captain Marvel. Now, the original character to be named “Captain Marvel” wasn’t even a Marvel creation (that would be the former Fawcett, current DC character hitting the big screens this week as Shazam!), but in the 1960s Marvel spotted a publication window in which they could swoop in and create a character of their own with the same name and trademark it. So that’s exactly what they did.

Keepin’ the trademark alive

Obviously having a company named “Marvel” and a major character named “Captain Marvel” was a great piece of branded synergy, but to keep a trademark like this active, Marvel needed to use it in the marketplace on a regular basis (i.e. as the title of a publication).

The problem though, was that after a few years it was apparent that their Captain Marvel wasn’t really catching on enough to justify the continued publication of his own monthly (or even bi-monthly) comic. So eventually, Marvel just up and killed off their Captain Marvel in the early 1980s.

And what you have unfolding since then in the Marvel Universe is every few years a new character takes on the name Captain Marvel. He or she then keeps the trademark alive by appearing in few one-shots, a mini-series, or short-lived ongoing series, then after failing to make any lasting marketplace impact, vacates the name, leaving it open for the next would-be trademark saviour.

Enter Carol Danvers.

Originally part of the ’60s Captain Marvel supporting cast, she burst on the super-scene in the late ’70s with her own title, Ms. Marvel. She was a direct female counterpart to Captain Marvel (much like Supergirl to Superman), but with a unique enough spin to stand out on her own (even if her original costume was very derivative of Captain Marvel’s).

Over the course of her existence, she came to surpass the original and all subsequent “Captain Marvel”s in popularity. As Ms. Marvel, she went from the darling of the public eye to near obscurity following the cancellation of her first title, only to re-emerge, years later, soaring to even greater heights with an undeniable staying power. And then she was re-branded as the latest “Captain Marvel”.

Marvel tried to spin this as major thing for Carol, with her questioning if she was worthy of the name. Marvel tried to make out that this was “giving Carol the title she deserves” when it was really more about “bestowing ‘Captain Marvel’ on an established character with proven staying power”. Because, come on—the second Captain Marvel (Monica Rambeau) took on the name because it was what the press has started calling her. She didn’t even know there had been a previous Captain Marvel until The Thing from the Fantastic Four told her. So yeah, “Captain Marvel” is not really a title one needs to be worthy of, according to Marvel’s own deployment of it over the years.

And all it has done is taken away the uniqueness that Carol had as Ms. Marvel, a name that is even less unique now that it is being used by teen hero Kamala Kahn (currently the third person with zero ties to Carol Danvers who has taken posession of her “Ms. Marvel” moniker) and now Carol is saddled with what has become a pretty generic name in the Marvel Universe and a new costume that still manages to be derivative of Marvel’s original Captain Marvel.

Carol Danvers, the once and former Ms. Marvel

It was Ms. Marvel that Marvel launched as their premiere female powerhouse heroine. It was Ms. Marvel that came back from comic book obscurity to a successful 50-issue relaunch run, it was Ms. Marvel who was handpicked by Tony Stark to lead the Mighty Avengers, but she’s only being portrayed as having “come into her own” now that she’s been given the hand-me-down title of “Captain Marvel”.

Carol’s Captain Marvel was given the big PR push by Marvel, but with her signature long locks chopped short plus the new name and the new costume, she was practically unrecognizable as the former Ms. Marvel and  just seemed like “the latest Captain Marvel”.

Still, Marvel has placed her front and center everywhere they can (and they have done well as establishing her as Earth’s mightiest hero) but even though she sports a dedicated fanbase, Carol’s Captain Marvel solo title has never been able to keep its grasp on a significant audience, despite being relaunched 3 times since its 2011 debut. The latest Captain Marvel hit the shelves this past January with the second-highest comic book sales of month, moving over 110,000 issues. However, February’s follow-up issue plummeted to #39, moving just over a third of that—36,000 copies—which is one of the steepest first-to-second issue sales drops in recent memory.

The Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Carol Danvers/Captain Marvel may be flying high, but it feels like in taking away all that made her “Ms.“, Marvel has clipped comic book Carol’s wings.