CAPTAIN MARVEL

 

CAPTAIN MARVEL

Real Name: Mar-Vell

First Appearance: Marvel Super-Heroes (Vol. 1) #12, December 1967

Powers: Captain Marvel is a pink-skinned member of the Kree race. Due to the fact that Hala, the Kree homeworld, possesses roughly 50% greater gravity than Earth, Mar-Vell and other Kree have enhanced strength, speed, endurance, and reflexes compared to humans. When he first came to Earth, he wore the official militia uniform of the Kree Empire, made of a vibration-distorting fiber that insulated him from physical impact. On his wrist he wore a U-beam projector capable of generating a blinding flash, a darklight blackout cone of energy, or a coherent beam of force. He could also chose to lace the projected beam with magnetic particles, turning anything it struck into a powerful electromagnet, drawing metal objects towards it. The small belt jets he wore on his sides enabled him to fly.

After being exiled from the Kree for sympathizing with Earth, Mar-Vell was approached by the mysterious entity known as Zo, who infused him with exotic radiation that gave Captain Marvel superhuman strength and durability, the power to teleport himself from place to place on a planet's surface or across intergalactic distances, and an illusion-casting power allowing to create convincing visual and auditory projections to fool his opponents. After making his way to Hala, he discovered "Zo" was actually a construct of insurrectionists Zarek and Ronan, attempting to overthrow the Supreme Intelligence with him as a pawn. Instead, Mar-Vell threw himself on a negation grenade protecting the Intelligence. For his bravery, the Intelligence didn't kill him, gave him his classic costume, and sent him on his way back to Earth. On his way, though, Mar-Vell's molecules abruptly reversed polarity (a delayed effect from the grenade) and he was tossed into the Negative Zone. On the Supreme Intelligence's direction, he used his illusion powers to lure young Rick Jones to a hidden Kree outpost on Earth, and beckoned him to place a pair of nega bands onto his wrists. The Supreme Intelligence ensured a psychic link and molecular bond were forged between Jones and Mar-Vell, beginning the most important era of Captain Marvel's life.

Mar-Vell and Rick were in constant mental contact with each other, with one always in the Negative Zone and one on Earth. By banging the bands together, Rick could trade places with Captain Marvel, sending himself into the Negative Zone surrounded by an aura of energy that prevented him from bumping into the anti-matter there and exploding. The nega bands performed a similar relief for he while he was in the positive universe. Mar-Vell could bang the bands together and switch back with Rick, or they would automatically exchange places after he was on Earth for three hours. Everything that had happened since the negation grenade apparently eradicated all traces of Zo's influence on Captain Marvel, removing his superhuman powers. The nega bands, however, gave him a new set of abilities: They enabled him to harness his own psionic energy and utilize it to give himself superhuman Class 15 strength, endurance, reflexes, durability, the power to fly and survive in the vacuum of outer space. Marvel's connection to Rick was temporarily terminated at the onset of the Kree-Skrull War when he had the Fantastic Four use their Negative Zone portal to retrieve Rick, so that they both could exist in the positive universe at once. By the end of the war, however, Rick was critically injured in battle. Mar-Vell sacrificed his own life so that the Supreme Intelligence could physically fuse his molecules with Rick's, enabling Mar-Vell's healthy mass to replenish and fill in the damaged areas of Rick's own body. Captain Marvel was supposedly dead at this point, but months later he made contact with Rick mentally, explaining that his consciousness existed without a body, tied to Rick's own existence.

Working with a scientist he contacted, Rick determined that exposure to solar radiation would bring Mar-Vell back to corporeal form. The theory was correct, and the two of them once more began switching back and forth between Earth and the Negative Zone. Captain Marvel now had new powers thanks to the solar radiation treatments -- he could now absorb sunlight and use it to amplify the nega bands' power, more than doubling his strength and physical levels. He could also radiate blinding flashes of light from the bands or photonic force blasts. At night, away from a constantly replenishing source of solar energy, Mar-Vell operated at roughly half strength.During an extended war with the Titan, Thanos, Captain Marvel was contacted by the entity known as Eon and tapped to become Protector of the Universe. This gave him the power of Cosmic Awareness, which put him in touch with the pulse of the universe. Technically, this power gave Mar-Vell access to all knowledge in the universe, providing he knew where to look for it. In practice, he only employed it in certain ways. he could focus on someone's psi-signature or a residual energy signature and follow it back to its source. His intuitive abilities were enhanced, making his guesswork far more accurate than the laws of probability normally allowed. he also occasionally received flashes of knowledge or inspiration as his subconscious happened to locate information in the universe relating to something he was thinking about, giving him sudden bursts of clairvoyance that told him where a certain person or item was, what was about to happen in his presence or at some other location, etc.

As Captain Marvel and Rick's bond developed, they developed new abilities through the nega bands. The could now trigger the switch at will, without having to bang the bands, and could separate on command as well, splitting from their molecular bonding to operate independently on Earth for as long as they wanted. While they were bonded, though, Mar-Vell was now capable of harnessing Rick's psionic energy in addition to his own, boosting his powers even further. With intense concentration, one partner could even animate the unconscious body of the other, controlling it from across the dimensional barriers as if it were their own. This wasn't meant to last, however, and as Captain Marvel flew by a black hole, it all went down the crapper. The black hole messed up their link considerably, costing them all of their new abilities and preventing Rick and Mar-Vell from even talking to each other anymore mentally. What's more, the positive energy field which protected them in the Negative Zone was on the fritz, and neither of them could spend more than a few hours in the Zone at a time without having to switch out (Captain Marvel's body had readjusted to being positive matter at some point during his adventures). Ultimately, he figured out how to beat this problem by attacking the Super-Adaptoid, getting it to mimic his nega bands, and then banging those bands together, summoning Rick from the Negative Zone while casting the Adaptoid into that anti-matter universe forever. A few years later, however, Captain Marvel died of cancer.