It's a Surprise Sunday with Captain Marvel !

Again posts lead to other posts which leads to even more posts. After my work on my newest tribute post for mexican telenovela booty queen Aylin Mujica and the bonus post were seriously sabotaged by YouTube deleting all the episodes of Marina ( so I hope you watched them while they still were up ) - which was the main reason why I made those posts in the first place - I had to completely overhaul these posts ( thankfully I included enough material from mexican adult magazine EL MIL CHISTES in the bonus post so that it could stand on its own ) plus my Weissblech Comics tribute post ( which is where the whole thing started ) so there were not that many new posts ( plus I just had to replace a dozen films that have been deleted which got rid of quite a few good ones but on a positive side MOM AND DAD SAVE THE WORLD and THE FIFTH ELEMENT are back and we can welcome THE SUBSTITUTE with Tom Berenger ) but while I was working on the bonus section of my post about the forgotten pre Captain Marvel Miss Marvel Carol Danvers ( which was a spin - off from my DAZZLER post) the part about the one true real female Captain Marvel - Monica Rambeau - got longer and longer and the more work I put in the more I realized how much I love AVENGERS 227 and that it would be a real shame to bury it all in the bonus section of another post.

I have one more link to add before wrapping the whole Carol Danvers as Captain Marvel instead of Miss Marvel thing up since our good pal Brian Cronin has a new entry in his Comic Book Dictionary series over at COMIC BOOK RESOURCES called Monica Rambeau And The Benefits Of Chronical Privilegewhere he tries to explain the fact that Carol Danvers got a lot of backlash when she was presented as the newest female and bestest Captain Marvel ever while Monica Rambeau never got the same reaction.

He mentions that there are a lot of cases where BIPOC characters have usurped the mantle of longstanding caucasian white male characters who got a lot of backlash from longtime comicbook readers and that - again - this was not the case with Monica Rambeau. BUT then Brian completely misses the point and goes on a rant about what he calls " chronical privilege "that is complete bs. Now before we get any further I have to explain one thing. Two things if you are a guy like me who is not in the loop with acronyms the media uses to marginalize people.

Because then you are going " What the heck is BIPOC ? Sounds like a disease. "but it's not. It is a new term to separate even more people from caucasian white guys by calling them Black or Indigenous or People Of Color instead of specifying about which part of non white people you are talking. First of all I find it very telling that even with the need to coin a new term to unite all people who are oppressed by whitey black people are still mentioned first instead of just being included in the part of people of color. All people in this acronym are oppressed but black people are even more oppressed by them than the other people of color.

Second why can't the cancel pigs just say " everybody who is not white but including white people as soon as they belong to an indigenous tribe "if that is clearly what they want to say here. Second what the frikk is " chronal privilege "? That sounds just like a very fancy way of not saying " nostalgia "because that old argument has been debunked ad infinitum.

Well, Brian's theory here is that people react differently to things that happened BEFORE they started reading comics than things that happen WHILE they are reading comics. So because Monica Rambeau became Captain Marvel BEFORE a lot of people started reading comicbooks and was Captain Marvel and a member of the Avengers already WHILE they were reading comicbooks they don't feel she usurped the mantle of Captain Marvel and thus they are okay with her. And that's why she gets a hall pass. Which is a nice theory but of course it is completely bogus.

According to that theory Monica could never be one of my favourite Avengers. Because while Mar - Vell was the first Captain Marvel BEFORE I started reading comics he still was the only Captain Marvel ( at least in the Marvel universe we also had the original Billy Batson Captain Marvel at Fawcett Comics ) WHILE I began my comicbook journey. As longtime followers of the blog know I am a huge Gene Colan fan no matter if he was drawing THE TOMB OF DRACULA written by Marv Wolfman and inked by Tom Palmer or DAREDEVIL or DOCTOR STRANGE and he was the first artist on CAPTAIN MARVEL. Which I read in the german translations.

Later on there were other great creators on the title like Gil Kane who changed his old costume to the iconic 70s version and they also paid homage to the Billy Batson Captain Marvel by having him switch places with Rick Jones. Captain Marvel was also in a few very iconic stories like when Thanos made him old and decrepit but he managed to shatter the cosmic cube Thanos was using and so defeated Thanos and got young again or when Thanos killed Adam Warlock to get his soul gem so he could use it and a few other infinity gems ( the term infinity stones was invented much later ) to conquer the universe and the Avengers and all of the heroes of Earth had to team up to stop him but in the end it was Spider - Man and Adam Warlock who returned from death who saved the day or in the graphic novel The Death Of Captain Marvel by Jim Starlin .

There are just decades of great lore with Captain Mar - Vell. Which I loved. So according to Brian Cronin I should have shipped MY Captain Marvel instead of liking this new Captain Marvel who not only was female but also black. And you can read my post on her first appearance here .

So why do people like me like Monica Rambeau instead of complaining that she is stealing Mar - Vell's thunder ? I can't speak for everybody but my first introduction was NOT her first appearance but rather issue 227 of AVENGERS and I have to put things into perspective for my readers.

Back then I was still living in Germany and we didn't get many american comicbooks especially in the small town where I lived. Now as I have recounted many times I had the luck to go to school in the next big city Ludwigsburg for which I had to use public transportation and at the big bus stop at the city hall there was a newsstand where you could buy all kinds of stuff from beverages to tobacco, pulp magazines, magazines like PLAYBOY, regular magazines, books, pocket books and even comicbooks.

Normally just the usual comicbooks that you would get at newsstands, paper shops or Mom and Pop shops but one day they also had american comicbooks. As some of my readers from the US may know there were many american soldiers stationed in Germany at that time because of the cold war and naturally a lot of these G.I,s read comicbooks and so sometimes the comics found their way to regular german newsstands.

Not that many compared to the output of german comicbooks but we were young and desperate and hungry for anything new so that we snatched up the few US comics very quickly. Well, one of those comics was AVENGERS 227 and it was one of those issues in - between all the regular big storyline that nobody seems to be able to write nowadays.

Today everybody is writing for the trade and focusing on the big story arc - when they are not busy contemplating if gay Iceman would be the top or bottom half of the gay Iceman / Hercules couple - so they have no time to let the characters breathe. Anyway, the issue is written by Roger Stern , penciled by Sal Buscema ( my favourite HULK artist especially with Ernie Chan) and inked by Brett Breeding who also does the cover.

And while we have a complete recap ( no pun intended ) of Hank Pym's career as an Avenger up to the point where he landed in jail ( which is where he is in this issue ) plus Hawkeye struggling with the influx of new and mostly female new members, Tony Stark feeling bad about how he used the Wasp Janet Van Dine as his blow up sex doll while her husband was in jail before telling her that he was Iron Man , She Hulk ( who has a fun and interesting character in this instead of a conceited alcoholic who blames men for all the trouble she does not have as a successful attorney and member of the Avengers ) contemplate job offers and the Wasp having dinner with Mister Fantastic and the Invisible Girl ( John Byrne would later change her name to the Invisible Woman ) the book opens with Captain Marvel giving a demonstration of her powers and Janet Van Dyne inviting Monica to become a member of the Avengers.

Which she doesn't take for granted like Today's toxic feminist super heroines would do plus unlike modern women she doesn't discard men just because they are male so one of the first things she does is watch the records of the Avengers on the first Captain Marvel. Which is not a name she herself chose by the way but what other people start calling her. And when she found out that somebody else had used the name of Captain Marvel before her and died just recently she also didn't make any snide remarks about good riddance of toxic masculinity. So I guess that I like Monica Rambeau because she was an interesting empathic character that was well written and it felt like she was a good addition to the Avengers because she was not only there to further some agenda.

So while Brian Cronin lays the blame for the failure of Carol Danvers Captain Marvel not connecting with readers like Monica Rambeau did solely on this ill - advised version of nostalgia I think that it is just a case of bad writing. Speaking of which I find it interesting how much Roger Stern managed to cram into one issue when in Today's comic industry it would take up an entire six issue arc. Hank Pym's backstory alone would take up at least two issues. Anyway, I think I have made my point clear ( if there is anybody left reading my ramblings at this point ) and you can find more on Roger Stern's AVENGERS and Monica Rambeau in my Top Ten John Buscema AVENGERS coversseries which I hope to continue someday.