Ms. Marvel

Early History

Carol Danvers was born in Boston, Massachusetts, as the only girl of a large family. Despite the fact that Carol was extremely bright and capable, more so than any of her brothers, her chauvinistic father refused to pay for her to attend college, preferring to spend the money on his sons instead. He insisted that Carol merely find a good husband to take care of her, a sexist notion that the fiercely independent Carol refused to accept. 

Carol had always loved the idea of flying, and after she graduated from high school she decided to defy her father's wishes and joined the United States Air Force. She excelled in the Air Force, becoming a skilled jet pilot and distinguishing herself enough that she was recruited into the Central Intelligence Agency. As an agent of the CIA, Carol often teamed up with fellow agent Michael Rossi, and the two became romantically involved. She also teamed up with a Canadian agent named Logan (before he became Wolverine) and the two became good friends, saving each other's lives during several dangerous missions, and it was even implied that they may have become more than friends at some point.

On one of her most important CIA missions, Carol had to infiltrate Soviet airspace alongside Logan and an American test pilot named Ben Grimm (before he became the Thing and a member of the Fantastic Four). The mission almost failed when they were intercepted by Soviet forces (led by the Black Widow) and forced to the ground. With a good amount of luck, the three managed to escape and succeeded in retrieving the mysterious metal which they had been sent to obtain. In the process, the trio formed a bond that would live on into their super-hero careers.

During what would prove to be her final mission as a CIA agent, Carol was captured by the KGB and held in Lubyanka prison, where she endured interrogation and torture. In defiance of their government orders, Logan and Michael Rossi infiltrated Russia, broke into Lubyanka, and rescued Carol. But the ordeal had taken its toll on Carol's psyche, so she decided to resign from the CIA in order to pursue a different career.

Birth of Ms. Marvel

Carol's impressive resume landed her a position as the head of security of NASA's headquarters in Cape Canaveral. Carol's CIA background made her quite unafraid to put herself in potentially dangerous situations, and suddenly she found herself an uncomfortably close witness to an epic battle between the Kree super-hero Mar-Vell (aka Captain Marvel) and his arch-enemy Yon-Rogg. During the conflict Carol was accidentally knocked into an otherworldly device called the Kree psyche-magnitron, which had the power to turn thoughts into reality. Carol's dreams of flight and her envy of Mar-Vell's powers caused her DNA to be transformed into that of a superhuman member of the Kree race.

Ms. Marvel in her original costume

A new costume

First stint with the Avengers

Respect for Ms. Marvel in the super-hero community grew to the point where she was asked to join the renowned super-team the Avengers, since an opening had became available with the departure of the Scarlet Witch. Carol gratefully accepted, and though the Avengers eventually became the team that she would be most closely associated with throughout her super-hero career, her first stint with them would not end well.

Initially Ms. Marvel fit right in with the Avengers and proved to be a valuable team member, helping defeat a number of super-villains, including the Absorbing Man, Chthon, the Grey Gargoyle, the Elements of Doom, and the Taskmaster. She also single-handedly took down the mutant villain Sabretooth after he had escaped from SHIELD custody. During this time she forged friendships with other Avengers and truly enjoyed becoming part of the team. Little did she know that these would prove to be her final relatively care-free days as a super-hero. 

Loss of innocence

The first tragedy struck when Carol's boyfriend and psychiatrist, Michael Barnett, was found brutally beaten to death in his office and all of his files on Carol Danvers stolen. With the help of her Avengers teammate, Iron Man, Carol was able to determine that Barnett had been murdered by someone posing as Carol herself, and with further detective work, she discovered that the murderer was a mutant shape-shifter known as Mystique. A grief-stricken Carol vowed revenge on Mystique, but was unable to locate her. Mystique then sent her super-powered henchmen Pyro and Avalanche to kill Carol when she was out patrolling as Ms. Marvel. The evil mutants initially took Carol by surprise, but once she realized they had been sent by Mystique, she flew into a rage and defeated them easily. 

 Carol's quest for revenge was put on indefinite hold when she was suddenly hit with a bizarre and completely unexpected condition: In less than a day, she had somehow become several months pregnant. Having not been intimate with anyone for a long time, a distraught Carol explained the impossibility of her situation to the Avengers, but was further upset when they merely offered their congratulations as though the pregnancy were normal. Her pregnancy progressed at a pace far faster then normal, and within a few days she had given birth to a baby boy. As he had in Carol's womb, the boy aged at a fantastically accelerated rate, growing to manhood in the course of a single a day. 

Calling himself Marcus, he revealed to Carol and the other Avengers that he was the son of the time-lord Immortus, and that he had been trapped alone in another dimension called Limbo after his father had disappeared. Marcus had determined that his only means of escape from Limbo would be to teleport an Earth woman into Limbo with him and impregnate her with his essence, where he could be "reborn" on Earth after he sent the woman back. After much observation of Earth using his father's technology, he chose Carol for her strength, beauty, and other exemplary qualities, and had teleported her into Limbo and attempted to woo her. But Carol had initially rejected him, so Marcus admitted to using a "subtle boost" from Immortus' mind-controlling technology to make her fall in love with him, after which he did the deed. He then wiped her mind of the memory and teleported her back to Earth at the exact time she had been abducted, so that no one, not even Carol herself, had known what had happened. The plan had worked, except that Marcus' presence on Earth was now causing unforeseen and dangerous fluctuations in the time stream. The only way to stop these fluctuations from causing irreparable harm to reality would be if Marcus returned to Limbo.

Carol found herself strangely drawn to Marcus despite all of this, and for some reason she could not bear the idea of him returning to Limbo alone. Announcing that she loved Marcus, she agreed to leave Earth to be together with him in Limbo. The Avengers cluelessly took Carol at her word and told her she was free to be with her "new love" with their blessing. Only Iron Man made an attempt to question if Carol really knew what she was doing, but she insisted that she was. Thor used his mystical hammer to open an extra-dimensional portal to Limbo and sent Carol and Marcus on their way.

But Marcus had made a fatal error in his scheme: He had not made provisions to halt the super-aging of his new body after it reached adulthood. He continued to age at a hyper-accelerated rate and within a matter of hours had died of old age, leaving Carol alone in Limbo. Once Marcus was dead, Carol realized that she had still been under his mind control the entire time and had not been acting of her own free will when she claimed to love him or left Earth with him. Even worse, her own friends and teammates had actually helped Marcus and never once questioned his true nature or motives, even though he had essentially admitted to using mind control on Carol. With no one to help her, Carol called upon all of her ingenuity and resourcefulness to master the technology Marcus had left behind and eventually succeeded, using it to escape Limbo and return to Earth. 

Once back, Carol avoided all contact with the Avengers. Still traumatized by Michael Bennett's death and her subsequent abduction and rape by the Marcus entity, Carol decided that she simply wanted to start a brand new life, so she left the East Coast entirely and settled in San Francisco. 

The Battle with Rogue

Ms. Marvel vs Rogue

While Carol was recovering, Professor X contacted the Avengers and let them know what had happened to her. The Avengers, who had not seen or heard from Carol since she had left Earth with Marcus, came to visit Carol at her bedside, expecting to cheer her up. Instead, Carol told the team that she hated them after they had unwittingly allowed her to leave with Marcus even after he had admitted to using mind control on her. The Avengers left the visit hanging their heads, finally aware that they had completely failed to protect one of their own.

Carol's recovery time spent with Professor X and the X-Men made her feel like she belonged somewhere again. Her bonding with the team was made even easier by the presence of her old friend Logan, who was now Wolverine and a member of the X-Men. Though Carol's powers were gone, she still had her considerable intellect and fighting experience, so she offered to stay and help the X-Men in any way she could. During this time Carol went on various adventures with the team, including space missions. On one mission, the knowledge of Xavier's Institute had been compromised, so Carol helped them erase their files from the Pentagon by using her previous affiliation with the military, even going so far as to dust off her old her uniform and rank to aid in the infiltration. While in the Pentagon the team came across Rogue and Mystique, who were after the same files. The Ms. Marvel-powered Rogue fought the X-Men while Carol was busy deleting the files. Mystique attempted to kill Carol once and for all, believing that her now-powerless enemy was easy prey. Instead, Carol took down Mystique with sheer anger and old fashioned fighting skill. Once Mystique lay unconscious at Carol's feet, Carol realized that she could now take her ultimate revenge on her hated enemy, but decided to spare Mystique's life. 

Carol becomes Binary

First appearance as Binary

Desperate for a challenge, she later came across Quasar, who was trying to save the Earth from the sun, and immediately leaped to his aid. The task proved incredibly dangerous even for a being of Carol's power level, and though she and Quasar ultimately prevailed, Carol was severely injured in the process. Quasar carried her back to the Avenger’s base and she spent many months recovering there, though she was unable to recover her link to her cosmic Binary powers. During this time she reconciled with the Avengers and was invited to stay. The Starjammers also visited Carol and invited her to join them once more, but it conflicted with her schedule with the Avengers, so she decided to remain on Earth.

Struggle with Alcoholism

Though Carol had lost her link to her Binary powers, she was able to regain her original Ms. Marvel powers of super-strength, resistance to injury, flight, enhanced senses, and ability to manipulate energy. She rejoined the Avengers and changed her code name to Warbird. Unfortunately she grew insecure about her power and abilities, having known so much greater power before, which caused her to become an alcoholic. She would go on missions while intoxicated and often made simple and inexcusable mistakes. The Avengers eventually had to expel her from the team. Iron Man, a former alcoholic himself, then helped Carol overcome her alcoholism and stabilized her powers. After her recovery the Avengers invited her back, and she accepted. Later she voluntarily left the team to join SHIELD and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. She also became a parole officer for the new Thunderbolts.

Civil War

When reality changed back to normal after the House of M crossover Carol remembered what she had done for the world during House of M and decided to revitalize her superhero career and become the best hero she could be, inspired by her House of M self. She turned down an offer to join the New Avengers and quit her Homeland Security job.

During the Civil War, Ms. Marvel decided to become pro-registration, out of loyalty to the U.S. government and also to her longtime friend Iron Man, who had offered to lead the pro-registration forces. She joined a team to help enforce the Super-Human Registration Act alongside Iron Man. She would later work with Wonder Man and Arachne to help train newbie superheroes, while also hunting down anti-registration heroes. After she learned that Arachne was a double agent, Ms. Marvel hunted Arachne down and defeated her in front of Arachne’s daughter, and then proceeded to arrest her. Later, Carol would pay a visit to Araña to try and get her to register, which she did, and Carol then trained Arana to be a super-hero. Unfortunately Arana would become badly injured during a mission, causing Arana's father to forbid Carol from seeing Arana again.

The Alternate Earth Warbird

Rogue later paid Carol an unexpected visit. The animosity between the two women had subsided at this point, since they were now both well aware of each other's impressive super-hero careers and realized that they should be allies. However, Carol's emotional scars ran deep and she still did not fully trust her old adversary. Rogue informed Carol of a problem  --there was now another Carol, a much more belligerent one, that was being detained at the Xavier Institute. This Carol, first encountered by Beast, was an alternate-Earth version of Carol and still called herself Warbird. It would be revealed that on her own Earth, she became a serious alcoholic because of what Rogue did to her, and her world eventually was destroyed while she was incapable of saving it. Warbird would then be tossed to different universes before she landed on Earth-616.

Ms. Marvel battles Warbird, a parallel-Earth version of herself

In the next few issues Arachne escaped custody and returned to her daughter, and later moved to Canada to be a member of Omega Flight.

Next saw Ms. Marvel take on A.I.M., as M.O.D.O.K.'s son tried to blow up Seattle by using his father as a bomb. Ms. Marvel was caught up in the explosion when she attempted to stop it, but she completely regenerated from it.

She regenerated yet again in the next arc, when the Puppet Master began kidnapping super-powered women from around the world. When Ms. Marvel dismantled his operation, he took his own life by blowing himself up. Ms. Marvel admitted that she could have stopped him, but didn't want to. She regenerated from the explosion and lied to her team about the Puppet Master's suicide.

The alien being called Cru suddenly appeared at the end of this arc, and revealed that 'she' was the reason that Ms. Marvel was regenerating, because a part of her was inside Ms. Marvel. It actually turned out that the Brood destroyed Cru's home planet, not the other way around. Cru unlocked Ms. Marvel's old Binary powers, giving her a chance to battle and defeat the Brood Queen. The Brood Queen killed Cru, but Ms. Marvel smartly used a bomb to make the Brood Queen explode.

Mighty Avengers

Team leader of the Mighty Avengers

Secret Invasion: The Infiltration

Later, Iron Man revealed to SHIELD Agent Sum that he believed Ms. Marvel to be a Skrull.

Back in New York, and Carol performs a routine check-up, and finds an AIM base. She finds them delivering a truck to some place, and instead of doing what she would usually do and attack, she follows it. When the being is later released, she sees that it's a Super Skrull with the powers of several X-Men. After a quick battle, she escapes, and goes to see William, who called her. She finds him dead on the floor of the apartment floor, and as she overlooks his body, Agent Sum arrives, threatening to shoot her.

Ms. Marvel thinks fast and manages to escape Agent Sum, but she's confronted by Sleepwalker and Machine Man. She flies away, but is followed by Machine Man, and after the two battle, another Ms. Marvel shows up, and the two are arrested by Operation: Lightning Storm.

Ms. Marvel (the real one who we've been following) is taken out of her cell by "Agent Sum", but when she senses that something isn't right, she strikes him, believing him to be a Skrull. When he falls and doesn't revert, she believes that she had made a mistake. But, Agent Sum enters the room, and the other "Agent Sum" reverts to his Skrull form, the X-Men powered Skrull from earlier. They all attack the Skrull, including Ms. Marvel, knocking him into the area where the other Ms. Marvel is being kept. She reverts to her normal form, and reveals that William is alive, and she merely disguised herself as him when she was in the apartment (we also discover that William is a Kree).

Secret Invasion

In the core Secret Invasion storyline, Ms. Marvel flew with the Mighty Avengers to the Savage Land. Iron Man's armor became infected with a Skrull virus, so Ms. Marvel pulled Tony out of the armor and flew him away to the base where the fugitive New Avengers (composed entirely of non-registered heroes) were captured on their first mission. Tony told her to leave and return to the mainland, to gather the Initiative so they could be ready for the Skrull invasion. But it was too late and the Initiative was scattered. Ms. Marvel was the only hero left in Manhattan to face the invasion, so she made the decision that no Skrull got out of Manhattan alive. The battle ensued and Ms. Marvel fought the invading Skrull army harder than she ever had in her life, almost single-handedly preventing them from taking the city before their ultimate defeat at the hands of Earth's heroes.

Dark Reign

Powers and Abilities

Ms. Marvel’s power level is hard to define. When she became Binary her powers had increased exponentially, and then had taken a sudden fall when she reverted back to Ms. Marvel. As Binary she had even greater strength, comparable to Nova, and her ability to fly would allow her interstellar flight, much like Galactus’ heralds. Beast, however, theorized that she would not be able to access these enormous amounts of power unless she reverted to Binary. Ever since reverting back to Ms. Marvel, she has the same powers but at a much lower level. However, under extreme circumstances of stress, she had been able to tap into Binary’s power level, allowing her accomplish feats that were for Binary when she was Ms. Marvel. After her power drop, her flight levels were also lowered, as she is now able to fly around the speed of the sound barrier. Her training as a pilot allows her to perform flight maneuvers like she did in a plane. Her base strength allows her to lift 50 tons, but as Binary, she could lift 100 tons. Her experience in fighting allows her to control that strength and knows how to use it to its most useful state. She can lift cars easily and even tanks, and has been shown to tear through five-inch steel and break reinforced concrete. With super strength comes invulnerability. She can withstand punches from people much stronger than her, but continuous punches from people stronger than her will eventually bring her down. She is able to withstand bullets from pistols and machine gun fire, and can also absorb mortar shells and energy blasts, though now she is vulnerable to high-energy attacks. She has the ability to attack with energy blasts that are equivalent to Iron Man’s and as Warbird, she could tap into a stronger energy blast. Warbird was able to absorb all types of energy and can manipulate energy to her liking to help her fight. As Binary, she had cosmic awareness, much like Silver Surfer’s. She could “see” different energy patterns and was aware of any disruptions in space. Another ability of hers is to quickly change from Carol to Ms. Marvel much like Clark to Superman.

Apart from her powers, she possesses skills that she had developed on her own. The first would be her unarmed combat. With her military training and in combination with her training with the Kree has made her a dangerous fighter. In combination with her powers, she can use these to an extent where she can become very dangerous. Working with the CIA, she is a spy. These skills include infiltration, surveillance, interrogation and disguises. Traveling around the world as a spy, she is able to speak other languages as if they were her first language, such as German or Japanese. With her time in the military, she is a renowned pilot in the Marvel Universe and is also skillful in flying Kree planes. With her flying skills in a plane, she can use them to her own advantage when flying away from enemies. With her alien knowledge, as she was merged with Captain Mar-Vell, she knows the alien race, the Kree, very well, and understands their culture, customs, politics etc. quite well. Even though she is half-Kree, she has never been emotionally tied with them, sometimes going against the Kree’s orders. Along with her vast Kree knowledge, she has spent time in space with other alien races such as the Brood and Shi’ar. A miscellaneous talent she has is her writing. She had been a journalist for some time and was also an editor. She had published a novel and was an editor-in-chief and had another sci-fi novel published, based on her adventures with the Starjammers.

Personality

Her history as a fighter and someone who has a will to do what she dreams of comes from her strong personality. She dreamed of becoming a pilot and had achieved that through hard work and through this, is independent and self-reliant. Her achievement in becoming editor-in-chief and selling a successful novel comes from being self-reliant and independent. From being editor-in-chief, she has proven to become successful in the male dominated industry of journalism and through this, has proven to be able to manage a newspaper team. In this sense, she is a feminist and has challenged many men, including Captain America in his views and is quite confrontational if someone crosses her line. Through this ability of hers to achieve, she is strong willed and this is why she has been able to achieve her career as a pilot and an editor, even though she has had many tragedies that could easily break down someone without a will like hers. She will fight to the end and has a warrior’s will and because of tragedies, she has proven to be quite resistant to mental domination. However, she has resorted to alcohol when her life had gone down the drain. Events like Captain Mar-vell’s death and losing her powers to Rogue have turned her to become an alcoholic. Because Rogue had absorbed all her powers, this included the absorbing of memories with her friends and family. She still knew who her friends and family were, but felt nothing for them. It was then Professor X who has restored her memories and finds it difficult and awkward to talk with those who she was once close with. To note, this kind of emotional disconnection is not because of her independence, but her memory loss because of Rogue. However, her military training will say otherwise. Sometimes she has had to make choices that were seen as cold and uncaring. Through this though, she has been trained to think fast in how to deal with emergency situations. She is perhaps seen as outspoken as she is very direct and assertive.

Alternate Realities

Earth-1610 (Ultimate Universe)

SHIELD Agent Carol Danvers of the Ultimate Universe

In the Ultimate Universe Carol is an officer of S.H.I.E.L.D, seemingly without powers. Another SHIELD agent she was dating ended up being Captain Marvel, an agent working undercover for another planet. When the Silver Surfer arrived on Earth, Danvers was assigned to contain the situation and contain the Fantastic Four. She was taken by the Surfer because she was not worthy of what was going to happen to Earth. 

During the Ultimate Power storyline, she was there to tell Reed Richards that he was wrong by trying to fix Grimm because it would cause a 'Butterfly Effect.' After Nick Fury "is not at SHIELD for the time being," Carol was promoted to Director of SHIELD. Her first job as Director of SHIELD is to recapture Norman Osborn (Green Goblin), who had just broken out of SHIELD detainment. After SHIELD stopped Electro, they also arrested Spider-Man, who was there fighting Electro. When Spider-Man wakes up, he meets Carol Danvers, who begins asking him some questions while she played with his web-shooters. She soon gets a call from someone alerting her that Norman has just killed a lawyer. Then as she turned to say something to Peter, Kitty Pryde comes in and breaks Peter out. They only make it to the outside of the facility, where Carol and SHIELD soldiers greeted them. She reveals that she had been using Peter as bait for Norman, but it isn't working so they will need to go to another plan. Peter and Kitty are recruited to go take down Osborn, who had been located. After the battle against Osborn, Carol and Spider-Man get into an argument, and they just leave. Carol now has to find Osborn, who had escaped while everything was chaotic. Spider-Man and Osborn hit it off in a huge fight and Harry Osborn became involved. Osborn killed his son and asked to be killed too. Carol Danvers seemingly killed Osborn and was asked by Spider-Man to never speak to him again.

Earth-295

Carol Danvers of Earth-295

Earth-58163

Earth-2149

Zombie Ms. Marvel

Earth-4732

Hyperion's paramour on Earth-4732

Home reality of the Ms. Marvel that was a member of the Weapon X group that appeared in Exiles. This version of Ms Marvel was unusually cruel and sadistic and became a lover of Hyperion. She was killed by Morph and her body was later returned to her own reality.

Earth-1298

Earth-398