Captain Marvel and the Carol Corps 1-3

Okay, let’s clear this up right from the start. Secret Wars is cack. Battleworld is cack. The whole Secret Wars thing was a dumb idea thirty-five years ago, and it’s not got any better since. Ending the Marvel Universe just to do another relaunch of all the characters is a bit of a desparate move. DC have got themselves in enormous knots post-Crisis On Infinite Earths, such that they now need to do something similar every couple of years (most recently the New 52 and Convergence). This do not bode well for the success of the Marvel project.

So what of this series? At least it has the sense to keep the same creative team as had previously been working on Captain Marvel, Kelly Sue DeConnick (here co-writing with Kelly Thompson) and David Lopez, whose artwork is lovely. On Battleworld, Captain Marvel is leading the Banshee Squadron, effectively an all-girl Blackhawk Squadron in jets. Various things lead her to question the truth about her world, and the leadership of the world’s god, Victor Von Doom. It’s well-written, well-drawn, and a fun alternate take on some of the characters that DeConnick has been using in the main Captain Marvel series. Lopez’s artwork has more dark and shadows in it, due to the nature of the story that is being told, but he maintains the virtues that he has displayed throughout his Captain Marvel run. Lee Loughridge continues to deliver excellent colouring, again working here with a darker palette.

But it’s all pretty much of no import. Naming the team the “Carol Corps” (the name Carol Danvers fans have chosen for themselves) is cute, but it also signals that this isn’t to be taken seriously. Nothing that happens in these pages is likely to carry over into any of the All-New Marvel titles once all this nonsense is over. And if you aren’t reading any of the other Secret Wars titles (and why should you be?), it’s hard to make any overall sense of this.

DeConnick finished off her run with Captain Marvel in issue 15 of the second series, and did it beautifully. This is merely a coda to that work.

There are some fine covers, though.