Higher, Further, Faster

Higher, Further, Faster, More

Or now, just Higher, Further, Faster

These words mean a lot to me, they mean more to me now than they’ve ever done before honestly. I was never late to the Carol Danvers Ms. Marvel/Captain Marvel train and I’ve been on those awesome tracks since I fell in love with the character after reading where she basically told JJ to stuff it way back.

I’d heard that Kelly Sue DeConnick was taking on the task of bringing Carol up to date, making her something more than she already was and I was blown away by the idea. I was really excited for seeing this new Captain Marvel and what I finally saw took my breath away and kept me hooked for the whole of Kelly Sue’s run.

I was brought up here, by two very loving, understanding and awesome parents. My mom and my dad, and it is fitting on International Women’s Day that I talk about my mom a little bit here. She was my Captain Marvel, my rock, the person who I could talk to about all my troubles and she was an amazing shoulder for my wife too.

Now I can talk to my wife, she’s awesome, but my mom was extra awesome because she was a mom who got comics.

She got books; she got the whole of media.

My dad too, but that’s a given.

I had both awesome parents and an awesome Nan who got me into Spider-Man and 2000AD when I was a kid.

But mom, mom just got it. She got everything about why I loved my comics and why I adored Captain Marvel.

In 2012 my world turned dark, my heart broke, my mom suddenly passed away. I am sure a lot of you can relate to something like this, or offer condolences and so on. But unless you’ve experienced the sudden loss of someone who just passed away before your eyes, without any serious illness – it’s a shock to the system which I don’t think I’ve ever recovered from.

So I turned in on myself, I wasn’t OK, and I wrote 90,000 words of my novel in one day making myself pretty ill in the process.

Then I grabbed 2012’s Captain Marvel and I began to read about Carol. A character I loved, I hooked onto that character and I saw my fight in her every single step.

She got knocked down; she was human, fragile, beautiful like the Hala Star and totally capable. She was in essence all the elements of the strong women I’d grown up around. Because when I was younger, a lot of my role models were female.

Slowly thanks to 2012’s run of Captain Marvel I realised that I needed to get out of the dark, hit the light, and keep running toward it. Higher, Faster, Further… I needed to be more like my wife, who lost her mom in 2005 and struggles day to day with chronic health issues.

I needed to basically step up and stand tall.

Carol Danvers every single issue, every story I could find, and every bit of information I could summon became a laser-fine focus for me. I fell deeper in love with these comics and Marvel all over again.

Carol became a very important character to me through the 2012 run. I watched the formation of the Carol Corps and I was proud to think I might be one, wear that Hala Star and count myself amongst Carol’s fans.

I watched Kelly Sue hand over the reins, and I saw Margaret Stohl take Carol into a whole beautiful direction with Life of Captain Marvel recently. I’ve never been more proud to be a Captain Marvel fan and witness the true star of a hero who means a great deal to me.

I’m reading Kelly Thompson’s wonderful comic at the moment.

I’m crying as I write this, but so what, it’s OK to cry and that’s what my mom and dad taught me not to hold that in.

Captain Marvel gives me hope, and fairly soon I’ll get to see Brie Larson take flight as Carol Danvers and blaze into the MCU finally – I couldn’t be happier.

The ladies of comics, and the MCU they’ve got this, they have got this so well and to them I say:

#HigherFurtherFaster

Thank you for being awesome, every single one of you.

<3