The Mighty Captain Marvel, Vol. 1: Alien Nation

The Mighty Captain Marvel (Collected Editions)

by Margaret Stohl (Writer), Ramon Rosanas (Illustrator), Margaret Stohl (Writer)

Behold the mightiest, fightiest super hero there is! Captain Marvel returns to her helm as Alpha Flight commander with the world cheering her on. She's the biggest hero in the world - but has Captain Marvel become someone Carol Danvers no longer recognizes? New York Times bestselling author Margaret Stohl (Beautiful Creatures, Black Widow: Forever Red) makes her comics series debut with a blockbuster Marvel story decades in the making!

COLLECTING: THE MIGHTY CAPTAIN MARVEL (2016) 0-4

Genres: Comics, Graphic Novels, Marvel, Superheroes, Graphic Novels Comics, Science Fiction, Fiction

112 pages, Paperback

First published September 5, 2017

About the author

Margaret Stohl is the #1 New York Times, PW, USA Today, LA Times and Internationally bestselling co-author or author of twelve books, including the BEAUTIFUL CREATURES NOVELS, the DANGEROUS CREATURES NOVELS, the ICONS NOVELS, MARVEL'S BLACK WIDOW NOVELS, ROYCE ROLLS & CATS VS ROBOTS THIS IS WAR (forthcoming!) She writes the MIGHTY CAPTAIN MARVEL comic for Marvel Comics (ongoing) and has contributed to countless videogames; currently, she is a Narrative Director at Bungie.

From the author:

Goodreads Peeps! Please note I no longer review the books on my shelf, "stars"-wise. I do list books I read, and they're all automatically marked as 5 stars. That's because a) I don't list books that I didn't like enough to finish and b) I didn't want to delete the ratings I had already given. If I particularly love a book and feel inclined to comment, you'll still see the comments here. Sadly, I have to ask: please don't reproduce these comments on book jackets, websites, or in any other medium for the marketing of books. They're only meant for fellow goodreaders. Thanks so much!

ABOUT ME:

Writing has gotten me in and out of trouble since I was 15 (back then, mostly just in trouble.) For 10 years, I designed &/or wrote for lots of video games, one of which was nominated for “Most Innovative Game Design,” but I lost to a rapping onion. If you know games you get why my two bad beagles are named Zelda and Kirby.

School: I spent more years in it than a person ever should, because let’s face it, reading books is so much better than having a job. I fell in love with American literature at Amherst and Yale, earned an MA in English from Stanford, and studied creative writing under the late great poet George MacBeth at the University of East Anglia, Norwich. I taught Intro to Film as a TA at Yale and Romantic Poetry as a TA at Stanford. Don’t tell the people at Yale but sometimes I taught the section before I’d seen the movie it was about...

I live in Santa Monica, CA, with my family, most of whom were enslaved into working with me in one form or another on my first YA book for Little, Brown. I’m not kidding; when my daughters wanted to go to school I said “Why are you so selfish? Get back in there and edit,” and by said I mean yelled and maybe threw things, it’s all a haze. Now the Beautiful series has wrapped, but you can see the movie on February 13, 2013 or read my new book ICONS on May 7th. Nothing gold can stay, Ponyboy.

Reviews

[Chad · Rating 2 out of 5]

The writing on this feels flighty. It just seems like it can't get stick with anything. The whole thing with Bean is just explained as "space stuff". I hate these half-assed explanations that aren't explanations. If you're going to do science based comics, read up on the science first. I did like Ramon Rosanas's art. It has a simpler Jimmy Cheung vibe to it. That art in the last issue though was rough. It looked like they had the interns filling in.

[Chelsea 🏳️‍🌈 · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is kind of a mixed bag. I like Stohl’s approach to Carol. Saddled with the horrendous mess Bendis left behind, Stohl had to try to salvage Carol’s relationships with Jessica and Tony. She did a lot more with the latter in Life of Captain Marvel. I feel like that series is a bit stronger but it’s clear Stohl had her work cut out for her here and she made a lot of headway with Jessica.

I like that Stohl continued Carol’s protectiveness Of homeless space refugees. She is a protector in space and it’s wonderful to see.

The art leaves a lot of to be desired, unfortunately. Its clear they didn’t think to put a big name on this book but the covers are nice.

[Paul · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was just OK. It was always going to be an uphill struggle making Captain Marvel likable again after they turned her into Public Butthead #1 in Civil War II. Also, Marvel don't seem to know what to do with Carol since her movie was announced...

[Wing Kee · Rating 2 out of 5]

A mess of a book.

World: The art is fine, I can say that it's the best thing about this book. The world building here is where the entire book starts to fall apart. The #0 issue was quite good in setting up the world for Carol post Civil War II. It allowed readers to reorient themselves to a new status quo, then the book just breaks apart because it's like a dog chasing three cats at once. We get a sloppy refugee setting, a half asked Kree history setting, and a messy Alpha Flight setting...it's all jumbled and patched and scraped together that it barely holds logic sense. It fact I'd say the world building especially for HLA is pretty bad and this piece of world building annoys the most as it's half assed.

Story: Oh boy what happened here? Carol's book's were good before Civil War II, it was character driven, fun and a rip roaring good space adventure time. With her characterization getting so poorly done for Civil War II it was going to be a long road to travel back, issue #0 did a good job, handling some changes molecular emotions to try to ground the character and give us some beautiful character moments between Jess and Carol, then the book just breaks apart. This book has no short term or term memory, it feels like it's written by a goldfish. The pacing is jarring, the multiple story lines are all over the place and not well paced and thought out. There is one instance of so poor writing that Carol us stuck in a greenhouse and the next panel is she's literally in another place with a giant machine and it makes so sense, that is just bad writing. This book is so scatterbrained it's ridiculous. Then there is the really poorly written main thread of the HLA...is there no story to tell for Carol that we go back to a Carol's powers are a issue thing AGAIN???!!! Right after Civil War II we get another bad and derivative story like this again...and it's not even explained properly...I don't mind science gobbledy gook but HLA is so ridiculous it's a mess. Then there's the gender issues this book has. Why are we getting panel after panel of people having heart eyes for a dude and women losing their minds for him add to that the climax and the finale of this first arc is TAI a male character saving Carol's ass!!!??? What the fuck???!!!

Characters: Carol is janky and broken in this book, not in a well written way. I don't mind dirty and grey heroes going through stuff, makes for good stories but this Carol is irrational, stubborn and not a team player...pretty much everything she wasn't since she become Captain Marvel. It gets worse. Her treatment in her mental state is rather insulting. The main villain is a joke and the rest of the cast are not what they were before.

Wow this book and the new HLA is pretty bad and it breaks my heart. Carol doesn't deserve Civil War II and she definitely does not deserve this poorly written book. I don't like the direction this creative team is taking her.

Onward to the next book!

[Becky · Rating 2 out of 5]

(I just spent a long time looking for a gif of "I don't love these" from Dr. Horrible, and now I'm grumpy that it doesn't seem to exist.)

I feel very much about this as I did about Stohl's Black Widow novel. I think she's a good person, and she's really trying, and she loves the characters, and there's even potential there, but it falls really flat.
At the end of the comic Carol is all like, "You reminded me that there's more than the battlefield, and there's more to me than a soldier" but I sure didn't see that happening in the course of the book. She hardly spent any time with the kid, she was always running around doing soldier-things. You can't have the important bits happen off screen and then expect me to care about them. It had really good moments, and then they were gone. Those moments were not what she built the plot on, and what she did build the plot on was... not stupid I guess, but poorly executed.
Yeah. Disappointing.

[Miranda · Rating 1 out of 5]

I hate to say it, because I loved Carol, and I always try to cut female characters slack when they become unlikable or go through negative character development...

But man, Carol isn't just unlikable anymore. She's unsympathetic on top of it. Civil War II really ruined her character for me, and it would take a far more skilled writer than Stohl to recover that love in a post-Civil War II comic line. At one point, she complains about everything that's gone wrong in her life recently, and she shifts the blame on to everyone other than herself. I almost put the comic down right then and there, because that? That is not the Carol I know.

Carol can't even really admit, still, that she was in the wrong -- her "apology" to Jessica was bullshit, frankly, and the fact that Jessica accepts it with a shrug because... what, she misses Carol? After the fury Jessica showed in her own series over the fallout of Civil War II, Carol waltzes in with a nonpology and Jessica just accepts? No, sorry. I can accept that Carol made a shitton of bad decisions, but the fact that she still can't be an adult and admit she was wrong and got people killed and grievously harmed is just something I can't swallow, and it's not something I feel fits with her character. And yet, we're still supposed to cheer her on for finding her way again and finding herself?

Sorry, sis. Nope. Like I said, it's going to take a way better writer than Stohl to get Carol the proper development she needs after Civil War II.

[Chris Lemmerman · Rating 2 out of 5]

[Read as single issues]
Carol Danvers is one of my favourite female superheroes, and I've followed her exploits as both Ms. Marvel and Captain Marvel since I started reading comics properly, so it's a shame to see her series in this state.

This is the first time in a long time that I've gotten to the point of dropping a series because I'm not enjoying it. The story here, that a shapeshifting alien bounty hunter is stealing Kree children, is pretty clever, but Stohl puts in a lot of other subplots, with Alpha Flight and Carol's powers, etc, that make the series feel both bloated and sluggish. I could also have been put off by the irregular schedule, with issues being delayed quite a lot and then fill-in artists drafted at the last minute.

Issue #0, by Emilio Laiso, is lovely. And then Ramon Rosanas seems to have phoned some of this in, with some very bland art that doesn't look half as inspired as his recent Ant-Man material. Ro Stein, Ted Brandt, and Brent Schoonover triple team issue 4, but by this point I'd gotten bored.

Definitely not Carol Danvers' best showing, and definitely not very Mighty at all. Go read one of the other Captain Marvel series, at least until this one gets a bit better. (What kind of title for a book is Mighty Captain Marvel? It's so clunky.)

[Yasmine · Rating 3 out of 5]

So.... I probably should have read Civil War II first, before picking up this one. Oups. It probably would have make me understand the setting better. So I highly recommend this to everyone else! Sometimes it pays off to look up Marvel's reading order :)

But I still understood most of the references based on other comics I've read, so I still enjoyed this a bit. I have to admit, as much as I used to love Carol Danvers aka Captain Marvel, I'm not so sure anymore if I still look at her in the same light. Her differences with Tony Stark aka Iron Man (that I read about in Ms. Marvel and that have some origin to this story), make me think that I would side with Tony rather than Carol.

The story in this volume called Alien Nation was at times a bit confusing, because the plot was a bit abruptly executed, however it still made for a fun read. Blue Kree children are being abducted and Carol tries to save them and has to go up against a shapeshifter. I am looking forward to seeing how this story continues.

The artwork on some of these pages were lacking what I'm used to with Captain Marvel comics, which is a shame because it always used to be really good. But now it seems a bit hastened and not worked out so well.

[Shannon Appelcline · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is definitely the best Captain Marvel in some time, primarily because it treats Carol as a real person. We get great background on her growing up, wanting to be an astronaut, and reflections on that in the modern day. We also get to see her relationship with friends, like Jessica Drew. The result is a much more balanced comic that doesn't feel like it's just about an iconic but faceless hero.

And we also get some humor, something that's been missing from recent, grim volumes.

The plot starts out OK, with a focus on the alien refugees that we've seen in recent volumes of Captain Marvel. Unfortunately, it descends into pure MacGuffining, with the HLA energy doing whatever the writer wants to either mess with or empower Carol. Thus, by the end, the plot is a little long in the tooth, which is too bad in an otherwise superior volume.

[Dubzor · Rating 1 out of 5]

I was ready to give this two stars...but man that last issue is a goddamn dumpster fire.

Margaret Stohl is a sloppy storyteller who regularly glosses over details and plot holes because she is either too lazy or incompetent to fix them. Her attempts at humor are cringe inducing. The plot doesn't so much progress as it resembles a car meandering its way lazily towards its destination and accelerating to 100 while in the parking space and crashing into the brick wall on the other side.

In briefest terms...imagine all the negative assumptions made on YA authors collected in 5 issues.

[Scott · Rating 3 out of 5]

So the central story was nothing too special, and the ending felt rushed -- there was room for some improvement. What was the saving grace? The effective humor throughout (the 'Cap'n Marvel' TV show debacle; the MC Hammer references by Alpha Flight; Wendy the tech officer and her one-liners; Cap's snarky scenes with other MCU heroines) and the pensive flashbacks to Danvers' younger days in Boston.

[winnie ₊ ⊹ · Rating 2 out of 5]

two stars ∗ even though i love carol with my whole heart, after what marvel did to her in civil war ii it’s just hard to see her in the same light (which is probably what they wanted anyways) all in all a super fun quick read!! i cannot wait for her movie to come out 😩

[Claire]

Zero character development. Zip. Carol is fresh out of the flaming wreckage that was CW2 and going right into SE, so I'm not rating this. Her character was trashed so bad.

[Jess · Rating 2 out of 5]

You know that storyline that every Powerful Sci-Fi Action Girl Character gets at some point in her existence? The one where she meets a kid - usually mysterious, often supernatural, frequently with no or limited speech - with whom she feels an Instant and Powerful Connection, awakening her dormant Maternal Instinct? But the kid is in trouble, and Action Girl has to go Mama Bear to protect what she now considers irrefutably to be Her Child? And in the ensuing drama, she and the Mysterious Kid are somehow parted, leaving Action Girl saddened but somehow the better for having been put in touch with her maternal side and reminded that there is More To Her Life than just fighting bad guys?

Well, this time it's Carol's turn. And it's about as implausible and poorly executed as every other version of the story.

Also: A forgettable new nemesis, some nonsense about Carol's powers being allergic to people with a certain genetic marker, clunky writing, bland/inconsistent art, and, oh, Alpha Flight is now being bankrolled by a Captain Marvel TV adaptation. The latter is mostly an excuse to make tired jokes about impractical costumes, bad dialogue and stupid plots. Which... well, you know the saying about throwing stones in glass houses...?

On the scale of bad, it's not terrible - it's just the kind of comic that leaves you with second-hand embarrassment on behalf of everyone involved. One to skip.

[I' · Rating 2 out of 5]

Este ha sido mi primer Captain Marvel.
Sacado de la biblioteca, me llamó la atención tanto la estética del personaje, como el hecho de estar guionizado por Margaret Stohl. Pues aunque no me fascinaron sus libros, lo saqué para darle una oportunidad.

Con sus más y sus menos, el personaje en si de Captain Marvel me ha gustado. Sobre todo porque es un poco distinto a la idea que tenía de lo que iba a ser y en ese sentido me ha sorprendido. Me ha agradado el leer algo diferente y aunque creo que me queda mucho por conocer al personaje ha sentado una bases que me han dejado con ganas de leer más.

En el apartado visual, tengo opiniones dispares. Aunque el dibujo en estilo me ha gustado mucho, el color me ha abrumado demasiado. Era como tener demasiada información visual a la vez. Demasiados estímulos. Como cuando estás subrayando los apuntes y terminas subrayándolo todo de forma que todo parece importante. Y al final eso te desgasta. Esa es la impresión y el sentimiento que me ha dejado. De tal forma que aunque el dibujo me ha gustado, el color me ha fallado bastante.

Por último el guión, la verdad, no me ha gustado. La trama en sí me ha parecido bastante floja, sosa, y mal llevada. Aunque la trama principal estaba bien, la han sorbecargado con muchas tramas secundarias, que sin profundidad, para mi no han hecho más que distraerme, añadir cosas innecesarias y hacerme perder interés en la historia principal. Además, ha alargado tanto la historia, que han terminando que me aburriera de lo que realmente me interesaba. Las partes más "importantes" de la acción ocurren fuera de la narración en si, lo cual me ha parecido muy anticlimático. A veces hasta me ha dado la impresión de que faltaban páginas. O que daba saltos en la historia que no podía justificar. En general me ha costado terminarlo por ello.

Resumiendo: el personaje chachi, el dibujo chachi, el color me satura y la trama meh.

[Mizuki]

Margaret Stohl is the writer? Now I'm in the mood for Captain Marvel!

[Imogene · Rating 3 out of 5]

Somehow just not quite working out for me. But it’s my captain and I love her, so I can’t bear to give less that 2 stars.
Sigh

[kate elizabeth · Rating 2 out of 5]

missed the mark unfortunately with this book. I wasn’t a fan of the way every explanation was written off as “space stuff” and didn’t really delve deeper into something that could’ve been exciting. I enjoyed the art style though, but ultimately wasn’t enough to save this story for me

[Sesana · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm so sad that I didn't like this.

[Adam Fisher · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 Stars.
Taking a more dramatic turn, Captain Marvel needs a break. Fresh off the battle of Civil War II, the director of Alpha Flight is struggling to maintain a balance between battle/protection of the planet, and the natural downtime needed for all humans. Some of the issues go back to financial backing of Alpha Flight, but the government has created a solution.... a hilarious one... stemming from the popularity of Captain Marvel herself, there is now a weekly TV series, which is very popular. Just seeing Carol react to meeting the cast is worth the read of the Volume alone.
Most of the story though revolves around the alien refugee efforts. Carol finds a Kree child that appears to supercharge her powers and there is only so much involvement she can have when her powers get out of control just from being around the kid. Her only help at certain stages of this is a hologram of Tony Stark. (My question: with Ironheart protecting things, where is Tony?)
This Volume succeeds at giving the human side of Carol Danvers the attention it deserves, but I look forward to seeing how great this title can become as we approach the MCU's introduction of Captain Marvel to the big screen.
Recommend.

[Christopher · Rating 4 out of 5]

A Father's Day gift from May.

So is there a Marvel-wide thing going on with alien refugees. I ask because parts of this volume felt like they were hooked in with The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl, Vol. 10: Life is Too Short, Squirrel. Or maybe the horrors of the real world just keep invading comics. Sometimes I think superhero comics are the only vernacular we have to address the four-color evil stupidity that is rearing its head in the world right now.

Props to Margaret Stohl for ensuring Carol's distinctive voice and adding the little touches of friendship throughout this volume. These are often as subtle as Tony's nick name for Carol (spaceface) or Jessica and Carol's banter (Spock and Kirk).

[Renata · Rating 3 out of 5]

Eh I think...no matter who was writing Captain Marvel, the first volume post-Civil War II was going to be a struggle, because that ~event~ left Carol with a lot of garbage to clean up. I liked seeing Carol's PTSD and seeing her trying to emotionally recover from that, especially trying to repair her friendships. I wish it had been able to lean a little more into those emotional beats and less into alien nonsense.

I also feel like the storyline about a gross show being based on Carol's life could have been fun? (Although also like...previously done on Agent Carter, but whatever) But that seems like it died out?

Anyway...this is fine.....I'm hoping future issues can get closer to the Carol Danvers of my heart.

[Mitchell Friedman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Much of this book was pretty darn good. And then they had to start a whole new plot. What made this book work was the mop up work of the previous plots. The conversations. The introspections. The not sleeping and the nightmares. The hammer time. The Kree alien story was just a distraction. 3.5 of 5.

[AK · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had no strong feelings about Captain Marvel before reading this, and I have no strong feelings after. I do really like her superhero outfit, but that doesn't make up for the fact that Carol Danvers didn't really seem to have a cohesive story here--was this supposed to make me want to go back and read Civil War II? HA.

[Jenna · Rating 2 out of 5]

Liked the artwork but seems I’ve missed too much by not finishing the whole Civil War II storyline. I like the idea of Captain Marvel guarding the planet with Alpha Flight. Too bad it was disjointed and rushed.

[Christy · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you get stuck early, keep going. It gets better as it progresses!

[Geonn Cannon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Civil War II made it really hard to be a Captain Marvel fan, but this brought me back into Carol's camp. It made me excited to pick up each issue again.

[Cal · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 Stars

Loved the art, loved the humour! Did not love the shapeshifting villain thing.

[Heather D-G · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was pretty good, but I had to take away a star for all the references to Civil War ll, aka the worst Marvel event ever. Hoping it will move further past that in volume two.

[Kurt · Rating 1 out of 5]

I hated everything about this.