Summary
- Carol Danvers had a history of car troubles, stemming back to the late 1960s
- Ms. Marvel sure had a wild relationship with cars.
- Carol Danvers' heroic moments include smashing a getaway car to stop bank robbers and taking a hit from a car to protect innocent kids.
In the latest Drawing Crazy Patterns, where we spotlight five recurring themes in comics, we examine six times that Carol Danvers had trouble with cars back when she was just plain ol' Carol Danvers, and when she was the superhero known as Ms. Marvel.
Okay, this is a rare one for me, as it is the first time that I have ever done one of these where I had never heard of the concept being spotlighted before actually spotlighting it. Reader Doug G. wrote in a while back to ask, "Could you do a Drawing Crazy Patterns about Captain Marvel's arch-rivalry with automobiles? It's a long-held running joke that Carol Danvers keeps destroying cars or gets run over by them, and I'd love to see how that got started (it seemingly goes back to the 70s)"
Again, like I said, I never actually heard of that ever being a long-running gag, but after reading Carol Danvers' entire history in the pages of the original Marvel Captain Marvel series, as well as her original Ms. Marvel series, I will admit that there DID seem to be SOMEthing to this, and heck, it's at least interesting enough to spotlight, so here are five examples of Carol Danvers having trouble with cars in the pages of the original Marvel Captain Marvel series and her original Ms. Marvel series (I figured I'd stop at her Ms. Marvel series because, well, I figured it was very clean to have exactly five examples in her first two series).
Five Times Spider-Man Taught a New Hero That 'With Great Power, Comes Responsibility'
Spider-Man's great lesson, "With Great Power, Comes Great Responsibility," was often taught to new heroesCarol Danvers' first problem with cars
In Captain Marvel #6 (by Arnold Drake, Don Heck and John Tartaglione), Carol Danvers is driving her car when she is distracted by a UFO, and she almost hits her Cape Canaveral colleague, Dr. Walter Lawson (who was secretly the alien Mar-Vell, also known as the superhero, Captain Marvel)...
Carol was lucky Mar-Vell threw her out of her car
In Captain Marvel #10 (by Drake, Heck and Vince Colletta), Carol is driving Lawson (Mar-Vell) in her car when he spots some Kree assassins about to blast them with some sort of ray gun. He knows that there only chance is to get out of the car right away, so he knocks Carol out of the car with him...
She's obviously at first irate at him, until she sees that the ray gun has made her car deteriorate at an accelerated rate, so she realizes that Lawson saved her life...
Of course, she then knocks herself out on a tree branch, because the comic book needs her out of the way for the plot to progress. It makes sense for the plot of the story, but it's still pretty embarrassing for Carol. She really wasn't exactly given a whole lot of respect in those early days, especially when the whole conceit of the comic was that Carol, as the Cape's head of security, didn't realize that Dr. Lawson wasn't the REAL Dr. Lawson, but actually an alien pretending to be Lawson.
Ms. Marvel was attacked by a super-car
Okay, after Marvel rejected an earlier idea for a new female superhero known as Ms. Marvel, Gerry Conway came up with the idea to just bring Carol Danvers back (she had mostly gone into limbo once the Captain Marvel comic book dropped the Cape Canaveral setting, as Captain Marvel instead began switching bodies with Rick Jones instead, so Mar-Vell had no secret identity). In the early issues, Carol transformed into Ms. Marvel as a split personality, but that angle was dropped pretty quickly after Conway left the project (which was very early in the run). In Ms. Marvel #5 (by Archie Goodwin, Jim Shooter, Chris Claremont, Jim Mooney and Joe Sinnott), Carol has to stop a Tony Stark-designed supertruck, even as the Vision (not knowing that she had a very good reason for wanting to stop the truck) tried to stop her....
This is one of those classic "misunderstandings cause superheroes to fight each other" stories that Marvel loved so much back in the day.
Five Times DC Used Superman on the First Cover of a New Series to 'Introduce' It
DC's most famous superhero for decades was Superman, and so the Man of Steel was often used on the covers of new comics to "introduce" themMs. Marvel stops a getaway with her fists
Ms. Marvel #11 (by Chris Claremont, Sal Buscema and Frank Giacoia) opened up with a powerful splash page showing Ms. Marvel stopping the getaway of some bank robbers by smashing their getaway car...
That's an awesome way to start an issue, right? It's always interesting to get right into the action fo an issue, but especially with a scene like that.
Can Ms. Marvel take a direct hit from a car?
Ms. Marvel #15 (by Claremont, Mooney and Tony DeZuniga) saw Ms. Marvel get into a fight with the villainous Tiger Shark, and there's a really great moment in the comic where Tiger Shark just throws a car at Carol. Now, normally, she would just fly out of the way of the car, but the problem was that there was a bunch of innocent kids around, so if she dodged the car, it would likely smash into the kids. So Carol had to make a call, and her call was to absorb the hit by the car herself...
It is very important to note here that Carol legit does not know if she CAN survive a direct hit by a car like this, but she's such a hero, that it was the only call she could make.
Luckily, on the next page, we see that her body COULD withstand a direct hit by a car....
Remember, everyone, that these lists are inherently not exhaustive. They are a list of five examples (occasionally I'll be nice and toss in a sixth). So no instance is "missing" if it is not listed. It's just not one of the five examples that I chose. Thanks for the suggestion, Doug! If anyone has suggestions for a future Drawing Crazy Patterns, drop me a line at brianc@cbr.com!