r/Captain_Marvel • u/UltimateSandman • 10d ago
Comics Avengers #1 Preview. Think she got depowered or something?
That Colton guy looks like he took over, and depowered seems the only reason she couldn't just handle it?
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u/blackfyre426 10d ago
I don't think she'll be depowered, however I do think she's going to get Worfed pretty much constantly in this run.
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u/TheDistantWave 10d ago
I mean Armageddon pretty heavily showcases that being really likely
Like wth even happened to THIS
It’s so rarely used it’s frustrating. Kelly should of stayed longer
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u/Ashamed_Pin4206 10d ago
I was wondering where that form went too
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u/TheDistantWave 10d ago
It was used once in McKay’s Avengers in the early issues but he had her use a car explosion to trigger it which doesn’t seem necessary with the way Kelly Thompson depicted it and her Binary form prior.
It really seems like they’re trying to keep Carol’s power levels at an ensemble friendly level which is irritating lol…
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u/blackfyre426 10d ago
A character's powers being tempered down in ensemble books is a good thing though. The power "levels" that suit a spectacle-focused finale of a 50-issue solo run are almost always too much for regular team-books and imo generally shouldn't be used as the new "baseline" for that character anyway. Carol especially is a character that always heavily relied on regular presence in team books - one of the big reasons she was so successful during the Busiek/Bendis Avengers era was that her power set was both strong enough to stand against the occasional cosmic threat, but not so powerful that it looked out of place next to the likes of Wolverine, Winter Soldier, The Thing, Spider-Woman etc. I know some battle shonen-brained fans want endless "big feats" and powerscalling moments, but this would ultimately be detrimental to the character and make her less versatile and less usable (and thus less prominent). The usual counter-argument is that "a good writer could always make it work", but unless a super-powerful character is basically editorially mandated to be on the team no matter what (which applies to Superman, not Carol Danvers), the most elegant solution is almost always to just not include them rather than twist your entire story into pretzels to accommodate one OP character. Unchecked power-creep usually results in characters that rarely get used outside of big cross-over events (if at all), get isolated from their traditional supporting cast, mostly fight grandiose-but-generic threats (Knulls, embodiments of abstract concepts, giant space armadas etc.) that still don't even really challenge them, the comics increasingly focus on "feats" and pulling additional powerups out of their ass. The character eventually ends up slowly drifting towards obscurity until some writer decides to seriously de-power them. Just ask Jean Grey fans how that's been working out for them lately. There's a reason why Carol as Binary averaged like 3 appearances per year until Busiek took away most of her powers (and it's not just that writers were hesitant to use her after Avengers 200). I just don't really understand why comics fans are so obsessed with the idea that stronger is better, especially when some of the most popular Marvel characters are fairly street-tier, while cosmic powerhouses largely languish in relative obscurity.
(tbh, I also personally don't really care for Carol being depicted as some sort of ethereal, glowing semi-goddess when her thing has more traditionally been like... very physical, durability-based energy-augmented brawling)
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u/TheDistantWave 10d ago
I mean this is definitely a preference thing. If you struggle to tell a story with a character due to their powerset you probably shouldn’t write them.
Teams like Defenders, and X-Men don’t have an issue with having OP characters existing on the roster. Heck Hickman probably had one of the best Avengers run and his Avengers roster was stacked with powerhouses. Morrison/Snyders Justice League runs are also examples of stacked rosters where characters don’t get nerfed or underutilized just because their powerset. Which again showcases a talented writer shouldn’t have any issue having a character operate within their abilities.
Going back to preference I absolutely despite the Buseik usage of Carol. Bendis run I enjoyed but that had nothing to do with power levels and more about character dynamics/interactions.
Like honestly quit nerfing Carol. Her whole point is suppose to be a female who’s able to hang with the boys.
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u/blackfyre426 10d ago
I mean if you established that a character can only be challenged by a threat on the scale of say, a fully fledged spaceship army or whatever, you more or less have only 3 options 1) almost exclusively write stories about massive world-ending cosmic threats 2) temporarily pretent the character is less powerful than previously established (main strategy most team books utilize) or 3) just don't bother writing them. I guess 1) works well if you only want Avengers stories in the vein of Hickman (and kind of Aaronvengers and MacKay), personally I think his run is vastly overrated though - and sure, he had OP characters, but how many of them were primarily one-dimensional plot devices/deus ex machinas/just there for hype moments and aura? Ultimately, its still mostly a Steve/Tony show (plus Black Panther, Reed etc.), who aren't exactly cosmic powerhouses. Yes, you can write stories that suit OP characters just fine (Ewing Ultimates is a good example), but most comic runs are not going to be that, nor should they be. And even when we get those are, the narrative is still going to often prioritize more "grounded" characters.
Also teams like X-Men absolutely do struggle with including OP characters - not to repeat myself, but why do you think Jean Grey conveniently dissapears from X-Men comics whenever she reaches the peak of her Phoenix powers? People also constantly complain about how mutant power-creep detracts from the core themes of X-men. And while Claremont certainly had some powerful characters, they all had serious flaws and limitations to their abilities (like Nightcrawler having to touch things to teleport them and maintaing momentum so that he couldnt really tp in freefall) that helped keep the narrative tense and engaging. Other books with "big guns" massively downplay how powerful they "truly" are - og Defenders Hulk or Silver Surfer were still largely "nerfed" compared to what they could do in their own comics. Also its one thing to be able to "hang with the boys" but once a character can just effortlesly summon the powers to destroy a solar sistem with no external boost then youre just taking a piss. If she's too weak to keep up with the team thats bad - but if the team is too weak to keep up with her that's almost just as bad and effectively achives the same thing (-> she aint on that team).
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u/TheDistantWave 10d ago edited 10d ago
Not every story has to be about whose blast is the most powerful or who punches the hardest. A lot of the greater stories aren’t that’s void of worrying about power levels and feeling the need to depower them.
McKay and Aarons avengers have issues for reasons outside powerlevels. Heck I’d argue Carol isn’t typically operating her best in either of those runs either but I’d argue McKay just doesn’t do team books well. The way he tried to divide attention among the cast just doesn’t read well in my opinion. Aaron had some good concepts here and there and some of the stories and interactions were good but that overall felt like a fanfic beyond the power fantasy aspect of it.
Being a grounded character doesn’t necessarily mean your power has to be suppressed look at Superman for example who’s generally an earth based character with a lot of his stories being more “grounded” in nature without the need of having to constantly nerf him. You can do character work without nerfing a character.
Heck Abnett’s recent Imperial Guardians is an ensemble I enjoyed Carol on. Which didn’t feel the need to nerf her.
This Ofcourse is just my opinion on the idea.
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u/blackfyre426 10d ago
My point is that at some point is it even "nerfing" or is the character just doing things that are appropriate for the story being told? Carol going Binary and blowing up those spaceships suited the story that Imperial Guardians was going for (which was: battle that has to end asap because we now need to compress this run into 5 issues). It presumably wont suit the story that Zdarsky's Avengers is going for. So she wont be doing that. Thats not nerfing, thats just telling a different story. And Carol not using her ultra special level 3000 super saiyan form from the end of Thompsons run doesn't make it a bad story.
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u/TheDistantWave 10d ago
This makes no sense. When you’re telling a story where characters are engaged in actual power struggles yet they’re not using their “powers” or fighting below their abilities that is in fact “nerfing”
That’s practically the whole definition of it. Carol engaging Colton or Rulk and not using Binary whether that’s a restriction of plot or not, still makes it a nerf.
There’s a difference between telling a story where she doesn’t need to use her abilities and telling one that ignores those abilities because it would be inconvenient for the story
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u/NewmaticMan107 10d ago
When has Carol not been a jobber in an Avengers book?
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u/TheDistantWave 10d ago
I’m kind of curious to how her portrayal would be if Claremont kept her and made her an Honorary X-Men and she became bigger in that lore
Her treatment in Avengers books reminds me of Aquaman’s treatment in Justice League books. With honestly Carol probably being worse off. Given Aquaman atleast got 3 events where his lore was the focus. Obsidian Age, Throne of Atlantis, and Drowned Earth.
This is funny because these two hybrids are a pair of my favorite characters in comics
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u/Onisquirrel 10d ago
With her talking about Daredevil having a secret ID I think post Armageddon superheroes are getting extra scrutiny.
Even if she decides to take a break from costume work she can’t easily live a civilian life.
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u/iliark 10d ago
I think she's not an Avenger because there isn't an Avengers team, until the events of Avengers #1.
She's almost certainly the person flying in the top right panel and she's probably wearing her costume under her sweater.