15 Captain Marvel comics you need to read before seeing the movie

The Life of Captain Marvel (Cover image via Marvel)

14. The Life of Captain Marvel

Okay, think you’ve got a handle on the origin story of Captain Marvel? Think again. It’s not that “Captain Marvel” applies to a few different people, though that is a common enough problem for both the title and superhero comics in general. It’s also due to the reboot-happy nature of comics in general. Imagine you’re a writer who’s new to a certain character – wouldn’t you be sorely tempted to wipe the slate clean and start with your own awesome backstory?

That’s what happened in 2018, with Margaret Stohl’s The Life of Captain Marvel. In this version of Captain Marvel’s beginnings, there are quite a few shared threads. That includes Carol Danvers’ regular-girl beginnings living outside of Boston, fostering a love of science, and eventually becoming a superpowered being. She still encounters Kree superheroes, too.

In this revamp of her origin, however, there are some serious surprises. At some point early on in the story, a grown-up Captain Marvel is so absolutely incapacitated by an anxiety attack that she has to tap out of a fight. Maybe that’s normal enough for you or me — really, when is the last time you fought a Skrull? — but Captain Marvel necessarily considers it a career hazard.

So, in part thanks to this anxiety attack and her desire to remedy it, Carol starts going back through her own past. What she finds there has ground shaking implications for not just her, but potentially her entire Alpha Flight team and a planet or two full of people. We’re not going to spoil it here, but the revelations about Captain Marvel’s past and how it affects her future are pretty big.