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

Ultimates: Omniversal (Cover image via Marvel)

13. Ultimates: Omniversal

What’s a superhero without a team? Sure, you’ve got plenty of loners out there who can fly, communicate with animals, shoot laser beams out of their eyes, and so on. After a while, though, things start to get lonely. Even Batman teams up with the Justice League on the regular, after all. He might grumble about being dragged away from his lone wolf schtick, but there he is on the team roster, again and again.

Enough about Batman, though. We’re here to talk about Captain Marvel, who is very obviously part of the Marvel stable, and not DC’s.

At this point, Captain Marvel has been part of a couple of different superhero teams, both formalized with a name and everything, and the occasional team-ups that span an issue or two. Just a few years ago, she joined the Ultimates, one of the latest groups of superpowered buds with one of the biggest goals ever: defeat Galactus.

Galactus, as you may recall, is one seriously bad guy. His origin story is a bit complicated, with a few notes of redemption here and there, but the short version will have to work right now. Essentially, Galactus is a normal guy who survived a universe-ending event. In our current universe, he awoke and was transformed into a mega-sized being who eats entire worlds for sustenance. Never mind if those planets are full of people. Galactus is often preceded by a “herald” who appears at the next planet and tells everyone they’re about to be consumed. His most well-known herald is the Silver Surfer.

So, Galactus is a problem. Some people think he’s a necessary problem, like a force of nature, but the Ultimates disagree. Why shouldn’t they try to take him down? That’s the argument of Captain Marvel, who, to her credit, tries to push for nonviolent solutions first.

Carol eventually assembles the Ultimates team, consisting of herself, Black Panther, Blue Marvel, Spectrum, and Ms. America. Amongst the five of them, they’re well-equipped to take on Galactus – but should they?