The First Kiss: Captain Marvel #8 – December 1968
The love triangle between Captain Marvel, Medic Una and Carol Danver continues and intensifies. Since the only two women in the story must apparently be in love, why not make them in love with the same man?
The issue opens with the Aarkon, a race that are the bitter enemies of the Kree, who are flying near earth and must land in order to repair their ship. They decide to land on the dark side of the moon (not a reference to the famous Pink Floyd album, The Dark Side of the Moon, which was released 5 years later). Colonel Yon-Rogg notices them and decides to attack, for the fun of it, even though it might jeopardize his mission. During the fight he orders a nuclear strike on the Aakon, because no one earth will notice that apparently. Luckily he is knockout by the Aakon and Mar-Vell stops the fight, takes him commander to the Kree ship and goes back to earth. He doesn't say a word to Medic Una, what a considerate boyfriend.
Back on earth Mar-Vell decides to investigate the real Dr. Lawson, starting with his house. When he gets there, he finds a very impressive and expensive looking house. In it he finds an extremely sophisticated lab and signs that Dr. Lawson has built a robot. Mar-Vell takes the programming cards and hopes that they will contain the programming of the robot (once upon a time people used cards to do programming on old massive computers). Criminals that financed Lawson come looking for him and attack Mar-Vell thinking that he is Lawson, and they die trying to shack off Captain Marvel.
Then we move to the unnecessary love triangle scene (so unnecessary that I forget about it when I thought about the general plot of the issue). From some reason Captain Marvel flies to inform Carol Danvers about what he discovered. Not everything, just about Lawson's house and lab, even though it will make his life as Lawson even harder.
Carol Danvers asks Captain Marvel: "you won't quit now, will you Captain Marvel?"
Danvers tells Captain Marvel that she needs his help desperately. Technically, she could just replace him with a security team, so I don't see why she "desperately" needs his help. He tells her that he "won't desert" her. It's an interesting and powerful choice of words. When he calls her Miss Danvers, she corrects him that her name is Carol and she kisses him. It's actually very interesting, she's the active one and he's the passive one. He doesn't even hug her back, to me his body language says reluctant. Plus he never seemed romantically interested in her; he doesn't even seem to think about her when they are not together. He seems like the man who couldn't say no.
However, Medic Una and Yon-Rogg don't see it that way. Una thinks "I knew it must come to this one day!" because in the last issue we learned about her "feminine" insecurities. Yon-Rogg tells Una "quite interesting, wouldn't you, Medic Una? Apparently Mar-Vell, who is assigned to learn all of earth's culture, has chosen to investigate their romantic costumes!" apparently no one told him that USA doesn't stand for all of earth. Another thing that bothers me is why is he even interested in Una? Because of her looks? It doesn't sound like he appreciates her personality.
The issue switches to Mar-Vell dressed as Dr. Lawson, who goes to the Cape to try and decipher the cards using their computers. And bizarrely enough, he finds out that Dr. Lawson programmed the robot to kill Dr. Lawson. On cue the robot shows up, but Mar-Vell manages to switch outfits to his Captain Marvel one and fights the robot. Despite some initial difficulty, Mar-Vell defeats the robot.
Again Carol puts her hands on Captain Marvel's chest when she is talking to him. She thanks him for destroying Lawson's robot and plans. Maybe he is slightly interested in Carol Danvers because he didn't have to stay and talk to her. When people ask where Lawson is, Mar-Vell says that he run away and makes a joke. This joke makes Una very sad, because the more comfortable he is amongst humans, the further he strays away from her and towards Danvers. The representative of all human women.
The issue ends with the promised return of both the robot and the Askon. Carol Danvers asks Captain Marvel to investigate Dr. Lawson, instead of actively pursuing her own investigation. Now her only activity is pursuing Captain Marvel. She just went from an active career woman to a woman who does nothing but being in love in just two issues. Amazing.
Do you also think that this love story just ruins the character of Carol Danvers and her part in the story?