Carol Danvers Caught in a Battle between Captain Marvel and Iron Man: Captain Marvel #14 – June 1969
This is issue has a co-writer, Frank Springer, who joins Gary Friedrich as this issue is part of the larger plot that involves the puppet master. Carol Danvers doesn't have much of a role in this issue as she is merely an observant in the battle between Captain Marvel and Iron Man.
This issue picks up right where the previous one left off, with Carol Danvers stopping the soldiers from firing at Captain Marvel by standing in front of him. She tries to convince Captain Marvel to turn himself in and tells him that she will testify for him in court. In the meantime the soldiers ask her to step away from Captain Marvel as they have orders to shoot him on sight. So much for court.
In her continued attempts to convince Captain Marvel to take the legal route, Carol tells him: "I know you are not a traitor… you couldn’t be". However, his good deeds do not change the fact that he stole a missile and she knows that he committed that crime, but she ignores this small fact. A fact that will probably, or at least should, hurt her career as she is helping a criminal.
Mar-Vell sees himself as above the law, he thinks about simply teleporting himself back to his home galaxy. However, for the first time, he thinks about staying for Carol, because even though he still loves Una he is "not without feelings for Carol Danvers!" this is the first time that we see that the love Carol feels isn't completely one sided.
All of a sudden we switch to Tony Stark on a flight to Miami. Then we see that the puppet master has created a perfect replica of Iron Man, so now he can control him. The puppet master orders Tony Stark to put on his Iron Man suit and kill Captain Marvel.
When Iron Man arrives he finds Carol Danvers still standing in front of Captain Marvel and he orders her to stand aside. Carol notices that he is in a trance. Well, at least she's observant again. Mar-Vell tells Carol to go find safety, but she refuses and decides to stand by him no matter what. That is crazy as there is nothing that she can do for him in a battle against Iron Man, she's not even armed. Iron Man tells her he will kill her and Captain Marvel who he called a "menace". Iron Man fires his blasts and injures Carol pretty badly, but Mar-Vell is just stunned.
While Captain Marvel and Iron Man fight with each other, Carol yells for help. Her soldiers call an ambulance, one of them says "Miss Danvers' life is worth more than a thousand missiles!" which is a nice compliment.
The ambulance arrives and manages to take Carol away, despite the battle around them. Now Mar-Vell wants to avenge Carol, even though he didn't manage to avenge Una.
During the fight between Iron Man and Captain Marvel, Tony Stark gets a heart attack and collapses. So Captain Marvel orders the soldiers to call an ambulance to save Iron Man, which in an honorable thing to do, just not very vengeful like he was a few minutes ago.
Eventually, Mar-Vell decides to teleports away. As he flies off, he hears the voice of Zo which tells him that his time for avenging Una has ran out. He orders him to teleport to his home plant in the Kree galaxy and to await his orders. He needs to pay his end of the barging, servitude of Zo.
It's pretty cool to see Iron Man and Captain Marvel fighting, it's a nice distraction from the fact that Carol Danvers' character just continues to deteriorate. It doesn't matter if there is an extra new writer; she's just the classical love interest and a useless one as well. If you want to stand by your super-everything man at least carry a gun or any weapon or do anything but be a live target. She's a security officer how can she be unarmed? It's nice to see that she still observant and that her soldiers really appreciate her, but it feels like empty gestures. Now since Iron Man injured her, she's on sick leave and we will see her again on issue #16.
What are your thoughts about Carol Danvers in this issue?