Ms. Marvel's Origin Story: Ms. Marvel #2 –February, 1977
Ms. Marvel is back and this issue presents the origin of her powers as well as the return of her enemies from the previous issue.
This cover states that "this female fights back!" because in the real world and in other Marvel comics women are apparently just helpless victims? Not a particularly encouraging statement or a true one. Another strange decisions is showing Ms. Marvel fighting against the scorpion and telling him that he is "not man enough" to defeat her. But why must he be man enough? Shouldn't he be simply strong enough? A real man couldn't defeat her, only a superpowered person can. Maybe back in the day it was ground breaking, but such statements don't stand the test of time.
The issue opens with Professor Kerwin Korman, who sold his lab to the Scorpion in the previous issue of Ms. Marvel. He works for A.I.M (Advanced Idea Mechanics) and they want Ms. Marvel captured alive in order to study her and her costume. Apparently, even though there is not a lot of it, her costume is far more technologically advanced then anything they have ever seen and it enhances her fighting abilities. Korman intends to use a Tachyon Blast beam on his hamlet to capture her.
Then we switch to Carol and her new BFF Mary Jane Watson. MJ goes to Carol's office to tell her that everyone left already and that she is alone. She also tells Carol that Peter Parker is there with the city editor, meaning Carol is leaving while other editors are still at work. I am sure that Carol is great at her job, but appearances do matter, and leaving earlier than your co-workers doesn't look good. But then again, having a life is important.
At dinner MJ and Carol have an important conversation. One which is relevant even to this day to all of the people who have a hard time figuring out what they want to do with their lives, but have pretty good options. MJ says that Carol has it all together (not knowing that she doesn't have herself together). In their conversation MJ says that finding yourself is the hard part and she's right, figuring out what you want to do with your life is hard. Carol tells MJ that she has a "first class mind" and that will help her find herself. I'm pretty sure that "finding yourself" is a new terms at the time for women. MJ asks Carol how she decided what she wanted to do with her life.
Carol states that she is not sure that she has found herself, and she's right, she needs to find Ms. Marvel inside of her. She starts telling MJ about her time with Captain Marvel and how his coming to fight the Sentry has hurt her security career, and about being a pawn in the game between Captain Marvel and Colonel Yon-Rogg which ended her security career. One could look at Captain Marvel #40 as the end of her military career as the parasite version of Captain Marvel's former lover Medic Una attacked Carol and the Cape. But that was long after the fight between Captain Marvel and Yon-Rogg. Afterwards Carol discovered the writer inside of herself. She states that she had a very rookie search for herself.
Then she gets another severe headache and is forced to leave. While she's in a taxi, she feels that she is about to blackout and tries to hold it together, but fails. The issue then moves to focus on the Korman who has studied Ms. Marvel and her first appearance. He discovers that she first appeared at a cave near the space Kennedy Space Center. A place in which atomic energy was released in the battle between Captain Marvel and Colonel Yon-Rogg, and some of that power transferred to Ms. Marvel. Powers which he wants for himself.
At A.I.M's headquarter in New York, the Scorpion manages to escape. He is crazy from pain (he fell into an acid bath in the previous issue), and starts to kill all of their employees and after he escapes through their department store façade, he starts hurting the passersby as well.
Then we switch back to Carol who wakes up in her apartment with no memories of how she got there. She is afraid that perhaps the pressures of the past few weeks have made her go insane. Sure, excellent new job, fancy apartment, sounds like good reasons to lose your mind, well maybe dealing with Jonah on a daily basis is a better reason.
She decides to get professional help from her friend and Psychologist Michael Barnett aka Mike Brant. Like a typical hysterical woman she simply barges into his office, ignoring the patient that is there and claims that she needs Mike's help immediately. Because waiting 45 minutes like a polite person will somehow make a huge difference? She is completely unreasonable here. But he allows it and kicks his patient out to treat her. Mike decides that the best way to find out what happens when Carol blackout is through hypnosis. I love Freud references.
Now compare this, what she remembers now, to what happened in Captain Marvel #18.
It's pretty accurate, just more elaborate. The Psyche-Magnitron exploded and even though Captain Marvel tries to shield Carol from the energy, he fails and she is exposed to the radiation.
Then the next thing she remembers is waking up at the hospital. The doctors thought it was a miracle that she wasn't affected by the radiation, but she was affected. Still under hypnosis, she says that she went back to work, but she felt people viewed her as failure so eventually she left. She states that after she sold her first article she felt that she "begun to find [herself]".
Then six months after her accident, the blackouts started. So takes six months for her powers to appear? That's odd, but it does explain all the times we've seen her after the explosion without apparent powers. She tells the doctor that she doesn't want to remember what happened during the blackout, but she does remember, she remembers falling on the floor and going through a change.
She remembers her changing. Her body changes and disappears at the same time, even though that makes no sense, and she becomes Ms. Marvel. So unconsciously she now knows that she is Ms. Marvel and now the reader knows her secret as well.
But all of this was done under hypnosis so Carol doesn't remember knowing that she is Ms. Marvel. Mike thinks that she is the "victim of some massive paranoid delusion" and decides to tell her that the hypnosis failed. Of course why should he believe that his friend has powers? Even though hypnosis is presented as reliable.
She passes out again and Mike catches her, thinking that her disappointment has sent her over the edge. He is a terrible physiologist, why would she pass out from disappointment? But then her body grows warmer and she changes into Ms. Marvel right in front of his eyes. And then she flies out the window, leaving Mike to finally realize that Carol is in fact Ms. Marvel. I have to mention here that Gerry Conway (the writer) uses psychology and psychiatry interchangeably from some reason, even though it is not the same route of studying.
Ms. Marvel flies to confront the scorpion who wants to kill her as he blames her for his pain. She finds him and they fight. I actually like that she calls him her friend, this shows the he is only her enemy because he is hurting people. Then predictably, he tells her that no woman can defeat him, her response is actually better than the one on the cover. She tells him "why is it, scorpion, that men always shout the loudest when they know they are losing?" and she offers to take him to a mental hospital. It's better than "you're just not man enough to beat Ms. Marvel" which is what is written on the cover. Now you can think why the big difference between the wordings on the same scenario. I think that the cover was design to appeal to women readers, but the changed version in the issue sounds better and would be more appealing these days.
Korman shows up, calling himself the Destructor, and shoots her down and lets her know that he is going to take her as a prisoner. She recovers and knocks him out and seconds later she passes out from the strength of the blow from his rays. The issue ends with both of them lying near each other, unconscious, and scorpion is nowhere in sight.
This issue of Ms. Marvel establishes Carol's main goal, finding out who she is. The explanation for Ms. Marvel's powers doesn't make sense. Why would it take them 6 months to appear other than to explain why she appeared so many times without them? She still feels too Spider-Man: same newspaper, same boss, his girlfriend is her BFF, similar enemies. It doesn't feel original enough. Carol's behavior as a hysterical woman is totally contrasted by her Ms. Marvel persona who is smart and calculated. But Carol does touch on the point of how hard it is to find out what is it that you want to do with your life. Finding yourself is here referred to as finding what you want to do with life in terms of work by both Carol and MJ, but Carol's search is the search for her complete personality.
Do you agree with me? Have anything to say about this or any other related issue? Let's discuss in the comments below or on my Facebook page or on Twitter.