Ms. Marvel vs. Vision: Ms. Marvel #5 – May, 1977
Ms. Marvel #5: "Bridge of No Return"
Even though Ms. Marvel knows she’s Carol Danvers, they are still two separate entities. That is so unnecessary. However, having Ms. Marvel fight against and alongside Vision, who is an Avenger, is pretty cool.
The first panel shows Ms. Marvel fighting the Vision in a seventh-sense vision of the future. Then we switch to Carol Danvers who thinks about her day. It was an ordinary day, she was on her way to work and thinking about the first issue of “Woman” magazine that is about to come out. Suddenly she felt immense pain and got a vision of herself in upstate fighting Vision with the lives of twenty million people at stake.
Then the perspective switches again and we see that it is in fact Danvers telling all of this to Dr. Mike Barnett. She hardly remembers what happened during her vision, just that the police brought her to Dr. Barnett’s office when she was well enough.
Danvers tells Dr. Barnett that she thought that now that she’s learned that she’s Ms. Marvel, all of her problems including the headaches and blackouts would be gone. Dr. Barnett answers “to be honest, so did I.” I have to side with Dr. Barnett on this one, I would have thought that this would be the end of her troubles as well. So, we’re back to the problematic split personality. Even though Danvers knows that she is Ms. Marvel, she doesn’t feel that they are in fact the same person and vice versa.
Danvers asks Dr. Barnett for help. His idea of help is telling Danvers to stop being Ms. Marvel. She tells him “I – I don’t want to. I’m not sure I can…” The order is important. First, she says that she doesn’t want to stop, meaning that deep down, she likes being a superheroine. Then she says she’s not sure that she can stop, as if Ms. Marvel is a different person who is more powerful. Then as she leaves hastily after Dr. Barnett asks her what if Ms. Marvel decides to stop being Carol Danvers. Even the good doctor can’t understand that they are one person like all superheroes are. The alterego of superheroes is not actually a different person, so why is it the case for Ms. Marvel?
These panels really showcase her belief. She thinks that she disappears and someone else who is better than her appears. As if there are two women competing over the same space. This could be a reference to a general notion that women cannot be friends, because they are always competing with one another. Even though, in this case, it is one woman competing with herself.
She takes a taxi to the Stark international compound. During her drive, we get a recap of Danvers’ story up until this issue. She remembers being happy in her work as the youngest chief of security in NASA history. It appears that her past has been upgraded to be more impressive. She remembers being a pawn in the game between Captain Marvel and Colonel Yon-Rogg and getting her powers from the exposure to radiation from the Psyche-Magnitron (the issue states that has the full details of the incident is Captain Marvel #18). Then she went to work as an editor of “Woman” magazine while starting to be Ms. Marvel. We get a recap of her powers as well as a reminder that only her suit allows her to fly. We also get a recap of all her fights with enemies and we finish with her learning that Danvers is Ms. Marvel. So new readers are now all caught up.
Danvers arrives at Stark international compound and Stark isn’t there. Abe Klein is there to show her around as Danvers is planning an article on how Stark Industries is treating its female employees. While there, she sees the truck from her vision. It is a special truck that is designed to carry chemicals or radioactive cargo. Mr. Klein refuses to tell her what is the cargo, but it’s important enough that Vision is escorting it. Even after being back at her place Danvers can’t get this information out of her head. Then Ms. Marvel forces a change on her. Danvers knows that she is Ms. Marvel, but still she says she is afraid of the change.
Ms. Marvel flies directly towards the truck, but sees nothing wrong. She concludes that there must be something wrong with the truck itself. She decided that attacking is her best plan so, she stops the truck by blocking the road with a tree trunks and rocks. Then we find out that the truck has orders to “stop for nothing.” The driver just drives through the block.
Vision comes out to fight Ms. Marvel as he believes that she’s an enemy. While Ms. Marvel is fighting Vision, MODOK is watching them.
She tries to make Vision believe her that she has a seventh-sense, but he doesn’t. He defeats her by passing his hand right through her.
When she recovers, she goes after the truck again. She prepares an attack on Vision, and he doesn’t believe her good intentions because of it. Though he intends to take her out, she uses her Kree knowledge and takes him out instead.
Ms. Marvel goes after the truck. The truck has defense mechanisms and the driver shoots her with force blasts. She takes the wheels off the car to stop it and there she finds a bomb in the accesses hatch, so she throws it into the distance before it explodes along with the cargo. A bomb inside of the car means an inside job, and the only option here is the driver.
The driver shoots her and tries to shoot the truck to release the cargo. As they fight Ms. Marvel notices that he is too strong. She smashes his gun, but he shoots the truck with energy coming out of his eyes. The beams are stopped at the last minute by Vision who woke up just in time. Ms. Marvel takes the driver out and realizes that he is a robot. She wonders if there are any others and Vision wonders who sent the robot. The issue ends with MODOK saying that she will find out when she will serve faithfully.
One fan letter explains exactly how I feel about the previous issues, and as I explained in my previous posts, with another extra point. That it’s hard for Ms. Marvel to be a feminist superheroine when she’s in fact based on a male character (she’s to Captain Marvel what Supergirl is to Superman). The other two fan letters are simply funny nitpicking.
This issue is split in my opinion. On the one hand, Danvers and Ms. Marvel and Danvers don’t realize that they are just one person, Danvers seeks out Dr. Barnett’s help, even though he is useless and she needed Vision’s help to win this fight. On the other hand, she ditches Dr. Barnett when he was unreasonable, she is not tied to Spider-Man in this issue, she defeated Vision when she needed to and saved the day. Even Chris Claremont isn’t perfect, and it’s hard to undo the damage that Gerry Conway has made, but he is on his way.
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