Relationship Spotlight: Monica Rambeau & Carol Danvers (The Marvels)

*Some Carol-Monica-related spoilers.*

Looking at another duo within the main Marvels trio. The Carol-Monica relationship is very different from Kamala-Carol, for all kinds of reasons. Carol and Monica’s history begins long before this film, and Monica doesn’t have the same hero worship of Carol that Kamala does. Not to mention, their dynamic in The Marvels is, by necessity, inextricably different than their dynamic in Captain Marvel.

Carol and Monica’s relationship goes back to before the events of Captain Marvel. Carol and Monica’s mom Maria are best friends (or possibly a couple?), two skilled pilots who are used to having their skills questioned by the men around them. Regardless of the exact nature of their relationship, they’re family, and that includes Monica, who Carol affectionately calls “Lt. Trouble.”

When Monica is five, Carol goes on the fateful test flight that results in her disappearance. Maria and Monica can’t begin to imagine that Carol is no longer on Earth, that she’s acquired colossal superhuman abilities and had most of her memories stolen. It’s not until six years later that Carol finds her way back, somewhat by accident. She struggles to put together the pieces of what happened to her and who she used to be. Monica is eager to help her remember, showing Carol old photos and keepsakes. She’s thrilled, not just to have her “Aunt Carol” back in her life, but to have her return as a superhero. At this point, 11-year-old Monica definitely does have a bit of hero worship going on, but whereas Kamala later approaches their relationship as an elated fangirl, Monica’s idolization is mixed with the genuine relationship she and Carol have had since she was little.

At the end of Captain Marvel, Carol needs to leave Earth again, on a mission to stop the Supreme Intelligence. She promises Monica she’ll be back soon, leaving her jacket with Monica for safekeeping. …And then, more than 20 years go by.

When we next see Monica as an adult, she’s barely post-Blip, having just come back into existence since the events of Endgame. She’s a badass but compassionate S.W.O.R.D. agent trying to get her life back on track, even as she reels from the recent discovery that, while she was Snapped, Maria lost her long battle with cancer. She’s wrestling with her grief and fighting to carve out a place for herself in the world she’s been Blipped back into, and there’s a palpable sense of her moving forward on her own. She no longer expects Carol to ever come back, and even if she did return, Monica wouldn’t really want to see her.

Which of course leads into The Marvels. When a cosmic accident causes their powers, along with Kamala’s, to become entangled, Monica and Carol are forced to work together. This is complicated on both sides. Carol, who still hasn’t been able to regain all her memories, is happy to see Monica again, but also wistful that Monica has grown up without her and guilty at having been away so long. She’s been carrying a secret shame that she’s been trying to make right, and she hadn’t wanted to come back until she was able to fix her mistake.

So it hurts Carol to realize Monica wants nothing to do with her, but Monica’s hurting too. She’s angry that Carol didn’t keep the promise she made when Monica was a kid, and her feelings are also tied up in her own grief over having been Snapped when Maria died. She feels like Carol abandoned them and isn’t prepared to just pick up where they left off.

This makes for a compelling, emotional dynamic between them, and that’s before you factor in the additional wrinkle that Carol’s powers slow down her aging—it’s been over 20 years and Monica is all grown up, but Carol still looks the same. Both characters are fairly good at compartmentalizing, so they’re able to put aside their differences for the sake of the mission, but that doesn’t erase what either of them are dealing with. Carol tries to respect Monica’s feelings and not push too hard, while Monica struggles with feeling so vulnerable at a time when she just wants to focus on the task at hand.

Relationship Spotlight: Carol Danvers & Kamala Khan (The Marvels)

*Spoilers.*

Things have been a bit all-or-nothing with Marvel this year. The first nine months of 2023 saw only two MCU movies and one show, but in the last month, we got The Marvels and season 2 of Loki, season 2 of What If…? is starting this week (multiversal Wenwu!), and Echo drops next month. I already have a backlog of topics to write about, and with the new stuff coming down the pipeline, there will be lots of Marvel content to discuss for the foreseeable future.

The point is, The Marvels gave me plenty to be excited about, including the relationships between our three heroines. I thought about doing a write-up for them all together, but I realized I had something to say about each duo within the trio. And in that case, the most delightful place to start is definitely with Kamala and Carol!

Kamala Khan is more than just a Captain Marvel fangirl. Arguably, she is the Captain Marvel fangirl. She’s a teen who is brimming with passion and creative daydream energy for her favorite superheroes, and Captain Marvel is far and away her most favorite. Not only is her entire bedroom basically wallpapered with memorabilia and fanart, and not only is her own secret identity, Ms. Marvel, inspired by her hero. But the moment when Kamala’s powers become entangled with Carol and Monica’s? She’s drawing a comic fanart in which she and Captain Marvel are superhero BFFs.

That’s the world that Carol crashes into when their entanglement causes them all to switch places, suddenly appearing in Kamala’s bedroom surrounded by lovingly rendered images of her own face. And that’s very much the energy Kamala brings to going on an unplanned superhero team-up. Yes, she’s amazed at being transported into space, thrilled at meeting Nick Fury, and horrified at seeing Goose unleash her tentacles. But when she switches back home and learns that Captain Marvel was there? It’s on a whole other level.

So Carol, who’s been doing the opposite of the team-up thing of late, taking calls from Nick but working on her own, is now in the position of collaborating with an excitable superfan who’s not the least bit shy about her hero worship. Kamala is a lot, and I don’t begrudge her her admiration, but I understand Carol’s wariness too. Apart from her more usual go-it-alone approach, the fight to stop Dar-Benn hits some deeply personal buttons for her, and it can’t be easy to have a starry-eyed teenage girl sighing, “You know my name,” and babbling apologies about copyright infringement re: their similar monikers.

Early in the adventure, there’s a sobering moment where the heroes are leading an evacuation of Skrulls off a planet that’s being ripped apart. As the last ships are about to leave, Carol realizes there’s no way they can get everyone off the planet, and when Kamala pushes back against that, Carol draws a line, bluntly telling her, “We save who we can.” It’s a harsh thing to hear for a teen superhero who wants nothing more than to help people, and it hurts even more coming from her idol. It’s an important exchange, because even though it doesn’t shake Kamala’s ultimate faith in Carol, it does help Kamala start to see her as more of a person and not just a hero. (Not that it’ll stop her from writing Captain Marvel fanfic, of course!)

At the same time, while Kamala’s ardor can be overpowering, it’s also good for Carol to be around someone who admires her so much at a time when she herself is getting pulled down by the weight of her past failures. As Carol presses forward, trying to right a colossal wrong, she’s affirmed by a budding superhero who believes the best in her.

And really, I just love seeing teenage superheroes interact with adult ones. The dynamic is always interesting, and for me, even though their relationship is wildly different, Kamala and Carol are up there with Miles and Peter B. Parker from Into the Spider-Verse. The mentorship is fun, and it’s cool to watch young heroes come into their own while finding commonalities with older, more experienced heroes, both making each other better through their influence.

Relationship Spotlight: Carol Danvers & Nick Fury (Captain Marvel)

Samuel L. Jackson had to love being in Captain Marvel.  For years, Nick Fury has been a very visible character in the MCU without a ton to do.  He’s been mysterious, he’s been badass, and he’s tossed out cool lines, all of which sounds great but which ultimately end up as a lot of wash-rinse-repeat moments.  Before this point, his best showing was probably Captain America:  The Winter Soldier, which offered a bit more dimension for his character, but Captain Marvel is operating on its own playing field entirely.  Seeing a younger Fury who’s not so distrustful plays a big part in opening the character up, but far more so than that, it’s seeing the fantastic buddy relationship that grows between Fury and Carol.

When S.H.I.E.L.D. gets wind of a woman wandering around in a flight suit shooting photon blasts from her hands, they send Fury to suss out the situation.  Carol, of course, is on a mission and has no time for Earth agents getting in her way.  She blows Fury’s initial attempt to bring her in, but she’s fairly straight with him.  Right off the bat, she banters with him a little, and she tells him her business on Earth without trying to conceal the facts of the situation or talking down to him as someone who obviously isn’t flush with extraterrestrial experience.

But Fury isn’t one to be deterred, and once he tenaciously tracks her down, Carol isn’t unimpressed by what she sees.  She gives him a more complete rundown on the Skrulls, recognizes that his local knowledge and S.H.I.E.L.D. clearance could be valuable, and enlists him as an ally in her work.  This is all new to Fury, but he isn’t just along for the ride – he figures out that this mission is personal Carol, even if she doesn’t yet know why that is, and he’s willing to go off the map with her.

From there, it’s pretty much just straight awesomeness.  They still don’t trust each other fully, and there’s some definite circling, but over the course of the film, both earn the other’s respect and loyalty.  They play well off of each other, taking turns making important observations and coming up with needed solutions, and even though Carol is obviously the more powerful of the two (by far,) Fury still comes in handy by fighting smart, getting the upper hand on Skrulls who are stronger than he is and have nothing left to lose.  While both have some knowledge deficits compared to the other – Fury is new to this whole alien-invasion thing, and Carol has lost her memories of Earth – neither really treats the other as dumb or green.  Instead, they lean on one another’s understanding, filling in each other’s gaps so they can move forward together.

And best of all, they’re just so much fun.  I could listen to Carol and Fury rib each other all day, I love Carol’s total lack of patience for Fury’s adoration of cute felines, and there’s a relaxed scene between them near the end of the movie that’s the epitome of friendship awws.  From start to finish, these two are simply wonderful together.  We’d better get to see something between them in End Game at some point, I’m just saying.