Relationship Spotlight: Monica Rambeau & Kamala Khan (The Marvels)

It’s been a little while since I last talked about The Marvels, but I wanted to swing back around and look at the Kamala-Monica relationship. While not as intense as Carol-Kamala or Monica-Carol, this third major relationship within the central trio is important as well.

Carol looms large in the film, for obvious reasons. On a meta level, this film is a team sequel of her initial solo movie. Undoubtedly, she’s the most powerful of the three, the most experienced (with both superheroing and space travel,) and she’s the one who fought against Thanos. And on a personal level, she has an important, painful history with Monica and is voraciously hero-worshipped by Kamala. She takes up a lot of space in the movie, and that includes her relationships with the other two.

For better or worse, both Monica and Kamala are kind of orbiting Carol, and with the baggage that they bring, they both spend a good chunk of the movie not getting everything they want out of their interactions with her. You have Monica, who straight-up doesn’t want to deal with Carol at all, meanwhile Kamala’s sky-high fangirl expectations could never be met by an actual person, no matter how great they are. And when Carol doesn’t or can’t live up to what they want her to be, that’s where they have each other.

If Monica views Carol as a family member who let her down, and Kamala views Carol as an unattainable hero, they’re able to view one another in a more measured light. They aren’t bringing the same expectations, and so they’re better able to relate to one another as people. Their relationship has a bit more of an older/younger sister flavor. Monica sees how passionate Kamala is and how badly she wants to help, and she gives the younger hero space to do that while also looking out for her. And Kamala sees Monica for the kickass hero she is, but without the same starry-eyed adoration she has for Carol, she doesn’t get as giddy and tongue-tied. Their relationship is born, at least in part, out of needing someone to turn to when they have difficult moments with Carol.

It’s always interesting like this, when you have relationships between three characters and one of them is the bigger focal point. In these cases, the interactions between the other two will always be somewhat in reaction to their feelings about the first character, but even though the presence of that first character will inevitably inform their relationship, the other two characters still ultimately decide what to make of it.

And as the movie goes on, Monica and Kamala become friends and allies. Monica digs deep to use her powers in a brand-new way to save Kamala when an untimely switch puts her in grave danger. They learn to work and fight together in cool, inventive ways. They take in the wildness around them together—especially on Aladna, where Monica teases Kamala about writing Captain Marvel fanfic. And through their growing bond with each other, they’re both able to get to a place where they’re able to connect with Carol without all the baggage that was getting in the way before.

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.

Favorite Characters: Monica Rambeau (The Marvels)

*Monica-related WandaVision spoilers.*

Okay, so I know that The Marvels isn’t actually coming out until next year, but I’ve written about the two other main players in this upcoming team-up film, Carol and Kamala. And Monica has made her MCU debut, both as a child in her introduction in Captain Marvel and as a smart, badass S.W.O.R.D. agent in WandaVision. Clearly, I need to talk about her now so I’ll be ready to hit the ground running with the group interactions after the movie comes out.

As a child, Monica idolized her mom and her Auntie Carol—she was as clever and tough as the two of them and loved the thought of them kicking ass and taking names as pilots. When Carol returned after her long disappearance and needed Maria’s help to deal with the Skrulls, it was Monica who talked her mom into not backing out of the chance of a lifetime. “You have the chance to fly the coolest mission in the history of missions,” Monica pointed out. “And you’re gonna give it up to sit on the couch and watch Fresh Prince with me? I just think you should consider the kind of example you’re setting for your daughter.”

Fast forward to the post-Blip MCU. The last thing Monica knew, she was a S.W.O.R.D. agent and she nodded off by her mom’s hospital bed as Maria recovered from surgery. Suddenly, it’s five years later, and Monica is forced to learn that, in the blink of an eye, she disappeared with half the universe, and her mom passed still waiting for her to return.

That’s the state Monica is in when she gets tangled up in Westview. Only weeks post-Blip, she returns to work, where everything is different and the world has moved on without her. She’s sent to investigate a strange anomaly in New Jersey and quick gets pulled into it, caught in the Hex Wanda unwittingly created.

Initially, Monica is mind-controlled like everyone else caught in Westview, living out the safe, happy sitcom life Wanda has retreated into. But when she breaks through just enough to remind Wanda of reality, Wanda freaks and ejects her from the Hex to stay cocooned in her own denial. And it’s back on the outside that we start to see what a hero Monica really is.

She doesn’t have her powers yet, but Monica is more than just brave, intelligent, and well-trained. She’s compassionate. She felt Wanda’s grief within the Hex, understanding it as she understands her own grief for her mother. She recognizes Wanda’s actions as a result of deep hurt, and she realizes that their best chance of freeing the people of Westview is to reach out to Wanda, not try to outgun her.

This demonstrates a few different qualities. Obviously, she’s empathetic towards a grieving woman. She sees Wanda as a person rather than a walking collection of scary powers, recognizing that it’s possible to reason with a human in a way that you can’t with a weapon. And she’s practical enough to know that Wanda has S.W.O.R.D. outmatched in every way: if they go in guns blazing, they’re going to lose, and the people of Westview will get caught in the crossfire.

So she attempts to force her way back into the Hex to try and get through to Wanda, after working out a theory for how to get inside while escaping the mind control. She presses ahead despite Darcy’s warnings about how passing through the Hex multiple times will affect her. This is how she gets her powers, which widen her visual spectrum and allow her to absorb energy and phase through matter. Although things shortly pop off after she arrives and she’s not able to really speak to Wanda one-on-one, she uses her new powers to help the family when S.W.O.R.D. manages to break through and assists in helping the people of Westview once Wanda sets them free.

I loved getting to see the adult Monica in action in WandaVision, and I’m super excited to get more of her in The Marvels. WandaVision teased that her thoughts on Captain Marvel have definitely changed over the years, so I’m very intrigued to see what her reunion with Carol is like. And Kamala may be a Captain Marvel fangirl, but I can’t wait for her to meet Monica too!