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.

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.