The Four Color Media Monitor

Something I hadn't quite noticed in the past few months is that, apparently realizing all the failures of turning Carol Danvers - whom they'd already forced out of her role as Ms. Marvel for the sake of a Muslim character - into a new Captain Marvel, the modern Marvel management has recently reverted Danvers halfway back...to her role in the mid-80s as Binary, as first appeared in X-Men. And here's what Adventures in Poor Taste said about the first part of a miniseries that might be part of their future-set Age of Revelation event, although, what's dismaying here is that they had to regurgitate another specific storyline from X-Men that should've been put to rest long ago:

The Phoenix Force is one of the most powerful cosmic entities in the Marvel universe and a nexus of psionic energy. It is a force of creation, but also one capable of devastating destruction. Over the years, the Phoenix Force has had many hosts who have bonded with and possessed the power of the Phoenix. The most frequent and by far most famous host of the Phoenix is the mutant telekinetic-telepath Jean Grey; however, some of the Phoenix Force’s other hosts include Rachel and Scott Summers, Illyana and Piotr Rasputin, Emma Frost, Namor, and Quentin Quire. In From the Ashes, Jean Grey was once again Phoenix, but now in Age of Revelation, there is a new Phoenix, someone who has a long established history with the X-Men.

In Binary #1, Jean Grey is dead, and Carol Danvers has been chosen to be the new host for the Phoenix Force. From Carol’s narration, we learn that Jean personally selected Carol to be the one to transfer the power of the Phoenix Force after her death. As of this issue, we do not know when or how Jean Grey died, or why she chose Carol to be the new host for the Phoenix Force, but perhaps Stephanie Phillips will fill in that information in subsequent issues of Binary. When asked in our X-Men Monday whether we will find out what happened to Jean Grey, Stephanie Phillips gave a somewhat cryptic response saying, “Yes. But it won’t be what you think… or what Carol thinks…”

In some ways, Carol is a logical choice to replace Jean as host of the Phoenix Force. For one, like Jean, Carol is also brave, heroic, selfless, and compassionate. These qualities make her a worthy and capable host, one who can handle the responsibility that comes with the awesome power of the Phoenix Force. Carol also has experience and proven success when it comes to cosmic abilities. During the events of the Brood Saga, Carol became a cosmic-powered hero named Binary in Uncanny X-Men #164 after absorbing the power of a white hole, which allowed her to generate the power of a star. In Binary #1, Carol says that being Binary was the closest she came to possessing any power comparable to that of the Phoenix; therefore, choosing to adopt the name Binary once again seemed appropriate.

This is real groaner. As though it weren't bad enough that in the past decade, Carol's femininity was defaced horrifically for the sake of a very unfeminine take on feminism, now, she's been shoved into a role of an entity that ended up being portrayed as monumentally lethal and wiped out inhabitants of a foreign galaxy 45 years ago in X-Men. And AIPT's writer sees nothing wrong with that? This is humiliatingly bad, and IIRC, Carol was only written spending time with the X-Men 2-3 years in the early 80s, following the storyline from 1981's Avengers Annual. Also note how the columnist blabbers about how several characters since the turn of the century went on to possess the Phoenix force, as though nothing was wrong with greenlighting such shoddy scripts that regurgitated a storyline that had been reduced to a case of kicking a dead horse. Why do modern writers think only a story about a girl seemingly possessing powers even more deadly than what Annihilus was armed with makes for spectacular storytelling? All the Phoenix Saga led to was a repulsive cliche that should've been put to rest long ago.

As bad as the premise they're going with happens to be, this does seem to suggest Marvel's publishers realize Carol Danvers no longer sells under the Capt. Marvel moniker, and they certainly did run it all into the ground in over a decade, with The Marvels movie quite possibly discouraging them from keeping on with using it. It reminds me of the failure of the Jonah Hex movie 15 years ago - after that, a series DC was publishing starring the 19th century western bounty hunter with a disfigured face was cancelled, and any further stories starring Hex were published under the title All-Star Western, a revival of the Bronze Age series which was where Hex first appeared in 1972. Funny how it can take a whole Hollywood fiasco to persuade some publishers it's not worth keeping on with the kind of farces they are these days. Yet story merit remains missing from the mainstream, and now while Marvel, in a manner of speaking, gave Carol back her 2nd moniker, is not improving the situation when they repeatedly make use of a storyline that was recycled in the worst possible ways in nearly 45 years. Modern writers have got to stop rehashing the Phoenix Saga already.

Labels: history, marvel comics, misogyny and racism, moonbat writers, msm propaganda, women of marvel, X-Men