…Those X-Men fans among us know that Rogue* permenantly gained powers of flight, invulnerability, and superhuman strength after absorbing them from a superheroine named “Miss Marvel.”
The thing is, though, that I can’t seem to find any information online about this Miss Marvel, other than the fact that her real name might be Carol Danvers. (Maybe…a most of the pages weren’t in English)
Can…anyone help fill me in?
*(Who’s real name apparently isn’t “Marie D’ancanto,” at least according to the writers of X-Treme X-Men. But that’s neither here nor there)
Carol Danvers was a former US Air Force pilot who ended up hanging around the old Kree Captain Marvel for awhile. Later, she got the same super-powers Rogue now has: flight, strength, invulnerability, etc. Rogue swiped them from her in Avengers Annual #10; Rogue knocked her into a coma.
Carol got her powers back awhile later and joined up with…the Starjammers, I believe. She spent a few years active as a cosmic heroine named “Binary,” but those powers wore down over time, and she lost them permanently in Avengers (vol. 3) #4. She appears to be back to her original power level and now goes by the name of Warbird; she’s got a semi-active membership with that team, although she was briefly booted due to alcoholism problems.
She was a superheroine in possession of said powers. I believe she wore blue and was a blonde. Frankly she wasn’t IMO a very important character. While working under Mystique in Freedom Force (the Brotherhood of Mutants being villainous under the guise of being government heroes), Rogue used her innate mutant power to restrain Miss Marvel. I can’t recall whether or not she died in the process but suffice it to say we haven’t seen much of Miss Carol Danvers since.
The Rogue-Ms Marvel was in an unpublished (until 1992), post cancellation issue of Ms Marvel.
It’s a wild history. Get a Kree warrior implanted in your brain. Get seduced by a guy from Limbo. Get mind and powers stolen. Get experimented on by sleazoids. Lose cosmic powers. Become an alcoholic and get kicked out of the Avengers.
How did Rogue keep these powers she took from Ms. Marvel, doesn’t the powers she gains from other Mutants go away after a while? And is Ms. Marvel a Mutant?
It apparently had something to do with the amount of time she held on to Ms. Marvel. MM struggled and didn’t pass out right away, so Rogue just held on for a wild ride that took a couple of minutes, and after that much time, the transfer was pretty much perminant. It was completely unnintentional on Rogues part, but that didn’t seem to matter much in the grand scheme of things. IT did make for some good storytelling later on, though.
Yeah, because she also absorbed half of Miss Marvel’s psyche, and needed Xavier to sort out her brain. This is basically how she became a good guy.
All told, I’d rather have the powers of the mutant Synch, who can copy every mutant’s powers in a radius around him. No nasty mind-absorption side effects.
Ms. Marvel had her own series back in the 70’s for a couple years. As noted above, Carol Danvers is currently known as Warbird and was formerly aka Binary, so you might find additional information if you search under those names.
One other power that Ms Marvel had was a “seventh sense.” She would get pregognitive flashes (often accompanied by splitting headaches, sort of like Cordelia used to get on Angel). Rogue apparently did not overtly manifest this ability, although there was speculation in at least one issue of X-men that the precog ability manifested itself slightly in an ability of Rogue to anticipate and avoid blows during fights.
Carol Danvers initially did not know that she was Ms Marvel. She would black out and transform into Ms Marvel in a flash of light.
I always thought Carol Danvers was given short shrift as a character. Yes, she was a female knock-off designed to cash in on her male counterpart (although Captain Mar-vell never struck me as that popular or interesting) during the peak of the women’s movement, but she still didn’t deserve what Claremont did to her. I was very happy when she lashed out at the Avengers upon her return.
Actually, the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants were openly villainous at that time, and later, when they became Freedom Force, they had genuinely reformed (to the best of my knowledge, which runs roughly through Uncanny X-Men # 260 or so…if it’s been revealed since then that they were still acting as villains behind people’s backs, I’m not aware of it). Freedom Force was never a guise.
“Genuinely reformed” is a bit of a stretch – the members of the Brotherhood didn’t turn over a new leaf when offered the chance to become government agents, but mostly they did recognize that it was a much better gig than that of costumed criminal and so they made sure they didn’t screw it up. Eventually, Freedom Force fell apart and most of the members thereof returned to crime. Mystique has her own series now, which is pretty good, but it’s not really consonant with her previous depiction of someone who was willing to do whatever it took to achieve her generally admirable goals.
Rogue was never a member of Freedom Force; she left the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants before the group was co-opted into the government.
Oh, and to throw something else into the mix, several years ago there was a new Ms Marvel. She originated in the Thing’s (from the Fantastic Four) solo series. She was a professional wrestler who underwent enhancements to give her superhuman strength. Lter she joined the Fantastic Four as a fill-in member and later still was transformed into a sort of “She-Thing,” getting all orange and dinosaur-hidey like Ben Grimm looked in his early days. I quit reading comics at around that time so I have no idea what happened or how that completely ridiculous plot twist was resolved. My hope is that she died a horrible death of some sort and the entire Marvel Universe took a vow never to speak of her again.
OK, Cliffy, maybe the BoEM didn’t have a mass attitude adjustment, but the point is that Freedom Force wasn’t a front for criminal activity, it was a group whose members, both secretly as well as openly, acted within the bounds of legality.
There was also a female Captain Marvel, who was in the Avengers during the 80’s. She had a white costume, an afro, and could turn into a photon (in fact I think she eventually changed her name to Photon).
The Female CM- did not just turn into photons. She could become a large variety of things, microwaves, gamma rays, neutrinos etc.
Re The OP-
IIRC Doctor Strange was able to restor Carol Danvers memories but not the emotions that went with them. Though she remembered all the details of her childhood, she felt only a vague fondness for her parents.
Again, IIRC, the remnants of Carol were eventually seperated from Rogue by a walk through the Siege Perilous. Intaglio
Without digging out my Official Handbook To The Marvel Universe, Rogue can steal the abilities of any super powered individual, not just mutants(Except Asgardians. For some reason, they appear to be immune to her powers). Back when she was still a criminal, she knocked out Captain America with a kiss and then used his powers to fight the rest of the Avengers.
The Female CM- did not just turn into photons. She could become a large variety of things, microwaves, gamma rays, neutrinos etc.
Re The OP-
IIRC Doctor Strange was able to restor Carol Danvers memories but not the emotions that went with them. Though she remembered all the details of her childhood, she felt only a vague fondness for her parents.
Again, IIRC, the remnants of Carol were eventually seperated from Rogue by a walk through the Siege Perilous. Intaglio
Without digging out my Official Handbook To The Marvel Universe, Rogue can steal the abilities of any super powered individual, not just mutants(Except Asgardians. For some reason, they appear to be immune to her powers). Back when she was still a criminal, she knocked out Captain America with a kiss and
She could transform into any form of electromagnetic radiation (the technical explanation was that she exchanged her mass for an extradimensional source of electromagnetism…when she wanted to travel at slower than light speeds she would hold back a few particles of mass to act as drag…I love it when they try to explain the powers of their characters). She could also release bursts of electromagnetic energy.
I believe this was Professor Xavier who did this.
[nitpick] Captain America has no superhuman abilities. He has been enhanced into pretty much the perfect physical human specimen but he isn’t super-. [/nitpick]
The Siege Perilous is a strange little item given to the X-Men by the goddess Roma, which, when activated, created a little protal that allowed them to escape from the Reevers. It also kind of had the ability to give everyone a new life, which for some seemed to work okay, but for most, just kinda fucked them over (I don’t remember what happened to Colossus, but I don’t think it was that bad). Havok ended up on the shores of Genosha with his brain wipped clean, where he became brainwashed and part of the MAgistrates; Psylock ended up in Japan, where she was apparently mind swapped with Shinobi Shaw’s hotty assasine girlfriend, and that’s how she ended up becoming Japanese; and Rogue ended up on the floor of an apartment somewhere with no powers whatsoever being hunted down by a decomposing Ms. Marvel who was trying to steal her life essence, until they both somehow ended up in the Savage Land, where Rogue was rescued by Magneto, who merged the two of them together again (or something).