SPOILERS AHEAD FOR CAPTAIN MARVEL, YOU\u2019VE BEEN WARNED.<\/p>\n
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All right. This was a significant picture for me, because in the entire MCU thus far, this is the character I was least familiar with. I knew Ms. Marvel, how she lost her powers to Rogue in the pages of X-Men and then became Binary, and I was vaguely aware that Kelly Sue DeConnick had transformed her into Marvel\u2019s leading heroine in the last 10 years, but I assumed that the origin story would need to be cleaned up and simplified a LOT for the MCU, which meant that I was experiencing a truly new lead character for the first time since, well, Phil Coulson.<\/p>\n
I was also lined up for a 1995 period piece. And that stuck kind of close to home. I also made a decision in 1989 that wound up putting me on the shelf for longer than I wanted, and the spring of 1995 was the first time I thought to myself that \u201csomeone who doesn\u2019t have to prove anything\u201d would be my life\u2019s aspiration. You can imagine what line really stung, I suppose, if you\u2019ve seen the movie. That era was a real nodal point, too: the 1.0 version of Netscape Navigator released, the opening of the Internet to anyone who could get access to a computer and a phone (and a credit card, I suppose), a real sense that the world was opening up into something new and exciting and unexpected.<\/p>\n
I remember what that was like. I also remember getting the first letter about my academic status at Vanderbilt that summer and being bewildered at how I suddenly found myself on the precipice, something completely unprecedented in my entire academic career. Of which, as I say. But for now, it was the inverse of Capt. Danvers\u2019 experience: I was being confronted with the fact that I was not as powerful as I had been led to believe. And I had to reckon with who I am and what I was, after a lifetime of being steered toward the small pond and told not to think too highly of myself.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Also, it turns out that she has the exact power set I would have imagined for myself back then. Flying. Indestructable. Strong enough to throw a ballistic missile aside, and spewing pure rage out of the hands sufficient to punch a hole in a planet. Yeah. Me at 23 would have clicked with that in a heartbeat. These days, it\u2019s more about teleportation and just being able to wish yourself somewhere better.<\/p>\n
But I do love the distinction drawn between the MCU\u2019s two O-3s: Captain America always gets up, because that\u2019s what a hero does and that\u2019s what he has to do to ensure that things turn out OK. Captain Marvel always gets up, because fuck you<\/em> that\u2019s why.<\/p>\n I was programmed to be Steve. I\u2019d a hell of a lot rather have been Carol.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" SPOILERS AHEAD FOR CAPTAIN MARVEL, YOU\u2019VE BEEN WARNED. \u00a0 \u00a0 All right. This was a significant picture for me, because in the entire MCU thus far, this is the character I was least familiar with. I knew Ms. Marvel, how she lost her powers to Rogue in the pages of X-Men and then became Binary, … <\/p>\n