The Death of Captain Marvel

AUTHOR: Starlin, Jim

ARTIST: Jim Starlin (illustrator); Steve Oliff (colorist); James Novak (letterer)

PUBLISHER: Marvel Comics

FIRST SERIAL PUBLICATION: 1982

FIRST BOOK PUBLICATION: 1982

Publication History

When it was first published in 1982, The Death of Captain Marvel was billed as Marvel Comics’ first graphic novel. Generally speaking, Marvel’s “graphic novels” were simply oversized versions printed on higher-quality paper stock than the traditional serial, stapled issues. Writer Jim Starlin returned for Marvel’s third official graphic novel, Dreadstar, later that same year. Marvel continued to rerelease the book for a number of years, later including the story in The Life and Death of Captain Marvel in 2002 and an expanded Death of Captain Marvel in 2010.

Plot

After a lifetime of fighting for justice—first, for his native race, the Kree, and later on behalf of all aliens as a “Protector of the Universe”—Captain Mar-Vell is enjoying a semiretirement, having found love with his onetime foe Elysius. When Mentor, the leader of the Eternals on the moon of Titan, seeks Mar-Vell’s aid in transporting the stony remains of the galactic villain (and Mentor’s wayward son) Thanos to their final resting place, Mar-Vell complies. Mar-Vell, Mentor, and his other son, Eros, meet with opposition from followers of Thanos; the three dispatch of them easily, only to discover in the melee that Mar-Vell has taken ill.

Mentor’s scans later detect cancer in a nearly untreatable form. In the past, Mar-Vell had been banished to the other-dimensional Negative Zone, where he could be liberated only by switching places physically with human adventurer/musician Rick Jones. Free of that bond, the effects of his long-ago battle with the supervillain Nitro began to take effect; Nitro had manually sealed a canister of lethal nerve toxin in Mar-vell, resulting in what the Kree call “blackend” and humans call “cancer.”

As Mar-Vell informs allies and loved ones of his failing health, Mentor enlists great minds to attempt to find a cure. Their efforts are in vain, as Mar-Vell, honored by friends and foes alike, succumbs to the disease. Thanos appears to Mar-Vell, teetering on the edge of death, and the apparition challenges him to one last glorious battle. The hero enjoys this final clash, ultimately realizing it is taking place beyond his physical body. As he dies in bed, his mind accepts Death, and Mar-Vell, Thanos, and Death exit the plane of the living; Mar-Vell’s vital statistics flatline, and Mentor covers the deceased hero with a bedsheet, whispering “He’s gone” in the final panel.

Characters

•Captain Marvel, a.k.a. Captain Mar-Vell, the story’s titular hero, usually wears a skintight red-and-blue suit highlighted with a yellow starburst on the chest and golden-colored Nega-Bands on his wrists; his plume of rich blond hair emerges from atop his facemask. Previously, he was an official captain in the Kree military, sent to Earth for infiltration and espionage in advance of a Kree invasion. Ultimately, though, he sided with humanity and, shunned by his own people, became a protector of Earth and, later, the universe. Empowered by the entity Eon with “cosmic awareness,” he could sense when something was awry in the cosmos and utilize the photonic power of his Nega-Bands to fight for balance.

•Mentor, leader of the Eternals living on the moon of Titan, has the wrinkled countenance and white hair of an old man but the spry and vital body of his fellow Eternals. His race is a genetically modified offshoot of Earth’s humans, enhanced by the supertechnologies of the mysterious Celestials. Having relocated his people to the moon of Titan long ago, he has the impressive data and sciences of Integral Synaptic Anti-Anionic Computer (ISAAC), the Eternals’ megacomputer, at his disposal to try to aid Mar-Vell in his fight against death.

•Thanos, errant son of Mentor and cosmic megalomaniac, resembles the Eternals’ adversaries, the Deviants, more than his kin: His purple skin, deep black eyes, ridged jawline, muscled girth, and centurion-like garb give him a ghoulish appearance. His quests for cosmic domination had been previously thwarted by Mar-Vell, the Avengers, Spider-Man, and the late Adam Warlock; from beyond the grave, Warlock froze the Death-worshipping Thanos into a stone statue, denying him forever, it seemed, the true embrace of the grave. However, he returns to usher Mar-Vell into Death’s afterlife.

•Rick Jones, former partner and symbiotic “space-mate” of Mar-Vell, retains his youthful demeanor from his days as the teen sidekick of both the Hulk and Captain America. Once tethered to Mar-Vell through the Nega-Bands and forced to swap physical presences with the hero, he has returned to a career in music when Mar-Vell comes to tell him the news of the cancer. Though Rick is clear of the disease, he is initially furious that Mar-Vell is accepting such a fatalistic destiny. He is successful in prodding Earth’s greatest minds to join Mentor in seeking a cure for Mar-Vell. He ultimately reconciles with his former partner, staying with him at his bedside until the end.

•Elysius, the artificial creation of Titan’s massive computer ISAAC, appears to be fully humanoid as a beautiful flesh-and-blood Eternal. Previously a villain, she chooses to side with Mar-Vell and his companions in combating her former coconspirators. Eventually, she and Mar-Vell fall in love and plan to have children together but cancer overtakes him.

Artistic Style

Starlin often favors ripplingly athletic protagonists, interspersing kinetic and action-packed fights with brooding, pensive musings. His attention to anatomy, in particular, lends his characters a peculiar vitality; in a genre frequently featuring voluptuous female characters, Starlin produces sexualized male protagonists as well. This manner of unrestrained physique is frequently combined with cosmic background or multicharacter vignettes, so as to emphasize the mental processes of the main character. Psychedelic elements are commonly employed, too, to express images and experiences beyond traditional sight, especially in realms outside of physical space.

Frequently, Starlin forgoes the traditional “blank-pupil” look of masked superheroes to communicate characters’ humanity or decency through their eyes. Villains are not often given the same treatment, thereby underscoring the effect. Likewise, Starlin’s villains are often blockier than the heroes, stripping them of any positive sexuality.

The color palette for The Death of Captain Marvel is relatively muted when compared to some of Starlin’s later work, such as Dreadstar. It could be that, given the newness of Marvel’s graphic novel line, the production process was either uncertain or botched, thereby leading to only moderate brilliance for the hue of the work. Either way, apart from the colors themselves, the balance between light and dark scenes is carefully maintained, ending as it does with Mar-Vell’s shaded, quiet demise in bed. The inking is relatively thick, given the level of detail each panel attempts to convey, all of which may suggest to the reader, even subconsciously, a weight or heaviness.

Themes

Like much of Starlin’s work, the combined concerns of heroism and mortality suffuse the entire text. Specifically, The Death of Captain Marvel is a meditation on how a battle-sharpened warrior must finally lay down his arms to an obstacle he cannot defeat, death itself, and what ultimate justice there may or may not be in that realization. In interviews, Starlin is quoted as saying that the graphic novel was “cheaper than going to a shrink” as “a great way of working through my own father’s death.” After offering several different responses to Mar-Vell’s imminent demise (denial, anger, and depression, for example) through the other characters, Starlin eventually has the hero accept both the reality of death and the possibility of a journey into the afterlife. In this way, Mar-Vell’s heroism has not been in vain, and he finds peace in having to exit mortal existence. In fact, he comes to embrace death, battling to the bitter end, as his friend Rick Jones wants him to do. Readers do not get to step into the great beyond and can only stand by helplessly, as do the other superheroes and villains, as Mar-Vell dies. Ultimately, the primary theme of the book, in a manner akin to biblical Ecclesiastes, is the recognition that to all things, there is a season, and even for superheroes, there is a time to die.

Impact

Unlike a great many superhero characters (such as Bucky, Superman, Green Arrow, Green Lantern, Captain America, and Wonder Woman), Captain Marvel has never “returned” from his death, only appearing in alternate realities, flashbacks, and supernatural stories. However, he did play a central role in Alex Ross and Jim Krueger’s Earth X (1999-2000) trilogy, set many decades into the future of the Marvel Comics Universe.

Mar-Vell’s legacy has been taken up, largely, by a pair of heroes. In the late 1980’s, Wendell Vaughn (also known as Quasar) took on Mar-Vell’s mantle of “Protector of the Universe” with his Quantum Bands, similar to Mar-Vell’s Nega-Bands. He forged a relationship with Epoch that was similar to Mar-Vell’s with Eon, Epoch’s progenitor. (Similarly, another hero, Monica Rambeau, would dub herself Captain Marvel, though, as an Earth-based crime fighter with the ability to transform herself into various energy wavelengths, she bore little resemblance to and had little connection with Mar-Vell.) In the late 1990’s, Mar-Vell’s artificial son, Genis-Vell, went from calling himself Legacy to assuming the name Captain Marvel. Coincidentally, after a massive mental breakdown and recovery caused by the burdens of cosmic awareness, he began calling himself Photon, the same name that Rambeau took after abandoning the Captain Marvel identity. Mar-Vell has no relationship to the Captain Marvel of DC Comics.

Further Reading

Giffen, Keith, et al. Annihilation (2006-2007).

Sim, Dave, and Gerhard Sim. The Last Day (2004).

Starlin, Jim. The End: Marvel (2003).

Starlin, Jim, and Ron Lim. Rann-Thanagar Holy War (2008).

Starlin, Jim, et al. The Infinity Gauntlet (2006).

Bibliography

Starlin, Jim. “A Success Written in the Stars.” Interview by UHQ Team. Universo HQ, March 3, 2001. http://www.universohq.com/quadrinhos/entrevista‗starlin‗eng01.cfm.

Starlin, Jim, Joe Pruett, and Justin Eisinger. The Art of Jim Starlin: A Life in Words and Pictures. San Diego, Calif.: IDW, 2010.

Weiner, Stephen. Faster Than a Speeding Bullet: The Rise of the Graphic Novel. New York: NBM, 2003.