Captain Marvel In The '70s: The Far-Out Epic Behind The Modern Movie

By | March 7, 2019

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Captain Marvel on the verge of losing the ultimate battle to Thanos, who has caused him to rapidly age and (most likely) die, in Captain Marvel 33, from 1974. Source: bronzeagebabies.blogspot.com

If you're looking to take in the latest heroic blockbuster, you might have wondered -- who is this Captain Marvel, and what does she have to do with any of these other movies? Well, this particular hero, originally male, is a special one within the vast Marvel Universe (the comics, not the films), representing a peak of creativity. The mind behind Captain Marvel was Jim Starlin, who also worked wonders with Thanos and Adam Warlock. Starlin's trippy, philosophy-soaked storylines were unlike anything else on the comics rack at the time.

It was a trying time for the country. The optimism of the '60s had given way to a great come-down. The Vietnam War was a constant bummer for everyone, both those who objected to it and (even moreso) those who served and came home to what seemed like a cold reception from an ungrateful public. The president who'd said he wasn't a crook had turned out to be a crook. Some of our favorite political leaders and rock heroes had died or been killed. For many young people and shell-shocked hippies, the early '70s was a time for soul-searching.

It was a good time to get back to the basics and consider the big questions, without illusions about peace and love: What is life? Why are we here? What does any of this matter? Why are we in Vietnam? How do we humans live our daily lives when we've got enough nuclear weapons aimed at each other to blow up the planet 100 times?

The time was ripe for popular entertainment that tackled philosophical issues, an escapist fantasy that was also a heavy trip. A comic book that sliced and diced the narrative form; keeping readers interested in the swashbuckling action, then leaving them wondering what the hell did I just read? after they got to the end. Jim Starlin wrote (and drew) the sort of comic book we'd never seen before, where life and death, being and nothingness, sanity and madness battled it out for the highest of stakes. Clashes between Captain Marvel and Thanos were the sort of story that blew the mind of 12-year-olds, and kept stoned college students up all night long, over-analyzing it as they'd been taught to dissect Sartre or Nietzche.

Jim Starlin Created A Universe-Threatening Villain

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Captain Marvel explains his nemesis in the pages of Adam Warlock. Source: sequart.org

In 1974, the Marvel Universe, home to the Avengers, Spider-Man, the X-Men and many other beloved comic book heroes and villains, had been around for over a decade and could do with some new ideas. The world created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby in 1961 had reignited interest in comic books, and had revolutionized the medium. But Kirby left Marvel in 1970. The big titles he'd co-created -- Fantastic Four, The Avengers, Hulk, Iron Man, Captain America -- were soldiering on in his absence. They were entertaining, often even good, but the weirdness was lacking. Marvel needed someone to go out there and push boundaries again. Enter a young writer/artist named Jim Starlin.

Starlin was a Navy vet with an interest in comics. After he got out of the service, he got into the industry in 1972 and was soon filling in on established titles for Marvel Comics. He had a three-issue run on Iron Man in 1973, in which he introduced the characters Thanos and Drax the Destroyer. Thanos was an incredibly powerful villain that Starlin had actually dreamed up back when he was in college studying psychology. Starlin has said that he wasn't sure how long he'd last in comics, so when given the chance to script and draw a title himself, he went ahead and used his Thanos character -- it might be his only chance.

Thanos existed out there, in space -- a menacing, incredibly dangerous presence but not really a common, containable threat like the bad guys Spider-Man was collaring or even the power-mad evil genius Dr. Doom, perennial foe of the Fantastic Four. Thanos was an existential threat to the entire universe. A couple months after Starlin's Iron Man stint, Marvel Comics handed him a series called Captain Marvel; Starlin came on as artist (and uncredited co-plotter) with issue 25 and then as writer/artist with the next. Captain Marvel was a cosmic superhero, an alien of the Kree race (given name: Mar-Vell), spending his time out in space in plotlines that had a heavy science fiction element.