Carol Danvers was created by writer Roy Thomas and artist Gene Colan. She made her first appearance not as a superhero, but as a supporting character in Marvel Super-Heroes #13 (March 1968). In this initial role, she was a highly capable officer in the United States Air Force and the head of security at a restricted military base, putting her in the orbit of the Kree warrior Mar-Vell, the original Captain Marvel.
Nearly a decade later, in the midst of the second-wave feminist movement and the rise of characters like Wonder Woman as cultural icons, Marvel decided to elevate Carol to a starring role. Writer Gerry Conway and artist John Buscema launched her solo series, Ms. Marvel #1 (January 1977), which retconned her history to include a power-granting accident. The title “Ms.” was a deliberate and modern choice, reflecting the changing social tides and positioning her as an independent, self-defined hero. Her journey from Ms. Marvel to the cosmic powerhouse Binary, the troubled Warbird, and finally to her assumption of the Captain Marvel mantle in 2012 (helmed by writer Kelly Sue DeConnick) reflects decades of character evolution, making her one of Marvel's most dynamic and enduring female heroes.
The specific events that transformed Carol Danvers from a human pilot into a cosmic champion differ significantly between the primary comic book universe and the cinematic universe.
Carol Susan Jane Danvers was a driven and ambitious woman long before she gained superpowers. Following in her father's footsteps, she joined the United States Air Force, quickly distinguishing herself as a brilliant pilot and intelligence officer. Her skills led her to work alongside notable figures like Logan (the future Wolverine) and Ben Grimm (Thing). She rose through the ranks, eventually becoming the head of security at NASA's Cape Canaveral. It was here that her life irrevocably changed. She became entangled in the affairs of the Kree Captain Mar-Vell, who was operating on Earth as a spy. During a battle between Mar-Vell and his Kree nemesis, Yon-Rogg, Carol was kidnapped. The conflict culminated in the explosion of a powerful Kree device called the Psyche-Magnitron. Carol was caught in the blast, and the machine's radiation caused her genetic structure to be melded with Mar-Vell's Kree physiology. Initially, she was unaware of the changes. The trauma of the event caused amnesia, and she left her military career to become a magazine editor for the Daily Bugle's “Woman Magazine,” under publisher J. Jonah Jameson. However, she began to experience blackouts during which a costumed alter-ego, Ms. Marvel, would emerge. This new persona possessed a fraction of Mar-Vell's powers: superhuman strength, durability, and flight. For a time, Carol lived a fractured existence, her personality split between the civilian Carol Danvers and the hero Ms. Marvel. Eventually, she integrated these two halves, gaining full control of her powers and memories, and embarked on a full-time heroic career, joining the Avengers. Her origin has been subject to multiple retcons and clarifications over the years, solidifying that the Psyche-Magnitron didn't just give her Kree powers, but rather unlocked a latent potential within her human DNA, with her mother later being revealed to be of Kree origin. This makes Carol a true hybrid, a child of two worlds.
In the reality designated Earth-199999, Carol Danvers's origin is streamlined and directly tied to an Infinity Stone. In the 1980s, Carol was a gifted and rebellious U.S. Air Force test pilot, alongside her best friend Maria Rambeau. Her career stalled due to the patriarchal attitudes of the era, preventing her from flying in combat. She found a new purpose when she was recruited by Dr. Wendy Lawson to test an experimental aircraft. Lawson was secretly a Kree scientist named Mar-Vell, who was working on Earth to develop a light-speed engine to help the Skrulls, a race of shapeshifters, escape the genocidal Kree Empire. The engine's power source was the Tesseract, the containment vessel for the Space Stone. During a test flight, their plane was ambushed and shot down by the Kree commander Yon-Rogg, Mar-Vell's former colleague. Mar-Vell was killed, and to prevent the engine's core from falling into Kree hands, Carol destroyed it with her sidearm. The resulting explosion bathed her in the raw, cosmic energy of the Space Stone. Instead of disintegrating, she absorbed the energy, granting her immense power. The blast also caused severe amnesia. Found by Yon-Rogg, she was taken to the Kree capital world of Hala. The Kree transfused her with Kree blood (leading her to believe this was the source of her powers), implanted a device to suppress her true potential, and indoctrinated her into their elite military unit, Starforce, under the name “Vers.” For six years, she fought for the Kree, believing the Skrulls were terrorists. Her journey of rediscovery began when she crash-landed on Earth in 1995 and encountered a young S.H.I.E.L.D. agent named Nick Fury. With his help, and by piecing together fragments of her past, she uncovered the Kree's lies, reconnected with Maria Rambeau, and learned the truth of her origin. In a final confrontation with the Kree's leader, the Supreme Intelligence, she shattered her emotional and physical inhibitors, unlocking her full “Binary” power and becoming one of the most powerful beings in the universe. She then left Earth to find a new home for the Skrulls, vowing to end the Kree's tyranny across the galaxy.
Carol's powers have fluctuated dramatically throughout her history, but she has consistently been one of Earth's mightiest heroes.
Carol Danvers is defined by her tenacity and a soldier's discipline. She is ambitious, confident, and often headstrong, with a deep-seated desire to be the “best of the best.” This drive is a source of both great strength and personal conflict. She has battled significant personal demons, including a period of alcoholism following a series of traumatic events. She is a natural leader but can be blunt and uncompromising, as seen during events like Civil War II. Above all, she is fiercely loyal and possesses an unshakeable sense of duty to protect the innocent.
The MCU's Captain Marvel is presented as an absolute top-tier powerhouse from the moment she unlocks her full potential.
Sanctuary II by flying through them, and withstand the force of a headbutt from a mind-controlled Hulk.The MCU streamlines Carol's powers by linking them to a single, iconic source: an Infinity Stone. Her “Binary” form is less a separate state and more her “limit break” or true form, accessible once she overcomes her mental blocks. While the comic version's power level has varied, the MCU's Captain Marvel is consistently portrayed at the upper echelons of power, intended to be an answer to cosmic-level threats like Thanos. Her MCU personality is shaped by her amnesia and Kree indoctrination. Initially, as “Vers,” she is stoic, emotionally reserved, and follows orders. Upon rediscovering her human past, her defiant, witty, and fiercely independent nature re-emerges. She carries the weight of her lost years and the responsibility of her immense power, making her seem distant to some, but her loyalty to friends like Fury and Maria is absolute. She is less of a public-facing Earth hero than in the comics, acting primarily on a galactic scale.
The Marvels is fraught with feelings of abandonment and the need for reconciliation after Carol's decades-long absence in space.Avengers Annual #10, a misguided Rogue, then a member of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, attacks Carol to absorb her powers for a fight. The process goes horribly wrong, and Rogue permanently absorbs not just Carol's powers but her memories and personality, leaving Carol a depowered, amnesiac shell. This event had catastrophic psychological consequences for Carol and defined both characters for years, eventually leading to Carol's rebirth as Binary.This 1981 story by Chris Claremont is arguably the single most important event in Carol's history. Believing the Avengers were a threat, Rogue ambushed Carol alone. Her mutant power—absorbing the psyche and abilities of anyone she touches—malfunctioned. She held on too long, permanently stealing Carol's Kree powers and, devastatingly, all of her memories and emotions. The Avengers found Carol's catatonic body. Though Professor X was able to restore her memories, the emotional connections to them were gone. This violation left her feeling like a stranger in her own life and led to a temporary but bitter split from the Avengers, who she felt had not taken the attack seriously enough. This profound trauma directly led to her joining the X-Men in space, where her subsequent transformation into Binary marked her ultimate rebirth.
In this 2005 reality-warping event, the Scarlet Witch remakes the world into one where everyone's deepest wish is granted. For Carol Danvers, this meant becoming Captain Marvel, the most beloved and famous superhero on Earth. She was the icon she always felt she could be. When reality was restored, the memory of this “perfect” life haunted her. The profound sense of loss, of having tasted her greatest potential only to have it ripped away, instilled in her a new, powerful drive. It was this experience that set her on the path to stop being “Ms. Marvel” and truly strive to become the best hero possible, eventually leading her to adopt the Captain Marvel name in honor of her predecessor.
This 2016 sequel event placed Carol at its very center, opposite Iron Man (Tony Stark). When a new Inhuman named Ulysses emerges with the ability to predict future disasters with startling accuracy, Carol becomes the champion of “predictive justice.” She argues that the heroes have a moral obligation to use his visions to stop tragedies before they happen. Tony Stark vehemently opposes this, seeing it as a violation of civil liberties and a dangerous path toward punishing people for crimes they haven't yet committed. Their ideological clash escalates into a devastating conflict that splinters the superhero community, leading to the deaths of both War Machine and the Hulk (Bruce Banner), and culminating in a final battle that leaves Tony Stark in a coma. This storyline solidified Carol's position as a major leader in the Marvel Universe, but also portrayed her in an uncompromising, authoritarian light that proved deeply divisive among fans and fellow heroes.