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Regarding Genis as Captain Marvel

Note: This article was written in February 1999, during the early run of Avengers Forever, and before it was known that Captain Marvel would be launched into his own series.

Fin Fang Foom's well reasoned comments have intrigued me enough to pay a little bit of attention to a character I have previously written off as ill-conceived and best ignored (I mean Genis, not Foom).

Mark Gruenwald argued in one of his Mark's Remarks (in West Coast Avengers, I believe) that good comics heroes needed an origin that could be summed up in one sentence, like "brilliant millionaire industrialist wearing high-tech armour of his own making to battle crime", and should likewise have a motivation that could be similarly summarised, "fights against evil having learned from the death of his uncle that with great power comes great responsibility".

If we apply the first of these rules of thumb to Genis we have, "cloned and artifically aged posthumous offspring of now-dead Kree warrior and Protector of the Universe Mar-Vell and Elysium, former villainess in service to the corrupt computer that ruled the high-tech moon of Titan (but is fixed now) and who was immortal Eternal (genetic offshoot from humanity created by the omnipotent Celestials) of the branch that left Earth with Cronos at the dawn of human history, who has gained his father's Nega-Bands and can therefore manipulate photonic energy and somehow gets cosmic awareness thrown in as well." Hmm. Not as good start, and the reason why I haven't really liked the character up till now.

But Fin Fang Foom's comments made me apply the second rule of thumb. "Newly appointed Protector of the Universe, desperately trying to make good despite the prejudices against him because of his origins." Now that does have some promise, and is presumably the reason that he was included as a character in Avengers Forever.

The character still needs some work before I'm fully in favour of him. Last time I looked in Marvel current time, Quazar was the protector of the Universe, and I'd hate to see anything bad happen to him just to make way for the new kid. The Nega-Bands have never been very well defined (more has been written since Mar-Vell died than during the time he was actually alive and using them), and the power of "cosmic awareness" has been interpreted differently by various writers. The role of first Eon (dead since the Quazar series) and now Epoch (the child-like replacement cosmic being of Eon) needs to be pinned down. Still, something good could come of it all. The jury's out.