Carol DanversCaptain Marvel

Hot Shot

Always pushing boundaries as a young daredevil—whether she was playing on the beach, riding bikes, swinging a bat in softball, or racing go-karts—Carol Danvers seemed destined to join the U.S. Air Force. Told countless times by her father that she shouldn’t be doing “boys’ activities,” Carol became even more determined to prove others wrong, always getting up and dusting herself off every time she fell or crashed.

After growing up and officially joining the Air Force in the late 1980s, Carol became close friends with fellow flyer Maria “Photon” Rambeau and her young daughter, Monica. Together, with their catchphrase “Higher, Further, Faster,” Carol and Maria shared laughs, drinks, and nights of karaoke while flying test missions. Her base of operations, Project Pegasus, was led by Dr. Wendy Lawson, who championed Danvers’ abilities despite the fact that women weren’t allowed to fly actual combat missions in 1989. Having recently invented an experimental light speed engine, Lawson chose Danvers to test the plane by her side, but during a flight to Lawson’s orbiting space laboratory, they were shot down by a Kree ship.

After surviving the crash, Lawson attempted to destroy the plane’s core reactor before the Kree could take it for themselves, but the Doctor was gunned down before she could complete the task. Confronted by a Kree commander named Yon-Rogg, Carol shot the reactor herself, catching the brunt of the explosion in the process. The incident nearly killed her but instead wiped her memories and infused her with a mysterious energy.

Yon-Rogg then took Carol back to the Kree home planet of Hala where, under the orders of a being called the Supreme Intelligence, he transfused her with his blood to keep her alive. After her recovery, Yon-Rogg trained Danvers to become a member of Starforce—a crack team of Kree soldiers. Always imploring his new teammate to ignore her emotions and memory flashes, Yon-Rogg created an unflinching new weapon for the Empire. As a Kree, Carol was renamed Vers.

Warrior Hero

When the woman known as Carol Danvers became a human-Kree hybrid named Vers, her physiology changed, allowing her to become faster, stronger, and more durable than a human. Yon-Rogg also trained her in hand-to-hand combat so that she could fight as a Starforce soldier, but it was always known that Vers contained extraordinary power due to the core reactor explosion that nearly killed her. As such, the Kree Supreme Intelligence ordered Yon-Rogg to help her keep it in check so that they could one day utilize it as a weapon to wipe out other alien races.

The power itself emerged from the Tesseract, which in turn housed the Space Stone, so within Carol/Vers is the ability to harness and manipulate massive amounts of cosmic energy. At first, Vers was given a Photon Inhibitor on her wrists to subdue and focus her abilities, relegating them to energy blasts from her hands, but using her full power as Captain Marvel, she was able to stop a missile attack, defeat all of her former Kree squadron, and wipe out Ronan’s fleet.

Modern Marvel

After six years as a member of Yon-Rogg’s Starforce on the Kree planet Hala, Vers was still haunted by cloudy dreams circling memories of her human life. Yon-Rogg saw that she was having trouble shutting off her emotions during combat, so he had her commune with the Supreme Intelligence, a sentient program comprised of great minds from Kree history. As no one ever saw the true form of the Supreme Intelligence, it appeared to each Kree as a person they knew. In Vers’ case, it was Dr. Lawson, though Vers had no idea why she knew this particular person.

Captured by the Skrulls during a mission that turned out to be a trap, Kree general Talos probed Vers’ memories to try to get the specific coordinates she was flying toward during the last day she was Carol Danvers on Earth. Vers escaped from Talos’ ship, plummeted to Earth, and crashed through the roof of a Blockbuster Video.

S.H.I.E.L.D. agents Nick Fury and new recruit Phil Coulson were called in to investigate, but Fury was in disbelief when Vers told them Earth had been infiltrated by Skrulls, shape-shifting aliens that have been at war with the Kree for centuries. His mind was quickly changed, though, when a Skrull open fired on them and Vers took off after him. On the train, Vers noticed the Skrull had changed shape again, and the two battled in front of a full car of passengers.

During the skirmish, Vers found a pod that contained her memories and used it to head to an old bar she used to hang out at. Fury, on orders from his boss, Director Keller, found her there, and the two talked about how her past had ties to Project Pegasus. The two used Fury’s clearance to gain access to Pegasus’ base while Fury secretly contacted Keller to let him know he’d found Vers. Keller, actually Talos in disguise, arrived with S.H.I.E.L.D. agents.

Vers found Lawson’s old cat, Goose, roaming the halls before finding the records room and learning that she was a test pilot for Lawson, who was presumed dead back in a crash six years earlier. After escaping Talos, Vers and Fury flew out of the base on a Quadjet, headed toward Maria Rambeau’s house.

At the house, Vers met a Maria she didn’t remember and Maria’s daughter, Monica, who was overjoyed to see her Auntie Carol again. Now starting to recall elements of her old life, the reunion was cut short by Talos, who revealed that he and the rest of the Skrulls were actually refugees running from a tyrannical Kree army that wanted to wipe them out because they refused to be obedient. Dr. Lawson was actually a Kree rebel who was helping the Skrulls get far enough away from the Empire that they could find a new home world.

With new memories flooding back into Carol’s mind (revealing that Yon-Rogg was actually the one responsible for her crash and Lawson’s death), Carol, Fury, Maria, Talos, and Goose flew to Lawson’s satellite lab, and there, Talos was reunited with his family. It was also revealed that Lawson’s engine was remotely powered by the Tesseract, which in turn had given Carol her powers. Yon-Rogg, with Starforce, arrived to subdue them, however, and Ronan was called in to attack Earth. While mentally imprisoned by the Supreme Intelligence, Carol found the inner strength to overcome her trappings, break free, and defeat her old teammates.

Goose turned out to be an alien called a Flerken, not only swallowing the Tesseract for safe keeping but also a few Kree guards for good measure. Fury, Monica, Talos, and Goose escaped while Carol, now donning new colors in order to reject her old green Kree uniform, battled Ronan’s missiles and ships with powerful cosmic blasts, causing him to retreat.

Back on Earth, Carol took out Yon-Rogg with a single cosmic blast and then sent him back to Hala to face the consequences of his failure. Promising to help Talos and the remaining Skrulls find a new world, Carol left her old life once again but rewired Fury’s pager so that he could use it to contact her in the case of an emergency...

A Homecoming

Having survived Thanos' snap, Captain Marvel received Nick Fury's distress signal but found herself dealing with distraught planets throughout the cosmos. As she arrived at the location of the homing device on Earth, she found the surviving Avengers attempting to fix the beeper signal, which had stopped shortly before she approached. Carol learned that not only Fury but half the planet had been wiped out after the Avengers’ epic battle with Thanos, where they suffered deep losses on their team.

After the devastating event, Captain Marvel found the Guardians’ Ship floating dead in space, occupied only by Iron Man and Nebula. She single-handedly carried the ship back to Earth, lighting up the sky as she safely landed the ship on the grounds of the Avengers’ base. Although Carol rescued them just in time, Tony Stark was in an extremely weakened state as he was reunited with Pepper Potts and his teammates.

As Tony recovered, Carol and the Avengers regrouped to plan their next course of action. They learned that Thanos had used the Infinity Stones again, and without hesitation, Carol proposed to follow the energy signal emitted to track his location. She remained confident that she could defeat Thanos, despite doubts voiced by War Machine. When questioned as to why she never appeared before the Avengers until now, she simply stated that many other Avenger-less planets also needed her help. Thor ignored the group and strode over to Captain Marvel. He then raised his hand to summon his battle ax, which whipped through the air inches from Danvers' head. She calmly gazed at Thor and smiled. Seeing how their new ally was not one to be easily intimidated, Thor declared his vote of confidence in Carol.

As they arrived at Thanos’ planet, Captain Marvel was the first to charge at him, delivering several blows to his body and head. While she restrained him in a neck hold, the Avengers discovered that he used the power of the Infinity Stones to destroy them. The realization hit the group that the snap had truly been final and there was no way now to undo it. Before Carol and the other Avengers could act, Thor decapitated Thanos in a fit of rage.

Keeping the Galaxy Safe

Over the next five years, Danvers returned to space to help as many planets as she could. She routinely reported in with Black Widow, who ran point for the Avengers on Earth. The team on Earth soon figured out how to time travel in order to obtain the Infinity Stones from the past. Once they had acquired the Infinity Stones, they put them in a new Gauntlet and watched as Hulk snapped all the vanished lives back into existence. At the same time, Nebula from the past opened a time portal and brought Thanos and his armies through to the present.

During the developing battle, the Avengers did their best to get their hands on the Gauntlet and defeat Thanos. The heroes received a boost when Doctor Strange magically teleported all the disappeared heroes, along with armies from Wakanda, Asgard, and beyond, to take on Thanos' forces. Seeing that he had underestimated his opponents, the Titan ordered his ship to fire at the battlefield. For a moment, all hope was lost until Captain Marvel made an entrance that smashed the ship to pieces.

Taking the Infinity Gauntlet from Spider-Man, Captain Marvel and a group of heroes, including Rescue (Pepper Potts), The Wasp, Scarlet Witch, Valkyrie, and Mantis, stormed the field to get the Gauntlet to Ant-Man. However, Thanos intended to take control of it himself so he could succeed where his future self failed. Captain Marvel was ready for him and went toe to toe with the Titan in a cosmic energy–filled battle of wills. Carol managed to land some powerful punches, and for a moment, it seemed like she could overpower him. It was only when Thanos removed the Power Stone from the Gauntlet and channeled all of its might into fighting Carol that he managed to finally overpower her. Carol was among the heroes when Iron Man managed to steal the Stones from the Gauntlet and integrate them into his own armor all before his final snap, turning Thanos and his army into dust but also killing Tony in the process.

Carol Danvers attended Tony Stark's memorial service at the house he shared with Pepper Potts and their daughter, Morgan.