I am shocked by some of the one star reviews on here. I thought this was a beautiful character study that expands upon how Carol got her powers. I did not find this at all to be a retcon of the Carol we have come to know.I was personally satisfied with how Stohl tweaked the origin of Carol’s powers. In the original story, Carol received her abilities from an exploding device and her backstory was overly dependent on her connection to the original Captain Marvel. But here Carol is revealed to be both a human and Kree hybrid (the exploding device just activated her powers that she had all along). This helps her stand apart and gives her more agency and makes her story more layered. Also this was a deeply emotional story and sometimes, I want to see our favorite superheroes struggling with I don't know, human issues every now and then.

At the end of the day Comic Watch's review sums this book up quite well: The Life of Captain Marvel is "A story that is both very human a way to bring Carol into a more cosmic legacy of her own."

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Good retcon... ( )

After reading Kraven's Last Hunt, I decided to check out another book in the Marvel Selects series. The material in this collection isn't actually all that old, only dating to 2018. It tells Captain Marvel's origin story framed within a story of Carol Danvers taking a break from the Avengers to visit her family at their summer home in Maine. (Did you know that Carol is from the Boston area, they didn't say that in the movie?) With flashbacks to her childhood and confrontations with her mother and brother, Carol learns secrets about her parents and the origins of her powers. As origin stories go, it's pretty well done. ( )

A charming and self-contained story

I don't usually like retcons of a superhero origin story but in this case I think it really works. The combination of small town hijinks, family drama, and cosmic power provides some nice layers of depth to the Carol Danvers story. ( )

I love this book. Captain Marvel is one of my favorites and I know there will be some who will hate this because they have when a character's origin story gets "fixed" but I think this one enhances it a bit. It doesn't change in my opinion Carol's journey or her history with Mar-Vell.

My only complaint is that they killed Carol's mother. I feel they did it more for dramatic effect than as an impact in moving Carol's journey along. Carol didn't go home often and now I feel like she'll probably avoid going home again, especially since she doesn't have her mother anymore. I also thought they were kind of justifying Carol's father being abusive because he couldn't handle the secret was low and I took off a star for that.

Other than that I have no complaints. The art and story were great. I did like the conversations between Tony and Carol and it's great to see that side of their friendship. ( )