Manic Monday--Captain Marvel Gets Cosmic (Eventually)!!

Look, I've gotta say it--the early Captain Marvel--Marvel's Captain Marvel, the Kree guy, Mar-Vell--was pretty stinky.

Especially after Roy Thomas and Gene Colan moved on. There were a succession of different writers and artists, and the book ha no real direction. Major sub-plots and villains were introduced, and then forgotten about; Mar-vell's mission on Earth never advanced one iota; we went through about 7 cycles of "Yon-Rogg accuses Mar-Vell of treason, Ronan or the Supreme Intelligence clear him, and Mar-Vell promptly goes off the reservation again 2 panels later"; characters randomly appearing on planets or galaxies where they couldn't be; Mar-Vell constantly getting new powers that the next writer would forget about or handwave away...

And, yeah, there was that terrible, terrible costume.

But eventually, gradually, fitfully, the various creative teams--almost by accident--began moving Mar-Vell to the cosmic cool guy we came to know and love (and mourn).

Starting in Captain Marvel #12 (1969), the team of Arnold Drake/Dick Ayers/Syd Shores introduced Zo, a cosmic entity who bestowed new powers upon Mar-Vell:

Yeah, that "conquering time and space" and "creating mass illusions" didn't last very long.

Two issues later, in #14, Gary Friedrich/Frank Springer/Vince Coletta brought back Zo, and amped him up--and the cosmic factor--even more:

(Letters by Artie Simek!!)

Next issue, after a trippy Marie Severin/John Verpoorten cover...

...yet another new team (Gary Friedrich/Tom Sutton/Dan Adkins) treat us to the history of Earth...

...Zo gets even freakier...

...and the Captain is straight out tripping balls...

Plus, a quick tour of heaven...

...and Hell!!

The very next issue--with the completely different team of Archie Goodwin/Don Heck/Syd Shores--decided that a whole bunch of retconning was in order. It was revealed that Zo never really existed. It was just a Wizard Of Oz man behind the curtain thing, as Ronan used a holodeck...

 ...to try and gaslight Mar-Vell into destroying the Supreme Intelligence so Ronan and cohorts could stage a coup. In fact, it turns out that everything that had happened since Mar-Vell's debut had been part of this plot!!

(But somehow Marvel kept the powers that Zo gave him--but just for 3 pages...? How...? Don't ask!!)

And thn Don Heck gives him his new costume:

Well, we weren't quite fully cosmic yet. Roy and Gil Kane took over the next issue, stripping Marvel of his Zo powers, but introducing Rick Jones and the Nega-Bands.

But after 3 issues, the books was cancelled, than revived six months later for 2 issues, then cancelled for 2 years, then Marv Wolfman & Wayne Boring (!) puttered around for a bit, and finally, Mike Friedrich and Jim Starlin came on board, and soon enough he was blond and cosmically aware and leaving sparkly trails and fighting Thanos and doing Hostess ads.

And then they killed him.