Review by Win Wiacek

In 1968 Marvel finally secured a distribution deal allowing expansion of their line. One new idea was a hero named after the company – and one with nostalgic pedigree as well. In the 1940s another Captain Marvel challenged Superman’s popularity, but after suing the publishers and acquiring the property, DC let the trademark lapse. Marvel quickly snapped it up. They applied the title and designation to a troubled alien spy sent to Earth from the Kree Galaxy. He held a Captain’s rank and his name was Mar-Vell.

Most of that is covered in series-author Roy Thomas’ introduction prior to adventures covering December 1967 to January 1969.

Having been defeated by the Fantastic Four, the Kree took a longer term approach. As crafted by Stan Lee and Gene Colan, they send a surveillance mission to learn about humanity. Unfortunately, their chosen agent is a man of conscience, whilst his commanding officer Colonel Yon-Rogg is a ruthless rival for the love of the ship’s medical officer Una.

No sooner has the good captain made planet-fall and clashed with the US army from the local missile base than the first instalment ends. It’s left to Roy Thomas to establish the basic ground-rules in ‘Where Stalks the Sentry!’ The alien spy improves his weaponry before an attempt by Yon-Rogg to kill him destroys a light aircraft carrying scientist Walter Lawson to that military base. Assuming Lawson’s identity, Mar-Vell infiltrates the base, arousing the suspicions of security Chief Carol Danvers. He’s horrified to discover the Earthlings are storing the Sentry (defeated by the FF) on base. Yon-Rogg, sensing an opportunity, activates the deadly mechanoid. As it goes on a rampage only Mar-Vell stands in its path.

That’s a lot of material for twenty pages but Thomas and Colan are on a roll. ‘Out of the Holocaust – A Hero!’ is an all-out action thriller, which still establishes twin sub-plots of Lawson’s credibility and Mar-Vell’s inner doubts. The faithful Kree soldier is rapidly losing faith in his own race.

‘From the Void of Space Comes the Super Skrull!’ reveals the Kree and the shapeshifting Skrulls are intergalactic rivals, the latter wanting to know why there’s an enemy soldier stationed on Earth. Sending their own top agent, the resultant battle almost levels the entire state before concluding with the Kree on top in ‘From the Ashes of Defeat!’

Bombastic titles continue with ‘The Alien and the Amphibian!’ as the secret invader clashes with fellow anti-hero Sub-Mariner as Mar-Vell’s superiors make increasingly ruthless demands of their reluctant agent.

Arnold Drake and Don Heck assume the creative chores for cold-war monster-mash clash ‘The Mark of the Metazoid’ wherein a mutated Soviet dissident is forced to kidnap Walter Lawson, after which the Captain is ‘In the Path of Solam!’. He battles a marauding sun-creature before being forced to prove his loyalty by unleashing a Kree bio-weapon on an Earth community in ‘Die, Town, Die!’.

The romantic triangle sub-plot is wearing pretty thin, as is the increasingly obvious division of Mar-Vell’s loyalties, so a new examination of Dr Lawson, whose identity the Kree man purloined, begins in ‘And Fear Shall Follow!’. Wrapping up this first volume is another alien war story ‘Between Hammer and Anvil!’ as Yon-Rogg is injured by rival space imperialists the Aakon.

Thomas provides some spark, and Colan’s pages are for art lovers to drool over, but too many stories mark time. This is available in hardcover, paperback and digital, and most recently as the smaller format Mighty Marvel Masterworks, and the content is also found in black and white as Essential Captain Marvel Vol. 1, which combines this with Volume 2.