Captain Marvel #12: Review

Apr 1969

Arnold Drake, Dick Ayers

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Story Name:

The moment of ... the Man-Slayer

Review & Comments

Rating:

Captain Marvel #12 Review by Rob Johnson (August 6, 2022)

This issue is a tie-in to Avengers #63-65.

John Romita redrew the Captain Marvel figure on the cover.

Zo will turn out to be really Kree Prime Minister Zarek who intends to use Mar-Vell in a coup against the Kree Supreme Intelligence.

This is the SHIELD mission which Black Widow accepted in Av#57. Av: Earth's Mightiest Heroes vol 2 retcons some arguments about it between her and her love Hawkeye which happen between then and now.

The mystery villain is Mad Thinker, a mainly Fantastic Four villain last seen in FF#68-70 where he turned Thing against his team-mates.

This issue leads directly into Av#63 where Thinker and captive BW will link up with his associates Egghead and Puppet Master.

Meanwhile the Man-Slayer will revive itself next issue causing our hero to put off revenge on Yon-Rogg to fight it again.

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Gwen Stacy, beauty queen of Standard High School, was Peter Parker's (alias Spider-Man) first great love.

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Synopsis / Summary / Plot

Captain Marvel #12 Synopsis by Rob Johnson

We begin with a replay of the end of last issue where an apparent alien god Zo gave the Kree Captain Mar-Vell superpowers:- super-strength, illusion casting and teleportation. Mar-Vell accepted the powers to enable him to get revenge on Colonel Yon-Rogg for the death of his love Medic Una (also last issue), and in return he promised to do Zo's bidding.

Now he teleports back to the Solar System, stopping 1st at the asteroid where he buried Una, then past the Kree spaceship where Yon-Rogg feels the ghost of Mar-Vell watching him. The Colonel shrugs it off believing that his enemy is trapped in the rocket he stole from Cape Canaveral to carry Una's body, which after the burial YR caused to go hurtling into outer space. Mar-Vell tries to land back at the Cape but is new to teleportation and ends up on Cuba until he ports away to escape from soldiers. This jump is more successful and takes him to his hotel room where he changes back into his Cape scientist Walter Lawson identity and learns that the Cape have got a replacement rocket so they'll be expecting him to work on it. Meanwhile at the Cape security chief Carol Danvers is on the lookout for Captain Marvel but has also been authorised to arrest AWOL Dr Lawson.

But we will instead look in on a secret lab in the Caribbean which Black Widow is infiltrating for SHIELD. In its control room a mystery villain is mentally controlling a bio-plastic robot he calls the Man-Slayer which he has sent to attack the Cape. Which happens just as Walter Lawson arrives and is being arrested by the gate-guards. He uses his new powers to create an illusion of a protest mob to confuse the guards and slips away to change to CM. Man-Slayer declares his target to be the moon rocket. Natasha Romanoff enters the control room and pulls a gun on the villain. But he pushes a button which brings more robots to overwhelm her.

At the Cape Captain Marvel zooms in to attack the plastoid and then creates an illusion of a strong container to imprison it. Which the robot just ignores and walks through. So CM just has to rely on brute force. Which proves equally ineffective. The Man-Slayer is successfully pummelling him into submission when it suddenly freezes. Back in the secret Caribbean base BW has just tossed a micro-bomb which shattered a device transmitting energy to the robot. The villain tells his other bots to knock her out with a nerve gun.

Back at the Cape Mar-Vell is now Lawson again but they still want to arrest him. So he abandons his Earth life and teleports away to get revenge on Yon-Rogg and then serve Zo.

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