That Time Kelly Sue DeConnick Turned the White Savior Complex on its Ear and Nobody Noticed

It’s easy to overlook a book like Captain Marvel, even as well put together as it is. Marvel has so many books where its most popular heroes crossover, you can probably access three other current books where Carol Danvers is an active participant. More astutely, there is the confusion of a new Ms. Marvel book that has had such a social relevance on top of being an excellent book. I am frequently surprised that some of my fellow nerds aren’t aware that Earth’s Mightiest Hero has her own book right now. Well, she does. And it’s marvelous. With Kelly Sue DeConnick at the helm, that doesn’t necessarily surprise me, but something she did with Carol’s story did. I have been reading the new run of Captain Marvel from the beginning, but I hadn’t begun reviewing it until issue #3. To catch you up with the broadest of strokes, in the fallout of the Infinity story-line in which the Builders destroyed so many homelands and civilizations, an alien race known as the Nowlian have become refugees. Their remaining civilization has been forced to live on a planet that is making them gravely ill, yet they have nowhere else to go. After returning one of those refugees to the planet, Carol sees them Nowlian in their dire straights and decides to do the hero thing like any good Avenger would. When Carol is asked by President Elianides of the Nowlian why she is still there after dropping off the refugee, she goes on this long diatribe about how she is there to help them, how her presence has been r…