Black Superheroes: Monica Rambeau
Monday, February 25, 2013
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| Monica Rambeau |
First Appearance: The Amazing Spider-Man Annual #16 (1982)
History: As a lieutenant of the New Orleans Harbor Patrol Monica Rambeau was an experienced, and dedicated, law enforcement agent. One day she finds herself caught in the middle of a fight between her family friend, scientist Andre LeClare, and a South American dictator over an experimental super weapon. During the ensuing adventure Monica was hit by the weapon’s extra dimensional energies. The energy altered Rambeau’s body, giving her the ability to covert her body into any form of energy along the electromagnetic spectrum. Soon afterwards she sought out the Avengers in the hops they could help her hone her new found powers. Eventually she would join them and after a while rise up to become their leader. The press would refer to her as Captain Marvel.
Beta Says: Originally she was known as Captain Marvel in a key case of Minority Replacement though she had absolutely nothing in common with her predecessor at all. At some point she took up the identity of Photon. Later still she started calling herself Pulsar, because Photon just wasn’t generic enough. There might have been a few others but those three are the big ones that come up. So yeah, thirty-one years later I’m fairly comfortable in just calling her by her real name.
Anywho she was created by Roger Stern and John Romita, Jr. Actually Romita wanted to base her appearance on Pam Grier but apparently that got vetoed because someone at Marvel didn’t think Grier was pretty enough. Oh Marvel. Interestingly there were several new 80s members of the Avengers many of whom went on to do absolutely nothing worthwhile in the grand scheme of things. Yeah I know Tigra has her fans but I’m not sure there are many folk who fondly remember alleged rapist Starfox. Historically I’ve lumped Monica in with that lot and tend not to think of her too much. But some years ago I changed my tune and now I’m a big fan of the character.
More on Monica Rambeau after the jump.
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