One of the more baffling aspects of Civil War was the return of Captain Marvel, included almost as a throwaway in a poorly-received one-shot. 

This was a confusing decision on many levels.  Quite aside from the fact that the story wasn't very good, it's not as though there was a huge fanbase begging for the return of Captain Marvel.  After all, he's been dead since 1982, which means that he's been absent from the Marvel Universe for longer than most of today's audience have been reading.  Not just reading comics, mind you - reading, period.

Wandering middle-aged minstrels singing songs of that strange land known as "the 1970s" do tell that Jim Starlin's cosmic superhero stories were quite enjoyable at the time.  And then they usually move on to talk about Adam Warlock.  The thing is, you see, that while Captain Marvel reportedly appeared in some quite good stories, there's nothing especially memorable about the concept.  The best remembered character from the original Captain Marvel series was Thanos, which doesn't say much for Captain Marvel.  This may be why they ended up jazzing it up with some nonsense about quantum bands and Rick Jones, blatantly cribbed from his namesake.

That idea has not been re-used here.  Instead, writer Brian Reed seems to have two central ideas about Captain Marvel, neither of which has much to do with his origin or his original concept.  The first plays loosely off the idea established in Civil War: The Return.  Captain Marvel has been brought here from the past, and so he knows that (presumably) at some point he goes back and dies of cancer.  This is a bit demoralising.  It's not really how he imagined going out.  He was hoping for something a bit more heroic.  And - in what might be read as a nod to the character's somewhat lacklustre history - he finds his legacy a bit underwhelming.  So, after much angsting and a crisis of confidence, he sets out to do something about that.

Secondly, as a character largely untouched since the early 1980s, Captain Marvel is playing the role of ambassador from a more innocent era.  He represents old-school superheroics, untainted by latter-day revisionism.  His comic is full of primary colours, slightly dated logos, shiny costumes, and subdued grid layouts.  Lee Weeks isn't an obvious choice of artist, given that tack - he's always been a sound storyteller, but I've always seen him as having a slightly darker edge than that.  In fact, this style turns out to suit him well.

To my surprise, then, I rather like what Reed seems to be trying with the character.  But, like Reed's Ms Marvel series, it falters at the plotting level, where events seem to be strung together in a rather random order.  There's a fight scene with the Cyclone that comes out of nowhere, quietly departs, and is never mentioned again.  SHIELD agent Michelle Sante, assigned the job of tracking down Captain Marvel, achieves it simply by walking up to him and saying hello.

The whole is less than the sum of its parts, and what's more, Marvel himself remains a rather generic personality.  Still, it's not bad.  There's something to be done with this.

Rating: B

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