The latest Captain Marvel story arc has dealt with Captain Marvel searching for a way to stop Ove, the future son of Namor and Enchantress, from destroying the present. To do so Captain Marvel has reached out for help in learning to use magic from an unlikely ally, Enchantress. This move has come with Captain Marvel not revealing the fact that she is getting Enchantress’ help to stop her son from a possible Marvel future. Will Captain Marvel be able to stop Ove once and for all? Let’s find out with Captain Marvel #30.
Writers: Kelly Thompson (Strange Magic); Jamie McKelvie (Ripples)
Artists: Jacopo Camagni (Strange Magic); Jamie McKelvie (Ripples)
Colorist: Espen Grundetjern (Strange Magic)
Story Rating: 8 Night Girls out of 10
Art Rating: 6 Night Girls out of 10
Overall Rating: 7 Night Girls out of 10
Synopsis: Captain Marvel returns to Enchantress home in British Columbia pissed that she was abandoned at the bottom of the sea.
Enchantress reveals she wasn’t going to waste her time to get Captain Marvel out of her predicament. She goes on to state if she really wanted to abandon Captain Marvel she wouldn’t of returned to her home that Captain Marvel knew the location of.
With Captain Marvel cooled down Enchantress explains how the item they got would make the person who ingest it immune to magic, which for magic users would mean being unable to use magic. Captain Marvel isn’t in on this plan.
Enchantress then calls out how Captain Marvel thought just “learning magic” would be enough to solve her problem when she actually needs to be dedicated to the craft. Seeing no other way out Captain Marvel decides to take Enchantress on her offer to create the magic canceler potion.
As Enchantress starts creating the potion Captain Marvel thinks how she must do this to stop Ove and needs to keep that part a secret from Enchantress. Enchantress suddenly gets pissed as she was reading Captain Marvel’s mind the entire time and learns that Ove is her son. Enchantress knocks Captain Marvel out in revenge.
Sometime late Ove appears and meets his mom. As Enchantress is delighted to meet her future son Captain Marvel wakes up. Captain Marvel immediately blasts Enchantress out of the building they are in so she can fight Ove one-on-one.
Ove is pissed that Captain Marvel attacked his mom. In his rage state Ove completely overwhelms Captain Marvel with just his strength to the point Captain Marvel can barely stand. Ove ends up knocking Captain Marvel across a forest straight into a nearby mountain.
Captain Marvel is barely able to remain conscious while thinking of the future she recently visited.
War Machine suddenly appears to back-up Captain Marvel. Captain Marvel admits that she has been letting the future she visited where she met Rhodey’s future daughter dictate her decisions. War Machine reminds Captain Marvel that they’ve dealt with enough possible futures to not let what they see cloud their judgement. Hearing this Captain Marvel and War Machine kiss.
After reuniting Captain Marvel asks War Machine to power her up by hitting her with an energy blast. War Machine does as requested and his energy blast fully powers up Captain Marvel.
Captain Marvel uses her regained power to find the potion Enchantress created. Ove appears right behind her and is able to steal the potion before Captain Marvel can reach it. Thinking that Captain Marvel was trying to gain more power Ove drinks the potion. As soon as he does Ove loses all of his magical power.
Enchantress arrives just in time to see Ove lose his magic powers. Enchantress promises to make Captain Marvel pay for what she has done. Enchantress then takes Ove away.
Captain Marvel meets back up with War Machine. They talk about what just happened and the current state of their relationship. As they agree to get back together War Machine flies Captain Marvel back home.
The next day Captain Marvel goes to meet Doctor Strange at the Sanctum Sanctorum. Doctor Strange tells Captain Marvel that what she did to take Ove’s magic power is a massive crime within the magical community that is worse than death.
Captain Marvel wonders if Doctor Strange believes that. Doctor Strange responds by closing the door and saying that Captain Marvel should’ve listened to Wanda Maximoff’s warning of going down a dark path. End of main story.
The Good: Kelly Thompson saved the best for last as Captain Marvel #30 is one of the best issues of this series. The big difference between the ending for “Strange Magic” and previous arcs conclusion is how the finale was executed. You immediately got a sense of how the choices Carol Danvers makes will have severe consequences.
Though I was not a big fan of the “Brave New World” arc that introduced Ove the conclusion of “Strange Magic” made the villain much better. That was thanks to how personal things became because Captain Marvel and Enchantress were able to build a connection with each other. Even though they stayed adversarial throughout their interactions the fact that Enchantress did help Captain Marvel made this team-up more complicated.
That complication worked well with how Thompson wrote Captain Marvel’s desperation to stop Ove once and for all meant that she was keeping a major secret from Enchantress. It made the fact that Enchantress, while helping Captain Marvel, kept on reading Carol’s mind something that fit the character. It made how Enchantress learned the truth that Ove was her son from the future hit the right dramatic note. You at least understood why Enchantress would make a villainous turn as it was Captain Marvel’s fault for keeping a secret that would turn anyone against her.
It also made the fact that Enchantress only learned that Ove is her future son and not the rest of that story even more impactful. It made Enchantress happy first meeting with Ove something that came across as genuine love between mother and son. The quick bonding made how Ove was completely lost in rage that he only focused on beating Captain Marvel physically instead of using magic work well for his character. The same goes for how Enchantress swore revenge on Captain Marvel for tricking Ove in losing his magic powers permanently.
This all made the tough decisions Captain Marvel had to make get over the serious ramifications of the actions she took. She was so blinded by stopping Ove that she did not try to understand why stealing a person’s magic capabilities is such be viewed as a serious crime by Doctor Strange and the magic community. While her actions have severe consequences Thompson did get over how resourceful Captain Marvel is with how she took Enchantress out of the equation long enough so she had time to trick Ove.
The resolution for the relationship status of Carol and Rhodey was also much better handled than it was previously. Unlike their breakup, it actually sounded like two grown ups talking things out, especially on Carol’s side of things. It is a big lesson for Carol to not take on everything alone and that for her relationship with Rhodey to be a good one there needs to be trust. And from Rhodey’s side of things Thompson did a good job working the fact that Marvel’s superheroes constantly deal with alternate timelines so Carol doesn’t let one possible future force all of her decisions moving forward.
Jacopo Camagni was solid throughout the main story of Captain Marvel #30. There was nothing mind blowing. Camagni’s art in the final page stood out. Camagni got over the fact how pissed of Doctor Strange was and that Carol didn’t fully grasp the scope of her actions.
Given everything that Carol Danvers has gone through in the last 30 issues of Captain Marvel the story written and drawn by Jamie McKelvie was something the character needed. There was a self-awareness coming from Carol that she has been letting the pressure of being a superhero has been getting to her. She needed a reset in her own way to get her mind refreshed.
Carol reaching out to Kamala Khan’s Miss Marvel was an unexpected but welcomed character decision. Carol acknowledging how disconnected she feels and its impact on her relationship with Kamala worked to make why she reached out to Kamala what she needed. Kamala is after all inspired by Carol to become a superhero and take on the Miss Marvel title. Kamala showing how Carol as Captain Marvel does positively impact people’s lives worked well for both character arcs. By the end it leaves you as the reader hoping that we see Carol and Kamala team-up more with Carol possibly taking on more of a mentor role in the future.
The Bad: The one part of Captain Marvel #30 that did not fully work is the way Carol Danvers acted in the end. You don’t feel as though she fully understood the consequences of her actions. And as we’ve seen with her recent history Carol typically doesn’t learn her lesson and is hardheaded about how she feels she is always right. The way her interaction with Doctor Strange came across as Carol still not learning that lesson and repeating that cycle. Because of that Carol’s character arc did not work as well it could’ve.
Overall: Captain Marvel #30 is a strong conclusion to the “Strange Magic” story arc. The actions Carol Danvers takes against Enchantress and Ove creates a lot of questions of how she will deal with the consequences for those decisions. The back-up story involving a meeting with Kamala Khan complimented Carol’s character well. It all builds excitement for what the future of Captain Marvel will be moving forward.
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