Monica Rambeau's one of my favorite Marvel characters, especially after reading the Stern run, but my probably unpopular opinion is that I think it was good to change her name from Captain Marvel. Please let me explain!

I get it: she was Captain Marvel for 14 years, which is almost as long as the original Captain Marvel, and longer than Carol (for a few years, anyway). For 5 of those 14 years, she was at the forefront of the Avengers. So yes, she made an impression AS Captain Marvel! I get that.

But she has no connection to Mar-Vell. She's called Captain Marvel because one of the first criminals she beats up says "that captain is a marvel" (?), and the press goes with "Captain Marvel" from just that, which is ridiculously contrived even for superhero naming conventions.

Captain Marvel makes as much sense as a legacy title for Monica as if she was doing it in honor of DC's Captain Marvel. She didn't even know a Captain Marvel had existed before her.

The truth of the matter is Marvel needed a Captain Marvel to retain the rights to the name because Starlin had just killed the original, so Stern just so happened to create one of Marvel's best characters ever and just sticked that moniker to her, even tho it really doesn't fit.

I'm partial to the current "Spectrum", but Photon and Pulsar also make sense. Captain Marvel is a rather generic name that only sorta works because that was actually Mar-Vell's name, and all others who took it except for Monica did so on his honor; Genis, Phyla, Noh-Varr, Carol.

Is it contrived that Captain Marvel is called that on Earth because people misheard his name? You betcha. But not half as contrived as "that captain is a marvel" and Monica deciding to stick with that because, whatever (i.e., because Marvel needed her to, legally.)

All of that said, if Monica sharing the title with Carol (just as the Hawkeyes and Wolverines do) would mean that Monica gets the push she deserves, call her Captain Marvel stat! Seriously, if that's what stopping her, disregard all the in-story continuity wankery above.

Personally, tho, I don't think that's what stopping her. I think having a name tied to her powers instead of a legacy title she has no personal connection to is much better, not just from a story perspective but marketing-wise.

Hopefully with THE MARVELS movie coming, Monica gets a comic at last. A mini-series, at least. Anything! Yes, she's never had a run to her name. Seriously. Just a few one-shots and, granted, a lot of prominence in a few team books. But never her own book! FIX THAT, MARVEL.

I'm just tired of people pitting Monica and Carol against each other, unnecessarily. They have both been "Captains Marvel", but aside from sharing that legally required name they don't have to share the same space. They never have. It's not one or the other. You can have both!

It's not even like the Hawkeyes or the Wolverines, really. They have the same powers, similar personalities, and the the 'secondary' ones use the name explicitly as a legacy title (and they STILL coexist!) NONE of that is the case with Monica and Carol! So what's the issue?

I've seen many call for Monica to "take over the mantle from Carol". Aim higher! Demand a Monica book; she deserves it, and it'd be VERY different from a Carol book, regardless of title. YOU. CAN. HAVE. BOTH. There's no need to make fictional women fight for the same space too.

There's this ahistorical narrative I've often seen that "people forget Monica was the first female Captain Marvel because this white woman Carol came out of nowhere and stole the title." That's... just not true. That is not what happened.

There are 16 years between Monica leaving the moniker and Carol picking it up, and four Captains Marvel in-between: Genis, Phyla, Khn'nr, and Noh. The conflict these people imagine between Monica and Carol did exist... but it was between Monica and Genis, Mar-Vell's son!

Genis-Vell didn't just steal Monica's Captain Marvel title, but then shamelessly stole her next name too, Photon, which Monica'd picked *in his presence* when he convinced her to give the CM title to him. Marvel mistreated Monica for decades, and Genis was their avatar.

Carol, by the way, was a legacy character to the original Captain Marvel since 1977, many years before Monica was created; it just was under the name Ms. Marvel. But the change from Ms. Marvel to Captain Marvel makes a ton of sense, since it was a legacy title to begin with.

Carol took up the mantle after a resurrected Mar-Vell sacrificed himself to save a world. Since his children Genis and Phyla no longer bore the torch, Carol took it in his honor. Monica, being the only in-story CM to have nothing to do with Mar-Vell, didn't enter the equation.

TL;DR: Don't pit Monica against Carol. There's no in-universe or out-of-universe reason to do so. Both can and should occupy their own space, and the way to demand that Marvel give Monica the respect she deserves is not to demand she takes Carol's title. You can have both.