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The return of Mar-Vell has been teased multiple times and even occurred in other realities — and it never ends well for the Marvel Universe.
Ron Marz and Ron Lim’s upcoming limited series Silver Surfer: Rebirth will see the titular hero forced to team up with Thanos to deal with the resurrection of the original Captain Marvel — Mar-Vell. Arguably one of Marvel’s most iconic deaths that has remained consistent over the decades, Mar-Vell’s return would theoretically be a cause for celebration.
But considering how his potential return has played out across multiple realities, it’s probably for the better that the first Captain Marvel of the Marvel Universe remains dead and buried.
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Created by Stan Lee and Gene Colan, Mar-Vell — aka the original Captain Marvel — was a heroic figure in the early days of the Marvel Universe. A Kree Captain who was assigned to Earth, Mar-Vell ended up developing a deep bond with humanity and eventually became a protector of that world as well. After helping empower others — such as Rick Jones and Carol Danvers — Mar-Vell eventually met a surprising and inglorious end. After a battle with the villainous Nitro, it was revealed the extreme exposure to a special nerve gas resulted in Mar-Vell effectively developing lung cancer. Despite the best efforts of his allies, Mar-Vell quickly passed away from the disease and was posthumously made into an Avenger.
Despite the Marvel Universe’s tendency to revive fallen heroes, Mar-Vell has notably remained dead since that event. During the events of Secret Invasion by Brian Michael Bendis Leinil Francis Yu, Mark Morales, and Laura Martin, a Skrull spy was ordered to impersonate Mar-Vell and stage the heroes’ return as a sleeper agent. However, he eventually embraced his given identity and died a hero. During the events of Chaos War and Avengers vs. X-Men, Mar-Vell was briefly brought back from the land of the living. But both times, he was forced to sacrifice himself once more to help contend with the threats at hand. But even if he’d been able to be saved, other realities have proven just how poorly things could have gotten if Mar-Vell’s original death had been prevented.
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In What If…? #14 by S.C. Ringgenberg and M.J. Jorgensen, Mar-Vell immediately feared that he could have contracted a disease from his exposure to Nerve Gas. Instead of allowing the disease to fester and grow, Mar-Vell quickly detected it in its early stages. This allowed Mister Fantastic, Doctor Strange, and Doctor Donald Blake to assist in treatment, and Mar-Vell was cured of his disease. While Mar-Vell ventured into space to bring peace between the Kree and Skrull Empires, he unwittingly left behind his disease — which spread across Earth and killed countless people. Eventually, the Silver Surfer revealed Mar-Vell that while he wasn’t dying from the disease, he had become its carrier. To protect the remnants of life across the universe, Mar-Vell (and his lover Elysius) went to another dimension in self-imposed exile.
But this was a preferable end to Mar-Vell’s story than what occurred on Earth-10011. In the Thanos Imperative by Dan Abnett, Andy Lanning, and Brad Walker, a variant of Mar-Vell made a deal with the monstrous Many-Angled Ones to save himself. After being corrupted by the power of the Many-Angled Ones (and spreading that same twisted influence to the other former heroes of this reality), Mar-Vell was able to destroy death itself and allow the Many-Angled Ones to warp this timeline to their liking. Now dubbed the Cancerverse, these figures eventually turned their attention to other realities — including Earth-616, where an alliance between Thanos and the Guardians of the Galaxy figured out how to defeat him. Considering these two fates, perhaps it’s better Mar-Vell never found his way back to the Marvel Universe.
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