In the latest Comic Book Legends Revealed, see how Peter David got some revenge in an issue of Captain Marvel on a guy who treated his daughter poorly
Welcome to Comic Book Legends Revealed! This is the eight hundred and seventy-sixth installment where we examine three comic book legends and determine whether they are true or false. As usual, there will be three posts, one for each of the three legends. Click here for the first legend of this installment. Click here for the second legend of this installment.
NOTE: If my Twitter page hits 5,000 followers, I’ll do a bonus edition of Comic Book Legends Revealed that week. Great deal, right? So go follow my Twitter page, Brian_Cronin!
COMIC LEGEND:
Peter David once turned a character named after an ex of his daughter into a tree in an issue of Captain Marvel and then had the tree burnt to ash.
STATUS:
True
As you might be surprised to learn, comic book writers are people like you and me, and so they have emotions like you and me, and when they (or more specifically their families, in this instance) are wronged, they are particularly clever about meting out punishment, even if it is only present in the pages of a comic book.
WHO WAS KELLY KOOLIQ AND HOW DID SHE ALMOST DESTROY THE WORLD?
In the fourth issue of his run on Captain Marvel (with guest art by Ron Lim, Mark McKenna, Mark A. Nelson and Scurry), Peter David introduced a mysterious young woman named Kelly…
As we see, there is something very wrong with Kelly…
In the next issue, when she is seeing her therapist (art now by James Fry and Walden Wong), Kelly explains her issue. She feels that she is destined to destroy the world with her powers…
We eventually learn that Kelly has powers that came from her parents conceiving her in the nexus of realities (which, in the Marvel Universe, is somewhere in the Florida Everglades). She can access any reality, and make things exist as they were in those realities, which could mean almost anything considering the infinite nature of how many different realities there are out there in the Multiverse.
In the end, things were “resolved” in Captain Marvel #10 (art by ChrisCross, Anibal Rodriguez, Mark McKenna and Harry Candelario) by simply finding a reality where she never gained her powers and went with that, but even there, we see, she learned that that meant the powers would fall to her younger sister (this was never picked up again in the comics, so there is just some super-powerful little girl out there in the Marvel Universe somewhere, I guess)…
Before things resolved themselves, however, there was first a major confrontation in Captain Marvel #7 between Kelly and her ex-boyfriend, Ian, which went in a bad direction…for one of te people involved.
And let’s learn WHY!
HOW DID THIS CAPTAIN MARVEL STORY FACTOR IN WITH PETER DAVID’S DAUGHTER?
In a reader Q&A on his website, Peter David was asked by reader Bobby R.:
Mr. David,So have you ever created a one-shot villian based on someone that was giving you hëll in the real world so you could get the hero/heroine (like the Hulk or Supergirl) to smash the fool out of them, and who might this person be?
David replied:
For giving me grief personally? Not that I recall. But guys who have treated loved ones badly, they’ve suffered at my hands. My sister was dating one fellow and I warned him. I said, “You break my sister’s heart, I’m going to throw you in the warp core of the Excalibur.” And he did, so I did. I named a crewman after him and he fell into the warp core and died horribly. I even called up Mike Okuda for technical advice so the guy could suffer for as long as possible rather than just incinerate. The scene was so graphic, Paramount asked for rewrites because I think it made the approvals folks barf or something. Then there was the guy who jilted one of my daughters. I turned a guy with the same name into a tree in an issue of “Captain Marvel” and reduced him to ash. It’s petty, but sometimes petty revenge is better than no revenge at all
And yep, in Captain Marvel #7 (by David, ChrisCross and Anibal Rodriguez), Kelly meets her ex, Ian…
And she turns him into a tree…
And then another super-powered youth, Benny, burned the tree down to ashes…
Daaaaang.
And as the issue ended, we center in on the ashes…
Don’t mess with Peter David’s daughters, people (good advice in general for everyone’s daughter, but still)!
CHECK OUT A MOVIE LEGENDS REVEALED!
In the latest Movie Legends Revealed – Was the math problem-solving scene in Good Will Hunting based on a real life incident?
MORE LEGENDS STUFF!
OK, that’s it for this installment!
Thanks to Brandon Hanvey for the Comic Book Legends Revealed logo, which I don’t even actually anymore, but I used it for years and you still see it when you see my old columns, so it’s fair enough to still thank him, I think.
Feel free (heck, I implore you!) to write in with your suggestions for future installments! My e-mail address is [email protected] And my Twitter feed is http://twitter.com/brian_cronin, so you can ask me legends there, as well! Also, if you have a correction or a comment, feel free to also e-mail me. CBR sometimes e-mails me with e-mails they get about CBLR and that’s fair enough, but the quickest way to get a correction through is to just e-mail me directly, honest. I don’t mind corrections. Always best to get things accurate!
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