There are a lot of Captains Marvel out there, and every reader has one they think of as “theirs.” This Captain Marvel was mine. Your Major Spoilers Retro Review of Amazing Spider-Man Annual #16 awaits!

AMAZING SPIDER-MAN ANNUAL #16

Writer: Roger Stern
Penciler: John Romita Jr.
Inker: John Romita
Colorist: Stan Goldberg
Letterer: Jim Novak
Editor: Tom DeFalco
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Cover Price: $1.00
Current Near-Mint Pricing: $80.00
Release Date: August 31, 1982

Previously in Amazing Spider-Man: The death of Mar-Vell, the original Captain Marvel of Earth-616, in 1982 was a shocking affair. Sure, heroes had died before, but never had we seen a superhero lain low by something as mundane, something as human as fatal cancer. The thing about the Captain Marvel name, though, is that it’s a highly contested trademark in the world of comics, so it was clear that the lack of a Captain Marvel at Marvel Comics wasn’t a situation that was going to last. This issue’s story begins with Peter Parker in the New York Port Authority bus terminal, When a beautiful woman passes by, the friendly neighborhood Spider-Man becomes a bit less friendly, and a bit… stalkery?
In Spidey’s defense, Monica isn’t on his radar just because she’s beautiful, but also because his patented Spider-Sense was warning him of something about her. She’s also definitely an out-of-towner, as she immediately wanders into a bad neighborhood and gets her purse snatched, only to chase down the mugger and proceed to show that she’s more than just a pretty face and/or an impending sense of doom.
She makes short work of the thugs, but when Spider-Man tries to get her attention, she blasts him into a wall with some sort of energy burst. Stripping off her now-shredded suit, she reveals herself to be wearing a silver-and-black uniform, whooshing away into the sky to reveal herself in a full-page splash with the dramatic legend, “Call her Captain Marvel!” In the old days, sitcoms would often feature a new character like this, in what was known as a backdoor pilot, and this annual is clearly meant to be that. In fact, given the cover AND this splash clearly feature the name, it’s not only a pilot, it’s meant to be a clear claim on the trademark of Captain Marvel, something that Marvel fought in court to maintain when DC began licensing a certain Big Red Cheese back in 1973 or so. While standing and looking over the city, Captain Marvel thinks back to how she got here, which leads to her origin.

New Orleans Harbor Policeman Monica Rambeau had issues with following protocol, but when an old family friend asked her to investigate a possible crime lord seeking to channel some sort of extradimensional energies, she got involved. Sneaking onto an offshore oil rig by putting on a bikini (!!) and a ditzy sunbather act, Monica gets the attention of the corrupt scientist, but her friend is caught trying to sabotage the system. So, Officer Rambeau does it for him!
The resulting explosion shatters the tower and rips a hole in the fabric of space itself, but Monica finds herself miles away in seconds. She manages to call in the Coast Guard for help, not realizing that she’s sending the transmission herself, and stumbles into a costume warehouse for something to wear. (As excuses for costuming go, it’s okay, but the focus on her curves in the tiny bikini feels pretty retrograde and gross to me in 2023.) Wearing her new costume and mask, she saves her friend from doom, even saving the lives of the innocents on the oil platform, but then discovers that her powers are growing out of control. Fearing that she might explode like the weapon that the criminals wanted to create, she has come to New York to find help.
Sadly, Mister Fantastic is out of town, and she flies away just in time for Spider-Man to arrive too late. She travels to Avengers Mansion at the speed of light, but accidentally shorts out Iron Man’s armor in so doing, causing a big misunderstanding. As Spider-Man arrives, he, Iron Man, and the Wasp have to swiftly whip up a way to help her discharge the extra energies she absorbed from the rip in space/time. It’s a tense bit, leading to a kludged web-cocoon, power conversion, and repulsors aimed straight up.

I REALLY hope there weren’t any planes passing over.

Minutes later, The Thing arrives at Avengers Mansion!
The assembled heroes all meet and greet Monica, now going by Captain Marvel, after what the men on the oil platform called her) who even helps to broker peace between The Thing and Spider-Man. (Apparently, the competition for guest stars between Marvel Team-Up and Marvel Two-In-One was more serious than we thought?) Even so, Amazing Spider-Man Annual #16 doesn’t feel like a comic rushed into print to keep a trademark in play, instead giving us some depth, some heart, and some weirdly sexist bits to introduce my personal favorite Captain Marvel into the 616, earning 3 out of 5 stars overall. There are a lot of people who don’t care for the bombast of the late Bronze Age, but this one provides a good balance between over-the-top melodrama and old-fashioned shared universe storytelling, and Monica makes a great addition to the Marvel Universe.

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