Two of the standout characters from Captain Marvel were Carol Danvers’ best friend, Maria Rambeau, and Maria’s daughter, Monica. But Monica has a storied Marvel history beyond her first MCU appearance.
With Avengers: Endgame on the horizon, and several significant allies dusted by Thanos’ Decimation, it’s little wonder that we’re looking back across the last decade of Marvel movies to glean just who could play an important role beyond the recent addition of Carol Danvers.
It is a second character, introduced in Captain Marvel, who remains the most intriguing possibility as an ally, when Endgame picks up the pieces following Infinity War: Monica Rambeau, the daughter of Carol’s best friend, Maria.
In Captain Marvel, Monica is a touch on the young side to pick up a superhero mantle, though she certainly makes an significant impression on both her mother and Carol, as the two struggled to figure out the right thing to do in the face of heightened Kree-Skrull tensions, as well as reconnect after Carol returned from her presumed “death.”
But by the time Endgame rolls around, 24 years will have passed, and — should she have survived the Snap — Monica will be around 35 years old. With her headstrong ways, and steadfast desire to do what is right, Monica would be a prime candidate to join her “Auntie” Carol when she returns to Earth, not least because, in the Marvel comics, Monica was once Captain Marvel herself.
Of course, with Carol having just been introduced to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, it is unlikely that Monica will take up the Captain Marvel mantle, but there was one significant clue in the movie as to which direction Monica’s path could, feasibly, go in.
While Maria was still flying alongside Carol as a test pilot for Wendy Lawson’s (a.k.a. Mar-Vell) Project PEGASUS, she used the call-sign “Photon.” That might, at first glance, seem like a minor, insignificant detail, but Photon has more meaning than just being a cool sounding name.
In the Marvel comics, Photon is the superhero name that Monica adopts after giving up the mantle of Captain Marvel — something that she’d been known by for the entirety of her superhero and Avengers career until that point — to Genis-Vell, the son of Mar-Vell, out of respect for his lineage as well as the heritage of the name.
As Captain Marvel, Monica had the ability to convert her entire body into any form of energy on the electromagnetic spectrum — gained when she was exposed to extra-dimensional energy while trying to stop the creation of a dangerous weapon — which remained the same when she switched to operating as Proton.
Over the years, Monica transformed herself into everything from cosmic rays, gamma rays, x-rays, ultraviolet radiation, visible light, electricity, infrared radiation, microwaves, radio waves, and neutrinos. While in her energy form, Monica also gained all the same properties as whatever she was emulating — but also appeared invisible, and intangible, in many of them. Monica in the Marvel comics was also immortal and did not age past her prime.
With nothing in the Marvel Universe ever being a coincidence, that Monica’s mother has the call-sign Photon is a clear indicator that there could be much, much more to Monica’s story moving forward. Maria’s fate, like many characters, remains a mystery following the Snap, but it is likely that Monica could take on the Photon mantle in honor of her mother, regardless of whether she survived or not.
The only thing that is certain is that Carol Danvers and the surviving Avengers will need all of the help they can get from allies new and old, if they have any hope of defeating Thanos and returning their friends, families, and half the universe back into existence.
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