The Dream is the Truth

Monica Rambeau has a nightmare about the end of her career as Captain Marvel. She remembers how her powers failed her during the Avengers battle with the Leviathan and her powers withered her body away.[1] She wakes up screaming and is comforted back to sleep by her parents, Maria and Frank.

The following morning, Monica gets ready for her first day of her brand new job. She is the captain aboard the cargo ship Tea Cake, owned by her former Coast Guard colleague, Ron Morgan. The maiden voyage reunites Monica with Ron as well as another old friend, Carlos Goodman. Ron tells them that they will be delivering a shipment of wheat to Rio and coming back with a supply of soybean.

As the Tea Cake begins its maiden voyage, Monica takes the downtime to continue her strict exercise regimen. Tragically, her colleague Carlos is shot in the back by a group of Portugese terrorists who have come to commandeer their vessel. She quickly takes them out with her fighting skills. Searching the rest of the ship, she discovers the rest of the crew has either been killed or taken prisoner and that the terrorists have come to collect something on board the ship.

Rushing back to her room, Monica recovers her Captain Marvel costume, relieved she thought to bring it along. She hopes they don’t call her bluff when she confronts them since she no longer has her powers. However, when she makes her presence known she is attacked by a super-powered criminal called Powderkeg. Monica discovers she is out of her depth as Powderkeg excretes nitroglycerine from his body, giving him an explosive powered punch. Luring Powderkeg into the cargo hold, she dumps a ton of wheat on him, burying the villain long enough for her to evacuate the surviving crew members.

With everyone on lifeboats, Monica goes back to fight Powderkeg who has ignited the wheat dust, causing a huge fire on the ship. During the fight, Monica discovers that her powers are back — only they work much differently now. Able to fly and fire beams of energy from her hands, she quickly finds that she can no longer assume an energy form, but is now super-strong. She then knocks out Powderkeg and turns her over to the authorities.

News soon reaches Kristina Ramos, a mobster who had Ron Morgan try to smuggle something to her. She decides to send her best operative to New Orleans to collect the the cargo and is confident that she will be able to deal with Captain Marvel should she interfere again.

Two days later, Captain Marvel pays a visit to the Four Freedoms Plaza where Mister Fantastic runs her through some tests to determine how her powers have changed and why. Reed theorizes that the way the energy dimension she interfaced has changed. Before traded her body mass for electromagnetic energy from that dimension. Now shunts energy directed at her outwards. He warns Monica that her powers are significantly weaker than they were before and warns her to be careful in the future.

Monica then returns to New Orleans to find out what Ron was trying to ship to Brazil. He discovers that he was attacked at his office. He explains that recently, he had salvaged some Stark Industry circuitry, but when he tried to inform Stane International — Stark’s successor company — they were uninterested.[2] He then attempted to sell it to Kristina Ramos, but discovered that she was involved in organized crime. Monica promises to track down Ron’s attacker and stop her from delivering the circuitry to Ramos. As she leaves, Ron then puts a call out to Stark Enterprises for help.[3] She then flies to Rio and confronts the thief, who turns out to be Monica’s old foe, Moonstone. Moonstone is spoiling for a rematch after their last battle left her in a neck brace for months.[4]

Hearing about the battle, Kristina Ramos races to the airport in her stolen suit of Guardsman armor. This is just as Captain Marvel has defeated Moonstone. Kristina then uses her repulsors to sever the wing of an aircraft, endangering the life of a mechanic. This forces Monica to save the man’s life, creating enough of a distraction for Kristina to install the Stark circuitry and super-power her armor. With these new enhancements, Captain Marvel is no match for Ramos. Luckily, Ron has arrived on the scene with Jim Rhodes of Stark Enterprises. Jim has brought a device that will brick Kristina’s armor.[5]

Returning to the battle, Captain Marvel gets close enough to Ramos to use the negator pack and it instantly deactivates the armor. With the crisis over, Ron and Jim offer to give Monica a lift back to America. She politely declines, telling them that she wants to fly on her own for a while.

Recurring Characters

Captain Marvel, Powderkeg, Moonstone, Maria Rambeau, Frank Rambeau, Mister Fantastic, Jim Rhodes

Continuity Notes

1. Captain Marvel’s powers reacted poorly when traveling through water in her energy form and she lost a great deal of her body mass. This put her out of commission and forced her to step down as leader of the Avengers. See Avengers #291-293.

2. This story happens shortly after Stark International was part of a hostile take over by Obadiah Stane. See Iron Man #162-173.

3. Captain Marvel and Moonstone last clashed in Avengers #276.

4. Tony Stark subsequently started a new business, Stark Enterprises, in Iron Man #217.

5. This is the same negator pack that Iron Man used during the first Armor Wars. See Iron Man #225-231.