Meet the New Boss…

A group of high tech criminals have attacked on armored car in the middle of the streets of New York. While they were hoping to steal untraceable diamonds, their leader is disappointed that the vehicle is only carrying cash. While they are distracted by the loot, the crooks are quickly taken out by the new Ms. Marvel (Karla Sofen). When police arrive on the scene to clean up, they are surprised to see that the thieves have all been killed. Ms. Marvel tells them that she was justified in doing so because the robbers had killed employees of a nearby bank. After posing for photos being taken by bystanders, Karla flies back to Avengers Tower.

Karla finds her boss, Norman Osborn, waiting for her on the roof. He is glad to see her because the government has asked that his Avengers team undergo psychological evaluation.[1] She is unhappy to do this since she was examined when part of the Thunderbolts,[2] but there is nothing Osborn can do about it, but wants Karla to go first since she can use her psychology skills against the man hired to examine them, Doctor Gerald Wright.

When she meets with Wright, he goes over her past history, including her past criminal career.[2] Karla reminds him that she has been cleared of her past wrongdoings while in the Thunderbolts. When he starts asking Karla about her mother, she suddenly finds herself reliving her childhood in the run down apartment where she lived. Having been reverted back to a child, Karla demands to know what’s going on. Wright, now appearing as her mother, says that this is all an investigation into who she is as a person.[3] Gerald recounts how Karla’s mother worked three jobs until her death and as he enters the next room — a science lab — he wonders why Karla wasn’t there by her side. Karla now changing into her Moonstone persona refuses to answer. That’s when Wright disappears for a moment.

As Karla refuses to talk, Wright comes smashing into the room in the form of the Hulk. He can’t look into the part of her past surrounding the death of her mother because of the mental block she has put up and demands to know what she is hiding.[4] When she tries to fight back, Karla discovers that her powers won’t work. It is then that Gerald reveals that he CIA operatives who had come to avenge the original Ms. Marvel who recently died in battle.[5] How he is using his mental powers to eliminate all of Osborn’s Avengers as they are an affront to the heroes whose names they usurped.

Karla decides to reveal the truth about what happened to her mother and why she hides this all behind thoughts of the Hulk. She relives the moment, not long before she first joined the Thunderbolts. It was after a prison sentence and she was living with her mother. After everything she sacrificed to make sure her daughter had everything she wanted, Karla felt like a failure. Unwilling to endure that feeling, Karla smothered her mother with a pillow and then burned down her house in order to cover it up. Wright is so horrified by seeing this revelation he tries to make her stop reliving the moment. This horror allows her to break free of his mental link and she uses her powers to cleave his right arm (the focal point of his mental powers) at the elbow. She then grabs him by the throat as he pleads to God for help. Karla’s final words to him are how she finds it amusing how people who set about to do the devil’s work often find themselves pleading when it doesn’t work out.[6]

After this session, a blood spattered Ms. Marvel passes Norman Osborn in the hallway. When he asks her how it went she says nothing. Osborn, with a smirk on his face, admits that her response is fair and continues on his way….

Recurring Characters

Ms. Marvel, Norman Osborn

Continuity Notes

1. Norman Osborn had been given the position of America’s top cop after he killed the leader of a Skrull invasion of Earth in Secret Invasion #8. Once of his first duties was forming his own team of Avengers, as seen in Dark Avengers #1. This team mostly consists of former criminals that are now posing as previously established heroes.

2. Here, Karla complains about how she was already evaluated by the government when she was in the Thunderbolts. Karla was a founding member of that group, but she is referring to when the team specifically became a government run organization in Thunderbolts #110.

3. Here, Dr. Wright states that Karla’s parents are deceased. As revealed in Thunderbolts #25, her father was a butler for the wealthy Stockbridge family until he died.

4. Karla became the second Moonstone in Incredible Hulk #229 and first fought the Hulk. However, here she is depicted in her most recent Moonstone costume, which she began wearing in Thunderbolts #109.

5. Carol Danvers seemingly died at the end of last issue when her powers overloaded. In reality, Carol has been split into two distinct personalities that will turn up again in Ms. Marvel (vol. 2) #42-46.

6. We don’t see what happens next, and it is presumed that Karla kills Gerald Wright here. However, as of this writing (June, 2024) his ultimate fate is unrevealed.

Topical References

• Some of the cell phones in this story are depicted as having physical buttons. These phones were slowly falling out of popular use at the time of this story as smart phones became more common. As such their depiction here should be considered topical.

• The TV in Karla’s childhood apartment is depicted as a CRT model television. This should be considered topical as this is now an obsolete technology.