Why Carol Danvers' Costume In Captain Marvel Makes No Sense

Carol Danvers has had an interesting journey throughout the Marvel Universe over the years. She started off as a military liaison between the U.S. Air Force and the original Captain Marvel, the Kree hero Mar-Vell. She later got some of Mar-Vell's powers copied over into her DNA during an accident with a machine called the Psyche-Magnitron ... Comics, right? Anyway, she obviously donned a costume of her own and became the hero known as Ms. Marvel.

But that red and black costume wasn't exactly the most practical outfit, since it was effectively like wearing a tight swimsuit. Since women's costumes in comics were originally designed to be sexy rather than sensible, it isn't surprising that the publishers gave Carol something skimpy to wear. Thankfully, the hero's most notable redesign came in Kelly Sue DeConnick's 2012 run — which heavily leaned into her military background, with a flight suit-style costume designed by artist Jamie McKelvie to match.

Of course, this is the version of the character that Marvel Studios chose to bring into the Marvel Cinematic Universe in 2019 in "Captain Marvel." However, in recent years Marvel Comics has been well aware of the odd costume given to Carol in her 1977 debut, even going as far as getting one character to slam the look.

Back in the 2009 "Dark Avengers" storyline written by Brian Michael Bendis (with art by Mike Deodato and Rain Beredo), Norman Osborn replaces all of Earth's Mightiest Heroes with different villains — in place of Carol Danvers' Ms. Marvel is Moonstone. She has the usual abilities of super strength, flight, and durability, and can also generate light from every part of her body and blast concentrated photons from her hands (via Fandom). A perfect stand-in for Ms. Marvel, then. Unfortunately, Moonstone isn't too impressed with her costume when she appeared in "Avengers" in 2009 from writer Christos Gage.

As she's walking with fellow Avenger Tigra, Moonstone complains about Carol's design of the Ms. Marvel outfit, saying "Stupid costume. Your friend 'Carol' actually made this? Isn't she supposed to be a feminist?" Carol might say that it was her own choice to wear the costume, but it's easy to see Moonstone's point. The villain even points out just how impractical the tight-fitting costume is, adding "This thing's a paparazzi magnet. It rides up like crazy. And don't even get me started on how often I have to wax..."

Yeah, it's fair to say that the flight suit look is a much better choice, but at least Marvel managed to have a little fun with such an important part of the character's history before giving her a much cooler costume.