Monica Rambeau

Monica Rambeau is a female comic character who features in Marvel Comics.

Biography

Origin

Monica Rambeau was a female African-American woman born in the modern age as the daughter of Maria Rambeau and Frank Rambeau where she was raised at her family's home in New Orleans, Louisiana. (Avengers v1 #246)

As a lieutenant in the New Orleans Harbor Patrol, she came to operate as a cargo ship where she was on duty in trying to prevent the creation of a dangerous weapon by a criminal scientist. In this mission, she came to be bombarded by extra-dimensional energy that was responsible for giving her superpowers. Finding herself back to New Orleans, she came to design herself a super-hero costume by combining pieces of Mardi Gras outfits from a storage warehouse. With her new powers, she returned to the oil rig where she rescued LeClare and preventing the disruptor from damaging the fabric of the universe. Her actions caught the attention of the media, which referred to her as Captain Marvel. Finally a captain by her own merit, Rambeau decided to resign from the navy. Weeks later, Captain Marvel visited New York City, seeking Reed Richards' help to keep her power levels stable. There, she was spotted by Spider-Man, whose spider-sense led him to believe she might pose a threat. At the Baxter Building, the Thing suggested her to contact the Avengers since Richards was not available. In the Avengers Mansion, after clearing up a brief misunderstanding with Spider-Man, Captain Marvel was finally assisted by Iron Man, who siphoned the excessive energy from her body. (Amazing Spider-Man Annual v1 #16)

When the organization known as P.R.I.D.E. attempted to steal Roxxon's Technafoil and New York Maritime museum's Windstone Jewel, Captain Marvel found herself teaming up with Spider-Man again to stop the robbers. At P.R.I.D.E.'s headquarters, the super-hero duo learnt that Dr. Paulson planned to solve Earth's overpopulation problem by banishing people to another dimension. Although the threat was eliminated by Captain Marvel and Spider-Man, the former found herself trapped in her light form after the battle for being exposed to P.R.I.D.E.'s technology. (Marvel Team-Up v1 #142) With Starfox's help, Spider-Man travelled to the other dimension to deactivate P.R.I.D.E.'s generation and restore Captain Marvel's control over her powers. (Marvel Team-Up v1 #143)

Later on, Maelstrom and his minions decided to target Earth's rotation patterns. Professor LeClare informed Captain Marvel about the dangerous consequences of this phenomenon, but, before she could contact the Avengers, she had her mind tampered with by Phobius. Ultimately, Captain Marvel managed to overcome her artificial fear and assisted the Avengers and the West Coast Avengers in defeating Maelstrom for good. Following this event, Starfox proudly shared that Monica represented an honorable tribute to Mar-Vell's memory. (Avengers v1 #250) When the Avengers chairman, the Vision, was corrupted by the Titanian intelligence known as I.S.A.A.C., he tricked Captain Marvel into investigating a fake signal emanating from Thanos' starship, Sanctuary II, which was adrift in Pluto's orbit. (Avengers v1 #252) As she explored the dreadnought, she met a group of deceitful space pirates who teleported her to the Andromeda Galaxy, aiming to force her into their mercenary squad. (Avengers v1 #255) In order to protect herself, Captain Marvel learned how to create a hologram of herself using her powers, by staying in energy form but maintaining a powerless appearance. (Avengers v1 #256) However, she was unable to fool the crew's commander, the deadly Nebula, who blackmailed her into attacking a Skrull planetoid-base, as a part of a plan of conquering the Skrull Empire, recently weakened by Galactus' actions. (Avengers v1 #257) During the attack, Captain Marvel managed to contact the Avengers right before Nebula attempted to obliterate the planetoid using an anti-matter torpedo. The base was protected from destruction by Captain Marvel, who forged an alliance with Skrull General Zedrao and was eventually met by the Avengers, who had received her distress call. (Avengers v1 #259) The Avengers set their plan in motion to stop Nebula's invasion, with Captain Marvel being able to use her powers to power Sanctuary II's shields down. Unexpectedly, Nebula was teleported away by the Beyonder, who wished to assist the Avengers. (Avengers v1 #260) With the Skrulls' help, the Avengers tracked Nebula to Kral. The Avengers teamed up with the Fantastic Four to defeat the terrorist Zabyk, who detonated his Hyperwave Bomb, a device similar to the one which granted Captain Marvel her powers. (Avengers Annual v1 #14) After this conflict, Captain Marvel was finally able to return to Earth with the Avengers. (Avengers v1 #261)

Avenger

Afterwards, the Wasp Janet van Dyne invited Captain Marvel to become an Avenger-in-training. Edwin Jarvis then took this opportunity to introduce Rambeau to the history of the previous Captain Marvel namely the Kree alien Mar-Vell. (Avengers v1 #227)

Ultimates

With the defeat of Nyx, the excess energy that Monica had that was turning her into an immortal creature of light was burnt off when it was used to amplify the Vision's powers. This resulted in her being turned back into a human being with her retaining her abilities though could stay as a flesh and blood being to live her life as a mortal. (Avengers: No Road Home v1 #10)

Later on, she would learn about Beyond© resuming their activities with superhuman experiences and sponsored their own Spider-Man to act as their private superhero. Rambeau decided to secretly intervene in their operations and hired the Daughters of the Dragon to infiltrate Beyond© as one of the agents in their superhero program. In one of their assignments, the Daughters of the Dragon acquired the Heartstar but instead of retrieving it to their employer at Beyond© Maxine Danger, they handed it to Rambeau. (Amazing Spider-Man v5 #78.BEY)

Overview

Personality and attributes

After gaining her powers, the media came to refer to her as Captain Marvel. (Amazing Spider-Man Annual v1 #16) Due to her powers, she came to be referred to some as the Lady of Light. (Avengers v1 #236)

She had noted that her parents had actually met when they both served in the military. (Avengers: Loki Unleashed v1 #1)

Powers and abilities

This resulted in her essentially becoming sentient radiation whereby she embodied anything in the electromagnetic spectrum including gamma rays, neutronios, electricity and visible light. (Avengers: No Road Home v1 #7)

She could create holographic shells of living light that were so authentic that the could fool others. (Avengers: No Road Home v1 #7)

Much of this excess energy was burnt away thus returning her to a mortal state though she was still in possession of her abilities. (Avengers: No Road Home v1 #10)

Notes

• Monica Rambeau was created by Roger Stern and John Romita, Jr. where she made her first appearance in the Amazing Spider-Man Annual v1 #16 (October, 1982).
• In Modern Masters Volume 18: John Romita Jr. (2008), artist John Romita, Jr. noted on the characters creation, "I just took some reference on Pam Grier, because I always loved her, and at the last moment somebody said that, "Well, we need to use this woman, here," because they thought maybe Pam Grier wasn't as good-looking as the model they found. It was fine, because by the time she got done by other artists, it ended up looking like the generic black character, anyway."
• In an interview on CBR, writer Al Ewing on his Mighty Avengers commented on the addition of Monica Rambeau to the roster, "She's got a new costume and a new name, but she's kind of rejoining the superhero set in terms of rebranding herself. She's basically coming back as Spectrum, which we batted around possible names, and you could tell that one had a kind of hard science-fiction feel to it. One of the things I love about Monica...is that she was once the leader of [the Avengers] team, and it's great to have her in that position again."

Alternate Versions

• In Age of Ultron v1 #2 (2013), an alternate version of Monica Rambeau appeared in the Age of Ultron reality that was designated as Earth-61112 in the Multiverse. Months after his return, Ultron launched a massive and sudden attack on New York, and the rest of the world, quickly taking over the whole planet, slowly starting to re-mold it into his own shape. Monica was among the heroes and citizens in a refuge from Ultron Drones, which guarded the streets looking for any fugitive. Tony Stark provided enough technology to keep them safe from Ultron. After the death of She-Hulk, she traveled to the Savage Land with the rest of the heroes under Invisible Woman's invisibility field and Storm's mist, where they met Ka-Zar. Emma Frost's mental powers detected Luke Cage in the proximity, who survived an attack from Ultron's forces and managed to get to the Savage Land using a Quinjet; via Frost, he told the heroes that Ultron was actually in the future, using the Vision as a conduit to punish humanity. In that moment Moon Knight, Black Widow and Red Hulk arrived, revealing they had a plan made by Nick Fury to defeat Ultron and free the Earth. A small group of heroes led by Nick Fury traveled to the future using Time Platform in order to confront Ultron, and Pulsar was one of the many heroes who stayed in the present Savage Land.
• In U.S.Avengers v1 #2 (2017), an alternate version of Monica Rambeau appeared in the 20XX reality that was designated as Earth-15061 in the Multiverse.

In other media

Television

• In WandaVision, an adult Monica Rambeau appeared in the setting of the live-action television series set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe where she was portrayed by actress Teyonah Parris. It was shown that after the incident in the 1990s that her mother came to be the founder of S.W.O.R.D. with Monica following Danvers footsteps by joining the United States Air Force where she attained the rank of Captain. After her discharge, she joined S.W.O.R.D. where she became a senior figure in the organisation and one to inherit it after her mother. In 2018, her mother was in the hospital where she was receiving cancer treatments where during this time Monica became one of the many victims of Thanos's decimation caused by the Infinity Gauntlet that killed half the occupants of the universe. She was returned to life five years later and was among those restored by the Avengers but came to find that her mother had died after having succumbed to the cancer. She re-joined S.W.O.R.D. but her mothers protocol prevented her from assuming leadership over S.W.O.R.D. which had instead passed to Tyler Hayward who had to confine her to planetside operations. Monica was sent to investigate a disturbance at the town of Westview where she was dragged into a simulated reality created by Wanda Maximoff that resembled early television dramas and sitcoms. Back inside, Wanda Maximoff revealed to Geraldine that she herself is a twin. She appears overcome with emotion as she brings up Pietro Maximoff. before singing to her newborn babies a Sokovian lullaby. Geraldine was confused and reminded Maximoff that Pietro was killed by Ultron during the Battle of Sokovia. This made Maximoff quickly grow angry and confrontational, as Maximoff asked Geraldine to repeat what she said. Geraldine offered to take a shift rocking the babies, but Maximoff instead asked her to leave, as she noticed a strange necklace Geraldine was wearing. Maximoff once again questioned Geraldine about the symbol on her necklace and asked who she really was. Geraldine became visibly flustered and could not answer any of Maximoff's questions. Secretly, Maximoff had then used her powers to eject Rambeau out of Westview through her unbridled fury. Rambeau was thrown out through an invisible barrier protected by towering pylons shielding Westview from the rest of the world, hurling through the air and landing in a field outside the S.W.O.R.D. Response Base. As she drifted in and out of consciousness after being blasted outside, several S.W.O.R.D. SUVs and trucks with armed soldiers, and a helicopter, arrived and tended to her. She then told the S.W.O.R.D agents that Maximoff was the one who created the barrier.

Films

• In Captain Marvel, Monica Rambeau appeared in the live-action film set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe where she was portrayed by actress Akira Akbar. This version was a child in the 1990s whose mother Maria Rambeau was a test pilot and close friend of Carol Danvers. Monica grew up with her seeing Danvers as a friend and referred to her as 'Auntie Carol'.
• In The Marvels, Monica Rambeau appeared in the setting of the live-action film set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe where she was once again portrayed by actress Teyonah Parris. Due to a surge in the Universal Neural Teleportation Network, Rambeau, Dag and Talia were sent out in suits to survey the S.A.B.E.R. Space Station. By phasing her hand through her suit, Rambeau was able to seal up parts of the station with her powers. Rambeau then remarked if they could finish fixing it by dinner, but Talia wanted it fixed by the time they needed to read another jump point. Dag and Talia then noted they knew someone with powers that could get a reading on the jump point herself. Rambeau obliged and untethered herself to drift over to the malfunctioning jump point. This prompted Nick Fury to ask what she was doing. Rambeau concluded that there seemed to be a residual effect on the jump point. She said she was going to get some readings, only for Fury to come up as static on the other end of the call. As Rambeau got close, her radio caught signal to Captain Marvel on MB-418. This overwhelmed Rambeau, as she was not ready to talk to Danvers yet. Rambeau then got close to the jump point and noticed the energy surging from it. She then stuck out her hand towards it in marvel. Suddenly, Rambeau was transported to Danvers' location on MB-418. Rambeau hit the surface of the planet very hard and groaned. She looked up to see many Kree ready to surround her. Before anything else could happen, Rambeau was transported back to the space station.

Video games

• In Marvel: Contest of Champions, Monica Rambeau appeared as a playable character in the setting of the mobile video game. She had been a harbor patrol officer in the Navy when she was bombarded with extra-dimensional energy, allowing her to convert her body mass into any form of energy on the electromagnetic spectrum. She has since led the Avengers and fought Galactus, going by the names Captain Marvel and Spectrum along the way before settling on Photon.
• In Marvel Future Fight, Monica Rambeau appeared as a playable character in the setting of the mobile video game. She had gained the extraordinary ability to transform into an energy form after getting exposed to a dangerous weapon while serving with the New Orleans Harbor Patrol. Having once carried the title of Captain Marvel, she changed her name to Spectrum to claim her own identity and eventually joined the Ultimates to protect the Earth and solve interdimensional catastrophes.
• In Marvel Strike Force, Monica Rambeau appeared as a playable character in the setting of the mobile video game. Photon was one of many heroes that joined S.T.R.I.K.E. to oppose the threat of Ultimus.
• In Marvel Duel, Monica Rambeau appeared as a playable champion in the setting of the MOBA video game. She had followed in the footsteps of her firefighter father and became a member of the New Orleans Harbor Patrol. An experiment gone awry bombarded her with extra-dimensional energy, granting her incredible powers over light waves.

Appearances

• Amazing Spider-Man Annual v1: (1982)
• Avengers v1:
• Avengers v3:
• Marvel Divas v1:
• Mighty Avengers:
• Ultimates v2:
• Ultmates 2 v2:
• Avengers: No Road Home v1:
• Avengers: Loki Unleashed v1:
• Strikeforce v1:
• Amazing Spider-Man v5:

External Links

• Marvel.com Entry
• Marvel Database Entry
• Comicvine Entry
• Wikipedia Entry

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