Avengers #200 - What The Hell Were They Thinking?

A while ago, I re-read Avengers #100 to #200, which features some truly classic Avengers tales from Steve Englehart, Jim Shooter, David Michelinie, John Byrne and George Perez among others. But the giant anniversary issue that caps that run is one of the most egregious moments in Marvel history. This is the tale of how it came about...

Ms. Marvel's solo book had been cancelled the in 1979, with #23, and since then she'd been appearing in The Avengers as their newest recruit. Which was fine while Jim Shooter was writing the book - he had recently been made Editor-in-Chief, so he could do what he liked. But by 1980, David Michelinie had taken over as writer on The Avengers, and Chris Claremont, who'd been writing Ms. Marvel's book, felt some proprietorship over the character. He wanted her in the X-Men. This led to some bad blood between them.

For the 200th issue of Avengers, Michelinie wanted to expand on the idea that the alien race, the Kree, had reached an evolutionary dead-end, and in order for their race to continue, Ms. Marvel's Kree/human DNA would provide a new evolutionary offshoot. So, she would somehow produce a child with the Kree Supreme Intelligence.

Unfortunately, What If? #20 had come out a few months earlier, which featured a story in which Rick Jones had been evolved into a baby Supreme Intelligence, and Jim Shooter felt this was similar enough to Michelinie's idea that he should come up with something different.

What they came up with was this: Ms. Marvel (Carol Danvers) mysteriously falls pregnant. After only a day or so, she has the baby - a boy - who continues to grow at an accelerated rate. The other Avengers have some wildly inappropriate reactions to this nightmare scenario:

The child appears to be causing some localised time distortion, giving the Avengers an excuse to hit things like dinosaurs. Once he can talk, the boy says his name is Marcus, and he'd like a laser torch and some electrical gubbins. Incredibly, Iron Man agrees to his request.

He builds a big machine, and not one Avenger thinks to ask what it's for! Finally, Hawkeye has had enough of hitting stuff, and he destroys the machine. Then we get an exposition dump:

Marcus is the son of Immortus. Immortus got lonely in Limbo, so he rescued Rose from the movie Titanic and took her to Limbo. There he roofied her and she had a baby, Marcus, but she couldn't stay in Limbo because reasons. After Immortus died, Marcus got lonely too. He follows his dad's example and finds a nice girl - Ms. Marvel - to "implant his essence" in. This time, he returns her to earth before she gives birth so he can escape from Limbo. His machine would negate the same "Limbo effect" that prevented his mother from staying there.

It's explicitly stated that both Immortus and Marcus use their machines to influence their victims and make them pliant for what's about to happen to them.

Ms. Marvel decides to return to Limbo with Marcus because she has feelings for the man who raped her - her "son" - and she wants some kind of relationship with him. Iron Man is a little dubious but doesn't try to stop her, and Thor actually gives them a lift back to Limbo!

Here's how the credits read for this heinous plot:

I've no idea if there's any significance to the order of the names, but it's odd that Jim Shooter is first, given what he had to say about it. For all my admiration for what Shooter did as Editor-in-Chief of Marvel, and as a writer, he can sometimes be a slippery character. On his blog, he takes "full responsibility" for Avengers #200, whilst seemingly denying he had anything to do with the story.

David Michelinie says that they only found out about the "What If?" issue when Carol's pregnancy had already been set in motion (in Avengers #197), and therefore he, Bob Layton (his co-plotter on Iron Man), Shooter and Pérez had to rework the story in next to no time.

Incredibly, there was seemingly very little pushback on this issue, other than Robin from Las Vegas, who was sad he now had one less sexy lady to look at. Here's the letter column from #203:

But then, the first issue of a new comic fanzine came out. LoC #1 featured an article by art historian and comic fan, Carol Strickland, titled "The Rape of Ms. Marvel." She talks about the article, and it's posted in its entirety, on her website, here: https://carolastrickland.wordpress.com/ms-marvel/

One person who read that article was Chris Claremont. Already angry at Carol's treatment, he wrote Avengers Annual #10, in which it's revealed that Carol had returned from Limbo three months ago. She's attacked by Rogue, who steals her powers, and is rescued by Spider-Woman.

The X-Men get involved, then the Avengers, who defeat Rogue and the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. At the end of the story, Carol confronts the Avengers. It's very much a case of Claremont saying to the writers of Avengers #200, "what the hell were you thinking??"

After that, Claremont finally got his way, with Carol joining the supporting cast of the X-Men as of #150. She eventually regained superpowers and, calling herself Binary, joined the Starjammers.

There's a disturbing irony to the fact that all of this happened to Ms. Marvel, a character created in the 1970's to reflect the Women's Liberation movement of that era, but here reduced to a baby-making plot device, completely robbed of her own agency. Whether that was a conscious decision or not, the fact that this story made it into print does not speak well of everyone involved.