I feel like Marvel decided to push Carol first and decided that she would need to be Captain Marvel second. Like, based on the fact that they were pushing Carol hard as Marvel's top female hero since around the time of House of M, it seems like they first decided that Carol needed that spot, and then decided having her feel like a legacy character and having her name start with Ms. was kind of an obstacle to the space they wanted her to occupy and gave her the Captain Marvel name.
In general I think the idea that pushing Carol takes away from Monica is a problem when we can clearly push both. This is generally IMO something that we think about with female comic characters like, why do we need a top woman "Wonder Woman" character? Just bc DC can only be bothered to have one woman on the Justice League doesn't mean we can't have multiple women pushed at the same time. Let it come at the expense of male characters.
Marvel has treated Monica poorly. But it's not Carol's fault. I blame Genis-Vell more than anything for stealing her superhero name, but beyond that they just stopped using this great character.
they did in her one shot as a result of her powers shorting out post her removal from Avengers. Her powers were changed from EM spectrum to something closer to manipulating kinetic energy which gave her standard flying brick abilities. Im not sure what the purpose here was, especially since it happened in a one shot, may have been deliberately to nerf her, but it did not take either in the category of getting her more use, or in the category of it even staying the status quo as later during starblast those powers were restored.
The matter is of stakes. Of the names you listed sentry always had people walking on eggshells around him and became the antagonist, Blue Marvel took the job of a retiree scientist occasionally stepping in, Silver Surfer is cosmic, where I expect and want to see characters like Blue Marvel, Monica etc to usually play.
Thor was basically the only ultra heavy hitter we saw, and even he subconsciously held back to maybe 10-30 percent of his total output and Monica even surpasses him and would be way more useful in a fight than Thor. I mean the only reason I think thor could even beat her is a simple matter of his mjolnir being able to absorb her which is one of her only vulnerability I can think of that she struggles with
Besides I don't even want carol on the avengers team nowadays, most of these characters have outgrown all that. Just go back to Ultimates and let them be a big team if a solo isn't around.
Or something like the Defenders who had Silver surfer and Classic Strange, along with hulk and Namor being the weakest.
The thing is, I don't really care so much about Monica's code name.
The issue was the way the character has been treated. Monica was prominent female character outside of the X-men (which were few back in the day) and when Marvel wanted to promote their female heroes why was she completely overlooked? She has a fantastic powerset and has a rather interesting backstory.
Beyond the race of the character, I don't know why Monica was treated the way she was. When I mention race, I'm not being hyperbolic...Marvel literally straightened out her Afro and lightened her skin for a while. I don't think she even has the Afro anymore (I can't remember). It's all so ridiculous....
Because they wanted the “Captain Marvel” title to revolve around the orginal Mar-Vell Kree mythology.
That’s why you had his son, daughter, a Skrull pretended to be the original kree, another young Kree, and finally Carol who got her powers from Mar-vell. But now retcon to be half kree herself.
Monica had nothing to do with those mythos besides her name. Monica barely had her own mythos T all, since she got her powers in one accident that happened in a spider-man annual.