Monica Rambeau Appreciation 2023

[Thirteen]

Love Stelfreeze's work, but I definitely can now see why some say Monica's original costume is dated. But it was an awesome costume for its time and I hope Marvel keeps designing new looks for Monica.

The Spectrum design by Greg Land from MIGHTY AVENGERS was about perfect as an update for the classic Monica Marvel look. I would have preferred Monica keep her natural hairstyle, however. I do miss some form of garnish/accessory to repace her capelet, but don't care for the trench coat or the THUNDERBOLTS look where she wears her boyfriend's vest.

[ShatteredReality]

Given how Greg land does things, are we sure that he came up with the redesign himself?

[Frontier]

The Spectrum design by Greg Land from MIGHTY AVENGERS was about perfect as an update for the classic Monica Marvel look. I would have preferred Monica keep her natural hairstyle, however. I do miss some form of garnish/accessory to repace her capelet, but don't care for the trench coat or the THUNDERBOLTS look where she wears her boyfriend's vest.

Eventually she kept the costume but did go back to her natural hairstyle, I think.

[Thirteen]

Given how Greg land does things, are we sure that he came up with the redesign himself?

I saw the sketches, one of which had the Spectrum suit with her natural hair, and I don't have the Greg Land = Zero Talent thing that some people have because of his overuse of referencing in his artwork. So failing evidence to the contrary, I'll give credit where presumed due.

monica rambeau spectrum land.jpg

Eventually she kept the costume but did go back to her natural hairstyle, I think.

MIGHTY AVENGERS did eventually have "Auntie Monica" revive her less friendly NEXTWAVE persona during a storyline about her having been manipulated etc, and that led to the return of her dreadlocks and a version of the trench coat from that period.



(I'm still tickled that the MCU version of Monica's suit focuses on the upper portion of the Spectrum divided Hala Starburst-esque shape of her emblem as MCU Captain Rambeau's supersuit)

[Thirteen]

I saw the sketches, one of which had the Spectrum suit with her natural hair, and I don't have the Greg Land = Zero Talent thing that some people have because of his overuse of referencing in his artwork. So failing evidence to the contrary, I'll give credit where presumed due.

monica rambeau spectrum land.jpg

I stand corrected, looks like Valerio Schiti also had a hand in designing MIGHTY AVENGERS Spectrum look. Not sure who gets primary credit. Though the usual Schiti-isms aren't present in the design...



This article makes it sound like Schiti came on board 6 issues in...so perhaps Land is, indeed,responsible for the design..

[the nomad]

Okay, please someone explain her power set to me. She has light based powers, but on what scale, is she like Dazzler powerful or Like Jubilee, or some other light based character. What are her feats because she's been get a big push, and based on the Marvels, her powers are all over the place, it's like it's random. What comics do I need to read?

[Dermie]

Okay, please someone explain her power set to me. She has light based powers, but on what scale, is she like Dazzler powerful or Like Jubilee, or some other light based character. What are her feats because she's been get a big push, and based on the Marvels, her powers are all over the place, it's like it's random. What comics do I need to read?

Monica is extremely powerful! I love Dazzler, but Monica could vaporize her in the blink of an eye...literally. lol.

She has the power to transform her body into electromagnetic energy -- any form of energy in the electromagnetic spectrum; so she can become light, x-rays, gamma rays, infrared radiation, electricity, neutrinos, microwaves, ultraviolet radiation, etc. So she can travel at the speed of light, and travel through space, underwater, or through solid matter without needing to breathe. She can manipulate light to create holographic images, or to make objects invisible by bending light around them. When she first got her powers she couldn't touch anything while in energy form, but over time she has learned to become a form a 'hard light' so that she can touch things while she's in energy form. While in human form she can project energy blasts.

One particularly notable feat she had with her powers was when she actually managed to hurt the god Zeus with a massive blast of power. It wasn't enough to stop him--but she was the only member of the Avengers that actually managed to stagger him at all.

[Sutekh]

Okay, please someone explain her power set to me. She has light based powers, but on what scale, is she like Dazzler powerful or Like Jubilee, or some other light based character. What are her feats because she's been get a big push, and based on the Marvels, her powers are all over the place, it's like it's random. What comics do I need to read?

Her original base power was to transform into any form of energy along the electromagnetic spectrum. Visible light, ultraviolet, X-rays, etc. She could blind people in light form by flying at their face, or tighten her focus until she turned into a laser beam (or maser beam if in microwave form, or 'graser' beam in gamma ray form, etc.). She flew at light speed (around the world eight times in a second!) and was intangible in most of these forms (although limited by the form she was in, visible light generally doesn't go through opaque matter, for instance, while X-rays can be blocked by a thickness of lead, etc.). She could also fire bolts of force, which was sort of a random side-power that, even when I was young, I thought was really extra and unnecessary (just not in those terms).

Later she gained complete control of all those various energies, so that by her appearance in Nextwave she just randomly did anything she wanted, so long as she said something about energy when she did it. Irradiate an entire ship? Sure! Create a massive microwave explosion? Go for it! She also gained the ability to create a hardlight body which could slam into a planet at lightspeed and blow it up, and it was explicitly pointed out that she wasn't just 'turning into light' or 'turning into microwaves,' but turning into her bodyweight in that form of energy, which, since energy weighs almost nothing, means that she was turning into a ridiculous amount of that energy, since 120 pounds of microwaves is *a lot* of microwaves... She also could change her body at will, turning to energy and then changing to look like someone else and re-solidifying as them, and stated that her body was just a construct she had formed from her energy and was immortal. She also explicitly thought and reacted at the sorts of speeds that allowed her to take better advantage of her ability to move at lightspeed, which was kind of insane and more like how some DC speedsters work than anything Marvel did (or, did well, IMO, since they quickly lost the plot and it seemed every appearance spent more time discussing what new crazy stuff she could do, rather than develop her as a character, and thankfully she seems to have come down a bit from these planet-busting power levels fairly soon thereafter). Basic comic book wonkiness.

[Digifiend]

Yeah, Spectrum was a very fitting codename for someone with her powerset... I don't know why they changed it back to Photon, considering the movie ended up not giving her a codename, so if it was a synergy attempt, it failed, for the umpteenth time.

[Thirteen]

Yeah, Spectrum was a very fitting codename for someone with her powerset... I don't know why they changed it back to Photon, considering the movie ended up not giving her a codename, so if it was a synergy attempt, it failed, for the umpteenth time.

Funny you phrased it that way as I've long held that "Synergy" would be good name for Monica.
I also still contend they swerved from "Spectrum" because of it being commonly associated with "Spectrum Disorder"/Austism/Aspbergers - thus making it sound like a name of a character on the ill-fated Super Woke New Warriors team project that was canceled.

[Thirteen]

What comics do I need to read?

In general the Roger Stern era of AVENGERS has the best showing for classic Monica. She's a mainstay and leader from about AVENGERS vol 1 #227 - 290 after which Monica was editorially forced out of the title and into semi-limbo for years.



This collection has a good chunk of Monica Must-Haves,

Cover and Amazon listing for CAPTAIN MARVEL:The Saga of Monica Rambeau https://www.amazon.com/CAPTAIN-MARVE.../dp/1302950991. COLLECTING: Amazing Spider-Man Annual (1964) 16; Avengers (1963) 227, 279; Marvel Team-Up (1972) 142-143; Captain Marvel (1989) 1; Captain Marvel (1994) 1; Avengers Unplugged (1995) 5; material from Solo Avengers (1987) 2; Marvel Fanfare (1982) 42, 57
Conspicuously absent given the cover art is her stint in NEXTWAVE and the Luke Cage led MIGHTY AVENGERS (maybe a Volume 2 is warranted!)

[Besouro]

I think it would still be great today.
But without those ridiculous high heels that she didn't have in the original costume. A shame so many good artists (and cosplayers too) are ruining perfectly accurate costumes by adding that.

I don't mind the high heels, it adds some sass fitting to the blaxploitatiom era.

[Thirteen]

I don't mind the high heels, it adds some sass fitting to the blaxploitatiom era.

What does Monica Rambeau have to do with the blaxploitation era?

[Digifiend]

Yeah, wasn't that the 70s? Monica's an 80s character.

[Thirteen]

Monica Rambeau Deserves Her Own Movie After ‘The Marvels’



And a new piece posted by Brian Steelfreeze

I think it would still be great today.
But without those ridiculous high heels that she didn't have in the original costume. A shame so many good artists (and cosplayers too) are ruining perfectly accurate costumes by adding that.

Yeah, wasn't that the 70s? Monica's an 80s character.

Rambeau's Captain Marvel costume did have high heels early on as seen in her first appearance in SPIDER-MAN ANNUAL #16, 1982

Monica Rambeau costume SpiderMan Annual.jpg