Comparing Carole Danvers and Nebula

[lynnenne]

Hello, and welcome to my first Sunday discussion post! Sorry it's so late in the day, it was a busy weekend for me. This week's topic:

By now we've seen two official trailers for Captain Marvel. In the 2nd trailer, we see a barely-conscious Carole being injected with a green fluid, presumably the source of her unearthly powers. In an earlier post to this comm, snickfic  and learnedfoot discussed the implications of non-consensual body modifications - a theme that we've already seen in the MCU with Nebula.

What do you see as the major parallels between Carole Danvers and Nebula? What are the big differences? How would you like to see the two characters interact on-screen? And if they sat down for a jar of mead after all the fighting is over, what stories would they share?

How do their stories compare to male MCU characters who have endured non-con body modifications, like Bucky Barnes? 

I know very little about either Carole or Nebula, so I would love to hear your thoughts!

Comments

[snickfic]

I feel like I don't have much to say yet about Nebula vs Carol, because we don't yet know the full backstory of Carol's body modifications. It's interesting that at least Nebula presumably has all her memories, while Carol has had those tampered with, too. (Which I am SO HERE FOR, btw. GIMME.) Now you've got me thinking of all the MCU characters who got dubcon or noncon body modifications. I'm sure people will disagree with the exact categorizations here, and hopefully people will remind me of the ones I'm missing, but:

noncon body mods:
Nebula
Carol
Bucky Barnes
Rocket Raccoon
Loki, kind of? He certainly didn't agree to be raised in the form of a different race than he was born as.

dubcon (?) body mods:
Tony Stark

body mods of unknown consent:
Gamora - per the digital readout next to her mug shot in GotG1, she has ocular and respiratory implants and an enhanced neurological system, but unlike Nebula we don't know the specifics of how she got them. She's also listed as having "cybernetic appendages," and I would REALLY LIKE TO KNOW what appendages those would be, because if you say appendages I think tentacles.

[lynnenne]

I did not know any of this about Gamora! Now I'm wondering if the reason she won all those fights against Nebula was because Thanos gave her an unfair advantage - which makes his crimes against Nebula even more monstrous.

Was Bruce Banner ever experimented on against his will? My introduction to the Hulk came in The Avengers which kind of gave short shrift to his back story.

I agree about Loki. Not only did he never consent to being raised in an alien body, he didn't even KNOW he was in an alien body until a thousand years later. For someone who knew how to transform himself into a snake by the age of 8, that's gotta come as a shock. He spent his life as a shapeshifter who could be anything except his true self. No wonder he earned the title "God of Lies."

I would love to see Rocket's backstory examined more in depth in the next Guardians movie.

[snickfic]

I don't believe Bruce ever was. The gamma radiation that turned him into the Hulk was a result of his own experiments - although honestly I'm taking that from the comics and the non-MCU Ang Lee movie, because the official MCU Hulk movie, The Incredible Hulk, starts after the accident has already occurred.

That lack of knowledge might give Loki and Carol some interesting common ground.

[peoriapeoriawhereart]

Phil Coulson has been modified Against Consent, since in Agents of SHIELD we learn he'd been oversight on what came to be known as TAHITI and stated it was Unethical and needed Shut Down. There's also the field amputation.

Steve Rogers is like the Ur case of "we probably need some rules of disclosure"; he literally pre-dates the human experimentation laws.
While they've not been in space or Space Adjacent (Steve was in the Air & Space Museum as an exhibit subject), all the other Serum Subjects which I think includes Luke Cage, Isaiah Bradley and who knows whom else.

I think Bruce Banner was encouraged and lied to?

[lynnenne]

Oh, right, I forgot about the TV universe. Jessica Jones would also qualify as non-con as well. (I love Jessica so much.)

[chelseagirl]

Just echoing the Jessica love. It's also notable that both Jessica and Kilgrave were experimented on without their consent, while Trish was not only consenting but pretty aggressive about it. Looking forward to seeing how that plays out in s. 3.

And what about Luke Cage, for that matter?

[snickfic]

The problem with Bruce is technically we don't have MCU canon for exactly how he became the Hulk, because he's already the Hulk when The Incredible Hulk begins. So unless there were references in there (I can't remember, it's been ten years since I saw it), I think canonically we don't have much to go on re: that part of his backstory.

[peoriapeoriawhereart]

And I don't know what references are in there since I've yet to see it (I've only recently seen the Dr. Strange and two Guardians of the Galaxy.)

[dhampyresa]

I'd put Wanda and Pietro under "body mods of unknown consent" too.

[lynnenne]

Didn't they volunteer for Strucker's experiments? In Age of Ultron Maria tells Steve that they signed up for it (presumably so they could kill Tony Stark). Although I can certainly see an argument that the twins didn't realize exactly what the outcome would be, and given their ages, their consent was dubious at best.

[peoriapeoriawhereart]

Or even the circumstances of their 'treatment'.

Steve's 'quip' explains his interpretation which is that they've suffered something akin to Bucky and he's not giving up on them.

[dhampyresa]

I think they probably volunteered for something, but either way I really doubt Strucker was entirely forthcoming about what that something was.

[peoriapeoriawhereart]

Steve grants that they volunteered, but having seen Bucky on the table, isn't holding it against them until more evidence is available.

That scene and Tony's frisking for a secret door are the parts of Age of Ultron that can stay without question. But I'm providing Maria's dress a better zipper.

[peoriapeoriawhereart]

Given that they were the two survivors of what seemed to be a long list of 'volunteers' who presumably were either told what they wanted to hear or not told stuff.

I also didn't mention Mike Peterson or Akela Amador and thus most all of Project Centipede.

[dhampyresa]

I have a feeling HYDRA is not super into the "informed" part of "informed consent". Not really into the "consent" part either, if Bucky is anything to go by.

Are they from Agents of SHIELD? I never really watched that.

[peoriapeoriawhereart]

HYDRA is not particularly into scientific method, informed or consent.

Yes, both Mike Peterson and Akela Amador are Agents of Shield. Mike's alterego, Deathlok, is also from the comics but I've no idea of how that overlays. AoS has a lot of body horror, and it tends to land heaviest on black and other not beige bodies.

[tazetta]

I'm not all too sure on the exact specifics between Nebula and Carol enough to do an in depth analysis, but one that stands out to me is that both of them are hybrids of some sort: Nebula is part alien, part machine (and has to grapple with that) and Carol has both human and Kree DNA (and I'm pretty sure that identity crisis is going to be a part of CM:2019. At least, I hope it does — I think it's pretty interesting!)

A big difference between the two is that Carol has the chance to reconnect with her past. IIRC Nebula was orphaned from her race by Thanos (like Gamora) and was ripped away to be trained to be this great space assassin. In Carol's case, all of her friends are still on Earth as far as we know and the film tackles in part her return.

Another one, as snickfic said, is the memory thing. While Nebula wants to forget everything that Thanos did to her, Carol wants to remember her past.

In any case, I'm looking forward to their hopeful team-up in Endgame. :D

[lynnenne]

I'm pretty sure that identity crisis is going to be a part of CM:2019. At least, I hope it does — I think it's pretty interesting!

I agree! I love stories about lost people trying to figure out who they are and where they fit in.

While Nebula wants to forget everything that Thanos did to her, Carol wants to remember her past.

I don't blame Nebula at all for wanting to forget. I feel so badly for both her and Gamora. They were both traumatized as children, and any kind of child abuse is pretty much unforgivable in my book. I'm frankly relieved that we didn't see much of it on screen, because I don't think I could have watched it. The little we did see was brutal enough.

[snickfic]

While we're on the topic of Nebula and body modifications, I have to rec paperclipbitch's fic missing some pages again, which is all about Nebula's relationship to her body and all the brutal modifications she undergoes, and then finally one she chooses for herself. It's just a really unflinching look at what she might have gone through (and also has quality Nebula+Gamora interaction in it). I rec it highly.