It didn’t even occur to be that I reached the 100-day mark of this little project. Today is 101. What better way to celebrate than one of my favorite characters of all time, Monica Rambeau. This New Orleans police captain trying to prevent villains from creating a dastardly and other worldly weapon, Monica is exposed a strange dimensional energy. The result from this exposure is Monica can convert her form into any type of energy. Using her newly found powers she takes the name Captain Marvel and fights crime. Although she has gone through several names changes, my favorite being Photon, she is one of my favorite characters on my list for three reasons. One, she is from Louisiana, two, she is the first African-American heroine on the Avengers and thirdly, she rocked a Super-foxy Afro.

Healing

“I’ve never lost what you have, Steve, but I know that we must mourn for our losses. If we don’t, we can never heal.” - Monica Rambeau (Captain Marvel) *

Let’s not even discuss how many Captain Marvels there are in the world, the one we will discuss today is currently calling herself Spectrum, Monica Rambeau. Through a series of events she gain the power to turn herself into any kind of light or wavelength. Being a lieutenant in the New Orleans police force Monica Rambeau originally called herself “Captain Marvel”, eventually changing her name to Photon, Pulsar and Spectrum. Let’s face it superheroes loose so much, lives, families, secret identities and daily living. But if loss is also a daily event, healing is also a daily event.

People, places and things come and go in our lives daily. Sometimes our loss is small and insignificant but there are times that our loss is great and painful. It is at those times that we turn to our friends and family for support. We find our support from those that have suffered from loss also. Then one day when we are through the loss and strong again we will be there for a friend. Our friend maybe going through the same loss and we know exactly what to say to help them. We help them mourn and this completes our healing process.

Monica Rambeau
First Appearance: As Captain Marvel, “Whose That Lady”, Amazing Spiderman Annual #16, 1982

Second Appearance: As Photon, “Captain Marvel Must Go”, Avengers Unplugged #5, June 1995

Third Appearance: As Pulsar, New Thunderbolts #9, August 2005

Fourth Appearance: As Spectrum, Mighty Avengers Vol 2 #1, November 2013

Creators: Roger Stern (writer), John Romita Jr. (art)

* “The Price of Victory”, by Roger Stern and John Buscema, Avengers #277, 1987