Captain Marvel #47: Do You Want To Ride In My body, Brood? Tell You What I’m Gonna Do…

Captain Marvel #47 is the fifth chapter of what is officially the longest arc of Kelly Thompson’s run on the title, and it just seems to get better with every new chapter. In a run that feels like we’ve been subjected to more significant and dangerous situations, this one feels like the impact will be bigger than the others; that probably feels that way because of the crossover with the flagship X-Men book by Gerry Duggan and Stefano Caselli. Will the finale live up to what Kelly’s building up to? Where do we go from here? 

The Brood are one of those alien races that can lend itself to horror or high sci-fi, depending on the need for the story. They originally started as a pastiche on the xenomorphs from the Alien film franchise (now owned by Disney, with their own line of comics from Marvel), albeit with the ability to use weapons to create a psychedelic illusionary world. At the same time, the implanted embryos would slowly transform their victims into new members of the Brood (as opposed to the aliens just popping up out of the chest of its hosts), even using technology that would tap into Carol Danvers half Kree/half human genome to unlock her gifts as Binary (as seen in the now classic Uncanny X-Men 154-158, 161-167). The tale is considered one of the pinnacle stories after John Byrne left the title. 

Kitty’s doing her best, Sigourney.

Unfortunately, many of the Brood’s portrayals often lend themselves to being mindless creatures whose sole interest is eating humans or transforming them into Brood, but that negates the fact that the only way they can transform people into Brood is by the Queen implanting the hosts with the embryos. The lack of continuity with this alien species often just led to confusion, being used as comedic relief instead of the frightening alien race that it was intended to be. With this story, Kelly and Gerry want to return these vicious alien creatures to their horror roots, and it couldn’t have come at a better time. 

That looks nasty

Kelly pays homage to that original story, with scenes like Binary being held prisoner. However, we’re five issues in, and we’re still not sure what the Brood wants with Binary, Carol, or Rogue at this point is making the story drag a little. Over in X-Men, we’ve already discovered that the Brood are using the alien prisoners as mules, bringing the infected hosts to their home planets and furthering the conquest of their species. We’re still unsure here, making the story drag a little. Hopefully, the story picks up in the final two issues, as I’d hate to lose interest in a story that Kelly’s been extremely exceptional so far.