The cover artwork for the upcoming Captain Marvel #16 depicts the fallen hero having seemingly redeemed herself by being shown to be worthy of lifting Thor’s hammer. As you can see below, the image features Carol wielding Mjolnir – last seen being fired into space by one of her energy blasts and for some reason not returning to Thor’s hand – as well as holding Captain America’s shield and being outfitted with a gauntlet from Iron Man’s suit.
Although Captain Marvel in the MCU is unequivocally heroic, in the comics her path has taken an altogether darker direction. She was first ostracized after her newfound Kree heritage was made public knowledge and more recently, her current story arc, “The Last Avenger,” sees her on a mission to destroy the superteam for initially unclear reasons, the stakes made clear early on when she apparently decapitates Thor, countering the opinion of bots and misogynists regarding which of the two strongest Avengers would be victorious in a fight.
It transpires that she’s operating at the behest of a Kree villain named Vox Supreme, who’s threatening her with the deaths of all of the Kree refugees on Earth if she doesn’t comply, and her systematic attacks on the heroes were part of a ruse to defeat him, albeit one undertaken without their knowledge.
If nothing else, the very fact Captain Marvel is able to hold Mjolnir in the first place asserts the honorability of her actions, and the gathering of her teammates’ signature weaponry indicates her intent to channel their power in her fight against Vox Supreme, and before her showdown with the alien menace she’ll presumably also gather power-ups courtesy of Black Panther and She-Hulk. Also, during Carol’s rampage through her former friends she’s been outfitted with a sinister black suit tinged with red, while the artwork shows her back in her more familiar costume, suggesting she’ll finally be able to drop the pretense of evil and act more like herself again.
