I had an exchange with someone on Youtube and in every comment they made to me they seemed to have to go out of their way to proclaim that Captain Marvel is a Mary Sue. I had only defended the film once, but this person felt they had to express those feeling in all the half dozen comments in our exchange, and they fully ignored anything I said to counter their statements. I truly have no clue why they were so aggressively out to put down the movie (And Brie Larson, as they made sure to add negative comments about her every chance they had) and it really seemed to be a broken record after a point.
But is Captain Marvel really a 'Mary Sue'?
So here is the Wikipedia page about 'Mary Sue' - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Sue.
Oddly enough, the original Captain Marvel (Now known as Shazam) is a 'Mary Sue', as were so many heroes form that era, including Superman, who very well may be the more pure and famous 'Mary Sue' out there.
So why is Superman a 'Mary Sue'?
Well, he was first and foremost just powerful all because he was powerful. Because he lived on Earth the radiation from our yellow sun made him powerful. He naturally just was able to use these powers, with no real training needed. He is morally perfect and the whole population of the Earth loved him because they loved him. One of the many bad, poorly thought out aspects of Justice League is that Superman, who really had not done that much, with his most famous actions in the DCEU not being very heroic, somehow having a huge monument to him with all manner of praise left there by his adoring public after he 'died'. While that might have made some sense in the comics, where he had a lot of time to earn such a following, in the DCEU films, it really does not work. And his 'Mary Sue' status is only emphasized in the film by the fact the team can't seem to do anything of value until he shows up and saves the day in the end. The film really is about a bunch of useless heroes who can't save the day without Superman doing 99% of the work.
Superman is the perfect example of a 'Mary Sue' and that is one of the major reason I find the character boring. However, you will never find those who claim Captain Marvel to be a 'Mary Sue' using the same criticism towards Superman.
Right there we see one of the biggest problems with the term, as it is almost always used as criticism towards female characters, not male characters.
But let us look at Captain Marvel as shown in the film of the same name.
The character while on Earth goes through Navy training. So to start with she is trained and has skills she has built up. She is then blasted by alien energy (Yeah, not the best power origin, but it is comicbook logic) and she gains powers, while her memory is wiped. She is then taken to the Kree homeworld where she is given their military training as well as taught how to use her powers, even though they are being regulated by the Kree to keep her under control. So by the time we meet her in the film, she has worked to get to the skill to fight and to use her powers. At no point has anything just come easy to her. She is skilled because she had trained.
This is significant, as when she is able to access her full power, she has already been trained in using her powers, so to use those same powers when amped up is not that unreasonable. We even she that she does have some issues of control at that point even, not being used to having that much power available to her.
So next up in the 'likable' aspect. In the film Captain Marvel has to actually put work into earning people's trust. No one just automatically likes her. At one point her former teammates even rag on her.
At the end of the film, yes she is powerful enough to hold off the Kree fleet, but you do get the idea that she went through a lot to get to that point. Just being an over powered character is not the same as being a 'Mary Sue'. In Avengers; Endgame, while she was powerful in fighting Thanos, her being there is not the main event that made it so the Avengers won. It still took all the other heroes fighting and having some level of effect on the battle.
So I would not call Captain Marvel a 'Mary Sue', as she basically does not fit with any of the description of such a character.
And to prove just how misogynistic the term is with those who are using it all the time now, just look at Star Wars. They call Rey a 'Mary Sue' when she is shown to be equal to both Luke and Anakin before her. The three of them really have similar stories (Which was done on purpose) and all three show themselves to be powerful in the Force with little or no training. So why are Luke and Anakin not labeled as being 'Mary Sues'.
So while I understand the essences of the term, I very much dislike how much it is used now days because it really is all about a misogynistic attitude towards strong female characters that are viewed as competition for male characters.
It is a term that due to the overuse of it, in all the wrong ways, is best avoided. Those who use the term very often are telling you much more about themselves than they are the characters they are criticizing.
Next post here will be my 200th, what topic should I write about?
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