WARNING: The following article contains spoilers for Captain Marvel #10 by Kelly Thompson, Carmen Carnero, Tamra Bonvillain and Clayton Cowles, on sale now.
For the past few months, Carol Danvers' life has been thrown into complete turmoil. It all started when her half-Kree lineage was revealed to the press, which sparked a public outcry for the (half) alien Captain Marvel to return where she came from. Shortly after that, she was stripped of her military rank, due to the fact that she wasn't totally human. To make matters worse, her powers are also fading to the point that she can't even take care of a simple alien monster attack on her own anymore.
As if all of that weren't enough, the new masked hero Star has stolen her spotlight. This blonde, flying hero has the public's support, and she has even saved a weakened Carol on a few occasions. Ever since her first appearance in Captain Marvel #8, there's been a bit of mystery surrounding Star. She shows up to save the day, but leaves right after, before anyone can ask too many questions. And now, we know why. Captain Marvel #10 finally reveals Star's secret identity -- and she turns out to be someone we've met before.
Captain Marvel #10 reveals exactly why Carol's life was thrown upside down. As it turns out, it was all because of the Kree soldier/scientist Minn-Erva, who recently approached Captain Marvel with a team-up offer to help her save the Kree race. The issue reveals that while Minn-Erva's intentions were indeed true -- she did wish for Carol and her to work together to save their mutual alien race -- her methods were less than honorable. She leaked the information about Carol's Kree heritage to the world, in the hopes that it would alienate her from the rest of humanity.
Moreover, Minn-Erva is actually the once who created Star too. She reveals to her frenemy that for the past year, she has been trying to create Kree super-soldiers by mixing human and Kree DNA together. While most of her experiments failed, there was one success: Star, or Ripley Ryan.
If the name sounds familiar, it's because Ripley appeared Thompson and Carnero's Captain Marvel #1, as a writer for Ms. Magazine. She was tasked with writing an article on Carol meant to humanize her, but she was roped into an adventure with the superhero when she was taken by Nuclear Man into a post-apocalyptic future on Roosevelt Island.
The two seemingly ended things on good terms in Captain Marvel #5, but it looks like that wasn't the end of the story because, as we learn in issue #10, Star is no hero -- far from it, in fact. In truth, she is Captain Marvel's latest supervillain, and she might be the most dangerous one yet.
While Minn-Erva was able to successfully create a human/Kree hybrid in Ripley, she wasn't technically able to give her superpowers. Instead, she infected Carol with a piece of Kree tech that siphons her powers to fuel Star's powers .This means that as Carol grows weaker, Star only gets stronger. Worse still, the villainous Star has been keeping busy. While Minn-Erva's intentions were good, Ripley went on to infect all of the people in New York City -- which means that she is now siphoning power from millions of people.
Now, it's time for a proper Captain Marvel vs. Star showdown, but the weakened Avengers has her work cut out for her against one of her most dangerous foes.