Peter David has actually made a series with an inferior version of Captain Marvel a “must read,” and to top that he’s make Rick Jones and Marlo Jones two of the most interesting people in Marvel.
Issue #32 is another quiet check in. Marlo and Moondragon kiss, after which they both deny being gay.
Rick and Genis Vell start noticing that something is off about Moondragon, but ignore it as Rick and Marlo return to the Microverse to spend most of this arc naked and having sex so that Genis Vell can manifest in Earth 616 and fight the return of Magus from the land of the dead.
Magus holds an alien girl (who Genis Vell is in love with) hostage to lure Genis Vell into a trap, then tries to absorb Genis’ essence, which will empower him to break out of death. But when Magus gets close enough to try, he finds he can’t handle the true cosmic awareness of Captain Marvel. Marvel is able to fight him off and, seemingly, return him to death. But the punchline (which only we the readers can see) is that merely having that contact with Captain Marvel was enough to bring Magus back.
Magus of course was behind the mind-messing with Moondragon, and it turns out was also behind a rash of murders that have been happening in the background of this series for many issues.
Marlo also gets kidnapped.
Issue #35 is the series finale before it is (pointlessly) renumbered to issue #1 with a small (“36”) underneath—as part of the effort to rebrand a number of titles (like X-Force and Cable) that weren’t selling as well as Marvel editorial thought they should. In it, Rick/Genis save Marlo from the aliens in the middle of Marlo’s mind being pillaged by alien tech. Turns out, th3 machine actually broadcasts the thoughts—so Rick sees her memory of the kiss with Moondragon that started out this arc. (Remember? It’s just a little ways up this very post.) Marlo tells Rick she has feelings for Moondragon, and on the final page of this series, Rick lets her go.
That all feels pretty rushed, but at the same time I get that Peter David is trying to reboot this title and apparently his plans don’t include Marlo.
I always ignored this series. I was really into David’s work on Hulk and X-Factor of the era. I totally forgot about this version of CM, took me back…
DON’T IGNORE IT!!!!! It’s so much fun to read! I actually think anything by Peter David is worth a read.