After aiding the Avengers against Ultron, Tyrak, Korvac and Doctor
Spectrum, Ms. Marvel formally joined the team to replace the absent
Scarlet Witch; however, Danvers was estranged from the group after
they allowed her otherdimensional admirer, Marcus of Limbo, to abduct
her for the second time, mistakenly believing that she was going with
him willingly (this despite the fact that he had admitted to abducting
her once before and mind-controlling her into sexual relations with
him).
Carol escaped Marcus after he
accidentally killed himself, but then she lost her memories and her
super-powers in a battle with the power-siphoning mutant Rogue. Unable
to bear contact with the Avengers after they had failed her so badly,
Danvers avoided them and was taken in by the mutant super-team known
as the X-Men, whose leader, Charles Xavier, gave her therapy to help
her recover from the Rogue and Marcus encounters. In the process,
Carol regained her memories, but not her emotional attachments to
them--she knew the story of her life, but no longer felt as if she had
lived it
Carol often assisted the X-Men in their
adventures, and was eventually captured by the alien Brood, whose
experiments gave her new super-powers; specifically, she could harness
and manipulate stellar energies (such as light, heat and gravity) and
augment her own physical abilities, all by tapping the energy of a
cosmic phenomenon known as a white hole. Adopting a new costumed alias
as Binary, Danvers continued to associate with the X-Men at first but
was estranged from them when they recruited Rogue, hoping to reform
her. Binary angrily departed, and since she no longer felt a strong
emotional attachment to Earth, she used her powers to become a
spacefaring adventurer, serving for some time as a member of the
interstellar swashbucklers known as the Starjammers.
Binary eventually returned to Earth to
help save it from destruction during the Galactic Storm crisis, nearly
dying in a successful attempt to save Earth's sun, but the Avengers
rescued her and nursed her back to health, strengthening her
attachment to them and to Earth in general. She left the Starjammers,
opting to spend more time on Earth, though she declined to rejoin the
active Avengers roster at first. Later, she participated in the
post-Onslaught reorganization of the Avengers, aiding the group
against Morgan Le Fay and Whirlwind, but was disturbed to notice that
her Binary powers were waning to a fraction of their former strength.
Her link to the white hole was gone, and while she could still tap
other energy sources in her environment to fuel abilities such as
enhanced strength, flight and energy blasts, she was no longer the
cosmic force she had been as Binary.
Trying to put her Binary days behind her
and make yet another fresh start, Carol rechristened herself Warbird
and rejoined the active Avengers roster; however, her various
misfortunes had led to her developing a serious drinking problem. When
her alcoholism began to affect her performance, the Avengers subjected
her to a formal disciplinary court martial, during which she resigned
in anger. Though she later fought the Wrecking Crew and the Doomsday
Man alongide the Avengers, Carol shunned the team for the most part
and tried to deny her drinking problem, but the friendship and support
of Avengers founder Iron Man, himself a recovered alcoholic,
eventually helped her admit her illness and seek help. She began
participating in the Alcoholics Anonymous program, and turned herself
in to the authorities for dangerous property damage she had committed
during one of her drunken rampages as Warbird. Given her excellent
record and her willingness to come forward, Carol was spared jail time
and remanded into the custody of the Avengers, where she could "work
off" her misconduct by rejoining the team's active roster. Carol
readily agreed, determined to stay sober and rebuild her life.
During the recent global conflict with
the forces of the Kang Dynasty, Warbird twice served as the field
leader of a contingent of Avengers: first leading a group of Avengers
in neutralizing the rogue Deviant army of Dulpus, and later leading an
Avengers espionage team in commandeering the headquarters of the
Master of the World, whom Warbird killed in combat (a formal hearing
later deemed her actions appropriate and cleared her of all charges).
During this conflict, Warbird struggled with her surprising and
disturbing attraction to her admirer, Marcus the Scarlet Centurion,
the son and second-in-command of Kang, who was an alternate timeline
counterpart of the Marcus who had seduced and abused Carol before;
however, in the end, Marcus remained loyal to Kang and Warbird
remained loyal to the Avengers, and Warbird ultimately played a key
role in helping the Avengers thwart Kang's attempted conquest of
Earth. Marcus, meanwhile, was slain by Kang for disloyalty after his
father discovered he had aided Warbird during their conflict.
When America was menaced by an expanding
toxic cloud during the Red Zone crisis, Warbird served as the
Avengers' liaison to the authorities, helping to coordinate
government, military, medical and law enforcement operations until the
Avengers finally neutralized the threat and captured its creator, the
Red Skull. Impressed by Warbird's performance during the crisis,
President George W. Bush offered her a new position as the military's
Chief Field Leader of Homeland Security. She accepted, leaving the
active Avengers roster to return to military service. She later became
active with the government's Commission on Superhuman Activities as
well, serving as parole officer to reformed super-criminal Abe Jenkins
(MACH-4) and supervising the activities of Jenkins' Thunderbolts team,
whom the CSA later manipulated into battling the Avengers. Uneasy
about her conflicting loyalties to the CSA and to the superhero
community, and deciding she needed to make more of a major name for
herself as an adventurer, Danvers quit the government and resumed her
superheroic career, returning to her original alias as Ms. Marvel. She
has formed friendships with Jessica Jones (formerly Jewel) and
Spider-Woman (Jessica Drew), other Avengers-connected female
adventurers who have endured major setbacks like Carol herself.
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