This volume collects issues #1-12 and begins with Carol Danvers and Captain America fighting Absorption Man and having a discussion as to why she won't go by the name Captain Marvel. The main reason is that she doesn't feel right about using the dead alien who saved her life's name as her own. She doesn't feel worthy.
Carol takes care of Tracy, an older woman who has cancer and whom Carol used to work for. Tracy is a tough bird who doesn't believe she needs to be taken care of but secretly likes it and depends on it. If she can't make it there's a young woman that she sends in her place and the two of them get along like cats and dogs.
Helen Cobb was a legend in the field of flight. She was one of the women trained as astronauts at the same time as the first ones, like Alan Shepherd and John Glenn, and outperformed all of them. She was the one who pushed to get women that chance. She was the one who also pushed to get women the chance to fly during World War II. She broke five records in her T-6 plane.
Now Helen has died and Carol takes her ashes up into the outer atmosphere of space. Helen has left Carol her T-6 plane and has asked that she prove that one of the records she broke with it, that has been in question, really stands by flying it herself. When she does something strange happens. After she breaks the record and decides to see how far she can go, suddenly the instruments stop working and the plane is going down.
When she lands there are Japanese soldiers there ready to capture her. She believes them to be holdovers from the war who refused to believe that it was over. Instead, she is rescued by a group of women calling themselves the Banshee Squad class of 1943. It seems the Japanese have what they call prowlers but are in actuality small Kree fighters. Carol doesn't want to upset the timeline but when she hears about the Kree weaponry she has no choice and reveals what she can do and when she comes from. She finds that the women also crash landed on this tiny island off the coast of Peru.
Carol finds a piece of an alien element and sees her plane flying overhead. First, she must help these women defeat the Japanese and then she will go on a long journey through multiple time jumps beginning with one where she meets Helen Cobb in the 1960s and the two of them jump together to try to fix the time problem. Or at least that's what Carol's plan is.
There's another comic in there where she fights alongside Monica, aka "Photon" or "Pulsar" with the friendly Frank in tow out on the sea looking at mysterious shipwrecks. In another comic, when Tony Stark hacks her phone and rearranges her schedule in order to fit in a visit from a friend of his, she's not happy. But then her day does not go as planned, big surprise. What is a surprise is to find out that she has a lesion on her brain that means she cannot fly anymore. Someone has sent one of her oldest enemies out to continuously attack her for some reason. Who is Captain Marvel if she cannot fly?
This is a great book that explores Carol's inner nature and her desire to live up to the name of Captain Marvel. Also, her drive to be the best pilot there is and her sadness that she can't break any more records for herself and have it be fair. Then there's her losing the ability to fly and what that does to her. She's been able to fly up into the earth's atmosphere and back without breaking a sweat. Now she can't even fly the height of a building. A different artist was chosen for these comics and it was a wise choice. The Carol in these comics looks a bit haggard and vulnerable, not quite so strong and formidable. Overall this book was really worth reading and I highly recommend it.
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