Captain Marvel - Full of Surprises

As mentioned before (probably quite a few times, actually), I read comics as a kid for a few years and then there was a long hiatus of about 20 years when I did not.  Thanks to the miracle of the internet, I have been able to read several long story arcs that were not only fun reading but important to the whole 'Marvel universe' thing.  The most recent one in this category was the Captain Marvel run from 1999-2002.

Reading this three year run was a fascinating glimpse into one of Marvel's early forays into a more mature and realistic look at the world.  Not only the storylines, but also the characters' actions and attitudes were much more reflective of the society inhabited by the book's readers.  Of course, they were still comics, where 99% of everything that happens defies logic, but characters were more human.  When my comic reading resumed around 2010, comics were not as 'innocent' as they had been in my childhood, but the patterns were still more or less the same.  When the openly gay character Northstar married in 2012, it was still a big deal.

Captain Marvel between 1999 and 2002, I realised, had broken a lot of ground.  Captain Marvel/Genis Vell goes crazy and slaughters millions of people (the first time to my knowledge that a hero character had committed heinous acts), there was an open lesbian relationship, there was heterosexual sex, and there was even a reference to a woman having her period (maybe the most shocking thing of all oddly enough).  I don't know what happened after 2002, but it seems like comics lost ground and are only now gaining it back.

In this and subsequent posts are some of the pages that stood out for the 'groundbreaking' bits of those years.  

Rick and Marlo not only have sex but also clearly enjoy it. 

Two other minor characters 'do it' too.