I mentioned how one of the things I love about Phyla-Vell is that her story and archetype is one that is typically given to male characters, and figured I’d expand on that.
If I were to describe a character who has identity issues stemming from not measuring up to their father in the eyes of the world, a character who struggles with a quick temper, a character who sometimes does reckless shit to the frustration of the team leader… you’d probably expect that character to be a man. The Cool Guy™ who plays by his own rules or whatever. But that’s Phyla.
Phyla’s father was Mar-Vell. Her father and brother were Captain Marvel. She was constantly pushed to live up to impossible standards while at the same time kept in the background. Then when she gets the Quantum Bands and becomes Quasar, she starts on her own path for the first time in her life, one not dictated for her. And she feels so inadequate, all the time, but keeps trying anyway. Then she becomes Martyr, and gets called a failure as that as well, but who cares because she saved Heather and that’s what matters to her. (And damn do I ever still wish she wasn’t needlessly killed off for dramatic effect, and has still yet to be resurrected. But hey that’s being a lesbian character for you.)
Anyway, I am gonna make a reading list I decided. Cause she’s so cool and deserves more people to know about her. :P
Yes yes YES I love everything about this post. This is exactly what I loved about Phyla as a character: even when she was Quasar and the actual ghost of Wendell Vaughn showed up to tell her she was doing fine and she was saving the universe on a regular basis, her own mental conditioning kept her constantly struggling against impossible standards set by nobody but herself. She was born to take someone else’s position and be not just as good but better than they were. And it wasn’t a little quirk or a source of jokes, it was a fatal character flaw that actually had massive repercussions for herself and everyone around her.
And here’s the thing about Martyr that really fucks me up: Martyr was the first and only role she stepped into for almost completely selfish reasons. Phyla was born to be Captain Marvel and took the Quantum Bands because the galaxy was in danger and nobody else could. But despite the threat of the Dragon of the Moon, Phyla became Martyr almost exclusively to save Heather. She wasn’t saving the universe, she was saving her love. And even then, even then, she still couldn’t help but try and be the best Avatar of Death she could. She was incapable of rebelling or even asking for help. She took on that burden completely alone, suffering in silence with the knowledge of the horrible thing she’d have to do, because that’s what she was created to do: take on a role. Step on someone else’s shoes. Be what someone else wants her to be.
That’s why Phyla is my favorite Guardian. That’s why her story resonated so strongly with me. Her impossible standards were a flaw that she never got over. At best she managed to keep it silent, but when she was at her lowest, when she was panicking, when she was alone, it came back to drag her into darkness. Because that’s how flaws work. And while her arc was sadly truncated before she could really address all that, on its own it stands as a poignant and tragic story about the dangers of trying to manufacture heroism and the inherent flaws of putting the weight of everything on a single person’s shoulders. Sooner or later, it will crush them.