Issue(s): Captain Marvel #41
Cover Date: Nov 75
Title: "Havoc on Homeworld!"
Credits:
Steve Englehart - Script
Steve Englehart & Al Milgrom - Plot
Al Milgrom - Penciler
Terry Austin, Bob McLeod, Al Milgrom, P. Craig Russell, & Berni Wrightson - Inker

Review/plot:
Lots of inkers on this rush-job. A cheeky response in the lettercol to someone asking for better inkers says basically "take your pick!" and invites readers to guess who inked which pages (it also implies that Klaus Janson was among the inkers on this issue, but he's not listed in the credits). I'm never good at that game so i'm not going to try.

The Lunatic Legion escaped after Captain Marvel left the moon to follow the Watcher, so this issue follows up on them by having Captain Marvel and Rick travel to Hala, the Kree homeworld, to inform the Supreme Intelligence that a rebellion is afoot.

This results in a series of fake-outs. First it seems that Supremor is actually in cahoots with the rebellious Kree, including Zarek; he's got a group of them ready to attack Mar-vell.

But that turns out to be a ploy; he knew Mar-vell could handle them. But he has been keeping secrets from, and manipulating, Mar-vell, because while he wants Mar-vell to be the "greatest of all Kree Warriors", Supremor considers him to be lacking in ambition and in need of prodding. But the subsequent upgrade by Eon, coupled with the latest merging of Rick and Mar-vell's minds, has turned him/them into the Supreme Intelligence's perfect opponent.

Why opponent? Because, as Supremor has explained before, the blue Kree are a genetic dead end. In order for the Kree to evolve, Supremor needs to absorb the mind of Rick Jones. He couldn't do that directly; he had to merge Rick with a Kree first.

And why not just do this subtly, through trickery? Because even the Supreme Intelligence is a Kree, and "Kree love war!".

It all seemed reasonable until that last point, although i want to think that Supremor's real plans are actually more subtle than this, and that's borne out by the Intelligence being pleased when his final attack on Rick and Mar-vell fails.

The Intelligence forcibly splits Rick and CM and attacks them with a mind-controlled Ronan the Accusor.

In the past, when they've split, they've each had a pair of Nega-bands, but now they each only have one. However, Rick finds that he's got some Captain Marvel-like powers himself now (which in case it isn't already clear to you, is "Faaaaaan-tastic!", which has been Rick's annoying catch-phrase since issue #17).

Together they defeat Ronan...

...and the Intelligence teleports them away, saying "You both are all I hoped for".

The issue ends with a prologue/teaser of the challenges that the duo will face as part of Supremor's plan.

Quality Rating: C

Historical Significance Rating: 1

Chronological Placement Considerations: This is a bi-monthly book and the previous Trial of the Watcher storyline had some dependencies with the Celestial Madonna storyline, which i had at the end of 1974. So i've got a lot of space between the previous issue and this one, where i'm getting back in sync with publication date. But that actually works out quite well, because this issue begins with Captain Marvel and Rick arriving on Hala (in an Avengers Quinjet) so the gap can represent the travel time.

References:

• Rick was on the Kree homeworld previously in Avengers #96-97.
  
• Marvel says that the fact that the Kree have built a city over their entire homeworld may have been a reaction to their hatred of the Cotati. The story of the Kree/Cotati enmity was shown in Avengers #133 and Captain Marvel #38.
  
• Before meeting the Supreme Intelligence, Rick and Marv pass a Universal Church of Truth and get into a fight with a few of their members, who are all blue Kree that display the same anti-halfbreed attitude that the Lunatic Legion have. By publication date, the Universal Church is introduced in Strange Tales #178 which i've placed after this story but the existence of the Church prior to that is not a problem.
  
• The Supreme Intelligence's help in fighting Annihilus in Captain Marvel #35 (not the time Annihilus exploded into a million Mini-Annihiluses) is one of the reasons Mar-vell thought to return to Hala to warn the him about the Lunatic Legion.
  
• The Supreme Intelligence powered-up Captain Marvel after Marvel helped defeat Zarek in Captain Marvel #16-17.

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A