Before Carol Danvers was Captain Marvel, she was Vers, a member of the elite Kree Starforce. This team of warriors who battle the formidable shapeshifitng Skrull aliens across the galaxy. In Starforce on the Rise by Steve Behling, Vers and her team of Korath, Att-Lass, Bron-Char, and Minn-Erva are sent on a special mission by the Kree Supreme Intelligence that challenges Vers’s beliefs and causes her to raise questions.
Before Carol Danvers was Captain Marvel, she was Vers, a member of the elite Kree Starforce. This team of warriors who battle the formidable shapeshifitng Skrull aliens across the galaxy. In Starforce on the Rise by Steve Behling, Vers and her team of Korath, Att-Lass, Bron-Char, and Minn-Erva are sent on a special mission by the Kree Supreme Intelligence that challenges Vers’s beliefs and causes her to raise questions.
This outerspace tale showcases how out of place Vers is as an earthling on a team of Kree, even though she doesn’t know that she is from Earth. The mission is somewhat irrelevant. What makes the book interesting is the unique characteristics and interactions between the members of Starforce, other Kree, and their foes. Within the pages of a middle-grade novel, you get to learn a lot about each member of Starforce and what makes this elite team special.
It is a quick read, but the book accomplishes a lot in a short period of time. While I have not yet seen the film, I would suspect that the groundwork laid in the prose will prove to be a good gateway to the movie.
It would have been easy to just make this an intergalactic shoot-them-up, but instead it focuses on the characters and asks some interesting questions. While there is action, Behling leaned into his strengths of making you familiar with the inherently unfamiliar.
I hope that we get to see more adventures of “Vers” and her time with Starforce. It is fun to see a fish-out-of-water story when the fish doesn’t realize it came from water. And while she may not be on her home planet, Danvers never loses her role as an inspiration as a role model. She displays the qualities of bravery, heroics, compassion, and healthy skepticism that show that she is a super hero long before she becomes Captain Marvel.