>>154689
>Not even another Secret Invasion where EVERYONE is a skrull can save this shit.
Honestly I do still think it would be possible to redeem the Marvel universe, but only from a storytelling standpoint, not from a financial standpoint. I can't imagine them ever regaining the readership they actively and hatefully turned away. But all that said, what if they actually acknowledged that Danvers and the X-Men became supervillains? If Danvers became the new big bad of the Marvel universe, like Parallax was supposed to be for DC, only it would be better because Parallax was a sudden thing, while Danvers operated as she has now for years without stories acknowledging it. But if they finally had someone stand up and acknowledge it, it could be powerful.
Maybe Tony Stark would be the most powerful, since she fucking killed him, and there was even an issue where the clone that's running around now admitted he knows he isn't even the real one, that the real one was killed. Rogue would have to be another important character here. She feels extreme guilt for basically killing Danvers years earlier, and for the years when Danvers literally lived inside her mind, but due to this deep connection, Rogue understands that Danvers does have a seed of terrible evil inside her. And not sci-fi evil, but Rogue would know better than anyone that Danvers has elements of extreme narcissism and sociopathy. But Rogue would never have condemned Danvers for it before, because we all have darkness inside us, and Rogue, being a former villain, knows better than anyone that we also all have good, and people must be given a road to redemption. And due to her history with Danvers, she didn't want to admit that something had to be done about her. But Danvers has gone much too far. She needs to be stopped. (I can hardly imagine what could be worse than the shit she has already pulled, but have her do some new thing to cause a big conflict again.)
From an artistic point of view, Danvers needs to die for her crimes. There is no way she could be forgiven after just going to jail. But of course it's a sci-fi universe and killing someone like Danvers wouldn't feel meaningful anyway. No, the most powerful end for her would probably be for Rogue to absorb her again, because this would be a massive sacrifice for Rogue as well, but one that she understands needs to be done. Tony Stark still wants to find another way, to imprison his former teammate, despite the fact that she killed him, but maybe when Danvers is about to kill him again, that's what finally makes Rogue use her final option. And yes, this leaves the door open for Danvers to return some day, the same way she did last time Rogue absorbed her, but in the meantime there can be years of stories with Rogue dealing with this supervillain living in her mind, and maybe, little by little, Danvers can start to be won over by Rogue and the things she experiences, and become less and less evil.
But frankly, I don't think there would ever be a point when she could redeem herself enough to come back to life and become a good guy again. What could they do? One idea I've heard tossed around is to say that the Kree DNA she had implanted has slowly been becoming more dominant and taking her over, so what we have now isn't even the real Carol, but perhaps the mind of the Kree whose DNA she has. But no, that's too close to Parallax. It might be better than Parallax, but it's too close. And again, Parallax really only did one story where he did really bad stuff. If he did more, I don't know if even sacrificing himself then becoming a literal agent of God in an attempt to redeem himself, then saying he was possessed by a space bug the whole time anyway, and then following with several more years of redemption stories and having other heroes possessed by the same space-bug could have redeemed him. I don't think swapping Parallax for evil Kree DNA is a good option for dealing with Danvers.
So no, I would have Rogue absorb her again, and then do years of stories with Danvers being in her head, only now it's like a supervillain is in her head, and Rogue has to deal with that. But slowly Rogue starts to convert Danvers back to the good side, but even when she becomes completely good again, she can't come back to life. She has to do something to sacrifice herself, perhaps to save Rogue, or maybe even more impactfully, Tony Stark. Maybe she secretly spends years becoming more powerful, to take over Rogue's body, and she is enacting some plan to get her old body back, and the audience and other characters think it's going to be the return of one of the most dangerous supervillains of all time, but actually she is doing it so she can sacrifice herself to save Tony Stark from some other even more major villain. Maybe Rogue was going to sacrifice herself instead (partially because she lives with even more guilt now than before) but Danvers stops her in order to save her. Of course then you'd need a villain even bigger than Danvers, and I can hardly imagine what that would even be. It would need to be some major cosmic-level shit. Something related to the Kree, I suppose.
Meanwhile, after Danvers is defeated (by Rogue or whatever), they could have The (new) Champions realize that Danvers essentially turned them into her child army of brownshirts. Imprisoning, maiming, and killing people for thoughtcrime. And they can't live with the guilt of things like Khan crippling her friend for his thoughts that what she and Danvers were doing was wrong. Disappearing into the ether isn't enough because they can't live with themselves. The only way they can live with themselves is through trying to make up for their evil deeds by being real heroes. But the world hates and fears them, and unlike the original era of the X-Men, this hate and fear is justified, and they know it. But they have no other choice. What little morality they have left won't let them do anything else than try to do actual good now.