Captain Marvel Got Her New Costume Because Of A Bet

For many fans, the current Captain Marvel costume is the defacto suit for the character, but it took a bet between Kellys Sue DeConnick and Jamie McKelvie to bring it into reality.

The current Captain Marvel suit debuted in Kelly Sue DeConnick‘s Higher, Further, Faster, More storyline, which had Carol Danvers accepting the mantle of Captain Marvel, giving up her Ms. Marvel name. The new suit itself was designed by artist Jamie McKelvie, but the process of actually getting the redesign done was a bit of a problem early on.

As DeConnick explains, the character was a big fan favorite but didn’t have the notoriety she has nowadays, so Marvel wasn’t exactly willing to dole out the big bucks for a costume redesign.

“So [editor Steve Wacker] sent some designs that were done in-house and I did not love them,” DeConnick told Polygon. “And I was like, ‘Can we get Jamie McKelvie to do this?’ And he was like, ‘No, we don’t have the budget for it.’”

McKelvie has made a name for himself not only as the artist on The Wicked + The Divine but also as part of Project Rooftop, a place where costume designs are often submitted in a hope to improve costume design in the comics industry. For DeConnick, he was the one who needed to take a crack at the costume, and she kept pushing to try and make it happen.

“I like to say I’m good at taking no for an answer, but I’m really not,” DeConnick said. “And so I kinda kept pushing for it. And Steve was like, ‘No. But you know … if Jamie were to do a redesign … just on his own, and you were to happen to come upon it and send it to me … I might be able to get Marvel to pay for it.’

“And so I called Jamie and was like, ‘Alright, I want you to make a bet with me,” DeConnick said. “I bet if you do a Carol Danvers redesign for Captain Marvel that Marvel will buy the design from you. And if I win this bet, then I get a redesign and you get paid. And if I lose this bet, I will pay for the redesign. My husband would have murdered me, because you don’t front money for billion dollar companies. I mean, I would have murdered me, that’s nonsense.”

The good news is after McKelvie submitted his design Wacker got Marvel to buy it, and it was just as good as DeConnick was hoping for.

“It was extraordinary,” DeConnick said, “because he’s probably the best designer working — as far as the look of contemporary hero costumes goes … He knocked it out of the park.”

Now fans will get to see that costume come to life on the big screen when Captain Marvel hits theaters next year.

Captain Marvel stars Academy Award-winner Brie Larson (Carol Danvers/Captain Marvel), Samuel L. Jackson (Nick Fury), Ben Mendelsohn, Djimon Hounsou (Korath), Lee Pace (Ronan), Lashana Lynch, Gemma Chan (Minn-Erva), Algenis Perez Soto, Rune Temte, McKenna Grace, Kenneth Mitchell (Joseph Danvers), with Clark Gregg (Phil Coulson), and Jude Law.

Captain Marvel launches on March 8, 2019, while Avengers 4 hits on May 3, 2019, followed by Spider-Man: Far From Home on July 5, 2019.