Ms. Marvel 23 was cover dated April 1979 and was on sale on January 1979, sharing the spinner racks with Brave & the Bold #149, Daredevil #158, Justice League of America #165, Micronauts #4, Sgt Rock #327 and Shogun Warriors #3.
The Woman who fell to Earth was written by Chris Claremont and drawn by Mike Vosburg and opens with Ms. Marvel (in her civilian guise of Carol Danvers) coming home from a date with Sam Adams. She invites him for ‘breakfast’, but he declines as he’s up early the next morning.
As Carol tries to relax after her date, her door is buzzed, she opens the door to find her friend Salia Petrie. Salia is an astronaut friend of Carol’s from her time running security at the Cape. But Salia was declared dead after her rocket was destroyed in Earth orbit. Knowing Salia should be bed, Carol checks with an old NASA contact and Salia is still considered lost. Just then Salia awakes and tells Carol that she didn’t die, but did go to hell and she’s come back for bring Carol there.
She awakes in front of a costumed man with a yellow orb-like helmet who calls himself the Faceless One. He declares that they are on Drydock and the only way in or out is the teleport chamber that he controls and she should get used to her new home. He attacks her with Drydock’s environmental systems declaring he is going to use his psycho-surgical skills to remake her in his own image. Carol makes a run for it and transforms in Ms. Marvel, she decides to try to find the Guardians of the Galaxy, who she’s aware of through the Avengers. She’s then struck from behind by a psychokinetic bolt. It’s Vance Astro, who unaware of her recent costume updating, has no idea who she is and sees her as the intruder. She dodges his next blast and then knocks him to the floor. She then offers to make peace just as Salia attacks them both.
The two are attacked by Salia and the Faceless One, who it is discovered is merely a head with spider-legs on top of a robot body. The pair work together well and turn the tide against the two of them and the Faceless one is defeated.
The Faceless One decides on the better part of Valour and is trying to teleport away, when Vance hits him with his psychokinetic blasts, causing the teleport to fail and killing the Faceless One.
Vance then at Ms. Marvel’s request, Vance destroys a control element Ms. Marvel finds on Salia and then she removes her mask and welcomes her recovering friend back to the world.
Notes: A solid issue. Chris Claremont works character into the story well, if only the female characters, Vance could be replaced with anyone and it probably wouldn’t really matter. But with Vance having little to do during the Korvac saga, it’s nice to see him doing something.
Standing Guard 