Maria Rambeau

Biography
Maria Rambeau was a black woman and a non-combat pilot for the United States Air Force. She had a daughter named Monica, and was best friends with fellow pilot Carol Danvers. She lived in a house with a large property in Louisiana.

In the late 1980s, Maria and Carol were both associated with Doctor Wendy Lawson, who was working on a top-secret light speed engine design for a military project known as Pegasus. What neither woman knew was that Lawson was actually a member of the alien Kree race known as Mar-Vel. She had come to realize that she was on the wrong side of an ages-long intergalactic war between the Kree and she shape-shifting Skrulls. It was Lawson's hope that be completing the light speed device, she could help Skrull refugees find a sanctuary home, safe from Kree oppression.

In 1989, Carol was selected to accompany Lawson as pilot on a mission relating to her work. Carol supposedly died along with Lawson when the fighter jet she was piloting crashed. She was listed as M.I.A., but Rambeau never believed that she had actually died.

Six years later, Carol miraculously returned, though she had no memory of the past six years. It was an emotional reunion for the two women, as snippets of memory began returning to her. Carol had actually been captured by the Kree and brainwashed into becoming one of their soldiers. Now however, she realized that the Skrulls were actually victims in the war, and wanted to complete Doctor Lawson's work.

Maria Rambeau became involved in a bid to return an Earth-based Skrull named Talos to a hidden laboratory-ship that Wendy Lawson had cloaked in Earth's orbit. The ship housed dozens of Skrull refugees, including Talos' family. Carol's former allies in the Kree came to Earth to acquire the light-speed engine, which was powered by the Tesseract.

Maria Rambeau took Talos' family into an upgraded quad-jet, and brought them from the laboratory-ship back to Earth, but was pursued by the Kree soldier Minn-Erva. The two engaged in a dogfight in the canyons of the Mojave Desert, and Minn-Erva caused slight damage to the quad-jet. Rambeau managed to outmaneuver her however, and shot down Minn-Erva's ship, killing her.

When the threat of the Kree Starforce officers was resolved, Carol Danvers told Maria that she had to leave Earth in order to find a safe haven for the Skrulls. Maria and her daughter bid Danvers farewell before flying off to new adventures.