Okay so I know the basics of Captain Marvel. Some sort of accident with Mar-Vell and the Kree, Rouge stealing her powers and memories, Binary, Warbird...the basics. However I've never been a fan of the character.

I just started reading The Life of Captain Marvel and I'm really enjoying it so now I want to go back and read some other stuff. This is much easier said than done with Marvels impenetrable numbering and naming system. I've gotten Captain Marvel The Ms. Marvel Years however this seems to be back a little too far. Now I'm thinking I should just stick with the Margaret Stohl stuff but I'm trying to figure out what happened after The Mighty Captain Marvel #9. Did it just change names and numbers to Captain Marvel #125?

Marvel seems to not want you to read back stuff. Even the trades have an undecipherable numbering system. It's not just Vol 1 and a continuing system that continues on it's just nonsense. It's no wonder it's impossible to get new readers.

Yes, Marvel has made the whole volume sets/numbering super confusing. My recommendation is that you read Kelly Sue Deconnick's run, which is what lead to her current popularity. Basically, it's where the whole "Captain" part of the story started.

As for issue #125, yes, it was a jump from issue #9 to celebrate the "history" of the character.

Reed's Ms Marvel series from about 12 years ago is excellent and made me a fan of her. It ran for 50 issues

That's what I'm currently reading. Started a bit strange with the House of M nonsense which happened after my collecting time.

My first real introduction to this character was in Civil War II, which couldn’t have been a worse introduction. She’s such a bullheaded dick through it all and really soured me on the character. Still, I’m optimistic about how the MCU/Bree Larsen will handle her.

Okay I'll give that a shot as well.

The art has been wildly inconsistent on the stuff that I've read. The Carlos Pacheo art on the current series is gorgeous and the previous stuff doesn't hold up.

House of M is where they really gave her a push to be a preeminent superhero. After the thing with Rogue way back when, she basically lost her powers, regained them in a different form, then went off into space as Binary and was kind of forgotten (which is when Monica Rambeau took up the title of Captain Marvel). They started her off with that series you're reading (when she called herself Ms. Marvel), she became an Avenger again, etc., but when House of M happened that was like a parallel universe where her life was drastically different and she fully took on the name of Captain Marvel.

You probably want to pick up the 2012 Kelly Sue DeConnick series and start from there, if the Ms. Marvel series is a bit too far back (and it gets into this weird Dark Avengers thing in the end with Moonstone which is just confusing outside of the crossover... great art though). It's also where she got her new costume. After DeConnick left, it kind of feels to me like they were trying a bunch of different things with Carol (culminating in an almost heel turn in Civil War 2) that never really worked, but others may have a different opinion.

One of the most infamous FU's Brian Michael Bendis gave to readers and fans of the character. Again, when people say how great Bendis is I point out to shit like this where he threw to the garbage every goodwill Deconnick had created for the character.

Bendis cares not for continuity or prior runs. Everything he writes should be in its own self-contained universe like Ultimate Spider-Man.

So the Civil War stuff I should skip is what you're all saying?

I tried to look up a reading order for the Captain Marvel trades and holy shit it's a mess. Why would they make something so easy so complicated?

Captain Marvel Vol. 1: In Pursuit of Flight
Captain Marvel Vol. 2: Down
Avengers: The Enemy Within
Captain Marvel Vol. 1: Higher, Further, Faster
Captain Marvel Vol. 2: Stay Fly
Captain Marvel Vol. 3: Alis Volat Propriis
Captain Marvel & the Carol Corps
Captain Marvel Vol. 1: Rise of Alpha Flight
Captain Marvel Vol. 2: Civil War II
The Mighty Captain Marvel Vol. 1
The Mighty Captain Marvel Vol. 2: Band of Sisters
The Mighty Captain Marvel Vol. 3: Dark Origins

Ummmm...why are they repeating volumes? This doesn't include the Ms. Marvel stuff.

It's because #1 comic book issues sell better and Marvel only cares about squeezing out a few extra sales every year when they start the new numbering. The scam works for them in the short run but it makes reading by old trades a painful nightmare for new readers.

Well that, plus like I said earlier, unlike, say, the new Ms. Marvel, which has had a pretty singular direction since inception, Carol's gone through a lot of creative changes. A lot.

Yeah, Marvel went really overboard with the "relaunch at #1" thing.

I'm not a huge fan of the book, but I liked when Squirrel Girl poked fun at that when they were relaunched before a year had even passed.

FYI, they also re-released a lot of it in the Captain Marvel: Earth's Mightiest Hero thick trades, with are generally each made up of 2 of the small trades:

Vol 1 ("In Pursuit of Flight" and "Down")
Vol 2 ("The Enemy Within" and Captain Marvel appearances in Avenging Spider-Man as well as Captain Marvel and Avengers Assemble issues from "Infinity Companion")
Vol 3 ("Higher, Further, Faster, More" and "Stay Fly")
Vol 4 ("Allis Volat Propriis" and "Captain Marvel and the Carol Corps")

That's good to know. Makes things a bit easier to keep track of.

The old school comic collector in my wants things with easy to follow numbers that go in order.