This was written as an answer to the question “Where is Goose (Captain Marvel) from? Does he have a backstory?” and published simultaneously on Quora.
In the comics, the name of Captain Marvel’s cat is Chewie and she’s a she. If you have Marvel Unlimited or access to enough Marvel trade paperbacks through your library or somewhere else, it wouldn’t too hard to read through all of Chewie’s appearances. You can find a list of them here:
Chewie (Marvel)(Carol Danver’s cat)
Credit where it’s due, Jason Levine at Arousing Grammar did a nice job cataloging and describing all of her appearances for the first few years.
Levine’s post goes through November 2013 here are some highlights.
Chewie’s first appearance is in Giant-Size Ms. Marvel #1 (April 2006). In the story, Carol is remembering being Captain Marvel during the House of M timeline. While fighting Sir Warren Traveler, who, evidently had been Sorcerer Supreme in this version of history, Carol encounters a cat,
and promptly throws her at the bad guy!
Seriously, NOT COOL, CAROL! I don’t care if you promised tuna. Cat’s are not weapons! Doubly so against super villains! Either way, this is an inauspicious first appearance.
The fastball special disrupts a time travel spell Traveler is casting and he and Chewie disappear to some undisclosed location.
The next time we see her is in Ms. Marvel (2006) #4. Chewie appears in Carol’s apartment as a precursor of an attack by Traveler.
Dr. Strange gets involved and he and Carol defeat Traveler and mostly, Chewie is on the sidelines, but along the way, Chewie does get to be an avatar for the proper Sorcerer Supreme when Steven contacts Carol in a dream.
That happened in Ms. Marvel (2006) #5. After all is said and done, Carol has a cat. Here I must say I approve; this is a proper way to get a cat. Cat needs you; cat shows up; you have a cat. I’ve gotten more than one of the little buggers that way.
After that, Chewie is mostly around in the background. If you want to see these appearances without digging through all of the issues, I refer you again to Jason Levine’s site. He does a nice job of showing them all.
Chewie gets things to do interesting things again in the Captain Marvel (2014) series. Carol decides to head out to space on a voyage of self-discovery with Chewie in tow. Issue 2:
Eventually, she and Carol encounter the Guardians of the Galaxy, where Rocket identifies Chewie as a Flerken.
If it isn’t obvious, this begins the main part of Chewie’s story that is source material for the 2019 film. Of course, in the film, it’s Talos making the flerken argument.
At the end of the issue, Carol’s ship is stolen with Chewie aboard by a stowaway named Tic.
In issue 3, the ship is recovered and, Carol decides to help Tic after hearing her story.
As a side note, this is a testament to this creative team’s understanding of cats. I’ve seen this sort of comforting behavior many times.
We don’t see Chewie again until issue 7 when Carol and Tic return to Carol’s ship. It’s been under the care of Rocket and the argument as to whether Chewie is a cat or a flerken resumes. While Carol’s been gone, Rocket has been putting out feelers; to see if a flerkin could be sold and for how much.
This attracts pirates who commandeer the ship and suddenly, the flerkin argument becomes moot. Chewie lays eggs. Lots and lots of eggs.
Things come to a head in issue 8.
The ship is boarded,
Rocket and Chewie make peace and of course…
the flurkittens are all fine. There’s a lot of nice touches and these two issues are the apotheosis of Chewie stories. If you like cats or you like Chewie, you should check out these two issues even if you don’t check out anything else.
The final Chewie-centric storyline occurs in issues 12 and 13. Haffensye pirates attack Carol’s ship and abduct Chewie, intending to use her as a weapon.
Unfortunately, most of the action involves getting the ship repaired, navigating through a dangerous region of space and fighting off pirates without weapons or propulsion.
Once Carol catches up with the Haffensye ship, she makes short work of the pirates, rescues Chewie and commandeers the pirates, ship for Tic.
After the pair returned to Earth, Chewie reverted to being a background character which she has remained for all of her subsequent appearances.
And that then is the story of Chewie or Goose if you prefer. There’s always hope that she will be featured in future Captain Marvel stories or join the Pet Avengers or star in her own Major Motion Picture.
There’s much more fun to come, I think, and Carol’s come a long way from the cat flinging incident. She must have sensed it at the time because this was her response to Chewie’s very first disappearance.
It was meant to be.
Comics, The Universe and Everything 