Carol Danvers entered the Air Force at an early age and rapidly rose to become one of the leading agents in military intelligence. Upon leaving her work as a spy, she became security cheif at Cape Canaveral for NASA, where she met the Kree hero, Mar-Vell, the first Captain Marvel.

During a battle between Mar-Vell and his Kree foe Yon-Rogg at a hidden Kree base on Earth, Carol Danvers was accidentally irradiated by the unknown energies of the Psyche-Magnetron, a device built by the Kree for communication as well as for weaponry. The radiation from the machine eventually augmented Carol's entire genetic structure, granting her super powers. Assuming the guise of Ms. Marvel, she faught crime and alien invasion. During this time, she worked as a magazine editor in New York City and earned the friendship of many other heroes, even becoming a member of the mighty Avengers.

Soon after joining the Avengers, however, Carol was used by Marcus, son of the extra-dimensional time traveller Immortus, in an elaborate scheme to escape his prison in Limbo by impregnating Carol with himself. Marcus was born into our reality through Carol, and would have died. Carol, believing to be acting under her own influence, fled to Limbo with Marcus, only to have Marcus die and stranding Carol in Limbo.

Eventually, Carol escaped, but later she was defeated by the power-absorbing mutant named Rogue. Danvers lost virtually all of her Ms. Marvel abilities and all of her memories. With the help of the mutant telepath, Professor X, Carol was able to recover her memories, but the emotional ties to them were gone.

Travelling with the X-men, Carol was abducted by the alien Brood, who subjected her to an evolutionary ray which triggered the latent potentional of Carol's Kree-enhanced genes, giving her super powers which led Carol to call herself "Binary." She soon joined the space pirates known as the Starjammers.

During the Kree-Shi'ar War, Carol was deeply wounded in battle and returned to Earth. Carol decided to stay on Earth to attempt a re-establishment of her former life.

Carol Danvers renamed herself Warbird and rejoined the Avengers bringing with her a whole set of problems. First, her powers were slowly depleting. She tried to hide this fact from the Avengers, leading to conflict with Captain America. Carol also developed a drinking problem, which was immediately noticed by recovering alchoholic and fellow Avenger, Iron Man.

Her drinking, coupled with her determination to prove herself a worthy addition to the Avengers and her secretiveness about her power loss, led to reckless grand-standing and sloppy teamwork. This eventually led to a formal court-martial before her fellow Avengers. She quit the team.

Carol realized that she had hit rock bottom after she attempted to reach escape velocity to help the Avengers on the Moon vs. the Kree Lunatic Legion.

She has given up the bottle for two reasons: One she wants to be the best superhero that she can be and secondly because her doctor told her that she had done so much damage with the boozing to her internal organs that another drink might KILL her.

She attends AA meetings and has been reinstated to the Avengers.