When I first saw that Kelly Sue DeConnick was taking Captain Marvel to outer space, I was a little worried. One of the main reasons her original run on the character was so successful was its small-ness, focusing on Carol Danvers life in New York and outside of the Avengers. Going cosmic usually moves beyond these kinds of human stories, and I didn't want to lose what made the series so fun to read. 
 Well, all that worrying was a bunch of nonsense. DeConnick has managed to bring Captain Marvel to space without sacrificing an ounce of her humanity or the series' focus on relationships. Sure, Carol's left her New York friends behind, but now she's got space friends! And they're pretty cool! 
 I especially loved how DeConnick used the distant, foreign setting of an alien planet to speak to issues facing our own world today, namely refugee crises and authoritarianism. These topics are present in the conflict here, but never so much that they beat you over the head. It's just a nice, nuanced undertone (with occasional flare-ups in climactic moments) that informs the storytelling on a basic level. I found it very deftly handled, and appreciated DeConnick's ability to incorporate these kinds of themes without preaching. 
 Also, very happy to finally get a little bit of an answer as to why the hell Carol Danvers just randomly showed up in Guardians of the Galaxy, Book Two, which went utterly unexplained in that book. She's in space now! Got it!