I wholeheartedly apologize to those that find this completely annoying…
what happened was was that I had a pretty fantastic entrance for Capt. Marvel but took it out because I kind of like the hopelessness of the issue. I like that many of you have no idea how the guardians are going to get out of all of this.
I promise you she is in next issue and many issues to come and narrates the Guardian’s annual.
there is a fine century long tradition of things being on the cover that aren’t in the book and I gladly hold that tradition 🙂
Brian Michael Bendis explains why a comic that doesn’t feature Captain Marvel at all nonetheless ended up with this cover:

I love that they didn’t just swap the cover out for something different. Nope. Just committed and followed through. That’s… something.
