Captain Marvel: What Marvel Is Hiding From You
Captain Marvel is coming. We’re less than a month away from its release, and with all of the details surrounding the movie, it’s one of the most anticipated films Marvel has ever had.
This will be Marvel’s first female-led superhero movie (poor Black Widow is still waiting for her time in the spotlight). Considering DC has already released Wonder Woman to huge success, this will be a big deal for Marvel--this is a rare occasion where DC is ahead of them in the live-action film department. Captain Marvel seems to have all the makings to be successful, though: a decorated talent pool, a powerful connection to Endgame--one of the biggest cinematic events of the year--and producers who have a history of delivering good movies.
So~ with that being said, it’s about that time we take a look at how exactly the MCU will be handling her character, and what differences we’ll see between her movie portrayal and her comic iteration. The MCU is somewhat known for taking liberties with their comic characters, which is perfectly understandable. Despite a few voices who would disagree, it’s never fun to sit through a copy and pasted story that you've seen somewhere else--leaves no room for mystery and curiosity. Of course, you still want to stick to the foundations that make the character who they are, but that’s beside the point. The point is, is that not everyone will be readily privy to the changes the movie may hit them with. Captain Marvel, even with all of her fame, is not necessarily a household superhero name. The average moviegoer isn’t going to know her or her supporting cast as they would--say--Spider-Man.
This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It allows you to go into the movie with a fresh perspective and an open mind, but if the changes made have a clever edge to them, you may miss out. Either way, with two teasers, two trailers, some promotional images, a prelude comic, and a handful of interviews, we do have some content to analyze despite the movie not having aired yet. Here are a few things you may not know about, MCU Captain Marvel.
Time Travel Is Not A Thing
You may have heard about an interview Samuel L. Jackson had with Entertainment Tonight back in January. On the show, he talked about his upcoming MCU movie in Captain Marvel and mentioned something quite interesting about Captain Marvel’s character. He said: “She’s pretty much the strongest character--in terms of someone with powers are able to do things--in the Marvel Universe. So for Carol Danvers to be that person and for Brie to become that person, it’s going to be a dynamite thing. I mean, [the Avengers] are up against some really, really tough odds right now--we saw that throughout Infinity War--so now we know we need something that’s as powerful as Thanos. And at some point, we’ll find out how powerful she is and all the things that she’s capable of. She’s one of the few people in the Marvel Universe that can time travel, so...”
Sam mentions that Captain Marvel has the ability to time travel. For some of you who aren’t too familiar with Captain Marvel, this may not be that big of a deal to you, but what’s interesting about this statement is that time travel is not a power that Captain Marvel has naturally. She’s never had the ability to time travel in the comics. Her original power set consists of superhuman strength, invulnerability, flight, and the ability to channel cosmic energy into photon blasts. She also has the ability to transform into a higher form known as “Binary,” under the right conditions.
All of these powers seem to be intact from what we’ve seen of released Captain Marvel content. We’ve seen her invulnerability in the first trailer when she survived an explosion in space, atmospheric reentry, and plummeting into a Blockbuster, all happening back to back. We’ve seen a little of her super strength in the Captain Marvel special look when she uses the grandma Skrull’s head to bend one of the buses stanchions. We’ve pretty much seen her blow up something in every trailer with her photon blasts (although, it’s still unclear if she’s channeling cosmic energy in order to do this). Finally, we’ve seen something akin to her Binary transformation in every trailer and teaser that’s come out so far, so she has all of her core abilities intact, time travel was just added on top of all of that--apparently.
Endgame has teased time travel from a while now, so Marvel probably gave it to Captain Marvel to facilitate some plot point in the movie. Her powers should be explained in more detail when her film comes out, so we should get a better understanding of how exactly her whole time travel ability works.
Captain Marvel Didn’t Originally Have Amnesia
The ability to time travel isn’t the only thing out of place with Captain Marvel. The trailers have made it pretty clear that Captain Marvel will not remember any of her time spent on Earth and that this will be a pretty big deal in her story. She didn’t have this problem when she originally became Captain Marvel. She did, however, struggle with a split personality issue.
After Carol Danvers experienced the accident that turned her into Ms. Marvel, she started having blackouts. During her blackouts, her MS. Marvel personality would emerge, take over her body, and go out into the world as a crime fighter. When Brie took the driver’s seat back, she didn’t remember any of the things that her alter ego had done. It wasn’t until Ronan the Accuser (the villain from the original Guardians of the Galaxy) showed up at the request of the Supreme Intelligence that both Carol’s original personality and her Ms.Marvel personality melded to become one and the same.
This situation doesn’t seem to be the case with the MCU Captain Marvel, though. She seems very aware of her current situation and everything that’s going on around her. From the way she sounds when explaining the Kree-Skrull War situation to Nick Fury, she actually thoroughly enjoys being Captain Marvel--or at least a Kree warrior capable of blowing things up with photon blasts.
Still, this isn’t to say that her character hasn't dealt with amnesia before. There was a time when the X-Man Rogue attacked Ms. Marvel and absorbed all of her abilities and memories. But introducing the X-Men into Captain Marvel right now would muddle the movie into oblivion, so that’s definitely not happening.
There was another instance, though, that seems like it would be better suited to what it looks Marvel is trying to go for. Yon-Rogg, one of the villains in Captain Marvel’s rogue gallery, once caused Captain Marvel to lose all of her memories when he tried to drop a Kree city onto New York by abusing a physic link he shared with her at the time. Carol managed to disconnect the link, but only at the cost of rupturing a brain lesion she had that was associated with it. As a result, all of her memories were erased. Still, this is more of an ending to an adventure than it is a sensible part of an origin story.
From the trailers we’ve seen, it sounds more like the Kree tampered with Carol’s memories in an attempt to turn her into one of their fateful soldiers, or that she lost her memories after experiencing the explosion that gave her her powers in the first place. No matter the explanation, Captain Marvel has never dealt with full on amnesia in her classic origin.
Captain Marvel’s Cat Has A New Name
Back in September of last year, Marvel released a promotional poster for Captain Marvel that showed the titular character standing in a hanger with her fists alight. At first glance, Carol appeared to be alone in the poster, but a reporter from Vulture spotted a cat walking off the frame of the picture to the left. When the poster originally dropped, the common theory going around was that the cat was Chewy, an alien cat (better known as a Flerken) belonging to Captain Marvel. Since then, Marvel has dropped trailers and teasers for the film, and they've given us a closer look at the cat. Nick Fury has a rather funny moment where he sees it and affectionately plays with it. At this moment, we learn that the cat (Chewy) has been renamed to "Goose." This is a Top Gun reference. In Top Gun, the main character’s--Lieutenant Maverick's--best friend and radar interceptor is named Goose. Renaming Chewy “Goose” is supposed to make the cat’s and Carol’s relationship mirror Maverick's and Goose’s.
In the comics, “Goose,” better known as Chewy is more than an ordinary cat. When Captain Marvel ends up with the Guardians of the Galaxy, she meets Rocket Raccoon, and Rocket meets Carol’s cat. What he does next is unexpected, but apparently warranted. Rocket attempts to kill Carol’s cat, to Carol’s understandable surprise. Rocket, of course, fails to kill Captain Marvel’s pet, but he explains that he made the attempt because what Carol thinks is just an ordinary house pet is actually an alien known a Flerken. Flerkens have a reputation for being dangerous killers, along with having an assortment of unique abilities. They can whip sharpened, poisonous tendrils from their mouths, teleport, think at a human level, and even act as gates to pocket dimensions. As you would expect, Rocket turns out to be right about Chewy. But since the MCU has already taken liberties with Captain Marvel’s powers and Chewy’s name, it's up in the air about what kinds of abilities the cat will have when Captain Marvel hits theaters. It would be a waste if Goose doesn’t display any powers in Captain Marvel’s movie since a running theme in the film looks to be that nothing is ever what it seems on the surface. But Rocket managed to survive the snap, so it would only make sense that when the two of them meet in Endgame, we have a scene reminiscent to what we got in the comics.
Captain Marvel Is A Man?
Carol Danvers is not the first person to hold the Captain Marvel title; she’s probably just the most famous. Originally, Captain Marvel was male--a Kree warrior named Mar-Vell (because why not). Captain Marvel was originally sent to earth to see if the planet was a threat to the Kree and their empire. He hid in plain sight by taking on the alias of Walter Lawson. Carol, however, apparently realized that there was something off about him and made it her mission to get to the bottom of it. She ended up discovering that “Walter” was actually Captain Marvel.
The two of them develop a bond and end up becoming one another's love interest for a time. In fact, Carol only becomes Ms. Marvel when a machine known as the psyche magnetron granted her “wish” to make her more like Mar-Vell, the process of which included blowing up in her face and splicing her DNA with Mar-Vell’s--turning her into a perfect human-Kree hybrid. Carol didn’t take on the tile of Captain Marvel herself until years after Mar-Vell famously died of cancer in the comics.
From the looks of the things, Jude Law will be playing Mar-Vell in the movie, but getting any confirmation on this is like pulling teeth. He could actually be playing Yon-Rogg or some kind of hybrid of Yon-Rogg and Mar-Vell. He looks to be a mentor figure to Carol, teaching her how to fight, and how to control both her powers and emotions, so Mar-Vell does seem like the right choice. It also does seem like Carol gets her powers from an explosion of some sort, and Mar-Vell was obviously present at that event--then again, so was Yon-Rogg. The overall point is that Carol Danvers isn’t the original Captain Marvel, nor did she just start her journey with the title like the movie would have us believe.
