During the Marvel Studios panel at last week's Comic-Con International, Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige announced that the upcoming Captain Marvel movie would be a period piece set in the 1990s, and that the good Captain, a/k/a Carol Danvers, would team up with a younger, two-eyed Nick Fury to battle the Skrulls.

The announcement confirms some rumors that have been swirling around about the project, particularly the inclusion of Nick Fury in the cast. But, the news that it would be set two decades in the past, well before the first Iron Man movie, came as a surprise.

RELATED: Captain Marvel: Feige Reveals Kree/Skrull War Influences

While Captain Marvel's 1990s setting was unexpected, it is not unwelcome. By setting the film in the past, screenwriters Nicole Perlman and Meg LeFauve have engineered an elegant solution to the problem of Carol Danvers.

In No One's Shadow

One of the biggest challenges with introducing Marvel's first headlining female superhero in the 21st film set in the MCU is that she risks being outshone by the characters around her. The risk is even greater because comics Carol Danvers is a legacy hero who inherited her name and powers from the Kree Captain Mar-Vell. Introducing her into a world already filled with superheroes, sorcerers, Norse gods, Inhumans and various agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. make her yet another face in an already crowded scene. By setting Captain Marvel in the 1990s -- well before  the appearance of Iron Man -- Carol will have a chance to show just how amazing she is without having to be in anyone's shadow.

generations-captains-marvel-header

Carol is also perfectly positioned for a major role in a pre-Heroic Age story because of her comics backstory as a former Air Force Intelligence agent. In the comics, secret agent Carol has shown up repeatedly in stories set before Fantastic Four #1, teaming up with Wolverine, a pre-powered Ben Grimm, and her own long-time partner and lover Michael Rossi. In adapting Carol to the MCU, it makes perfect sense that she would have been recruited by the still-covert S.H.I.E.L.D. and have worked alongside Nick Fury to contain threats the world wasn't ready to know about. Making her a part of the MCU's secret past is entirely consistent with Carol's comics backstory and neatly avoids the "why should we care about her more than __" problem.

The Lost Generation

Setting Captain Marvel in the gap in time between Agent Carter and Iron Man also makes the movie an ideal way to explore what happened in the MCU in the intervening years. We know Peggy eventually got S.H.I.E.L.D. up and running, but what exactly did they do in the meantime? And how did that Kree cadaver end up in S.H.I.E.L.D.'s possession? By making Captain Marvel a key part of those missing years, we can finally get a glimpse into Marvel's lost generation.

Captain Marvel's powers radiate through her eyes and crackle from her hands.

The Skrull, which Feige revealed will factor into Captain Marvel, are near-perfect villains for a story set during the long gap. They are threatening, while remaining covert. An attempted Skrull invasion could happen without anyone in the wider world taking notice. Connecting an invasion to the broader Kree-Skrull War could also explain how Carol got Kree powers and why she left Earth—she could have been fighting alongside the Kree to stop the invasion at the other end. Plus, the Skrull also happen to share a power set with Carol's first nemesis, Mystique, who cannot be used because she is part of Fox's X-Men franchise.

There's also potential for Carol to meet up with some of the secret heroes of pre-Heroic Age. We know Nick Fury will be making an appearance, but wouldn't it be amazing to see Carol meet up for drinks with Hayley Atwell's Peggy Carter and Michelle Pfeiffer's Janet Van Dyne?

NEXT PAGE: A Gen-X Geek Captain Marvel Would Be Great



Emotionally Adrift

Setting Captain Marvel in the past, and then presumably having her go M.I.A. for twenty-plus years, also solves another major problem: Carol's lack of an emotional connection to those she once loved.

Back in Avengers #200, one of the most infamous stories in Marvel history, Carol gave birth to her own quasi-incestuous rapist and then went off to live with him while obviously under mind control, all with the Avengers' blessings. The story inspired a stellar critical response from Carol A. Strickland, "The Rape of Ms. Marvel," in the first issue of comics magazine L.O.C. later that year.

Chris Claremont, who had written the bulk of Carol's first solo series, Ms. Marvel, was also enraged by the rape/pregnancy plot. He finagled his way into writing Avengers Annual #10, in which he gave Carol Danvers the chance to reclaim her agency and take out her frustration on her teammates who had so recently abandoned her.

Carol's catharsis came at a great price, however. That same issue featured the debut of then-villain and future X-Men member Rogue, who stole Carol's Ms. Marvel powers, as well as all of her memories. With the help of Charles Xavier, Carol was eventually able to reclaim her lost memories, but she lacked an emotional connection to them, making her forever feel distant from her family and others she had loved in her earlier life. It was a decisive break in Carol's history, and she remains haunted to this day by her lost connection to her past.

While Carol's disconnect is a key part of who she is and has been, the Avengers #200/Avengers Annual #10 story pair are so convoluted and built on dated sexist tropes that they would be absolutely toxic in a contemporary adaptation. But, setting Captain Marvel in the past allows for similar sorts of emotional storytelling without all the rape and misogyny.

If Carol has been missing for over two decades, she will be returning to a world that has significantly changed from the one she left. Like Steve Rogers, Carol would likely discover that many of the people she cared about have changed or even died in the meantime. If Perlman and LeFauve play up Carol's tension with her father -- a strong theme from the comics -- she might return to discover he had died before they were ever able to reconcile. Or, borrowing a page from writer Kelly Sue DeConnick's run, she might learn that her old friend Tracy Burke died just before her return.

By playing up change and loss, Carol could have a similar traumatic disconnection from her past, but without all of the baggage.

A Gen X Geek

Carol's personality is not all trauma, though; she's also one of the Marvel Universe's biggest geeks, and is especially prone to drop Star Wars quotes into conversation. She even has a cat named Chewie. But while geekdom is not by any means restricted to a certain age group, Carol's has a particularly strong Generation X feel to it. (Her Star Wars quotes, for instance, are without fail from the original trilogy, and not the prequels.) The current comics iteration of Carol is decidedly a child of the '90s, grown up to be Earth's Mightiest Hero.

By making Captain Marvel a period piece set in the '90s, Carol's personality and geekery can be brought over to the MCU with minimal changes, while still casting a young actor who will be able play the role for years to come. Carol can be a Gen-Xer, rather than a Millennial, while still being 27 years old.

While a Captain Marvel set in the present day could certainly have worked, by basing it in the '90s Perlman and LeFauve have found a single elegant solution to many of the challenges of adapting Carol Danvers to the MCU. Now we just have to wait another 20 months before we can finally see Captain Marvel take flight.

Captain Marvel is directed by Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck with a script by Nicole Perlman and Meg LeFauve. The film will star Brie Larson as Carol Danvers/Captain Marvel and is scheduled to arrive in theaters on March 8, 2019.