It’s an exciting time to be a MCU fan, to say the least. Both Avengers: Infinity War and Black Panther knocked it out of the park in 2018, and its renewed excitement in even the most jaded viewers. With the arrival of both the Avengers: Endgame trailer and the second Captain Marvel trailer in early December, speculation on both movies has never been higher. Before Phase Four of the MCU is wraps up, there are obviously a ton of questions left to be answered. Will the Avengers be able to reverse Thanos’ snap at the end of Infinity War and bring back 50% of the Earth’s population? If so, who will be the hero to do it? Enter Captain Marvel, a key piece of the puzzle coming in March 2019 that will set up Avengers: Endgame, which arrives the following month.
We already know that Brie Larson (Room, Kong: Skull Island) is playing the titular hero in Captain Marvel, and we know that Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck directed the movie. Beyond that, there are a ton of small details in the trailer to dissect. Captain Marvel has a ton of star power, with Annette Bening, Lee Pace, Djimon Honsou, Jude Law, and more all having significant roles, but we don’t necessarily know how exactly the plot will play out. It’s as if Jon Favreau’s Iron Man and Christopher Nolan’s Memento had a baby. We can’t wait to see what twists, turns, surprises, and revelations end up in Captain Marvel, but with more than two months to wait, let’s attempt to break down what we know so far and what we think is complete rubbish.
20 CONFIRMED: IT TAKES PLACE IN THE EARLY ‘90S
According to the official synopsis, Captain Marvel takes place in the early '90s when Carol Danvers gets caught in the middle of a galactic war between two alien races. The description goes to state that the movie is “an all-new adventure from a previously unseen period in the history of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.”
Along with knowing that it’s set nearly three decades ago, we know that the film eventually links to Avengers: Infinity War and likely next year’s Avengers: Endgame. The much talked about post credits scene in Infinity War depicted Nick Fury in the present attempting to contact Captain Marvel with an old school pager. Hold that thought, though; more on that tidbit later.
19 HOPE NOT: BRINGS TONY HOME
Ever since the Avengers: Endgame trailer dropped, fans have been speculating about who is going to save Tony Stark. At the beginning of the trailer, we see him adrift in space on the Milano, probably alone but possibly with Nebula on board as well.
During a monologue meant for Pepper Potts, Stark mentions he ran out of water several days ago and only has until morning until his oxygen runs out. Cue the hero! By now, it’ll be surprising if Captain Marvel doesn’t cross paths with Tony and/or the Milano during her mid or post-credits scenes. We have nothing against her saving Tony, but it’ll seem cliché and underwhelming if that’s the case.
18 CONFIRMED: NOT AN ORIGIN STORY
From the official trailer, we know that Carol Danvers is already essentially Captain Marvel. While training as a test pilot, she runs into trouble and for some reason, crash lands her aircraft in the desert. During the explosion, she gains her powers from radioactive energy, presumably caused by the ongoing fight between the Kree and the Skrulls, which has now made its way to Earth.
So, while it’s not a totally start-from-scratch origin story, what we don’t know is how the pieces of Carol’s memories will come together. The trailer gives us flashbacks of her childhood, as well as scattered pieces of her memories. Whether they are true or implanted and how they come together is the central mystery of the movie.
17 HOPE NOT: CULL OBSIDIAN
When we see Cull Obsidian standing with Ebony Maw in Avengers: Infinity War, he clearly has a cut piece of cloth hanging from his belt. It appears to be blue and red, with similar stripes to Captain Marvel’s signature suit, which we already know Carol wears in Captain Marvel.
This minor glimpse has led to some speculation that Cull Obsidian had a run-in with Captain Marvel in the past, and, knowing that Captain Marvel takes place in the past, you could connect the dots and wonder if the two have a run-in in the new movie. This theory has been debunked before, but you just never know. Let’s hope this one is a mere optical illusion because it frankly doesn’t make much sense.
16 CONFIRMED: CAROL IS A TEST PILOT
In the aforementioned trailer, we see Carol in the cockpit of a small aircraft across from her colleague Maria Rambeau, giving a hand signal before taking off. Oh, the internet is a wondrous place. Some sleuth-y redditors have noted that the patch on Carol’s right arm is the Test Pilot School Graduate patch, likely meant to be from the U.S. Air Force Test Pilot School in the Mojave Desert in California.
Moments later, we see that Carol has crashed in the desert. Perhaps it was her inexperience as a pilot that caused her to crash, or was it something more? We don’t know yet, but we do know that she was enlisted in the Air Force before taking off.
15 HOPE NOT: THE PAGER
Before Nick Fury dissolves away due to Thanos’ snap in Avengers: Infinity War, he pages Captain Marvel using an old-timey device that looks like a Walkman morphed with a rusty stethoscope. Look in your kitchen junk drawer. Is there anything in there you’ve kept for the last 28 years? Didn’t think so.
So, while it’s noble that Captain Marvel might give Fury a pager at the end of Captain Marvel in order to summon her in case of emergency (as the Avengers are clearly in in Endgame), nobody keeps old technology for that long. It’s a different story if the device actually has a backstory, but just to include it Captain Marvel in order to tie the two films together seems silly.
14 CONFIRMED: NICK FURY'S EYES
There’s no guessing on this one. From the two trailers released so far, we see Nick Fury multiple times without an eye patch. In fact, we see quite clearly that he’s much younger and has two working eyes, which makes sense since Captain Marvel takes place in the early ‘90s.
So how exactly does he lose his left eye? The comics explain that he was initially involved in a grenade blast during WWII, eventually losing 95% of his vision over time, but that still wouldn’t explain why it’s fine in Captain Marvel. It could be that it’s due to some serious double crossing by his boss Talos (who appears in Captain Marvel), so maybe we’ll finally find out Fury meant by his cryptic line in Captain America: The Winter Soldier: “The last time I trusted someone, it cost me an eye.”
13 HOPE NOT: A KREE ANTI-AGING MACHINE
Maybe she’s born with it; maybe it’s Maybell… wait, a Kree anti-aging machine? Sure, with about 28 years in between Captain Marvel and Avengers: Endgame, the MCU had to come up with a reason why Carol Danvers looks exactly the same in the early ‘90s as she does in 2019. Supposedly the Kree have developed a machine that slows down Danvers’ aging process, but that seems like a cop out answer.
Marvel Studios head Kevin Feige has confirmed that Samuel L. Jackson’s character Nick Fury will be digitally de-aged, so it’s not a stretch if they use the same method to de-age Brie Larson. Unfortunately, Feige hasn’t confirmed how this will be explained in the movie, so we’ll just have to wait and see.
12 CONFIRMED: HER BLOOD
Here’s where the timeline of the trailer gets a little weird. When we see Captain Marvel laying in the desert after the plane crash, her nose is clearly bleeding a greenish blue blood. The accident supposedly gave her Kree powers, and we see her receiving more blood in the hospital as Annette Bening’s character explains that the Kree did so she could “live longer, stronger, superior.”
Did Captain Marvel already have Kree DNA in her blood when the aircraft crashes? Is the greenish tint due to some mixing with possibly Skrull blood? We don’t know yet, but we do know from the trailer that her blood might give her clues to her true identity.
11 HOPE NOT: MS. MARVEL
Here’s one for the purists. Super fans know that Mar-Vell was originally Captain Marvel in the comics. Marvel wanted to endow a woman with Kree powers, but the Mar-Vell moniker was still being used, so Carol Danvers first became Ms. Marvel before transforming into Captain Marvel.
As early as 2013, multiple sources have been claiming that the Captain Marvel script was originally written as Ms. Marvel, staying more true to the comics. So did the later alias make it all the way to the shooting script? Hopefully not as this would be a useless sidebar that doesn’t really have anything to do with the main story.
10 CONFIRMED: OTHER KREE MEMBERS WILL APPEAR
We already know from the trailer and our own research that several other Kree members appear in the film, specifically those that make up Starforce. Djimon Honsou reprises his role as Korath the Pursuer form Guardians of the Galaxy, while Att-Lass (Algenis Perez Soto), Bron-Char (Rune Temte), and Minn-Erva (Gemma Chan) round out the group.
What we don’t see is the Supreme Intelligence, the ruler of the galactic empire who controls the universe. Depending on whether you believe the Kree are truly Captain Mavel’s allies or not, it seems like the members of Starforce will play a crucial role in Carol’s journey to understand her memories.
9 HOPE NOT: A DOUBLE AGENT
Obviously Annette Bening has a role in Captain Marvel, as she appears in the trailer and we see her explain to Carol that her life “began the day it nearly ended.” Her exact role in Captain Marvel is unknown at this point, with one source only calling her a scientist in the movie. We know she’s Kree because she tells Carol that they made her one of them, but what the exact motivation behind this was is unknown.
One popular theory circulating is that Bening is playing Carol’s mom, considering she's older than almost everyone else in the movie. Another theory is that she's actually going to be a villain. Too many bad guys in one movie is never good.
8 CONFIRMED: RONAN THE ACCUSER IS THE VILLAIN
Not only does the trailer confirm Ronan the Accuser is the villain in Captain Marvel, but pictures from the set show that Lee Pace has returned to reprise his evil character from Guardians of the Galaxy.
To refresh your memory, in Guardians of the Galaxy, Ronan was a Kree warrior who was hired by Thanos to find the Power Stone. Once he retrieved it, Ronan selfishly kept the Stone for himself and was ultimately defeated by the Guardians. With Captain Marvel set in the past and focused on the galactic war between the Kree and the Skrulls, it makes sense that Ronan is returning. What we don't know yet is how big his role will be and how he'll impact the larger story.
7 HOPE NOT: "DANVERS" IS NOT HER REAL BIRTH NAME
One quick clip in the trailer shows Carol Danvers holding one of her Air Force dog tags, but it’s broken in half and rusted to the bone, making it tough to read. We can see “Carol” engraved on the top good half, but the “D” and “A” are the only letters from her last name that we can make out.
Perhaps the Kree gave her the last name “Danvers” as some sort of code. If that’s the case, tracking her true lineage could be opening a whole new can of worms. Would her real last name line up with another character in the MCU, or would it be just an odd bit of trivia? Hopefully we’re reading too much into this and Carol Danvers is the same as she is in the comics.
6 CONFIRMED: THAT GRANDMA
Much of the hoopla surrounding the first Captain Marvel trailer was focused on the fact that Brie Larson punches an elderly lady seated on the train. Assuming the MCU wasn’t trying to make light of elder abuse, most fans quickly realized that the grandma wasn’t exactly who she appeared to be at first.
In the second trailer, we see the old lady take the punch but then recover and snarl at Captain Marvel. She’s obviously a Skrull, and a full blown fight ensues between her and Carol Danvers. Captain Marvel eventually smashes her face into a pole so hard it bends the metal, creating another noteworthy scene that got people talking.
5 HOPE NOT: NICK FURY IS A SKRULL
Knowing that Skrulls are aliens with shapeshifting abilities, it’s entirely possible that the version of Nick Fury we see in Captain Marvel is actually a Skrull. This would be a very bad idea, however, as it would take away from our ability to understand his relationship with Carol Danvers.
We know the two know each other in the present day, as Fury summons her at the end of Avengers: Infinity War. The dynamic between Fury and Danvers will no doubt make for some of the best scenes, so to compromise that in any way seems like blasphemy. We need to know why Fury thinks she can help the Avengers defend against Thanos in Avengers: Endgame.
4 CONFIRMED: EARLY MODEL QUINJET
We saw an early model Quinjet fly into space -- something current ones can’t do -- in the teaser for Captain Marvel, and the second trailer gave us more insight as to what might be going on there. Nick Fury takes Carol Danvers to a secret P.E.G.A.S.U.S. base in the desert, where the two steal one the primitive Quinjets and Danvers flies it out of a cave.
With a P.E.G.A.S.U.S. logo on the wing, these early models were collaboration between S.H.I.E.L.D. and NASA, so we don’t know how much more powerful they can be. Furthermore, we see Danvers and Fury in the cockpit with the coordinates from the last flight still punched in. Unfortunately, reddit hasn’t quite cracked that one yet.
3 HOPE NOT: CAPTAIN MARVEL'S MEMORIES
One fan theory states that Captain Marvel might actually be a Skrull. If the Kree implanted memories in Carol in order to make her a more powerful warrior for their side, then it would make sense that the Skrulls would try to extract those memories to make her realize who she truly is.
We see Captain Marvel in the trailer hanging upside down with what looks like a shadowy Skrull figure to our left. Blue lasers are pointed directly at her head on both sides, which indicates they’re trying to get into her head for some reason. We hope that Carol Danvers is not truly evil, and hopefully the movie will reveal the true nature of her DNA.
2 CONFIRMED: AGENT COULSON RETURNS
Back in May, actor Clark Gregg confirmed that he’d be returning as Agent Coulson in Captain Marvel, saying “We’re seeing a version of Coulson that’s, what, 8 or 9 years, 10 years before Iron Man.” With Nick Fury also in the film, we’re not sure how Coulson will fit into the story or what the chain of command within S.H.I.E.L.D. will be.
As will other characters in the movie, Coulson will be digitally de-aged. Gregg adds: “He’s a bit of a new guy in S.H.I.E.L.D. He’s a lot younger. It’s the earliest we will have seen him.” Adding to the intrigue is if or how Captain Marvel will tie into Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. season six, which is expected to arrive next summer.
1 HOPE NOT: CAPTAIN MARVEL JOINS S.H.I.E.L.D.
The grand question in all of this is: How will Captain Marvel end? One idea is that she discovers her true identity (whatever that is), leaves the Kree and Skrulls to fight amongst themselves, and joins Nick Fury at S.H.I.E.L.D. In other words, it’s a non-ending with the intent being that the MCU only needed to introduce a new character that could save Tony Stark from impending doom alone in space.
How does the pager fit in? How big will Captain Marvel’s role be in taking down Thanos in Avengers: Endgame? Who is she really? All of our questions will be answered when the movie drops. Hopefully you’re as stoked as we are!