You Know That Old Lady Was a Skrull, Right?

CBR

Captain Marvel Punches a Skrull in Her First Trailer (But You May Have Missed It)

By MIke Fugere

Published Sep 18, 2018

Yes, you saw Captain Marvel hauling off and decking an old lady on public transit in her first trailer - but there's more to the story.

The Captain Marvel teaser trailer has finally dropped, and in it there is no shortage of great moments. We got to see Carol Danvers' awesome Mohawk body armor, a younger Nick Fury with two functioning eyes, a group of Skrulls on a beach as if they're working on a photo shoot for a "save the date" invite, and a Blockbuster Video (ask your parents about what that one is, kids). But what might have been the creme de la creme scene from those brief two minutes of footage is Captain Marvel hauling off and decking an old lady on public transit.

So why did Danvers punch an elderly woman who looked like the most threatening thing she could offer is out of date hard candies tumbling about in the bottom of her purse? Good question, but there is a pretty obvious reason for the supposed assault: That smiling grandma is, without a doubt, a Skrull. We know this for two reasons, the first being that if the assaulted woman in question was an actual elderly lady, a hard right hook from Captain Marvel would have enough power behind it to knock the old lady's head clean off her shoulders (and earn the Marvel Cinematic Universe its first R-rating).

But the the more compelling reason why Carol Danvers punched an old is... well, she didn't. She punched a Skrull, and we know this because the Skrull are shapeshifters. This sneaky interstellar race of conquerors have had a long history of infiltrating populations, taking on undetectable forms to blend in, and then deconstruct the very fabric of society for their own agenda. These guys are like termites posing as ladybugs.

In Marvel Comics, anyone can be a Skrull. In fact, during 2008's crossover event "Secret Invasion," a handful of superheroes, including Spider-Woman and Elektra, were revealed to be Skrulls. This does, however, beg the question of why this particular Skrull is parading around as an old lady on the bus. Surely there's some sort of bureaucratic process these aliens have to go through in order to call dibs on who they get to be. But we digress.

The scene in the trailer is certainly played for laughs, considering the insane, out of context way it plays out, but people who aren't familiar with the workings of the Skrull Empire (or may not even know what a Skrull is) watch this trailer, it's going to be a bit confounding. Are they going to think she's some sort of psychopath who beats up old ladies? We can only imagine parents explaining to their kids why that nice superhero lady beat up grandma. But for us, the second that old lady flashed her teeth at Carol, we knew what was coming next.

Directed by Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck from a script they wrote with Liz Flahive, Carly Mensch, Meg LeFauve, Nicole Perlman, and Geneva Robertson-Dworet, Captain Marvel stars Brie Larson as Carol Danvers, Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury, Jude Law as Mar-Vell, Clark Gregg as Phil Coulson, Lee Pace as Ronan the Accuser, Djimon Hounsou as Korath the Pursuer, Gemma Chan as Minn-Erva, Ben Mendelsohn as Talos, and Lashana Lynch as Maria Rambeau. The film arrives on March 8, 2019.