This article contains spoilers for Ms. Marvel Season 1, Episode 3, "Destined," currently streaming on Disney+.
Ms. Marvel has never been shy about its connection to the larger Marvel Cinematic Universe, starting with its opening scenes in which Kamala Khan gushes about her adoration for Carol Danvers. It leaps headlong into the franchise’s timeline, with a presumed payoff in the feature-length The Marvels scheduled for release next year. It also includes its share of Easter eggs, scattered liberally around the first three episodes of the new series.
But not all of them have been fully explained, despite clearly playing a larger role in the ongoing Phase Four storyline. Season 1, Episode 3, “Destined” drops a particularly potent hint: a symbol of the Ten Rings organization from Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings. The link between them and Kamala Khan's storyline is unknown for the moment, but the fact that the logo is prominently placed suggests big things in store.
The Ten Rings began as an army founded by Shang-Chi’s father Xu Wenwu as an instrument of his will. They evolved over the centuries into a multi-level clandestine organization involved in all manner of sinister activities. They often moved through proxies and puppets, which included the terrorist army in the original Iron Man and Aldrich Killian in Iron Man 3. Shang-Chi revealed the organization’s true origins when the title hero claimed his father’s rings for his own and his sister Xu Xialing took over the organization he founded.
Further details in the movie hint at a bigger purpose. The opening narration suggested that Wenwu found them in a meteor, so they could be of alien origin, while a post-credits Easter egg showed them sending out a signal of unknown destination and purpose. That comes on top of Xialing’s motives, which cast the organization itself in a decidedly shady light. While she was supposed to be “decriminalizing” the Ten Rings, she could have far from benevolent plans of her own and a private army might suit them quite well.
How all of that connects to Ms. Marvel is anyone's guess, but “Destined” doesn’t play around with making the link. A large seal of the Ten Rings' symbol is seen somewhere in India, hiding what appears to be the twin of Kamala’s empowering bangle. The ClanDestines – exiles from a dimension known as Noor and the source of the Djinn stories in the MCU – seek the bangle during the British occupation in 1942. They’re hoping to use it to return to their own dimension, though both bangles are needed to do so. The ClanDestines hope that Kamala can help them -- and then try to force her to do so during the episode’s final act.
The presence of the Ten Rings symbol at the site suggests that the organization was responsible for burying the first bangle. The ClanDestines find it attached to a severed blue arm, which further implies that it was removed by violence. That also hints that the Ten Rings -- or whoever created the rings themselves -- were enemies of the interdimensional exiles. Given the ClanDestines’ shady motives and willingness to use leverage against Kamala, they're not any more benevolent.
The prominence of this particular Easter egg and the show's other Shang-Chi links suggest a major connection down the line. Marvel president Kevin Feige has stated that Phase Four’s major plotline will be revealed this summer. By including such an obvious hint, Ms. Marvel may have tipped the MCU's hand a little early.
New episodes of Ms. Marvel stream Wednesdays on Disney+.