The Marvels finally hit theaters, and it didn’t take long for fans to start speculating on how the latest installment in the Marvel Cinematic Universe could impact the rest of Hollywood’s most sprawling franchise.
The sequel to 2019’s Captain Marvel is a team-up between Brie Larson’s titular role and two characters who made their debut in Marvel streaming shows from Disney+, marking the first time the MCU has brought characters from television into leading roles on the big screen.
How did everything tie together and what do we learn about the future of the MCU from The Marvels? We’re here to break it all down for you.
WARNING: THIS STORY WILL CONTAIN SPOILERS. TURN BACK NOW TO AVOID BEING SPOILED!
OK, READY? LET’S GET INTO IT…
1
From Stream to Big Screen
The Marvels is built around teaming Carol Danvers, a.k.a. Captain Marvel, up with two stars from Marvel’s Disney+ streaming shows.
The first of these characters we encounter is Kamala Kahn (played by Iman Vellani), a high schooler from Jersey City, New Jersey who first appeared in the series Ms. Marvel. The movie begins where that series left off, with Kamala discovering that her powers are somehow entangled with Captain Marvel.
The other member of the team is Monica Rambeau, a character we first met as a child in the first Captain Marvel film. Monica is the daughter of Carol’s best friend Maria and thinks of Carol as an aunt. Monica played a key role in the first ever Marvel streaming series WandaVision, in which we witnessed her obtain her light-based superpowers.
Including Kamala and Monica shows that Disney views the characters and events from these shows as essential parts of the MCU, rather than supplemental material. While we’re given a few tidbits to explain who these characters are and how their powers work, The Marvels doesn’t really stop to explain their entire backstories, so Disney is still expecting viewers to keep up with streaming the shows.
2
A Royal Assist
After rescuing a group of Skrull refugees early in the film, Carol calls in a favor from a friend to help find the homeless Skrulls a safe haven. That friend turns out to be none of other than the king of New Asgard herself, Valkyrie (Tessa Thompson). She offers to let the Skrulls take shelter in her kingdom, which has been located on Earth since the events of Thor: Ragnarok.
What does this mean going forward? Well, aside from there being a sizable Skrull population on Earth now, it does help establish that Valkyrie and the Asgardians are still very much a part of the action in the MCU.
3
Where We Leave Off
Let’s take a quick stock of where the film leaves each of its major characters…
Carol and Kamala are both back on Earth, having established a real friendship together that seems destined to lead to future team-ups.
Kamala, however, has bigger plans that just teaming up with Captain Marvel. In the closing moments of the film, Kamala emerges from the shadows in the apartment of Hawkeye’s young protégé, Kate Bishop (Hailee Steinfeld). In her best Nick Fury voice, Kamala informs Kate that she’s putting together a team and suggests she may also be planning to include “Ant-Man’s daughter,” a reference to Cassie Lang (Kathryn Newton).
Kamala appears to be forming her own team of Young Avengers and from the look on Kate’s face, it seems the process of assembling is off to a great start.
As for Monica…
4
Monica in the Multiverse
After sealing herself off in an alternate universe, Monica awakens during a post-credits sequence to find that not only is she alive, but so is her mother. Maria, who died of cancer during “The Blip,” appears alive and well, though confused when Monica starts calling her “mom”.
Into the room walks the biggest shock of Marvel’s post-Endgame films: a big, blue furry scientist. Fans of the X-Men franchise will immediately recognize him as Hank McCoy, a.k.a. Beast, one of the original members of the X-Men.
Beast and Maria speak as though they’re close associates, and we see that Maria is wearing a costume we’ve never seen before, a superhero suit with a logo showing two star-like crosses. Maria asks Monica who she is, and the film ends.
Maria’s costume design is a reference to an important piece of Marvel Comics history that ties into the Captain Marvel saga. While Carol Danvers has never been a mutant in the comics, she was an important character in some of the biggest X-Men stories ever told back in the 1980s, when she went under the superhero persona Binary. The costume we see Maria wearing in this scene is Carol’s Binary suit from these classic ’80s X-Men comics, revealing that not only are the X-Men finally on their way to the MCU, but that Captain Marvel may have an important connection to them.
