We are just a few days away from the release of a brand new Marvel movie. Thanks to critics, we have an idea of Captain Marvel's quality, and it's tracking for a massive $100 million domestic opening, with some analysts going as high as $135 million. But there's still a whole bunch that we don't know about Captain Marvel. Those answers aren't going to come to us until Thursday night, but we can't help lingering on the mysteries.
Marvel has gotten pretty good at keeping its cards close to the chest for its blockbusters; It wouldn't even share the title of Avengers: Endgame until last December. That secrecy extends to Captain Marvel, which has a few mysteries involving characters names, origins and the true nature of a certain cat. Things are bound to leak, but unless it's been confirmed by Marvel, then it doesn't really count. Here are the six big questions we still have about Captain Marvel.
How Does Carol Get Her Powers?
Captain Marvel is an origin story, but it bucks the trend by starting with a fully-formed superhero. The twist is that Carol doesn't remember how she got her powers, and it's an answer she (and the audience) will discover throughout the film. That's a nice way to ditch the origin story formula, and at the moment we are left guessing as to how she learned to shoot photon blasts. There aren't too many hints, but footage has shown Carol during her years as pilot getting caught in an explosion that's likely related to the Kree. In the comics, a blast of Kree DNA is what gives Carol her tremendous powers, so we'll see if that's still the case for the film.
How Does Carol End Up On Hala?
Captain Marvel was raised on Earth, but she somehow finds herself on an elite team of warrior heroes for the Kree. Carol lives on the homeworld of the Kree, known as Hala, which is maybe trillons of light years away from Earth. One would figure that the Kree took her under their wing after whatever incident grants her her powers. It's pretty significant when you just move to a new state, so a new planet is a pretty far leap. With Carol's amnesia, I have to wonder if her relocation was entirely her choice to begin with. Given that Carol doesn't know anything about her past, that increases the chances that the Kree haven't been entirely truthful to her.
Why Does Captain Marvel Have Amnesia?
Well, this woman is just a regular bag of mysteries, right? The reason that Carol doesn't know the origin of her powers or of her time on Earth is because she has amnesia. An incident with the Skrulls sends her back to Earth in search of answers, which are likely to be a big revelation. It's possible that the incident that gave her powers also caused the amnesia or that her memories were hidden by the Kree to cover something up. Amnesia is usually a pretty suspicious thing to have and I doubt it's a random side effect of her powers. At least a good chunk of the film will be devoted to Carol piecing together the remnants of her past.
How Will Nick Fury Lose His Eye?
You know that joke in Hot Tub Time Machine where the guy is destined to lose his arm, and you just keep waiting for some horrible accident to take it from him? That's what I'm going to feel like watching young Nick Fury in Captain Marvel. Nick Fury's eye patch is an iconic part of his look, but he hasn't yet lost an eye when he first meets Carol Danvers in the '90s. There's no way that we aren't going to see him lose the eye, so it's just a matter of how. Fury once said it was because he trusted someone, so could a shape-shifted Skrull be the cause? Another important question with Fury is how this experience leads him to become the always-prepared Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. we know best.
What Are the Skrulls After?
The center of the conflict of Captain Marvel is the centuries-old war between the Kree and the shapeshifting Skrulls. Captain Marvel and Earth will be right in the middle of this conflict, and the Skrulls have been billed as the main villains of the movies. We can see a group of them on Earth led by Talos (Ben Mendelsohn), but their ultimate objective is unclear. Are they looking for Carol? If so, then why? Is there some kind of MacGuffin on Earth to turn the war in their favor? They must have a reason for infiltrating the planet and it might be leading to a major comic book storyline called Secret Invasion for further down the road.
Is This Cat An Alien Or What?
Finally, we get to the most important question! Goose the cat may seem like an ordinary cat, and for all we know he will be, but comic book fans know that he's more than what he seems. In the comics, Goose -- actually called Chewie -- is an alien that just looks like a cat, but on the inside it's got a bunch of purple tentacles for swallowing people whole. The alien species is called Flerken, they lay eggs and are generally really weird. There's been no indication that's the case for the movie, but given how much the cat has been involved in the marketing, it might just be a secret alien.
So, clearly, there's still a lot that we don't know about Captain Marvel. Carol Danvers is a ball of secrets wrapped inside of an enigma waiting to be unpackaged by moviegoers. Marvel has become so skilled at secret-keeping over the past decade that it can build hype for their films by barely telling us anything. At least we don't have to wait too much longer for the answers to finally be revealed because the movie is out in theaters on March 8. But seriously, that cat better be an alien.
