Captain Marvel might be the most important Avenger in Infinity War — and she’s not even in the movie
It goes without saying that the following contains spoilers from Avengers: Infinity War. If you haven’t seen the movie, please go see the movie. Also, it’s safe to assume that you’ve seen the latest installment in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, seeing as how it shattered literally every single box office record ever, and is now the highest-grossing first weekend movie with upwards of $250 million. There’s like a 110% chance you saw it, maybe even twice!
So, since you sat through the two hour and 20-minute movie, you know that there is only one post-credit scene in the film (did your theater do a mini revolt when there was no mid-credit scene? Because I could hear audible gasps in my packed house). In it, we see Nick Fury and his right-hand-woman Maria Hill in what is presumable New York City. Shit is going down. There’s a car accident, and then a helicopter crashes into a nearby building — and why?
Oh you know, because Thanos has completed his Infinity Gauntlet and with a snap of his fingers is able to wipe out half the population. We see him do this at the ver end of Infinity War, as slowly one by one many of our beloved heroes — Peter Parker! T’Challa! Sam! Doctor Stranger! All of the Guardians including Groot!! — begin to fade away into the universe, as dust literally turning back into dust.
And now, that same fate is coming for Nick and Maria. Maria disappears from our screen, as Nick furiously tries to send a message on what appears to be a beeper. Before his message goes through, he turns to dust as well, muttering up a “motherf-” before he fades. As his beeper falls to the ground, the message finally sends and it says…
Well, nothing. It doesn’t say anything at all, because it’s just a symbol and some red, blue, and gold colors. Some in your theater probably gasped again (mine did!) because this is a pretty big moment: Nick was trying to call Carol Danvers, aka Captain Marvel.
After a very long wait (seriously, it’s felt like forever) Captain Marvel will finally hit the big screen in March 2019. This is huge, because it’s Marvel’s first stand-alone movie with a female character in the lead, and she couldn’t be more perfectly cast with Oscar winner Brie Larson.
She also just might be the most important person in the world (…universe?) because if Nick’s message to her is any indication, she’s the only one who can save the remaining, and dust, Avengers from Big Bad Thanos. The only question is: How?
On a scale of 1-10, we know somewhere around a 2 when it comes to Captain Marvel. Everything about her movie is still shrouded in ~secrecy~, as are all Marvel movies before they hit the big screen. But even knowing nothing, from this quick 2-minute credit scene we know she is ridiculously important, and in a time of crisis, that’s who Nick Fury is going to turn to. You know, because behind every eye-patch wearing former S.H.I.E.L.D. director is a lady superhero.
The last frame of the movie shows that Nick’s text went through, so we know wherever she is in the cosmos, she got the message. Captain Marvel actually takes place in the 1900s, because we totally deserve a ’90s grunge Carol Danvers, and hopefully the events of the movie somehow lead into Carol saving the day, present day (I, however, have a growing theory that the final credit scene actually takes place in the 90s, seemingly suggesting that Thanos has actually been destroying things for longer than we thought, and Captain Marvel has already saved the day many times before…but this is still a work in progress so let me flesh this out a bit more and I’ll let you guys know).
Whatever her origin story ends up being, and however she’s introduced, bottom line is that as we enter this new ~phase~ of the MCU, Brie Larson’s Carol will be front and center. We’re going to have to say goodbye to some characters along the way (because come on, some of the deaths will stick) but we’re in good hands. If there’s anyone who can save the day, without ever first being in an Avengers movie herself, it’s Captain Marvel.
