This is the continuation of my mission to watch all of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) in timeline order. The second in the timeline is Captain Marvel.

Captain Marvel

With Captain Marvel we get a fun origin story as well as a deeper understanding of the players in the Marvel universe. My takeaways…

A different kind of hero?

It was refreshing to me to have a badass female character whose story wasn’t at all about her sexuality or sexiness or her as a sexual object. Nor was she defined by being someone else’s love object. She was defined more relationally – by her friends, her family, and her mentor. Many of whom were other women.

I’m of two minds about there being no love interest for her. On the one hand, I like it because it means she isn’t defined by a relationship. On the other hand, it also feels like a laziness of sorts. Imagine – what would the love interest and the relationship dynamics of one of the most powerful women in the universe be like? That seems like a story worth creating.

Captain Marvel

Here are the two parts of Captain Marvel where I found myself saying – mmhmmm you know that’s damn right.

Unleash our full potential

Captain Marvel is trapped and realizes her powers had been limited by the Kree the whole time. She says

"I've been fighting with one hand tied behind my back. What happens when I'm finally set free?" 

Yes! What would happen if instead of fighting sexist, misogynistic (and go ahead and add ableist, heterosexist, heteronormative, racist, xenophobic) bullshit on the regular, we were unleashed to explore our full potential without limit and barriers?

And/or, generally just be left the fuck alone and not have our bodies and what we do with them regulated.

Truly the dream.

We owe you nothing

In the end, Captain Marvel is clearly the most badass and most powerful, but there is Yon-Rogg trying to convince her that she still has to prove herself to him. How fucking right on the nose is that for the experience of every woman!?

So she blasts him and says:

"I have nothing to prove to you."

Fuckin’ A. That’s goddamn right.

• 

The reveals

There are two primary reveals made in Captain Marvel (which are decidedly less thrilling when you watch the movies in timeline order, but having originally watched them in release order, I appreciate them nonetheless).

Nick Fury’s eye patch

We finally found out how Nick Fury got his eye patch. He got up close and personal with a flerken and got that cat scratch eyeball fever. It may be the first, but it is not the last eyeball lost to the MCU. RIP Fury’s eyeball.

The Avengers

We get the origin of The Avengers program. After his encounter with Captain Marvel, which opens his eyes (or rather, eye, hehehe) up to a wider universe of power (and threat), Fury writes up an idea for a program. He names it the Avengers after Captain Marvel/Carol Danvers herself whose Air Force callsign was Carol “Avenger” Danvers.

This is apparently a point of contention because this callsign diverges from the comics in a way that changes who Carol was as a character. Apparently, her original callsign was Cheeseburger. I can’t tell how much of this contention is credible and how much is boys shitting their pants over a woman being an origin of The Avengers. I always kind of feel like I have to go with the latter in these cases though…

The tesseract?

The last we saw was that Howard Stark finds the tesseract in the ocean while he’s searching for Captain America. Somehow the tesseract makes it into the hands of Dr. Lawson as it is the “core” that she uses to power her engine. When Carol Danvers shoots the core, it explodes and she absorbs the power making her, indirectly powered by the tesseract, Captain Marvel. She is one of the most powerful Avengers, if not the most powerful because she gets power from an infinity stone.

So, how did the tesseract make its way from Howard Stark in the 40s to Lawson in the 80s?

Perhaps by way of S.H.I.E.L.D….?

The last we see of the tesseract the flerken is barfing it up on Nick Fury’s desk.

To see my review of other MCU movies, check out: Wherein I watch the entire MCU in timeline order – part 1