The Marvels is the most unexpected fun we’ve had at a Marvel Cinematic Universe movie in a while, but the admittedly rushed, choppy storyline left us with some questions. What was Dar-Benn’s whole deal? Are all those singing people OK? And most importantly: Who is Goose’s Flerken baby daddy?
As thin as The Marvels’ plot logistics are, it’s a testament to how enjoyable the movie is that we’re even interested in the answers to its plot holes. What’s that thing people say? Investigation is the highest form of flattery?
And for at least some of these questions — like “When did Captain Marvel and Valkyrie become friends?” or “What was up with that bit where they tried to give Monica’s costume wings?” — we have answers.
What was Dar-Benn’s whole deal? What’s a “universal weapon?”
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As much as we enjoyed it, The Marvels clearly made some choices about whose motivations it was going to prioritize exploring. Dar-Benn, the film’s villain, drew the short straw. And don’t go looking to the comics for answers: While Dar-Benn does exist in Marvel Comics, he’s a dude and was only in about three issues.
Dar-Benn’s warhammer marks her as an Accuser, an elite warrior rank of the Kree empire — just like Lee Pace’s Ronan the Accuser from Guardians of the Galaxy. He also had a big warhammer, though his was destroyed at the end of Guardians. Benn makes reference to Ronan as her predecessor, and presumably the Kree made her another hammer to replace his.
Benn seems to be in some kind of leadership position among the imperial remnants on the Kree homeworld of Hala, and she’s been plotting to use the Quantum Bands to create portals to replenish Hala’s spent natural resources. As a bonus, she intends to steal those resources from worlds that Captain Marvel holds dear, stripping their atmosphere, water, and light.
What happened to Kamala’s second bangle at the end of the movie? Why did using both of them kill Dar-Benn, but not Kamala?
Neither of these questions have definitive answers, but we can infer a bit by connecting some dots. Given the world-ending potential of the Quantum Bands, Kamala and Carol probably decided to keep them separate. And Kamala probably survived using them because of her mutant abilities — since one of the bangles activated them, she probably has a connection with them that makes her immune to their destructive powers.
It would’ve been nice if the movie addressed either of these questions — it definitely feels like a scene went missing somewhere in all the rewrites and reshoots. But there’s enough evidence to hazard a plausible guess and avoid being fully consumed by the unknown.
What is the Supreme Intelligence, and when was it destroyed?
The Supreme Intelligence is a superpowered AI that led the Kree civilization to civil war and ruin (it was played by Annette Bening in Captain Marvel). Because of this, Captain Marvel decided that the Supreme Intelligence was the cause of everything wrong with the Kree, so she destroyed it, plunging the Kree even deeper into darkness and eventually destroying their world completely.
None of this happened in a Marvel movie or TV show you missed. In Captain Marvel, Carol Danvers suggests she’s going to go take on the Supreme Intelligence, but the brief flashback shot of her destroying it in The Marvels isn’t taken from anywhere — this is the first time we’ve gotten confirmation that she followed through on her plan.
Are the people on the singing planet Aladna OK?
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Yes, Carol, Monica, and Kamala warp-gate away from the Aladna fight and leave a giant warp-gate in the planet’s sky, sucking up its ocean and dumping it on the planet Hala. No, that crisis-in-progress is never addressed again, any more than there’s a clear resolution for the gates stealing the Skrulls’ refugee planet’s atmosphere or the Earth’s sun. (Dar-Benn’s final rip in spacetime, which Monica repairs, doesn’t seem to be related to the sun-gate; you can’t see the sun on either side of it.)
Again, it feels like some crucial scenes got lost in the edit, or that the writers just completely forgot about Aladna in particular. But since Carol and Kamala eventually make it back to Earth and the sun seems fine, maybe those warp-gates have a limited duration once Dar-Benn moves on? Or maybe we’ll eventually see more of Aladna and find out what happens when you steal half an ocean-planet’s water? A song-and-dance planet just seems like too good an idea to waste on one Marvel movie.
Did Valkyrie take the Skrulls to New Asgard? Isn’t Earth a pretty unfriendly place for Skrulls right now?
It seems like Valkyrie’s New Asgard is essentially its own diplomatic zone that’s semi-separate from the rest of the human race, so it’s probably up to Valkyrie to decide which refugees she brings in with diplomatic immunity and which ones she doesn’t. At least, that’s the only way we can think of to explain why she feels free to cavalierly bring a bunch more Skrulls to Earth in the wake of the Secret Invasion Skrull crisis.
But there’s a real-world reason for that plot point being so casual: The Marvels was originally supposed to come out before Secret Invasion before it was delayed. The “too many Skrulls secretly on Earth” problem that drives Secret Invasion’s plot may have made more sense after Valkyrie pulled a whole bunch of them down there without speaking to any other world government.
When did Carol and Valkyrie become friends?
Probably during the five-year period between Thanos’ snap and the revival of 50% of the universe in Infinity War and Endgame. Carol stayed in contact with Earth a lot more in those years — we saw her checking in with the remaining Avengers in Endgame and visiting Maria Rambeau in The Marvels. Valkyrie was on Earth at the time, helping found the New Asgard community, and with Thor depressed, we’d imagine that Valk wore a lot of hats, which may have brought hers and Carol’s spheres together.
But failing that, there’s always the climactic final battle of Avengers: Endgame! While fighting against Thanos’ forces, Carol Danvers and Valkyrie teamed up alongside Wanda Maximoff, Okoye, Pepper Potts, Shuri, Mantis, The Wasp, Nebula, and an alternate-universe vision of Gamora to keep the Infinity Gauntlet out of Thanos’ reach. If the original Avengers can celebrate winning a battle by going for shawarma, surely after the Thanos battle was over and the dust and debris was cleared, some of those heroes could’ve grabbed coffee and hung out off screen.
What’s up with Carol and Monica’s mom, Maria?
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They’re close friends. Close friends who do Christmas morning together with their baby — I mean — the baby that one of them had. Who’s Monica’s dad? Not in the picture, apparently.
Carol is ashamed to admit to Monica that she unintentionally caused an interstellar civil war. Monica is really disappointed that Carol wasn’t there for her childhood even when she could have been, which is really more of a parental expectation than a “family friend” expectation, but Carol and Maria are just close friends.
Despite this estrangement, Carol was clearly included in Monica or Maria’s will, from how she inherits their house after Maria gets stuck in another universe. You’re right to wonder what’s going on there, because this is a textbook example of “there’s no heterosexual explanation for this.”
What was with that moment where the Aladnans tried to give Monica’s costume gauzy wings?
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This is an easy one: It’s a reference to Monica’s original comics costume when she was Captain Marvel, which featured a fancy cape that hung from her wrists on either side, like Storm’s 1990s X-Men costume.
What’s it like inside a Flerken?
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Probably very gooey. And dark.
Who is Goose’s baby daddy?
Before the brood of Flerken kittens show up in The Marvels, we’d never seen another Flerken on screen! When did Goose find the time to procreate while off in space with Carol? Granted, Goose seems to just do her own thing all the time, so it’s plausible she wandered off during one of Carol’s various diplomatic missions and found a Flerken that caught her interest. Or maybe Flerkens reproduce asexually? You know, like sharks sometimes do.