Captain Marvel filming is ongoing, and Brie Larson is still wearing that green suit that impresses no one. (I will NEVER stop complaining about this.) The movie is also still casting up, adding Annette Bening as “a scientist”. Captain Marvel stories are always full of scientists because Carol Danvers is science-inclined herself, and the aliens she gets tangled up with, the Kree, are basically obsessed with genetics. (Gemma Chan is playing a Kree geneticist, Minn-Erva.) So, scientists everywhere. Will she play a human or an alien? Who knows. But this is her first comic book role, adding to the impressive supporting of Captain Marvel. Brie Larson still has to win me over—she just isn’t the Carol Danvers I pictured, being at least a decade too young to start—but I like how the rest of the group is filling out.
Since Avengers: Infinity War came out I’ve gotten some questions about Captain Marvel that fall into two camps: Which comics to read and what is her whole deal, anyway? The comics question is really easy because if you’ve ever been curious about reading comics but it seems like too much and you don’t know where to start, there is a GREAT entry point with Captain Marvel. Kelly Sue DeConnick’s run In Pursuit of Flight is fantastic, more or less a character reboot that works as a standalone. And it’s complete and available in trade paperback, so no fiddling with skinny single issues or waiting for the next volume. You can get the whole thing on Amazon.
As for Captain Marvel’s whole deal, that’s trickier. She’s been around for a while and has gone through different interpretations, which includes different power sets. Different writers will approach characters from different angles, but the powers are usually the same. Thor is always strong and has lightning. Hawkeye is always an archer. Iron Man is always a flying laser robot. But Carol Danvers has got several different forms, and it’s a HUGE question mark hanging over the movie. Kevin Feige has been talking about how she’s the strongest Avenger yet, but is that physical strength, or bah-bonkers power set strength? Because she can be both.
The core powers are strength—like Thor/Hulk strong—flight, including the ability to fly in space without equipment, more or less invincible (there are technicalities too nerdy to get into), “photon blasts”, and she can absorb and redirect energy (like Black Panther but she doesn’t need a suit to do it). So even the stripped-down version of Captain Marvel is a lot to deal with. But the bah-bonkers power set, the one fans are hoping to see in the movie, would make her essentially a god.
That’s the “Binary” version of Carol Danvers, and she has all the previously listed powers but those “photon blasts”? They’re basically the energy of a supernova fired point-blank at her enemies. And she can redirect cosmic energy like a singularity, which allows her to manipulate space-time which gives her limited precognition. She can’t time travel like Lainey thinks, but she can access that dimension without the time stone. Starting to sound useful, right? This is a character that has huge potential to be very cool on screen, and honestly until we get a real look at what they’re doing with Carol Danvers, I kind of don’t care who they cast. Don’t f*ck up Carol and the rest will be fine.
Attached - Annette at a screening of The Seagull in New York last night.
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