Photo: Marvel Studios
Last year at Comic-Con International: San Diego (SDCC), we got a crucial tidbit of knowledge about the upcoming Captain Marvel movie: that it will be set in the early 1990s. Now, Marvel Studios exec Kevin Feige is revealing why this is makes the perfect setting for the upcoming Marvel flick.
Feige was recently asked in an interview with the Toronto Sun why Brie Larson’s first cinematic appearance as Carol Danvers will take place in the 90s, and without giving away too many spoilers, he did offer up some sound logic to explain.
“The answer is, you’ll see in the storytelling of the movie,” Feige said. “But it allows us to play in an area that we have never played in before and tapping into a 90s action genre was fun for us and being able to see an earlier part of the MCU before Nick Fury knew anything about aliens or anything about super-powered people and also tapping into the Kree-Skrull War, which in the comics was a huge part of the comic mythology, seemed like a fun thing to try and a fun way to give Carol Danvers her own standalone origin story.”
According to Feige, if the 90s is a time before Nick Fury is the all-knowing puppet master who forms The Avengers, but rather as someone who does not know about aliens and other super-powered people yet, this new timeline allows a further backstory for Fury and what led him to the MCU in present day.
This isn’t the first time the MCU has taken us back in time with hero origin stories. As with Captain America: The First Avenger, the World War II setting helped facilitate his arrival in the modern-day world and with the Avengers. Similarly, Metro UK speculates the 90s setting could help set up Captain Marvel as a possible new Avenger for phase five and beyond in the Marvel Universe.
By giving Captain Marvel a new time setting, it allows Danvers to shine without any other pre-existing Marvel title character to overshadow her journey to hero-status with cameos or outside influences, allowing Danvers her own standalone story before we see her join forces with the rest of the MCU.
“For the most part, they [Ant-Man and The Wasp and Captain Marvel] are very much their own standalone stories, but they will connect in ways that will be apparent when you see them and will be very apparent in Avengers 4,” Feige told the Toronto Sun.
To see exactly how the 90s timeline affects Captain Marvel and her journey towards Avenger-status in the MCU, I guess we’ll just have to wait until next March.