Fan Theories About Captain Marvel That Actually Make A Lot Of Sense

The MCU is one of the biggest superhero franchises in history, and there’s no question as to why. With over twenty films, countless interesting characters, and so much source material to pull from, it’s the saga that keeps on giving. One of fandoms’ favorite things to do is come up with fan theories, and when it comes to the MCU, there are certainly a lot of them. From unanswered questions to character quirks, we managed to round up some of the most interesting fan theories surrounding our favorite cosmic captain – Carol Danvers.

Which Captain Marvel fan theory do you think is most believable? Vote up your favorites below!

Captain Marvel Did What She Said She Would Do

So, I watched Captain Marvel last night and then went back to re-watching Guardians of the Galaxy. I had theory I want to prove and now what happen in Guardians of the Galaxy makes so much more sense than we first realized. Now in Guardians of the Galaxy we see the Nova Empire and the Kree Empire have signed a peace treaty. But why now all of a sudden after a thousand years of war. It always struck me as odd why this peace treaty happens in the first place and why it happens. But now I think it happen because Captain Marvel destroyed the Supreme Intelligence.

Remember when she sends Yon-Rogg back to Hala with the message that she will destroy the Supreme Intelligence and end the war. Well she kept her word because the Kree and Nova Empires are no longer at war. She of course knew the only way to end the war was to destroy the Supreme Intelligence. Because everything the Kree do is because the Supreme Intelligence says it needs to be done for the betterment of the Kree race. She knows that the Kree are in a pretty helpless situation with their Super AI warmind gone. The Kree then would no longer have the Supreme Intelligence to guide them. Meaning they are leaderless and would not really know what to do in that situation since it never happened before. Now they’re not stupid but losing the Supreme Intelligence would leave them at a big disadvantage and no clear indication on what to do next. So, in a form of panic they called for peace so they would not be wipeout right away by all the enemies they made over the years.

Also, it would explain why Ronan became rogue and went to Thanos for leadership. Because with the Supreme Intelligence destroyed, he would be in a leaderless state. He also found the Krees’ reaction of forming peace right away as weak and would have probably want them to keep fighting without the Supreme Intelligence. Also explains why Ronan suddenly realized after he had an infinity stone, he no longer need Thanos help to wipeout Xandar. He had seen how powerful Captain Marvel had been when she had some infinity stone power and he had a real stone in his possession.

So, Captain Marvel saying she is going to destroy the Supreme Intelligence fits pretty well with us watching the aftermath of that event in Guardians of the Galaxy.

S.H.I.E.L.D’s Intel Is Due To The Skrulls

At the end of Captain Marvel, Carol sets out to find a home for Skrull far away from the reach Kree. I think that after a lot of search, Carol finds that the only place in the Universe where the Skrulls are safe from the Kree is Earth. The Kree are afraid to come to Earth after they’ve seen what happened to their ships in Captain Marvel. The Skrulls set up their base just outside the Earth with the help of Nick Fury who is now the director of SHIELD. But Carol sets out to help the other planets. Nick Fury used the help of Skrulls’ alien technology to upgrade SHIELD’s intel and get their eyes on everything that’s happening on Earth. The map that’s shown in Iron Man 2, which shows many places including Wakanda, is the result of the Skrulls’ technology.

SHIELD used its technology to find all the heroes and location of Captain America in the ice . He kept it a secret from all others in SHIELD and even Carol. The words of Tony Stark in Avengers, “Fury’s secrets have secrets,”are proven to be true. After SHIELD had ended in CA:TWS, he went to the Skrulls’ base and took cover until AOU. He uses the help of Skrulls to bring the helicarrier to Sokovia. He tells that he brought it with the help of some ‘old friends’ and secretly referring to the Skrulls. In Infinity War, Talos too died from the Snap and when he was revived, they found that they had no intel and the Earth is now the center of cosmic events and without the Avengers, it lacked protection. At the start of FFH, Talos tells Soren that they have no intel after events of Endgame. There are no one listening to them so they don’t have to pretend as Fury and Hill. This means that maybe he was referring to the Skrulls’ radar which has weakened during those five years. Then, Talos replaced Nick Fury on Earth and Fury was helping the Skrulls to set up the protection of Earth.

Captain Marvel Caused The Phoenix Lights

Just thought about it during the rewatch of Civil War. When Tony first meets Peter he shows videos of Spiderman saving people, but Peter says the videos are fake and Tony says “like UFOs over Phoenix.” That confirms the ‘Phoenix Lights’ happened in the MCU universe. The ‘Phoenix Lights’ happened during 1997 and Captain Marvel is set in the ’90s – what if the Phoenix Lights were Kree-Skrull war happening in the MCU universe?

Carol Hasn’t Helped More Because The Pager Takes Too Long To Reach Her

TL/DR – the pager takes weeks to months for the signal to get to Captain Marvel. This explains why she hasn’t turned up in past movies.

So in the after credits spoiler we get to see that the ‘beacon’ has been on for a little while now, we can easily assume weeks to months based upon a few factors: 1 – they first had to track the pager down 2 – they had to build a beacon amplifier around the pager 3 – the battery has ‘at long last’ drained

So let’s assume a minimum of 2 weeks, and up to a few months. Ok – so now let’s assume that Fury actually did use the beacon twice in the past – firstly when NY is invaded, secondly with Ultron. NY – this went down over a period of days. Even if Fury hit the beacon the instant Loki arrived (which I think is logical considering the space stone connection to Marvel) she still would have arrived too late. Ultron – this has two possible answers. I don’t know exactly how long they’ve said it went for, but from the movie it appears anywhere from a week to two weeks – so again either Fury did call, and she arrived late, or maybe Fury messed this one up and assumed that if the avengers could defend against one invasion, they could deal with a robot and decided not to call her.

Either way it leads to a world wide alien invasion in infinity war, and as soon as he hears about it and sees the devastation going on, he immediately runs to the pager – but even if he’d pressed or hours ago, Captain Marvel still wouldn’t have arrived in time.

Goose Chose To Help Carol Because It Knew She Would Continue Lawson’s Work

tl;dr – Goose might be a high intelligent “guard” animal to Lawson, and is possibly even prescient. Bear in mind we already had this cat surprise us, as it turned out to be a highly dangerous alien, that actually has pocket dimensions in its mouth for storage. I believe it saw that Carol and Fury would continue Lawson’s work, so deliberately followed and helped them

Fury Doesn’t Call Carol Often Because He Only Trusts Her With The Big Things

So one of the biggest points people raised about Captain Marvel was “Why didn’t Fury call her during any of the other movies when there were potentially world ending threats? I think it’s because last time she was there, he saw an alien war, and a bunch of spaceships tried to bomb the planet. Fury just doesn’t want to attract attention from the wrong people to Earth. Each time, he figures the Avengers can handle it, and he figures that’s the safer bet. Also, let’s remember that Fury has a habit of not trusting people, and he doesn’t even know Captain Marvel that well. Watching that end credits scene in Infinity War again, and Fury doesn’t seem too worried about hearing of the Wakanda invasion. It’s not until he sees people turning to dust that he realizes he’s dealing with something a lot bigger and needs help.

Captain Marvel Reveals What Shield Was Really Doing At The Start Of ‘The Avengers’

When The Avengers begins, SHIELD is doing work on the Tesseract, but what are they doing with it? SHIELD had the Tesseract back for 15 years after the events of Captain Marvel and at the start of The Avengers seemingly haven’t managed to achieve anything with their research. SHIELD weren’t trying to make weapons – Hydra had figured that out fairly easily and Captain America had captured dozens of them. They weren’t trying to make an energy source either – Tony Stark and Ivan Vanko both successfully and independently miniaturized the arc reactor technology. So either SHIELD scientists are all idiots, or they had another goal in mind. The Tesseract research was another attempt at a super soldier program attempting to recreate the powers absorbed by Carol Danvers, witnessed in person by Director Nick Fury. They just weren’t successful because it was significantly more difficult than either of the two obvious uses.

Carol Helped Create The Nova Corps Because Of Ronan And Korath

In the Captain Marvel movie it seems that at the beginning Ronan and Korath are on the same side, and the infinity stones are not on the chessboard (so to speak) at that time, meaning that Thanos didn’t know about them, or he didn’t know they true potential. I believe that the Kree witnessing Carol Danvers true capabilities lead them to seek the infinity stones and pursue ultimate power. I believe that in some way they learn of the stones existences in this movie, and that tip of Thanos to search for them. Carol said “I’m not going to fight your war, I’m gonna end it.” I believe that is the reason that Carol help create the Nova Corps, or she helps the Nova Corps Police force mainstream in the galaxy, and that is why Ronan and Korath are antagonist of the Nova Corps. Because they are a neutral force that prevents war between species, that would explain why she does not pick a side on the war and prefers to establish a third party solution.

Fury Named The Avengers After Carol’s Power And What It Could Do

It has always kind of bothered me that the team was called “The Avengers.” I know there’s that scene in the first movie where Tony says something like, ‘we might not be able to save the Earth, but we’ll avenge her.’ Bad*ss as that sounds, it didn’t seem to really jive with what Fury was hoping a group of superheroes loyal to Earth could achieve. Surely what he wanted was a group to protect the Earth, not just to punish those who hurt/destroy it after the fact. At the end of Captain Marvel, we see that Fury was going to name his idea The Protector Initiative at first. Then, Fury sees a photo of Carol Danvers with her plane, and the etching ‘Capt Carol “Avenger” Danvers’ and presumably changes his mind. Yes, the name was obviously inspired by Carol. But I also think Fury would have changed from “Protector” anyway. A protector might do anything to eliminate the danger. They might even try to commit genocide, like the Kree were doing, without any real justification.

I think Fury deliberately used the term Avenger because he was fresh from a fight with people who didn’t care about who hit first. Being on top was their ‘protection.’ With a group of people as super-powered as Captain Marvel, it would be all too easy to fall into that trap of believing you were in the right because you have the power. The trap of justifying your actions by saying that you’re “protecting” your planet.

The word “Avenger” might not be quite as noble as “Protector” but it does say who struck first.

Captain Marvel Will Become A Villain

Part of MCU’s success is that compared to characters like Superman, its characters are human and vulnerable/relatable. Captain Marvel presents a unique problem is that she is overpowered compared to the other characters. You can’t put her in a film against a regular human villain and have it be realistic, and there’s the danger that she makes all the other Avengers look useless. But this is all a plan by MCU to stack the odds when they have to fight against HER. Captain Marvel’s motivations won’t be evil but because she disagrees with them about what’s best the whole universe vs what’s best for earth. When it is over she will turn face again and redeem herself but the other characters not trusting her will explain why they can’t use her to do everything for them.

The Pager Isn’t Used To Call Carol Somewhere In Space But Somewhere In Time

What if the pager at the end of IW wasn’t to make a call to Captain Marvel somewhere in space, but somewhere in time? My theory is that Captain Marvel is capable of time travel via the quantum realm, and somehow knows about the coming snap, but doesn’t know when it occurs. She doesn’t want to travel through time frequently looking for it because it would damage the universe (per Dr. Strange). So she gave Fury the pager to turn on after the snap to mark that specific point in time. If the quantum realm allows time travel through time vortexes, maybe it’s not a controllable method. Vortexes might exist as one way roads to only one specific point in time and space? The pager could either alert Captain Marvel in the Quantum Realm to the correct vortex, or even create a new one tied to that point in time.

Carol Was Actually Tricked By Talos

Let’s think about the perspective of the skrulls in this movie. Firstly, they had a spaceship in earths orbit already when they captured Captain Marvel. Not a really important point, but think about this. They could’ve JUST gotten to earth at that very moment after extracting some information from Carol’s brain, but what if they already knew of earth? What if the skrulls were already and STILL are on earth hiding among the people? That’s silly though, because we seen Captain Marvel escort a bunch away at the end of the movie! Well we only seen the ones that revealed themselves.

Here’s the thing, if you’re a skrull, and you’ve been secretly hiding among humans on earth, and lets say you captured what you THINK is a Kree soldier who isn’t any more powerful than any other Kree soldier you fought, only to then discover this Kree soldier can shoot energy blasts out of her fist and is ridiculously strong! And now she’s let loose on earth with the sole purpose of hunting me and my people down relentlessly! And we want to maintain our operation of secretly hiding among earthlings! What’s one way to get rid of this absolute monster we all know as Captain Marvel without having to reveal ourselves to the whole world essentially? Deception.

Even Mar-vell said she wanted to “end the war” MEANING there IS a war. War isn’t just “one guy massacring innocent people”(usually).

Doctor Strange Sent Carol To The Quantum Realm To Be Safe From The Snap

One of the theory about the whereabouts of Captain Marvel in MCU events during Infinity War and all other events is that Dr. Strange sends her to Quantum Realm so she is safe from snap. This came to my mind after rewatching the movie couple of times and learning that people can communicate with real world from Quantum Realm. Strange gets back to the past and tell her to stay in Quantum Realm after learning that this is the only one case where they can win. He saw what would happen to people in the future after the snap so he kinda ensured that the future will be saved. That kinda explains the way how Nick Fury communicated to her (possibly Strange has something with it), communication with Quantum Realm is possible as we learned in Ant-Man and The Wasp.

Captain Marvel Has Been Traveling Through The Quantum Realm

This is my theory of why Captain Marvel has been absent in the MCU since the ’90s. Basically, at the end of her movie the Earth would have evaded intergalactic war with the Skrulls, and Nick Fury would have seen the power they posses firsthand. Now, turns out the Skrulls have indeed infiltrated multiple levels of Earth’s infrastructure and the world’s most powerful governments. Not just Earth but many other planets. This prompts Captain Marvel to begin time traveling through the Quantum Realm to begin eliminating the impostors.

This is why Marvel is still in the past, and yet Nick Fury at the end of Infinity War can communicate with her. Clearly if she was an inactive hero or lost in space he wouldn’t have a pager on him at all times.

Furthermore, that is also why he has waited to call all these years as opposed to calling her when Loki invaded Earth or during Ultron; he thought that the Snappening in Infinity War was Skrull related. He made that pager to call her if the Skrulls were invading again because by the end of her movie he knows she has a universe to protect, not just an Earth.

Nebula Is Actually Talos’ Daughter And She Hates Carol

Basically, Talos’ daughter is Nebula, and therefore, she is a Skrull. If I’m correct, we will likely see her origin story in Endgame, since she is a big character in the Infinity Gauntlet saga and the movies haven’t portrayed her as a main character yet. In Captain Marvel, Ronan says that they will ‘return to get the woman’, referring to Carol Danvers. Since Ronan never went back to Earth, it could be that he followed the Skrulls looking for Carol, and a Skrull (Talos’ daughter/Nebula) could have shapeshifted to protect her, being kidnapped in her place. If there was a massacre, this could give further reason for Nebula to hate Thanos.

Once kidnapped, she would turn out to be a disappointment to Thanos, as she lacks Carol’s powers, so Thanos would have her body replaced with cybernetic parts, and train her but always trailing Gamora. The similarity of their origin story would deepen the perception of her being Gamora’s shadow. Nebula has major resentment towards Carol Danvers.

In the movie, Talos’ daughter is given prominence, including in the last scenes when she is shown playing with Monica. When the Skrulls come out of hiding in Mar-Vell’s lab, she has a more notable first appearance than the rest, and various close-ups. I believe this has more purpose than just making the audience sympathize with Talos by portraying his family but to foreshadow the daughter’s significance, or a Skrull tragedy. While it has been said that Nebula is a Luphomoid, a blue-skinned race, her origin and lineage are always under doubt. Furthermore, in the comics Thanos scorched her to nearly death, and her appearance has changed over time, and the MCU version’s face looks more cybernetic so her whole body could be artificial.

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Buffy Mote

Buffy Mote is a die-hard Marvel enthusiast with an encyclopedic knowledge of the Marvel Universe. Having spent years engrossed in comic books, movies, and television series, Buffy has developed a keen eye for details and a passion for storytelling that has made her a beloved figure among Marvel fans. With a background in journalism and creative writing, Buffy's insights and engaging style have attracted a dedicated readership eager to delve deeper into the complex world of superheroes and villains.

Outside of her writing for marvelnerds.com, Buffy is an active participant in comic book conventions, often hosting panels and sharing her analyses of character development and plot intricacies. Her love for Marvel isn't just confined to the printed page or screen, as she's known to collect rare memorabilia, participate in cosplay, and even run a Marvel-themed podcast. Whether you're a casual fan or a fellow Marvel nerd, Buffy Mote's contributions are sure to enrich your appreciation for the expansive and thrilling Marvel Universe.

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