What if no one knew the greatest superhero in the galaxy ever existed? That looks to be the premise of the Captain Marvel movie. More importantly, this little tidbit might explain how the Infinity War starts. At San Diego Comic Con 2017, Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige explained that the Brie Larson-headlining movie would be set in the 90s.



In the comics, Carol Danvers gets a portion of the power from Kree hero turned Avenger Captain Marvel. After a slew of various identities including Ms. Marvel, Binary and Warbird, Carol is Captain Marvel.

Feige has said Captain Marvel will be the most powerful hero in the MCU. Initially, I thought it was a pandering move to cater to the ‘recently-discovered’ female audience who likes comic books and comic book movies. But the more I thought about it, it makes sense.

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From the few details we’ve learned about the movie, Captain Marvel will be battling the shape changing Skrulls, who’ve been locked in an endless war with the Kree. But what if one side gained the ultimate advantage to end the war once and for all?

What if the Skrulls or the Kree found the Infinity Gauntlet and Captain Marvel saw its power unleashed to eliminate an entire race? Failing to destroy it, the next best thing would be to take the various Infinity Stones far away from each other in hopes of preventing them from ever being used again. Especially once Thanos attempted to gain control of it.

Could Captain Marvel have taken The Tesseract (Space Stone), The Aether (Reality Stone), The Orb (Power Stone), The Mind Stone, The Time Stone and yet to be revealed Soul Stone and placed them in various places and times? As a cosmically powered hero, Captain Marvel could travel to space and time isn’t a real barrier either.

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As we saw in Doctor Strange, the Time Stone allows its user to manipulate time. Maybe then it’s no coincidence that Captain Marvel gave possession of this incredibly important Infinity Stone to the Sorcerer Supreme.

We may have been given another clue with Captain America: The First Avenger. It can’t be a coincidence that the Tesseract was placed in the same time period, the heart of World War II, as Steve Rogers was becoming Captain America, right? Carol likely grew up idolizing Captain America and sending a stone where her hero could stop it seems like a shrewd strategy. The Tesseract allows its user to cross galaxies. The technology wasn’t available then to use it and few would have even thought to use it for its true purpose unlike Loki with the Chitauri.

The Aether can bend reality and ignore the normal laws of physics. Carol could have placed it in a temporal state so it could not fully be unleashed until the convergence, which we saw in Thor: The Dark World. Keep in mind, the Aether was placed in a portal that Jane Foster stumbled upon. That sounds a lot like a perfect use for the Tesseract.

Carol might have chosen to place The Orb right under Thanos’ eye. Remember, Ronan could only use it to enhance his strength. It didn’t allow for transportation, reality distortion or mind control. For Thanos, this wouldn’t become a priority until the other stones were tracked down.

But what about the Mind Stone? Remember, Thanos had this in his possession. His lackey, The Other, gave that to Loki for his invasion of Earth and to secure the Tesseract. This was the most important stone for Captain Marvel as she had to do something Thanos would never expect — she’d use it on herself to forget the location of the stones. Even if Thanos used it against her, she couldn’t give up the stones’ location.

That might also explain why no one’s heard of Captain Marvel. Annoyed that he has to ‘do it himself,’ Thanos used the Mind Stone to make Carol forget she’s Captain Marvel. This would allow the Captain Marvel movie to be an origin movie for both Carol and viewers as she’s learning she was the greatest hero no one’s ever heard of. And her return could turn the tide to help the Avengers and Guardians defeat Thanos once and for all.

Nick Fury has been preparing for this galactic war for some time now. He reached out to Tony Stark for the Avengers Initiative not to deal with Ultron, Loki, The Mandarin or Hydra, but for the return of Thanos the outer space villain that took Earth’s greatest hero away decades ago. With that context, Fury’s first encounter with Stark has a whole new meaning.

So that’s my theory of how Marvel Studios puts Captain Marvel into such a prominent position in the MCU. What do you think?

We’ll find out when Captain Marvel arrives in theaters on May 2019. Avengers: Infinity War comes to theaters May 4, 2018.

Photo Credit: Marvel Studios