Update from the Editor-in-Chief (3/3/19):

Original Story:

(AP Marvel is looking for diverse voices from underrepresented and marginalized communities to provide written content such as the following essay; please consider supporting our Patreon so we can pay writers!)

I’m still worried about Captain Marvel. Yup. You heard me.

“But Izzy,” you say. “All those social media reactions and reviews for Captain Marvel have been nothing but positive, and glowing, and they’re saying that this movie is gonna reinvent the MCU! And that it’ll pretty much be like Black Panther for women! YOU’RE a woman!!! Isn’t that all good for you?”

But this is what always happens. I freak out if I think a Marvel movie won’t be good, and then my expectations are still blown away by it. Even if it takes me a while, like how I watched Spider-Man: Homecoming twice to really enjoy it, I have come to adore every movie of Phase 3 thus far. At this point, these worries feel like a predictable ride, one that I’m a bit tired from and almost a bit doubtful of—is this some kind of Marvel marketing mentality that I’m trapped in, and do others feel this way?

My worries don’t stem just from this mentality, however.

Patty Jenkins’ Wonder Woman is probably one of the DCEU’s biggest accomplishments over Marvel Studios, having both the first female director for a superhero movie and having a female-led superhero movie in their franchise two years before their rival. And leading up to Wonder Woman, the movie had its time to shine. It had a hot spotlight on it for many reasons, and Warner Bros. made sure Wonder Woman’s hard work and achievements got the attention it deserved.

By a longshot, Captain Marvel is not receiving that same treatment from Marvel Studios. Shoehorned into a poignant release date, International Women’s Day (March 8), nearly all of Captain Marvel’s publicity efforts are being overshadowed by the fact that the sequel to Avengers: Infinity War will be a mere month and a half away when Captain Marvel soars into theaters. This date came after two date shifts too — the first after Marvel and Sony’s Spider-Man deal (pushing the movie from July 6, 2018 to November 2018) and the second after Ant-Man & The Wasp came to occupy Captain Marvel’s original spot (pushing Captain Marvel now from November 2018 to next Friday). The movie’s memorable and heavily-related release date, similar to Black Panther’s release during Black History Month, should not make me feel better about missing out on this movie for over a year. In fact, at times it makes me feel worse; it shows that they don’t care about this movie enough to defend it on more solid ground, trying to cash in on the fact that “Yeah, she’s a woman, she’ll love this movie.”