At the end of Avengers: Infinity War, we watched in shock as Thanos wiped out half the population simply by snapping his fingers. After heroes like Bucky and Black Panther turned to dust before our very eyes, we also had to watch Spider-Man die in Tony Stark’s arms, resulting in the film’s most heartbreaking moment. But it didn’t stop there.
During the much discussed post-credits scene, Maria Hill and Nick Fury also felt the effects of Thanos’ snap, as the two S.H.I.E.L.D. agents disappeared along with the aforementioned characters. Before they vanished, however, Fury pulled out an old school paging device of some sort and sent out a message for help, which went to none other than Captain Marvel.
It was a nice tease of what’s to come, but it did beg the question: where’s Carol been this whole time and why is Nick only calling on her for help now? I mean, if Fury had this dinky little pager to contact her with all along, why’s he never done so before in any previous world-threatening crisis? It’s been something that Marvel lovers have been contemplating since April, but we’ve now got a pretty interesting theory that might explain it.
Found over on Reddit, here’s how it reads:
This is my theory of why Captain Marvel has been absent in the MCU since the 90’s. Possible spoilers for her movie and Avengers 4 coming up.
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; 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.
Side Note: Kevin Feige has said that Captain Marvel features the Quantum Realm heavily, as Ant-Man and the Wasp did. Plus [spoilers for Ant-Man and the Wasp] that explains how both Ant-Man and Captain Marvel make it to the Avengers in Avengers 4. I addressed that in some other posts as well.
All things considered, this is certainly a reasonable theory. After all, Infinity War blew the whole MCU wide open and given that Marvel’s keeping a pretty tight hold on Avengers 4 at the moment, anything’s possible right now. Not to mention that we know the Skrulls are about the enter the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and you can bet they’ll be making their mark in a big way.
In fact, some people even believe heroes like Thor and Hulk are Skrulls. But let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves. For now, what this Reddit user has put forth is certainly a plausible explanation for Carol Danvers’ whereabouts all these years and with any luck, we’ll get some concrete answers when Captain Marvel arrives in theaters on March 8th, 2019.
