Does Captain Marvel die at the end of ‘The Marvels’ and will Brie Larson return in future MCU movies?

Warning: This article contains spoilers for The Marvels.

As the Multiverse Saga keeps on expanding and more and more next-gen heroes are introduced into the mix, we can’t help but have one thought on our minds whenever a new MCU project comes along that stars one of the Infinity Saga’s old guard: will this be the one to kill them off?

We thought the same thing with Thor: Love and Thunder and Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, but in both of those cases Chris Hemsworth’s Odinson and Paul Rudd and Evangeline Lilly’s shrinking superheroes managed to live to fight another day. But with The Marvels coming to conclude this first year of Phase Five, has Brie Larson’s Captain Marvel been so lucky?

Read on, if you dare, to discover the facts on where The Marvels leaves Carol Danvers and what this could mean for Larson’s Marvel Studios future.

What happens to Captain Marvel at the end of The Marvels?

Rest easy, Larson lovers, Captain Marvel does not die at the end of The Marvels. In actual fact, the member of the titular trio who risks sacrificing her own life to save the universe is Monica Rambeau (Teyonah Parris). When Dar-Benn’s manipulation of the Jump Points via the Quantum Bands threatens reality, Monica gets Carol and Kamala Khan (Iman Vellani) to charge her up with their powers and then she siphons that energy off to close the tear in space/time, trapping herself on the other side.

Although we soon find out that Monica is A-OK, living it up in the X-Mansion with a variant of her mother Maria and Frasier Beast, Carol and Kamala are left to deal with the fear that their friend is dead. To honor both Monica and Maria, Carol ends up moving back to Earth, with the Khan family shown helping her move into the Rambeau house in Louisiana. Carol tells Kamala that she’s merely keeping Monica’s house, and the plane in her backyard, warmed up for her, with both of them holding on to the belief she’s safe and will return home soon.

Will Brie Larson return to the MCU?

Simply put, it certainly seems Marvel has plans for Brie Larson beyond The Marvels. In fact, having her based on Earth at last should make her much more accessible to the Avengers, which heavily suggests she’ll be a much bigger and more integral part of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes whenever they next assemble, which will presumably be in Avengers: The Kang Dynasty.

At the time of writing, however, neither Marvel nor Larson herself have officially confirmed that she has any other projects on her contract. In fact, the Oscar-winning actress got us worried when she seemed to be hedging her bets about a reappearance post-The Marvels when speaking at D23 in November 2022. Presumably, and hopefully, hindsight tells us this was just Larson playing coy in order to keep the sequel’s ending a secret.

On the other hand, it has to be pointed out that The Marvels had the lowest-grossing opening weekend of any MCU movie ever, which doesn’t exactly bode well for a Captain Marvel 3. Again, though, even if the worst comes to the worst and no future solo movies for Carol Danvers are made, she’s surely too key a character and too huge an asset to the Avengers’ team to be benched from hereon out.

The Multiverse Saga could stand to lose Jonathan Majors’ Kang, but winning Secret Wars would definitely be a lot tougher without Captain Marvel.