By the end of this year, the Marvel Cinematic Universe will be twenty-three films strong, and in a franchise this elaborately interconnected, it’s inevitable that there’d be a few minor inconsistencies, one of which is believed to have been found in the latest trailer for Captain Marvel.
As you may well know, Carol Danvers’ solo debut will be taking us back to the ‘90s, with the story unfolding well over a decade before the events of the franchise-founding Iron Man. For her first MCU outing, Carol will be crossing paths with Nick Fury and Phil Coulson, both of whom are already working as part of the organization known as “S.H.I.E.L.D.” In fact, Fury even calls the agency by that exact name in his final scene of the trailer.
So, what’s the problem? Well, cast your mind back to the first Iron Man movie, and you may recall that Coulson repeatedly refers to the organization as the “Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division.” It’s practically a running joke how Clark Gregg’s character has to say this convoluted name every time he’s explaining who he works for. Tony Stark even tells Phil that the agency needs a new name, and when Pepper Potts makes a similar comment, he assures her, “We’re working on it.”
It’s only near the end of the movie when Coulson tells Pepper, “Just call us ‘S.H.I.E.L.D.,’” signalling the birth of an acronym (like Dr Mrs P. Vandertramp), yet according to the new trailer, employees at S.H.I.E.L.D. were referring to the agency by its shortened name several years prior.
Of course, it’s hardly the most significant of errors, and if it saves us the hassle of sitting through an entire movie of characters referring to the agency as the “Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division.,” then perhaps it’s worth the minor lapse in consistency. Regardless, you can witness the early years of Coulson and Fury when Captain Marvel hits theaters on March 8th, 2019.
