Captain Marvel won’t just introduce Brie Larson’s Carol Danvers into the MCU, but it’ll also explore the origins of Nick Fury. Set in the 1990s, we’ve been told that the prequel movie will feature Samuel L. Jackson’s character during his early days as a lowly S.H.I.E.L.D. desk jockey, complete with his left eye still in tact. So, we’re expecting it to explain how he started on the path towards becoming a super-spy and how he lost his eye.
The trouble with filling in Fury’s origins though is that we’ve already learned a fair bit about the S.H.I.E.L.D. director over the years, across all his various MCU appearances, so Captain Marvel will have to be careful to avoid punching through established continuity and causing numerous plot holes. Although, from what we know about the film so far, that could be what’s due to happen.
First of all, Fury tells Tony Stark in Iron Man 2 that he knew Howard Stark even better than his son did, in a bid to get Tony to step up. However, we know that Howard died in 1991 while CM‘s set in 1995. So, how would a low-level S.H.I.E.L.D. employee be on such close terms with one of its founders? Thankfully, this one can be explained away pretty simply: Fury was lying. After all, he lied about Coulson’s baseball cards in The Avengers in order to inspire the heroes into action.
There’s another potential issue as well, but it depends on whether an event happens in the film or not – Schrodinger’s Plot Hole, if you will. We’re all expecting Fury to lose his eye while battling the Skrulls. After all, that would be a cool way of referencing his line in Captain America: The Winter Soldier that he lost his eye the last time he trusted someone – Skrulls can shapeshift into anyone, remember, even trusted friends. However, a photo in that same movie depicts Fury getting sworn in as S.H.I.E.L.D. director sans eye patch. Obviously, that’s not going to happen in CM if he’s just an office guy.
Again, these could end up not being anything to worry about at all. Or, Marvel fans might be called on to work around another “Homecoming time jump” scenario. Either way, we’ll see when Captain Marvel hits theaters on March 8th.
