There are many reasons to be excited for The Marvels, don’t get me wrong, but there are also a bunch to be worried about it, too. Without even getting into talk of its teeny-tiny runtime or rumors its whole USP has been reduced, there’s also the fact that it’s hardly the most easily accessible Marvel movie there’s ever been, at a time when the MCU needs to re-affirm its hold over a larger audience. The truth is that the Brie Larson film is a sequel to five different projects, which is kind of a lot. And even Marvel knows it.
At least, that’s definitely how it seems after the studio just dropped a new trailer titled “Journey to The Marvels,” which feels like a glorified episode of clip show Marvel Studios: Legends, with some fresh footage peppered in. In just two minutes, the featurette has the unenviable job of attempting to shrink down all the relevant information from one movie and two TV show that you need to know before watching Carol Danvers (Larson), Monica Rambeau (Teyonah Parris), and Kamala Khan (Iman Vellani) come together this November.
While Captain Marvel, WandaVision, and Ms. Marvel are duly represented, unfortunately there isn’t room in this featurette to reference the other two projects The Marvels is following on from: namely, Avengers: Endgame and Secret Invasion. Although, given that the latter series has been so thoroughly critically trashed, maybe its excision from this trailer is deliberate. Plus, reminding us of the high points of the Infinity Saga might not be the best course of action as we push through the more middling Multiverse Saga.
To be fair, to those of us who religiously watch every single Marvel Studios release, the fact that The Marvels pulls together the strings of a handful of different films and series is a big (Disney) plus. Even so, this featurette does serve as an unintended reminder that you need, say, a coffee-table-busting compendium of a book to keep track of the MCU timeline these days.
