Captain Marvel has been an amazing addition to the MCU. Not only is she one of the franchise’s most powerful heroes, but as the first female superhero lead, she means a lot to fans. The only thing is, though, the decision to portray her as being around since the 1990s was a bit of a major retcon to established continuity. OK, so she was off Earth all this time, that’s why she never helped out with previous Avengers movies. But why, then, did she never bump into the Guardians of the Galaxy in space?
That’s what a fan asked GotG writer/director James Gunn while he was hosting an Instagram Q&A yesterday. The filmmaker had a brief answer that kind of made a lot of sense, too, saying: “There are sextillions of sentient beings in the universe,” Gunn pointed out. “It would be unlikely they had met.”
Fair enough, Mr. Gunn, you have us there. That said, this explanation doesn’t necessarily clear up everything. If you’ll recall, the first Guardians movie features Ronan the Accuser attacking Xandar and Star-Lord and his friends are painted as the only heroes around to stop him. Why wasn’t Carol Danvers getting involved, though, when her own history with Ronan goes way back? Her mission at the end of CM is to go off into space and fight the evil Kree. But apparently, she happened to overlook this particular evil Kree on that occasion.
Still, these things can’t be helped. When the universe keeps being expanded in new, exciting ways, there’s always going to be some inconsistencies now and again. In many ways, the fun part for fans is in trying to make it all add up. In this case, there’s a simple reason Carol might not have been around for Guardians of the Galaxy: she must’ve been busy saving another planet. Like Gunn says, there are sextillion other lifeforms out there in need of saving.
Both Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 and Captain Marvel 2 are on their way, though neither has been assigned a release date as yet. Watch this space for more, though.
