There’s been an avalanche of half-baked criticisms of Captain Marvel becoming part of the MCU and if you pick away at most of them, they nearly all boil down to “ewwwww girls.” But one with slightly more validity is that if Carol Danvers really is going to be this powerful, doesn’t it lessen every threat if you know that she could solve it easily?
Thus far, the MCU has neatly sidestepped the “Superman problem” that the various DC universes have (why bother calling any other superhero when Supes is almost always the best man for the job?). But with the cosmically powerful Captain Marvel in town, that balance might be broken.
That’s probably why Marvel Studios head honcho Kevin Feige has explained that while she might have been all-powerful in her solo movie (and she’s presumably going to pack a serious punch in Avengers: Endgame), they’ll still find limitations for her. In an interview with /Film, he said:
“Well, the point of [Captain Marvel] was to see her exactly as you said, unleashed, unchained. What happens when she taps into her full potential not being held back? So it was not the time to hold back. It was not the time to emphasize limitations or loss. We’d seen that over the course of the rest of the movie. We wanted to see her cut loose. In future stories, well, none of the Marvel characters are immortal. Even ones that seem immortal, some people might be very hard to kill, but nobody’s unkillable. So if we’re lucky enough to see future adventures with Captain Marvel, of course there will be limitations and there will be Achilles heels and there will be things that we learn and see that it’s not as easy as a slicing through whatever she wants to at any point. But this wasn’t the time to accentuate that.”
This is something comic book writers have had to tackle over the course of her history in the Marvel Universe. A common weakness is that while Captain Marvel might have immense powers, she’s essentially still the human being Carol Danvers, and as such, she can be mind-controlled, brainwashed or psychologically manipulated.
More prosaically, just as she was given powers, they can also be taken away. This most famously happened in the comics when the mutant Rogue absorbed Ms. Marvel’s Kree powers. In addition (much like Superman), she has no defense against magical attacks, so if she did go haywire, Doctor Strange might be a good bet to rein her in.
Whatever happens with Captain Marvel in the role going forward, the character seems to be a huge hit with audiences. Her appearance in the recent Avengers: Endgame trailer was one of the most popular bits, and I for one am hungry to find out what part she’s going to play in the final battle against Thanos on April 26th.
