Who is the secret second ‘villain’ in ‘The Marvels?’

Warning: Spoilers for The Marvels to follow. 

There may have been a four-year gap between Captain Marvel and the follow-up film, The Marvels, but that doesn’t mean many important details don’t resurface. No matter how many lives she saves or how integral she is to defeating Thanos (Josh Brolin), Carol’s (Brie Larson) mistakes follow her wherever she goes.

Following the events of 2019’s Captain Marvel, Carol leaves Earth and promises her young niece, Monica, she will return. But she never does. Monica (Teyonah Parris) matures unto adulthood, struggling with her mother’s illness and getting Blipped away for five years along with half of humanity. Being abandoned by Carol sticks with her and when their powers get entangled in The Marvels, it brings all these feelings to the forefront.

Unfortunately for Carol, it isn’t the only conflict that she has to face. While she, Monica, and young Kamala Khan (Iman Vellani) figure out how to untangle their powers, they also come against a vengeful Kree, Dar-Benn (Zawe Ashton), who tries to bring her home planet back to its former glory after the “Annihilator” destroys it, stripping it off of its atmosphere, water bodies, and practically kills the sun.

Who is MCU’s Annihilator?

The Marvels doesn’t forget what happened in Captain Marvel, and neither do the Kree.

At the end of the first film, Carol vows to take down the leadership of Hala, the ones who were responsible for kidnapping her and stealing her memories as well as her life away from her. But when Carol flies to the Kree home planet and destroys the Supreme Intelligence, it results in unintended consequences. The destruction of the ruling AI causes an environmental catastrophe and a civil war. For the next 30 years, the sun on Hala continued to die, leaving the people in a drought-heavy, toxic environment. You know the saying, “The road to hell is paved with good intentions.” Carol’s attempt to free the Kree of their AI master earns her the title of the Annihilator. 

Carol willingly admits that the title is valid. Her actions meant that there would have been a time when children born on Hala would have never known a time when the air was pure and the sun was bright. While Carol may have been trying to do something for the greater good, it only made things worse. Though the Kree are colonists who enacted genocide against the Skrulls, not all the people are deserving of this treatment. Children and civilians shouldn’t live in a war-torn territory, an unfortunate allegory for current events.

If there is one thing to gain from The Marvels, it is that the cycle of violence never ends. Dar-Benn sees Carol destroy the Supreme Intelligence but doesn’t learn from it. Instead, she wages war against Carol and everything that she holds dear. She destroys the Skrull refuge and steals the water from Prince Yan’s (Park Seo-joon) planet, Aladna. The main takeaway from the film is that only an act of good faith can stop these hateful acts. When Carol kickstarts Hala’s sun back into gear, it is the first step to stopping an endless war.