They said higher, further, faster and they meant it.

We absolutely loved The Marvels, which I think shocked us just as much as anyone. For those who have been fans for a while, you know that Taylor and I weren’t exactly the biggest Captain Marvel fans, not really connecting with the character, and the movie fell pretty flat for us. We were pretty nervous going into the movie, even though we were excited about the team-up. Quite frankly, we think Marvel hit it out of the park. There was character growth in all of them, especially Captain Marvel, the plot was solid and an interesting villain told their story beautifully. Then of course, Marvel slapped us in the face the last two minutes and if that wasn’t enough for them, they slapped us again with the end credit scene. To hear our completely raw reactions, post-movie, listen to our reactions episode by clicking the button to find your platform of choice or listen live in the blog post.

Carol, Kamala and Monica – The Marvels

I think I speak for everyone when I say we were all looking forward to seeing how this team-up was going to go. Some, like us, had low expectations for a Captain Marvel sequel, so a team-up seemed like the best-case scenario. Others felt the team-up was weird for a character like Carol Danvers, and still others just in general didn’t get the point of a team-up. Either way, I’m here to say it worked. Each member of the team brought something different and unique and let me say, Kamala single-handedly stole the show. It was a unique route and it paid off, connecting these similar heroes to take down a threat that in some way tied to each of them, way before the threat became about taking the sun away from Earth.

For Carol, we finally saw a real person, not some super-powered individual who pushes everyone out and does everything independently. Her character actually fought some real inner battles, and we saw how her actions not only haunted her but affected her relationship with Monica. May I also just say, that I loved that they made sure Monica’s little line about Captain Marvel in WandaVision paid off in this movie, answering the question as to why Monica seemed angry with Carol. But we saw a depth that I don’t think we’ve ever had a chance to see with Carol, which actually made me enjoy her character for the first time ever.

As for Kamala, as I said before, she stole the show. She was clearly the comedic relief of the team, the young hero who knew just about nothing and was fangirling over everything. Yet she also shared amazing growth in the sense that she stopped seeing everything as rainbows and butterflies, even when it came to her hero. She learned that being a hero does mean sacrifice, and not just in maybe dying to save others but making the hard choices that don’t always mean everyone can be saved. I’ll be interested to see how Kamala marries her new lessons to her next team-up.

Lastly, Monica, who we talked about slightly above, actually to me was the one who had the least compelling story told, but still worked as a character. When you have three protagonists in a movie there is always one that suffers a little, whether in writing, development, or storyline. I think Monica mainly suffered in development, as I don’t think her character evolved much beyond learning her powers more and repairing her relationship with Carol. Yet I also think that was okay and it still worked for the movie as a whole. We see her sacrifice herself at the end, making the hero’s call to stay in a different universe to save her own, and that for me was enough to love her more than I already did. All in all, the three had great storylines separately and together were honestly just hilarious and very natural.

Dar-Benn, a New Age of Villian

Villians are just as important as the heroes in any superhero film, and I have to say, we had a very compelling villain in this movie. Things that make a good villain include their connection to the protagonist, as you don’t want some one-off villain like in Iron Man 2. Dar-Benn had a solid relationship with Captain Marvel, having been one of the people who witnessed Carol break in and destroy the Supreme Intelligence. Yet beyond that, Hala fell into complete disarray, a planet that was close to failing because of it. It made Dar-Benn a villain that we understood, as she was just trying to save her people and planet after it was pretty much destroyed by Carol, even if it was unintentional.

On the other hand, what keeps Dar-Benn away from being on the level of a Killmonger or Gorr the God Butcher is the fact that you still feel her villainy. She didn’t care who she stepped on in order to save her own people and allowed her vengeance against Captain Marvel to overtake her. It took away the full sympathy you felt for her in her quest to save her planet. However, it didn’t for a second take away from how enticing she was, making you so angry whenever she was on screen but you just got it. You understood her all at the same time and the personal connection just solidified that. We weren’t really sure what we were going to get with Dar-Benn and I don’t think for a second I would have ever predicted her story, yet, it really worked in my opinion, even if there were moments it felt a little rushed.

Quantum Bands Confirmed

A long, long time ago, when we covered Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, we had a conversation talking about Quantum/Nega Bands. During that conversation, we focused specifically on Shang-Chi’s rings and Kamala’s bangle as two of our powerful pieces of jewelry that could be one of the bands. Now, almost 9 months later, we have gotten confirmation that at least Kamala’s bangle and its’ twin are in fact Quantum Bands. Since we discussed this before in the comic origin sense, I am going to focus primarily on what The Marvels taught us. We didn’t get a ton of information, but we were told by Carol that the Quantum Bands have the ability to control time and space. Together, the bands are insanely powerful, as we saw them rip apart Dar-Benn when she tried to use them both.

Later, Kamala wields them beautifully, as her mutated gene likely allows her to handle the power that the bands create, hence why the first one activated her gene, to begin with. But by the end of the movie, the bands are separated again to show us that they’re too powerful together, especially if they fall into the wrong hands. Knowing that we are moving towards Secret Wars, these bands are going to be pretty important to keep an eye on due to what they can do. On top of that, with the knowledge that Kamala can wield both, her importance to the rest of this saga might have just skyrocketed. As for Shang-Chi’s rings, the jury is still unfortunately out on their relationship here. Remember that Carol has seen the rings and didn’t identify them, unlike how she identified the bangles. If the rings have a connection, it seems to still be unknown even to one of our most cosmic knowledgeable heroes.

The Next Generation is Coming

Let’s talk about the end of this freaking movie. It’s always a struggle when a movie is great and then has such an amazing ending and end credit because it causes the whole movie to be overshadowed by the end. A great example was Venom 2, although to be fair, that was not a very good movie to begin with. It would still be a disservice to ignore how huge the ending of this movie was. The Young Avengers are on their way and this time guys, we aren’t throwing that out as a theory, it’s actually true. We have been talking about the Young Avengers I think since we met Tommy and Billy in WandaVision, before this podcast even existed. We’ve done several shows and blogs on it, plus it’s snuck into a lot of other episodes as well.

So here we are. Kamala has recruited Kate Bishop, my girl, to join the new team she seems to be putting together and mentioned another member she’s looking into, Cassie Lang. The Young Avengers officially have two members, and it makes me excited that Kamala has joined this team, let alone her being what might be the de facto leader. She’s the one recruiting people, has now teamed up with Captain Marvel, and has met Nick Fury, the OG team creator. The odds are looking great for her to be one of the leaders of the group. The only question we still have to ask is, past Cassie, who else are they going to recruit? Many of the Young Avengers members that we’ve discussed before aren’t actually in our universe at the moment. However, Patriot also known as Elijah Bradley and America Chavez are both in universe. You also have characters in that same age group like Shuri, Riri Williams, and Skaar that are in universe and could all become members of this Young Avengers team in the future.

Monica’s Parallel Journey

The ending of the movie was crazy, as we lost Monica to another universe to close the rift between ours and the other one. Personally, I knew it wouldn’t be the end, as we now have the Multiverse open and available to tell all these storylines. I think what I didn’t expect was that we would actually get to see where she ended up at the end as part of the only end-credit scene to The Marvels. Yet, as great as it was to confirm that Monica was okay and actually safe, it was all overshadowed by the crazy reveals we got. Let’s go through them one by one as each was more shocking than the last.

First, Monica’s mom, Maria, was the one sitting next to Monica in her hospital bed. We know from MoM that her mom has taken on the mantle of Captain Marvel before, playing out the what-if scenario based on if Maria had been flying the jet and not Carol. The funny part here was, in The Marvels, we actually do see Carol telling Maria that it should have been her. So here she is, now in another universe, where Maria is what looks to be this universe’s Captain Marvel once again. The big difference is she isn’t wearing the Kree-made suit that both Carol and Maria’s variant in 838 wear, but instead a totally different suit. Obvioulsy, we learn why that is very quickly.

I’m going to marry the next two points since they pretty much go hand in hand with one another. We have gotten our first official X-Men in the MCU, Beast, who is taking care of Monica and trying to figure out how exactly she got to this universe. Interestingly enough, they are going the CGI, Professor Hulk look for Beast, which is a change up for anyone who has seen the original X-Men. But if you weren’t 100% sure if you were tripping out or something, the very end showed as the iconic ‘X’ doors that we’ve seen in the OG movies. We all knew the X-Men were coming, but I have to say I was grossly unprepared to see them appear in this film. Yet, it’s also important to note that this doesn’t appear to be the X-Men from those earlier movies, meaning we are getting a soft relaunch of the X-Men for the MCU. Again, this observation comes from a different Beast and having Maria even being there. Regardless, we welcome the X-Men with open arms to the MCU.

Conclusion

The Marvels was genuinely a fun and entertaining movie that rounds out the MCU slate for 2023 beautifully. It also helps that they set up some huge new storyline to come, exciting Marvel fans from every corner of the fandom. Marvel just continues to make sure we all stick around for the next big story to tell. As for the our coverage, stick around for additional podcast episodes deep diving specific topics relating to The Marvels. We loved it and can’t wait to keep talking about it and we hope you did too, as Marvel just blew your mind, so let’s talk about it.

Image: “The Marvels”, Nancy Tartaglione, Deadline