Marvel's most powerful superhero has finally arrived on the big screen, leaving absolutely
no doubt that Carol Danvers will go on to play a vital role in upcoming MCU storylines.
And like any action-packed Marvel fest, there were plenty of references onscreen that were
easy to miss amid all the photon blasts and space battles.
From characters with secret futures to sneaky wardrobe changes to Easter eggs, here are
all of the small details you missed in Captain Marvel.
Spoilers ahead!
"Oh, spoiler alert."
One of the film's biggest moments came when Carol Danvers finally discovered her true
colors, both figuratively and literally.
Upon deciding to ditch the Kree and help the Skrull refugees, Carol figures she needs a
new look to match her new mission.
Fortunately, the Kree suit-makers programmed a Sims wardrobe module into her handy dandy
wrist gadget, allowing her to switch up her suit's design right then and there.
She flashes through all the colors of the rainbow before settling on the iconic blue-red-and
yellow look that fans of the comics couldn't help but cheer for.
But right before her final colors, her suit rests for a moment on a mild green-and-white
color scheme that might be familiar to die-hard comics readers.
In Captain Marvel's first comics appearance as Mar-Vell in Marvel Super-Heroes #12, the
Kree hero wears a suit with the same colors.
Even if it was only on-screen for a few seconds, it was a clever nod to the superhero's origins
and more than a little fitting that it appeared as a precursor to her current suit design.
Sharp-eyed audience members might have noticed a strange discrepancy in the way the Kree
were portrayed.
Most of the Kree we see on-screen have blue skin: Minn-Erva, Att-Lass, Ronan, the list
goes on.
There are only a few exceptions to this that we see: Carol Danvers, who obviously is human
to begin with, and Yon-Rogg, a true-blue Kree in every sense but the color.
So what gives?
Was it a mistake by the filmmakers?
Did Jude Law just decide not to Fünke himself for production?
“I feel like a f------ idiot.”
As it turns out, that was deliberate.
Although it's never mentioned in the film, Captain Marvel #38 explains that when the
Kree race began their conquest of space, they mated with other species and created so-called
"pink-skin Kree," a variant of the species that looks, conveniently, like Caucasian humans.
Mar-Vell also had this trait, which is one of the reasons she was able to stay on Earth
as Dr. Lawson and work on her project for the Skrulls without drawing attention to herself.
You know, because people in the office tend to notice a blue person after the third or
fourth day.
As a film, Captain Marvel really starts gaining momentum when Carol Danvers crashes through
the roof of a Blockbuster on Earth.
It's a good moment for a laugh, especially if you happened to live through the mid '90s.
After photon blasting a cardboard cutout of Arnold Schwarzenegger in a True Lies promo
display, Carol wanders down the aisle, marveling at the bizarre store.
"Welcome to Blockbuster Video."
At one point, she picks up a VHS and examines it, then puts it back on the shelf.
If you were paying attention, you might have noticed that the video she looks at is The
Right Stuff, a 1983 film about seven pilots who train to become the first Americans in
space.
It's a fitting film for her to pick up, since the astronauts in The Right Stuff have an
arc that mirror's Carol Danvers' own path through the film.
First she discovers her past as an Air Force pilot, then flies into space herself in a
modified Air Force craft.
There was one thread woven throughout the plot of Captain Marvel that was never fully
explained, despite the impact it's had over the years.
That was Project PEGASUS, the joint Air Force and NASA project headed by Dr. Lawson.
As it turns out, PEGASUS isn't a new creation, even in the MCU.
Marvel Studios has been working with the idea since at least 2012.
Before The Avengers was released, Marvel put out a short prelude comic entitled Fury's
Big Week.
The comic connected elements from Captain America: The First Avenger, The Incredible
Hulk, and Iron Man in preparation for the big cinematic team-up, and it introduced Project
PEGASUS.
Just after that, the Project made its big-screen debut.
If you go back and watch The Avengers closely, you can see that the opening scene when Loki
steals the Tesseract goes down at the PEGASUS facility.
Of course, this isn't entirely the first appearance for Project PEGASUS.
It's actually been around in the comics for quite awhile.
Nominally a research center for powerful energy sources, the facility has also served as a
makeshift prison for supervillains over the years.
Notably, Project PEGASUS was once the workplace of Wendell Vaughn, who became the superhero
Quasar and later took the mantle of Protector of the Universe after Captain Marvel died.
Yeah, that's as important as it sounds.
In one scene toward the end of the film, young Nick Fury is contemplating the events of the
past few days and working out a new idea to find superheroes to protect the Earth.
He reasons that since they just had a run-in with a whole bunch of aliens, there have to
be more superpowered folk out there.
He initially has the name "The Protector Initiative" on his computer screen before he notices Carol
Danvers' Air Force call sign, Avenger, and changes it to the name we've all come to love
over the past decade or so.
"There was an idea - Stark knows this - called the Avengers Initiative."
It's the kind of thing that works as a callback to past films, and future events, but there's
actually a second layer to the scene.
There are actually several times that a version of Captain Marvel has also been designated
"Protector."
One of them is another Kree warrior, Noh-Varr, who spends some time with the name Captain
Marvel while working with the Dark Avengers.
Eventually, though, Noh-Varr leaves the team and is given a new name by the Supreme Intelligence:
Protector.
More importantly, in one of Mar-Vell's earlier story arcs, he's transported to the realm
of a being called Eon, who's a giant floating tree… eyeball thing.
This Eon is also incredibly powerful, and he leads Captain Marvel on a cosmic journey
that teaches him how to harness all power.
At the end of this transformation, Eon gives him a new title: Protector of the Universe.
After that, Mar-Vell uses his powers to help stop none other than Thanos from destroying
the universe.
Considering how close Avengers: Endgame is to the release of Captain Marvel, it makes
you wonder if the mention is a little more than just a throwaway joke.
We're all expecting to see Captain Marvel go head to head against the Mad Titan.
If there's one character who stole the show in Captain Marvel, it was definitely Goose,
the unassuming tabby who tagged along with Danvers and Fury in their adventures.
Who knew Fury was such a cat guy?
"Aren't you the cutest little thing."
Of course, there's a lot more to this cat than meets the eye.
For starters, the name is clearly a subtle nod to Top Gun, in which Anthony Edwards'
character, codenamed "Goose," is an Air Force pilot.
"HAHAHA.
Oh, you kill me.
You really do."
Aside from that, though, there's also the small detail of the purple people-eating tentacles
that sprout out of Goose's mouth, and the fact that Goose isn't even a cat at all: he's
a Flerken, an alien species that just happens to look like a cat.
Flerkens first appeared to Marvel comics readers in 2014 in the pages of Captain Marvel, when
it turned out that Danvers' cat, Chewie, was secretly one of the tentacle beasts in disguise.
After being attacked by Rocket Raccoon, who saw Chewie for the Flerken he was, Chewie
finally unleashed the beast and saved Rocket's life.
Aww, good Flerken.
Young actress Akira Akbar turned in a fine performance as Monica Rambeau, the 11-year-old
daughter of Carol's friend and fellow pilot Maria Rambeau.
Monica was there during some of the film's most hard-hitting moments, helping Carol Danvers
rediscover her past and giving the discovery that extra emotional edge.
She even helped Carol pick the right colors for her new suit.
But one particular line of dialogue carried more significance than it may have seemed
to.
Near the end of the movie, Monica asks if she'll eventually go into space, too.
That leads to the seemingly casual line: "Only if you learn to glow like your auntie."
But here's the thing, Monica does learn to glow like her auntie.
Her name has changed over the years, but fans may know her best as Photon, a hero with the
ability to harness electromagnetic forces.
In her current incarnation, Monica Rambeau goes by the name Spectrum, and there was even
a time when she flew under the Captain Marvel mantle.
In fact, when Monica's character debuted in a 1982 issue of The Amazing Spider-Man, she
was billed as the "all new, all-different, all-terrific Captain Marvel."
Another nod to Monica's comic-book counterpart can be seen on the side of Maria's fighter,
which has the stencil "Maria 'Photon' Rambeau."
Does this foreshadow big things in the future for little Monica?
Maybe, maybe not.
Either way, it's an exciting detail from the comics.
Played by Gemma Chan, Minn-Erva is one of the Starforce members who joins Danvers in
the battle on Torfa early in the film.
Minn-Erva has a fairly respectable comics presence, and she's been involved in some
seriously twisted plots.
She's as Kree as they come, fiercely loyal to her race and often willing to go to extreme
lengths for the betterment of the Kree civilization.
In one particularly heinous plan during the Civil War event, Minn-Erva tried to release
a biological weapon in California that would have turned people into mutated monsters.
Captain Marvel was able stop her, even though Minn-Erva turned into a giant mutation herself
during the fight.
In another instance, she was part of the Supreme Intelligence's plan to destroy 90% of the
Kree population to make the remaining 10% stronger than ever.
Yeah, that's not the kind of person you really want on your team.
Or even on your species, if we're being honest.
Like Minn-Erva, Att-Lass has had his share of comics page-time, although to a lesser
extent.
His biggest contribution to the film was getting mimicked by a Skrull, but there's more to
this blue-faced warrior than meets the eye.
In addition to his involvement in Operation: Galactic Storm, a massive crossover event
that put Earth in the middle of a war being fought by the Kree and Shi'ar, Att-Lass has
also shown up as the villainous Titanium Man.
In the Infinity: Heist miniseries, Att-Lass becomes Titanium Man to join a crew of villains
robbing Stark Tower.
There, he unmasks himself and reveals that the Kree were behind the heist the whole time,
causing the rest of the bad guys to turn against him, and he gets killed in the melee.
Ah, well… guess not everyone can be a criminal genius.
Back when Jude Law was announced to be part of the Captain Marvel cast, most of the internet
speculated he would play the role of Mar-Vell.
They were wrong, of course: his real role is that of Yon-Rogg.
It turns out that Marvel had good reason to keep Law's role a secret.
See, Yon-Rogg is a well-known enemy of Mar-Vell's, so fans might have seen the big twist in Captain
Marvel coming a mile away.
In the film, Carol Danvers eventually discovers that Yon-Rogg killed Mar-Vell at the crash
site of her experimental plane, then abducted Danvers and took her back to Hala when she
absorbed the power core he'd been after.
That pretty much characterizes the character in the comics.
One detail fans may not have caught about this whole reveal is that it mirrors a similar
moment in the comics… though with a much different outcome.
In 1969's Captain Marvel #18, Mar-Vell faces off against Yon-Rogg, who's kidnapped an Earth
woman named, that's right, Carol Danvers, and kept her prisoner near a powerful Kree
machine called the Psyche-Magnitron.
After Mar-Vell and Yon-Rogg fight, the Psyche-Magnitron explodes and seemingly kills Yon-Rogg while
simultaneously knocking some superpowers into Danvers.
In both the comics and cinematic universes, then, Yon-Rogg is directly responsible for
Danvers gaining her powers.
Maybe he's not such a bad guy after all.
Well, okay, maybe he is.
One member of the Starforce team is much more recognizable than the others.
Korath the Pursuer, played by Djimon Hounsou, is no stranger in the MCU.
He first appeared on-screen in the opening moments Guardians of The Galaxy, where you
may remember he tried to take the Power Stone from Star-Lord.
"Who?"
"Star-Lord… man.
Legendary outlaw...Guys?"
"Move!"
He showed up again on the Battle of Xandar and proved to be a formidable opponent...at
least until Drax ripped off part of his head.
With Captain Marvel, we get to see a younger Korath in his prime, still kicking butt and
still, well, alive and kicking in general.
Of all the Starforce members, Korath is certainly one of the most powerful.
In the comics, he's a geneticist, and took to modifying his own body with all kinds of
cybernetic sci-fi implants, giving him super-strength and speed.
Casual fans may not know that he's gone up against the likes of Captain America, Scarlet
Witch, and Adam Warlock.
Those are big foes, but to be fair, he usually does come out on the losing side.
Another no-doubt familiar face in Captain Marvel is that of Ronan the Accuser, who's
name-dropped early in the film before making his first big appearance during the climax.
You know, he's the blue guy with a big hammer.
Fun fact: That hammer is known as the Universal Weapon and grants him such abilities as "transmutation
of matter" and "interstellar transportation."
Why don't we ever see any of those abilities in the films?
Probably for the same reason Ronan's importance is downplayed in general.
Fortunately, Captain Marvel did offer a hint of his full power within the Kree empire by
positioning him at the head of a battleship that goes to Earth.
In the comics, he's one of the most well-known Kree warriors in a civilization that spans
multiple star systems.
Of course, if we're going to talk about comics characters whose roles were reduced by film,
we have to mention Mar-Vell.
In Captain Marvel, Annette Bening, famous for roles in films like American Beauty, portrayed
the Kree soldier who was moonlighting as Dr. Lawson on Earth.
She played an important role in the plot, but of course there's no mention that Mar-Vell
is, well, the original Captain Marvel.
With his standalone series, launched in 1968, Mar-Vell's version of Captain Marvel contained
all the elements of the Mar-Vell we saw on screen, just with superpowers.
He's a Kree warrior who comes to Earth and disguises himself as Dr. Lawson, then decides
to protect humanity instead of battling them.
In the film, it's the Skrulls Mar-Vell tries to protect, but it's the same idea.
Unfortunately, the hero wasn't very popular at the time, and Stan Lee came up with the
idea to deal with him in the least comic-book friendly way imaginable.
In the Death of Captain Marvel graphic novel, Captain Marvel gets cancer and dies.
And, at the end of it all, Thanos visits him and takes him on a hallucinogenic journey
to fight all his old foes again.
It's weird and strangely heartbreaking.
As Yon-Rogg likes to remind us all, the Supreme Intelligence appears to be something different
to everyone, something important from their lives.
That's good news for filmgoers, because for years we've just been seeing the Supreme Intelligence
as a fat, green head floating in a jar.
So let's talk about this Supreme Intelligence creature.
In the film, we got the idea that it was sort of a therapist for confused Kree and sometimes
a prison for people who betrayed the Kree.
The truth is, it is kind of those things in the comics.
Despite being the Kree leader, it never seems to have the best in mind for its people.
In Avengers #347, for example, the Supreme Intelligence detonated a nega-bomb and almost
completely wiped out the Kree.
Whoops!
Captain Marvel featured a major cameo that most likely delighted hardcore comics fans.
This one came in the train station, when Carol Danvers is wandering around, lost and still
wearing her Kree uniform.
While multiple people pass her by on the platform, one lady who walks past is none other than
writer Kelly Sue DeConnick.
DeConnick began writing Captain Marvel in 2012, leading to a version of the character
which heavily inspired the film incarnation.
If you missed her cameo in the film, you probably weren't alone, but it's definitely one of
those small details you need to keep an eye out for during any future rewatches.
Finally, it was a bittersweet moment to see Stan Lee in his final Marvel cameo after his
decades of contributions to the comic book industry.
Captain Marvel fittingly paid tribute in its opening moments, switching out the typical
Marvel Studios intro with one dedicated to the late, great Lee.
Carol Danvers herself gave the man a nod of respect during his cameo on the train.
That in itself was a fine detail, but the film went even deeper with the cameo.
Since Captain Marvel is set during the '90s, Lee appears as himself, reading the script
for Mallrats and trying to remember his lines.
For those who don't remember, 1995's Mallrats marked one of Stan Lee's first film cameos.
Of course, it's much more than a cameo, with Stan Lee giving Jason Lee's character a piece
of sage dating advice through the lens of comic books.
"Trust me true believer.
Well… good talking to you."
“Keep up the good work.”
"You keep reading them, I'll keep writing them."
It has some pretty amazing layers for a cameo and marks the perfect send-off, looping back
around full-circle to the very beginnings of Stan Lee's film appearances.
Rest in peace, true believer.
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