Let the speculation begin!
What you’re about to read doesn’t fully count as spoilers, because the majority of it is guesswork.
Yes, some of the guess-work is based off the back of having seen Captain Marvel, so we’re going to assume you either watched the latest addition to the Marvel Cinematic Universe over the opening weekend, or are simply saving this article to read at a later date once you do see it.
In case you’re wondering, we do think you should go see Captain Marvel, as it is good (but far from great, check out our full review here), but one of the highlights is definitely Ben Mendelsohn.
When we’re first introduced to him, he is playing Keller, leader of an alien race known as the Skrulls, who have been at constant war with the Kree, a warrior alien race that Vers (aka Captain Marvel) is a high-ranking member of.
In the opening scenes of the movie, we see that the Skrulls are capable of shape-shifting and taking on the physical appearance, right down to identical DNA if needed, of anyone they lay eyes on. So a kind of alien version of the T-1000 from Terminator 2.
Later on, when Captain Marvel narrowly escapes a shoot-out and crash-lands on Earth, the Skrulls (including Keller) give chase, and adopt the appearances of some random humans so they can continue hunting their quarry unnoticed.
And so we arrive at the potential importance of Keller and the rest of his race.
While we have met the Kree before in the first Guardians Of The Galaxy movie – Ronan The Accuser (Lee Pace) and Korath The Pursuer (Djimon Hounsou) being the two most notable – this is our first proper cinematic introduction to the Skrulls, and their war that has populated some of the biggest multi-issue arcs in the Marvel comic books.
The introduction of Captain Marvel, the hopefully eventual continuation of the Guardians Of The Galaxy, and the multi-verse adventures of Infinity War and (presumably) Endgame would indicate that the MCU will continue to expand further and further into the galactical stories available to them from the original comics.
Speaking of which, one of the biggest stories from those comics was something called ‘The Secret Invasion’, in which the Avengers discovered that some of their own members had been secretly replaced by some shape-shifting Skrulls, placing themselves to bring down the group from the inside.
This could be something that has already happened to The Avengers – remember, Captain Marvel takes place in 1995, a full 13 years before Tony Stark became Iron Man in that cave – so there is a chance that Hawkeye, or Black Widow, or Nick Fury himself has been an alien this whole time!
Like we said at the top, let the speculation begin…
Captain Marvel is in cinemas right now. Avengers: Endgame is released on Friday 26 April.
Clips via Marvel Entertainment
LISTEN: You Must Be Jokin’ with Aideen McQueen – Faith healers, Coolock craic and Gigging as Gaeilge
