Since 2019’s Captain Marvel, Marvel’s first female-driven feature film, in which Brie Larson’s Carol Danvers led an investigation into what was really behind the conflict between the arrogant Kree and the shapeshifting Skrulls, we haven’t seen Danvers in her own picture. Although the Skrulls don’t appear to be saints in the next Secret Invasion series, Captain Marvel was able to defeat the Kree and save the day. Now, many years later, Captain Marvel lives in the present day with two other people who have developed similar superpowers.
The first is Wandavision’s Monica Rambeau, who gained her ability to manipulate light when she attempted to break Wanda’s spell at Westview. Kamala Khan, however, has only recently debuted in the MCU with her own solo series, Ms Marvel, which premiered earlier this year. Studio head Kevin Feige, along with stars Brie Larson, Teyonah Parris, and Iman Vellani, closed the D23 Marvel panel with the first ever trailer, exclusively shown to those in attendance.
This confirmed what fans have suspected for some time: that these three heroes would be meeting in the sequel to Captain Marvel. The preview opens with Rambeau on a spacewalk, and an unexpected cameo from Nick Fury supervising her research into a weird fissure in space, similar to the one that bestowed her abilities. When he touches it, Rambeau is suddenly switched places with Kamala Khan, and neither of them has the slightest idea what’s going on.
The extended version of the Ms Marvel post-credits sequence follows, in which Kamala randomly switches places with Carol Danvers. Eventually, Monica visits Kamala at her house, and when Kamala tries to utilise her abilities, she switches places with Carol, setting up an intriguing situation in which the characters could be restricted in their use of power if it’s causing them to randomly shift places in time and space. After a painful reunion between Carol and Monica, a girl she essentially raised together with Monica’s mother, the three heroes are shown fighting armoured warriors who look to be Kree in origin, perhaps setting them up as antagonists of later Captain Marvel adventure.
Finally, the teaser concludes with some humorous back-and-forth between the three heroes as they try to figure out why they keep switching locations, suggesting a far more comic tone than the first Captain Marvel picture. On July 28, 2023, The Marvels will premiere in cinemas alone.