“The Marvels” Title Reveals Next Phase for Captain Marvel

Perhaps yesterday you saw Marvel’s truly epic Phase 4 teaser that was, in our humble opinion, as good as an argument as can be made for why seeing a movie in an actual movie theater is unimprovable. The video not only made the case for why movie theaters are such an essential part of our shared experience, but it also teased years’ worth of upcoming Marvel movies, revealing release dates and titles in what amounted to an overload of MCU information. Those titles included Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (!!) and Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. Yet what might have been the most intriguing title release in the teaser was The Marvels, which is the title for the Captain Marvel sequel to be directed by Nia DaCosta.

The Marvels title refers to Brie Larson’s Captain Marvel, of course, and also newcomer Iman Vellani as Ms. Marvel (she’s also starring in Disney+’s upcoming series of the same name). The title would seem to be a straight-forward summation of the fact that these two superheroes will be teaming up, but what’s interesting, as The Hollywood Reporter points out, is the fact that there already is an ongoing project called the Marvels, which is a term that describes the entire roster of superheroes inside the MCU, and this version of The Marvels is intended to be a comic book series that surveys the past, present, and future of these characters, from the late 1930s onward.

This new series, from writer Kurt Busiek, is intended to be an omnibus of sorts. “The Marvels is intended as a freewheeling book that can go anywhere, do anything, use anyone,” Busiek told Marvel.com last year. “It’s a smorgasbord of Marvel heroes and history. It’s not a team. It’s a concept, or a universe, depending on how you look at it. The Marvels features the marvels — all the many and varied characters of the Marvel Universe. The heroes, the villains, the oddities — all of it. There’ll be popular characters of today, there’ll be obscure characters from long ago — heck, there’ll be story threads that take place in the past, or possibly the future. We’re not limited to just the present. And there’ll be new characters, too, from the street-level to the cosmic.”

This comic series itself is actually a spinoff from an earlier series, titled “Marvels,” released in 1994 and created by Busiek and Alex Ross. That series looked back at some of the earliest, most seminal moments in Marvel history (like the Green Goblin killing Peter Parker’s girlfriend Gwen Stacy), which then launched numerous sequels and spinoff projects itself. So the question for the Nia DaCosta directed, Brie Larson-led The Marvels is how much does the title hint at a fresh approach to the sequel, or, is are the similarities in titles just happenstance?

This being Marvel Studios, there seems to be little chance it’s just a coincidence. Not only will The Marvels see Captain Marvel meeting Ms. Marvel (who took the name in honor of her hero), but also Teyonah Parris’s Monica Rambeau, who was first introduced as a kid in Captain Marvel, and then as an adult in the Disney+ series WandaVision. Monica Rambeau is the daughter of Captain Marvel (aka Carol Danvers)’s best friend and fellow pilot Maria Rambeau, so The Marvels could be referring to this budding “chosen” family of sorts. Complicating this dynamic is the potential return of Jude Law’s villain from Captain Marvel, Yon-Rogg, whose DNA lives inside Captain Marvel, which would make him a literal if decidedly bizarre (and evil) relative.

There’s a lot of time to speculate—The Marvels doesn’t premiere until November 11, 2022—but the title suggests that the sequel will be a more ambitious story, giving Brie Larson’s superhero a family, whether or not it’s at all connected the comic series that came before it—and the new project that’s being created—and all those other superhero brothers and sisters that make up Marvel’s wild family tree.

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Featured image: Marvel Studios’ CAPTAIN MARVEL. Captain Marvel (Brie Larson). Photo: Film Frame. ©Marvel Studios 2019