I ask because I’ve heard Brie is getting disillusioned with her Captain Marvel role.
Now keep in mind, you don’t actually need CM for this storyline. Readers familiar with storyline will get it.
You need a dying hero who has earned respect from a lot of villains and a lot of heroes. You pretty much need Thanos to show up at the end. And it would be great if there was a connection between Thanos and the dying hero. Ideally Iron Man would be perfect had he not died at the end of Endgame.
The problem with giving Carol Danvers the storyline is that while she may have actually done enough to earn the emotional story beats…its almost all been off screen over some 30 years. And she only met Thanos twice for a couple of seconds both times. *
Thor would be good had he not been so sillyfied in his last two movies. The tone would be incredibly different.
MY best idea is to give Brie a 12 ep Disney Plus series. Make the beginning closer to “All-Star Superman” with Carol trying to wrap things up. and the latter half the Death of Captain Marvel storyline. A long series gives the character time to earn the emotional beats.
*And by the way when Thanos does appear…lets establish that its the more sympathetic Infinity War version. Have Carol appear in his garden when the end arrives for Carol.
Seriously, I don’t know the story that you’re working around. If this is a fix you’re proposing to the MCU, I’m at a loss. But I will follow the thread, and learn. but I may be done with the MCU. There’s still some I haven’t seen of the first batch to keep me happy.
The Death of Captain Marvel is a famous Marvel graphic novel whose plot is as follows:
The first Captain Marvel (A male known as Mar-Vell) is diagnosed with cancer. For various comic-book reasons it can’t be treated. The book follows Mar-Vell as the worlds greatest heroes try to come up with ways to treat him, all of which fail. So we see his greatest allies and enemies appear to honor him and say goodbye. Just as he is succumbing to death, Thanos (Who at that point in comics was dead dead dead dead) appears in some sort of vision (similar to Infinity War when Thanos does The Snap and sees young Gamora.)
Thanos bids him to rise!!! Face death on your feet!! That sort of thing. Marvell rises and says he doesn’t need to fight Death. He isnh’t afraid. And then he and Thanos and Death walk off together
Thanos: “This isnt the end, but just the beginning.”
Cut to Mar-Vell surrounded by the other heroes.
Reed Richards: “He’s gone.”
This is a great and famous storyline. And I’d love to see the MCU use it, but it needs a lot of moving parts that arn’t there yet.
Just because something is by Jim Starlin and was printed on good paper, doesn’t make it famous. Mar-Vell wasn’t even who most readers at the time thought of as “Captain Marvel.” That was the Shazam! guy.
That “Shazam” guy had lost his series by then and couldn’t even print “Captain Marvel” on the cover….it was also Marvels first graphic novel in that format and has been reprinted several times
I think you need the historic legacy from the comics to pull that off. In the movie universe, Captain Marvel is just some random human fighter pilot who got blown up by a McGuffin. There’s no reason given to why she was chosen, no attribute about her that made her exceptional before the explosion. In a universe where people’s power level varies up and down depending on plot convenience, even her demonstrated acts don’t give audiences a good sense for her magnitude.
TBH, if Brie Larson is bored with her role, the best way to write her off would be to Poochie her, I don’t think that many people would care. Trying to draw attention to her disappearance would only highlight how much she’s been mistreated by the movie universe.
First, I am a big fan of the Death of Captain Marvel story. It was one of the early examples of a comic book reaching beyond the pop fun of the format and showing hints of true brilliance. Sure, it’s a lot dated, and a bit corny, but for the time it was mind blowing.
As for putting it the MCU, I think the key would be putting in a character that friend or enemy, has near universal respect, or you won’t get the emotional punch. Tony Stark’s MCU version might have been able to pull it off, yes. Some qualifications, but he’s far less of an ass than his comic forefather.
Of the MCU characters I’m familiar with (so through Endgame/Infinity Wars), the only one I think would be an unquestionable fit is Captain America. And there are parallels here as well, there were Marvel storylines where his Super Soldier Serum began to fail, and after similar “why can’t we just fix this” scenarios, all expected death. Of course, we know how rare such things are in the world of comics.
As things stand, it worked out differently for him in the MCU to date, but you could easily create a mini-series or sequence in which after Peggy’s death, he’s rejuvenated (or a parallel version, or what have you) but at a cost of a pending death with so much left undone, and so many others wanting to find a solution, but finally with Cap embracing the death that’s not such a bad thing after all.
Noting that Captain Marvel may already be dead in the MCU, assuming Hulkling is around for Young Avengers. (And assuming they don’t tweak his origins.)
To be fair, the Captain Marvel character hadn’t even been formally introduced yet in the MCU when Infinity War came out (April 2018), other than the teaser for her in that film’s final scene (when Nick Fury hits the “oh shit” button to summon her). Her film came out in March of 2019, in between the releases of Infinity War and Endgame.
…You can’t.
Not really. ::shrug:: You can in that not really/sort of/“we’re really just using the name” way that the MCU adapts comic stories.
But I will also admit comic Death of Captain Marvel story doesn’t work for me either and really only had power because the death of a major hero was infrequent… now modern comics and movies it literally happens yearly.
MCU Captain Marvel isn’t beloved by anyone other than seemingly Kamala. Thanos and Danvers have no more connection to each other than he and any other Avenger so…why?
If Brie wants to do something more impactful to run out her hero role… I’d maybe combine the cancer (but also already done with Jane Foster Thor) and the alcoholism story line with Danvers in Busiek’s Avengers run. Tell a cosmic story with someone dealing with addiction issues and trying to stay clean and sober.
Maybe a more interesting discussion would be “What storyline would you take on in the MCU that would have the kind of impact that The Death of Captain Marvel had in the comics?”
Well they could establish the MCU version of The Illuminati and have the first thing they did to be to shoot Hulk off to Planet Hulk…except they kind of did part of it in Thor and introduced his son in She-Hulk??
The MCU already played that card with the death of Iron Man. You can’t beat that, since (mostly due to RD Jr.) he was the most popular MCU character. Endgame was probably the high tide mark of the franchise and trying to out-poignant it is probably a futile effort. It’s time for the MCU to dig out the new toys acquired from Fox (X-Men and FF) and have some fun with them. “Fun” being the key word. Leave the heart-rending to genres that do it better than everything-is-reversible superhero movies.
Apparently a WWH movie might still be in the works…but centered on another character to cut Paramount out of the deal. Similar to Dr. Strange 2 where it was about Strange with Wanda as the villain.
