Captain Marvel Is A Stealth Guardians of the Galaxy Prequel

Captain Marvel will not only introduce the first female superhero to headline her own MCU movie, it's also poised to be a prequel to Guardians of the Galaxy. Set in the 1990s, at least ten years before Tony Stark donned Iron Man's armor, Captain Marvel will depict the origin story of Carol Danvers (Oscar-winner Brie Larson), who will become Earth's Mightiest Hero. Danvers is an Air Force pilot, and while her story begins on Earth, her destiny will take her into outer space to encounter the Kree - just like the Guardians would many years later.

Captain Marvel's official cast list is stocked with characters from the cosmic side of the MCU. Some will be introduced for the first time, like Jude Law as Walter Lawson, who is secretly the Kree hero Mar-Vell. However, a few familiar faces from Guardians of the Galaxy will be returning, chiefly the villainous Ronan the Accuser (Lee Pace) and his henchman Korath the Pursuer (Djimon Hounsou). The emphasis on the Kree, which relates to how Carol Danvers gains her superpowers, means that Captain Marvel could show the origins of the conflict between the Nova Empire and the Kree, which fans will recall from the first Guardians movie.

Let's look at the cosmic big picture of the MCU in the 1990s when Captain Marvel takes place.

This Page: The Kree-Skrull War And How Guardians Ties Into The Kree

Captain Marvel Will Show The Kree-Skrull War

It's expected that Captain Marvel will depict a version of the Kree-Skrull War, with the villainous shapeshifting Skrulls making their MCU debut as the main villains in the film. In Marvel Comics, The Kree-Skrull War is one of the most famous Avengers stories from the 1970's. It involved not just the Kree and Skrull empires in mutual military conflict, with Captain Mar-Vell and the Avengers caught in the middle, but a wider plot involving Ronan trying to devolve the Earth to pre-historic times in order to use the planet as a staging base to attack the Skrulls. Meanwhile, the Skrulls impersonated Avengers founding members like Captain America and Iron Man and forced the team to disband to create public mistrust.

In Captain Marvel, the Kree-Skrull War should be considerably more streamlined, and will tie into Carol Danvers gaining her cosmic powers and discovering the galactic scope of the MCU. Since she wears a green uniform at least for part of the film, this indicates Carol is drawn into the conflict on the side of the Kree. The film should also reveal the role S.H.I.E.L.D. played - thanks to Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) and Phil Coulson (Clark Gregg) - in keeping a conflagration between two alien races from engulfing Earth so that the world's population is unaware it ever took place. While the details of the plot are under wraps, some key developments are locked in, including Mar-Vell revealing himself to be a Kree warrior hiding on Earth, and Carol herself somehow disappearing both from Earth and from the public record by the end of the film.

What Guardians of the Galaxy Already Revealed About The Kree

Considering the Kree remain prominent in the MCU, while the Skrulls have not been mentioned at all until Captain Marvel, it can be assumed the race from Hala wins the Kree-Skrull War with Carol's help, and that the Skrulls fade into obscurity. By Guardians Vol. 1 the Skrulls are no longer a main concern of the Kree; instead it's the Nova Corps and the planet Xandar that Ronan hates and seeks the Orb (later revealed as the Power Stone) to destroy. Captain Marvel could reveal the seeds of this interstellar rivalry.

It isn't clear how long the war between Kree and Nova Empires lasted, but that conflict was ended when Nova Prime forced the Kree to sign a peace treaty. The treaty was seen as a humiliation by the Kree, with riots breaking out across their homeworld of Hala. Ronan especially loathed the treaty and vowed revenge against Xandar. Along with Nebula, Ronan allied with Thanos and agreed to acquire the Orb for the Mad Titan in exchange for the necessary forces to destroy the Nova homeworld. Later, upon discovering the Orb was one of the Infinity Stones, Ronan betrayed Thanos and tried to use the Power Stone to destroy Xandar, but he was defeated and killed by the Guardians of the Galaxy.

In recent years, the Kree have been much more prominent on Marvel television. The blue-skinned aliens have been antagonists on Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and they also created the Inhumans. Moreover, it was Kree technology (and biology) that resurrected Phil Coulson after Loki killed him in The Avengers. Captain Marvel will restore the Kree's prominence on the film side of Marvel, and fans will see the devious race and their leader Ronan in their heyday.

As a final note, Guardians of the Galaxy director James Gunn recently confirmed that an Easter egg featuring the Skrull language appeared in the first movie. The Easter egg indicates that Rocket's gun is either of Skrull design, or contains Skrull technology. Either way, it's an interesting (if small) connection to the events of Captain Marvel.

How Guardians of the Galaxy Connects to Captain Marvel

Since Captain Marvel takes place many years before the Avengers assembled, and her existence is a mystery to most people, fans have wondered how she would eventually tie into the MCU. Nick Fury's presence in the film connects Carol to the modern day Avengers, but the inclusion of the villains from Guardians of the Galaxy in the film sheds some additional light. Korath is a mercenary and bounty hunter in Ronan's employ, so it's possible that Korath comes to Earth looking for the incognito Kree, Mar-Vell. This somehow draws Carol into the path of the Kree.

In the time that the film takes place, Peter Quill will have already been abducted by Yondu and the Ravagers after his mother died of cancer in 1988. It's possible that there may be an Easter egg of Carol somehow encountering the future Star-Lord in his early teens when she finally makes it to outer space. The other Guardians will be equally young, except for Drax and Groot, who could also somehow appear in a welcome cameo. We don't know when Rocket was experimented on or how he ultimately met Groot, but we could get a glimpse of the origins of their team-up in Captain Marvel.

A visit to Knowhere so Carol can meet the Collector or an encounter with the gold-skinned Sovereign are also possibilities. Considering how all points of the MCU are converging on Earth for Avengers: Infinity War, it will be especially interesting to see if Carol gains any knowledge of Thanos or the Infinity Stones in her film before she returns to Earth in Avengers 4.

What This Means For Captain Marvel

Though directors Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck are focused on creating the best possible action-comedy origin film for Carol, her unique place in the timeline is a golden opportunity to fill in more history and narrative threads from the MCU before Tony Stark ever said the words "I am Iron Man!" The cosmic side of Marvel is so vast that even after two Guardians films and Thor: Ragnarok, fans have still only received a taste of the colorful, bizarre wonders of Marvel's other worlds and galaxies.

Captain Marvel is the next chance to explore the universe beyond Earth, and this will reportedly include the Quantum Realm first seen in Ant-Man and Doctor Strange. Carol's deep ties to Mar-Vell will also help flesh out the Kree civilization so fans can gain a greater understanding of them beyond the violent brutes who enforce the will of Ronan. And unlike Star-Lord, who was stolen from Earth as a boy and grew up in space, Carol is already an adult and a decorated pilot before she gains incredible powers and enters the wide black yonder of deep space. Peter Quill was more used to aliens than he was to other humans by the time he became an adult; in Captain Marvel, fans will get to see Carol Danvers experience the fantastic and grotesque beings of the universe for the first time.

Carol Danvers' cosmic adventure will also depict the unique experience of a woman as the most powerful hero in the MCU who fights aliens and explores outer space while somehow being unable to return to Earth. When it's all said and done, regarding Captain Marvel as a prequel will grant the events of Guardians of the Galaxy a new significance, further enriching James Gunn's film and the cosmic side of the MCU.

Next: Every Confirmed MCU Character Returning In Captain Marvel