After 10 years, Jackson admits that he’s
become protective of the character, but he
enjoyed exploring Fury’s origins as a fresh-
faced bureaucrat with two eyes and zero
extraterrestrial experience. (The film also
includes his first meeting with Clark Gregg’s
rookie agent, Phil Coulson.)
Also on hand to help Carol is her oldest
Earth-based friend, Maria Rambeau
(Lashana Lynch). Maria is an Air Force pilot
and single mother to a young daughter
named Monica (a name that should setoff
alarm bells for comics fans), and Lynch and
Larson both spent time with actual pilots( From far left )
Ben Mendelsohn
in full Talos
mode; Lashana
Lynch is an Air
Force of nature as
Maria RambeauDJIMON HOUNSOU
Korath
Prior to meeting his end
inGuardians, the Kree
Pursuer was a decorated
Starforce member. “He’s
still a humorless machine,”
Hounsou explains.
“But we get to experi-
ence him at his infancy.”LEE PACE
Ronan the Accuser
The blue-skinned
baddie fromGuardians
of the Galaxyis back—
but he hasn’t yet
become the radical
Kree outcast aligned
with Thanos.CLARK GREGG
Phil Coulson
The newbie S.H.I.E.L.D.
agent is just getting
his feet wet. Remember
inIron Manwhen
Coulson tells Tony this
isn’t hisfirst rodeo?
“This might be the
rodeo,” Gregg says.LASHANA LYNCH
Maria “Photon”
Rambeau
Carol’s closest friend is
an Air Force pilot and
single mother. “Maria’s
got a strength that’s
undeniable, in that you
don’t feel like you need
to help her,” says Lynch.BEN MENDELSOHN
Ta l o s
Mendelsohn has played
plenty of villains, but
here he stars as both
a nefarious Skrull leader
and the human he
impersonates. As Men-
delsohn puts it: “It ain’t
easy being green.”SAMUEL L.
JACKSON
Nick Fury
Jackson describes
the young S.H.I.E.L.D.
oficer as “a normal
kind of government
badass”—a badass who
hasn’t yet met
any superheroes.for research, even hitting the skies in an
F-16. “The Air Force was really supportive
of this movie from the get-go,” Fleck says.
“It was super crucial for Brie especially, just
to know how they walk, how they hold their
helmets when they’re walking out to their
planes, just little details like that.”Carol Danvers makes her debut at a
particularly momentous time in the MCU’s
10-year history: For one, key players like
Chris Evans’ Captain America may leave the
franchise afterAvengers4, with new heroes
such as Captain Marvel and Black Panther
poised to take over the spotlight. And there’s
still that pressure of being the first MCU film
about a solo hero who happens to be a
woman. So, um, what took so long? “I think
there are a lot of reasons,” Feige says, “not
the least of which was fighting for many
years the erroneous notion that audiences
did not want to see a female-led hero [film]
because of a slew of films 15 years ago thatdidn’t work. And my belief was always that
they didn’t work not because they were
female-led stories—they didn’t work because
they were not particularly good movies.”
Captain Marveloffers a chance to get it
right, hopefully joiningWonder Woman
as undeniable proof that such superheroes
can carry their own stories and earn big at
the box office, too. Feige says that Marvel
plans to announce other women-led movies
in the near future, and that he’s looking for-
ward to the day when they’re not a novelty
or a first, but a norm.
Perhaps most important of all, the film is
an opportunity to tell a blockbuster story
about a woman who the filmmakers prom-
ise is funny, smart, powerful, flawed, and
undeniably human. “When we were just
brainstorming ideas for what the story
would be, I had this cover on our wall, this
little-girl Captain Marvel, flying with her
hands out and a huge smile on her face,”
Boden says. “And we were like, ‘We want toCAPTAIN MARVEL make little girls feel like that.’ ”
, PACE, JACKSON: CHUCK ZLOTNICK
/© MARVEL STUDIOS
2019 (3); HOUNSOU, MENDELSOHN, LYNCH: MICHAEL MULLER/© MARVELSTUDIOS 2019 (3); GREGG: BOB D’AMICO/ABC