Captain Marvel was the first female solo film in the entire MCU franchise and though it doesn’t feature any of the other major marvel heroes beyond a select few, there are still a lot of things in it that tie into the overall universe that you only notice after several watches.
Throughout this post, we’re gonna be breaking down the movie’s best easter eggs, the tiny hints in it that symbolise what direction the character is heading towards and just some cool things that you might have missed.
There will be Heavy Spoilers here so if you haven’t had a chance to see the film yet it’s time to click away!
With that out the way, thank you for clicking this, now let’s get into our breakdown of Captain Marvel.
The Next Captain America?
Spider-Man Far From Home clearly set up Spider-Man as the next Iron Man in the wake of his death at the end of Avengers Endgame. Not only did Peter end up receiving the Edith Glasses from Tony, he also became allies with Happy, and got access to his tech whilst Happy got access to his aunt and I think it’s hard to deny that he now holds the position as the next Tony Stark.
There was a lot of iconographies that carried across to the movie and overall you’d have to be trapped in one of Mysterio’s illusions not to see it.
So we now have the repulsor boots of the metal man filled but that leaves one big question.
Who’s gonna be taking over from Captain America?
Obviously, Sam Wilson is currently vying for the position but in the mean time, I do think that Marvel is actually setting up the role as Carol being the leader and they’ve teased this in Captain Marvel.
These shots side by side all symbolise the similarities in how things are currently being set up and it’s hard to deny that with this foreshadowing, that Carol is going to be taking the position of Cap in the team…damn even her name is Cap.
Not only did they train under similar circumstances, they also don similar clothing in their military uniform, when they go incognito and even the design of their uniforms are very similar.
The blue and star symbols are a nice little mirroring of the future and past of the position and I can definitely see this hinting at a lot of things for the future.
So, we can take that if Peter is going to be playing the role of the next Iron Man then Carol will be his opposite in the team and who knows we mean even get a Civil War 2 that revolves around the pair.
These shots aren’t the only Captain America Easter Eggs either as we see when Carol visits that bar that hanging up in one of the photo frames is the YB 49. This plane was the basis for the design of the Hyrda plane that we saw in Captain America the first avenger and thus it further hammers home the ties between Carol and the Captain.
Movie Easter Eggs
The above bar is a tribute to the Happy Bottom Riding Club which was a hangout for pilots in The Mojave Desert.
The film The Right Stuff also featured a bar that was paying tribute to it and when Carol crash lands on Earth we see her pick up a videotape which is actually the film. The Right Stuff itself is about test pilots that are sent off on various aeronautical space missions and this, of course, mirrors Carol whose final job at project pegasus involved her flying experimental aircraft that had the ability to go into space.
Project Pegasus
Speaking of Project Pegasus, this movie isn’t the first time it makes an appearance in the MCU.
Originally it popped up in a deleted scene in Iron Man 2 before making a full-fledged appearance at the beginning of the Avengers. We actually see a sign for Project Pegasus in the opening of the movie and the base that Carol visits in the film is the same location that we see destroyed at the start of that film.
Carol also searches ‘Who Rides a Pegasus’ in the film and though not mentioned specifically, this could be a nod to Valkyrie who of course rides one in Thor Ragnarok and Endgame.
Street Fighter 2
The bar also contains a cool little easter egg and that is the Street Fighter 2 easter egg. Shoutouts HowDidThatFappen on Reddit for noticing that if you look at the game that you can see M. Bison doing his Psycho Crusher move for a split second.
This is very similar to Captain Marvel’s primary photon attack that she does towards the end of the movie where she shines with energy before blasting through something. Speaking of Photon this is also Maria Rambeau’s call sign on her jet, in the comics Rambeaus daughter actually became a hero named Photon so this is a nice little callback.
Agent Coulson
Now the film is packed with other characters that feature prominently in the MCU.
Firstly is Agent Coulson who of course features in Agents Of Shield. Agents of Shield did use an inhibitor device similar to the one that we see strapped to Carol in the film so it is possible that they got the idea from this.
We also see the heroes in the film using The Quad Jet which is actually a precursor to the Quinn jet which is used in both the MCU and Agents Of Shield.
Nick Fury
Nick Fury of course features prominently in the film and there’s actually a really interesting line that he drops at one point in the film. When talking to El Capitan he tells her that his friends call him Fury and his enemies call him Nick.
If you cast your mind back to The Winter Soldier, Alexander Pierce actually calls him Nick instead of Fury and this is a nice little tease that he may be an agent of Hydra.
Maria Hill also calls Fury Nick and because of this fans have theorised that she may have been a Skrull this entire time. Yikes.
A bit of a reach…
So in the film, Nick tells Carol that he can’t eat toast that’s been cut diagonally. However, in Age Of Ultron, we see him doing this, hinting that he may have in fact been a Skrull, similar to what we saw at the end of Far From Home which ties directly to this movie too.
I always wondered how Nick…I’m sorry Fury was able to get shot with a high-power rifle in Winter Soldier and survive, however, if he was indeed a Skrull then his resurrection makes more sense.
Again it’s a reach but the other movies and instances of his appearance in the MCU definitely need a second look over in the wake of Far From Home.
Fury said the last time that he trusted someone he lost an eye and we see in the film that he tells Goose he trusts him before this happens. Also, Goose might actually be able to tell when someone is real and someone is simply a Skull in disguise.
At one point when Carol and Fury meet the cute little cat, it runs up to their legs.
Later in the movie when Talos is disguised as a Kree Guard it does the same thing to him showing that it recognises him as an ally and it is possible that Flerkens sense through other means instead of just sight.
Shortcuts
Some other cool little tidbits in the film are that when Maria is being chased by Minerva she takes a shortcut to get ahead and this is a call back to how Carol would often take shortcuts when the two used to race one another. This is mentioned at the midpoint of the movie when they discuss how Carol cheated in order to win the chance to fly the new plane and it’s nice that it’s brought back here at the end so that Maria can win for once.
Yon Rogg & Kree
Another big question is who Yon Rogg actually sees when he looks at the Supreme Intelligence. Though never stated in the film we did learn from deleted scenes that he saw himself. We learn that the person you see is the person that you respect the most and this speaks to the size of his ego.
Along with Yon Rogg appear other Kree forces such as Korath and Ronan who both appear in Guardians Of The Galaxy.
Guardians Iconography
In addition to this Captain Marvel builds on the style of Guardians by using a lot of similar iconographies to show how the galactic Marvel adventures will be going.
Hex points are used in both films to jump across the galaxy and we see this in both Captain Marvel and Guardians of the galaxy part 2. Universal translators are mentioned in the movie and we actually discovered in Guardians that this was implanted in each person’s neck so that they could understand all aliens.
The masks and the way that they go over characters in Guardians are also very similar to how they work in Captain Marvel and it’s nice that this consistency is kept up across all the movies.
Goose swallows the tesseract in the film and I think this is actually a call back to the Avengers in which Hulk asks if Fury just wants him to swallow it.
Shazam
The movie doesn’t just reference Marvel properties either and there’s actually a nice little nod to Shazam in there too. In case you don’t know Shazam was initially called Captain Marvel and DC actually sued for the name since another hero called Captain Marvel popped up. They won the bountiful prize of $4 million but since then have kinda gravitated away from using the name Shazam instead of Captain Marvel.
Shazam just sounds cooler to say anyway…don’t at me.
And that’s our list!
I’d love to hear your thoughts on the breakdown and if we missed anything that you think should’ve made it.
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