Everything You Need to Know About Captain Marvel

Just days after Marvel Studios secured their 20th No. 1 opening with Ant-Man and the Wasp, Brie Larson hopped on IG to let the world know that after 75 days of filming, Captain Marvel had finished principal photography. When it comes to Marvel and their film division, the game really doesn't stop.

While fans have known since the summer of 2016 that Larson was stepping into the role of Captain Marvel, they also knew that it'd be a while before we'd actually see her onscreen. One of the [SPOILER ALERT] post-credits scenes from Avengers: Infinity War clearly featured Nick Fury reaching out to Captain Marvel at the direst of moments, but we still have to wait until March 8, 2019 before we actually get the character on the big screen in the flesh. One interesting thing to note is that while heads have known for roughly two years that Brie Larson as Captain Marvel was coming, most don't actually know who Captain Marvel is. If your Infinity War theater was like mine, you heard people immediately asking what the hell the symbol on Fury's pager meant.

While her character might not be as immediately recognizable as a Captain America or the Hulk, there is a five-decade history surrounding Captain Marvel that will be condensed into a two-hour feature for Marvel Studios. With the latest trailer giving us more insight into what the film will look like, now is the perfect time to give you a primer on Captain Marvel. She's the newest super being in the MCU, and appears to be the most important character for the future of the MCU, especially if she is the key to helping reverse Thanos' reign of terror. Here's everything you need to know about Captain Marvel.

Captain Marvel wasn't always a woman

The original Captain Marvel, who debuted in the pages of Marvel Super Heroes #12 back in December 1967, was actually an alien military officer named Mar-Vell. He was a Kree soldier sent to observe Earth, but after not vibing with the intentions of his leaders, Mar-Vell decided to fight for the people of Earth instead of against them. Mar-Vell used his strength and durability (as well as his trusty uni-beam) to defend the Earth against the powers of evil.

Over the years, Mar-Vell was revamped numerous times, ultimately becoming the "Protector of the Universe" courtesy of creator Jim Starlin (who also created Marvel characters including Thanos and Gamora). In Starlin's hands, Mar-Vell fought as a cosmic being (which gave Mar-Vell the ability to feel drastic changes within the universe), pitting himself against Thanos a number of times before dying of cancer.

There have been numerous Captain Marvels

Over the years, a number of people have assumed the mantle of Captain Marvel. There's been a cop from New Jersey, a genetically engineered child of Mar-Vell, and even a sleeper Skrull agent holding the powerful mantle of the cosmic champion. For the most part, they all shared similar powers and abilities to the original Captain Marvel, but the most intriguing Captain Marvel has been the latest person to hold the crown...

Her name is Carol Danvers

Carol Danvers has been around the Marvel Universe for decades; she actually debuted back in 1968 in the pages of Marvel Super Heroes #13. Working as a United States Air Force officer, she'd always been in contact with Mar-Vell, initially while he was using alter egos. In 1977, the revolutionary Ms. Marvel comic book series revamped her career. In this version, Danvers actually became a human-Kree hybrid, after being exposed to massive amounts of energy during an explosion that melded her genes with Mar-Vell's, effectively making her superhuman. The Ms. Marvel series was seen as a purposefully feminist comic book, which found Danvers fighting for equal pay when she was not superheroing; series writer Gerry Conway wrote that in Carol "you might see a parallel between her quest for identity, and the modern woman's quest for raised consciousness, for self-liberation, for identity."

For the next few decades, Ms. Marvel was a staple character in the Marvel Universe, but it wasn't until July of 2012 that Danvers officially assumed the position of Captain Marvel. Very quickly, Danvers not only became an Avenger, but she was also put in charge of S.W.O.R.D., an agency whos job is to protect the Earth from alien foes.

Captain Marvel is the total package

In the comics, Captain Marvel is a force to be reckoned with. Super strong and durable, she has the ability to fly AND blast energy from her fingertips. Along with being trained in hand-to-hand combat via her time in the service, there aren't many who can hang with her in terms of power and skills, which leads us to...

That cat might not be a cat at all

One of the more adorable (and human?) scenes in the latest Captain Marvel trailer was Samuel L. Jackson's Nick Fury going gaga for a feline. There isn't much in the way of info on who owns the cat or why it seemingly was on what appeared to be some kind of operation with Carol, but if this cat is who many THINK it is, things might get a bit interesting.

During the most recent iteration of the Captain Marvel comics (circa 2014), readers were introduced to the truth about Chewie, Carol's pet cat. Chewie isn't a cat; Chewie's a Flerken. It was actually Rocket Raccoon who told Carol about the creature she possessed. Flerkens look like Earth cats and act like cats, but have a number of different abilities, ranging from storing entire universes in their mouths to tendrils being housed in their mouths (which can attack at will) to the ability do travel across dimensions.

Now, that's not to say that this cat is the Chewie we know in the comic books, or that this cat is a Flerken. But what if it is? Assuming this cat survives the '90s and is by Carol's side in the current MCU timeline, that's a powerful creature to have in your arsenal battling a being like Thanos. Hell, Rocket survived The Snap; recreating that sequence from the comics in Avengers 4 feels too easy.

Captain Marvel might be the key to stopping Thanos

As we said earlier, Nick Fury's last-ditch effort as the world is going haywire was to holler at Captain Marvel. Her film will be similar to DC's Wonder Woman, in that it will be more of an origin story that takes place in the 1990s. It'll show how she and Fury linked up and battled back in the day, and should hopefully give us plenty of ammo to assume she'd be the ultimate weapon in stopping Thanos. The question is, will Captain Marvel really be able to give the Mad Titan and his Infinity Gauntlet that work? More than likely not alone, as we already saw Hulk get his green ass handed to him in a fair one with Thanos. Captain Marvel in the MCU is still a mystery to us, but with her powers combined with the likes of Captain America, Iron Man, and the rest of the Avengers who survived the snap, that might be enough to stop Thanos.

Either way, it's great to see Marvel jumping feet first into bringing a female superhero front and center (no shade to The Wasp) in what's set to be the most important film they've released to date.