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So say Marvel decides to do the unthinkable and make a movie with a female lead. How do they make it?
Pretty straightforward: you do Carol Danvers as Captain Marvel, and you do it as a passing-torch movie, with Mar-Vell falling from the sky and playing a combination of Abin Sur and Anthony Hopkins Old Zorro from Mask of Zorro. Say Mar-Vell has the Quantum Bands, which give him all the Captain Marvel powers – flight, toughness, blasting things, etc. (You probably also want to include a sensory power of some kind because it’ll create a visual hook and be the key to defeating whatever Big Bad eventually shows up – this could be her precognitive “seventh sense” or whatever, but the point is you need that power because without it her powerset is kind of generic. Although being able to fly in space unassisted is sort of a special thing in the Marvel movies right now, so maybe that instead? I dunno.)
Anyway. You can even work Mar-Vell having cancer into it – say the Quantum Bands are the only things keeping him alive and they won’t work much longer so he’s looking for a successor, and it can’t be a Kree because the Kree are planning to invade Earth, as alien empires do, and Mar-Vell is opposed to that so there you go, more comics adaptive referencing. Mar-Vell crash-lands on Earth, promptly gets picked up by the Air Force, and I think it would be pretty great if, rather than being “oh we must be suspicious and scared of the alien” they were immediately co-operative and worked with him. Except, of course, they want to make sure the Bands go to their handpicked alpha dog asshole, even though Carol is of course the superior pilot. Needless to say, Alpha Dog (hell, that should be his callsign) thinks the Bands are basically meant to be his, and everybody agrees with him. Except Mar-Vell, of course, and when a Kree advance strike force attacks that’s when he gives Carol the bands and then dies.
Anyway, the rest of the movie writes itself at that point: Carol has to deal with the military who, even if they can’t bring themselves to admit it, don’t want a woman having the awesome space weapons, and also with the Kree invasion force (probably involving a lot of deep-space fighting because that, in the movies, can be Captain Marvel’s Specific Thing). It’s definitely got a nice meta taste to it but I think that’s what makes it work.
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Isn’t the obvious choice a Black Widow movie, though? Natasha has been in two MCU movies as a supporting character and one as a co-star. You don’t pluck Danvers out of nowhere, you go with the established property, especially since (with Lucy coming out this summer) Hollywood has decided that Scarlett Johansen is qualified to helm an action movie by herself.
Second choice behind Black Widow is either a Pepper Potts-helmed movie, or an Agent 13 movie, seeing as how Peggy Carter is getting her own TV series this year and you can tie into that.
If you really want to make a Danvers movie, you also ought to lay the groundwork in Guardians of the Galaxy and/or in the aforementioned Black Widow movie, or possibly in Cap 3. Hell, you could lay the groundwork in Agents of SHIELD.
I do really like your idea that the Air Force would be eager and willing to work with him, though, especially since in the post-SHIELD MCU, where Agent Coulson isn’t showing up at every interestingly lootable site of an alien incursion, the various armed forces are like “Fuck me, it’s Christmas!” and scrambling to get jurisdiction over their own toys. You’d have officers being all smug that now they have “their own Thor” and talking about how General Ross can go fuck himself, their guy is so much better than the Abomination.
Black Widow has the problem of Scarlett Johansson currently being pregnant, so I assume she’ll want some downtime after she’s finished AoU filming.
Whilst a Black Widow movie would make more sense, this is a good time to launch a new female character in the MCU. Hell, they’ve already started laying the Kree groundwork in Agents of Shield.
Also, at this point, Marvel should be looking to expand their properties. GotG is a big swing for the fences. I really think that their goal there is to make a profit, even a small one, and say to Disney, “Look, we can turn a profit on Guardians of the Galaxy. We can make a profit on damn near anything.” At that point, expanding their base is exactly what they should be trying to do. Also, it’s at that point that Disney might let them do that without being quite so risk adverse.
Also, all of the current crop of Avengers actors a probably looking at their contracts, ticking off the movies. Sure, they make a boatload of cash, but I don’t think most actors want to make a career out of “I was Black Widow.” Or whoever. Coming up with a legitimate heroine to center the next group of Avengers (Capt. Marvel, Hank Pym, maybe the Wasp, War Machine and Black Panther) provides the template for how you replace the existing heroes in the lineup. You rotate those in as you go, replacing the original set as necessary. Then, after a couple of movies, when Chris Hemsworth is no longer the definitive Thor in people’s minds, you swap in a new Thor (or Cap, or Iron Man, although I don’t know if anyone will ever hit Tony Stark quite as well as RDJ).
Actually, Disney’s goal with Guardians of the Galaxy was to get an active sci-fi franchise that could at least contest that particular marketing space with Star Wars.
Then they bought Star Wars.
This has left GotG as a bit of a conceptual orphan. Regardless of the profit it makes Disney may now regard it as a competitor to the thing they just spent billions to acquire.
It’s kind of weird that you think Carol should be Green Lantern/Quasar instead of Ms. Marvel/Captain Marvel…
Disney doesn’t work that way. They’re REALLY big on the long tail, on having a vast library of STUFF that’s useful/worthwhile. Something coming back into the public consciousness gives it that little boost over it always having been there. It’s only competition if they don’t own it; otherwise, they can find a space for it. Hell, look at the Disney Princess stuff—they shuffle a few in and out of the top of the priority scale every year, but they’re still all part of the brand and on the merchandise.
We’re getting new Star Wars movies in 2015, 2017, and 2019. You think they wouldn’t love to do Guardians 2 for 2016 and Guardians 3 for 2018?
What’s weirding me out a little about the marketing for Guardians is that they aren’t pushing it as part of the MCU, which you’d think they would. Sure, it’s divorced from Earth, but still. The thing is, if the news I’m reading is right, part of the groundwork for Avengers 3. Unless they’re deeply unsure about its reception, you’d assume they’d play that up.
Which is why re-releases or re-developments of those great old LucasArts games are forthcoming, right? Wait, no, they don’t care about any of that and have said straight up they’re not going to bother unless someone pays them to license it to re-develop (a la the Ducktales remake).
I have enough friends in the industry that I can confirm what Murc said was true – about eight months ago, anyway. Things changed when the first Guardians trailer dropped and the internet collectively said “OH MAN THIS IS AWESOME,” but the Guardians high-up crew were told before that not to block out time for a sequel because they weren’t planning to need one, and the sets were at least partially scrapped.
tl;dr – Disney loves having an IP library, but that’s not the same as actively exploiting all of it at every opportunity, and they prioritize just like every other company does.
I’m really hoping for a Captain Marvel movie at this point, because I just cannot bring myself to give a shit about Black Widow. Widow is just the most boring Avenger to me, whereas not only do I actually like Captain Marvel, but she’s got superpowers instead of being one of the random tag along normals like Widow and Hawkeye, plus now would be a great time to push the character.
I like this pitch, doing it as almost a Marvel version of Green Lantern would simplify the origin in the way that a movie should, and it would steal Hal Jordan’s thunder enough that DC might use Jon Stewart the next time they want a Green Lantern.
Maybe throw in Genis or Phyla-Vel as Mar-Vel’s kid and have them as one of the big baddies, angry that Danvers stole their birthright.
On a different note, I thought that Black Widow had been confirmed for a movie before it got detailed by Johannson getting pregnant. Was that just a misogyny-tinged rumour?
Are their any other female characters who Marvel could give their own movies after Black Widow and Captain Marvel? She-Hulk seems out given that she’s a female version of the Hulk, but then again Hulk doesn’t have a movie, so maybe that makes her chances better. I would have ruled out Spider-Woman/Jessica Drew before Marvel used Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch, but she doesn’t seem completely outside the realm of possibility. Using the name might be tempting fate, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see her show up as a secret agent or something.
I think maybe you’re missing the essential zeitgeist of Marvel, son.
I’m just going to leave this here.
@Murc
Agh, I got the spellings switched in my head, I swear I knew they were different. I’ve thoroughly shamed myself.
I articulated that poorly, it’s not that I don’t like Hawkeye and Black Widow or having an ordinary human component to the team. It’s more that I think it kind of sucks that the only woman on the team doesn’t have powers, or even a clear gimmick the way Hawkeye does. She’s the only one on the team who’s just Person With Gun (to be facetious about it) and consequently not very interesting to me, especially since the Everyman role fell to Captain America.
The idea for the Captain Marvel movie sounds like it would work great – Assuming of course that Marvel puts in the work to make a good creative team.
As for female Marvel characters, the thing about Spider-Woman is that she’s completely unconnected with Spiderman so Marvel can not only use her as they will, but add a small running gag of people meeting or hearing her going “You mean like. . .” to the prompt response of “No relation.”
As for She-Hulk, she’s an awesome character all round, I’d say her biggest problem is that her name sounds a bit too . . . What’s the right term?
Maybe have a running gag where Jennifer keeps contemplating an alternate superhero name, but never really mannages to come up with something. Though these moments could be spaced out a bit by having everyone call her Jennifer most of the time anyways.
I admit I sort of liked the way that the animated Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes did their Carol Danvers origin (voiced by Jennifer Hale no less!), complete with giant alien warbot and Carol waking up in a hospital bed confused as to why she’s hovering three feet in the air.
Re: Black Widow, lack of superpowers doesn’t stop people from declaring Batman the coolest dude ever even when he’s palling around in the Justice League, so I don’t think that not having superpowers is really an impediment to a character in the context of a superhero universe.
If I were going to do a Black Widow movie (or Black Widow and Hawkeye because I’m a Jeremy Renner fan and he got kind of the short end in Avengers) then just like Winter Soldier was a throwback to political thrillers I’d make it a full-on spy movie in the Bourne/Bond/Mission Impossible vein. I think you could get a good amount of mileage out of “normal person/people with exceptional training and gadgets do action spy stuff in a superhero universe.” Silverhammerman talks about the “everyman” role falling to Captain America but Natasha shouldn’t be the everyman any more than Batman is the everyman of the Justice League (he’s not, Superman is more of an everyman than Batman is).
Just wanted to quibble on this, since none of the other major heroes have been introduced or set up in previous movies. Why does Carol Danvers need to be backdoored in when Thor, Hulk, Captain America, Ant-Man or GotG don’t?
1. Nick Fury was backdoored.
2. I think the idea here was to backdoor Carol by introducing a plot element from her movie rather than Carol herself, a la Mjolnir being teased post-credits in Iron Man 2 or the Collector, appearing in GotG, being teased post-credits in Thor: The Dark World.
Meanwhile, we’re STILL WAITING FOR A WONDER WOMAN MOVIE…
What MGK said. The MCU has been progressively iterating itself, and it’s been tending to lay groundwork/backdoor in future developments in previous films. Avengers didn’t exist in a vacuum; we’d gotten a chance to meet everyone beforehand. We know the Collector has an Infinity Stone because of Dark World. Sharon Carter, Agent 13, has been introduced in Winter Soldier, most likely in preparation to her having a larger role.
Among other things it means you need to do less heavy lifting when the time comes.
It’s not even, as MGK said, abut backdooring in Carol herself. For example, if you knew you wanted to make a Captain Marvel movie while you were doing GotG, the obvious thing to do would be to spend some time on the Kree in that, to lay groundwork.
Although having said that… it’s deeply unfair, but studios really seem to not make action films helmed by women, which means you might need to go the extra mile if you’re serious about getting that done. “No, see, we established this character already, they’ve got some heat around them.” It sucks, but thems the breaks.
“Meanwhile, we’re STILL WAITING FOR A WONDER WOMAN MOVIE…
DC will reboot Batman and Superman into infinity before they’ll actually make a Wonder Woman solo movie, you might as well wish for a winning lottery ticket while you’re at it.
I’d watch it. I don’t know what I think of a military that is willing to be completely open-minded towards UFOs but will launch a man-hunt to prevent a woman from having awesome space powers, though.
Honestly, given David Goyer’s recent comments on She-Hulk, I kind of don’t want DC to do anything cinematic, at all, with any of their female characters.
(Seriously. Who the hell calls She-Hulk “Slut-Hulk” into a live mic. Who thinks that is a good idea?)
For example, if you knew you wanted to make a Captain Marvel movie while you were doing GotG, the obvious thing to do would be to spend some time on the Kree in that, to lay groundwork.
Like, say, having Ronan the Accuser and Korath the Pursuer in GotG…
BLack Widow won’t get a solo movie. Not because Disney/Marvel are sexist. But because they’re stingy. Scarlet Johanssen is a massive celebrity and doesn’t have the convenient excuse of Hulking out or putting on Iron Man armour to cut down on her screen time and replace it with stunt doubles.
Captain Marvel on the other hand you could cast a relatively unknown Actress and have the modern version of the costume that puts a mask/helmet on when she flies fast enough.
As Chris Hemsworth said (parapharsing), “They’re still trying to figure out how to make Wonder Woman while we’ve got a raccoon with machine guns.”
Honestly thought this was going to be about Billy Batson. By the way, that’s also easy. Kid gets superpowers, becomes Captain Marvel, fights a dinosaur or something else awesome like that.
Yeah, but that movie would be called “Shazam.”
Marvel has named like ten characters Captain Marvel over the years in order to keep the name copyrighted.
My big objection to this pitch is that the emphasis on the Bands makes it veer more into Quasar territory, particularly with the emphasis on the initial user who can’t work them properly for being too narcissistic. Remember that Wendell Vaughn’s origin basically has him on desk duty for being a clumsy, pacifistic wimp.
It almost feels simpler to just keep it as some kind of Mar-Vell connected explosion/accident giving Carol her powers, and going from there. 20-30 minutes of build up, with Mar-Vell showing up, forming a bond with Carol, etc. Calamity, Carol wakes up with powers, Mar-Vell dies, Kree threat (including Sentry robot) shows up, Carol say, figures out the Nega Bands in Marv’s suit can help her use her powers better, she fights the invasion (who initially id her as Mar-Vell, because of the Bands, which pushes her into using “Marvel” as her hero name), movie ends with her set up for Avengers 3.
You lost me at Carol Danvers. I would happily take any Captain Marvel except her. Marv has the link to Thanos and helps to grow the cinematic universe (as do his kids) by being a non-human hero. Monica has cool powers, gives us some diversity, and has a link to the Avengers (I’d just hope they do a better job casting her than Storm). Genis has the most interesting arc. Phyla is a more stable, lesbian (more diversity!) version of Genis…though neither work without Marv’s legacy. Carol is just some blond woman from Earth; yawn.
(Also all this talk of the Vell family reminds me of how annoyed I am that Rick Jones isn’t in the movies)
Meanwhile, Black Widow is the Marvel movie that NEEDS to be made.
Carol Danvers is dull but movie-version Black Widow is fascinating enough to “NEED” a movie? Ok, I’ll bite; maybe they can explain why she speaks so badly in her native tongue…
@Beacon:A brief rebuttal: you gain all the benefits of Mar-Vell by having him as the mentor figure to pass the torch, as well as providing a justification for exposition as he explains things to Carol (and thus the audience), which he wouldn’t have need to do if it’s just him or one of his offspring. also, Carol’s background as an Air force colonel (with dabbling in intelligence) gives you a chance to show her being badass before she gets her powers.
Diversity-wise, Monica sadly doesn’t have the same recognition that Carol does. And there’s no way in hell that they’d have a lesbian as their flagship superheroine, so Phyla’s out, unfortunately. They’re both great characters, but I don’t think Marvel’s in a place to give either of them their own movie.
Writing off Carol as ‘just some blond woman from earth’ is pretty damn unfair.
Since you’re rewriting everything like DC during a reboot, you can also name the Alpha Dog “Rick Jones.”
Thanks to the Avengers-related movies, Black Widow is the most recognizable female Marvel hero outside of the Invisible Woman and some of the more popular X-Men (all of which are tied up with Fox and therefore off-limits). That’s why she needs a movie.
I’d love for Marvel to do something with She-Hulk too but she lacks the built-in audience (also she’d make for a better TV show) to ensure a hit movie.
Meanwhile Carol is a character who is disliked by a lot of comic fans (especially after Civil War) and modeling her origin after a flop like the Green Lantern isn’t going to help her appeal with moviegoers.
(Plus, if Marvel wants to copy GL then they ought to just do a Nova movie)
Either Black Widow or Captain Marvel could be cool movies with female leads, but they’d be very, very different movies. Black Widow would be best as a spy movie with even weirder toys than James Bond, Captain Marvel would be best as Star Wars in LEO. Which do we want more? Which is there a market for?
She-Hulk is another possible lead. She doesn’t have much of a rogue’s gallery, but that’s the only problem I can see. We already have the foundation laid for her origin – that is, her cousin. But she’s a different enough character from him that she wouldn’t seem too deriviative. Not angsty or out-of-control, acts normal while looking really weird… could be a bit more comedic than most, while still having a well-rounded lead character.
Love the idea of Danvers.
Someone, ANYONE, actually consider doing a Monica Rambeau movie and then let’s get Nextwave–if not literally, then at least in attitude–out there.
Can’t disagree with any of this. Actually, this treatment would make me care about the character (never really clicked with me, male or female).
Firstly, Civil War is now a seven-year-old comic story so maybe we stop treating it like a recent event?
Secondly, Carol is Marvel’s premiere female character. You know how I know that? Because Marvel calls her their “premiere female superhero” and has given her three comics series over the past eight years, all of which were successful. If “comics fans” dislike her because of a seven-year-old story, they’re doing a bad job of it.
Third, who gives a shit if comics fans like her or not? Lots of comics fans hated Tony Stark after Civil War but somehow Iron Man still managed to make nearly $600m box office worldwide. Comics fans are not really relevant to the larger audience except as word-of-mouth generators and if you make a decent trailer nerds will be all “HELL YEAH CAPTAIN MARVEL.”
“Third, who gives a shit if comics fans like her or not? Lots of comics fans hated Tony Stark after Civil War but somehow Iron Man still managed to make nearly $600m box office worldwide. Comics fans are not really relevant to the larger audience except as word-of-mouth generators and if you make a decent trailer nerds will be all ‘HELL YEAH CAPTAIN MARVEL.’”
This can’t be stressed enough.
Speaking as someone who is ambivalent toward CM, a great trailer would be all it’d take to make me line up on opening weekend. And speaking as someone who is kind of sick of the living caricature that is the internet fanboy, I’d probably give little weight to any declarations of “THIS IS THE WORST” that I might hear.
Being the only girl in the toy box and therefore Black Widow deserves a movie is why there’s only one girl in the toy box in the first place, honestly. Scarlett Johansson’s ass is probably better reason than that!
Look, I think that Black Widow could probably carry a movie as the lead too, I’d love to see it. I also know that what was said upthread about Marvel being stingy is true…for all the general quality that’s come out of Marvel Studios they love to pinch every single penny they can, and right now Scarlett Johansson has enough star power that they probably don’t want to deal with that. Hell, Marvel’s been persnickety about dealing with Robert Downey Jr. and he’s basically the reason people sat up and took notice of Marvel’s movies in the first place.
Don’t get me wrong, I would also dig a She-Hulk movie (Action! Courtroom drama! Punching!) and I would sell someone’s firstborn to see Monica Rambeau leading Marvel’s Agents of NEXTWAVE, but MGK’s on the money about Carol Danvers being a solid choice for Marvel’s first female-led superhero movie. Marvel themselves are interested in pushing her at the moment and her origin ties nicely into all the cosmic/alien stuff that’s run throughout the MCU.
(I would also love to see some more diversity in the MCU too. I keep hoping that someone at Marvel pushes for a fucking Black Panther movie before Chiwetel Ejiofor is too old for the role.)
As far as the “Carol is disliked by a lot of comic fans” argument goes, in addition to MGK’s rebuttal up there I’ll point out yet again that Marvel is going full speed ahead with a fucking Ant-Man movie and nobody gives a shit about Ant-Man. “But Ant-Man could be cool if-” Any arguments that could be used to justify an Ant-Man movie go double for a Carol Danvers movie. Iron Man wasn’t exactly super-duper A-grade material either until RDJ played him. It’s all in the execution and right now Marvel has earned a lot of leeway.
“Any arguments that could be used to justify an Ant-Man movie go double for a Carol Danvers movie. Iron Man wasn’t exactly super-duper A-grade material either until RDJ played him. It’s all in the execution and right now Marvel has earned a lot of leeway.”
Two thoughts (not necessarily related):
1. God damn do I wish that Marvel hadn’t fucked up Hulk the first time around. I found myself wanting to scream at the screen during the Hulk scenes in Avengers, specifically “THIS is how you do the fucking HULK!”
2. I’m trying to think of a better female superhero debut movie (Marvel) and can’t think of one. The only other character I can think of is She-Hulk, though I think she’d work better on the small screen with an ongoing, longer-form narrative.
I agree with this article and generally with the sentiment that Marvel’s first solo female-led movie should probably be Captain Marvel / Carol Danvers.
I’m all for a Black Widow movie. My butt will be there in the theater. I hope they make one AS WELL, because I don’t think it *should* be a “this, or that” game. I do recognize that there’s business stuff getting in the way of that, though. Maybe ScarJo’s cost, maybe her desire to take a little time off with the new kid, and so on.
But at this point, even if she isn’t a headliner, we HAVE Black Widow in the MCU. Making a Black Widow movie doesn’t really expand on the MCU’s roster of female characters. The MCU needs to add more, and Captain Marvel is the most obvious one that they should add apart from the Wasp (somehow, some way). And I think Captain Marvel would be a stronger headliner than the Wasp. (Whom I want to see in more of an ensemble film.)
However, I just want to point out: Black Widow is not the only (female) toy in the box, already. When talking about the MCU and female characters, we absolutely should be acknowledging that “even though it’s on TV”, Marvel has ALREADY decided to make a significant project with a female headliner: “Agent Carter”.
I expect it to be good. I hope it’s a big success. And I hope that success feeds into a decision to just take a chance and put Captain Marvel on the big screen.
Storm. Invisible Woman. Jean Grey. Black Cat. Rogue. Black Widow. Kitty Pryde. She-Hulk. Jubilee. Spider-Woman. Emma Frost. Don’t mind me, I’m just listing characters that are more recognizable than Carol. Marvel doesn’t really have a “premiere heroine” like DC has Wonder Woman so any of them are valid possibilities…if most weren’t tied up with Fox and Sony.
None of this really matters though. If Marvel really cared about female audiences then they wouldn’t have crapped all over the Runaways franchise; now THERE is a movie. Sadly Marvel is more willing to take a chance on a talking Raccoon than a mostly-female team.
Y’know what’d be awesome though? Daughters of the Dragon.
PS: Sorry I brought up Civil War. I just though it might be worth mentioning the last time Carol was relevant. Personally I started disliking her in Busiek’s Avengers but that’s REALLY going back.
I don’t worry about rogue’s galleries, but for those who do, who are Carol’s main antagonists?
cars
Rogue & Mystique – tied up with X-Men, & more on heroic side now I guess
civil liberties – meh
Moonstone?
That guy who mind-controlled her?
(Man, I sound like a jerk. I like Carol. I don’t think turning her into Green Quasar is a hot idea, but I like Carol.)
How about not making anymore goddamn superhero movies instead?
@Beacon:Well done for having the self-awareness to realise that most of your alternate suggestions are infeasible. Perhaps that’s why they’re pushing Captain Marvel as their premiere superheroine.
I’m pretty sure the Runaways movie fell through for more reasons than Marvel (apparently) hating women.
As for Carol not being relevant since Civil War? Try looking up the Carol Corps, sometime. You know, the primarily female fandom that’s sprung up around the character? How is that not relevant?
@Greg:Where do you think you are, right now?
I would go see this movie.
@greg The regular trucks of money that are delivered to Marvel HQ disagree with you…
“How about not making anymore goddamn superhero movies instead?”
Well they weren’t going to but since you didn’t ask nicely now it’s nothing but superhero movies from here to 2027, sorry.
We’re remaking Gandhi bio-epic, but with superpowers. Hope he doesn’t mind.
“Actually being able to fight in space” as a super power makes me care about Captain Marvel. I don’t think that’s ever happened before.
I think the thing that would make Carol Danvers a good choice for inclusion in the MCU is up until now every superhero we’ve seen is either the result of human experimentation and technology (deliberate or accidental) or being born an Asgardian. Carol’s a bridgepoint between the cosmic and human side of things…a normal person who winds up gaining superpowers from an alien source and suddenly has to deal with the consequences of that.
I like the idea. Throw in the Wrecking Crew as villains and Rick Jones as her sidekick and you’ve got yourself a movie.
The US Air Force and a Kree scout ship named Sentry are both looking for the same lost Asgardian power source, the Norn Stones, but a dishonest construction/salvage crew gets to them first.
When the Kree Sentry Captain Mar-Vell is ordered to destroy Earth he refuses. He disables the bomb’s power supply, the Nega Bands, and runs away to meet Carol Danvers.
I would keep the outer space stuff to a minimum, maybe a climactic scene where she flies off into orbit to punch a spaceship.
With the mention of Carol by Feige and others, I honestly think that we’ll see a CAPTAIN MARVEL movie in the cards after GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY sets up some of the important events involving the Kree. It appears from what little info is out there that Ronan the Accuser and his forces (I think Korath is working with him too?) are looking for items like the Infinity Stones, and there have been hints that he might even be working with Thanos. Presumably, his conflicts with Peter Quill will alert him and the Kree to the existence and nature of Earth, making the planet a Kree target.
I could see Ronan in the Yon-Rogg role if he survives, with Lee Pace the sort, like Tom Hiddleston to be used in multiple films (otherwise, there’s always Yon-Rogg!). As far as the Nega-Bands are concerned, they need not even be used — didn’t “Earth’s Mightiest Heroes” have Mar-Vell empower Carol accidentally via some sort of other Kree device or something? Either way, I could see Carol as a character involved in first response to the Kree incursion/invasion (either as straight military, or the NASA security role if you want to work SWORD elements in) and end up fighting Kree fire with Kree fire.
I still suspect that part of the delay on introducing some of the new heroes in that the main Phase 1 actors are coming to the end of the their contracts. You can renegotiate “at least show up for AVENGERS films!” like they did with Robert Downey Jr., but staggering new big properties (and a film with the name CAPTAIN MARVEL is a big Marvel property by default) until you’re out of THOR and CAPTAIN AMERICA tentpoles might be a big part of it. Even having non-powered Carol Danvers show up in another film counts against a contract, remember, and costs them when they know that she’ll end up punching spaceships in another film or so…
I’ll see your Green Lantern/Zorro movie and raise you one X-Files/It Came from Outer Space
http://wp.me/p2xlVk-75
Why do some people act like a Captain Marvel would automatically block a Black Widow movie? It’s not either/or. I’d personally love to watch both.
Also, while I love Monica Rambeau, I have to admit that Carol Danvers is a more identifiable character. Plus, her power set seem more feasible (and cheaper) as far as special effects go.