‘Captain Marvel’ Is Like An ‘Avengers’ Prequel In More Ways Than One

Captain Marvel finally arrives in theaters on Mar. 8, making Carol Danvers (Brie Larson) the first female Marvel superhero to get her own standalone movie. But, in addition to her own movie, the Avengers: Infinity War’s post-credits scene hinted at the heroine becoming a big part of the next installment, Avengers: Endgame. It’ll be a while until the Avengers movie comes out, but in the meantime, does Captain Marvel get to interact with any of the Avengers in her movie?

Sadly, none of those heroes will appear. Captain Marvel is set in the mid-90s. At that time, the Avengers were either too young to realistically meet Carol (i.e. Peter Parker), inactive, or on planets that aren't Earth, so it makes sense that they wouldn’t be part of the story.

But, from the confirmed cast, we at least know that plenty of familiar faces from previous Marvel movies, including the Avengers ones, will make an appearance. Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) has a huge role, for example. He's been a part of the MCU since the beginning, but the films haven’t revealed much about his backstory so far.

In an advance clip from the movie, Carol interrogates Fury about his life. He reveals that he’s from Hunstville, Alabama, that he became a soldier straight out of high school before becoming a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, and if toast is cut diagonally, he can’t eat it.

In an interview with Entertainment Tonight, Jackson shared more details about his character's Captain Marvel storyline. "I've been riding a desk at S.H.I.E.L.D. and trying to figure out where the next threat will be coming from, dealing with NSA and all these other people, never thinking that there were extra-terrestrials,” explained Jackson. “This is the first time that I encountered them and form a belief that those people are out there, and that there are people who have extraordinary abilities that can help us combat them."

He also mentioned during a set visit that Bustle attended that Captain Marvel answers a lot of questions about Fury, including the origin of his eyepatch. "You'll see specifically the origin of what happened to his eye, possibly," Jackson teases. "You'll find out that he does have family... there's backstory we haven't talked about before: where he's from, what he's done. We get more of what turns him into this person that you originally meet in Iron Man."

In addition to Fury, MCU fans will get to reunite with Phil Coulson (Clark Gregg), who hasn’t appeared in any of the Marvel movies since the first Avengers. We’ve seen parts of his backstory explored in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., but as it does with Fury, this movie will show a lot more of his beginnings in the field. In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Gregg spoke about what we’ll see from his character. “We’re seeing a version of Coulson that’s eight or nine years before Iron Man. He’s a bit of a new guy in S.H.I.E.L.D., he’s a lot younger,” said the actor. “It’s the earliest we would have seen him. So when he says ‘This isn’t my first rodeo, Mr. Stark [in Iron Man],’ this is maybe the rodeo he’s talking about.”

We won’t get to see Captain Marvel meet the Avengers until Endgame, most likely. But at least the new movie gives us the opportunity to learn more about two beloved MCU characters.