Captain Marvel is the second feature-length prequel in the MCU, and as with most prequels, it had a big task on its hands.
While Captain America: The First Avenger only had to tell the story of Steve Rogers and how he wound up in the present, Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck's film had to tie heavily into the established canon. The nineties setting was deliberate, and it enabled Marvel to answer some of those unanswered questions that have pervaded the MCU for the past 10-or-so years.
Elements from the Avengers, Captain America and even the Guardians of the Galaxy are all broached, but the film also sets up quite a few events and storylines we haven't yet managed to see on screen. It all feeds into Marvel's wider strategy to mount a 'distinctly different' version of the MCU from Phase 4 onwards, and with Captain Marvel leading the charge, it's only natural that her origin film would help set up some of these events and storylines.
Some hints were obvious, while others were slightly less-so. Either way, Captain Marvel has already proven itself to be a vital addition to the MCU timeline, and will likely influence further films to come...
WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well.
In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.
