Captain Marvel Vs Wonder Woman: Which Is Better?

3. Standalone Appeal

It's absolutely not a requirement that these movies are digestible as entirely standalone films, but movie studios aren't stupid, and where possible they want to make these tentpoles as accessible to as wide an audience as possible.

Both films are unmistakably tethered to franchises, but which one pulls off the juggling act better?

Wonder Woman's slightly iffy frame story nods quite obviously to the wider DCEU, though the bulk of the story is incredibly on-the-level, and thanks to the period setting, it's almost entirely isolated away from the other Justice League members.

Conversely, Captain Marvel is more intimately intertwined with the MCU as we know it, what with the inclusion of Nick Fury, Agent Coulson (Clark Gregg), Korath (Djimon Hounsou) and Ronan (Lee Pace). But rather sensibly, a newbie could watch Captain Marvel without knowing these characters prior and still get the gist.

It does provide a lead-in of sorts to Avengers: Endgame, but it absolutely doesn't interfere with the bulk of the movie.

WINNER: Both films do a pretty solid job of batting away the demands of an intertwined movie universe, so this is a tough one to call.

Aside from the frame story, Wonder Woman feels more unrestrained by its franchise, while Captain Marvel does have to make a few concessions for bigger picture stuff (though most of it is pretty satisfying).

Wonder Woman by a nose, but neither does much wrong here.