Captain Marvel: What Does The Ending Really Mean?

3. The Avengers Initiative Is Named After Carol

Since it's set in the 1990s, before the vast majority of MCU stories have taken place, Captain Marvel is able to drop a number of references that either nod towards things to come or more overtly set them up. There are plenty of such moments, including the aforementioned Tesseract and the appearances of characters such as Ronan the Accuser and Phil Coulson, but few stand out like Fury's realisation that Earth needs to be better prepared for alien invasions, and to find more superheroes if possible.

At first, he calls this The Protect Initiative, which actually makes sense since they'll end up protecting, not avenging (Endgame is going to be the first time they've lived up to their name). However, his eyes fall on a photo of Carol as he's writing this, and he sees the word 'Avenger' is her callsign in the Air Force, and renames the document The Avenger Initiative.

Yep, Captain Marvel inspired the entire Avengers Initiative, which we first found out about in 2008's Iron Man. It leaves quite a few questions about Fury's actions later down the line, not least how long it takes for any movement on the initiative and the way he talks about alien threats, but it does work in the context of this movie (and fits with how Marvel will happily retcon things to suit what they need for the present movie). Those quibbles aside, Captain Marvel is the first superpowered being Fury meets, so it does make sense she'd inspire him to find others - even if it takes over a decade.