Why Captain Marvel Is Going To Be A Very Different MCU Movie

Jul 24, 2017 July 24th, 2017

1. The Skrulls Are Making An Appearance

Yep, that's right. The Skrulls - The Fantastic Four's biggest enemies - are in the MCU. Come again?

While the situation regarding the rights behind Marvel's foremost characters sinks deeper and deeper into convoluted territory, we received confirmation over the weekend that the enemies behind Captain Marvel's film would be none other than the Skrulls themselves - everyone's favourite weird-chinned, shape-shifting alien antagonists.

This is amazing for a number of reasons, not least of which because we're now bound to see the 'Kree-Skrull War' in some form or another. Indeed, the fact that the Skrulls are actually in the MCU illustrates just how much Disney are able to get out of the Marvel license, particularly when it's fragmented between studios and doubly so when its premier properties are ambiguously shared. Marvel are - apparently - allowed to use the Skrulls as long as they don't depict Fantastic Four-specific Skrulls, like the Super Skrull (the horror).

The Chitauri are cool and all, but they don't have anything on Marvel's most iconic alien race. What makes them so exciting as an enemy isn't just that they're iconic - it's that they're shape shifters, responsible for some of the most infamous events in Marvel history. Their presence could totally set up an Invasion of the Body Snatchers-type superhero film (already a marked improvement over yet another remake), and also raises daring implications for the current cast of the MCU. We now have a universe where an Avenger (or any other character, for that matter) could be a Skrull hiding in plain sight. It's pretty exciting (or terrifying, depending on how you view it), and pushes the MCU way, way into uncharted territory.

Whichever way you look at it, it's hard not to be excited about Captain Marvel. Women-led and nineties to the core, this is one superhero film that's promising great things for the genre.

Are you excited for Captain Marvel? Have a theory about Nick Fury's eyepatch? Let us know in the comments below!

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Ewan Paterson

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.

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