Captain Marvel Was Always Nick Fury's Avengers Plan B

Avengers: Infinity War caused a lot of emotional trauma last spring, though it seems like the time since has gone by in a snap. Thanos dusted away some of our favorite Marvel Cinematic Universe characters, including two in particular that we hadn’t seen in a while until the Infinity War post-credits scene: Maria Hill and Nick Fury.

We last saw Hill and Fury in Avengers: Age of Ultron where they came with the assist to fight the Ultron Sentries. They then showed up eight films later to call in the biggest gun Fury could think of to fight against Thanos: Captain Marvel. The question remains, though -- what have Hill and Fury been up to in all that time between?

The just-released Captain Marvel Prelude comic, by writer Will Corona Pilgrim and artist Andrea Di Vito, reveals that in the midst of the Captain America: Civil War events, Hill and Fury talked about the need for a backup plan “in case the worst should ever come.” When Hill asks Fury if he has such a plan, he says, “Nah. If we do our job right, we’ll never be in a position of having to call her.” In other words, he has complete faith that Captain Marvel won’t let him down, unlike other heroes.

Reading between the lines, it seems like only Nick Fury knows and has planned for Captain Marvel's arrival since long before the Avengers Initiative was born. He didn’t give Hill any other details, nor does she ask for any; after all, when your boss is Nick Fury, you get used him having a lot of secret plans. We also can infer that Fury has had this backup plan in place well before the events of Civil War, which will likely be fleshed out more in his appearance in the Captain Marvel film.

As we follow Hill and Fury through the events of Avengers: Age of Ultron to Avengers: Infinity War in the comic, they consistently allude to the possibility that a big threat is coming. Hill and Fury visit Steve Rogers and Tony Stark, respectively, to get the gang back together, but as we know, their efforts fail. In his conversation with Captain America, Fury reveals, “It’s only a matter of time before some bigger intergalactic problem needs to be solved.”

Meanwhile, Hill visits Stark at the Avengers Compound because Vision keeps disengaging his transponder. She tells him, “The world needs the Avengers -- the full roster” before leaving.” Tony, as usual, doesn't take her seriously, which we know since he didn't contact Steve until Avengers: Infinity War. We could read these interventions Hill and Fury attempt as them just preparing for a worst-case scenario, or they had some idea that a big intergalactic threat like Thanos was on the horizon.

Whether Hill and Fury knew for sure there was a threat coming, or if they were simply being overly cautious, no one was adequately prepared for Thanos. It’s a good thing Nick Fury had that Captain Marvel backup plan in his back pocket (or wherever he kept that beeper).

Directed by Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck from a script they wrote with Liz Flahive, Carly Mensch, Meg LeFauve, Nicole Perlman and Geneva Robertson-Dworet, Captain Marvel stars Brie Larson as Carol Danvers, Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury, Jude Law as Mar-Vell, Clark Gregg as Phil Coulson, Lee Pace as Ronan the Accuser, Djimon Hounsou as Korath the Pursuer, Gemma Chan as Minn-Erva, and Ben Mendelsohn, Lashana Lynch, Algenis Perez Soto, McKenna Grace and Annette Bening. The film arrives March 8, 2019.

CBR

Captain Marvel Was Nick Fury's Avengers Plan B All Along