‘The Marvels’ is Putting Complicated Family Front and Center

Marvel has released a new featurette for The Marvels, “The Journey to The Marvels,” showing Carol, Monica, and Kamala’s journeys to superheroism in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The promo is full of great moments from Captain Marvel, WandaVision, and Ms. Marvel, like each character using their powers for the first time. It also has some new footage from the upcoming film.

The featurette includes one particularly charged moment: Monica, seeing Carol for the first time in decades, confronts her about all the things she’s missed while fighting villains in the furthest reaches of space. Monica was a child the last time Carol saw her, and now she’s grown up, while Carol’s powers have prevented her from aging. Monica also tells Carol that her mother and Carol’s best friend, Maria Rambeau, died during the Blip—and Carol wasn’t there to say goodbye to her.

If you saw the first Captain Marvel movie, you know how close Carol and Maria were, so for Carol to be AWOL during Maria’s last days is pretty hurtful. It looks like this movie isn’t going to be your average superhero team-up—along with kicking butt, Carol and Monica are going to have to navigate some pretty serious emotional terrain.

In fact, according to director Nia DaCosta, that terrain is at at the core of the film. In an interview with Empire Magazine, DaCosta explained the family dynamic driving the film.

I thought it would be cool to map an estranged family history and sister story onto [Carol, Monica, and Kamala] … Carol’s the oldest, the prodigal, then there’s the middle sister Monica, who Carol knew as a kid and promised she’d come back [to] but then never did.

Of course, Carol and Monica aren’t the only members of the trio with complicated feelings to sort out. In the Disney+ series Ms. Marvel, Kamala worships Carol, even basing her own superhero identity off of her. DaCosta told Empire that she sees that hero worship as part of the sister dynamic, even though Kamala has never met Carol in person: “Kamala is the youngest, who hasn’t had the experience of living with this older sister but idolises her.” They say that you should never meet your heroes, so it’s likely that Kamala will have to deal with the fact that Carol is a flawed human being, like her.

CGI fights are fine, but it’s the interpersonal drama that turns a good superhero film into a great one. And if the dynamic between Carol, Monica, and Kamala is as messy as it looks like, then The Marvels will be superb.

(featured image: Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures)