How The Marvels Sets Up Avengers: The Kang Dynasty and Avengers: Secret Wars

The Marvels is now out in theaters, and it should surprise no one that film does some lifting for the larger Marvel Multiverse Saga.

(SPOILERS) The plot of The Marvels sees the Kree Empire thrown into Civil War after Captain Marvel (Brie Larson) destroyed the Supreme Intelligence. The new Kree Supremor Dar-Benn (Zawe Ashton) tracks down one of Quantum Bands, which she uses with her hammer the Universal Weapon to create artificial jump points across space. Dar-Benn's ultimate goal is to steal natural resources (air, water, a sun) from planets Carol Danvers loves, and use those resources to restore the Kree homeworld Hala. 

The final battle of The Marvels sees Carol, Monica Rambeau (Teyonah Parris), and Kamala Khan (Iman Vellani) battling Dar-Benn on the S.W.O.R.D. space station before Earth's sun is stolen to re-ignite Hala's dead one. During the fight, Dar-Benn finally steals the second Quantum Band that Ms. Marvel possesses. To punish Carol, Dar-Benn sacrifices herself using both bands to tear open a hole between the dimensions of the multiverse. The catastrophic event is undone by Monica, who uses her electromagnetic spectrum powers to repair the tear – at the cost of being trapped in the alternate universe. 

How The Marvels Sets Up Avengers: Kang Dynasty & Secret Wars

A mid-credits scene for The Marvels sees Monica awaken in the new universe, with her mom Maria Rambeau (Lashana Lynch) by her bedside. However, this new version of Maria turns out to be very different: a version of Captain Marvel who went on to become the hero Binary – a member of Marvel's X-Men! 

Indeed, Monica Rambeau is revealed to be in the care of Charles Xavier and the X-Men, in their underground base. Monica is being cared for by Hank McCoy/Beast (Kelsey Grammer), who confirms that "Charles" instructed him to. 

The Marvels has become the unlikeliest place where we would finally get the version of the X-Men that we will likely see in Avengers: Kang Dynasty and Secret Wars.

Or is it? 

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness already gave us a version of Charles Xavier and the X-Men, drawn from the X-Men animated series of the 1990s. At this point in the Multiverse Saga, it's hard to know what's going to truly matter or not; however, Monica's presence in this X-Men reality gives validity to the idea that this version of X-Men will matter, as Monica presumably must make it home and/or reconnect with her MCU friends (Carol, Nick Fury, Ms. Marvel) at some point. Teyonah Parris showing up in Secret Wars with a group of X-Men as potential allies for the Avengers (after a fight or two) seems almost guaranteed now. 

In The Marvels (now in theaters), Carol Danvers aka Captain Marvel (Brie Larson) has reclaimed her identity from the tyrannical Kree and taken revenge on the Supreme Intelligence. But unintended consequences see Carol shouldering the burden of a destabilized universe. When her duties send her to an anomalous wormhole linked to a Kree revolutionary, her powers become entangled with that of Jersey City super-fan, Kamala Khan (Iman Vellani) aka Ms. Marvel, and Carol's estranged niece, now S.A.B.E.R. astronaut Captain Monica Rambeau (Teyonah Parris). Together, this unlikely trio must team-up and learn to work in concert to save the universe as "The Marvels." The Marvels will also see the franchise returns of Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury, Saagar Shaikh as Aamir Khan, Zenobia Shroff as Muneeba Khan, and Mohan Kapur as Yusuf Khan. New cast members include Zawe Ashton, Park Seo-joon, and Shamier Anderson. Produced by Marvel Studios, The Marvels is directed by Nia DaCosta with a script from DaCosta, Megan McDonnell, and Elissa Karasik.