The Marvels Recap: Captain Marvel Sequel, Explained

Who are the Marvels? How did they get their powers? And what the flerk is a Flerken? The Marvels is the 33rd installment in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and like its leads — the superhero trio of Carol Danvers (Brie Larson), Monica Rambeau (Teyonah Parris), and Kamala Khan (Iman Vellani) — it's three-pronged. Set after the events of Avengers: Endgame, the Marvel Studios movie is the sequel to Captain Marvel; the follow-up to Disney+ series WandaVision, Ms. Marvel, and Secret Invasion; and it even sets up the multiversal crossover Avengers: Secret Wars, the upcoming final chapter of Phase 6 of the MCU and The Multiverse Saga. 

"We don't want people to have to watch anything else but, of course, you also have to be honest and be like, 'This is the [33rd] project in this universe. It's sort of a sequel to five different things,'" director Nia DaCosta told GamesRadar+ about The Marvels' required viewing. "So at a certain point, you have to just be like, 'Okay, yeah, there are some things that we can't get in here, but it'll be fun.'"

Some of those things didn't make it in because The Marvels has the shortest runtime of the MCU at 105 minutes. If you're not caught up — or if you need a refresher — we've assembled this recap for everything you need to know about those Marvel movies and TV shows.

Captain Marvel

Set in 1995, Captain Marvel introduces United States Air Force Captain Carol Danvers — call sign "Avenger" — and her wingwoman, Captain Maria Rambeau (Lashana Lynch), call sign "Photon." While flying as a test pilot for the alternative energy agency Project P.E.G.A.S.U.S. in 1989, Carol discovers that her mentor, Dr. Wendy Lawson (Annette Benning), is secretly a Kree scientist named Mar-Vell. 

In her attempt to end the 500-year Kree-Skrull war, Mar-Vell harnesses the power of the Tesseract to create the Light-Speed Engine and help the shape-shifting Skrulls seek refuge. After she inadvertently absorbs the cosmic energy of the Space Stone, an anmesiac Carol Danvers — who believes she's the Kree warrior "Vers" — serves the Kree Empire's Supreme Intelligence as a member of Starforce alongside Yon-Rogg (Jude Law).

Carol eventually regains her memories and returns to Earth, just as S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) uncovers an alien infiltration. She reconnects with Maria and her 11-year-old daughter, Monica (Akira Akbar), who her "Auntie Carol" calls "Lieutenant Trouble." Joining forces with Fury, ally Skrull Talos (Ben Mendelsohn), and Mar-Vell's former pet — a cat-like alien creature known as a Flerken — Carol helps save refugee Skrulls from extermination by Yon-Rogg and the Supreme Intelligence. After a display of force that unnerves even the Kree Accuser Ronan (Lee Pace), Carol promises to find the Skrulls a home and becomes the star-faring cosmic defender Captain Marvel. Meanwhile, the intergalactic threat inspires Fury to find more heroes and assemble The Avengers Initiative.

Avengers: Endgame

Captain Marvel spends decades in space protecting planets throughout the galaxy. In 2018, she's summoned to Earth by Fury just before Thanos (Josh Brolin) wields the six Infinity Stones to erase Fury — and half of all life in the universe — with a snap of the finger. After helping the Avengers track down and kill Thanos, another five years pass before Captain Marvel assembles alongside Earth's mightiest heroes to defeat the Thanos of 2014 in the Battle of Earth. As revealed in WandaVision, Monica is among the victims of the Snap; when she returns to life during the Blip five years later, she learns that her mother, Maria, died from cancer in 2020.

WandaVision

After the events of Captain Marvel, Maria founded S.W.O.R.D. (the Sentient Weapon Observation and Response Division) to defend Earth from extraterrestrial and extra-dimensional dangers. Weeks after she's blipped back to life during the events of Avengers: Endgame, S.W.O.R.D. Acting Director Tyler Hayward (Josh Stamberg) sends Monica to investigate the Westview Anomaly in New Jersey. As it turns out, Westview is under a Hex caused by the powerful, reality-shaping chaos magic of Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen): the Scarlet Witch. 

Breaking free from the Scarlet Witch's mind control that makes her believe she was Wanda's neighbor "Geraldine," Monica thrice goes through the boundary and is exposed to energy that re-writes her cells on a molecular level. The Hex embues Monica with superpowers — essentially, she's able to manipulate light energy — that she then uses to help break the Scarlet Witch's control over Westview. In the end-credits scene of WandaVision, a Skrull posing as an FBI Agent recruits Monica to join Fury off-world as part of S.A.B.E.R.: what U.S. President Ritson (Dermot Mulroney) calls "the most complex aerospace defense system in the history of mankind." In The Marvels, S.A.B.E.R. astronaut Captain Monica Rambeau is in space when her light-based powers become entangled with those of Carol and New Jersey superhero (and Captain Marvel super-fan) Kamala Khan.

Ms. Marvel

Pakistani-American high school student Kamala Khan is a Captain Marvel fangirl who inherits a bangle handed down from her great-grandmother, Aisha (Mehwish Hayat). Seemingly Kree in origin, the bangle unlocks Kamala's latent cosmic powers that are drawn from a multiversal dimension. The Djinn Najma (Nimra Bucha) explains to Kamala that her ability to manifest and manipulate hard light constructs comes from Noor, the energy source of the Noor Dimension where Aisha, Najma, and the rest of the Clandestines were able to harness that energy to wield great power. It's the masked Kamala — who is dubbed everything from "Night Light" to "Light Girl" by the public — who stops the exiled Djinn from using Aisha's bangle to pierce the Veil of Noor and return to their realm, preventing Earth's destruction.

After taking the name Ms. Marvel, her best friend Bruno (Matt Lintz) reveals he's discovered a mutation in her genes: Kamala is a mutant. She then returns to her bedroom with Aisha's bangle... and is suddenly displaced, switching places with a confused Captain Marvel.

Secret Invasion

More than 30 years after the events of Captain Marvel, Fury has failed to find the refugee Skrulls a new home. After the insurgent Skrull Gravik (Kingsley Ben-Adir) helped Fury harvest superhero DNA from the aftermath of the Battle of Earth in Endgame, he then went rogue and used that DNA — including Captain Marvel's — to create a genetically modified Super-Skrull army. Gravik's sect of shape-shifting Skrull imposters frame Fury as a terrorist, kill Talos during an attempted assassination of U.S. President Ritson, and reveal their plot: manipulating the U.S. government into initiating a strike that would trigger World War III and a nuclear holocaust. 

Gravik's plan is to eradicate the human race and take over the radioactive Earth as the new New Skrullos, but Fury thwarts the secret invasion with the help of Talos' grown-up daughter, G'iah (Emilia Clarke). Secret Invasion ends with Ritson declaring all off-world born species as enemy combatants, and Fury going off-planet to S.A.B.R.E. as the Kree are willing to engage in "peace talks" with the Skrulls. Fury's Skrull wife, Varra (Charlayne Woodard), agrees to help him start the Kree-Skrull peace summit, and that's where we find Fury at the start of The Marvels. 

Per the official synopsis for The Marvels: "Carol Danvers aka Captain Marvel 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, aka Ms. Marvel, and Carol's estranged niece, now S.A.B.E.R. astronaut Captain Monica Rambeau. Together, this unlikely trio must team up and learn to work in concert to save the universe as 'The Marvels.'"