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If she’s in it, Captain Marvel is undoubtedly going to be the wildcard in Avengers 4: Endgame. She can fly in space, she can punch Skrulls disguised as grannies really, really hard and, yes, she has Goose the cat. But Thanos needn’t be packing his bags for the nearest one-way flight to Titan just yet. Directors Anthony and Joe Russo are perhaps considerate of the likes of cosmic heroes such as Carol Danvers wiping the floor with everything come April – and they have something to stop them in their tracks just a little bit.
Speaking to Cinema Blend, the topic of overpowered characters came up, particularly when it comes to Captain Marvel. Lest we forget, this is a hero who ends most of her trailers with shots of her going “Binary” AKA shooting space lasers out of her hands until everything stops moving. It’s unlike anything we’ve seen before or since in the MCU, and it’s easy to suggest that she’s going to be on a whole ‘nother power level to anything else. Not so, says Joe Russo.
“It's always a concern of ours about overpowering characters,” says the elder Russo brother, perhaps wary of outright name-checking Captain Marvel, whose involvement in Endgame has been kept under wraps, “Because the reason that people relate to these characters is their humanity, and that they’re flawed…So, we're all acutely aware of the dangers of having an overly powerful character. [But] we like sensitive storytelling, so… we found a thoughtful way through it.”
It’s a challenge that the Russos are looking forward to, with Anthony Russo saying: “As storytellers, that's been one of the most fun things we've had working with these characters is figuring out ways into them where they are vulnerable and they aren't all powerful.”
Captain Marvel, surely, could deal a lot of damage with one hand tied behind her back. The fact that the Russos have a contingency to stop Carol, or whoever else might be on a different power plane to the rest of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, is perhaps telling of just how much things are going to evolve moving forward in the MCU. No longer is a man in a suit the only framework for a superhero: we have trees, trash pandas and – shock, horror – women.
