One last trailer for the The Marvels hit YouTube today in advance of the movie’s weekend debut and it’s a doozy of a thing. Full of flashbacks to Avengers: Endgame, the reveal of some of the movie’s cameos, and the promise of a “moment that changes everything” — Marvel Studios wants butts in the theater for The Marvels and is willing to do quite a bit to get it.
There’s even one blink or you’ll miss it moment so difficult to spot that we’re gonna put it under a spoiler warning before we even talk about it.
[Ed. note: The rest of this piece contains what could be a pretty big spoiler for The Marvels, so if that’s not your thing, hit the back button.]
Image: Marvel Studios
The MCU’s fourth and fifth phases have been insistently teasing the X-Men, and The Marvels seems to be no exception. This isn’t unexpected — lead character Kamala Khan was revealed to be the first known mutant in the main Marvel Cinematic Universe setting in her eponymous series Ms. Marvel. But pause this new trailer for The Marvels at just the right time and you can catch a glimpse of a computer screen with the telltale circle-and-cross of the X-Men.
Image: Marvel Studios
If The Marvels’ big villain, Dar-Benn, is really smashing through the walls between universes like the trailer says, there could be plenty of room for a visit to a universe where things are quite different — like Doctor Strange’s run-in with Professor X (played by Patrick Stewart) in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.
And it’s not as wild to hook Captain Marvel up to the X-Men as you might thing. Though the MCU associates her with the Avengers, Carol spent many years as a token human superhero in the X-Men books, thanks to being one of the personal fave characters of legendary X-Men writer Chris Claremont. And though she’s currently head of the Avengers in Marvel Comics, her influence on the X-Men setting lives on. Ever wondered why Rogue is super strong and can fly, if her mutant power is just about absorbing powers with a touch? It’s because she once absorbed Carol’s powers so hard that they became permanent.
The X-Men stepped in to help Carol recover, and a beautiful team up was born. It’s only fitting that Captain Marvel would have a close connection to the X-Men, and, if The Marvels is heading in a multiverse-y-mutant-y direction, that she’d have that connection in the movies as well.