Predicting What Will Happen in 'Avengers: Endgame' Based on 'Captain Marvel'

It finally happened! It took more than 20 movies, but we've finally been introduced to the on-screen version of Captain Marvel, aka Carol Danvers of the Kree warriors, by the way of Earth. We were finally introduced to the Supreme Intelligence of the Kree (occasionally appearing as Annette Bening), as well as an entire new race of aliens, the shape-shifting Skrulls. For all the rapid universe expansion taking place in Captain Marvel, it might be hard to track just how the MCU's most powerful superhero is meant to fit into next month's Avengers: Endgame.

Although we almost got our first look at Captain Marvel during the end shots of The Avengers: Age of Ultron (Joss Whedon prepped but scrapped the idea for a Carol cameo before the film made it to the final cut), her existence was first introduced in the end-credits scene of Avengers: Infinity War, when a disintegrating Nick Fury manages to start a beacon on an old-school pager amplified with Kree technology.

The Captain Marvel mid-credits scene picks up after Infinity War's ending that saw Thanos using the Infinity Gauntlet to delete half of all life in the universe. Steve Rogers (Chris Evans), Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo), and War Machine (Don Cheadle) are all looking at monitors that show country-by-country figures of the number of humans who are missing and presumed snapped. Some time has passed since the ending of Infinity War, because the surviving Avengers have collected Fury's pager from the street, and the signal on the '90s-era device stops just as Captain Marvel arrives and asks: "Where's Fury?"

In the first trailer for Avengers: Endgame, Tony Stark starts monologuing to Pepper Potts in space, and Black Widow mourns with Steve Rogers. There's a shot of Bruce Banner looking at screens featuring photos of missing Avengers, likely in the same room in the Avengers compound that we see the missing toll in the Captain Marvel mid-credits scene.

Then, also in the trailer, there are several conspicuous shots where there is a gap in the Avengers visual lineup, like the one where they are all looking up into the night sky. That gap is where Carol should be standing -- the Avengers in that shot are the same as the ones in the Captain Marvel mid-credits scene who are trying to get a handle on what Thanos did and whether they can undo it.

The first Avengers: Endgame trailer ends with Scott Lang, fresh out of the Quantum Realm, where we left him at the end of Ant-Man and the Wasp, rolling up to what appears to be the Avengers compound, with his van that includes a portal back into to the Quantum Realm. Eventually, in a hero shot of our group walking through the Avengers hangar, Ant-Man and Rocket Raccoon are with the group, but there's another conspicuous space in the line-up that could be for either Captain Marvel or Nebula.

We also don't see much of Thor in the trailer, but if we had to guess, he's off somewhere feeling depressed about not aiming for the head, until Rocket Raccoon swings by to cheer up the old god and get him back to return to the fight. You can see Rocket arrive at the cabin in the Super Bowl teaser.

Conclusion: Captain Marvel joins up with the Avengers before Nebula and Tony Stark get back to Earth and before Scott Lang shows up to provide the solution of the Quantum Realm.

Surprisingly, Carol Danvers might not have the key information she needs to understand what just happened to the universe. Presumably, Carol has been flying around the universe as some sort of space cop (like the Nova Corps, which -- oops -- were destroyed off-screen in Infinity War so Thanos could gain the Power Stone), and she looks so distrustful and tired in the Endgame trailer because she's seen half of that universe disappear.

Carol, like Vision, has been made a hero by the power of one of the Infinity Stones (she's the result of a Tesseract-powered engine explosion), and Marvel President Kevin Feige has confirmed that Captain Marvel is the most powerful superhero introduced to date in the MCU. Carol Danvers is our heavy! She's going to have to punch a bunch of Thanos when the battle finally goes down.

But Scott Lang, trapped in the Quantum Realm where there are things like "time eddys," likely has the actual solution to beating Thanos. Set leaks and rumors suggest that a few of our heroes will don white quantum suits for a trip in Scott's quantum van. Lang is the science-bro who has the ultimate answer that Thanos hasn't thought about. Even though the trailers make it appear like Lang shows up at Avengers HQ, at this point I'd say it's equally likely he's showing up at Tony Stark's Malibu home. Who wants to drive a quantum van cross-country?

Nebula (Karen Gillan) is the key here, both because of her connection to Thanos and Gamora, but also as the most-travelled character in the galaxy (as far as we know). At a recent Disney event for shareholders, Endgame footage was presented showing the Avengers -- including Captain Marvel and Nebula -- gathered at HQ, where they are told that Thanos would go to "the garden." Captain Marvel says they have to go there and face Thanos to use the Infinity Stones to undo what he did. Note: Iron Man seems to be absent from this meeting.

The first Avengers: Endgame trailer also looks like it might be a huge misdirect to hide the order in which the team comes together. Given what we've seen in Captain Marvel, and assuming those gaps in certain shots of the trailer aren't just bad directing, it looks like, in the wake of Avengers: Infinity War, Captain Marvel will be drawn to the Avengers HQ first.

Then, in that "looking up in the sky at night" shot I mentioned above, Nebula and Tony Stark manage to make it back to Earth. Tony looks crushed, though, possibly because of the loss of Peter Parker or because he almost didn't get to see Pepper, so he doesn't stick around and leaves Nebula with the Avengers. It's Scott who ends up bringing Tony back into the fold when he needs science help with the quantum realm. Hank Pym's entire career was about keeping his tech out of the hands of Stark, so Scott Lang would know that's the Avenger who can actually use it.

The end of the shareholders footage featured a bunch of Avengers in a spaceship: Rocket Raccoon, Thor, Nebula, a suited-up Captain America, War Machine, and Black Widow. Rocket asks who hasn't been into space before and for the newbies not to throw up. Point being, Nebula goes from being trapped with Tony Stark in space to part of the Avengers very quickly, and during that time, Iron Man is absent from the team.

Conclusion: Banner and Tony Stark (science bros!) team up with Scott Lang to science-up some sort of solution to obtaining at least one Infinity Stone from the past.

Granted, most of these conclusions are speculation based on teasers, unreleased footage and other clues, but even with digitally deleted characters and altered hair colors in the Endgame teaser footage, we're starting to get enough pieces of the puzzle to see what the goals are for our Avengers.

So far, with only a few weeks before the premiere date of Avengers: Endgame, there's no sign of our snapped heroes or whose MCU fate will come to an end this film, with only a few weeks before the premiere date.