The MCU’s Latest Movie Repeated A Major Infinity War Mistake But Made It Worse

While there were multiple fun, new elements that The Marvels introduced to the MCU, it repeats a mistake that was first made in Avengers: Infinity War, five years prior. The long-awaited sequel to 2019’s Captain Marvel, The Marvels follows the titular heroine as she finds herself thrown into yet another intergalactic quest, only this time she’s accompanied by two teammates, whether she wants them or not. The first is Monica Rambeau, the daughter of Carol’s deceased best friend who recently acquired superpowers of her own, and the second is Kamala Khan aka Ms. Marvel, her biggest superfan, who uses her own mutant abilities to fight crime.

Captain Marvel, Monica, and Ms. Marvel work together to try to stop the Kree villain Dar-Benn, whose goal is to steal natural resources from planets across the galaxy to save her home world from dying. One of the planets Dar-Benn targets is Aladna, wanting its water. Dar-Benn launches a full-scale attack on Aladna’s people, and the three heroes must fight to stop her and save the planet before it’s destroyed. The heroes are at a distinct disadvantage because Dar-Benn has intertwined their powers, causing their bodies to swap every time they’re used. Aladna’s fate then repeats that of another planet in Infinity War.

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The Marvels tells a fairly straightforward narrative by MCU Multiverse Saga standards, but its exciting ending has big implications for the wider MCU.

Aladna’s Fate In The Marvels Is Worse Than Xandar’s In Infinity War

Despite her best efforts, Captain Marvel is forced to leave Aladna behind, presumably to be destroyed by Dar-Benn off-screen. This is the second time she does this in the movie, following the first when she fails to save a Skrull colony from Dar-Benn’s wrath, and the movie shows its devastating collapse. Aladna’s demise happening off-screen more closely resembles Xandar’s, the home planet of the Nova Corps, which previously housed the Power Stone. To acquire his first Infinity Stone, Thanos invades Xandar and completely decimates it, which, though not shown in Infinity War, is later confirmed in the movie.

While both instances are devastating, the destruction of Aladna is even worse than Xandar because its fate is left open-ended. Audiences can reasonably assume that the planet was destroyed, considering Dar-Benn had the technology to steal its water, and she invaded with a powerful army that Aladna’s more peaceful, musical planet had weak defenses against. This open-ended fate becomes even more alarming when considering that Captain Marvel was revered and considered royalty on Aladna, so the implication that she was not able to save a planet that loved her so much is even more heartbreaking.

How The MCU Can Fix The Marvels’ Aladna Mistake

In order to fix its mistake, The Marvels needs to address Aladna’s fate in a future MCU project, whether that be with Captain Marvel herself or with Monica and Kamala. The third Captain Marvel movie, for example, can involve her revisiting Aladna to assess its damage or mentioning that it was destroyed and her coping with the impact it has on her. Of course, Captain Marvel has witnessed the destruction of other planets before, but because Aladna specifically has such a personal connection for her, it would be inappropriate for the MCU to write it off as another loss.

Kamala could also discuss Aladna’s fate in her next MCU appearance. She was visibly shaken by the amount of death she had to witness during her travels with Captain Marvel, and once she returns to Earth, she is invigorated to form her own superhero team, laying the groundwork for the MCU’s Young Avengers. The Young Avengers project could include Kamala mentioning how what happened to Aladna and the Skrull colony shaped her as a hero, which would be an appropriate way for the MCU to pay respect to the planet after The Marvels failed to do so.

The Marvels

PG-13

Release Date

November 10, 2023

Director

Nia DaCosta

Cast

Brie Larson , Teyonah Parris , Iman Vellani , Zawe Ashton , Gary Lewis , Park Seo-joon , Zenobia Shroff , Mohan Kapur , Saagar Shaikh , Samuel L. Jackson

Runtime

105 Minutes

Writers

Nia DaCosta , Zeb Wells , Elissa Karasik

Franchise(s)

Marvel Cinematic Universe

Where To Stream

Disney+