Warning: SPOILERS for Marvel's What If...? Episode 3 - "What If... The World Lost Its Mightiest Heroes?"
Marvel's What If...? episode 3 clarified why Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) never pages Captain Marvel (Brie Larson) and what level of catastrophe the Marvel Cinematic Universe has to be faced with before Fury contacts Carol Danvers with his beeper. "What If... The World Lost Its Mightiest Heroes?" posits an alt-universe where Hank Pym (Michael Douglas) killed the Avengers before they could assemble, which left the Earth open to be conquered by Loki (Tom Hiddleston) and the Asgardians.
The movie Captain Marvel established that Fury met Carol Danvers in 1995, which happened in the main MCU and in What If...? episode 3's alternate timeline. After working together to help the Skrulls and stop an attack on Earth by Ronan the Accuser (Lee Pace), Danvers decided to leave Earth to help their shapeshifting alien friends find a new home. Carol left Fury with a unique pager to contact her if she's needed, but Fury instead had an idea to bring together other powerful heroes to fight the battles S.H.I.E.L.D. never could. In both timelines, Fury's idea was the Avengers Initiative (named after Carol Danvers' Air Force callsign), but in What If...? episode 3's reality, Tony Stark (Mick Wingert), Hulk (Mark Ruffalo), Clint Barton (Jeremy Renner), Natasha Romanoff (Lake Bell), and Thor were all murdered by Hank Pym as twisted revenge on S.H.I.E.L.D. for the death of his daughter, Hope Van Dyne (Evangeline Lilly) so that the Avengers never became a team.
In the mainline MCU, Fury finally used his beeper to call Captain Marvel as billions of people were turned to dust after Thanos (Josh Brolin) used the Infinity Gauntlet to wipe out half of all life in the universe. In What If...? episode 3, Carol Danvers (Alexandra Daniels) responded to Fury's call after Loki conquered Earth since there was no Avengers to stop him. Captain Marvel was summoned to Earth to form a new Avengers team to face Loki, and the cosmic superhero was already looking for a fight. Both scenarios established the baseline level of catastrophe Fury considers worthy of asking Captain Marvel for help. Of course, Carol must have already been aware of the universal genocide in Avengers: Infinity War when she got Fury's distress call before he disintegrated to dust.
Nick Fury's beeper wasn't invented until 2019's Captain Marvel and so its existence is a retcon in both MCU timelines. But the loss of the Avengers in What If...? actually underscored why Fury didn't feel the need to ever call Captain Marvel before Infinity War in the MCU's Sacred Timeline. Fury was actually extremely confident in the Avengers team he assembled. While he may have had qualms about each individual, the way Iron Man, Captain America (Chris Evans), Hulk, Thor, Black Widow, and Hawkeye performed as a team to beat back Loki and the Chitauri proved Fury's faith in the Avengers Initiative was not misplaced, and he was positively bragging about Earth's Mightiest Heroes to the World Security Council at the end of The Avengers.
Since audiences now know that Fury had Captain Marvel's beeper all along, S.H.I.E.L.D.'s Director likely kept it handy in case the Avengers lost to the Chitauri. But after the Avengers beat Loki, Fury knew he assembled a winning team that could handle anything — hence, he wouldn't need to pull Captain Marvel away from her important cosmic duties. There was likely a bit of pride at play for Fury too, since, in Nick's mind, paging Carol Danvers is literally signaling defeat and an absolute last resort.
Judging from what it took for Fury to summon Carol — universal genocide and the Earth subjugated by Loki — Fury only treated Captain Marvel as the ultimate 'break glass' worst-case scenario when he is completely out of options. Fury's Avengers Initiative was his attempt to build a defense force for Earth that would equal Captain Marvel, and he felt he had just that with Iron Man, Hulk, and Thor's power levels. What If...? proved that it took losing all of them and Earth as well for Nick Fury to swallow his pride and use his beeper to ask Captain Marvel to save him and the Earth.
Marvel's What If...? streams Wednesdays on Disney+.
from ScreenRant - Feed https://ift.tt/3mMdHVa
0 Comments