‘The Marvels’ Summary and Ending Explained: Universes Are Starting To Converge

The release of ‘The Marvels’ continues to expand the greater narrative of the MCU as this film sets up a new adventure for three heroes who are interconnected while also giving the new generation of heroes their own time to shine. Of course, a lot of things happened in this movie, and most of them involved the trio of Marvels who were given their own spotlight in this film. And a good part of the narrative explores the past of the characters and the things that they need to do to make things right.

In what was a fast-paced movie that was able to quickly resolve things using a quicker tempo than most of the other movies we’ve seen in the MCU slate, ‘The Marvels’ was able to deliver a storyline that was straightforward but full of different surprises as well. So, with that said, let’s look at a quick recap of what happened in the movie and how it ended.

Dar-Benn’s goals

The movie quickly opens up with Dar-Benn, the new leader of the Kree, and the other Kree succeeding in their search for the other half of the pair of Bangles that were introduced during the events of ‘Ms. Marvel.’ We know that the first half is in possession of Kamala Khan, and Dar-Benn was wondering where the other one was. Nevertheless, Dar-Benn was already able to use the power of the Bangle by opening a jump point that S.A.B.E.R detected.

The scene shifts to Kamala, who is back at home. She was daydreaming about going on adventures with Captain Marvel. We also saw the scene that was featured during the post-credit scene of ‘Ms. Marvel,’ wherein Kamala and Carol Danvers switched places.

Earlier, Carol was seen in her ship as she was using a smaller version of the fracking pod of the Skrulls to try to recover the memories that the Kree stole from her decades ago. Nick Fury contacted her to tell her to investigate a jump point anomaly that had been messing up with S.A.B.E.R. Monica Rambeau, who had just acquired her powers, was also called in by S.A.B.E.R. to investigate another jump point.

The moment that Monica touched the jump point, weird things happened as they all switched places. Carol found herself in the Khan household, while Monica ended up in the location that Carol was investigating. Meanwhile, Kamala found herself floating in space as she switched places with Monica.

The switching begins

This fiasco caused the trio to constantly switch places with one another. Carol was able to return to her ship as she went to a planet called Tarnax to try to investigate what the Kree had been doing. On Tarnax, Dar-Benn met up with Emperor Drogge to try to barter a peace treaty because Hala was dying.

The Kree finds and attacks Captain Marvel and calls her the Annihilator. But because the trio constantly switched places with one another, the Kree that attacked Carol on Tarnax ended up in Kamala’s home, as a confusing series of events allowed them to finally defeat the Kree soldiers who were inside the Khan family’s home and the elevator ship connecting Earth and S.A.B.E.R..

After the Kree soldiers were defeated, Fury and Rambeau arrived in the Khan household to try to explain to them what was happening and how Kamala’s powers were connected to Carol and Monica. The starstruck Kamala tried to use her powers to show Monica what she could do, only for her to switch with Carol, who was still on Tarnax.

After a brief reunion between Carol and Monica, who had not seen each other for a long time and were clearly not ready to talk to one another, Captain Marvel flew off but ended up switching with Kamala, who was falling out of the sky. Maria learned how to fly to try to help Kamala, as they ended up switching places with Carol once more.

A thicker plot

Kamala and Monica were on Tarnax together when Dar-Benn arrived and wondered who they were and how they were connected to the Annihilator. Captain Marvel arrived on the planet as well to confront Dar-Benn. Carol attacked Dar-Benn, only for her Bangle to absorb the energy blast. Kamala saw the Bangle and decided to keep her own Bangle hidden to prevent her from becoming Dar-Benn’s prime target.

While Carol and Monica tried to attack Dar-Benn, the constant switching messed things up for them as their enemy was able to escape. Dar-Benn used her hammer, the Cosmi-Rod, to open a jump point on Tarnax, which was home to the Skrull refugees under the leadership of Emperor Drogge. The jump point basically destroyed the planet as it sucked out the atmosphere. And it was up to the Marvels to try to save the Skrulls by rescuing as many as they could.

The heroes were able to save a lot of Skrulls but couldn’t save all of them. An angry Emperor Drogge, who was just about to agree to a peace treaty with the Kree, told Captain Marvel that she should never have interfered because it led to the destruction of Tarnax. But Carol assured that the Kree would have destroyed Tarnax and the Skrulls either way. Valkyrie arrived via the Bifrost Bridge and allowed the Skrulls to take refuge in New Asgard while also greeting her good friend, Carol Danvers, before leaving with the Skrulls.

The past starts to come back

After the Skrulls left with Valkyrie, the trio discussed what they needed to do next. Kamala showed Carol and Monica that she was in possession of a Bangle that was similar to the one that Dar-Benn had. Carol called this Bangle a Quantum Band, which had powers connected to time and space, as Kamala admitted that her Bangle once brought her to the past. Putting the two Quantum Bands together would have allowed the user to have more power over time and space.

It was also revealed that Captain Marvel was called the Annihilator because she destroyed the Supreme Intelligence decades ago after the events of the ‘Captain Marvel’ movie. The destruction of the AI that led the Kree led to a civil war that devastated Hala and caused the Kree Empire to crumble as the planet lost its breathable air and water. Hala’s sun was also dying.

Wondering what they needed to do next and where Dar-Benn was heading, Kamala said that she saw star maps back on Tarnax but couldn’t remember them. Carol allowed Monica and Kamala to wear Fracking Pods so that they could share memories of what happened when they were constantly switching places. This allowed their memories to go way back to the time that Maria Rambeau, Monica’s mother, was dying from cancer while Monica was away due to Thanos’ Snap.

The fact that Monica thought that Carol never went home was the reason why she was angry. On top of that, the moment Monica returned after the Blip, her mother was already dead. She felt alone because neither Carol nor Maria was there.

After a heartfelt moment involving the trio, Fury called to tell them that Kamala’s family had gone up to S.A.B.E.R. for their own safety. On S.A.B.E.R., however, mysterious eggs started appearing all over the space station. The space station itself started steadily experiencing errors due to the effects of the jump points that Dar-Benn opened up.

Carol realized that Dar-Benn was specifically attacking planets that were once home to her, as it was clear that the Kree leader was targeting Carol’s loved ones while taking resources from those planets to make Hala inhabitable once more. That was when she had a hunch that Dar-Benn was about to go for Aladna, which was a planet that was primarily composed of water, as it was clear that Carol was a bit uncomfortable with the idea of going to that planet.

Aladna joins the battle

After the trio landed on Aladna, Monica and Kamala quickly figured out why Carol felt awkward. She was a princess on Aladna as she actually got married to the planet’s prince in what she said was a political marriage instead of a romantic one. The people of Aladna started singing to welcome their princess back. Carol revealed to her allies that the people of that planet were only capable of speaking and understanding in songs.

The trio headed to the palace, where Carol and Prince Yan had a Disney-like moment as they danced and sang in front of the other nobles of Aladna. Carol explained in song to Yan what the Kree were planning to do to the planet. Revealing that he was “bilingual” because he didn’t have to sing to talk, Prince Yan told the Marvel trio and his army to prepare for battle.

Dar-Benn and the Kree arrived to force the Aladnans to swear fealty to the Kree once more. However, Yan and his people rejected the offer, and they started attacking the Kree invaders to protect their home. Meanwhile, Carol and Monica targeted Dar-Benn to prevent her from using her Cosmi-Rod to open a jump point between Aladna and Hala.

Carol and Monica were almost successful at preventing Dar-Benn from taking the planet’s resources. However, when Kamala started using her powers to help the Aladnans fight back, she switched places with either Carol or Monica as Dar-Benn gained the advantage. She used the Bangle to absorb and redirect Captain Marvel’s energy blast. This allowed her to have enough time to open a jump point that started sucking out the planet’s waters.

Carol’s past haunts her

The Marvels failed to prevent the destruction of Aladna as Carol tried her best to go after Dar-Benn. Kree ships started to chase Carol’s ship, and it was clear that they weren’t going to escape the missiles that were locked onto them. But Kamala, instead of allowing Carol to chase Dar-Benn, forced the ship to jump to save them.

It was clear that Carol wasn’t in the right emotional and mental state as her past was continuing to haunt her. She admitted that she no longer believed that destroying the Supreme Intelligence years ago was the right thing to do, as this only led to the downfall of the Kree Empire and the destruction of Tarnax and Aladna. 

Her guilt was eating her up from the inside, and Carol explained to Monica that the reason why she never visited her on Earth was the fact that she felt ashamed of what she did to the Kree. Carol did not want Monica’s perception of her as a hero to change. But Monica assured Carol that she never wanted a hero because she always saw her Aunt Carol as family. As such, they were able to mend their broken relationship.

The final confrontation

Meanwhile, back on S.A.B.E.R., more and more eggs started popping up while the station was experiencing problems. This forced them to try to evacuate the station, only for them to realize that there weren’t enough ships to evacuate everyone.

Nick Fury realized that the eggs belonged to Goose and that she had been laying Flerken eggs. The eggs hatched to reveal countless Flerkens on the ship. Meanwhile, the Marvels were able to return to S.A.B.E.R. to help Fury out in his plan of allowing the Flerkens to eat everyone on the space station so that they could evacuate safely. In what was a comedic scene, the staff of the S.A.B.E.R. station started running away while Fury and the Marvels allowed the Flerkens to eat them.

After evacuating the S.A.B.E.R. space station, the Marvels realized that Dar-Benn was already in their solar system and was about to suck the sun to bring it back to Hala. The trio decided to confront Dar-Benn near the sun to prevent her from destroying the entire solar system.

The Marvels had perfected their teamwork as they fought Dar-Benn in unison despite the fact that they were constantly switching with one another. Dar-Benn proved to be a match because her Bangle was capable of absorbing Captain Marvel’s attacks. However, the heroes were able to gain the upper hand after Carol was able to pin Dar-Benn under a piece of debris.

Instead of killing Dar-Benn, Carol stayed her hand as Monica was able to convince her that they could fix Hala’s sun by allowing Carol to use her powers to restart it. As such, Carol removed the debris pinning Dar-Benn down as she thought that the Kree leader had agreed to stop fighting. But Dar-Benn betrayed them and took Kamala hostage and took her Bangle.

Fixing the dimensional hole

Now armed with two Bangles, Dar-Benn was more powerful than ever as she flew to the jump point in what was an attempt to speed up the process of sucking the sun out. However, her powers overloaded right next to the jump point, causing it to change into an entirely different hole.

Monica and Kamala rescued Carol before discussing what they needed to do regarding the hole. Monica revealed that this hole led to an entirely different dimension and was far too dangerous to leave alone because it could possibly suck out the entire universe and take it to a different dimension. But she said that she had a plan, and it involved Carol and Kamala using their powers on her so that she would be able to absorb enough energy to close the hole.

Kamala wore both of the Bangles and was clearly able to handle their power. Together, Carol and Kamala empowered Monica to make her powerful enough to close the hole. Monica flew to the other side of the jump point and started closing it. But as the portal was closing, she revealed to Carol and Monica that she couldn’t go back because she needed to stay behind to make sure that the hole was closed.

Monica succeeded in her mission despite Carol trying to pull her back to their universe. Kamala returned to Earth all on her own because Carol had to return to Hala to use her powers to jumpstart the planet’s sun. In doing so, she was able to atone for the downfall of the Kree Empire by saving the planet from destruction.

Kamala’s new goal

Back on Earth, Kamala and the entire Khan family helped Carol move into Maria’s home in Louisiana. Carol and Kamala entered the cockpit of Maria’s plane and talked about how they missed Monica. But they were sure that Monica was going to return to them in the future. And Kamala said that she was looking forward to Monica’s return because she thought that they worked well together.

This gave Kamala an idea as the scene shifted to New York. Kate Bishop, whom we met in the ‘Hawkeye’ series, returned to her safehouse after a night of vigilante work to find that Kamala was waiting for her in the dark.

Trying to imitate Nick Fury, Kamala told Kate that she wasn’t the only young hero in the world before telling her that she needed Kate’s help to form a team. Kamala even mentioned that Ant-Man had a daughter, as it was clear that she used intel from S.A.B.E.R. to learn all about the young heroes whom the government had been monitoring. It became clear that Kamala was now trying to form a Young Avengers core that would initially be composed of her, Kate Bishop, and possibly even Cassie Lang.

Mid-Credit scene: Monica in another universe

After Kamala’s Fury-esque recruitment effort, the scene shifted to Monica, who was recovering on a bed. She woke up to find that her mother, Maria, was lying on another bed beside her as she was so emotional despite the fact that Maria was unaware of who she was.

Beast of the X-Men arrived to tell her that she was now in a universe that was parallel to her own. It was also clear that Maria was Captain Marvel in this universe, as it is likely that this is the same Earth-838 that we saw back in the events of ‘Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.’ If that’s the case, then Maria survived Scarlet Witch’s attack on the Illuminati base. The movie ended with Maria asking Monica who she was, clearly showing the Maria of this universe never had a daughter.

The ending of ‘The Marvels’ clearly shows the early beginnings of a ‘Secret Wars’ event that is likely going to involve multiple universes in a multiversal war. We know that the X-Men and the Fantastic Four are on their way to the MCU, but it is clear that they belong in universes that are different from the main universe of the MCU, which is Earth-616.

As such, the ending of ‘The Marvels’ sets up the future of the MCU and how the universes of the Avengers and the X-Men are possibly going to coordinate with one another through Monica, who is now the common denominator between the two parallel universes.

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