Captain Marvel Trailer Wastes No Time In Clearing Up The Old-Lady-Punching Thing

Marvel this week released the much-anticipated new trailer for Captain Marvel, which releases early next year. Even more so than the first look at the movie, it establishes the backstory of Carol Danvers--who seemingly has a new origin story--and establishes the basic premise of the movie. More importantly, it straightens out something that some viewers were no doubt confused about during the film's debut trailer.

That initial trailer for Captain Marvel featured a striking moment for those who don't know much of the Kree/Skrull backstory that serves as a major foundation for the upcoming movie: Captain Marvel punches an old lady in the face. That might have seemed inexplicable to some, though we felt safe in our assumption that the old woman was simply a Skrull in disguise.

The new trailer goes heavy on the exposition. Aside from some dialogue where Samuel L. Jackson explicitly lays out the absolute basics of the relationship between the Skrull and Kree, the trailer also wastes no time in sorting out that punching incident. Rather than cut away after the punch, we see the old woman is--surprise!--not an old woman at all. She's unfazed by the punch, and the two begin to fight.

This scene will presumably be more of a comedic beat in the final film than anything particularly meaningful. Elsewhere in the trailer, we do see some more significant aspects of the movie, including the fact that Marvel seems to be introducing a new origin story for Danvers. Based on what we see, she's unaware of the fact that she's actually human, and piecing that together will apparently be part of her arc during the movie.

Captain Marvel--which is set in the '90s--will also presumably set up why the character has gone unseen in all of the Marvel Cinematic Universe movies to date. We know based on the post-credits Infinity War stinger that Nick Fury signals Captain Marvel after Thanos snaps his fingers, but we're not sure where she's been for the past few decades.

Captain Marvel's release date is set for March 8, with Avengers 4 set to follow on May 3.