After Captain Marvel, Can Carol Danvers Defeat Thanos?

Finally, after being teased for the last few years, Captain Marvel has arrived — and she’s here just in the knick of time, too. Things are not all that great in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, both on Earth and in Space. Unable to stop him, Thanos collected all six Infinity Stones and assembled them together in his Infinity Gauntlet. Thanos then snapped half of Earth and Space away, including many of the Avengers. It certainly seems like all hope is lost, but it won’t be lost for long. If there’s anyone who stands even the slimmest chance of defeating Thanos, it’s Captain Marvel. All along, she’s been teased as one ridiculously powerful Avenger, and after seeing Captain Marvel, yeah, that’s confirmed as true. She can fly, she can shoot photon blasts out of her clenched fists, she can take a punch and give one right back, and also she’s pissed. Sure, these are many characteristics shared with other Avengers — Iron Man can fly, Scarlet Witch can warp reality, everyone can take a punch, and Bruce Banner is certainly angry — not all of them have these powers rolled into one.

So as we head into the Endgame — literally, because that’s the name of the next Avengers movie — Captain Marvel is looking like our best bet to take down Thanos once and for all.

Here's why.

Captain Marvel wasn’t always Captain Marvel. Once upon a time, she was just Carol Danvers, a fighter pilot. After she tries (and fails) to blow a ship up to stop the Kree from taking it, a tesseract explodes, hitting Carol dead on. We see the tesseract’s powers flow through Carol, essentially turning her from a human into half-Kree. While before Carol was just super good at taking a punch and getting up after she’s been knocked down, she can now shoot photon blasts out of her fists, among other intense powers.

Something else to consider: We only saw a small taste of them in Captain Marvel.

Girl Literally Splits A Ship In Half

If you need a clear example of her powers, towards the end of the movie when Captain Marvel shows Ronan that she means business, she splits his ship down the middle. She’s not doing it to defeat him or even taunt him, but rather to prove a point that she can do it. And she does. This scares Ronan into retreating, and Captain Marvel wins the fight.

In a few seconds, Captain Marvel can go from standing on Earth to flying out in space, and she’s good at both land and air combat (making her the only Avenger that doesn’t need assistance from a spaceship to fight in space). She can jump from one planet to the next. She might also be able to jump through time.

It’s widely speculated that time travel will play into Avengers: Endgame, and that trick might lie with Captain Marvel. We don’t know the full extent of her powers right now, and for all we know, one of them could be “bending time and space.” Doctor Strange alluded to one timeline where the Avengers defeat Thanos, and Captain Marvel might be the one to actually fight on that timeline — or even possibly bring everyone else with her to fight, too.

No offense to Scott Lang a.k.a. Ant-Man (who missed being dusted thanks to winding up in the quantum realm), but he’s probably not the one to defeat Thanos in the end. We’ve seen every other Avenger go up against Thanos, and lose. Someone’s got to come in and help save the day, and that burden is more than likely going to fall on Captain Marvel. There’s no doubt about it that she’s strong and powerful and since she’s technically got a little bit of the tesseract in her, she’s the only one who stands any sort of chance against the big bad.

In short: Help us, Captain Marvel. You’re our only hope.