During last night’s (November 6) Monday Night Football on ESPN, Disney unveiled the final trailer for the rapidly approaching The Marvels. The action-packed two minutes tease some serious Avengers connections, reveals at least one Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) cameo, and in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment, might have revealed Captain Marvel‘s Binary form… Or perhaps something else entirely.
In case you’re all “Wait, what?” about this… That’s fair. Binary isn’t exactly a deep cut from the Marvel Comics, but it is something entirely new for the MCU. So let’s get into a little explainer about Binary from the Marvel Comics source material. And let’s also get into a little speculation about how – and why – that Binary costume might be in The Marvels.
Who Is Binary In Marvel Comics? What To Know About Captain Marvel’s Binary Form:
In 1982’s Uncanny X-Men #164, written by Chris Claremont with art by Dave Cockrum, Carol Danvers was experimented on by an alien race called The Brood and changed into the character Binary. In her new, firey form she was able to harness the power of a white hole (phrasing) and generate the power of a star. Basically? Captain Marvel on steroids, and you get the idea.
Possibly an important thing to mention here is at this point Carol was depowered thanks to an encounter with the formerly villainous character Rogue, who absorbed all her memories and powers. Previously, Carol was known as Ms. Marvel. Then Rogue happened, and she became plain old Carol. Changing her into Binary was a way of getting her back into the superhero mix.
Though her powers were eventually reduced, Captain Marvel’s Binary form has been part of the mix since the ’80s. In fact, in 2021 a new version of Binary was introduced as a separate being from Carol during a clash with a rogue faction of the Kree. That Binary stuck around for a while, hanging out with Carol and learning a little bit about the human experience. It was fun, until it all ended very sadly.
Who Is Binary In The Marvels?
Given all this, it would make a lot of sense to think that whatever threat Carol (Brie Larson) faces in The Marvels will cause her to go Binary. And hey, maybe it does! We haven’t seen the movie yet. So, no idea if the big changes Marvel is teasing in the movie trailer are changes for Carol Danvers.
However, the scene in question does not seem to show Carol, based on a cursory glance of what we can see from the person’s hand in the quick scene. We do see Monica Rambeau (Teynoah Parris) in a hospital gown, watching someone else in the Binary costume stand up out of a blanket and walk out of what looks like a medical bay, or other hospital-type room.
Here’s the speculation part, and potential spoilers (if we’re right). Part of the plot of the movie, based on the new trailer, seems to be revisiting the idea of Incursions, first introduced in Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness. That’s when an alternate universe Earth starts to break through into another universe. And though it hasn’t explicitly been stated, in the comic books by Jonathan Hickman (where this concept was first introduced), only one Earth survives.
In the trailer, it looks like Monica is trying to seal up the hole in space made by the Incursion. It’s distinctly possible, given the overall multiverse story the MCU is playing with, that Monica gets trapped on the other side. So what if Binary isn’t Carol… It’s an alternate universe version of Monica?
…And How Does Binary Tie Into The X-Men (Or Not)?
This is even more wild speculation, but fans have been going nuts since a teaser last week seemed to strongly imply the X-Men would show up in The Marvels. This “scene” featuring Binary has thrown more fuel on the fire because according to some folks, on the monitor next to Monica, there seems to be an “X.” You know, as in “X-Men.”
So what if this is Monica waking up in a hospital room next to an alternate-universe version of herself in the identity of Binary and they’re in the X-Men’s Westchester mansion? And what if Professor X (Patrick Stewart) shows up? And looks directly out of the screen and says to me, “Hello, I am your father and I’m proud of you”?
I’m a little iffy about that last part — and also all the parts before it — but the point is that this is either straight-up tying Fox’s X-Men universe into the MCU like fans are hoping. Or it doesn’t. One of the two.
I guess we’ll have to watch The Marvels in theaters on November 10 to find out.
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