The Marvels Ending Explained: Let The Sunshine In

Welcome back, one and all, to the latest episode of the Marvel Cinematic Universe! Perhaps that should read "latest issue," given the way the MCU's output so closely resembles the way Marvel Comics (and most ongoing superhero and non-superhero comics titles in general) tell a long, sprawling, and occasionally coherent story over numerous installments and a great number of years. In any case, the prospect of watching a new MCU movie (or Disney+ series, as the case may be) has become increasingly more daunting than it used to be, with characters and continuity piling up like so much unfinished homework.

Fortunately, director and co-writer Nia DaCosta is a sturdy, responsible filmmaker, and thus her first foray into the MCU, "The Marvels," never allows itself to become too overcomplicated. While the film features the big-screen debuts of Monica Rambeau (Teyonah Parris), who was introduced in "WandaVision," and Kamala Khan (Iman Vellani), who first premiered in her own series, "Ms. Marvel," the film is largely a sequel to 2019's "Captain Marvel," with Brie Larson once again playing Carol Danvers.

Rather than simply picking up disparate threads left dangling by all these various MCU projects, "The Marvels" smartly tells its own story, weaving in elements here and there and not worrying about the rest. Fittingly for such a busy franchise, it's a movie about the weight of responsibility, the futility of complete retribution, and accepting help when it's offered — whether that help comes from new friends or, y'know, cats with tentacles.

On a remote planet, the new leader of the Kree, Dar-Benn (Zawe Ashton), unearths a magical bangle that had been buried there long ago. The bangle is clearly a source of some pretty effective light powers, and Dar-Benn's joy at discovering it is quickly replaced by frustration at the fact that its matching twin is nowhere to be found.

That's because, surprise (or not, if you watched "Ms. Marvel"), that other bangle is in the possession of Kamala Khan of Jersey City, a teenage girl who is still a nascent superhero and dreams (both privately and publicly, in the form of her comic book drawings) of being Captain Marvel's friend and partner in heroics. Kamala should be careful what she wishes for, because at the same moment she's fantasizing about another fictional Marvel team-up, the real Captain Marvel is investigating a broken jump point that the Kree have opened up just above the barren planet where Dar-Benn found the bangle. Meanwhile, Monica Rambeau, on behalf of Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) and his new space-bound organization, S.A.B.E.R., inspects another anomaly hovering near Earth. As Carol and Monica make contact with these anomalies, the two of them switch places with Kamala.

After some more swapping shenanigans, the three women discover that the swapping occurs whenever any of them use their light-based powers. Essentially, Dar-Benn and the Kree have broken a bit of space-time, entangling our heroes in a situation that's as if the realm-switching finale of "Thor: The Dark World" met the instant-portal-transport of "Doctor Strange." Although they're facing some personal issues — Monica is forced to reunite with Carol after many years, bringing up some bad blood between them, and Kamala aggressively tries to be besties with Carol and Monica from the start — they find they need to put those problems aside in order to go after Dar-Benn.

Dar-Benn makes a plea to the leader of the now-nomadic Skrulls, Emperor Dro'ge (Gary Lewis), on the Skrulls' temporary home of Tarnax: let her relocate the Skrulls and then use the bangle to open a jump point between Tarnax and the Kree homeworld, Hala, so that the Kree can literally breathe again. It seems that, in the 30 years that have passed between the events of "Captain Marvel" and "The Marvels," the Kree have been embroiled in a civil war that has turned their once verdant planet into something resembling "Blade Runner."

Before Dro'ge can make any decision, Carol, Monica, and Kamala show up, and it's Captain Marvel's presence that sets Dar-Benn off. Referring to Carol as "The Annihilator" (perhaps a sly reference to this cosmic team from the comics), Dar-Benn takes any potential deal off the table, and decides to strip Tarnax of its atmosphere without relocating anyone. Carol, Monica, and Kamala leap into action, attempting to deal with their quantum entanglement problem while herding as many Skrulls as possible into escape ships. Kamala, given her youth, hero worship, and relative inexperience with world-ending cosmic stakes, is crestfallen when Carol coldly dismisses her after she balks at leaving many Skrulls behind on the dying planet.

To her credit, Carol — a veteran soldier of both the U.S. and Kree militaries — is trying to be more humane in her personal approach to protecting the galaxy, and immediately sets up a new home for the surviving Skrulls thanks to Valkyrie (Tessa Thompson), who accepts their amnesty to (presumably) New Asgard. Kamala, still the open-hearted, hopeful hero, promises a Skrull child that Captain Marvel will fix everything, a remark that Carol can't help but take in.

After using the Skrull memory scanner (which Carol unhelpfully refers to as a torture device she's been using to jog her own memories) to help recall where Kamala saw Dar-Benn going to next, the three women plot a course to the planet Aladna. Although the shared memory scan brought up some painful memories involving Carol and Monica's mom, Maria (Lashana Lynch), who died of cancer during the Thanos-induced Blip (meaning she passed while Monica had been Blipped herself), the trio realize that their entanglement issue needs to be resolved first. They use the journey to train themselves on how their swapping works, realizing that, instead of being an uncoordinated disaster, they can be even stronger as a team (which Kamala insists on calling "The Marvels," naturally).

Upon arriving on Aladna, Carol reveals that she's made a marriage of convenience with its ruler, Prince Yan (Park Seo-joon), and that the planet's citizens communicate only through song. That's right: it's the MCU's first fully-fledged musical number (the Awesome Mixes of Peter Quill and "Rogers: The Musical!" notwithstanding)! The song and dance is cut short, however, when Dar-Benn shows up to steal the planet's water for Hala. Despite The Marvels' best efforts, Dar-Benn succeeds, and finally discovers that Kamala possesses the other bangle (which Carol knows as "Quantum Bands").

After their last-minute escape from Dar-Benn, Carol reveals that the Kree are going after these planets in particular as a way of punishing her personally. That's because, in the aftermath of "Captain Marvel" and its revelation that the Kree Supreme Intelligence had brainwashed her and the rest of the Kree, Carol had traveled to Hala and destroyed the Supreme Intelligence while Dar-Benn watched. Though she'd hoped it would free the Kree, it actually doomed them, creating this civil war that has ravaged Hala. It was for this reason that Carol intentionally stayed away from Maria, Monica, and Earth, intending to fix all that she'd broken before returning home but finding it impossible. Now, Earth is in danger again, as Dar-Benn intends to reap its sun in revenge.

Racing back to Earth in order to stop Dar-Benn from turning the lights out, The Marvels discover that the S.A.B.E.R. space station has been terminally disabled by the consequences of the Kree's actions, meaning that its large crew must evacuate to safety; and most of the escape pods have been damaged.

Fortunately, Goose the Flerken, who had been left in Fury's care, has been busy: being an alien feline, he's left a litter of gelatinous eggs across the station, birthing a number of Flerken kitties. Thanks to the Flerken's TARDIS-esque stomachs, this means that the kittens can swallow several people for temporary storage, the better for the cats to be safely transported back to Earth in one of the remaining escape pods. This allows for the movie's second musical sequence, this time set to a song from a well-established musical: "Memory" from "CATS." (Fortunately for everyone, the CGI of Flerken tentacles grabbing and swallowing people is much more agreeable than the 2019 Lovecraftian monstrosity).

After ensuring the crew and Fury's safety (along with Kamala's family, who've been a thorn in Fury's side for the whole film), The Marvels head to Dar-Benn's Kree flagship to stop her from draining the sun. During their fight, Dar-Benn is temporarily subdued, and Monica posits the theory that Carol could potentially fly into Hala's sun and restart it using her powers, something Carol never attempted because she didn't believe it possible.

Sadly, Dar-Benn shares the old Carol's lack of faith, and manages to wrestle away Kamala's bangle, giving her the complete set. She bangs the bangles together in the hopes of opening another jump point to drain the sun, but the power of the bangles proves to be too much for the Kree, and she disintegrates.

Dar-Benn's death presents another problem, as her use of the Quantum Bands has ripped a rapidly widening hole in the space-time continuum, causing the potential incursion of another reality. Yet, as Monica observes, the Kree's death also provides a possible solution, as she realizes that Carol and Kamala could load her up with a similarly large amount of energy without endangering her life, energy which she could then redirect and close up the hole with.

The Marvels put this plan into immediate effect, and Monica indeed flies through the tear in order to start sealing it up. However, Carol and Kamala realize too late what Monica had said just moments earlier: she can only seal up the rupture from the other side. In an echo of Tony Stark's attempted sacrifice from the finale of 2012's "The Avengers," Monica Rambeau decides to plunge herself into literally unknown territory to save her friends and the universe. Carol rushes toward the tear in order to hopefully pull Monica back, but no joy — the woman who may be known as Photon (or, per Kamala's suggestion, "Professor Marvel") is gone.

In the aftermath of Monica's sacrifice, Carol is inspired to finally put as much right as she can. She travels to Hala and flies directly into its sun, using her powers to restart it and save the race she was once a member of from certain doom. She also decides to move back to Louisiana, into her old digs that were once shared by Monica and Maria, a move that Kamala and the Khans happily help her with. Carol and Kamala are now actual besties, just as the girl used to dream about, the two further bonding over the vintage airplane that Carol says she's waiting to fly until Monica returns someday.

As for Kamala, she's choosing to spread the love in her own way: making more superhero besties. Taking a cue from Fury himself when he popped up in Tony Stark's house all those years ago, Kamala surprises none other than Kate Bishop (Hailee Steinfeld) at the archer's apartment in NYC. Kamala makes the same offer to Kate that Fury made to Tony: a team-up. Which team that will be remains to be seen, but it's clear that during her brief time with The Marvels, Kamala has learned that respect, responsibility, and love can save the universe.

Meanwhile, in another universe, Monica Rambeau wakes up inside a hospital room. In a moving echo of her experience upon returning to her mother's empty hospital room after she Blipped back into existence, the first woman Monica sees is...her mother, looking healthy and young. For Monica, it's an emotional reunion, but the woman is troubled and confused, not recognizing who this young woman is who's having such a reaction to her.

To help provide some illumination on the incident is none other than Dr. Hank McCoy, AKA Beast (Kelsey Grammer). This version of Beast was last seen in 2006's "X-Men: The Last Stand" (a small cameo in 2014's "X-Men: Days of Future Past" notwithstanding), and he explains that "Charles" (meaning Professor Charles Xavier, leader of the X-Men) would like an update on this mysterious woman who's flown into their reality.

As the Law of Conservation of Mass states, matter cannot be created or destroyed; it simply changes form. Intriguingly, though he bears a similar look and sound to the Beast we know from the 20th Century Fox "X-Men" films, this Beast is dressed in a manner akin to the character's appearance in the '90s animated "X-Men" series. Meanwhile, the woman who looks like Maria Rambeau calls herself "Binary," and in the comics, Binary is a version of Carol Danvers. Throughout the movie, Kamala Khan loved to fantasize about herself and Carol sharing a name and calling themselves twins. As Monica begins to discern, maybe the concept of twins between realities is all too real.