Why Nick Fury Didn't Page Captain Marvel Before 'Infinity War', According To Kevin Feige

In Captain Marvel, we learn how Samuel L. Jackson's character Nick Fury first meets up with Carol Danvers in the mid-1990s. After seeing the film, the big question in a lot of fans minds is: why didn't Nick Fury page Captain Marvel when a big wormhole opened over New York City and a massive alien assault happened on Earth in The Avengers? I asked Marvel Studios head Kevin Feige this exact question, and here is his response.

Here is a snippet from my interview with Kevin Feige. The full interview will be posted next week.

Peter: I have my nitpicky question I gotta ask you.Kevin Feige: I'm ready.Peter: And I know you probably have an answer for this. Why didn't Nick Fury not use the pager until Infinity War? Because this big hole opened up in the sky and aliens attacked New York City.Kevin Feige: Well, I'd say two things. One, she does say it's gotta be a real emergency, right? Yeah.Peter: Because that was just a city. I guess that's not the world.Kevin Feige: The other thing I'd say is how do you know he never hit it? How do we know he never pushed it before? We've never seen him push it before. That doesn't mean he never did.Peter: Good answer.

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In Captain Marvel, we see how Fury gets this modified pager device and is told by Fury only to use it in a "real emergency," as Feige noted. Yesterday during the Disney Investors conference, they showed some footage from the beginning of Avengers: Endgame which gives us some more perspective on the situation.

If Captain Marvel is so powerful that she'll make it easy to defeat Thanos this time, then where was she when Earth needed help before? War Machine point-blank asks her this very question, and she explains that there are a lot of planets in the galaxy who don't have a team of Avengers defending them. That doesn't seem like a good enough answer for Thor, who suddenly steps up from the background and summons his axe as he walks up to confront Captain Marvel. She stands there without flinching, and then Thor simply says, "I like this one."

And speaking with IGN, Samuel L. Jackson explained his view on why Fury hasn't called Carol back to Earth yet:

"We finally have an emergency that I feel warrants her presence. This is unprecedented. How are you gonna fight that? I can't fight that. If I'm not here, I need to find someone to come here who can handle it. All those people are ineffective. They're great for normal, everyday world disaster. But intergalactic badass who has all the Infinity Stones needs a bit more."

Did Fury ever use the pager before the events we see in the end credits scene of Avengers: Infinity War? That's not clear, but certainly not that we know of.

Honestly, I think it would be cool if he had because I'd like to see another Captain Marvel prequel – and here's why. To me, the heart of that film was Brie Larson's character's relationship with her Earthly best friend Maria Rambeau, played by Lashana Lynch, and her daughter Monica, played by Akira Akbar. If Captain Marvel has been busy helping to stop the Kree/Skrull war and saving other galaxies for the past two-plus decades, that probably means that Monica (who later in the comics becomes an Avenger named Photon, adopting her mother's fighter pilot call sign) is in her mid-30s and if the comics are any indication, Maria is probably no longer with us. I wish we could see more of this trio together, but I'm not sure another Earth-set Captain Marvel prequel makes much sense.