Spoiler Thread: Avengers Infinity War
In the past few weeks I've started to have this sinking feeling they're going to botch Captain Marvel's place in the MCU. All this talk about how she's the most powerful and will be the MCU torchbearer going forward just gives me real...I dunno, Poochie vibes. Just throwing this new character into the mix that suddenly will be the center of everything and is being pitched as the end all, be all and all she'll have between then and now is one movie, which will be an origin story...they're selling her so hard that it almost feels like they're preparing us for how big a Deux Ex Machina she's going to be. I hate the term Mary Sue and believe it's overused, but the way they're talking about her really does have these "Well, she's the best and better than everybody and the strongest and most powerful and she will save everyone and then be the focus of what we do after that," and...that's kinda textbook Mary Sue.
It probably doesn't help that in my two and a half decades of reading comics, I can't think of a single Carol Danvers story that did anything other than bore me to death.
Hopefully I'm wrong. I just find all the upselling on the character really weird and rather un-Feige like.
He's earned enough trust with me to see where it goes. Honestly, they're doing kind of what the DCEU tried to do with Superman, or what Watchmen did. Introducing a fantastically powerful being in a world that had been, for the most part, grounded. And that's taking a lot of leeway saying that in a world that has Hulk and Thor. But for the most part, Thor has been pretty pedestrian as far as power levels go (at least until Infinity War) and the Hulk just punches stuff real hard. They've never seen anything with the power set of Captain Marvel, so they probably would be a bit in awe. Vision would have come the closest, and they just lost him. The intrigue comes, for me, in where she's been since the 90's in the universe. Why Fury didn't think she'd be useful when the Chitauri invaded New York is going to need to be explained. A lot is going to ride on her intro movie. If her power levels are what they should be, she's definitely going to be a big part of Avengers 4, but I think that movie is still going to give the requisite moments to the core cast from the last decade, probably requiring a lot of sacrifice on their parts as characters. She's not going to show up and single-handedly solve their problems and defeat Thanos, and that keeps her out of Mary Sue territory in my opinion.
All that said, she's not a well-known character to the general audience, so yeah, Feige is selling her pretty hard because she's the next movie after Ant Man and most of the general audience have no clue who she is. And as far as her being the focus of the MCU post-Avengers 4, that doesn't bother me. While a lot of it has been Iron Man's story, it's a tossup between he and Cap as to who was at the heart of these first 10 years, and I don't feel like too much focus was put on any particular character. She may be one of the driving forces over the next decade, but I don't fear her being shoehorned into importance in a world that will (likely) have Cumberbatch as Strange, Spider-Man, Guardians, and the cultural phenomenon of Black Panther. All those franchises will carry weight, and that doesn't even factor in what may happen with the "big three" and their stories, PLUS possible additions of the X-Men, Fantastic Four, and their rogues depending on the outcome of the Fox/Disney/Comcast ménage à trois of pain. Her importance could be felt in inspiring Kamala Khan to become Ms. Marvel; that's someone else the Feige has mentioned. Being the force behind another hero makes her important, but not overshadowing the other pillars of whatever they're going to build in the next phase.
I'll tell you what does scare me, though. There are rumors that Kathleen Kennedy may be leaving Lucasfilm in September after the disappointing returns on Solo. The MCU is his baby, but Kevin Feige is a self-professed huge Star Wars fan. It wouldn't shock me if they offered him the keys to the Star Wars universe and have Louis D'Esposito or someone who's been high in the MCU production ranks for a while take over, especially since whatever Avengers 4 ends up being is supposed to bring an ending to the overall story they've been telling since Iron Man.