When Thanos snaps his fingers at the end with the full power of the Infinity GauntletAvengers: Infinite War, which wipes out half of all existing living things, it's been about 23 years since Carol Danvers had her first adventure duringCaptain Marvel. In the MCU, Danvers was born around 1960, so how come 29-year-old Brie Larson portrays the character in both timelines?
Part of the explanation probably has a lot to do with the fact that she is the most powerful character in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. After all, Captain America and the Winter Soldier are both a century oldInfinite warhappens, and they still look great, so it's no wonder Carol's immense powers preserve her youth.
However, there is also a very scientific (and putrid) explanation for why Danvers doesn't ageCaptain MarvelInLast game, and it has a lot to do with the real physics behind itAlbert Einstein's special theory of relativity.
Spoilers followCaptain MarvelInAvengers: Endgame.
Unlike Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes, Carol Danvers never undergoes cryogenic freezing to slow her aging. (For what it's worth, both super soldiers probably age slower than normal humans anyway.) For Carol, who was imbued with the space rock's energy after an explosion in 1989, her astronomical power levels give her a power unlike anything we've ever seen. have been through. ever seen before.
She could easily beat the Hulk in an arm wrestling match, and will likely be the one to defeat ThanosLast game. But whenCaptain Marvelends, she flies off at the speed of light to escort a ship full of Skrull refugees to a new home somewhere several galaxies away. Hopefully the Kree military empire can't reach them somewhere.
Danvers himself apparently flies next to the shipjust as quickly. In addition to super strength, near-invulnerability, durability, and the ability to shoot powerful photon beams from her arms, Carol Danvers can also fly at the speed of light in the vacuum of space.
Traveling this fast has never been depicted in the MCU before. Most spacecraft we see in movies likeGuardians of the universeuse a series of wormholes to move through the Andromeda galaxy. You go through a hole in spacetime and jump out to a specific destination on the other side, making multiple jumps to get very far away in less time.
Traveling at the speed of light opens up new opportunities for MCU films to visit some of the billions of galaxies – we've only seen two so far.
In real life, traveling near or at the speed of light causes an effect known as time dilation, according to Einstein's special theory of relativity.
Einstein theorized more than a century ago that spacetime – a mathematical model that links space and time in a continuum – is curved due to the presence of gravity, matter, energy and momentum. Time itself is relative to the observer and is influenced by these factors.
For someone on Earth, time may progress normally, but for an ultra-powerful being flying through the universe at the speed of light, time slows down tremendously. For Danvers, she might have traveled for months or even less, but on Earth, years would have passed... 23 to be exact.
To help understand the effect, think of Christopher Nolan'sInterstellairas Matthew McConaughey searches for a new habitable planet to colonize. At the same time, expansion occurs when he explores a planet too close to a black hole. Gravity slows down time to such an extent that one hour corresponds to seven more years on Earth. When he returns to Earth, his daughter is an old woman on her deathbed.
We don't know how far Danvers traveled with the Skrulls or how fast they traveled, but she noted that the two-way pager she customized for Nick Fury had a range of a few galaxies, so it was likelyReallang.
How much time actually passed for Carol Danvers during the 23 Earth years? Hopefully we'll find outAvengers: Endgame.
Captain Marvelcomes to theaters on March 8 withAvengers: Endgamearriving on April 26.
