Captain Marvel’s latest teaser emphasizes Carol Danvers’ alien aspects

Even though Carol Danvers may have started life as a human, the Captain Marvel we’ll meet in her debut isn’t, and the latest teaser reminds us of that.

If you’ve spent time with Carol Danvers in the comics, you probably know that the most common version of the character is partially Kree. If, however, you came to the Marvel universes by way of the movies, then that might be something of a surprise or not quite clear, even as her debut as Captain Marvel is now just a couple months away. (No judgment, by the way: if you’re a fan, you’re a fan.)

That means that in its marketing, though, Marvel has a delicate balance to strike. Carol isn’t fully alien, like members of the Guardians of the Galaxy, for example. But, if she’s portrayed as simply human, she runs the risk of looking or seeming too similar to most of the heroes in the Marvel Cinematic Universe before her, and in a franchise that celebrated its 10th anniversary and has 20 movies out already, that’s pretty important.

Enter TV spots like “Climb,” which do a fairly good job of striking that balance:

Of course, the voiceover in the first eight seconds does a lot to contribute to that: “Your life began the day it nearly ended. We saved you. You were reborn.” That’s almost certainly the voice of Annette Bening, as Polygon points out that some of this same dialogue featured in the previous trailer. Accompanying those lines are shots of Carol in her Air Force flight suit as well as what looks like the incident that introduces her to the Kree in the first place, thus also emphasizing the dichotomy she finds herself in as she starts to remember her past. Is she just a Kree, or is she human, or is she something rather more… marvelous? (That pun, we’re sorry to say, was fully intended.)

The answer seems to be that third option, considering how Carol, now wearing her more familiar uniform, declares “I’m gonna end it,” it referring to the alien war that will be at the heart of the movie.

Either way, so far, so good for Captain Marvel. What did you notice in this new spot?