Captain Marvel: What to know about Goose before watching

Never doubt that Goose will be an important part of Captain Marvel. Here’s what you need to know about the cat that may not be a cat.

Captain Marvel is one of the first Marvel Cinematic Universe movies to really feature an animal prominently, and we’re not even sure that Rocket Raccoon counts as an animal, necessarily. (It’s probably the Bradley Cooper voice, honestly.)

But like Rocket, Goose seems to be more important than she first seems. Here’s what you need to know about her.

Superpowers

Goose is a cat. In the comics, her name is actually Chewie (updated for the film to be named after the Top Gun character, naturally).

But actually, she’s more than likely not a cat in the film. Instead, she seems likely to be a Flerken.

What the heck is a Flerken?

Our own Chelsea Jackson covered this already, but a quick overview for you:

Flerkens resemble cats in both behavior and appearance, but they are very much an alien species. They have human intellect and can store entire universes in their mouths. What that means is that their mouths are made up of tentacles and nested mouths (think an ocean version of a Grabboid from Tremors). They also have the ability to travel through pocket dimensions, which sounds like it will come in handy.

And they’re completely powerless if they get muzzled. Keep that in mind.

What else should you know?

Well, the Tesseract is in the film. And we’ve been told that Goose comes in contact with it. How will the Flerken be affected? It could amplify her powers; it could temporarily overpower her. There’s no telling. How many Flerkens have come in contact with an Infinity Stone?

Also, Goose had a live stream last week. It is all kinds of adorable and excellent.