The MCU Just Repeated A Major Villain Mistake, 9 Years Later
Warning! This post contains spoilers for The Marvels.
Summary
- The Marvels sees the repeat of a past mistake with its villain, Dar-Benn, who lacks the power to pose a significant threat to the powerful Captain Marvel.
- Dar-Benn is armed with a powerful weapon that turns the heroes' abilities against them, but ultimately fails to truly endanger Danvers and her companions.
- Despite Dar-Benn's exceptional performance and sympathetic motives, her underpowered nature diminishes the threat she can pose, ranking her somewhere in the middle among MCU villains.
The Marvels was not a perfect movie, but it constituted a return to form for the MCU – unfortunately, that also included repeating past mistakes with the movie's villain, Dar-Benn. In the lead-up to the release of the Captain Marvel sequel, the question hung over what kind of villain could pose a significant threat to Captain Marvel, whose as-yet unparalleled power levels saw her nearly solo Thanos. Rather than introduce a villain more powerful than Thanos in a non-Avengers movie, however, Marvel instead hamstrung the eponymous heroes by causing them to swap places when they used their powers – which was a solid MacGuffin.
The Marvels also armed the villainous Dar-Benn with a weapon powerful enough to turn the heroes' light-based abilities against them in conjunction with the already mighty Universal Weapon. In tandem with her exceptional hand-to-hand combat abilities (a staple for MCU characters without superpowers), this gave Dar-Benn the ability to stand up to the trio. At least, she did for a spell, though she still failed to present a threat that genuinely felt like it put Danvers and company in danger.