The Marvels Director Teases Monica Rambeau’s Emotional Character Arc

The Marvels director Nia DaCosta confirms that the upcoming movie will address Monica Rambeau’s estranged relationship with Captain Marvel.

The Marvels director Nia DaCosta opened up about Monica Rambeau’s character arc in the upcoming superhero movie, which involves her estranged relationship with Captain Marvel.

When Rambeau was first introduced into the Marvel Cinematic Universe, fans got to know her as a bright young kid who’s able to instantly bond with Carol Danvers because of the hero’s friendship with her mother Maria. Afterward, a grown-up Monica (Teyonah Parris) appeared in the acclaimed Disney+ series WandaVision, where it was revealed that she was one of the people who vanished for five years following Thanos’ snap. Returning from the Blip, a distraught Monica finds out that her beloved mother has already died. In the series, she didn’t get the chance to process her mother’s death as she immediately resumed her position as a Captain of S.W.O.R.D.

Speaking with Total Film, DaCosta confirmed that The Marvels will finally see Monica deal with the trauma of losing her mother and having an aunt who’s failed to guide her through her grief due to Captain Marvel’s frequent absence from Earth. "For a child to lose their aunt, and then to lose their mother - although she wasn't a child when her mother passed away - [she's left to] feel like she has no family," she said. "But then to see that her aunt has been popping to Earth every now and then, and off in space doing [stuff] for a bunch of other people and also not being able to reconcile any of that because she's never around — that can really create a wound. Monica definitely has a wound that she finally gets to address in this film."

The Marvels Will Be Different From Other Superhero Movies

When asked about the waning popularity of superhero movies at the box office, DaCosta expressed her confidence that The Marvels would be able to attract the moviegoers’ attention since it would be different from other MCU movies. "It’s really wacky and silly," she teased. "The worlds we go to in this movie are worlds unlike others you've seen in the MCU. Bright worlds that you haven’t seen before." So far, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania is the only Phase Five movie that wasn’t able to meet its box-office expectations, while Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 managed to become one of 2023’s highest-grossing movies.

In addition to Larson and Parris, the film will also be led by rising star Iman Vellani as she reprises the role of Ms. Marvel (Kamala Khan). This marks the young actress' feature film debut following her breakout performance in the Ms. Marvel series, in which it was revealed that Kamala is the first mutant hero of the MCU. As a self-proclaimed Marvel super fan, Vellani continues to live out her Marvel dream, as she recently announced that she is co-writing the upcoming comic series, Ms. Marvel: The New Mutant.

The Marvels will feature Captain Marvel teaming up with her biggest fangirl Ms. Marvel and estranged niece Captain Monica Rambeau after their respective powers get suddenly tangled up with each other. The film will also star franchise newcomers Zawe Ashton as Dar-Benn and Park Seo-Joon, along with MCU vets Samuel L. Jackson and Randall Park as Jimmy Woo.