The new Captain Marvel comic targets online trolls with a small joke. The movie hit theaters in February of last year, setting the table for Avengers: Endgame. Academy Award winning actress Brie Larson took on the role of Carol Danvers and almost immediately found herself being attacked online by trolls, which still happens today. Larson has always had a pretty good sense of humor about the situation, like when she shared photoshopped images of male Marvel Cinematic Universe heroes with smiles pasted on their faces. A lot of people were telling Larson that she’d be a more attractive Danvers if she smiled more.
The “smile more” comment has been addressed many times since Captain Marvel was first announced. Ed McGuinness’ Avengers #29 has a subtle callback to the controversy within its pages. In the comic, Carol Danvers is fighting Herald of Galactus and seems to be recharging before letting him have it. The villain suggests that she should give up. In response, Danvers sarcastically says, “Sure thing. Why don’t you tell me to smile more while you’re at it, Firelord?” The villain is then blown away.
It’s a small joke that a lot of MCU fans will pick up on due to all of the backlash Brie Larson received for taking on the Captain Marvel role. It seems that some online “fans” were not into the idea that she could be the strongest character introduced in the MCU thus far, which Marvel Boss Kevin Feige touted at the time. However, he has since changed his answer to Wanda Maximoff, after her fight with Thanos in Avengers: Endgame. The online problems for Captain Marvel started well before the movie hit theaters.
Rotten Tomatoes had to overhaul their “want to see” function of the site after online trolls targeted it, leaving negative reviews in an attempt to bring the overall score down. The popular review site claims that Captain Marvel was not the reason they changed their policies, but the timing fits too perfectly. Avengers: Endgame featured a few scenes with the women of the MCU taking down Thanos’ Black Order during the climactic battle scene, which was removed in a fan-edit that took away all of the females.
Captain Marvel is one of the biggest movies of 2019 and Avengers: Endgame, which also features Carol Danvers, is the highest grossing movie of all time. Whatever these trolls were trying to accomplish with their marketing campaigns obviously did not work, though they keep trying. Captain Marvel 2 is on the way, though we don’t have a firm release date at this time. With that being said, Brie Larson is already starting to train in order to be ready for that production start and she’ll be awaiting the trolls too. You can head over to the official Marvel website to get your hands on Avengers #29.
