The Marvel Cinematic Universe is about to be joined by another period piece. We’ve had Captain America: The First Avenger set in World War II and a bunch of ‘60s-set scenes featuring a digitally de-aged Michael Douglas, and now, we’re getting a movie set in the ‘90s.
So, in that spirit, Marvel has given Captain Marvel the cheesiest, most dated, most nostalgic ‘90s website they could create to promote it. As it turns out, there is more to this website than meets the eye – it’s full of Easter eggs. Here are 8 Easter Eggs On The Captain Marvel Throwback Website!
“All your base are belong to us!”
Eagle-eyed viewers will notice that the phrase “All your base are belong to us!” appears a few times on the Captain Marvel website. This is based on one of the first memes ever invented. The awkward phrasing is a result of faulty translations on the MegaDrive port of Zero Wing. It was a Japanese game whose translation into English was less than perfect and spawned one of the original memes. It’s probably no coincidence that the game’s plot involves a lone hero saving Earth from an impending alien invasion, just like the movie. So, this is an Easter egg that works on a number of different levels.
The visitor count
The visitor count website feature is so very ‘90s. Every website in the ‘90s had a visitor count on it somewhere, so it’s no surprise that Marvel’s nostalgic one does. This was years before site traffic was quantifiable by SEO and demographics and all you had to show off how many people were visiting your website was a little tally on the screen counting the number of times people clicked on your page. But look closely and you’ll see that the one on Captain Marvel’s website actually isn’t counting visitors at all. It’s stuck on 13,031,968, which refers to the character’s first ever comic appearance: Marvel Super-Heroes, issue 13, from March (the third month) of 1968.
Jude Law is playing Mar-Vell after all
The official Captain Marvel site already spoiled the fact that Jude Law’s mysterious role in the movie is actually that of Mar-Vell. In the comics, Mar-Vell is the Kree character who gives Carol Danvers her superpowers and turns her into Ms. Marvel.
Disney quickly had that site taken down, so there was no evidence of Jude Law playing Mar-Vell, so it was still technically under wraps. Now, it seems they have confirmed it once and for all with this little graphic of Law in character. If you inspect the file name, you’ll find that, lo and behold, it’s “Mar-Vell.” That one was hidden well.
Stan Lee’s cameo
The comic book world took a huge loss late last year when Stan Lee passed away. He created so many of everyone’s favorite superheroes and left behind a heck of a legacy. He made cameo appearances in every movie in the MCU – including Captain Marvel and Avengers: Endgame, which were filmed before he passed away, so it makes sense that he would have a cameo on the Captain Marvel website as well. He’s a small animated graphic, doing a little dance. Blink and you’ll miss him – he’s very tiny and stowed away at the very bottom of the page. Thankfully, a noble Redditor has isolated the graphic for all the world to see.
The mysterious Skrull lady
One of the most prominently featured action sequences in the Captain Marvel trailer was the one where the titular hero fights what looks like a sweet old lady. This introduces the element that the villains of the movie, the Skrulls, can disguise themselves as anyone. So, our hero will find herself fighting all kinds of people, including old ladies, if they are Skrulls disguised as humans. On the website, that old lady keeps poking her head out from around the screen. It’s an instant reminder of that scene from the trailer where Brie Larson punched an old woman.
The “missing” image
There’s a missing image on the website with a URL that leads back to i.annihil.us. While this is the website used as a media server by all Marvel sites, it also suggests an appearance by Fantastic Four villain Annihilus. It’s possible that Fox still has the rights to Annihilus, but there are some fans suggesting Avengers: Endgame will be used to bring surprise appearances from Fox’s Marvel characters alongside Disney’s in the first MCU movie since the partial Disney/Fox merger. One theory is that Wolverine will appear in the post-credits scene, but maybe Annihilus will show up as a villain in Captain Marvel. Crazier things have happened in these movies.
Goose
About halfway down the Captain Marvel homepage, there’s a GIF in which a young Nick Fury pets a cat. This is Goose, Carol Danvers’ trusty feline sidekick, whose MCU debut was teased with an appearance in the corner of the Captain Marvel poster. Since then, we’ve seen Goose pop up in the trailers and even a character poster. The test audiences reportedly thought that Goose stole the whole movie, so perhaps this little tabby will have a larger role in the story than anticipated. The cat was, after all, named after the Top Gun character, who had a pivotal role in that movie. We’re just hoping Goose isn’t the talk of the town because the cat dies halfway through the movie, spurring on Carol to become a hero.
The Skrull game
The Captain Marvel website features a game where you have to decide whether some passengers on a bus are human or Skrull. This is the same bus from the infamous scene in the trailer where the title character fights an old lady. In fact, that woman is in one of the images. But the key takeaway from this is that the “Human or Skrull?” game suggests that there is more than one Skrull on the bus, so maybe Carol will have to fight a bunch of them. Another thing to note is how it’s almost impossible to tell the humans and Skrulls apart because they assimilate so well.
- captain marvel Release Date: 2019-03-08
