The Marvels Director Teases A Huge MCU Return

Carol Danvers (Brie Larson) is back in "The Marvels," only this time, she's not alone — she'll be joined by Monica Rambeau (Teyonah Parris), with whom she has quite a rocky history. To make the dynamic all the more interesting, the duo will have to team up with Kamala Khan (Iman Vellani), who made her Marvel Cinematic Universe debut on the Disney+ miniseries "Ms. Marvel." So while the film is set to take the MCU into uncharted territory (it's the first project in the franchise to feature an all-female team), audiences can expect some sense of familiarity.

Beyond the recognizable characters, though, "The Marvels" will also feature recognizable locations, including Hala. The last time we saw the Kree homeworld was in 2019's "Captain Marvel," so it isn't too surprising that it's set to appear in the upcoming sequel, but it sounds like we'll be learning more about it. "When we're on Hala, in the past and in the present, I wanted to show a technological city," director Nia DaCosta said in the film's official production brief (via The Direct).

Seeing as "The Marvels" is continuing to unravel the Kree's place in the MCU, it makes sense to revisit their homeworld, especially following the revelation that the Skrulls never left Earth. While we've heard a lot about and met a number of Kree people, the only time audiences have actually seen Hala itself is in "Captain Marvel" in 1995 and when it is nearly destroyed by Ego (Kurt Russell) in "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2," so it will be interesting to see what the mood on the planet is like in a post-"Secret Invasion" world.

How prominently might Hala be featured? Well, we know from the brief that "The Marvels" villain Dar-Benn (Zawe Ashton) is "a warrior-scientist turned politician who is hellbent on saving the Kree home planet of Hala and exalting her people to their rightful place in the universe," so it's fair to say that the planet will be a key part of the film.

Though Nia DaCosta described both versions of Dar-Benn as "a Kree imperialist" in an August interview with Total Film (via Collider), "The Marvels" executive producer Mary Livanos teased the character as more of a revolutionary, the likes of which the franchise has never seen before. "Dar-Benn represents a new era of the Kree Empire after a cataclysmic encounter with Captain Marvel in the past," she revealed to Total Film. "So, from the ashes of the Kree Empire, Dar-Benn rose."

In the comics, Dar-Benn is a male general and more obsessed with power than enacting a revolution, launching a coup with the help of a few of his buddies and successfully becoming one of the co-emperors of the Kree Empire. This, of course, is a largely different direction than DaCosta is taking the character, with the cinematic version seemingly more empathetic and involved. "The Marvels" beams into theaters on November 10.