First Look at Brie Larson’s Captain Marvel Should Please Comic-Book Fans

Ever since her casting was announced at Comic-Con back in 2016, Marvel die-hards have been eager to get a peek at what Oscar winner Brie Larson will look like in superhero mode as Carol Danvers—a.k.a. Captain Marvel. Now, with her solo film still six months away, Larson can finally be seen in all her star-spangled glory. It’s a look that should make fans of the comic book very, very happy.

Courtesy of Marvel Comics, Marvel Studios

The red in the first image of a costumed Larson is slightly darker than the shade we usually see Carol wear in the comics; it looks like her palette may have been deepened to match the cinematic Captain America’s. And though the material is shiny, it resembled Cap’s hardier cinematic fabric more than the clingy spandex we see on the page. The biggest change is the removal of her sash, which has been replaced by a thin, dark red belt made to match red gauntlets and boots. The star emblazoned on Carol’s chest is as bright and shiny as ever.

Seeing her at last on the cover of Entertainment Weekly, more casual Marvel fans may now understand why that shot of Nick Fury’s pager at the end of Avengers: Infinity War drew delighted gasps of recognition from in-the-know audiences. That was unmistakably Carol’s insignia on the screen, and we can only hope she’ll arrive in the next Avengers film in time to save all the heroes who vanished with Thanos’s mighty snap.

If Brie Larson’s Captain Marvel—a comic-book character that debuted back in 1968—is so special that Nick Fury would call her as the world literally crumbles around him, then where has she been the whole time the Avengers were defending Earth? It’s a good question—but the more pertinent one may be “when was she?” The upcoming standalone Captain Marvel film will be a period film set in the 1990s. In this version of events, Fury and Danvers met decades ago. Larson trained for nine months to prepare herself to convincingly play an Air Force pilot, who is given alien powers that endow her with superhuman strength, the ability to fly, to not age a day since she met Fury, and, oh yes, to shoot energy blasts from her hands. You can see those blasts ready to go in this first official image and can get a sense of how they might fly from a cartoon version of the hero.

Those energy blasts are accompanied by a fierce look on Larson’s face that matches Danvers’s occasionally confrontational attitude. Larson tells EW: “She can’t help but be herself. She can be aggressive, and she can have a temper, and she can be a little invasive and in your face. She’s also quick to jump to things, which makes her amazing in battle because she’s the first one out there and doesn’t always wait for orders. But the [not] waiting for orders is, to some, a character flaw.”

You’ll likely hear as much about Captain Marvel’s hair today as you will about her costume. This may not be the most controversial haircut in a recent Marvel movie memory (see: Thor), but it is a debate Larson herself has been bracing for. During her press tour for Kong: Skull Island, Larson explained: “Every day I have people yelling at me on Twitter like, ‘You better have long hair’ or ‘You better have a mohawk’ or ‘You better wear the helmet’ or ‘You better not wear the helmet.’ Someone’s going to be mad.”

The comic-book Captain Marvel helmet, with its shock of blonde mohawk sticking out the top, is nowhere to be seen in this official image. That’s hardly a surprise; it’s long been a controversial element of the Captain Marvel look. But some fans wondered if Larson might wear it after all when her co-star Samuel L. Jacksonposted this photo featuring a helmeted Danvers on his Instagram:

Comic-book writer Kelly Sue DeConnick—widely credited for Captain Marvel’s recent surge in popularity among readers—both adores the accessory and knows that its inclusion in the film is a long shot. “I love the helmet!” DeConnick told Vanity Fair back in 2016. “That is not a universal opinion. After we left the book, they got rid of the helmet. I have a lot of boring continuity arguments on the history of the helmet and a list of reasons as to why the helmet exists. I want the helmet!” DeConnick took a far more laid-back attitude on every other aspect of Carol’s on-screen look: “What works in comic books and what works in live action is very different. You want to have a sense of that? Just walk around a comic-book convention. See the dudes who champion these very skimpy costumes judging women and berating them for wearing it in real life. What will work on the page and what will work in three dimensions is very different.”

But “skimpy” is hardly the adjective we would use to describe either the costume that DeConnick’s Captain Marvel wore or the outfit Larson wears in this photo. The Marvel movie version not only matches the look of other superheroes in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but it also bears a striking resemblance to Jamie McKelvie’sCaptain Marvel character redesign from 2012. The change from Danvers’s four decades of thigh-high boots and bathing suits to military-inspired jumpsuit came courtesy of DeConnick’s editor, Stephen Wacker.