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Comic-Con 2016: Brie Larson is Captain Marvel and other big news from Marvel

Alex Abad-Santos
Alex Abad-Santos is a senior correspondent who explains what society obsesses over, from Marvel and movies to fitness and skin care. He came to Vox in 2014. Prior to that, he worked at The Atlantic.

Saturday was an absolutely massive day for San Diego Comic-Con. New trailers for Wonder Woman and Justice League dropped. The first look at Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them was also revealed.

But it wouldn’t be Comic-Con without some big news from Marvel.

The biggest news of the day was the announcement of the newest member of the Marvel superhero family: Brie Larson will play Captain Marvel. Kevin Feige, president of Marvel Studios, surprised the audience by having Larson come out to join her fellow Marvel colleagues just before the traditional group photo:

Larson’s casting is huge, in that Captain Marvel will be the first female hero in Marvel’s current stable of superheroes to get a solo movie.

Captain Marvel, a.k.a. Carol Danvers, has become one of the company’s flagship characters and has a vocal and large following of fans called the Carol Corps.

Though Danvers has been around and part of the Avengers for quite some time, writer Kelly Sue DeConnick and artist Dexter Soy’s 2012 run is considered the game-changing moment in the character’s life. The two gave Danvers a new uniform, leaned into her pilot background, and gave her the title Captain Marvel (she had previously been referred to as Ms. Marvel). The movie, still in its nascent stages, is thought to be inspired by this run.

Captain Marvel is scheduled for release in 2019.

The studio also unveiled new footage of Doctor Strange:

And Marvel offered up major plot points from its upcoming Black Panther movie and its Guardians of the Galaxy sequel. Characters for both movies were announced. For Black Panther, Michael B. Jordan will play the villain called Erik Killmonger and Danai Gurira will play the leader of the Dora Miljae, a group of fearsome and highly skilled female warriors from Wakanda.

Meanwhile, Kurt Russell was formally announced as Star-Lord’s father in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2; Sylvester Stallone will also appear in the movie.

Guardians is scheduled for a 2017 release. Black Panther is out in 2018.

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