Who Is the Annihilator in ‘The Marvels?’

Warning: Spoilers for The Marvels continue

There may have been a gap of four years Captain Marvel and the sequel, The Marvels, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t plenty of important details to note again. No matter how many lives she saves or how instrumental she is in the fight against Thanos (Josh Brolin), Carol’s (Brie Larson) mistakes follow her wherever she goes.

After the events of 2019 Captain Marvel, Carol leaves Earth and promises her young niece, Monica, that she will return. But she never does. Monica (Teyonah Parris) comes of age as she struggles with her mother’s illness and spends five years with half of humanity. Being abandoned by Carol sticks with her and when their powers get stuck The Marvelsit brings all these emotions to the fore.

Sadly for Carol, she is not the only conflict she has to face. While she, Monica, and young Kamala Khan (Iman Vellani) figure out how to reconcile their powers, they also come up against a vengeful Kree, Dar-Benn (Zawe Ashton), who tries to return their home planet to the former glory. The “Annihilator” destroys it, removing it from its atmosphere, water bodies, and practically kills the sun.

Who is the MCU’s Annihilator?

The Marvels don’t forget what happened i Captain Marveland neither do the Kree.

At the end of the first movie, Carol vows to take Hala’s leadership, the ones responsible for kidnapping her and stealing her memories as well as her life away from her. But when Carol flies to the Kree home planet and destroys the Supreme Intelligence, it leads to unintended consequences. The destruction of AI control is an environmental disaster and a civil war. For the next 30 years, the sun on Hala continued to die, leaving the people in a drought-heavy, toxic environment. You know the saying, “The road to Hell is paved with good intentions.” Carol the Kree’s attempt to free her AI master earns her the title of the Annihilator.

Carol willingly admits that the title is valid. Her actions meant that there would be a time when children born on Hala would not know that the air was clean and the sun was bright. Although Carol may have wanted to do something for the greater good, it only made things worse. Although the Kree are colonists who enacted genocide against the Skrulls, not all people deserve this treatment. Children and civilians should not be living in war-torn territory, which is an unfortunate excuse for current events.

If there is one thing to take away The Marvels, the cycle of violence will never end. Dar-Benn sees Carol destroy the Supreme Intelligence but doesn’t learn from her. Instead, she wages war against Carol and everything she loves. She destroys a Skrull sanctuary and steals the water from Prince Yan’s (Park Seo-joon) planet, Aladna. The main takeaway from the film is that only good faith action can stop these hateful acts. When Carol starts to bring the sun back into gear, it’s the first step to stop an endless war.