Marvel’s newest superhero has just arrived on Disney Plus, as Ms. Marvel episode 1 is now available to stream. And the episode has one of the strongest and most unexpected openings we have seen so far from the MCU Phase 4 TV shows. It’s a stark departure from Moon Knight.
Before I get to the Ms. Marvel spoilers, I can tell you that Marvel only needed a few minutes in episode 1 to fix one of the biggest problems in Phase 4. Beware, spoilers follow below.
Ms. Marvel episode 1’s incredible opening
From the get-go, Ms. Marvel episode 1 tells the audience this won’t be another Moon Knight, a show where Marvel went out of its way to make it seem as if the series isn’t connected to the MCU. It’s even more annoying to see that Moon Knight (Oscar Isaac) is featured inside that ever-changing Marvel Studios logo that appears before every show.
Ms. Marvel has a very different vibe. It feels young and energetic, and the creatives behind the latest MCU Phase 4 show certainly went all out to tell a unique superhero story centered around a teenager. If you’ve seen The Mitchells vs. the Machines and Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, you’ll get a sense of what sort of MCU story you’re looking at in Ms. Marvel.
Kamala Khan (Iman Vellani) struggles with regular teenager issues while also being a massive Avengers fan. And the future Ms. Marvel loves Captain Marvel the most out of the entire group.
That’s how Ms. Marvel episode 1 starts, with huge Avengers Easter eggs. Kamala is recreating the massive fight at the end of Avengers Endgame for her YouTube channel. She’s focusing on Captain Marvel in an entertaining stop-motion animated clip.
Later in the episode, Kamala goes to the first-ever AvengersCon event dressed as Captain Marvel. It’s here where she’ll discover her powers and actually save someone after triggering a series of mishaps.
The Avengers in MCU Phase 4
The idea that the Avengers are popular saviors of Earth after the events in Endgame is evident in Phase 4 so far.
We see how popular the Avengers are in various places, including WandaVision, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Shang-Chi, Eternals, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, and of course Hawkeye. That last one actually gives us an even better look at what the Avengers mean to the world. The Rogers musical is certainly something else.
Even Black Widow had a deleted scene showing kids playing and pretending to be Avengers. That’s a Phase 4 film, but it’s also a prequel. So the Avengers were popular with regular mortals even before Endgame. And Loki confirms how important the Avengers are to the Sacred Timeline.
Now, Ms. Marvel episode 1 is chock-full of Avengers Easter eggs, and it’s all done brilliantly.
Marvel is intentionally crafting this Avengers narrative in Phase 4 titles, and it’s unclear why. Maybe it’s to make up for the lack of an Avengers 5 movie in the current phase.
But at the same time, this show of love for the Avengers from the general public is problematic for the MCU. Marvel never explains what the world really knows about the events that took place in Endgame, but the Easter eggs indicate that average people had a comprehensive understanding of what happened.
Yet despite this massive popularity that Marvel insists on, the studio then goes out of its way not to have Avengers appear in its MCU Phase 4 stories when it matters the most.
Avengers Easter eggs in Ms. Marvel episode 1
Of all the MCU Phase 4 shows so far, Ms. Marvel is easily the best at explaining how vital the Avengers are. And how much they have influenced life on Earth. The opening sequence has Kamala narrating the events of Endgame while shooting her own rendition of the story. And it’s incredible how many details she got right.
Again, this is a teenager. A regular person. But somehow, she has deep knowledge of what happened in Endgame. She even says “we all know the story” of Endgame. And Kamala offers an explanation: Ant-Man appears on podcasts, where he must be talking about what happened in great detail. Other Avengers might be equally talkative.
It’s not just Ms. Marvel that has a pretty good idea of what the Avengers were up to during Endgame. The AvengerCon event in episode 1 contains plenty of additional Avengers Easter eggs. And it’s the kind of connection that we wouldn’t necessarily expect regular folks in the MCU to know about. Like Groot being referred to as “Mr. Tree” on merchandise. Or seeing a Captain America’s ass joke.
The Ms. Marvel episode 1 intro and the AvengersCon moment are the kind of scenes you’ll want to rewind and rewatch to catch all the incredible details that Marvel dropped in the show. On the other hand, all these Avengers sightings will also exacerbate the lack of Avengers involvement in MCU Phase 4 so far.
But that’s a topic for another time… and it involves the Ms. Marvel episode 1 post-credits scene.
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