Why Nick Fury waited until 'Infinity War' to page Captain Marvel

A lot of fans walked into Captain Marvel expecting to find out why Nick Fury waited until Infinity War to call Carol Danvers on his special pager.

After all, the earth has been threatened approximately a billion times over a decade-plus of MCU movies, so why did Fury hold out?

But you don’t need to see the movie to find out (mainly because it doesn’t come up), as Samuel L Jackson has provided an answer to IGN. Unlike his usual throwaway responses to questions like this, he’s actually gone pretty in-depth.

Read more: How did ‘Captain Marvel’ become so controversial?

“She said only in emergencies,” Jackson said. “Other emergencies could be handled by the people who were present. It’s just an alien invasion, that’s something that could be handled. Half the population wasn’t dying and flaking off and doing whatever.”

Infinity War involved Thanos, which changed the stakes. “We finally have an emergency that I feel warrants her presence. This is unprecedented. How are you gonna fight that? I can’t fight that. If I’m not here, I need to find someone to come here who can handle it. All those people are ineffective. They’re great for normal, everyday world disaster. But intergalactic badass who has all the Infinity Stones needs a bit more.”

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We’re going to be good sports and not quibble over the fact that Avengers: Assemble’s plot involved more than ‘just an alien invasion’ – Loki’s technically a God, he had an Infinity Stone, and Thanos was involved there too.

Also, Nick Fury didn’t know that half the population was dying in Infinity War, for all he knew it was just the city block he was on that was being affected…

But, whatever, this is as good an explanation for a plot-hole as we’re going to get. Now, someone ask him why the first Captain America movie was subtitled ‘The First Avenger…’

Captain Marvel is in cinemas now, and you should definitely ignore the controversy and go see it.