Captain Marvel is one of the more underrated MCU movies. It manages to take the lofty themes of self-realization and finding one’s humanity during wartime and mesh them with an entertaining superhero movie. Still, a big reason for the film’s success is its villain, Yon-Rogg, played by Jude Law.
Now, the MCU has no shortage of bad guys, but what makes Yon-Rogg such a fiendish Marvel villain is how frighteningly real he is. He’s that poisoned friend you think you can trust, who’s secretly undermining you. It’s the way he manages to manipulate even the most powerful Marvel character, Carol Danvers, that makes him so scary.
If you’ve been watching the Marvel movies in order to prep for The Marvels release date, you’ll know the last we saw of Yon-Rogg, he was on his way to the Kree homeworld to warn them that Captain Marvel was coming. So you might think he appears in The Marvels, but we have some bad news for you.
Is Jude Law in The Marvels?
Unfortunately, Jude Law’s character Yon-Rogg doesn’t appear in The Marvels despite being sent back to Hala at the end of the first movie. That said, while he doesn’t make a physical appearance, it’s very possible that he was involved in the story off-screen, which brings us to our dark theory.
In The Marvels, we learned that soon after the events of Captain Marvel, Carol returned to Hala with one mission to destroy the Supreme Intelligence that ruled the Kree. Unsurprisingly, the Kree weren’t thrilled at the idea of Carol blowing up the leader of their society, and they sent soldiers to stop her. We see Dar-Benn was one of those unfortunate warriors who was blown away by Carol’s rampage during a flashback in The Marvels.
Which brings us to Yon-Rogg. Considering the Kree warrior’s high rank and familiarity with Carol and her powers, he was likely on the front line guarding the Supreme Intelligence. Could Carol have killed her old friend turned enemy? Honestly, we’d like to think she’s better than that, but the way she so coldly attacked Dar-Benn and left her for dead has us thinking otherwise.
It seems frighteningly possible to us that upon seeing Yon-Rogg, the man who abducted her, guarding the AI that stole her life, Carol snapped and killed the Kree soldier. It’s dark, we know, but we saw during the events of The Marvels that Carol still has a soldier’s mindset at times and is willing to make tough calls to complete her mission.
Of course, it’s worth noting that the MCU lives by the old comic rule that if you don’t see a body they’re not really dead. So perhaps Yon-Rogg will return one day to menace Captain Marvel again.
For more on the future of the MCU, see our guides to Marvel’s Phase 6 and all the upcoming Marvel movies, including Deadpool 3. Or, learn all about the all-important Secret Wars.