Captain Marvel Is Bringing Back Two Dead Marvel Characters

Ronan the Accuser and Korath

Before Avengers 4 concludes Phase 4 with a bang, the Marvel Cinematic Universe will wind the clock back to the 1990s with Captain Marvel. Much like in the comics, Carol Danvers' origin story will be closely connected to the Kree, and over the last few months, we've heard rumors and reports about some of the alien players who will be participating in this prequel adventure. However, today brings official word that Captain Marvel will also include two characters who met their demise during 2014's Guardians of the Galaxy: Ronan the Accuser and Korath the Pursuer.

With Captain Marvel having finally kicked off principal photography, Marvel has officially announced the movie's main cast, and surprisingly, Lee Pace and Djimon Honsou are listed as reprising Ronan the Accuser and Korath the Pursuer, respectively. Both characters debuted in Guardians of the Galaxy, with Ronan serving as the main antagonist and Korath serving alongside Nebula as one of the side baddies. Korath was killed by Drax the Destroyer during Guardians of the Galaxy's climactic conflict, while Ronan perished soon after when the Guardians redirected the energy of the Orb (a.k.a. the Power Infinity Stone) back at the Kree fanatic.

Like her comic book counterpart, Carol Danvers is expected to gain her special abilities through an accident involving a Kree experiment in Captain Marvel. Carol's first chapter as a superhero will see her not only crossing paths with Kree like Mar-Vell, but also battling the shapeshifting Skrulls. It's hard to tell how exactly Ronan and Korath will fit into Captain Marvel, but since this movie takes place two decades before the events of Guardians of the Galaxy, it will be interesting to see how these two characters are different compared to their older selves. Disgusted by how the Kree Empire signed a peace treaty with Xandar, Ronan attempted to wipe out the Xandarians during Guardians of the Galaxy, so I wonder if he was just as radical during the 1990s or if his demeanor was a little softer back then. Given that the Kree have been at war with the Skrulls for centuries in the MCU, I'm guessing that Ronan was intensely militaristic, but the events of Captain Marvel will push him over the edge.

Ronan the Accuser and Korath won't be the only familiar faces showing up in Captain Marvel alongside Brie Larson's Carol Danvers. Last summer, it was announced that Samuel L. Jackson will return as Nick Fury, who at this point in time still has two working eyes. Today's announcement also revealed that Clark Gregg will reprise Phil Coulson, making this his first Marvel movies appearance since 2012's The Avengers, although he's still been actively participating in the MCU through ABC's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. The rest of Captain Marvel's main cast includes Ben Mendelsohn, Jude Law, Lashana Lynch, Gemma Chan, Algenis Perez Soto, Rune Temtev and McKenna Grace.

Captain Marvel flies into theaters on March 8, 2019. Stay tuned to CinemaBlend for more updates about the movie, and don't forget to look through our Marvel movies guide to learn what else the MCU has in development.

Adam Holmes
Senior Content Producer

Connoisseur of Marvel, DC, Star Wars, John Wick, MonsterVerse and Doctor Who lore, Adam is a Senior Content Producer at CinemaBlend. He started working for the site back in late 2014 writing exclusively comic book movie and TV-related articles, and along with branching out into other genres, he also made the jump to editing. Along with his writing and editing duties, as well as interviewing creative talent from time to time, he also oversees the assignment of movie-related features. He graduated from the University of Oregon with a degree in Journalism, and he’s been sourced numerous times on Wikipedia. He's aware he looks like Harry Potter and Clark Kent.