Marvel Studios (briefly) considered introducing Captain Marvel at the end of Avengers: Age of Ultron, though the decision was soon made to give Carol Danvers her own origin story. That came our way four years later in 2019, though the '90s setting took a lot of fans by surprise.
Heading into the past proved to be a messy, somewhat convoluted way to add Carol to the MCU, with her memory issues far from an original plot beat. However, her team-up with Nick Fury was fun, as was seeing "Vers" break free of the Kree, remembering her true self and becoming the hero she was meant to be.
Captain Marvel ended with Carol vowing to deal with the Kree, though we'd next see her return to Earth decades later when she joined The Avengers and helped defeat Thanos.
Since then, we've had no idea what she's been up to or why she never returned to Earth. Well, The Marvels finally sheds some light on that by revealing Carol made good on her promise to Yon-Rogg by tracking down the Supreme Intelligence A.I. and destroying it once and for all.
However, as we explained earlier today, that led to civil war and Hala falling into ruin, with Carol - now dubbed "The Annihilator" - left so ashamed she couldn't face returning to Earth and seeing Maria and Monica again (we do learn that she visited Maria during her final battle with cancer while Monica was among those Blipped).
With that, the Kree-related cliffhanger is finally addressed, though it would have made much more sense for Jude Law's Yon-Rogg to take Dar-Benn's place as The Marvels' big bad given his history with Captain Marvel. Alas, his fate is left a mystery.
As for Ms. Marvel, the mystery surrounding Kamala Khan's bangle is explained when it's identified as a Quantum Band. As suspected, they're the same artefacts that were once worn by Avril Kincaid and Wendell Vaughn in the comics, and yes, they allow their user to travel through time and space.
The fact that Dar-Benn uses hers to inadvertently open the door to another reality shows the potential the Quantum Bands have in the MCU and we'd bet on them being tied to Kang in the same way Shang-Chi's Ten Rings likely are. Whether that's a plot point Marvel Studios intends to further explore moving forward is now hard to say, but at least the bangles no longer feel like a random Kree McGuffin young Kamala just happened to stumble across!