As Captain Marvel keeps creating records and attracts scores of viewers to flock the movie theatres, the Marvel Money Making Machine is now in full swing. The movie though has received less than stellar reviews. Mixed reception of the movie could be due to the fact that the movie is hailed by many to be an SJW movie while others claim the movie is too much of a formula based, rigid production with a lot of bland character including but not limited to, the actor playing the lead superhero. While those things could be set aside for a discussion on another day, a glaring question that has come to the limelight is Project Pegasus. What is it? How is related to Captain Marvel? How is it related to the Marvel Cinematic Universe at large?
SPOILER ALERT: Major Spoilers for Captain Marvel up ahead. If you still have not watched the movie and intend to do so in the near future, look away….
The first time Project Pegasus was mentioned in the Marvel Cinematic Universe was in Iron Man 2. The term was one of many that were dropped in the movie along with Project Goliath and Project Exodus. In Ant-Man and the Wasp movie, we realize that Hank Pym and Bill foster, two prominent researchers in the area of Quantum technology and Pym Particles, were working for the government at some point of time under Project Goliath, a top-secret initiative to develop size-changing technology and equipment for the United States Government. Further details of the project are still not disclosed.
In The Avengers of 2012, Captain America does some digging around the Helicarrier to find out that Shield is trying to develop weapons-grade Tesseract energy harnessing technology to create armaments. The project was a tripartite agreement between three organizations – Shield, Nasa and Project Pegasus. The term was first mentioned in the movie when Nick Fury, Director of Shield, responds to an emergency crisis in their Joint Dark Energy Research Facility located in the middle of the Mojave Desert.
In Captain Marvel, Wendy Lawson, scientist extraordinaire, is experimenting on the Tesseract for her own research purposes. Wendy Lawson is trying to harness the power of the Tesseract to create a Faster than Light capable drive for space transport. Her end objective is taking humanity beyond its current boundaries. As it turns out, that too comes under Project Pegasus. Wendy’s research is all the courtesy of the Air Force, which is also a part of Project Pegasus as it seems.
Kevin Feige, President of Marvel Studios, had something really interesting to add on to the Project Pegasus question posed by the fans. He said and we quote:
“P.E.G.A.S.U.S. was name-dropped … in Iron Man 2, then it’s also at the top of Avengers 1,” said Feige. “And it was early on tying her into that early MCU. What do we know about the period of the MCU in the years before Iron Man? Well, the Tesseract and P.E.G.A.S.U.S. were part of it. And then also you’re seeing another side of that same facility was interesting.”
In the comic books, Project P.E.G.A.S.U.S stands for Potential Energy Group/Alternate Sources/ United States. The Headquarters of the initiative has been the site of many attacks and hostile infiltrations, with the most popular one being by the Thing in Marvel’s popular Two-in-One series of comic book arcs.
Things are about to get really interesting. Hold on to your seatbelts folks. It is going to be an amazing ride.
The last Avengers movie to be released under the MCU banner was Avengers: Infinity War. The official film synopsis for the movie reads:
Iron Man, Thor, the Hulk and the rest of the Avengers unite to battle their most powerful enemy yet — the evil Thanos. On a mission to collect all six Infinity Stones, Thanos plans to use the artifacts to inflict his twisted will on reality. The fate of the planet and existence itself has never been more uncertain as everything the Avengers have fought for has led up to this moment.
