Column SFF Bestiary Stop Running and Let the Flerkens Eat You You *really* shouldn’t have that thing on your lap… By Judith Tarr | Published on February 17, 2026 Credit: Marvel Studios Comment 0 Share New Share Credit: Marvel Studios We’ve seen the greatness that is Jonesy. We’ve studied the wisdom of Spot. It’s a natural progression in the annals of ginger cats in film, to the cat who is not a cat: the glorious, dangerous, adorable Goose in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Goose is a Flerken, a mysterious alien who manifests as a cuddly ginger cat. In Captain Marvel Nick Fury persistently refers to her as “he,” but that is probably just Fury being a human male and assuming everything else is just like him. The Marvels makes it clear that Goose is a she. Like Jonesy and Spot before her, Goose just shows up midway through Captain Marvel. No explanation. No backstory then and not much of one in the rest of that film or the sequel. Fury reveals himself as totally a cat person, going sweetly gaga over her: Aren’t you the cutest little thing? Aren’t you cute? And what’s your name? What’s your name? “Goose.” Cool name for a cool cat. Goose is an enigma. Is she sentient? We don’t know. Does she have an agenda? We don’t know that, either, though she has a predilection for eating anything and anyone and just about everything. She eats furniture—she’ll eat whole rooms. She eats cosmically important artifacts. She eats people, lots and lots of people, both good and bad. That’s the jump scare in Captain Marvel, the first time she opens her mouth and a huge giant kraken thing bursts out, Alien style, and snags the above-mentioned cosmically important artifact. Her interior, the Marvel fandom wiki informs us, contains pocket realities, where she stores the things and people she eats. She can regurgitate them unharmed, it turns out—which is pretty much the whole point of The Marvels, along with a lot of superhero business and threats to life and worlds and all the rest of the usual adventure-movie plot-stuff. Goose makes a point of being where she’s most needed. She’s in the Secret Government Installation where we first meet her, she stows away on the quadjet with Carol/Vers and Fury, she just happens to be in major reproductive mode when S.A.B.E.R.’s space station and its crew need her unique capabilities. She doesn’t always do what the humans want her to, as Fury learns in Captain Marvel, but that’s a cat for you. This alien being is, in all key respects, a perfect and typical cat. Her outward form is soft and fluffy and cuddly, but she has a distinct dark side. She horks up the alien equivalent of hairballs at inappropriate times and in difficult places. She soaks up human adoration, but when she decides she’s had enough, the human had better back off fast or she’ll rake him with her claws. Fury finds this out the hard way. The official story? The alien Kree burned out his eye because he refused to surrender the cosmically important artifact. The truth: He got a little too pushy with Goose and she swiped him in the face. Just a scratch, he thought at the time. But cat scratches can get seriously infected, and Flerken scratches are exponentially worse. You do not want your Flerken to scratch you. Really. You don’t. Flerkens, in these two films, appear to reproduce asexually. Goose lays a large number of ominously cute pink eggs around the S.A.B.E.R. station, with no male Flerken in evidence. Or maybe she’s able to store semen in the manner of many Earth species. As with cats, though cats do it in shifts through multiple heat cycles per year, the result is a population explosion. Dozens and dozens of adorable fluffy kitten-Flerkens. Flerkens of all ages meow like cats. Wash after they eat, like cats. Value their comfort, soak up adoration, cuddle (but enforce boundaries with their full range of weaponry) like cats. And they herd like cats. A flock of Flerkens is as pure as chaos gets. One of the best scenes in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (even better than Thor’s screaming goats) is the evacuation of S.A.B.E.R. Flerkens scampering everywhere. Crewfolk running and screaming. Kamala and company wielding Flerkens like live furry grabber-tongs. The announcer’s voice repeating over and over: Stop running and let the Flerkens eat you. You will be fine, while Barbra Streisand’s “Memory” plays in the soundtrack. Say what you like about the film—and critics have not been kind—The Marvels knocks it out of the park with that scene. I actually like the film, love the combination of Kamala and Carol and Monica, and the Khans are a continuing delight, but whenever I need a good belly laugh, I rewatch the evacuation scene. Watch it with me, courtesy of my notes and the subtitles: Attention, S.A.B.E.R. crew Stop running and let the Flerkens eat you. You will be fine. (PANICKED SHOUTING) (SCREAMING) S.A.B.E.R. crew Stop running and let the Flerkens eat you. (WOMAN SCREAMING) Stop running. (MEMORY BY BARBRA STREISAND CONTINUES PLAYING) (GASPING) Goose: Meow Kitten: TENTACLE GRAB Stop running and let the Flerkens eat you. Perfect. Or as Goose would say: Meow (chomp) (SLURP)[end-mark] The post Stop Running and Let the Flerkens Eat You appeared first on Reactor.