Why isn’t a Black Widow movie a priority for Marvel? That seems to be the question of the year. Scarlett Johansson’s popular assassin character was a huge reason why Captain America: The Winter Soldier was a massive box-office success and the actress herself has expressed an eagerness to see the character have her own movie. It’s downright laughable that between the prolific Marvel, DC, X-Men and Spider-Man franchises not a single concrete announcement has been made about plans to produce a film with a female lead. (Gal Gadot’s Wonder Woman is closest, but it’s still a matter of when.) So what’s the hold up? As far as Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige is concerned, “It comes down to timing.” And that, I’m afraid, doesn’t sound exactly right.

In a recent interview with Comic Book Resources, Feige directly addressed the growing concerns about the lack of female-led comic-book movies. Part of his answer is very encouraging:

I very much believe in doing it. I very much believe that it’s unfair to say, “People don’t want to see movies with female heroes,” then list five movies that were not very good, therefore, people didn’t go to the movies because they weren’t good movies, versus [because] they were female leads. And they don’t mention Hunger Games, Frozen, Divergent. You can go back to Kill Bill or Aliens. These are all female-led movies. It can certainly be done. I hope we do it sooner rather than later.

But that’s only the first half of the answer, the next part involves a lot of hedging around why, in the wake of successes like Hunger Games or Frozen, Marvel isn’t leaping at the chance to cash in on the lucrative world of female-led films:

We find ourselves in the very strange position of managing more franchises than most people have -- which is a very, very good thing and we don’t take for granted, but is a challenging thing. You may notice from those release dates, we have three for 2017. And that's because just the timing worked on what was sort of gearing up. But it does mean you have to put one franchise on hold for three or four years in order to introduce a new one? I don’t know. Those are the kinds of chess matches we’re playing right now.

The language, though vague, sounds somewhat reasonable. But isn’t “timing” also just another way of saying “this isn’t our priority?” As for Feige’s question of whether they should put an existing franchise on hold to make room for a female-led one, why not? Do we really need the confirmed Captain America 3 and Thor 3 before we even get Black Widow 1? Is the logic there that both Cap and Thor have established box-office clout? If having a known quantity in the leading role is the concern, then why not Black Widow 1 before the comparatively esoteric new kids on the block Doctor Strange and Ant-Man? There’s no way to logic around the fact that Marvel is dragging its feet on this matter.

There is, however, an optimistic explantation: it’s possible that Marvel does have a female-led movie up its sleeve and Feige’s vague response has more to do with wanting to keep it a surprise for audiences than trying to dodge the issue. In a recent interview, Avengers: Age of Ultron director Joss Whedon said the upcoming Marvel sequel has “four prominent female roles.” Doing the math, (Scarlett Johansson’s Black Widow, Cobie Smulders’s Agent Maria Hill, and Elizabeth Olsen’s Scarlet Witch) we come up short. Could Whedon be referring to the flashback cameo from Hayley Atwell’s character Agent Peggy Carter? Unlikely, Whedon, the creator of such female-empowering works like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, has a much better grasp on the definition of “prominent female roles” than that.

Most people are hoping/speculating that Whedon either slipped up or made a knowingly oblique reference to Marvel comic-book favorite Captain Marvel (a.k.a. Ms. Marvel, a.k.a. Carol Danvers, a pants-wearing Air Force officer). Danvers could not only have a part to play in Avengers: Age of Ultron, but could also be just the female character Marvel needs to launch their first female-led franchise. Danvers, you see, started out without any superpowers whatsoever and Marvel seems to prefer kicking off franchises with origins stories (see: Iron Man, Captain America: The First Avenger). When asked to give a wink or nod to the camera if Danvers was the fourth character he had in mind, Whedon gave this blissfully noncommittal sign:

If this is all a conspiracy on the part of Feige and Whedon to surprise us, and the plan all along was to fill one of the 2017 mystery release dates with a Captain Marvel film, then well played. However, that still means Marvel has a lot of other male-led movies to make before getting around to the hypothetical prospect of a Black Widow or Captain Marvel film. Marvel better act fast, it would be hugely embarrassing if DC’s Wonder Woman film were to beat them to the punch. After all, Marvel had a five-year head start on Zack Snyder and DC in this current sprawling superhero franchise game. When you think of it that way, the old excuse of “timing” sounds even more hollow.