House of R - 'The Marvels' Deep Dive

Episode Date: November 14, 2023

This pod will go higher, further, and faster and dive deep into 'The Marvels.' Mal and Jo are here to give you their thoughts on the latest MCU team-up film (06:43). Later, they dive in character by character and talk about Captain Marvel (30:48), Ms. Marvel (46:52), and Monica Rambeau (1:40:54) as they examine each character's journey throughout this latest movie. Hosts: Mallory Rubin and Joanna Robinson Senior Producer: Steve Ahlman Additional Production: Arjuna Ramgopal Social: Jomi Adeniran Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I'm Derek Thompson, the host of the Ringer podcast, plain English. Look, a lot of news these days is kind of nonsense. I'm not trying to reinvent the wheel here. I'm just trying to ask the questions that matter from people who know more than I do about about everything I'm curious about. And that's most things. Recession fears, AI hyperbole, psychology, productivity, China, war, streaming, movies, sports, you name it. The world without jargon.

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They keep companies of all sizes connected with internet, advanced Wi-Fi, phone, TV, mobile services, plus 24-7 U.S.-based support. Millions of business owners already trust Spectrum business. So visit spectrum.com slash business to learn more. Restrictions apply. Services not available in all areas. What is happening to be? She's entangled our light-based powers.

So we switch places whenever we use them. Strong theory. You can absorb light. I can see it. And Kamala. Who's Kamala? Hi. She can turn light into physical matter,

which I have never heard of. I could totally show you. No. She's targeting every planet we call home. I would never choose to bring anybody into this. You are not the only thing standing between this and the universe. And welcome, House of Our, a Ringerverse podcast on the Ringer Podcast Network. I'm Mallory Rubin, and it is my absolute pleasure to invite you not only back to Jersey City,

but also to our new,ish, House of Our podcast feed. joining me today, imploring me to stop running and let the flurkin eat me. It's my house of our permanent title. Permanent title. Co-host, New York Times bestselling author of MCU, the reign of Marvel Studios, Joanna Robinson. You have to, someday we will stop. What's up, bad babies? Bad baby. What else? You know, and I know, and I know, you don't have to say the New York Times part every time. It's very kind of you. It brings me joy.

Absolutely joy. It's wonderful. Hey, Joe. We're here, as you know, as the bad babies know, as Steve knows, as Goose knows, to dive deep into the newest Marvel movie, The Marvels. But before we break into song, some quick programming reminders, we will be back. here in the house of our feed at the end of this week, Friday, with a Scott Pilburn Takes Off pod for you.

We are very excited about that. Also, just in case you missed it over the weekend, if you're like Monday is usually a low-key pod day, where is it? Guess what? It's already up and waiting for you. We recorded our Loki finale pod on Saturday, so check it out. We had a wonderful time. It was a beautiful podcast about a beautiful finale,

so please give it a listen. One of my, one of the best times outside of, you know, me dissolving into tears, one of my favorite podcasts I've ever done with you. Same. That was truly wonderful, I thought. I adored it. I thought about it all weekend. The ringer verse is also a buzzing. Button mash.

We'll have a new podcast for you also today, Monday, Call a Duty episode. Van is going to be joining Jess and Ben for that. And the Midnight Boys, puk, pew. We'll be back on Friday for an invincible season two, episode three, instant reaction. Nice. Joe, how can the people follow along? Well, listen, I'm so glad you asked me that question. This is an important one.

And first and foremost, I would really urge folks to just subscribe to the various pods. Ringerverse is one that you should subscribe to, House of Our is another. I met a couple folks in the great city of Austin, Texas this weekend, who didn't know that the house of our feed existed. That was fun to hear. Guess what? We've been here. We did Loki.

We did Asoka. We did some other things. So hopefully you're listening to this. You found us. Subscribe. Stick around. Also, follow us on social. That might be another way to find out that this feed exists.

If you follow Ring Reverse on Twitter, on Instagram. Not on Peach. Unfortunately, Mallory. I'm so sorry to say it. but yes on TikTok. And, you know, save Jomey's job. I heard he's trying to get those numbers up. So, you know, get those numbers up for Jome.

And last and not least, oh my gosh, Hobbits and Dragons at gmail.com. We have already gotten several emails about our upcoming celebration of Jody Whitaker, the 13th doctor as we continue our doctor who. sprint towards the specials. We are so close to new Doctor Who. It is so exciting. So guys crushed on Loki. You're going to crush it in the Who era.

Perksie Jackson's coming up. All sorts of stuff is having. Hobbit and Dragons at GMA.com to keep in touch with us. Mallory. Back to you. Wonderful. It's time for the final programming reminder. It's the friendly neighborhood spoiler warning.

You've heard it before. You're about to hear it again right now. Today's podcast will feature plot points from the movie we're talking about today, the Marvels. Also on the table, anything that any of these characters have ever appeared in before? From Miss Marvel to Captain Marvel to Wanda Vision to like regrettably a secret invasion, adventures endgame, anything. The whole MCU is on the table. Some Marvel Comics canon might come up today.

You know the drill. All right, Joe. The Annihilator draws near. It's time to pod. Let's do it. Opening snapshot, Twinsies. Give us a taste. What did you think of this movie?

This, so if you on a, like, if this were a school paper and we're judging on the A to F scale, I'm giving this a solid B. Goes as high sometimes as a B plus. Sometimes, unfortunately, dwells in the C plus territory. But, you know, overall, I'd say solid B. I enjoy it. I've already seen it twice. I think you've seen it twice as well. I'm about to go see it again a little later this week, and I'm not mad about it. Like, I had a great time the second. Like, I had a fun, fine time at the movies. It moves so fast, you know, blessedly short runtime and moves so fast and is so, like, energetically paced.

And the star of the show that I think every single person on this planet agrees, Amman Volani is so deli. delightful every single time that she's on screen, that I just, like, enjoyed myself. And then, you know, when you think about the film more, you have to acknowledge some of the cracks that are there. But, like, in terms of like going to the cinema and having a good time, listening to people around me laugh and enjoy it, yeah. Enjoyable. How about you, Mallory? Yeah, I also had fun of the movies. This is Joanna, the third film of Face Five, but the 30th third.

In the 303 film in the MCU, the 33rd film. And that will certainly be on our minds as we discuss what worked and what didn't and how we should even assess the 33rd film in the MCU here in 2020. Hour 45, brisk, zippy. Will the pod be longer? Probably. Who can say? Usually is. I also had a really good time at the film.

It is not a perfect movie. I think that the plot, some of the mechanics of the power entanglement, like how logical or intuitive or essential does any of that feel? We'll talk about that as we go. I will say I thought that some of the aspects of the movie that felt less tethered to the wider MCU, though, were a relief and a breath of fresh air.

And the fact that it was a comic bookie, zany, zippy action adventure with nifty fight choreography and as you already noted, one of the most compelling

performances and characters in the MCU, Kamala Khan, Miss Marvel, also an astonishing cinematic achievement with our flurkin pals there was plenty to like here and plenty to enjoy

a real like throwback early MCU era weak villain and some other things that were less successful. I think the

secret invasion thing is genuinely not something we want to spend a lot of time thinking about or talking about but is emblematic of some of the like, wait,

I actually am I being like the larger MCU viewing public confounded by something here that like shouldn't be so much of a roadblock and force me to stop

and think about how these things connect. But broadly, good time at the movies. we had talked heading into the film, you know, back in our hype meter when we outlined our hype, our hype for this property, which made both of our lists. We had started to talk about this as something that had come up a lot, like our dread almost about how much of the weight of the current MCU fatigue narrative felt like it was resting unfairly and unreasonably on this one movie's shoulders. Yeah. And, you know, we're going to get shortly in a few minutes here to our deep dive, as is typical.

we should say on a movie pod where we're not like some of our TV or screening film pods able to like basically transcribe the release and go really truly beat by beat through every scene. We're not going to go like chronologically through the film. We're going to hit the characters and talk a little bit more broadly. But before we do that, we like have to talk about the opening weekend response to the movie and the performance of the movie and how much of it feels like a fair reflection of the film. I think we could just say it doesn't. It doesn't. A fair reflection of the film. And then what that means, if, like, independent of a movie's success and quality,

we are at this point where the superhero fatigue and MCU fatigue narrative is just inescapable. So let's chat about that for a second. We never like to linger long on the old, the old tomato meter, deeply flawed metric, as we always like to observe. But it's a data point that we toss out. 62% among critics, 84% among audience members. We should know, as we always do here, we're recording early on a Monday. so these figures might have shifted slightly by the time you listen. Same goes with the box office numbers that we're about to get to,

which are current through late Sunday, early Monday. We may have some updated metrics by the time we finish recording. Right. Box office. 47 million domestically, Joe, 63 million internationally. This is the worst debut in MCU history, which is just a gigantic bummer and feels like a very unfair thing to lay at the feet of what was a pretty fun and enjoyable two hours at the multiplex with our pals.

What do you want to say about this? The performance, what it means, what it indicates where we are with the everything is either kindling or a full tank of gas on the MCU is doomed fire. I hate that this will forever be this mark on this movie. Historically, this will be probably the worst. You know, because next year is Deadpool 3 is the only Marvel movie next year. That movie is going to do much better just because of a little. lot of other factors.

So this movie was always, I think, going to have a bit of an uphill climb, given the environment that it came out in, the variety article and subsequent aggregations of like that. Just the whole environment is just sort of like, this is a bad time. If you want to... No star promo.

If you want to throw my book on there, too, you can, even though that was not the intention of our book at all. But if that helps feed this narrative of like, you know, Marvel's done. which is never something I've said, and I still don't agree. But yeah, there's a strike. So you cannot weaponize the intense charisma bomb that is a mandolani to, like, promo your film. But, you know, it's not great.

But as I just recorded Big Pick with Sean and Amanda, and Sean was like talking about the box office number. I was like, yeah, these are like killers of the flower moon numbers. Just because, you know, we have fun. But, you know, against, against, of course, the budget for the movie, it's, of course, a huge disappointment for Marvel. I think that they did something really smart. We're going to talk throughout sort of about some of the edits that are very apparent in this movie. This movie got pushed.

It was originally, originally supposed to come out in 2022, summer 2020, got pushed, pushed, pushed, again and again and again. But the most recent push, which was announced early April and March from summer to this fall release, precipitated like a massive carving out in a post-Quantamania world, right? Quantumania happens. It does not go over. Marvel's like, okay, we got to do something a little different. We've got to figure out what to do. And I think that they did the smartest thing they could do, which is to what we've already said, streamline the movie, make it much shorter.

They just hacked a bunch of stuff out. Make it shorter. Make it fast. Make it zippy. Make it focused on what's working, which is Kamala Khan and Kamala and her relationship with Monica and to a certain extent, Carol, as well. And so what that results in, I think this is, honestly, this is going to sound like, Disney promo, it's not. This is the best case scenario

that they could have hoped for, which is they really wanted fans to come out and say, that was kind of fine. I had an okay time with that. You know, because it would have been an unmitigated disaster

if the critical score had been low and the fan score had been low, you know what I mean? But like, from anecdotally and just reading stuff online from what I've seen Marvel fans or, you know,

Marvel, be the intensive fans or not, for the most part, barring, you know, certain incels who are not even worth considering, I think, enjoyed the movie. You know what I mean? And so it's not coming out with this, what an absolute flop-ola. It is industry-wide. This is an industry failure. But in terms of a, I don't think it's a fandom failure.

And it's the best case for what they were hoping that they could achieve with this massive edit that they did on the movie. because I don't know. I don't know if that's too aggressively bright-sighting it, but I really think that's what they were hoping for, which is like, let's try to make the movie as fun and as fast as possible. So at least our die-hard fans are like, oh, I had a good time, you know? Right. Yeah, and like, you know, we've chatted a lot over the last couple years

about the increasingly, like, sprawling, connected universe of the MCU and how, like, reasonable or unreasonable it is to expect people to, have consumed enough of that to even like know what they can go see next. So, you know, I think your point about the people who are seeing it seem to broadly be enjoying it is like heartening and good and really important to cite and note because it's true. People are going to the movie. You're like, this is a pretty fun movie. Not everybody, of course.

But far fewer people saw this than Captain Marvel, which of course was like a box office sensation, to be clear. so it's not a fair comparative metric. And it was also coming out in the float of Infinity War and Endgame, you know? Yes. Yes. Which could have gone either way in terms of other people who were like, this is like, do I, do I, do I, should I just wait for Endgame? But yeah, so there's a, here's a nugget from the Entertainment Weekly write up on the box office results this weekend on the head to head inside of the Captain Marvel franchise.

By comparison, Captain Marvel benefiting from its place between the releases of 2018's Avengers Infinity War in 2019, Avengers Endgame debuted worldwide with 456.7 million, becoming the sixth biggest opening of all time and the biggest opening for a film with a female lead. Captain Marvel opened domestically to 153.4 million, making the Marvel's the first sequel to debut with more than 100 million less than its predecessor. So like on the sequel front and the dip there, there's the question.

I mean, this came up a little bit when we were covering obviously different than the cinematic box office results, But when we were covering the back half of the Miss Marvel season, we weren't able to cover the first few episodes because of the schedule. But we jumped in and had a wonderful time talking about a show that, like, all our most MCU Disney Plus shows had its peaks in valleys. But, like, we were very charmed by and compelled by and really enjoyed covering and consuming. And one of the things that was in the stretch where I felt like fewer people are watching these MCU shows at the same time.

Like, again, almost regardless of the quality, it just felt like the MCU properties are not capturing the zeitgeist in the same way. Now, like, we're not that far removed from the last MC movie, Guardians 3, which was popular, successful, adored by all. So again, it's not like a total doomsday scenario. We also are two days removed from covering the Loki finale, where we were basically like the MCU. Never doubted you for a moment. Look at this. That's not true. That's not exactly what happened.

and Mallory. We were like, we love this episode inside a flawed season. And what's also true is that not as many people were watching Loki season two as watched Loki season one.

But the highs were high and Tom Hiddleston was incredible and all that sort of stuff. And it was an incredible arc for a character that's been with the MCU from the beginning and it felt very emotionally rewarding. But like,

um... So what I wanted to ask you based on your comment about the fans who, fewer fans are going, but the fans who are going are content. Yeah. Do you think that, this has a bearing

in light of your maybe this is the best case scenario or what they were hoping to finagle assessment does it have a bearing then on again amid a stretch

where they're already rethinking and adjusting the volume of the release slate in particular right on the Disney Plus side what sort of movie we're getting or do you think there's a world where this is an outcome that

is embraced inside of the MCU, not every single person alive is going to go see every single thing. Not every movie is going to make a billion and a half dollars. Not every Disney Plus show is going to feel like water cooler you have to watch it the second it hits streaming,

but the fans of the characters, the fans of certain aspects of the universe, will get to watch stories that they deeply care about and feel invested in. Does it have a barrier in that respect or is it too soon to say? Certainly.

I think certainly, but I think the answer to that then is that the budget can't be nearly as high. You know what I mean? And they've already talked about this in terms of like some of the upcoming film projects and the TV projects, how they're ramping down the budgetary expectations. Like, not everything has to cost as much. You know, and we talk about the price tag on things as they move into a cosmic space and there are so many digital effects that are involved. That's part of it. I think that they have learned a lesson from the Disney Plus experiment.

experiment makes it sound like it's over. It's not. But their thought and hope was that everyone would watch all the Disney Plus shows as well. And that they could like soft launch these characters. You know, similarly to the way that they soft launch to Chala in Civil War before they do Black Panther. Or they soft launch Spider-Man in Civil War before, you know, Tom Holland and Spider-Man elsewhere and stuff like that. Like they're like, let's soft-launch these characters on Disney. plus and then, you know, put them at the center or something, you know, in the case of Monica

Rambot and Kamala Khan. But like what they found out, particularly with Ms. Marvel, because at least Monica benefits from the early days flurry of excitement and genuine quality that was Wanda Vision, is that that's not necessarily an effective way and certainly not with as much space between the launch and the execution. And also the timing has been, the timing question. in terms of that interdependency between the Disney Plus shows and the movies is so tricky. It is written all over this movie in which they pretend Secret Invasion didn't exist.

Because there is a version of this movie that takes place before Secret Invasion, and I think that's why. Like, we're going to talk about the one reference from Secret Invasion that is relevant to this. So we know, I think, for certain that this, you know, the Men Eye Boys are a little questioning this. I think it is certain that this in the timeline takes place. after Secret Invasion, but it might as well not have in terms of how much it feels like it impacts Nick Fury as a character. And so that everything is connected thing is something they're already moving away from. You made reference to this.

The idea that the Echo show in January is this Marvel Spotlight branding that they're doing going forward, all of that. I think they're just sort of, A, ramping down the... frequency of the projects, which is something that I've been asking for for a little while. I won't speak for you. And then they're like, and I think they're going to try to sort of unlock some things from each other from continuity. I think echo is a bad example, again, because of Kingpin and Daredevil are in that show. And it's a spinoff of Hawkeye. It's very silly to call that a spotlight. But I think there are things in future more along the vein of Werewolf

by Night that they could do that do feel more like that. So yeah, I'm a little, you know, and they have a benefit of figuring it all out by the fact that, like, Deadpool 3 is the only movie coming out next year. Only Marvel movie coming out next year. Everything else has been pushed the following year that gives them time to figure things out. It's already been reported. They're doing massive reshoots on Captain America, which doesn't concern me. Honestly, like, I don't know. I'm like, okay.

A, standard protocol. They're trying to, yeah, A, standard protocol, B, they're trying to fix something that's, you know, not working. Great. Yeah. Make it better, you know. And the true bonus of more time for Harrison Ford to pretend he doesn't know who or what the Red Hulk is. And it is. Like, genuinely what a gift.

I'm iconic. How lucky are we? thrilling. So, yeah, I mean, I like, again, I'm not, I'm not willing to count Marvel out and say this is the end for Marvel. Me neither, Joe. I'm a little concerned. We'll talk about this a little later on when we talk about the mid-credits Stinger. I'm a little concerned about a future that might be more nostalgia-based than otherwise.

But I hope the lesson that they take away from the response to this movie is that when you do invest emotion. It's the same lesson always as Marvel. When you invest emotionally in a character, Kamala Khan, and their family, their loved ones, You know, it's a very, okay, last thing I'll say it before, we move on to breaking down by character. We're about to talk about Kamala, but like, it's a very doctor. Didn't it feel a little Dr. Hooey to you? Not that, like, I'm completely stuck in that. But like, if she's like the companion, if she's the companion that gets like pulled in the Tartis and then we meet her whole family, it's like meeting.

Yeah, it's like Jackie. Yeah, exactly. It's Jackie Tyler, essentially. Jackie's there. Exactly. Trying to fuck the doctor. No, that didn't happen here. No.

But it did happen in Dr. It sure did. Join us. Join us for those spots. Oh, man. Yeah, I thought it was interesting because, like, especially in a film this compact and this short, to devote as much time inside of the movie for all of the characters to, like, in case you missed it, recap. But, again, that's also true for Carol. Like, that's also true for a cinematic figure.

Hey, if you forgot what happened in Captain Marvel, here's a very quick reset on the Cree ties. Love a previously on. Yes, indeed. Incorporated, Obama previously unincorporated into the story. We got it for Monica. We got it for Kamala. I thought it was interesting. We get this like shared memory sequence.

So we have the flashbacks. We have like stitched into the story and what the characters are discovering about each other, a way to refresh us a little further on what has happened. I thought it was interesting that like, so I sometimes bump on that, as you know, Joe, like the, hey, in case you missed Boba Fett, let's devote half of the season three Mandalorian premiere to updating you on what happened and a thing that you may be. didn't watch and then like how is that a compelling start to the season right but i thought this was like it's so fast and pretty effective here yeah in part because it was like contained and incorporated organically but also because i thought they found that balance where it's like if you didn't see these previous installments if you haven't watched miss marvel you're okay like you you get the the info you need in the movie you don't need to watch this

This film, not necessarily to understand Kamala's entire arc, right? But to watch this film, you don't necessarily need to know about Bruno or the Nord Dimension or the clandestines or any of that. Like, you're okay. You can hang without that. I think what would be really great is if people who didn't watch Miss Marvel saw this and are intrigued enough by Kamala as a character to say, I want to go watch that show now. And we can move in all directions with the consumption where it's not prohibitive to have missed a step. You can, like, still go back. That was my very sunny, optimistic take until I recorded the big pick with Amanda and Sean.

Like, I generally thought that they did. I know. She was my dearest friends in the universe. They're not going to watch Miss Marvel on Disney Plus. That's fine. No, no. I mean, I think Sean did watch someone Miss Marvel. And like, and no, more to the point of like Amanda saying, Amanda saying she was confused all the time who these people are and where they were coming from and stuff like that.

And I was like, I think this is a case like Asoka where maybe I'm too far. inside the machine to be able to tell. Because I thought Osoka was also trying to do a lot of work to get people who hadn't seen the animated shows, like, caught up on who these characters were. And we kept hearing again and again from people who hadn't seen them that they felt lost and confused and frustrated. And similarly, I thought they did so much work via Zippy Animated Sequence for Kamala, via dream sequence for Carol, via mind meld for Monica, or hilarious just passing mentions of witch-ex. I thought the Witch-X thing was so funny.

Because it was just like a joke. Like you didn't see Wanda Vision. Yeah, it was a witch hex. It was like a great joke, I thought. So I thought they were working really hard to be inviting. But again, that's how I felt about Asoka. And what I keep hearing from people is I actually, my suspicion is it's not even that they're actually missing any context they need. It's that they're worried that they're missing context that they need.

And so I really do think that in, you know, everything you need to know, everything you need to know, know is in the text of Miss Marvel. But if you feel left out because you didn't watch, you know, like, you see, like, everything we learned from Monica and flashback about her mom in Wanda Vision, you see it in this movie. You know what I mean? Like, I, we see a photo of Bruno, but like, yeah, again, you don't have to know anything about him. That's just for us who, like, who are Bruno fans, you know?

So it's just sort of like, I think it's going to be, it's going to be really hard for for them to surmount that feeling, that FOMO almost of the homework. Because to that homework point, like, I really do think that they thoughtfully put in everything you actually needed to know, but they can't fight the FOMO necessarily. Just enough key can in detail, but like most crucially of all, as we always like to say, like the emotional bearings are there, right? Like you understand that Kamala and we'll talk about this more later is a super fan that she's meeting her idol, that this is the dream of all dreams to be able to, like, whirl toward

McFury in a space suit or open the door of her home and ask if she passed an Avengers test. Like, this is the stuff, Lionel for Kamala and you can feel that. And the family's support of this, like, mantle that they can't believe their daughter's inheriting. Now, do you have every bit of context for the larger family narrative there? No, but you know what? Again, six episodes waiting for you. And guess what?

this podcast is here for you because we're going to talk about some of that today. So let's get to our character dive, higher, further, faster. Did you know about one and three people with plaques psoriasis may also develop psoriotic arthritis, which causes joint pain, stiffness, and swelling? Does this sound like you? Listen to what it sounds like to be a million miles away. Trimphaya, gusalcumab taken by injection is a prescription medicine for adults with moderate to severe plaques psoriasis, who may benefit from taking injections or pills or phototherapy, and for adults with active psoriotic arthritis. Serious allergic reactions and increased risk of infections and liver problems may occur.

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Think green goddess chicken. Garlic aoli. Crumbled bacon. Corn salsa. 40 grams of Protein. Made to keep up with whatever comes next. New sweet green wraps hit different. Order now at order.com. Joe, let's start with, and we should say we will, of course, be talking about the Young Avengers setup, the X-Men Stinger, all of that later in today's pod. There was an X-Men Stinger? Just kidding. Yeah, did you miss it? Did you, did you, in your third Marvel movie leave? You know what? This was the first time ever when I walked into a theater, and this was very kind, but I was kind of fascinated by it. During the ticket scan, it's like, there's a mid-credits scene.

So make sure you stay. I was like, wow, 33 movies in. Some people don't know. I love this. I like that we're creating a welcoming space for people to make sure they know to stay genuinely. I think people are, I mean, people were just so excited about that particular mid-credit stinger to talk about it. But like, it's funny, my pal Mike who runs the San Francisco press screenings when I was walking in with Mahoney, he was like, there's a mid-credits, but not an end credits. And I was like, okay.

Thank you. Again, thank you. Sure. I would have, okay. And then he's like, and he's really important. I was like, okay. Don't worry. I wasn't going to miss the mid-credit.

Like, people were just, I think- sent him a strongly worded letter after saying I did not get to hear the flurkin meow because you told me I could leave before the post credits. There was an audio Easter egg for us. And what a delight it was. Thanks, Mike. I actually did leave and someone did let me know that I missed that. But I stayed for it the second time I saw it.

Don't worry. Wonderful stuff. Okay. Let's start with our titular trio, Joe. Let's start with the marvels. We're going to hit each of them individually, but let's talk about the team up for a minute. In this Nia da Costa sub to our zippy, zany,

good vibes, action, adventure, team up, hang. The switching. Conceptually, this big driver, we have the Darben Kree driver, of the plot, which we'll get to. But this was another primary driver of, we will briefly. Briefly, we will get to that at some point later today. And I will ask you if you would steal a son and or think to jump start a son. So start preparing a answer. Is that how stealing sons work? I'm not a scientist. Unlike Monica Rambo, I did not go to Rice University, but I have some questions.

I definitely have some questions about if that's how stealing an atmosphere works. The ocean. Ocean, I think maybe we can get on board with. Ocean, perhaps. That's how that works. Okay. Yeah, just force some water in. It's like filling a Britta, isn't it? That's definitely how you steal an atmosphere. I've seen the documentary Spaceballs.

That's how they do in Spaceballs too. So it's the same. Very point. I retract the question. Thank you. And I hope you're embarrassed that you asked it. I am. I'm mortified.

The switching, Joe. The power entanglement. Light-based powers. We use the powers at the same time. Boom. We swap. There's this jump point trigger of the initial entanglement. Generally, how did the power entanglement aspect of the movie work for you?

And whether or not that worked for you, did you enjoy what we got as a result of it? Because I think those are two distinct questions. They're two distinct questions, but they both work for me. So I have the same answer. I think this is a delightful idea to get. you know, an inexperienced teen and also to women with an extremely fraught relationship all forced to work as a team together and Carol Lonewolf Danvers to also force to be on a team together. So I think I thought that was a brilliant idea. And we just did for trial by content

last week we did body swap movies. And so I have seen way weirder explanations for this isn't a body swap necessarily, but like I've seen in that, in that homework way weird. I mean, they didn't touch an ancient artifact. You know what I mean? Like it's, this is a very normal setup for this sort of thing. And then I just thought the, I thought it made the fight choreography so fun, especially the first fight, I think is the best, which is the living room fight. Yeah, the living room fight.

No, I was going to say, which is maybe not what you want. Maybe you want the last fight to be the best. But I think it was good to get me really excited because the film opens with like, you know, some dreary, crease girl, like, peace talk stuff that I was like, no, no, no, no. And then we're like, you know, absolutely not. Absolutely not. And then we get into this, like, extremely zippy, fun. There's a great song on it, like, you know. And Nick Furies.

For the movie. Well, Nick Fury involves the cons are involved. Like, I, great. And then we get the training sequence to the Beastie Boys also great. Just like really delightful. That was my favorite. The last fight for some reason, they didn't put a pop song on. And I don't know why they didn't do that.

I think it would have, I liked the final fight fine, but I think I would have enjoyed it. I think the soundtrack really helps, you know, everything sort of really feel super fun. Have we learned nothing from the awesome mix era? of MC movies. You always need the needle drop. The second time when I really noticed the lack of the needle drop, I was waiting for it. I was like, oh, wait, what's the needle drop on this one?

Then it never came. And I was like, are they, do they not want to make it to Guardians of the Galaxy E? Do they want to not get too close to? I'm just a girl, the worst needle drop in a MCU history that happens in Captain Marvel. So grim. So grim. But to a point that you put in our notes here, which I think, is brilliant.

This also puts a bit of a straight jacket on Carol, who has been a problem in terms of being so overpowered compared to everyone else since they introduced her, essentially. Same on Gaia, so I don't know what they're going to do with Amelia Clark. But in this case... Remember Gaia? I don't want to. But in this case, they've hamstrung Carol with the switching,

And that's brilliant. Very brilliant. Yeah, we're on the same page. My favorite, I loved the fight choreography. I thought it was, I was actually like, just based on the trailers, a little anxious about it. I was like, how is this going to work especially with all of the editing? But I thought it was incredible, like absolutely riveting. It's a really fun, rewarding thing to kind of track on the rewatch when you're more aware of what

the beats are going to be and you can actually follow like the specificity of the swaps. And like when they're, the reason the training sequence was my favorite for a couple reasons. One, just again, the like mechanics of how the switching is going to work when they're learning, okay, if I angle this way or if I'm like launching jumping mid air. Yeah. Yeah. I'm like, that's a great way to be a dick.

But like, is it practical in a fight? Like there was comedy in it. There was practicality. And that's why on the Carroll front, I was wondering if one of the talking points coming out in the movie would be like, man, what a bummer. Once again, we have to find a way to cap Captain Marvel's powers because the most powerful character in the MCU is just like too much of a wrecking ball to possibly contain the story. Howard, what are we going to come up with now to justify why Carol can't immediately dispose of supremer Darbin, right? Which she should

be able to do. But the reason I thought this was so creative is because it unlocked something about Carol's character. Like, we're in space Messiah's solitude territory with Carol when we find her where she is just hanging out alone in her very cool spaceship that had like real, in a good way. Like, I am in my first apartment after college energy and like figuring out my aesthetic and my vibe. It only took her 30 years. I know.

We all work at our own pace. It's true. But the cap on Carol's power necessitated. learning how to work with other people again and learning how to embrace the idea of a team. And so you have moments where Kamala is like apologetic, right? She's saying if we weren't here, you would just be able to go do your thing and we are like an anchor on what you can achieve. And for that to be a feature instead of a bug for Carol to have to embrace that it can be

learning to work with other people and protect them and nurture them and allow them to like boost you up to. and for that to come in two different forms, a new person who you just met, who worships you and you're forging a connection with in real time, and then somebody where there's a fracture, a fracture that you have been like afraid to interrogate an address. That was, I thought, really deaf storytelling.

I enjoyed that. I also thought it was really clever. I thought they did a clever job throughout the editing. I mean, first of all, it could have been a mushy mess, and I actually thought it was like crystal clear. And I thought that was brilliant, because sometimes even inside the MCU, you can see a fight between two people

and it just looks like a mushy mess. So this is like really clever. I thought it was a clever way to get us to better, hopefully even if you didn't see them and anything else, understand the nature of, like, I thought Monica's phasing worked really well in the fights. You know what I mean? I thought that was really cool.

The hard light. The witch hex. I also just remembered on top of the witch hacks. My other favorite one of those was when Darbin was asking Kamala where she got the bangle. She was like, my grandma said it to me. In the mail. That's so good. Great.

That was like maybe my favorite line of the movie. In the mail. So funny. But she did. It just came in a box. Yeah. With a bunch of other stuff. Oh, Nani.

Incredible. Yeah. So I loved it. I was a big fan. It was funny. like, again, it doesn't, it doesn't much matter, but Rob was less high in the movie and he was just sort of like, the fighting, what a mess. And I was like, the fighting. I loved it. He's like, the flirtkins. Sure. I'm like, the flirtkins, though. So, you know, takes all kinds.

Takes all kinds. I simply cannot imagine. I simply cannot imagine not enjoying the flirtcine sequence. I mean, all of the flirt in action in the movie, Goose and Icon, like Goose, one of the true break out sensations over our shared experience in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but to get baby Flarkin and to have it be a musical number. You're like something for Joanna. I would have cut. It's astonishing. You had multiple musical numbers, Joe.

Yeah, but one was good and the other wasn't. I would have cut the goose washing scene. That I was like, I can't, I had a real problem with it. When goose is licking her ass? Yeah, but like the tentacles All the tentacles I loved it They are committing to the bed

I'm so glad you loved it Because this has always been one of the things About the goose and flurken corporation Is like they all go out of their way To say it's not a cat But like they behave like cats Until the tentacles come out The vomiting

The way that they have mastered The pre-vomit cats Oh yeah That's astonishing And so what else do cats do All the time Joe They stick that hind leg up in the air and they lick their own buttholes because they can.

Why should Goose be any different? There was a real stare. It like lingered and there was like eye contact between Nick and the Lerick and the Lick. And I was just like, yeah, but she, I mean, I appreciate her grooming. Maybe it's the eye contact that was really just. The eye contact was, we spent some time there. We did. We just like really had to contemplate the whole thing.

So the movie's an hour of 45. It's going to be about 10-ish minutes of credit. So it's really like an hour and a half. We're going to spend a solid 90 seconds looking into the eyes of a cat licking its own ass. As the tentacles slither. They were slithering, you know? Save it for if this movie had Netflix subtitles. You know how this podcast works.

Yes. Duly admonished. Joe, let's talk a little bit more about the scene-stilling star of the movie, one of the true bright spots of MC present and MC future. Hollywood, the world. That is. Why stop of the world? We're in the multiverse, the multiverse.

The multiverse. Kamala Khan, Miss Marvel. Tremendous performance. Sensational. Easily the best part of the movie. I don't think this is like a particularly a sublime, complicated opinion. It seems to be like a near unanimous takeaway. Anything else just on the performance before we get into some of the other aspects of

the character inside of the film that you want to hit. The fact that they found Amon Valani, who is genuinely, like, very talented, but is also happens to be, as a human being, genuinely a massive fan of the MCU and a Marvel Comics, and then Kamala being a Carol Danvers super fan. Yes. That enthusiasm is giving us, you know, like Tom Holland, all G. Willikers, Peter Parker energy. and the MCU really needs Peter Parker energy right now.

So that's where we are for sure. Yeah, it's interesting like, I recall, you know, when we were chatting about not only no way home, but then like the introduction of America Chavez and Multimersamatt, et cetera. And we started talking a lot more about like the fervent desire to continue the mentor-mente, Tony Peter tradition and like extend that across the MCU at large

because it was such a crackling thing. And less so the Carol Tony comp. But I think that Kamala captures the Peter Parker aspect of that just spectacularly. And in so many different ways, like Miss Marvel and Spider-Man, they give us the coming of age, teen finding away in the universe, like story, of course. But the absolute adoration that Kamala has for Captain Marvel, for the Avengers for the idea of being a superhero, like the fact that she is a fan. As fans watching it, there's just something so, like, inviting about that. You know, oh, this character is like me.

This character loves this thing and spends time thinking about it and wonders what her life would be like if she had access to this in any way. And then she does. And what would that be like, right? Like, what an incredible thing to get to watch. And I thought that this like, particularly right now in this like MCU fatigue moment and superhero fatigue moment there was a meta aspect to that that like it just was very it was a little sad I guess

in some ways but also very like it was energizing to see what it looks like what somebody loves this stuff and be reminded of it I was glad for that I have to have faith that Kevin Vigin Associates will take the correct lesson from this film which is like more a mandolani and everything

you know what I mean like I I'm I they are so smart Baby Productions as a standalone studio? Who says no? But like I think that, you know, because there could be an instinct of like, this is our worst performing movie that we've never happened. Like, blah, blah, like let's put it in a box somewhere and not think about it. But like, you know, as the end of the episode, the end of the film indicates, you know,

like a mandolani is going to have a central role going forward. But the fact that it ends with the police is just like, come on. It's so fucking, I think she's irresistible. I just love her. We're going to sprinkle in a couple. We don't have sound bites from this current movie to incorporate, but we're going to sprinkle in some from past installments. And you're brilliant.

We wanted to play one from Miss Marvel on television show that we recommend you check out. If you have some time. And this is Kamala and her father in the finale of the first season. and it's a beautiful, meaningful moment about family and connection and identity. And then there's just a great fandom joke at the end. Steve, can we hear this? That's what Kamal means in Arabic. Perfect.

But in Urdu, it's more like, what's the word? Wonder. Marvel. Kamal means Marvel. I share the same name. is Carol freaking Danvers. I don't know who that is. I love that moment so much.

I share the same name as Carol freaking Danvers. I don't know who that is. And it was so top of mind for me watching the movie because it's not just Kamala, who is suddenly sharing space and an experience with her idol. It's the entire Khan family. Yeah. And like the moment where they're like, you know,

your little friend. Your idol was here, like, just appeared in our living room. Is Captain Marvel pressuring you? Is Captain Marvel pressuring you? It's just incredible. Wonderful stuff. So on the Miss Marvel front, if folks want to check it out, but great.

Let me just say, I think the first two episodes of Miss Marvel, I would hold up against anything the MECO has ever done. I just think it's extraordinary. The series as a whole is quite bumpy. Very uneven. But. But Rocky finishes is often the case. Though, did you, I will say, I rewatched it.

And even in the finale, which in real time, I was like, meh. There's so many cute little moments. Like the finalli is better than the like penultimate. The penultimate is the one that's really rough. The finale tightens back up a bit better. Four I liked. Four was special. We had a beautiful pod talking about generations and what a time that was.

We've talked about so many things together. My goodness. Toffee. In terms of, like, fanishness, I think it's important to remember. And not everyone knows this, but, like, Miss Marvel as a comic book was enormously popular. Like, hugely popular. Like, sold out all the time everywhere, always. And, like, deeply impactful.

Yeah. And then over the years, Carol Danvers' popularity has, like, come and gone. But, like, Kelly's Deconic. who was an advisor on this film, her run of Carol was also extremely popular and drew a lot of women who didn't read comics before or into reading comics. There's this whole movement, Carol Coors,

like this whole thing. Like, it's, that was a time of extreme popularity for that character. And so it's not like, it's not like these are random nobody comic book characters that nobody cares about. That is not the fact of the history of this. And I thought it would be,

Kamala Khan-esque appropriate to read this email we got from Haley, who is a fan. And she says, I grew up in Louisiana, and let's just say reading comics about a young Muslim woman in New Jersey was not the cool thing to do in a town where they filmed Duck Dynasty, especially for a teenage girl. I dressed up as Miss Marvel One Spirit Day at school in 2014, and I'm certain no one in school knew who I was supposed to be or cared. I drove to Shreveport Comic Con, my freshman year of college, solely to commission a drawing from the artist of my favorite issue of the comic, and I was beyond happy to find out other people cared about this comic, too. And because Miss Marvel loved Captain Marvel, I loved Captain Marvel. Her comics were so fun. She went to planets where they had to rhyme. She fought space pirates, and her cat unexpectedly gave birth the hundreds of little aliens with top pocket dimensions in their stomachs.

So much more fun than I thought it would be. I wanted to see that on screen. I forced all my friends to go see Captain Marvel with me opening night in 2019, and two of my friends who were forced to sit together that night are now married, so obviously it was a good time. It's wonderful. And then this is a quite long, beautiful email from Haley, but I'll skip to sort of the encapsulation of the marvels.

The marvels maybe didn't have a lot in his mind, or maybe the ideas of hero worship, parissocial relationships, guilt and imposter syndrome were cut from the film, but it was fun, and that's not bad. The leads were excellent. The VEVX was late years ahead of quantumania. It was heartfelt, and Amon Valani. stole the show. So, like, this is a character, both Carol and Kamala, and to a lesser

extent Monica, but Monica's a great third part of this story that has a lot of importance for comics readers. So, you know, I'm glad that that aspect of it, that no matter how people feel about Miss Marvel or the Marvels, that idea of, like, who could possibly take Kamala Khan this incredible comic book character and do her justice on the screen. And then they crushed it to have to end no notes on this casting and the writing for her. So, yeah. So good. That was another really fun thing about the series was like the incorporation of the comics art in the credits and throughout just wonderful.

There are so many little moments where Kamala's just state of astonishment in the circumstance she finds herself in are like so charming. I think my favorite. Because we do get, I think that part of the email about like, hero worship and parasycial relationships, like, was there a version of the film or that was more central? Is an interesting thing to contemplate? Like, we get a couple beats about that, but very... I think it's undeniably true, like, that it was because that line she has

on the sort of wheat planet where she says, like, maybe I could have treated you like a real person. Yeah, like, I didn't give you, right, a chance to just be a person. and Carol has her, like, I apologize for just immediately going into, like, superhero overlord power mode and not treating you like a person either, but it's very quick. I think the Midnight Boys had a correct critique of that scene very specifically about, like, a shortcutting some of the emotional arcs. So, yeah, there's definitely stuff. I mean, there's, on the, on the, like, Sean Fennacy called it a hackathon. the, like, you know, edited significantly front, there's literally a scene where Monica and

Carol are talking in the belly of the ship. And then Carol goes, and the next scene is Carol coming up the ladder and Monica's already upstairs. And it's like, what, what just, you know, just... There are multiple scenes where, like, we cut to people in different outfits without any apparent indication that there's been, like, time to change or other things that happened. So that was, that was the thing that stood out most of me. But, you know, Kamala's... charm and enthusiasm are such a consistent balm. Like, not that it papers over completely those issues in the film, but when you're watching the movie,

it's just so easy to get sucked in and charmed by, like, something like the moment where she sees Monica looking at the tablet and asks if it's a new iPad, right? And on the one hand, she's just so excited that they have intel on her. Like, I have reached a point in my life where Sabre, like Nick Fury. They know who I am and they're keeping taps on me. And of course, our family's like, are we being surveilled?

And Kamala is like this, you know who I am, this rules. But then there's like just even beyond that, the beat where she was like, if this is top secret, classified, and tell why is it clear? Transparent. Yeah, that was perfect, right? Because those are the little reminders where like fresh eyes, fresh perspective. in an MCU story. Somebody asked that question who maybe never thought to before

because it's people who have spent yons upon eons surrounded by clear screens that should definitely have a protector around them. I'd love to that. I thought little moments like that were so key. Where did you get that?

I found it under my couch. Great stuff. Oh, boy. I love it. And of course, it's not just the to use a vanism. Pluck. It's not just a pluck.

There is so much heart. Kamala is the one who realizes that Monica needs a hug and not just that Monica needs a hug from Kamala, but she gives Carol the eye, the gesture. You need to be here. You need to be comforting. Lieutenant Trouble 2. She is the one who's like, wait, we're about to run on this escape vessel and leave all of these scrolls on tarnax who have already been abandoned by the MCU. We're supposed to leave all them to die.

Like she's the character who is thinking with her, with her heart. That reminded me of an episode of Doctor Who that we talked about, Thin Ice, when a companion, Bill, is confronting the doctor about, like, you know, basically a young boy dies in the course of the adventure and the doctor's already on to the next step. And she's like, excuse me, I've never seen someone die before. And also, like, how many people have you seen die? Like, can you even remember? Have you killed people? Like, you know, where, you know, I need a moment. I need a beat here to process this, right?

And I think that, unfortunately, I think Brie Larson's delivery of, like, you have to save who you can was, like, truly bizarre and weird and weirdly edited. And maybe just, like, digitally inserted. and I couldn't explain it to you. But that concept that we, it really hit a nerve of a concept that we've been talking about a lot with Dr. Who, like save someone. You know what I mean? But the doctor says in that episode, as played by Peter Capaldi, the doctor says, you know what happens if I don't move on? More people die. There are kids living rough near here.

They may well be next on the menu. Do you want to help me? Do you want to stand here stamping your foot? Because let me tell you something. I'm 2,000 years old and I've never had the time or the luxury of out. rage, right? And so that is something that is that I'm adding into, but is subtextual here of like Carol has been on this beat for 30 years, 30 plus years, right? Kamala's new to the

assignment and she doesn't, she has to learn this lesson of like, you can sometimes you can't save everybody and you have to figure out, you have to do the harrowing calculus of who can you save as the environment is being vacuum sucked out of you know, this girl planet. And so it's important to have someone there to reflect the tragedy of what is lost, but it also highlights for us how young and new Kamala is and the stars in her eyes that she has for, not just Carol as a hero, but what it means to be a hero in the first place,

she's learning a hard lesson. When she comes off the ship at the end and has to tell Nick Fury that they lost Monica, you know what I mean? Like these are important. journeys for a young hero to take. Yeah. And I think in the best version of that there, as is so often the case, with the companion of any sort, a mentor, mentee, like you're teaching each other something. And for Kamala to have to confront that the person that she worships for saving people also

has to sometimes make that tough calculus like you're saying, I think it's as important ideally for the Captain Marvel figure or the doctor or whoever it might be to get that reminder of like the centrality of at least making sure you thought about it and like maybe you can't lingerer, but you can't be callous about it either. It can't just become like an equation. It has to be something more than that. And I think that's why in addition to everything we get from Kamala, having the Khan family who we fell in love with in the Miss Marvel show be so central in the movie. I mean, we knew they were going to be in it, right? Of course. The singer of the show is the Carol bust through the closet swap. They're in the trailers. We know they're going to be in the film.

But I didn't realize they were going to be this present in the movie. And I was thrilled. I think like we get so many different aspects of the movie like highlighted through them. A lot of that heart and that thing we talk about a lot across our story. Shout out the Shire. Like, what are you fighting to save? Like this. anchoring in a home, a destroyed home, but a home and journey... Can we get a T-shirts to say, shout out the shire? Shout out the shire. And Professor Tolkien is always welcome.

Yeah. As is a loss reference? Yeah. Absolutely. I would be honored to wear that t-shirt with you. We should do it. You know, we're literally in their home. Now is it blasted to the Smytherines.

Of course it is. But we're in their home. We're in their living room. Like we're inside of their family. When Amir is, against Nick Furie's wishes, filming on the space elevator. It's because he's trying to send an update to his wife. There are these connections and these relationships that they are trying to tend.

And like, one of the moments that I found myself thinking back to a lot from Miss Marvel was that scene in the third episode after Kamala has hurt her knee. Her parents don't yet know who she is. So it's not exactly clear how she was injured. But her mother is sitting there on the bathroom floor tending to her. And she's talking about her own journey, her own experience with Yusuf of coming to America, of forging this new life together. And there's this like gorgeous line. She says, I found my family and I let them love me when she's trying to explain just like how she found comfort and peace and possibility amid all of the turmoil and challenges around her.

And like that is the thing because it's not always easy between Kamala and her mother. That is the thing. core idea, like, I found my family and I let them love me that carries her forward. And so we get the comedy of, like, her mother trying to stop her from going. I am not ready for my child to go to space and fight space monsters. This is all happening too fast. Make sure you tell Captain Marvel that if this goes wrong, I will kill her. Like, there's a lot of comedy, but that heart.

My kitchen. Yeah. My kitchen. Like, their pride in her, right? their embrace of the fact that, like, their child is fighting to save people. I just loved all of that. So much. I loved it, too.

And I think it's really important to, you know, I think if you watch Miss Marvel, you might say this is, this is a, yes, Kamala's mom is putting up some protests, but overall, this is a much, like, softer, more understanding version of her family. board now. Yeah. Yeah. It's a different mode. It's a different mode. It was like absolutely not when Goose vomited two Cree Warriors into the living room.

But other than that, they're like pretty much on board. Yeah. They're there. You should have not ready to go to space. Calls and hell. But other than that. He's taking us to hell. This man is taking us to hell.

But like, but comparatively to the film. And so what they do is they stand in contrast to the fractured family that is Monica and Carol, right? And when when Monica later is telling Carol, like, that's not what that's not how family works right i stayed away out of shame you know and she's just like that's not how family works at all you know what i mean like don't you know we love you all of you and so like it is important to see in contrast the cons embrace the hell and the flurkins and all the chaos and the and the family room blasted smithereens and all that sort of stuff because that's part of

what comes with their daughter that's all of her and they're they love all of her and and like then they love the new family that she forged it, right? Because I found my family and I let them love me. That's not just blood ties. Like that's not just an actual lineage. And like Carol and Monica, yeah, like this is your best friend's child, lieutenant trouble. Like the family that you build, the team you build. They don't look related.

Families are complicated. hilarious. I thought that Amir was the highlight on the cotton family front in this movie for me comedically. You just had so many funny moments. I would say the moment with the remote control at the very end. It looks like a great place to raise a family. It's just like so funny. Great stuff.

We got another email that I wanted to read. Unfortunately, this person did not sign their email. So I cannot give them named credit. But I think it's important to talk about representation in this movie. As I said to Sean and a man on the Big Pick, like the fact that this movie does so much, Like, the fact that this movie is led by three women and we have a female villain. And, you know, there are, there's very few, yeah, written by women. And there's actually very few white people in this movie at all.

There's, like, one white man. And I didn't notice that until someone else pointed out to me. Like, that's only interesting because I think it is important that heroes look like everyone. It doesn't inoculate the movie from criticism. and certainly we've been voicing our criticism, you know, so we're not saying, like, this makes it perfect. However, we did get this email that has a perspective that Mallory and I could not possibly voiced, so I'm so glad one of our listeners did.

This person wrote, I was tearing up at how many Muslim references were being made in a feature length big screen Marvel movie. At Kamala's house, every wall had a Quranic verse or Islamic saying framed up. I couldn't believe my eyes seeing the iconic Nick Fury being framed in front of one of those. and it felt like they added more of those from when we saw the house in the TV show. More significantly, it was heartwarming seeing Kamala say,

in the name of God, before the climatic scene, something most Muslims say without thinking before most menial tasks. Seeing her dad throw in random yallahs, oh God, when annoyed, which is something many South Asian and Arab Muslim uncles and aunties

throw out an exasperation, and seeing her brother say, excuse me, if I mispronounce this, la la, la, la, there is no God but God a million times while the family in Nick's ship was going, down, which many Muslims believe they should try to say if they know they're about to die. It moved my little Muslim heart in a way I never expect to see in my lifetime, especially during

these times. I just, I mean, like, I love that too, just like the, it all felt just like lived in and natural and part of the furniture. I especially love that going down with the ship praying moment when Nick Fury is like, are you praying? Well, don't stop. You know what I mean? Like, you know, amen. Like, let's do it. That was great. So thank you for that email. again, I'm... Thank you. And it's just like, these things matter. It matters. Absolutely.

Yeah. Absolutely. Thank you for sharing that email. Thank you for sending that email. Yeah. The quantum band. Yeah. The bangle.

So this was a popular theory during the Miss Marvel run when Kamala found her bangle. When Kamala inherited the bangle, when Nani sent her the bangle. In the mail. Like, Grandma sent it to me in the mail. Wonderful stuff. Oh, truly wonderful stuff. And we had gotten a flashback to a 1942 sequence where Kamala's ancestors find, and the clandestine, find that bangle on a blue arm. And there was a lot of speculation at the time about, okay, is this a tie to the Cree?

Speculation about whether these might be quantum bands from the comics, which are these energy weapons, right? these immensely powerful, like, energy tools that are drawing from the quantum zone. They're gifted to a number of characters who, like, then assume the mantle of protector of the universe over time, Marvell, among them, Kree relic in the comics. And this was just an interesting bit of confirmation to get this here. Again, there's not time in the movie spent on like the Nore dimension tie. We talked about this as like kind of like an upside down stranger thingsy presentation in Miss Marvel when Wadi, you know, explained that the Nore dimension where Kamala is drawing the power from. It's connected to the world, but hidden behind a veil of Nora that separates our world from theirs and how if I prepped through, it could subsume it very upside downy when we got that little usual in that sequence. Are you glad they didn't do that though?

I feel like it would have slowed everything down if they had done that. Yeah, I think it's completely like fine and probably beneficial to not have incorporated that aspect of the Bengal canon here. And I think that, again, if you don't know that, you're not at a disadvantage for following the events of this movie. I think the question of like learning more about the bands, okay, their quantum bands. they're quantum bands, this Cree tie, the way that Darben uses the quantum band that she finds at the beginning of the film to create these jump points, what we learn about their role in the history of the galaxy, creating this network of jump points and connecting the universe. The question for me then becomes like, well, what will their role be in the future of the MCU, of course, right? And I thought it was fascinating and absolutely bizarre because Darban puts both bands up. on and disintegrates.

Like, we get, like, Voldemort confetti, basically, which was the thing that they showed in the trailer that I have just astounded by. Like, they showed the death of the villain in the final trailer, visibly. That final trailer was such a Hail Mary. Like, I've never seen a more, a sweatier trailer in my life. Really rough. Really rough. Remember Stephen Tony?

Just the incredible amount of, yeah. We made those movies, too. And Cap at the beginning of that trailer for absolutely no reason. But Kamala puts them on and not only does not disintegrate, but she's like, this is what I was born for, right? We get the callback to what you seek is seeking you, the idea that these bands are not only meant to be together, but that she is meant to have them. And then at the end of the movie, she only has one of them and the other one is on Carol's wrist. There's no explanation for why this happened. I was utterly, I was like, what did I miss here?

utterly confounded by this. But there's also some other stuff with Kamala and the idea of the Bengal, like not being the source of her power that I think is just worth us hitting quickly for anybody who... I agree with that. Maybe doesn't have that canon history from the show because this is a crucial thing. So in episode two of Miss Marvel, Bruno tells Kamala... It looks like your power is... Her pal, Bruno. best pal who is wants to be more than best pals even though there are a number of other suitors in the mix in miss marvel he's a scientific genius and so he tells her it looks like your power isn't coming from the bangle it's coming from within you like the bangle unlocked the superhuman part of you and then in the finale we get a little mutant we get a little like in one of many

X-Men set up as the X-Men animated tune is playing, the one that you just beautifully recreated, I must say. He tells her, so I went back and looked again. She's like, if you're bored, you can just call me. Very charming, very funny. And he says, no, Amir, her brother wanted to know if he might have powers to relatable content from Amir. Amir is a legend.

A legend. I just love that, but he's like hitting up Bruno on the side. Like, can you please tell me if I might also have superpowers? Yeah. And Bruno says, I think we might have had it wrong the first time around. Kamala asked what he means. So we know why you have access to the nor and why you can wield it. But when I compared you to the rest of your family, something still seemed off.

Kamala, there's something different in your genes. Like a mutation. Dun dun dun. So we seem to be setting up Kamala to be a mutant. And so this question of just like how much of what we're seeing with Kamala is maybe a mutant gene, how much is the combination of the mutant gene and the bangle, which we now know to be a quantum man? How much does it even matter? Like, what will she or other characters be using the bands for in the future?

What tie will she have to the X-Men? We'll obviously talk about that a little bit when we get to the Stinger. Just interesting, like, what they're laying the groundwork for and how much of it seems to be, like, connected or not at this point. I think they're very smartly, you know, like, going back to, like, I know this podcast is a, podcast for fans by fans, but I'm always thinking about the normies, like, when they see these movies. And I remember my pal, Katie Rich just constantly being, like, every time they mentioned an Infinity Stone, I've, like, fall asleep. Like, you know, like, I just think that there is, uh, I think it's so clear from the movie alone that, like, okay, a Bengal can, I think, I think we

would only see the nor again if we got to miss Marvel season two. I don't think they're ever going to touch that in the films. And I think that it's so clear. you know, like, the, the, Bangal is absorbing Carol's powers and giving our villain, like, you know, superpowers or they need it for the big moment that they have. Do you think the reason that Carol has the other one is that, like, like our twin lightsabers, they wanted a sort of, like, momentum of their best friendship?

Or do you think it's because even though Kamala is like a teen and teens getting away with a lot of accessories. Both bangles are kind of a tough look to pull off on your everyday wear. Like she could get away with putting her flannel over one bangle, but maybe not too, you know? Do you think that's why? It's probably that. Yeah. It's probably just a fashion choice.

I think so. That seems right. Speaking of, this was something I actually wanted to ask you. One of the beautiful parts of the series is that Kamala's first full, Miss Marvel fit is something that is like stitched together bit by bit with pieces that she is receiving from meaningful

people in her life, whether it's family members or Bruno, the aforementioned Bruno. The aforementioned Bruno or the red daggers. Yeah. Piece after piece after piece. Kamala, the MCU cannot help itself in a lot of respects, but one of them

always without fail will be we're going to change the suit. Yeah. And this was one where I was like, okay, there's a practical reason in the film. They need, when they're on Elthana, they need to be able, surrounded by song to get ready for war, and they receive new suits.

Fine. But I was like, this is an outrage, and I can't believe it. We had this, like, beautiful story behind the first suit and now already we're upgrading it for just something that she got on a water planet. No. How did you feel about this?

I did not have your attachment. Though you make a great point. You're not just making a merge point. You're making a storage point. And I support you in that. I was so dazzled by how phenomenal of an upgrade Carol got. I thought her suit in those, like, gorgeous muted cut. Though it was like rippedish-rised by the end of the movie.

The thigh material in particular did not hold up in battle. No, no. But the color scheme. Fantastic. And then. Monica Monica suit Yes

I know we're going to get to Monica a little later maybe I'll say this again there but I'm just going to say it here She like we are happy to you know objectify men when we want to I'm going to do it for this lady too because she looks so good in her suit her silhouette in that suit

like every time I was just like yes this is yes 10 out of 10 amazing so I think I was so and I loved how she like pulled off the like flowy bits

she's like this is too much right so I was maybe comic comics accurate like wing fabric and she's like no no no it's great so I think I was so dazzled by those two suits

that I didn't um fair enough clock the emotional uh betrayal that you feel around what happened with her suit, but I'm here for you and I support you.

Thank you. You're welcome. Let's talk about Captain Marvel. I love you. Captain Marvel of you out of a lad. Joe, thoughts and feelings on the performance that we get from Carol Danvers, Captain Marvel in this movie, and Captain Marvel's role in the MCU at this point, where a number of installments in.

How are you feeling about Captain Marvel? You know, I'll just, go what Van said, which is like, Bree just like still does not have full control of this character. Far superior to, I think, some of the stuff we got from her in Captain Marvel. But that more has to do with the tired old drum that I keep banging, which is like, if you have a stoic character,

you need them to bounce off something like cute. So like, you know, when she smiles grudgingly or whatever, like it's just, it means. It's hard one so that it means something or whatever. And I just thought it was like really, some of the stuff was really sweet. When she gets to be playful, that's fun. Like I just, I liked all of that stuff.

But like, again, I think her character, second only to darn Ben, I think her character suffers the most from the aggressive edit this movie got. And so it's not entirely Bree's fault. But it's just like, it just doesn't feel solid. all the way through. But when it works, it works really well.

And yeah, I kind of like her dryness sometimes in the face of the enthusiasm. And when the three of them are together, it's like a pretty good cocktail. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, something is missing from the performance for me as well. And I really felt it throughout here. I think that it's, I think your editing point is a really good one because like some of it is, I wonder how much like a couple additional emotional beats could have addressed and accounted for this.

Like I think the annihilator aspect of the plot is maybe most emblematic of this. We're like, okay, this is a pretty big thing to have to contend with and grapple with. And we learned that her, as you noted earlier, her shame is like the defining thing that has kept her away from the people she would otherwise be closest to in the world. I don't really feel that from the character in the movie. So let's hit a couple different aspects of this. Can I say a couple things really good looking before that? I do like when she gets to be funny. I liked her reaction to Kamala's room, which we saw a bit of at the edge.

in the singer of Miss Marvel, but like, it was really funny. Yeah, BFFFRever. I also like her aggravation and frustration every time in the opening fight, every time she found herself, like, somewhere else, and she was just, like, angry and frustrated. Like, that was, it was funny. So, yeah, there's stuff that really does work. But, yeah, sure, let's talk about the annihilator.

I don't know the annihilator, yeah. Steve, can we hear a clip from the end of Captain Marvel? that sets up a crucial occurrence that we don't actually get to see, but we glimpse in memory flashback form and is a pivotal place, a pivotal cause of where we find our character. Can we hear this? I can't get back to empty-handed. You won't be empty-handed.

I'm sending you with a message. Tell the Supreme Intelligence that I'm coming to end it. The war, the lies, all of it. Joe, it turns out when she said all of it, she meant it. A lot ended here, including as a result of the Civil War on Hollow that this... Their sun. This starts. Yeah.

Goodbye sun. Their oceans. Goodbye atmosphere. Breathtable air? No, that's a wrap. Goodbye ocean. This is pretty bleak, pretty grim. And as we learn, it is like part of, not the only thing, but like part of what informs this like very lonely isolated life that Carol is leading.

So we had gotten, we'll talk about like Monica's perspective on this rift in a few minutes when we talk about Monica's character a little bit more. But we had gotten, we had gleaned from Monica's perspective in Wanda Vision that something had happened here, right? That there was a divide. And so this was a big thing for us to better understand. Like, why had Carol been away? Why were they not in each other's lives? And I mean, this is a flaw baked into the introduction of Carol Day and, in the first place, right?

Because they decided to make her movie a prequel. So in deciding to make her movie a prequel, which I kind of understand, they then had to try to answer the question of where has Carol been this whole time? And why, you know, okay, so she comes down to help when Thanos shows up. And great, much appreciated. Hey, Peter Barker. Thank you. Thanks so much.

Hey, Peter Parker kills me every time. Where were you for the battle in New York? Like, where were you for, you know, like, and it's like the, the galaxy is many. A lot of people need help and they all have you. Yeah. Exactly. You know, so it's like, and that was easy enough for me to understand. The shame part is interesting because that's like, that helps us understand why she doesn't make, at least like personal calls.

Though who knows how did she meet Valkyry, you know? We don't know that story. But anyway. Eyebrow waggle from Mallory Rubin. We'll talk about that later. But the conceptually works for me. An execution here in this film, I don't know that it really fully works for me. And what I do love, I love the explanation that the Midnight Boys had because, again, I saw this with Romano.

Mahoney was really bumping on like all these years that she was out here trying to figure out how to make amends so that she could go home again. And she never thought to restart their son. Mahoney was like not having that logistically. But I love the Midnight Boys explanation of like Carol's just kind of a dumb jock. And like you needed Monica who went to Rice University to introduce this idea. I kind of like that as an explanation. Yes, undoubtedly Monica could have gotten there quicker as we see. She gets there pretty quickly in the span of the movie.

This was, this like really didn't work for me. I thought this was odd. And, like, again, maybe it would have if we had spent more time in some space of, like, emotional reckoning with the character. But we're glimpsing Carol's isolation and her distance and her discomfort and her trepidation for seeing Monica again. But, like, this is supposed to be one of the closest people in the world to you. We're not talking about, like, I think, just to be clear, I don't want to sound like a dick. Like, I think it's reasonable and understandable that people go through things. their lives and they're ashamed and they don't want to have to face the people who they'd feel

most ashamed in front of, right? We're talking about decades of time that we have to account for. Decades of time. 30 years, yeah. And so if, like, Carol is a character who has been so undone by this event in her life that an entire character's lifespan, in essence, right, Monica's a little kid when she says, peace out, I will be right back. Like, she's lived her entire life waiting for Carol will return and she hasn't.

Like, we need to really spend a little bit more time understanding how Carol made that choice or what she was working through or how relieved she feels to, like, have found a way to bridge that gap and to say this thing out loud. Like, we're just missing almost all of that. It was so weird. Like, so she has Monica's clippings, which is sweet in her spaceship or whatever. We don't know how many times she visited Maria. We know at least once, but we don't know if she visited Maria more often than that, right?

And then she has that really weird moment when they're in the con family, when they're in the living room, when she sees Monica for the first time. And she's just sort of like, hey, lieutenant trouble or whatever. Like, she doesn't expect that Monica, like the fact that all of this is like a surprise to her that Monica would be pissed. that she literally vanished for decades, to your point. That part is, again, maybe the emotional intelligence is not, well, definitely the emotional intelligence. It's not very high with Carol Danvers, but, like, yeah, I like it conceptually. I liked in One Division when we got mentions of Carol and Monica was like, fucker.

That was interesting. That was so interesting. And then the payoff of it. The Monica side of it. tracks perfectly for me. Oh, 100%. It's the Carroll side that I'm just confounded by. Yeah.

Oh, man. And I think especially because we do have moments of like thematic richness with Carol. It's not like that has never been a thing we've received. For example, obviously a big part of the first film is confronting the absence of this memory, like this sense of self that has been torn away from her. like there was been robbed from her, like by these people who have sought to not only lie to her, deceive her, but then deploy her as a little for their own games.

Yeah. Right. And so it was like harrowing in this film to see that Carol is still trying to regain not only just the memories, but like what the memories mean, which is a full, complete picture of who she is. And that little moment with Monica where she says still. Still. Like that hit. And so we were, we were able to get.

I think that richness and resonance in the movie. Steve, can we hear on that, on that, on that Carol's memories and Carol's sense of self-front, can we hear one of the most beautiful and meaningful moments from Captain Marvel? The most. Without doubt. Yeah. Yeah. Beautiful.

You don't know me. You have no idea who I am. I don't even know who I am. You are Carol Danvers. You are the woman on that black. box risking her life to do the right thing. My best friend who supported me as a mother and a pilot when no one else did. You were smart and funny and a huge pain in the ass. And you were the most powerful person I knew way before you could shoot fire from your fists. Hear me. Do you hear me?

Beautiful. Joe, why do you love that so much? And how important is that for understanding that and holding on to that for where we find Carol here. First of all, Lashana Lynch is incredible and was maybe, definitely my favorite part of Captain Marvel as a film. And the little bit we get of her in both this universe and the other are highlights of this movie for me as well. So this scene is when she's like followed.

They're in like the backyard. And there's also a kitchen table scene. And it is, it is, it is. Maria expressing her frustration and loss in the kitchen table scene, but also just sort of like, I know you. And even if you don't know you, I know you. I mean, that's the thing is like, I just feel like, and maybe, maybe some like next level I won an Oscar performance choice from Brie Larson as like someone who's memory and time has been stolen from her. maybe the inconsistency of her person,

that's just like a very generous read, that the inconsistency of her personality is an intentional performance. But it's just like, you need those people in your lives, whether they're biological family or chosen family in the case of the Rambo family, to anchor you.

We talked about this a lot with Loki, to act as mirrors to reflect back to you who you might be, who you are, who you might be, what you might achieve, all this sort of stuff like that. For Carol to isolate herself out in space. And yes, act the hero.

Like, we know that for the past three years she's been doing heroics, but, like, not have anyone other than eventually and cats are wonderful, a cat, like, or not a cat, a flurkin. She didn't want to take goose. Aw. Odd. Painful to learn. To anchor you and who you are.

especially as you're trying to access your own memories, like, it's no wonder that Carol Danvers is a truly messed up, muddled, mixed up person. I just wish it all felt a bit more intentional and a little less like a victim of an edit job, when there's so much clarity

in Tiana Paris's performance as Monica and so much to her bone clarity in Amon Valani's performance as Kamala. Yeah. I told her. I totally agree. I think like that shared memory sequence where, you know, we're using the scroll tech. Let's try to like, okay, maybe you don't know the star map. We'll look at the stars in your mind and we'll see where we need to go. And Carol, who, again, is like this immensely supremely powerful being, like to see, okay, she can control the mission. She can control her powers, not once they're switching, but before that, all these other times, she can control the things she fights for and the things she she does. But she can't. control the memories that are spooling together and pouring out of her, even as Monica is begging her to stop. I don't want to see this. And she is so out of her comfort zone and out

of sync with that aspect of her trauma and her history and her fears. And like, there's a beauty in that and there's a relatable quality to that. And like, you know, to quote once again from Miss Marvel, one of the great moments is like, Kamala, good is not the thing you are, it's a thing you do, which feels like very much like a twin idea to that. It's beautiful to the speech from Maria to Carol back in Captain Marvel.

Like, good is a thing you do. And like you can prove that. But when the mission and the quest to prove that becomes the only way you have of reminding yourself that you're capable of that because you're afraid to surround yourself with the people and the connection that can just pour that into your soul. Like that's a really painful and tragic place to be.

And I don't think they were looking to make a deeply tragic, introspective film, and that's okay. That's not what I obviously would either of us are suggesting. But another couple beats where we lingered in those moments would have been, I think are really nice. I think it's notable that it's a torture device, technically a torture device that, like, brings it there. But to all of this picture that we're painting, enter the Valky question, which is like, Tessa Thompson shows up, stylish in a suit, earning however much money for literally like five seconds of screen time or whatever, complicating all of secret invasion in a way that we'll talk about. But like, how did they meet? How often do they see each other? What's this whole relationship?

You think right after the fight against Anna, said Avengers HQ. It's just like, hey. Do they have a mixer? Let's see. Yeah, let's get to meet each other a little bit more. Hey, Peter Parker. Hey, Valkyrie. Yeah, exactly. Do you ship it?

Obviously. How could you not? Quite clearly. Yeah. I think everyone ships it, right? If you have a heart in your chest, then you should. How could you not? I saw this twice.

The theater was not very full either time, I will say. And one of the things that that led to was that you could hear every single thing that anybody who was talking said at any point because there are only a handful of people in the theater. And there were a couple teenage boys sitting a row behind me. My second viewing, they loved the movie. They were having the time of their lives. Like, they loved Kamala. They loved the movie. It was actually like really heartwarming and wonderful.

And they saw the second Valkyrie stepped out. And Valky and Carol embraced, they were like, they're dating. And they were so hyped. I mean, not that the opinion of a couple of teenage boys was really relevant here, to be clear. It is to me. I did think it was like, I thought it was cool.

Yeah. It was nice. The second time I saw it, which was in Austin this weekend at the Alamo Draft House, and it wasn't a huge theater, but because they've replaced all their seats with leather recliner. So it was like kind of a small. Evan. Yeah.

You know, yeah, they'll bring Koso to your chair, Mallory. and then you could just sort of like recline. Anyway, that theater was full. Now, Grant you, it was full with mostly, I think, our listeners because a bunch of bad babies came out and watched the movie with us. But, you know, it wasn't entirely our listeners. And the theater was full. And, like, everyone was having a great time. Like, everyone was laughing.

Like, everyone was just, like, really enjoying themselves. So, like, yeah, it is a fun, fun time of the movies. The way in which this completely snarls up secret invasion, I guess we'll talk a little bit later about the secret invasion connection, but it's just so, if we must. It's so bizarre. Yeah, there's the, oh, New Asgard is a refugee colony and has been like a safe haven for all of these different people that's like, yes,

this tracks, great. But the secret invasion scroll-seeking safe harbor part of it is absolutely a possible to reconcile. It makes no sense. What is happening? Let's distract ourselves for a moment before we're forced to talk about Secret Invasion again. By going to

musical theater corner with Joanna Robinson, Joe, we had a full, not just musical number. I mean, we have a stretch of the movie that is conveyed to us in song on the planet of Aladna, water planet,

shout out the way. of water. Shout out Aquaman. We love to be on a water planet and by we I mean I. Yep. We learned that Carol is involved in a diplomatic marriage with the, I have to say, very compelling Prince John. And the entire planet, they, Prince John is bilingual, but the people of a lot in a job.

They communicate in song. There are dance numbers. there's a lot of singing. You love a musical number in a show and in a film. I would like you to tell us how you felt about this sequence. And I'd like you to do it in song. I'm not going to love you. I'm not going to do it in song.

When we went to Alatna, you thought what? You're such an angel. As our listener, Haley, I think mentioned, this is an allusion to a plotline that's in the comics of the planet of rhyming. I loved the crowd sequence. Like the little girl shows up and sings, and then the woman who sings after her and the dancing and, like, the way that, like, Kamala and Monica are, like, kind of trying to dance. And, like, Kamala and Monica, this whole sequence are. comedy gold to me. When Carol and Jan start to dance

and Kamala's just like, what is happening? And then Monica asks her how much new fan fiction fodder it's giving her? Dave's Dave Gonzalez's interpretation is all of that Kamala Monica stuff was like shot later and inserted

to sort of make the sequence work better and I kind of agree and it does help enormously. I think Bree in the ball gown dancing and singing with Parkseogen

who is one of the hottest humans that has ever existed truly it does not work for me it didn't work for me at all I thought it was terrible that part was so weird just like deeply terrible

and so yeah it kind of worked but not fully for me I guess is the point yeah when will you get your full Marvel musical.

I mean, obviously we've... Warner Brothers is going to beat them to the punch because Vali Adieu with Lady Gaga and Joaquin Phoenix is coming out is the only Warner Brothers movie coming out next year. There's one Marvel movie and one Warner Brothers movie and it is Deadpool 3 and Folly Adia, Joker Folloyia Jolla Jia.

So... Well, for now you can do this all day. That's not really the tune of that, but you know, you still have that. Steve Rogers, the musical. Sure. Joe, Carol's MCU future, Captain Marvel's MCU future, settles in at the Rambo home in Louisiana at the end, is she going to stay on Earth now? Is she perhaps going to overcompensate and overcorrect for being away for a very long time

by staying here and settling in rather than going and trying to get Monica back, which might be a good use of time right now? Is Carol going to be a very active member of future MCU install? I would have you anticipating here. I would have said no. Yeah. Except she's in Louisiana. Like, she's on Earth. This is a problem.

Her moving in is a problem because, like, I just, it does not seem to me that Breilerson wants to keep playing this character. It does not seem to be that Marvel has been able to figure out how to fold this character into the largest storytelling that they want to do. But our listener, Haley again, same Haley as before, listener Haley again, Roan email, where she pointed out, And I totally, I love this. I totally missed it. The title of the email was, all the captains were moving to Louisiana. She says, seeing Captain Marvel and her cat

moved to Louisiana with Kamalekon's health felt like the piece of fan fiction I would have written when I was 17. So that makes me wonder if I'm perhaps the perfect target audience of this film. And Captain America and Captain Marvel now live in Louisiana. That can't be a coincidence.

Let's hope they meet up at Mardi Gras. So, like, I mean, it's a problem for Carol to be on Earth because whatever's going to happen in the Captain America movie or any of these other movies. It's like, where is Carol? I was in space.

Yeah. Sorry, I was on the bayou. Sorry, I was making gumbo that day. Like, what is she going to say? Sorry, I was very busy trying to figure out the canon order of secret invasion in this movie. That'll tell you up for centuries, honestly. Yeah, that would actually be a good excuse. I was genuinely too busy attempting to make sense of how secret invasion fits into the larger MCU tapestry.

Oh, dear. It's time to talk about my story. Monica. And that's actually like, it's a good segue because one of, one of the questions I wanted to ask you is why they won't commit to giving Monica a code name. This is like a recurring. It's a joke in the movie. It was funny. It was charming.

It was great comedy in the movie. I loved obviously Kamala's like deep passion for trying to land on the right name. I will legitimately never recover from Carol suggesting vision and then being like, wait, that doesn't work. So funny.

Like, wow. If we need a reminder of how long Carol has been away. There it was. But I wondered if the reason they're maybe reluctant to say, yeah, let's just go with it. Let's formalize it. Spectrum. Or let's formalize it. Photon. Or let's formalize it. Pulsart. It's because they're just

holding out to make Monica Captain Marvel. And is that likely to happen sooner if Carol is no longer a central player in the MCU? But then I was like, oh, but Carol's here at the end. Interesting. I know.

I just did a merch check, and all the official merch has are listed as Photon. So it feels like, even though they didn't do it on screen, they seem to have settled on Photon, though I do love Professor Marvel. Because of Marvel is very charming. That's an option. It's like vision. No, no, wait. And not only is the vision thing hysterical for like how long has Carol been away, but like, that witch ex, the old witch ex. So funny.

Say that demonic of all people whose entire life was fundamentally forever altered because of Wanda's grief over vision. Wild times. Yeah, like the Funko Pop, the box is photon. The like Hot Topic hoodie is the photon hoodie. You're big on tracking the Hot Topic merch. This is the thing I know about you because of our journey with our pursuit of the TVA. I'm not.

But I did go seven pages deep on the Hot Topic Marvel merch the other night trying to find that TVA. notebook. That's why you got so many, like, photos of Hot Topic merch because I was like, look at this. There was a key lime pie shirt that did you buy it? Are you thinking about it? Not yet. But as I told you in Dave, it's a shirt that I know I need to have. Yeah, I love it. So you're going to get the key lime pie shirt. I don't usually track the Marvel merch is more your territory, but it's March, as I learned from Dave Gonzalez, merch is the way that you can learn so much about, you know, certain behind the scenes things. So, Photon, officially on the merch, officially the character.

But yeah, possibly she will become. You can learn a lot from Lego sets before movies come out, often. Joe, we've talked about Monica, obviously, a ton already in talking about Carol, in talking about Kamala, in talking about the team up. Her awesome powers. Got to watch Monica learn how to fly while Kamala was crashing to Earth because Carol was like, it's time to switch now if Kamala plummet to her death, tough shit. That felt very careful to me. She's not at all thinking about the tongue.

She just smashes things. That's what she does. Monica's scientific genius. She's figuring everything out. She finds Darbin. What else do you say about Monica's prowess? I will not comment on the Black Girl Magic moment. I will let the Midnight Boys completely own that.

I just will say that I turned to Rob Mahoney and I said, did he just say Black Girl Magic? I was like, did that just happen? Nick Fury, though, I like, we don't know a ton about it, but I think they really sold this Nick Fury, Monica relationship, right? It just felt like she meant more to him than, you know, a random Sabre member. And so I just felt a lot of weight of, not weight in a bad way, I just felt a lot of, like, healthy backstory between them that I really liked.

I To the extent that we can feel the weight of any Nick's Fury backstory anymore after I don't want to talk about it and learning about his secret wife who is not in this movie Nope

or accounted for it anyway despite the recruitment at the end of like come with me they're going to have this peace talk isn't this the peace talk I don't know do you think they're like out of his frame in this

like what? Why did we watch that show? Okay. Why did you drop out of you? All right. So I think that like, I just really like Monica. Monica's great. I'm a big fan of her.

I think it's good to have this story of someone who was snapped away and lost something that they will never ever be able to recover. Yes. Steve, can we hear Monica's. return, Monica blipping back from Wanda Vision, in case anybody didn't watch Wanda Vision, get a little bit more clarity on what it was like in the moments when Monica returned, because I think this is like irrefutably still to this day, one of the most harrowing things that the MCU has ever shown us. I wanted to play all three minutes of this clip, but I don't think we're allowed to. So, Steve, give us what you can't.

I can't believe it. Where did you go? Well, I've been in her room since you came back from the surgery. I mean, I might have fallen asleep, but no longer than 20 minutes. Like, Dial- where's my mom? Your mom? She died, honey. What? No, no, no, no, no.

You're mistaken. My mother, the procedure went well. You said so yourself. Clean margins. You're just charging her today. The cancer came back. Okay, stop, stop. No, my mom is Maria Rambo. Look it up. Let me...

Look it up. Maria Ramble! I don't understand what's happening, but you need to listen to me. Maria died three years ago. No, no, no. Which was two years after you... After I what?

After I what? After you disappeared. Intense. I mean, because we've had so many stories from the perspective of... I mean, you know, we understand that Peter Parker was not... Like, you know, we've been with some of these characters who were snapped, but, like, Aunt May was... He didn't, you know, he didn't get his aunt killed until after. after he came back.

You know what I mean? Like, um, sorry. Shout out at me. What a legend. Um, you know,

like it's, sorry. Sorry. You're being so brave. Thank you, Steve. Wow. I,

uh, so we haven't been with, correct of my wrong. I don't think we've been with a snapped character who is really in this way. You know, one out. And that was our first time, like seeing somebody.

come back in real time. In the midst. And because it was probably you can tell from context, but it's inside a hospital. So it's so chaotic that people are coming back inside of a medical facility, you know, and people are just like running around and it's just bedlam. Absolutely bedlam. So this is the environment that she returns in. And it's harrowing.

We do need to talk about the ending, though, because you and I love a character trapped on the other side of something. Shout out Will and Lyra. Shout out the doctor and rose. You know, all this sort of stuff. We love this stuff. Yes. We definitely understand why those characters had to do that, though.

We do not understand why Monica couldn't do her little, like, photon, white beams of light, patch job of the, patching up the roof tiles of the universe from the other side of the rift. Like, even if she had to start on the other side. on the side that she started on. Couldn't she move that last tile into plate? Like, there was a hole for her that she could have easily fit through. That being said, these things have... You and I talked about a really important death that happened on the TV show Lost on the Loki podcast. Again, I'm going to use my irrational loss spoiler phobia and not say what.

But people love to point out all the times the many ways in which that character didn't need to die. And it is true. It is really true. Yeah. But it works so well that we yada yada and it's fine. But this is just inside a movie where there just simply so many rocky moments that I just can't. I can't. I don't know.

And her like I always knew I'd have to stay. I don't. Right. I always have to say, it's like, okay, so are we going for the emotional hit

of the like sacrifice? Even if she had taken a minute to be like, juice me up with your little light powers. We'll do a little tri-screen, really fun moment, right? Juice me up with your powers. I got to,

because of the way the space time is curled, I got to start this job from the other side, but don't worry, I'll make it back in time. And then if she said something like that, but she knew she wouldn't make it back in time or something like that.

That's just not what we were presented with. It was just sort of like, I'm going to do this job. Or like, like, let's have us feel her leaving them a little bit more then. Like if she knows she's not going to make it back. If she knows. A little bit of a note of finality there. Like when you just have Kamala right there with her giant little giant hand to scoop you up. Scoop her back.

Yeah. Scoop you back, you know? Scoop her back. It just was extremely strange. And again, I think, like, you know, part of the reason that we played that clip is so that everybody has the context of how Monica returned and how she returned to the moment where she realized her mother had died while she was gone. That helps us better understand how betrayed she feels by Carol's absence. So, again, there are many years before the blimp, not just the time, the time after. But so, like, we should feel that parting a little bit more.

There's the understanding of the logic. I was thinking in a few different moments in this film of our guy, OB, from Loki, and, like, how this movie could have benefited from something akin to his, you know, with science. It's the habit, like, with fiction, it's the why. And, like, we can lean in to not understanding exactly how a rift in space time works or not understanding how a new jump point could allow you to pour. the atmosphere into Hala's now breathable air. Allah. But then we need to feel like the character's decisions and the impact of that a little bit more fully. Even if it's just like setting up the surprise at the end.

Even if it's just, yeah, even if it's just been a moment, I think they could have gotten away with without really tipping their hand a brief flicker of expression on her face when she turns away from Carol and Kamala and heads out. But they were too busy giving her like avatar state. moment with the glowie eyes and everything. She looked incredible. Like, amazing. But like, give her, give her a moment of like, all right, here, here I got to do this. I'm going to do this now. I'm making a big sacrifice. Yeah. Not the move. Should we talk about speaking of things that

don't work perfectly well? Should we talk about good old Darwin? Let's do it. Yeah, we love to spend time with Kree accusers. We love to spend time with a supremer. You know, there's a bit about whether it's called the Cosmarod or the Universal Weapon. I never lament a chance to think about Leipace's Cosmarad, Joe. You know that. Shout out Ronan the accuser. Now and always. Steve.

There it is. Thank you. But this is just not a very successful... I don't like to think about Ronan the Accuser because I think it was just an egregious waste of LeBase. I know you don't. That's why I like to joke about it as often as I can. But the Cosmarade,

sure. And the fact that that was a joke about his dick is also incredible. Thank you so much for making it. Yeah, you bet. Shout out foundation, I suppose. Yeah, wonderful stuff. Wonderful stuff. But I think the Cree and also largely the scrolls are not working in the MCU and it's time to move on. Do not work.

Or do a total reset. Yeah. It's time for a total reset or to move on and that is fine. And as you have astutely and importantly pointed out many times before, one of the great achievements of the Kevin Feigey MC run is being able to identify when something is not working and course correct. So to continue, and this is a bummer too with Carol, it's like for Carol to always have to be contending with the Cree when the Cree are not working is a limitation in Carol's movies. And like, let's get Carol going head to head with someone else. I mean, like,

I mean, shout out Gaslighter, uh, Yon Rock. Like shout out Jude Love. Like, of all the the creed that we've dealt with, you know, like that's the best version. You just gave it a tremendous eye roll before you came back in with like, you're like, yeah. I love my time with Jude Law. But like it's difficult to appreciate our time with Jude Law and our memories of our time with Jude Law when our connection to Star Force in this movie is seeing Darbin in the Star Force uniform for like a second as Carol is on a murder spree to blow up the comics accurate. The way of intelligence, that part I liked.

Heart sunk all the way down into the basement when we like started with the Cree and with the cosmarod and with the fucking like the cowls are back, the blue paint, all that shit. And like, yeah, it just doesn't work. I'm, you know, I will say like, my main thought, I feel this is really dumb. But my main thought when she recognized the Cree sun at the end, my main thought was like, these people need to get their SPOF on immediately. Their skin is ill prepared for the heat of a functioning sun. I'm not an astrophysicist.

I don't think this is how this would work. But that's okay. That's okay. Monica Rambo is. And so if she says it's how it works, it's how it works. Just go restart the sun. Okay. I think that's all we have to say about Darbin, right?

I thought that the idea of giving us another villain who is motivated by a desire to protect and provide for her people is interesting to take that the next degree of like I'm going to take the things I need for them by destroying a lot of other worlds, and then specifically it destroy the worlds that have some sort of connection to Carol, and then to only really get any meaningful time with the villain in the action sequences or creating jump point sequences

and not really get to understand anything beyond, though we've checked the box. She was wronged by the hero and is fighting for her people. It was just not, it was just not effective. There was just not enough there. And I think, and this is, you know, when we're playing, like, detective about what was cut and what wasn't, I will use a casting clue

and say Daniel Ings, who was cast as her, like, right-hand man who I know from the great show lovesick, or he was on the crown or whatever, like, a man and I were both very excited to see him. Like, I feel like you don't cast him necessarily to have, like, five lines. You know what I mean? So, like, I feel like that guy had a bit more to, like, was more of an actual character. And, you know, so they just probably cut some other scenes to streamline. a character that wasn't really working that well for them. But listen, in terms of like bad weak villains or whatever,

I still think Ronan might be worse, and that didn't stop Guardians of the Galaxy for being a great movie. So, you know, there are worse sins in the MCU. That's true. Speaking of sins in the MCU, it is time to talk about Sabre and Intergalactic Politics for a minute. We're going to get to some of the good stuff that happens inside of the Sabre of it all.

which is the Flurken Frenzy. But should we just talk about, should we just put a bow on the Secret Invasion thing for a second here because we're talking about the Cree anyway and we can just hit the Cree Scroll stuff here for one more minute and then move on and enjoy our Flurken talk for a minute. Let's use Flurkins to wash the taste of the scrolls

out of our mouth. How about that? Yeah, yeah. Okay, so let's knock out the scroll stuff for a second. Anything else we need to say here? People genuinely leave the movie confused about whether this takes place before after secret invasion. And either way you try to explain it,

you already gave the actual answer earlier, but either way you try to explain it, there are serious continuity issues. So it's a really baffling incongruity inside of a connected universe that usually works harder and is more successful at incorporating things together.

There was a little bit of comedy, though, for us to latch on to here. Because we're not just with a random. No. No, no, no. Steve, can you please play our secret invasion clip? They're here. Who's here?

All of us. Wait, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. You're telling me there's a million scrolls walking amongst us right now. Have you lost your reptilian-ass mind? I sent out the call on every scroll that isn't in Emperor George's colony. the answer. Joe, our favorite moment. Mostly for the way that Ben Mendel.

Actually, it's our second favorite. A platitude. Definitely our favorite. Oh, my God. Do you ever platitudes? Yeah, I literally just remembered it in real time, as I was saying. For my genuinely great actress. But this is probably our second favorite moment.

It's the way that... Ben Mendelssohn says this. Ben Mendelso pronounces it. It's like... Anyway, this turned out to us so much when we watched Secret Invasion. It was such like an awkward, weird drop that genuinely when they said his name in the Marbles, I did the Leo pointing meme. I'm like, I know exactly who that guy is. Same.

I have heard Ben Mendelsohn try to say his name. I know 100%. I was like, oh, at long last. Oh, man. A payoff. Literally one payoff for Secret Invasion. I want to say, I thought all of this was bad. Yeah.

However, Gary Lewis, the actor who plays Emperor Droz. Droz. Yes. Who played Billy Elliott's dad and Billy Elliott and it was an outlander and a number of other things. I thought he did a really good job emoting underneath that, like, portrait makeup. And I liked his like, like, fuck you, Carol Danvers, like, you know, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, it was, it was, it was, it was great. I mean, not actually in terms of the story in the success of it, but it was great. In terms of his performance to spend a few minutes with him.

It makes no sense. But not the kind that Fury got. No sense. Oh, and also he like takes his little crown off. Like, it's just, it's a great performance, I think. I can't, they can't find them a fucking planet. But I guess this was their planet as sort of like Frank Lloyd Wright but if this was the planet and you've got fallen water

for Franklin. Why are none of the earthbound scrolls relocating here then? Yeah. It's so odd. So this is Emperor Djerge's colony, the aforementioned, that I guess maybe this planet wasn't good enough. I have no answers because the MCU has no answers. It makes no sense. And it's aggravating that we watch Secret Invasion, honestly.

So strange. So strange. And it makes no... How about Nick Fury in general, Joe? I... You know what? I love... Good to be back with...

Good to be back with Nick Fury. I just along with the rest of the universe pretended Secret Invasion didn't happen. And he was just fun and funny. Like, when he says, like, solid theory to Monica. Really funny. Everything... All of his interactions with the cons.

All of his, like, when his... When the Sabre team is like, well, I guess we're all going to die, he's like, no. Absolutely not. No. That was great. That was like one of my favorite moments of the movie. I also loved when he's like, do you like ever have anything but bad news for me? He was wonderful. Very charming and funny in the movie.

Yeah, it was great. Great to have this Nick Fury back. I agree. Secret invasion. It didn't happen. Don't worry about it. It's clear in this movie that it didn't happen. And that's just that's just that.

And good news about that. That means Rode hasn't been a scroll for maybe as long as we've known him. in the MCO, which is good news for us, right? Good news for you, Mallory? Remember that? Remember when you were like, there's absolutely no fucking way? I'm, now I got, I just, my heart just started racing. I'm mad just now thinking about that. All right, let's talk about things that make us happy. Let's talk about the flirt in for a minute. We talked already about Goose, hanging out on that ship with Carol, a little laser pointer cat humor.

Carol leading Goose over to get the morning coffee going. Delightful. It's cute. And a great little coffee machine. I loved it. Love a beaker. Wonderful. Joe. Love a pourover, an intergalactic pourover. Oh, I also love, I love a pourover. I love a pourover as well. Listen, we love to talk about performances on this podcast and highlight great achievements.

And so we would be remiss if we did not note that new performers are responsible for our time with Goose in this movie. Nemo and Tango. What happened to Reggie, do you think? Portray. So I have a quote for you. Oh, thank you. Very concerned, because I think genuinely, and I know this is going to sound like a bit, I mean this. Reggie's performance, and there were a number of cats who contributed to the goose, but Reggie's the main driver of Coos in Captain Marvel.

It is an incredible animal performance in a film. It genuinely is. Remember, I mean, they were leaning in. They knew they had something that people were going to like, there were like these little featureettes about how amazed and wow. and everybody was by Reggie's confidence and poise on set. It was just so delightful. So it was very, I was like, wow, Nemo, Tango, you were great. What, why? Where the fuck is Reggie? And I would like to and offer a sincere and genuine thank you to Devin Kogan

at Entertainment Weekly who has a full article on this. Devin always has great access and always has great nuggets. Devin is the best. Yeah. Devin has a full piece on the goose of it all. Thank you, Devin. Here's a quote. In the first film, Goose was primarily played by an orange tabby named Reggie.

But since the Marvel's relocated filming to the United Kingdom, Marvel producers reached out to cat trainer Joe Vaughan. Vaughan? To find and train a replacement. Ultimately, she cast two identical orange tabbies, 11-year-old tango and 4-year-old Nemo. So, location, location, location. we needed some new feline friends in jolly old England. That's the takeaway here. Devin, which I hope means Reggie is thriving.

Thank you for your service journalism. I appreciate you. I was honestly really glad to be able to find this answer because I was like, where is Reggie? We got to talk about the baby flurkin. Okay, so I'm thrilled to discuss this with you, Mallory, because I know that you have a great depth of knowledge of many, many things. but you are not historically a Trekkie, but surely even you have heard of the Trouble with Tribles, which is one of the most famous Star Trek episodes of the original series that has ever existed. Yes.

This is, I mean, again, this has connection to comics canon, but no matter any way you slice it, this is a Troubles with Tribles reference, and that is incredible. I thought you were going to say, you know, I'm not a huge musical theater person, And so did I know that memory was from cats? You know that, right? Yes, well, I was excited to tell you I did. Don't worry. I knew you.

I would be so absurd. I'd be perturbed if you didn't know memories from cats. I cooed and teared up over every little kitten that showed up. I cannot believe that Nick Fury picked that flurkin kitten up when, like, he literally lost an eye. to a, like... But he loves them. He was, like, you know, never blamed goose for a moment for what happened with that flurcum venom in the claws.

This was great. This was special. This was wonderful. Did you know from the second the foreign object made its way onto Sabre that this was a goose egg? Yes. Yeah. Yeah. We had gotten that very snide aside about goose looking a little pudgy, which I did not think was called for.

And the first time that the... flurkin egg cracks open and we see that darling little flurken baby looking up at us. Just astonishing stuff. The amount of time that this sequence takes up in the movie, I honestly think it's like a gift. I thought this was incredible. They just committed and leaned in so hard. Sean Fantasy was like they drove this bit into the ground. I was like, uh-uh, I could have done more.

I could have done the entire cat soundtrack to this experience. personally. I love the moment where one of the main female Sabre employee whose name I don't have my fingertips when she thinks she's escaped. Talia. Talia, great job.

Mallory's like, I didn't put the full cast list at the top of the notes for nothing, Joanna. Talia, when Talia is like oh, a few, I escaped to them. Hiding around a bend. And then blink, blink, oh, here we go. I again as in a moment of levity I love the physical comedy of Brie Larson that was a very comic book panel moment

The way Carol like sort of hunched over arms out chasing after the flurkin Kamala grace up and then the over like the the voiceover of like let the flurken take you You know what I mean it's just like Let the flurkin eat you is absolutely inspired so funny You can tell me that this is a rational way to travel We are out of escape pods, but I can safely be transported in the pocket dimension inside of a fluriken. I hear you.

And yet, I don't want the flurkin tentacles to consume me whole. Great. And you just get it all to us. Just one little PA announcement. Mooney, like, uh, using a cat. Yeah, it's the toy. Yeah. The toy to like a little fishing rod.

So funny. Fantastic. I thought this was mostly, I want to say 10 out of 10 no notes. But it's a nine and a half out of 10. Point five notes because while the. While the escape sequence was incredible, I would like a word with the person who decided to crash the escape pod that the fucking baby kitten flurking were in. No. No. You mean like the screenwriters? The FX artists? Who are we living? Okay. No. And actually, you know what? I have one more note. We're going to talk in a second about the Young Avengers setup, which I love. You have given us a movie where Goose. And Lucky the Pizza Dog both appear. And we did not get a formal Pet Avengers setup.

Why? I don't know that you... What are we waiting for at this point? I feel like you're new to the MCU. Marlary, and I'm sorry, I'm embarrassed for you. I'm worried. That you just displayed your ignorance so clearly. But Marvel role sings out very slowly.

It's a very, very slow role. This is slow, Joe. This is slow because Goose was... We've only met two. We've only met two. No. No. All right.

No. Okay. Here's a roster that we could already assemble. Great. Goose. Uh-huh. Bring some of the kittens. Lucky the pizza dog.

Have you forgotten about Morris? Dear sweet Morris from Shang Chi? Does that count? Morris isn't a pet? Alligator. Those are pets. Those are pets. Those are animals.

Throg? Well. let's get these fucking drone red wings out of here and bring actual red wing in we have a team this was easy took 12 seconds it's done no because you're you're you're calling like animals that are their own people pets and that i think of pets as animals who are their own people um also maris is kind of maris is a pet maris is hanging out i think i don't know i don't know about that But certainly not Alligator Loki. I mean, dear God. Anyway. Mallory. I'm just hanging out with Trevor.

I love you. I am losing my patience with the lack of a better manager set up. Okay. I love you. I hope you get it soon. Do you want it as an animated show? Do you want it as like a full $200 million movie? Like what are you looking for?

Oh, why not both? Great question. Why not both? Okay, cool. So like instead of just Deadpool 3 next year, you would also like a full, fully CG. Like get Favro back and just like love. Mine king it up and just like do a full Pet Avengers film? It sounds great.

Are we fighting a villain pet or are we fighting a human? I don't want to see any of the animals at any point come to any harm. Yeah. So like if they're fighting another animal, then an animal would be in peril at some point. So let's have the Pet Avengers take down a human of some sort. That would be good. I would like that. Okay.

Should talk about the Young Avengers? which is not technically a stinger because it's just the end of the movie but it feels so much like a stinger that we're going to call it a stinger, we're going to think about it as a stinger. It feels like this was the mid credits and this was the end credits

and they got worried that people would leave. I don't know. Yeah. I loved this. I thought this was absolutely wonderful. Phenomenal doing her best Nick Fury. Yeah. There was an idea.

We're not. It's great. Jomi. So I will not try to step on his turn. and claimed to be as excited as Jomey was. But I will say, as soon as I saw the little shadow of the bow, I did mutter very quietly to myself. So quietly, I don't even believe Mahoney heard me, get the bishop. Gets bishop.

You know we miss you. Yeah. I was like, let's get some saracha and mac and cheese going here. Yeah. It's not even Thursday evening. You're hungry? Of course I am. It's Monday lunchtime right now.

Kamala saying you think you're the only kid superhero and then Kate's saying I'm 23 It's really good Killed me I love this. It made me so excited not only because these are two great performances and two great characters

but it just made me really excited for like a real bright part of the future of the MCU here I'm hyped for Young Avengers they alluded to recruiting Cassie Lang has anyone told you what the original ending of Quantum Media was allegedly the original engineering

in quantum man in the wasp being stuck in the quantum realm. And then, which was so clear if you watched it, that that was clearly what was supposed to happen. But apparently it didn't test well and they were like, we don't want to end another movie with people, the aunt family stuck in the quantum realm or whatever. But when that happened, Cassie Lang was supposed to like sit down on a computer and like look up files of these other young Avengers to like think about. Fine, I'll do it myself. by starting the Young Avengers. But like, that is the most, like, I'm so glad that was cut because A, it smacks, it smacks of Snyderverse. Let me look up these various, like, Justice League members on the computer.

B, it's just so inert compared to a Mondalani doing a Nick Fury impression and Kay Bush. It's all great. So what the horrifying thing that could have been in the original quantum media ending, made me that much more grateful for how delightful this is. So, yeah. This is so wonderful. We've got a number, as we've talked about many times before, a number of candidates for the Young Avengers roster already,

just from phases four and five. Again, they allude to Cassie, America Chavez, Riri Williams, Eli Bradley, Billy and Tommy, Kid Loki, Scar. The team could get pretty big, pretty quickly. I wonder when we will learn more about the next, steps in the recruitment and when we will get a Young Avenger's story, but I could not be more thrilled that this is happening at last. We've been talking about it and anticipating it for so long. What a great,

kickoff. Yeah, I think we are getting Billy and Tommy in Coventive Chaos, though I'm not sure. But I think, I think that's where we're getting older, older Billy and Tommy, which is exciting. Shout out Wiccan and Speed. Can't wait for that. Let's talk about the mid-credit Stinger, which is an interesting mix of a number of things. It is, of course, a very emotional Monica moment. She wakes in this other reality that she is in for no reason, as we have previously outlined, and sees Maria Rambo and thinks she is back with her mother.

It is heart-wrenching. This is not her Maria, though. This is, as we see when she takes the blanket off and stands up and we get the whole costume, binary. And it's not just the two of them in the scene, Joe. Kelsey Crammers, Hank McCoy, Beast is here. We get the X-Men door. We get a mention of Charles, Professor X from Beast.

This is an X-Men Stinger. And I'm so curious to know what you think about it. It is hardly the first tease and set up for the X-Men entering the MCU that we have gotten. The list is actually, like, quite, quite long now. Did this get you hype? what did this make you think about the future of how the MCU tends to incorporate mutants

into the wider story bringing them from other dimensions again we know there are some in our dimension already because we've gotten the Kamala we already shared the Bruno

mutation quote earlier we talked about in our Wakanda Forever Pod Namor as mutant etc the list is long but this was a big one what did you think

I think it's a really interesting place. My first impression was this is such a fascinating place to start because you could cast literally anyone else as like Charles, et cetera, et cetera, because Kelsey Gramer as a CGI'd Hank McCoy, that's just like a non-committal character to cast, it seemed like to me. That being said, I think they're doing something much different with this in that Deadpool 3 is being, teased as like this big

tour of appreciation of the Fox films that came under this new umbrella just as No Way Home was a celebration of Sony because not only has Hugh Jackman been cast as Wolverine Jennifer Garner has been announced as Electra like they're going to be hitting like a number of Fox

characters in that movie and the potential with Deadpool 3 in a sort of like wacky, fourth wall breaking kind of way. Like maybe is a brilliant way to kick off this new mutant explosion. But I don't think that means

that our final mutants will be certainly not. Like let Patrick Stewart have a nap. You know what I mean? But I do think we are going to see Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen again, but I don't think there are final Eric or Charles. And of course we have, right?

Like we got Patrick Stewart as Charles on Earth 838 briefly in our Illuminati sequence. By again, I meant again. Yeah. And so, yeah, so I think it's getting us comfortable with this idea of mutants mixing and mingling with our core team while setting us up for a future of a different team. Because I don't think he's, I don't think Figey is going to pass up the opportunity to to have a crop of younger mutants. So, yeah.

I'm so curious to see, and, like, I mean, obviously the idea of just incursions and different dimensions and contending with, like, realities facing off against each other will be, like, really central to secret wars. This question for a long time of, like, and this was part of this was present for the Eternals, but it's just much more top of mind for people with X-Men. Like, how will the MCU ultimately account for where, if the X-Men existed on our reality, like, where they were during all of this? I think there's like an interpretation of the heart of the mutants that, like, you can actually make work with that quite cleanly.

And then there's the like, okay, well, maybe they'll bring them in from other realities. And this is why we are glimpsing Charles on 838 or Beast here getting like some of these other like little nods. But then that is where I get to back to like Namor and Kamala, even like Mr. Immortal. being in She-Hulk. Like, we have a lot happening on, no one is officially in the X-Men, but we have a lot of like mutant ties and mutation ties already on our Earth. So will there be mutants in our dimension or will they come from another planet? Will both of those things happen at once? Are the other realities just a way to give us those little like nostalgia ties to the prior performers and give us that kind of goodbye tour as we have a hello tour elsewhere?

definitely think they're going to go the secret wars route. And I think in doing secret wars, they get to have it all kinds of ways in terms of you can pick an established Fox actor or two or three, hopefully, again, not Hugh Jackman, let him rest, but like, who can work to help usher in a new class. So I think it's going to be a blend, and I think that that's like, right. Right. So like, oh, over and our reality. we've had this group of gifted youngsters, the X-Men. Right. You have a mutation.

We are all melding together across realities now. Let us tell you about our big X on our door. And then you can start X-Men on your reality because you have mutants already. Like something like that? Word for word, I hope. And I hope in that spiel they say, but not before Mallory gets her Pet Avengers movie. So it's maybe all at once. know? I don't want to wait on the X-Men. At least we know we're getting X-Men 97.

I really think Deadpool 3 is going to be an X-Men Fantasia, and we will learn much more after that. So I want us to tell you, I like to, as you know, I always share Adams, my husband, Adam's thoughts and feelings with you about Dr. Who. Sometimes I send you voice memos from him. And we were driving back from the theater, and I had such a just a wave of regret and remorse that I wasn't recording him. so that I could send it to you. He was outraged by the stinger. He's like an excellent super fan. So weird. He called it pitiful? Pitiful? Oh, God. Pathetic? He hated it. It was so, it was so wild. I like Adam so much. I've met him now. And so now I get to like put demeanor to the opinions and stuff like that. He just absolutely despised this. I thought it was, I couldn't, I couldn't stop cracking up listening to him just try to try to clarify why this filled him with such rage. And I kept bringing up going back to not only all of the little markers

that we've gotten to to this point, but Deadpool's. Like, it's like we know Wolverines in this movie. We know all these things are happening. Like these announcements and these little like glimpses and kernels like are. And maybe this was one of the things that annoys to your Pet Avengers joke from earlier is annoying people who have been waiting for the X-Men to enter the MCU for so long. Like stop like giving me like teasers by a thousand cuts. Let's like do the thing already. But this is how it goes.

And like we know we're getting the big grand arrival very soon. So if this didn't, if like Beast isn't the character you would have chosen, for example, or you wouldn't have chosen

to have like a CGI Kelsey Grammer version of Beast if you were going to do Beast. We know we're getting Wolverine soon. It's not like this was the one and only signal that the XMet are heading. I love Adam. I think he's brilliant.

I think he has a lovely heart. I think he's a tremendous person. I cannot get on the same page. I don't know. It's just seemed like a harmless little, like similar to Nick Fury showing up at the environment, just like a little thing for the people. And maybe Kevin can be like, will you stop asking me about the X-Men yet? What was really funny to me this last week, what was really funny to me this last week is that I did a MCU book promo podcast interview for, I think it was playlist. and lovely guys.

Those guys missed their press screening for the Marvels. We were kind of supposed to talk about the Marvels. They missed it. Okay, that's fine. So we'll just talk about the MCU. But they were, like, complaining about the lack of X-Men. And I was just like, well, maybe if you had seen, I didn't say it. But in my head, I'm like, maybe if you had seen your Marvel's press screening.

And then similarly, with love and respect, I won't name them. But we got an email from a listener the other day. It was like, like, literally like, I think yesterday or two days ago, it was. like, should we just bury the idea of the Young Avengers? They're never going to fucking do it, blah, blah. And then we got a follow up like, never mind email. I love a follow-up, never mind email. But yeah, I don't know.

I feel like this is Viking Company trying to feed us a little bit. And I'm sorry that it wasn't the meal that Adam would have chosen. That makes me sad. Yeah. Well, sometimes if you're hungry, you can have an egg. So it's time for Easter eggs, Joe. Did you have a favorite? Do you have a couple favorites?

There were plenty in this film. Which did you enjoy most? The witch ex. Yeah. It's got to be the witch ex. Yeah. That was good. I'm going to go with the seeing the Supreme Intelligence in like true comic book form.

That was a, that even though I spent a lot of the pod saying, no more cree, that was a nice little thing to get to glimpse. As the annihilator was sparking a civil war and robbing a hella of its sun, water, an atmosphere. Yeah. That was great. always fun to glimpse the new statue of liberty, which we kind of flittered past. Always delight. Do you love to see?

But yeah, of course, my answer is the flurking meows at the end, the tentacle slithers. How can it not be? Whigwatch? Tim. Do you wear weeks? Yeah, I just, I want to shout out a few styles. First of all, Monica's curls, which looked incredible throughout. She had a barrette sometimes, just like incredible.

Again, the whole silhouette was working so well, of all the characters in the genuinely beautiful animated closing credits that we got, the silhouette of photon in space just looked great. Shout out Carol's little side braid, a fashionable little side braid. She has been keeping up with Gen Z and she knows they love a little braid on the side. Okay, great. The person who's not been keeping up with Gen Z is Darby. Ben, I guess she's busy trying to keep her planet afloat because she is rocking a very, very out-of-date, musty lavender sort of look with her wig. First, the short wig that we get in the flashback and the long wig. That is all I have to say about hair in the MCU today. Great stuff.

Had no idea side birds were a thing with Gen Z until just now. Thank you for your service, as always. You're welcome. If this film had Netflix subtitles. Aww, so cute. Joe, what do you got? I mean, I had something else, but I think I'm just going to have to revert to tentacles slither inappropriately. Yeah, yeah.

Goose's pocket dimension tentacles to stand wetly. We can just go with the classic. Sure, sure. The inspiration to stand wetly. grazing and cleansing anus growth amid demeaning gawking from human interloper I don't want it

Thank you Steve Joe we have a new segment today inspired by an email We got an email from Christina Who said P.S. Instead of the Secret Scroll game A game we played for like over a year That paid off

Magnificantly and the tremendous TV series that we cannot stop singing its praise is secret evasion. Christina, given that we got this X-Men tease, much to Adam Chagrin, has said, what about a new segment called Maybe Mystique? Love it. Steve, do we have a song cue for this? Maybe Mystique. Beautiful.

Great. Love it. That was wonderful. Okay. So the idea of now, as the X-Men are increasingly talking about it. of mind for us. Just another shape shifter game that we can play here, Joe.

So who is your maybe Mystique from this film? Yeah, it's a great question. I'm so glad you asked me this question. And I'm really happy to answer it for you in this film. Talia. Talia is a good one. Talia's a good one. I definitely think it has to be somebody

who's like near a seat of power, right? That would be like a logical reason why mystique would be assuming some other form. I consider Talia. I'm going to go with your guy with Tyrone. Okay. Daniel Langs. Like the scientist, the right hand next to Darban, next to the Cree Supremor. That seems like a place that we might.

We might find mystique. I think I was trying to, well, not everyone in Sabre obviously is human as we found out. But I was trying to keep it as someone who like seems human. but sure, why not entangle mystique with the Kree so we can fulfill your dream of having more Kree-centric stories going forward. There is this one moment. I just want to shout it out because it caught my attention both times, and I don't know, either it's like in response to like a cut thing

or Daniel Lings just made a choice that was intentionally eye-catching and it caught my eye. But when they're marching into Aldana, the water planet, And the whole, and her forces are marching in. It's like all these Cree in their battle gear. And then Daniel Lee's characters there. And he's like, everyone's looking forward and he's looking off to the left and like fiddling with his. It's so, it's such a weird moment.

Again, there's a million weird moments in this movie. But I was just like, what are we, what are we doing? What are you looking at? I want to look at it too. Like, what's going on? Anyway. The Marvels. It's a movie that we saw.

And we largely enjoyed. We had fun at the movie. movies. I can't wait to spend more time with Miss Marvel, with Photon, with Goose. Hope we never see a scroll again. Did I like talking about the film with you? Yeah, unless it's like a Ronan prequel, then I'm there. I'm back. Does the Cosmarod have to also be there? Of course. That's a given. Okay, great. All right, friends, confusion is the first step toward knowledge, which means that Hank McCoy has told us it's time to wrap today's pod. Thank you to our favorite prodigal children of the Milky Way, Steve Allman for producing this episode, Arjuna Ram Gapal, for his additional production work on this episode, and Jomi Adoneron

for his work on the social for this episode. Remember, head back into the ringerverse later today for a new button mash on Call of Duty, and then again on Friday for the Midnight Boys, Poo! you instant reaction to Invincible Season 2, episode 3, pop back over here to House of Our on Friday for our Scott Pilgrim Pod. Until then, remember, oh my God, we're a team!