ScreenCrush: The Podcast! - Who's Going to REPLACE KANG In the MCU?

Episode Date: December 2, 2023

ScreenCrush Rewind tackles all the movie and TV hot topics, offering reviews and analysis of Marvel, Star Wars, and everything you care about right now. Hosted by Ryan Arey, and featuring a panel of industry professionals. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Because I've really, I've had enough of this dude. Hey, welcome back to Screen Crush. I'm Ryan Erie, and it looks like we may have seen the last of Kang the Conqueror. Oh, you mean because he got killed by ants? For the last time, no, he was not killed by ants, but he may have been killed by a clause in Jonathan Major's contract. So I'm going to catch you guys up on what's happening here, why Kang is likely out as the Big Bad of the Multiverse saga and tell you who I think should be the new Big Bad, and it's not Dr. Doom. And a little bit later, I'm going to talk to Whitney Van Lendingham and Dave Gonzalez for their takes. but first, let me explain the chaos surrounding Kang the Conqueror. So I'm sure a lot of you already know that Jonathan Majors was arrested for assaulting his girlfriend.

Now, the wheels of justice move very slowly. I'm not a lawyer. I have no idea if he's guilty or innocent. But a lot of other people have also come forward to talk about how he has been an abusive person in the past. So you could actually see Marvel wanting to dump the guy just for that reason alone. But there are also rumors that Marvel wanted to transition away from Kang after Quantummania underperformed at the box office. Oh, I don't know much about things, but that sounds like something. and a pretty toxic person would demand to having their contract. I hate this thing.

I know you do, buddy, but if any of you want your own Doug Plush, please buy one and help fund our campaign by visiting our merch store link below. And you know what? The Doug Plushy does have a good point. Majors was great as Kang, and it's not the actor's fault that Marvel had him get beaten up by Ant Man. But there are also other rumors. The ringers Joanna Robinson told an unconfirmed rumor that she heard Jeff Loveness was being moved off of Avengers the Kang Dynasty because Marvel was, quote, going in another direction.

And the director of that movie, Dustin Daniel Cretton, focusing on a Shang-Chi sequel in his Wonder Man TV series. Plus, the ending of Loki made it seem like the army of Kang variants are now under control and being watched by the TVA. They even literally make the Kang from Quantummania a footnote in Mobius' file. I guess one of them caused a little bit of a ruckus on 616 adjacent realm, but they handled it. Plus, there were the rumors swirling around in a recent variety article that Marvel might be dumping Kang in favor of Dr. Doom. Now, look, last week we did a whole video explaining why we hate that idea.

Doom is my favorite comic book villain and he needs to be introduced right. In that video, we said that they should just recast Kang. But then, the Weekly Planet, which is a great podcast, heard from a source that Majors has a clause in his contract that says only he can play Kang. But why would they do that? Well, apparently, because the character exists in multiple timelines, he wanted to make sure he was never playing the character like alongside another actor. Oh, that also sounds like something a toxic person would demand to having their contract. Yes, it does. And look, normally, I don't pay attention to rumors. But this one makes so much sense.

Loki Season 2 headwriter Eric Martin told Script Magazine that Marvel nuked his script for Loki Episode 5 because they wanted to go in a different way. And that's the episode where suddenly we don't see Jonathan Majors anymore. I could also see them rewriting the ending of the series to diminish King's role in the future of the Multiverse saga. Now look, Major's contract probably has a good faith clause that states that if he is convicted of a crime, then the contract is non-void. But until a trial happens, Marvel's just in limbo.

So it would make sense that they would want to pivot. Pivot! so i want to go over a few options on who could be the new big bad and i want to hear from david whitney before telling you who i absolutely think should be the new big bad of the multiverse saga oh hey do you guys rent movies here yeah yeah we do we yeah we rent movies yes you so you actually want to rent a movie here yeah well you know my internet's out so i thought you know sure it could be kind of fun you know retro oh my god doug we actually have a customer breathe person we have trained for this. Yeah, so I thought I could... Oh my gosh, what's that smell? It's like,

it's like Jabba the Hut did an upper decker in your bathroom. Oh, that's just, that's just like how the store smells, right? Like all the time? Yeah, all the time, all the time. Oh, well, I can't stay here. I got to go. Hey, wait, wait, wait. Is that better? Oh yeah, that's much better. That smells amazing. What is that? My friend, this is my new air freshener. And when I opened it, I actually couldn't believe how good this smells. It's made by Drift, our partner for this video. Now, Drift is the sister company to scentbird. And you guys know, we talk about scentbird cologne all the time here on the channel. But Drift is an air freshener for your home or your car.

Like this one is made specifically for a car, and it even comes with this metal clip for your sun visor. Now, look, I know this just looks like a block of wood, but it is infused with this amazing fragrance. This one is called teak. It's got notes of amber, pepper, teak, and cedar. Oh, yeah. And I'm also getting a hint of musk. Very good. Now, what I love most about this is how this scent is unlike any other car freshener I've ever smelled.

This is not just hanging a pine tree from your rearview mirror. Getting into your car with this creates the same feeling as like stepping into a study with the fireplace. This old wood smell reminds me of like a homey old house, like a place you'd go for your Christmas reunion. This lasts up to 30 days, and their car fresheners only cost $9 to $15, which is worth it to smell this good. Hey, what smells so good. But what I really recommend is their scent of the month club, which is a subscription service that sends you this starter kit and then monthly refills. This includes the scent of the month with a new limited edition sense. inspired by the seasons.

Now, the subscription is flexible. You can change your scent choice, frequency, or cancel at any time. So, make sure to use my coupon code screen for 55% off your first month at Drift. That's less than $5 for your first month. Just check out our links below. Now, back to what I was saying. First of all, just to revisit the Dr. Doom thing, like Doom is the main villain in both versions of Secret Wars in the comic.

And if you get somebody like Killian Murphy and introduce him right in Phase 6, then Doom could work. But I would rather see a slow evolution for that character toward him having his own storyline. I'm also not even sure he's in the new Fantastic Four movie, though. Rumors are that it centers on Galactus and the Silver Surfer, which I love because Doom has like taken center stage in every Fantastic Four movie, kind of like how every X-Men movie found a way to squeeze in Magneto. Now, the FF have some great villains, so I say they should step back and take their time. I mean, come on, Marvel, act like you've been here before.

You don't need to cram Doom into every single Fantastic Four movie. You've been here before. So I think it's likely that Marvel might bring back a previous villain to be the big bad of Secret Wars. Oh, okay, like a sports ball team, thinking in an old veteran to poster a lineup. Seriously, does this thing get all my lines now? Easy, you two. Now, one obvious choice is Thanos, but a Thanos from a different part of the multiverse.

Like, Thanos is scary. We all know him, but he's already been defeated by the Avengers twice. There's also another great villain who was actually introduced in this saga, the high evolutionary. How dare you think you are more. 8, 9, P, 1,3! Chuck Woody Awuji gave an electric performance

as this perfection-obsessed splicer. And I could see him one to expand his goal of perfection to the entire multiverse. Like, what if he decides that instead of making a perfect planet, he wants to create a perfect universe instead? And Cothone would also make sense. Cahoo! Cthorne is the god of chaos magic that Wanda got her powers from.

Stupid idiot. That's right, Doug. Exactly. Wanda used the power of Cothone to Dreamwalk, and Cothone's dark hold exists in multiple universes. So Cothone is already a multiversal villain. But we do have to do something about that name, right? Cothone.

Doesn't really roll off the tongue. Maybe they could take Cthone and say, oh, sometimes he goes by his other name, Dormamu. You can call me... Dormamu! And then making Dormammu the villain would make strange the main focus of this saga and bring his story back around to the first movie. Marvel and Fagi also have this thing where recently they've been fixing their old mistakes,

like how they re-use characters from the Incredible Hawk to make that movie count more, like Thunderbolt Ross becoming an important character, or how the leader is finally appearing in Captain America, Brave New World. So we might see Marvel revisit some characters that have already appeared, but, you know, like we're kind of mum. For instance, Ultron. So much of Ultron was perfect in Avengers 2. But Josh Whedon turned him into this like snarky, sarcastic robot,

and that is not who Ultron is. We'd have to break anything. Clearly you've never made an omelette. You beat me by one second. We also saw a version of Ultron try to take over the multiverse and what if. So maybe that means that he's less likely to appear, though, because that version of his story has already been told. Now, if Fagy really wants to fix a past mistake,

he could bring back Malacith from Thor the Dark World. What did you just say? And the comics, Malikas is kind of more of a Joss Whedon-style villain. He's sarcastic, he's savage. And since we're talking about the multiverse, you could actually bring back Christopher Eglestein, but make him a different version of the character, who can inject a bit more of his doctor into the character.

I'm a doctor, by the way. What's your name? Rose. Nice to meet you, Rose. Run for your life. But, like, there's also a huge list of great villains we haven't even seen yet. Like the Phoenix is this incredibly powerful cosmic force to devour star systems. And in the movies, it's been confined to stories that take place on Earth. So turning the Multiverse saga into the Phoenix saga would work really well.

It would also connect the X-Men universe to the main MCU universe. And there's also Null, the God of the Symbiots. There's the bug guy Anilis from the Negative Zone. And of course, Mephisto, and I have a villain that I think would be the perfect choice. But first, I want to talk to my guests, and we are blessed. We have the 27 Yankees of lineups here with us today. We have from the Guardians of the Palaxi podcast. We have Whitney Van Landingham.

And, of course, we have Dave Gonzalez, co-author of the extremely great, the reign of Marvel Studios book, which is on sale now. I have read it. Some chapters I've read many times. I highly recommend it to you. So Dave, I want to start, just before we get into your guys' picks, right? I want to hear who you think should replace Kang, the character, not Kang, the actor. But before I get into that, I want to talk about this actual situation real quick. Dave, you're obviously somebody, like your co-host of the Trial by Content Podcast. You're a guy with sources in Hollywood, right? What are we to make of this rumor propagated? by the weekly planet that Majors has this clause in his contract that says he can't be recast.

I don't have any insider information specifically about that clause, but it would be a very interesting thing for them to have rolled up. Obviously, the fact that they knew that they were going into the multiverse saga would make something like this clause possible, because obviously it would be easy to recast any hero once you're dealing with the multiverse. So it seems strange to me to give an actor that much power. Usually Disney and Marvel Studios is much more like will cast you for a certain number of appearances, but those appearances can flex based on what we need you for. Very famously, Chris Evans burned off a whole bunch of his cameos, but that kept Captain America

consistent over 10 years as like a person who appeared in just random Marvel movies. So I'm skeptical, but I'm going to believe that it is possible in this one case just because of the fictional world that we're dealing in. You know, Whitney, we did hear that rumor, too. I don't remember where I first heard this. Sorry if I'm not crediting the source, but there were sources that said that, you know, Marvel, when they saw Jonathan Major's performance in Loki,

said, oh, my God, well, this is the guy. This is the key to the saga. We shape our saga around this guy. Oh, for sure. That, like, the reason I tend to believe this rumor, and I'm actually talking about it, is because it really does make sense. Like, Whitney, do you think it lines up with what we've seen?

Or is there anything that makes you go, Marvel wouldn't do that? I mean, it does make sense that they would want to just make him their end-all be-all because his performance was so good in Loki. He's so terrifying. Like, the way that Jonathan Majors plays that character is also super specific. So I can also see, like, why and how. Because even, I don't know, I was kind of a sorry in advance to anyone listening who's going to hate me after I say this. but I was not a big fan of Victor Timely.

I did not like his Victor Timely performance personally. Pumpkins. I wanted him to be weirder. I just wanted him to be weirder, and he wasn't as weird as I wanted him to be. Maybe he felt like a guy, a normal guy who was pretending. I'm talking about Jonathan Majors, a guy who was pretending to be a weird guy instead of just being a weird guy.

Yeah, that is kind of what it felt like to me. He was one of them and not one of us. Yeah, exactly. Yes, yes, yes. So, you know, I mean, the only time that I thought he was weird enough was when he freaked out over a hot chocolate machine. I was like, yeah, buddy, I'd do that, too. I have the same feelings about hot chocolate as you do. Anyways, that got way off of what I started to say.

No, no, I think you'd bring up a good point because back in his era, all chocolate would have had cocaine in it, too. Yeah. Because it was all coming from cow cow cow cow cow leaves. So there might be something too there, I think. I had to look that up real quick. Maybe he thought that the TVA just had a casual cocaine connection. I think so. Doug, can you look that up for me? Yeah, look it up. No problem.

Thanks, buddy. We'll check back in with Doug to see if chocolate used to have cocaine in it at the turn of the 20th century. All right. So, yeah, to me it seems like it lines up. So if we are forced into this corner where Majors is in legal limbo for years, where his lawyers are fighting things off, it makes sense Marvel would want to look another direction. And if you're looking for a big, bad, and secret wars, as much as I said last week, we didn't, you know, I didn't necessarily want to do it. It makes sense for doomed to be the guy or whoever. So looking at this landscape before us, who is, who would be a great choice to kind of sub in for our boy Kang? Dave, you want to go first?

Sure. I was trying to look at what you were saying about having, not necessarily introducing a new villain, because I think there's a lot of people that you could pull from, and Marvel's shown to be really adept at yanking a character that we maybe had underestimated in the comic book, and making it a big bad. But if we're looking for things that have to go back to the beginning and feel like they're part of a whole, I think there are way too many multiversal versions of Ultron for him not to be a serious player potentially going for. Ultron, yeah, great choice.

Whitney, what do you think about that? Oh, dude, I think that that would be a great way to get some more robots. Get more robots back into the MCU. We've lost so many good robots. We've got to get more in there. And so many T's that are out there and, like, White Vision didn't come back for multi-person madness for some reason.

So, as I was talking about earlier. I really want White Vision to come back, like, so badly. Villain or not villain, baby. Character I want to see come back that was teased, because, again, this is one of those guys who are like, okay, Star Fox, I read the comics, I'm jazzed about seeing Star Fox. I get it. If not

everybody's jazzed about Star Fox. Everybody wants to see White Vision, what the hell's going on with that thing? You know what I mean? Like, is it a thing? guy, ship of Theseus. Like, there's so many things that I want to see him come back for. And we get rumors about this Vision Quest show. And it seems like Young Avengers to be the perfect time to bring him in. We did a video on that. But real quick, just to circle back to Ultron, before I get into random-ass MCU robots. You know, I was talking earlier about this. Like, Ultron and the MCU was always a disappointment for me, especially that first

trailer, how dark it seemed. And Ultron is this, like, really, like, emotionless forboding presence in the comics. And then in the movie, he, like, is, cracking jokes, cracking wise, he's a little too weedingy. Dave, are you saying you think Ultron should come back because you weren't happy with him the first time round? I think Ultron as a character in Avengers Age of Ultron was there to shore up a lot of different characters that ended up became very usable early, became usable later on. So Avengers Age of Ultron is basically Ultron versus Tony Stark, which is excellent and necessary

and then helps us establish the vision. But the possibility of Ultron, especially in this AI future that we're navigating in the real world, would provide a sort of really interesting villain. Also a villain that I think really important can get more complex after he's seen how he's actually defeated. So the knowledge of how he was defeated the first time can help him become something more the second time. I like the idea that they had planted in Age of Ultron about constant iterations and how that sort of links to Ultron in the comic. And I think that means, especially with the multiverse thing like we saw in What If, that there's a possibility that there is another version of Ultron that gets it right in infinite multiverses. And after he conquers his universe, where else would he go but to spread in the multiverse? And I think that you could do that in a way that brings back, you know, a very excellent James Bader voice performance.

I don't necessarily know that we need to do motion capture again because I think he was a little wasted in that. But I was just watching his Halloween office monologue on YouTube the other night. And I'm like, this guy could talk absolute gobbledy gook at me and be threatening. So I think Ultron and James Bader by extension is an excellent thing to have in your back pocket as a potential villain. Well, one of my favorite things on the internet is when some brilliant YouTuber took Robert California's monologues from the office. and then put them in Ultron's voice and splice them into the age of Ultron scene where he first comes out and shows himself. It's amazing. Oh, that's amazing.

Yeah, it's so good. Let's show a clip right now. I am so tired of the black-eyed peas. It's rock and roll for people who don't like rock and roll. It's rap for people who don't like rap. I'm going to throw you guys a curveball right now, right? Okay, if I thought of this before, I would have made this the end of the video. It's talked about this in the end of the video, but you get it now.

Instead of Ultron, what about White Vision? because there's a great storyline in the comics where Vision decides he's going to conquer the world take it over to run things better. We know this vision has talked about the multiverse before. He got tied into Wanda, her memories, when he absorbed the Mindstone energy from other vision, he saw things.

And we've seen the Infinity Stones can give people whatever visions they need for the plot to happen. Seriously, what if White Vision sees the multiverse and says, no, no, no, there's a thing here I can do. I can make this better I can control it like would he work as a heel turn and then maybe Wanda gets you know isn't dead

and reconcile is that a story we want to see like where we want to see White Vision go there Dave I mean I would love that I think a heel turn is another possibility to bring a new villain into the MCU that we also have like from some familiarity with

white vision's great I think it's kind of important that in this current Marvel cinematic timeline in this sacred timeline that all the movies are coming out on. The infinity stones have been destroyed. We're one of the few universes that exist in Marvel continuity that we know about without infinity stones, and we learned that those powers, you know,

are very singular to keeping the flow of time useful in the way that we can perceive it. So I would say that, like, White Vision is just one touch of one of those, like, Ultron bot heads that we've seen in various series. He touches it. He absorbs a little. little bit of it and he just has like that without the mindstone to sort of keep him focused

and without the infinity stones that made the what if ultron so powerful uh ultron could find another way by sort of absorbing what exists a vision that's also true and one thing too about about ultron is connecting him with AI is like what if ultron didn't conquer the world what if he was invited into it because that's the strange thing we're seeing with AI now it's like you know pick our jobs but literally we're letting AI take our jobs no stop inviting it in This is the scariest thing ever. I am so angry. I'm just like, has nobody watched Terminator?

Has nobody seen Termin. Like, it is, it blows my mind that we are allowing. Or Red Ready Player 1. I mean, that's really what we're going to look at. It's more like literally just where we all go on universal base income. But, hey, I for one welcome our robot overlords. Because if the worst that happens here is that AI is able to take over and I get an easy stipend from the government. I'm sounding like such a communist.

I get a stipend from the government so I can work on my novel, then great. No, you're right. I should probably publicly state on this podcast. Yes, I support the robots. Please don't kill me later. Please, please don't kill me later. So, let's transition away from robots. Whitney, I'm sorry. I really got into talking about Ultron. It's all good.

Who's your pick? Who is your, like, kanks out the door, and we get to have it from the vast Marvel canon, thousands of potential villains. Who is your choice to be the new big bad? Well, I'm the most boring choice there is after you're, like, hyping it all up out of all of them in the world. I just really like Dr. Doom because, and I know that I'm like, I'm a basic bitch. I love Dr. Doom bitch. I know you love Dr. Doom.

I've had this figure for over 20 years. He is my favorite. There's Dr. Doom figures right here. I can't believe how close you had that to be able to, like, whip it out. That was incredible. You have that, like, twist to your heart at all times. I always carry him with me. I think his armor comes off, too.

He always stays in the box, so he rarely comes out. Oh, my goodness. And this one has a Glock. I love Dr. Doom so much. So, look, it's not, I don't agree with the choice. Just because I love Dr. Doom, and like I said, I want to see him done, you know, with more time and care. But what makes Dr. Doom your choice? Well, he's also my choice if they do it with time and care,

because I firmly believe that all Marvel movies need a little more time and care these days. I think that that's something that these days has been slacking just a little, you know, just a little tiny bit. Maybe a little bit more TLC for these movies before they come out. But I like Dr. Doom because I think that it would be a great tie-in to the Young Avengers with like the Children's Crusade storyline from the comics. I think that it would be a great way to bring Wanda back. And then obviously we've got the Fantastic Four coming on up. so there was like a storyline in the comics where he like secretly built a machine that could like form a bridge between worlds and reed richards tried to stop him and he blew up the machine and looked like an idiot and i think that that would be like a cool story to base a like an incursion on so like not necessarily like bridge like bridge between worlds but more of like maybe he tries to help build a like you you know, like in the world that Monica Rambo got sent to.

Maybe he's there. Maybe he's trying to build a machine that will fix incursions. And Reed Richards finds a flaw in his incursion fixing machine. Maybe, you know, and it goes up. And that's how he's right. I think that that could be tied in. And yeah, I really, I just really want him to bring Wanda back, y'all. That's kind of my main motivation here.

You're right. I mean, Children's Crusade is a great place to put him in, like in the comics when he is, you know, Wanda's had her memory erased following the events that are similar to Wanda Vision, he's going to marry her, et cetera, et cetera, read comics, comics are great. Another way they could tie him in, though, is with Wakanda.

You know, we all, it was a big fan theory. Oh, my gosh, yeah. If you're going to look at somebody who could have been like... I was going to say that too, I forgot. The character, I think, number one from Stranger Thinks Season 4, his number was one, right? The big bad. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, and there's a lot of, like, Battlestar Galatco. A lot of these shows, had a secret bad guy who has revealed at the end to have been pulling a lot of strings. Could have been Doom. Doom could have been the guy who was ruling from the shadows. Could have been in on that. If they can find a way to tie him in and do that, great. I just don't want Dr. Doom to, like, come in out at the post-credit scene of Fantastic Four.

And then, you know, Avengers Rise of Doom followed by Avengers Secret Wars. Is that what we're looking at? Well, Dave, what do you think? Oh, dude, you know what else I was totally going to say? and I blanked on it while I was talking. Okay, he could also be a really good way to freaking figure out the Tiamut situation because he's like,

he's the perfect combo of science and magic babies. Like if Iron Man and Dr. Strange got together and had a little baby boy and his name was Dr. Doom instead of Dr. Stranger Iron Man. And, you know, like he's so good. And I also, yeah, the two things that I want most in this lifetime or Morwanda and to figure out what that giant Earth baby is doing, sticking out of the ocean. So I think that he could solve that for me.

Rumor is, though, that's Captain America Brave New World. I think they, that's the rumors I've heard. Dave, have you heard that? I have heard that, yeah. I've heard lots of different rumors about how they're going to deal with it. Sure. It's usually attached to Captain America. It's very weird just to, again, touch on it.

It's very weird they did it in the first place without a plan for it because, look, I feel like a lot of the Eternals, and we have a video coming out on this soon, I feel like a lot of the Eternals is, like, the Eternals should have taken place on a different universe, right? If you're doing the Multiverse saga, I think the Eternals would have worked a lot better in its own thing, because then Chloe Zhao would have really had free reign to make a stupid three and a half hour Marvel epic that would have done justice. Because the visual of that thing coming out of, like, you know, like you really get this image of like the heaven. and, you know, seeing how small we are compared to the might of this thing, but it's still weird. Yeah, I mean, going back to Doom, one of the things that makes me excited

about Doom as a possibility is something that made Thanos an actual threat, a threat that was big enough for all the Avengers, is in his first movie where he got out of his chair and did something post-credit scenes not counting. He won, and so if you're going to have a big bad, like Dr. Doom, when he shows up, just have him be like,

I hear you're having a God's problem and just stomp everybody. Maybe it seems like Doom is actually our ally at the beginning, but eventually he rises to like the villain threat. I think it's really important that if it is like a new character like Doom or a nihilist or any of the fantastic four villains that are great and right on the edge of the multiverse, the important step to make us feel that he's a threat if he's new is to let him win his first time out instead of something like, you know,

the problem that they might be having with Kang, which is in all, he's defeated in all of his appearances. So how hard can it be? How hard could it be? Dude, that's why I wanted, I wanted him to kill Ant Man so bad, not because I wanted to be rid of Paul Rudd. But that would have, that would have been so good. It worked in the comics. It would have worked. I guarantee you that was in a draft. I guarantee you they made, I guarantee you they forced poor justice for Jeff Loveness to change that ending. That's I'm going to, by the way, that's his nickname on this show from now on. Yeah, look, okay, just to kind of bring it all back around full circle before I tell you guys my pick for who I think this new big bad should be. And Whitney, I'll be honest, you've made me

come around on Doom because I think if it's Avengers, the rise of Doom or so. Imagine if it's not Nick Fury who gets together the new Avengers, but Dr. Doom. If Dr. Doom is the one going around and telling people, hey, you know, because he does this in the comics, he's a good guy for a little bit. he's going around he's telling people there is a huge multiversal threat from incursions

we have to do something about it he stops by the he stops by Tiamut gets what he needs from there he can revisit all these things

that maybe didn't make sense or felt disconnected and slowly pull them together only to turn on everybody in the end and then reveal he's a villain

and then remake the world has God Emperor Doom that might be fun I agree I think it'd be fun but I also agree with you that if they're going to do

this they need to take their time and do it right, because I also don't want them to, don't mess with Dr. Doom, man, do right by him. Say that again? It's fantastic. Well, guys, thanks very much for joining me. Dave and Whitney's socials are listed below. Go check out everything they do.

They are both amazing. We have a trial by content podcast. Whitney's channel, subscribe, like all the stuff, plus Guardians of the Palixie. Now, here is my choice for who should be the new big bad of the MCU Multiverse saga. So, guys, my number. one choice to take over is the big bat of the Multiverse saga is the Red Skull. Oh, but he never even did anything in the movies. Exactly. The Red Skull is Captain America's number one villain, the Joker to his Batman. And we barely saw him in the

MCU. Like, he was perfect in First Avengers. Hugo Weaving was perfect casting, even though he hated the makeup and he didn't want to return. And that movie does end with Red Skull being teleported away. But then Cap's story moved on from there. Now in the comics, the Red Skull is one of the big bads of Marvel. In terms of Earth-based villains, I would say he's second only to Dr. Doom. The guy has brought down the Avengers and the X-Men. He believes in this perfect Aryan ideal that his enemy, Captain America, ironically personifies. Like, this guy has untapped potential the movies never even approached. Now, in the MCU, he's been serving penance for 70 years. But it cast me out, banished me here. Guiding others to a treasure

I cannot possess. Now, presumably, after Thanos or Hawkeye took the soul stone, the red skull is now free from his service on Vormir. So now what, though? Is he reformed? He He was definitely humbled by the power of the Infinity Stones, but maybe he would now seek out a greater power than the stones. Maybe the Red Skull, through his cosmic exile, would learn of the TVA and the multiverse. I could see the Red Skull escaping from Vormir. How can he escape Vormir? Simple. Natasha's body was left on Vormeer, and it had that time-space GPS.

So the Red Skull could now use it to escape his prison and be unleashed on the multiverse. Bringing back the Red Skull would be a perfect way to do justice to the character, while also tying back into the early days of the MCU. Like Marvel right now is out of crossroads. A lot of their new villains and heroes aren't really capturing our imagination like they did in phase one. And also, they have all these threads dangling from phase one,

things that weren't resolved, like Steve Rogers returning the soul stone to Vormir. Does that mean he was sentencing the Red Skull to stay there forever? We just don't know. There's all these gaps in the story that I think bringing back the Red Skull could fill in. Plus, I mean, look, the Red Skull, you could have a guy like raise an army of space Nazis

and space pirates to challenge the multiverse. There's a million ways they could go with this story. He's a character we all know. He's a villain we all love. And he's somebody who, frankly, deserves to be the big, bad of an entire saga. If only it were that easy. And thanks again to Drift for sponsoring this video. And don't forget to check out our link below.

Well, guys, that's just my thought. Special thanks to our guests. You can find all of our socials in the description below. And if it's your first time here, please subscribe and smash that bell for alerts. For Screen Crush, I'm Ryan Erie. Okay, I looked it up. And chocolate comes from a cow cow cow plant, which sounds like Murr, but it's spelled different. And cocaine comes from Cocoa plant.

And it's, they all come from like the same place, but it's different. And did you know that cocaine was originally in Coca-Cola? So all these people used to walk around like, I love this soda. And they were high on cocaine.