The Ringer-Verse - 'Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania' Deep Dive | House of R

Episode Date: February 20, 2023

The time has come to conquer with Mal and Jo as they dive headfirst into their analysis of 'Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania.' They talk about the major introduction to Kang the Conqueror and the performance from Jonathan Majors (31:24). Later, they talk about the insane world of the Quantum Realm and all of the characters that inhabit it, along with the Ant-Man family (84:34). Hosts: Mallory Rubin and Joanna Robinson Senior Producer: Steve Ahlman Social: Jomi Adeniran Additional Production Support: Arjuna Ramgopal Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

When you're lost in the darkness, look for the pod. Specifically, the Prestige TV podcast on the Ringer Podcast Network, where we're breaking down every new episode of HBO's The Last of Us. On Sunday nights, grab your battery and join Van Lathen and Charles Holmes for an instant reaction to the latest episode. Then head back to the QZ on Tuesdays for a deep dive with Joanna Robinson and Mallory Rubin. From character arcs to video game adaptation choices, story themes to needle drops, we'll parse every inch of this cordyceps-coded universe.

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Dot sweetgreen.com. Um, I don't know who you are, but you've made a big mistake. Okay? I'm an Avenger. I've called the other Avengers. You're an Avenger. Have I killed you before? What?

They all blow together after a while. You're not the one with the hammer. That's Thor. We get confused a lot, similar body types. Who are you? Just a man who's lost a lot of time. Like you. But we can help each other with that.

And welcome into the ringerverse. Here on the ringer podcast network. I'm Mallory Rubin, and it is my absolute pleasure to invite you not only to a very special reading of lookout for the little guy. But also, to join us on the ringer's nexus podcast feed for all things fandom. Joining me today, imploring me to drink the ewes, and readying to count your holes.

It's my fellow Pimparticle enthusiast and my house of our lucky title. Co-host, Joanna Robinson. You know, Mallory, I've podcasted with the few, other people in my day, but there's only one problem. They weren't you, baby. Not even Linda? Especially not Linda.

Oh, man. Tough movie for Linda. We are here today, of course, to chat about the latest Marvel movie, the Phase 5 kickoff, Ant Man in the Wasp, Quantum Mania. But we're a pod that likes to be understood. And so before we dive deep into the quantum realm, some quick programming reminders. Later this week, we will be back here on the House of R with a Mandalorian Season 3 primer pod. We're going to be counting down the most essential Mando moments ahead of the new season.

We'll have a bonus animated watch list for you as well. And then next week, here on the Ring Reverse, the Mando season three coverage begins. The Midnight Boys. Poo! Beepoo! We'll be with you on Wednesday, March 1st to share their instant reactions to the Mandalorian season premiere. Joe and I will be with you on Friday, March 3rd for our Mando premiere deep dive.

The Midnight Boys, of course, already have a quantumania instant reaction waiting for you on the Ringarverse feed. Check that out if you haven't. And in case you're wondering, yes. Dan and Charles, Joe and I will still be covering the last. of us over on the Prestige TV podcast feed throughout season one. Joe, that's a lot of pods. How can the people follow all of it?

I'm so glad you asked me. Even if you're stuck way down, now many layers down in the quantum realm. Here's what I advise you do. Number one, before you go into the quantum realm, subscribe to the pod. Yeah. Just do that before. You don't know what your signal is going to be like down there. So just subscribe to the ringerverse.

Also the Presti-Sheby podcast feed if you want to keep up on your mushroom zombies, you know? Like there's a lot going on. So subscribe. Why not also, to pass the time, follow us on so many different social platforms. Jomi knows when you're bored and he's going to hit you with the content, with the memes, on Instagram, on TikTok, on Twitter, on possibly peach all over the place. That's a Rear guarantee. So yeah, follow the pod.

Subscribe to the pod. Email the pod. Hobbs and Dragons at gmail.com. Listen. I love every single email we receive from folks about apples, about mushroom recipes, about how many holes they might have. It's all great information.

So that's what I would recommend people do. I love it. I was going to ask if you thought that vastly technologically advanced ants. We're still using email. But I guess that's a pre-spoiler warning spoiler. So let's get to the spoiler warning. Our friendly neighborhood spoiler warning

is that today's podcast will feature plot details from the new Marvel movie Ant Man and the Wasp Quantum Mania and from the entire MCU to date, all of it, and from Marvel Comics canon. So if you have yet to see Dr. Henry Pimp, proudly save $8 by turning a tiny personal pizza into a family feeding feast. Proceed with caution.

You've been warned. Okay. Yeah. Joe. Quantummania directed by Peyton Reed, as was 2015's Ant Man in 2018's, Ant Man in the Wasp Quantumania. New screenwriter for this year flick.

Jeff loved this. The Rick and Morty Scribe. He will also be penning phase sixes. Avengers the King Dynasty. This is a two-hour and five-minute film, positively Ant-Man size, compact. Sprightly, tight. It is, of course, also the 31st film in the MCU, the first film of Phase 5, and the third film in the standalone Ant-Man franchise. Can I ask you a quick question?

someone asked me this morning, a quick thought experiment that I gave you no time to prep for. You love those. My absolute favorite. How many films, if you were to just guess, how many films total do you think we're going to get in the MCU? Ooh. Before the world ends? However you want to define, I don't know, the Fige era, the, it. before it feels like a complete reboot.

Like, what do you think? I mean, this is a good question. We can... 75? 75. Ooh. Nice.

Yeah. Okay. What do you think? The number that sprang to mind when someone asked me this this morning was 50. Which means we're already over halfway there. You think we're rapping. We get through the multiverse saga and it's a wrap.

No more Marvel. movies after that. I think, no, I just think Fagie might be ready to do something else possibly. I don't know. It depends on how long Faggy wants to do this because everything changes once Faii leaves, right? And not necessarily for the worst, maybe for the better, who knows?

And then it also depends, like, do we get Chris Evans back? Do we get Robert Johnny Jr. back? Are we, like, bringing back old heroes? Are we you know, completely rejuvenating, injecting new blood into the franchise? What are we doing? I don't know. I have questions. Is it forever? Is it M.C. Forever?

It could. It could. It could. Just a new saga. We move from phases to sagas at some point. If we're fortunate, we go to the quantum realm to hang out with Broccoli Guy, you know? Then we do it all again. Time dilate in the MCU forever. This is Martin Scorsese's dream.

He's like, please, may it never end? Exactly. Who knows? Will it feel to us like five hours? as Scott's five years in the quantum realm did, will it be a thousand years, like the time dilated ants lived? How many movies would we experience in either scenario? Who can say?

I'm just alone for the ride in real time, Joe. Great. Just keeping my multiversal neural core going strong intact so that I could traverse the multiversal movie-going galaxy and consume content and then pot about it with you.

What a normal human thing to say. And you are listening I'm really jet lagged right now. I've not gotten a lot of sleep, but I have had a tremendous amount of coffee. If your listeners have any thoughts or theories about how many MCU movies there are going to be, maybe the limit does not exist.

You let me know. Hobbits and Dragons at Gmail.com. Thanks so much. I love this. All right, Joe, before we get into our deep dive, let's do a little opening snapshot as we always like to, a little look out for the little movie,

if you will. opening weekend response. Run us through the box office, the initial reception. How was Ant Man and the Wasp Quantumania doing out in the world? Yeah, a pretty big number for an Ant Man movie, to be honest with you.

$118 million of the domestic box office as a Monday when we're recording this. 239 International bringing us to $357 million global that will buy you a lot of donuts in San Francisco. Not as many as elsewhere in the country, but a lot.

Those donuts weren't cheap, though. Nope. Welcome to them. Bay area. 12 bucks for coffee. Boy. Critically, though. Yes.

As you know, I firmly believe that rotten tomatoes is an imperfect metric. However, it is useful to note that 84% audience score Pretty good. 47% critical score on Rotten Tomatoes for this movie. It is tied with Eternals for the lowest rated MCU film on the Rotten Tomatoes critical score. Love and Thunder is the next lowest.

So these are all sort of recent entries. You know, Thor the Dark World's like, oh, how do I look now? Yeah. Sort of thing. Yeah. Meta Critics hitting us with 48% cinema score B. So that tracks with both of those. as well. So that's, yeah, that's kind of where we are. It's one of those for the fans,

not for the critics, divides on this movie. It means we're right back into the discourse. The phase four discourse has morphed into the phase five discourse. We want to do a little like opening snapshot of just our overall impressions of the movie here as a table setter. But let's hit that idea as well. Why don't you give us the quick snapshot of how you felt about the movie again? We'll parse all of the particulars in much more detail as we go through the plot points and the character arcs. What did you think, broadly, of Quantum Mania? As a second introduction for Jonathan Majors after the Loki finale, which you and I both loved,

I think it's a smashola. Like, to get us excited about King and the teases of where he might go and how often we might see him going forward in the MCU, that's all really exciting. The shell around that, like if we're talking about, that's the peanut and the peanut M&M, like the shell around it, a little less rewarding for me. And I think it might have to do with the combination of the keg of everything, that protein-dense peanut, and then the sugary sweetness of an antithes. man film and like how do those two things go together? Usually I would say peanut and I'm delicious.

In this case, I don't know. It doesn't, it didn't fit quite right to me. But there's a lot that I enjoyed. I enjoyed it. I've now seen three times. I enjoyed it more each time I watched it. But I think I think what happens when I go a second or a third time is I'm like on the lookout for the things that I enjoyed. So I'm like, okay, Jonathan Majors pops up at the beginning of the movie. All right, now I have like 40 something minutes until he comes back. I'll just like sit and relax. And then, you know, just, yeah, really, really revel in what that has to offer. How, I mean, I've listened to your great episode of The Big Pick on this film. But have your thoughts and feelings changed?

Now you've seen it again. How do you feel, Mel? I just want to say first that the Peanut M&M comp is a, it's a harrowing one given that Scott's nickname for Cassie is peanut. Yeah. Delicious. You really threw me in real time there. Better than a jelly bean, though. You know?

Oh, I love jelly beans. Are you not a jelly bean fan? Oh, okay. I mean to like, I don't mean to like tumble us into another food discourse. But yes, I mean, I enjoy the right flavor of jelly bean. It's just I find the right flavor of jelly bean to be quite rare. Like, I like a juicy pear or like a juicy peach. Uh-huh, sure, yeah.

But if you go to a bowl of candy aisle where they have the barrels. of Jellybelly and you can make a bag, a custom bag of your own favorite flavors. I once did this as the Wegmans in Syracuse and then weighed it and it was $37. If I'm just like blue razin, like blue razz and juicy pear and juicy peach and like a cherry, sure,

but like what if you get a butter of popcorn? What if you get a licorice? What if you get a chocolate? Like there's disgust. The chocolate ones are great. The chocolate pudding one is great. I mean, it's no too-drutty or cotton candy or bubble gum. Oh, gross.

Those are the best. You can have all of my, like, weird pink ones. So you're going from more of the fruity ones, and I'm going for more of the candy confection. But I do love a juicy pair and a water bottle. But my question is, and we are going to talk about quantum media, but my question to you is this. If I'm in a bulk candy situation, why would I ever go for jelly beans when any kind of gummy candy is better than a jelly bean? But why not both? First of all, there's a time and a place where the jelly bean is the absolute.

the best thing that you could have with you. Though I do love a gummy, as you know. Mix and match, get it all. This is literally the proposition of a bulk candy aisle. What did you think? If I were a campaign to control time in the multiverse, it would be a, it would be a preserve a timeline where every, every location was a bulk candy aisle. I was initially very mixed on the movie. I remained very mixed on the movie, though I did like it a little bit more. upon second viewing, though I'll say there are things I like about it more the longer I've sat with it, and there are things that are sitting even less well with me the more that I think about it. So it's been this kind of interesting, this interesting experience where there are things about the movie.

I think we're in a very similar place with it that I really enjoyed. Broadly, I was entertained and had fun at the movies for two hours. I loved Kang. I thought the Jonathan Major's performance, which we'll obviously discuss more soon, was tremendously compelling and outright magnetic. I know mileage may vary here and it is varying out on the internet. I loved Monarch. I got a real kick out of it.

I enjoyed the very brief stretches that we spent up in San Francisco. I felt that the movie was missing some of those signature Ant Man franchise ingredients that I genuinely really love and cherish. And I do not think that going bigger and using this smaller franchise to roll out, obviously, as you noted, we met he who remains in Loki, but in the, in the, films to roll out the big bad of the new saga has to in any way come at the expense of the preservation of those ingredients. And that in fact, that mashup is like a signature MCU brew that has worked really well in the past. We'll hit all of the, the, the, the, the, the what worked and what didn't as we go through.

I do want to spend just like a minute or two here, though, before we dive into the characters on the narrative around the film, the discourse around the state of the MCU. Is this the start that Marvel needed for phase five coming off of phase four? Where are you personally, you Joanna Robinson, as a consumer of Marvel,

as a person who covers Marvel? where are you not just on the movie but on the multiverse saga overall phase five, phase six and the general plan here? I think I keep waiting because we know that

there were a few stumbling blocks for Marvel generally in the last few years. There's the how do you follow up endgame no matter what? There's the new leadership at Disney. There's the content mandated Disney Plus.

There's COVID ever heard of it. You know, like there are a lot of things going on. There's, how do we pass these mantles, these torches that you and I have been talking about for the last year and change. So I've been like to think quite patient with sort of some of the stumbles and misfires and just wanting, waiting to say, okay, Marvel's back on track. Oh, they figured it out.

Oh, they've got it all back together. And I will say this is not the movie that makes me feel that way. Though, again, the fact that they're pivoting so hard towards King, a real massive strength that they now have in their arsenal, makes me very optimistic. I'm hopeful, you know, we only have two more movies coming out this year, Guardians 3 and The Marvels. The Marvel's sliding from the summer to November,

announced a couple days ago. Yeah. And whether or not that's a reaction. I don't think it's a reaction to the reaction to quantumania. I think those kinds of decisions are much longer in the making. And so, and I'm fine with that. I'm thrilled that we're going to get, Marvel's going to have several more months to shape and refine and solidify the Marvels.

I would much rather a stronger movie later than, you know, something that still needs some work. So I'm glad, I am, hmm, I'm happy that it seems like leadership at Disney with Bob Eager returning is, is in agreement with me, which is, let's regroup. let's slow down, let's figure it all out. We're probably going to get two max Disney Plus Marvel series this year, Loki season two, which got a concrete tease at the end of this movie and Secret Invasion.

And that's probably it for this year. And that's, you know, I like having a ton of Marvel stuff to talk to you about, obviously. It's fun on the pod to do that. But like, we love to talk about things we love. And we would much rather everything just like be fucking phenomenal.

So I'm hopeful that Guardians 3 is going to be phenomenal because it's James Gens' last hurrah at Marvel. It's a wrap up on this beautiful found family that we love. Hustle Mix Volume 3 and Baby Rocket. If that doesn't fucking land,

I will be despondent. I cannot wait for that movie. And there's a lot of good ingredients in the Marvels in a way that makes me hopeful that they can figure out how to sort of like patch it together to make it phenomenal. So I'm hopeful.

But this still feels like we're in a little bit of a slippery place. How do you feel? On the show front, there's a great and very long Kevin Feigey interview with Devin Kogan at Entertainment Weekly. It's worth reading in full. He hits on a lot. But he did outright mention that the TV shows would be slowing down. And I thought the way he positioned it was really notable.

He said, quote, I do think one of the powerful aspects of being at Marvel Studios is having these films and shows hit the zeitgeist. It is harder to hit the zeitgeist when there's so much product out there and so much, quote, content as they say, which is a word that I hate, brackets, laughs. But we want Marvel Studios and the MCU projects to really stand out and stand above so people will see that as we get further into phase five and six, the pace at which we're putting out the Disney Plus shows will change so they can each get a chance to shine. So that's more framing it around. We want everything to have the space to dominate the conversation and less we need more time to make sure that these are as expertly executed as they can be. Though both things could certainly be true.

You know, we had the pleasure, dare I say the honor of potting together about the bulk of phase four. Not all of it, but much of it. And in real time, you know, on a per show and a per movie basis, even though there was certainly varying degrees of success across those projects, I think I personally had just less phase four panic. Marvel has a problem panic than much of the internet seemed to.

For, you know, some of the reasons that you just mentioned, I think that, like, it just has not seemed totally reasonable to me, even though I think it is reasonable as human beings and people who move unlike King across time in a linear fashion. that we would be thinking about the most recent thing that we had just emerged from. But the comp for phase four, I think should have been phase one,

not phase three. You know, you're building towards something new. And so I also have been, I think, pretty willing to be patient and think about how long it actually really took for us to see the whole shape of the Infinity saga

back in the first three phases. I am less high on quantum mania than I was a good, number of the films and shows in phase four. And yet, despite that, I have this like acknowledgement, of course, that there is a very real conversation. And I think this question of fatigue, though, again, we both like to hammer the let's not put too much stock in the Rotten Tomatoes score, but that gap in the critic and audience score does

feel like at least worth acknowledging, like you said before. And I think that a movie can be less successful than prior movies in a franchise and also not an outright crisis for Marvel. And so the Kang aspect, like you said, again, I think we agree here, in particular, just gives me a lot of not only hope, but genuine excitement for the rest of the multiverse saga, because I sincerely cannot wait to see more of these variants. and the Stingers, you know, gave us a really fun glimpse of numerous different versions of Kang. I'm excited to see. It feels like we're finally going to get the thing that we thought we were going to get out of the Loki finale, which is Jonathan Majors playing all of these different versions of this character and interacting with different heroes and different slices of the timeline. So I remain hyped. Yeah, there's also this era that we're in.

If you take Thorlo and Dunder, Multiverse of Madness, And this film, like, we are so firmly in a cosmic space where like almost everything feels like it was shot in the volume on a green screen, that sort of stuff. And like I feel a bit thirsty for more grounded feeling content from the MCU. We're not going to get that with Guardians 3. That's okay. That's like Guardians 3 is what started the cosmic era of the MCU. I think we will definitely talk about that today, though, when we're parsing what maybe didn't quite as well with. And we're not going to get it with the marvels either.

We're still very cosmic as we go through the rest of the films that are coming out this year. Will the next Captain America film maybe feel more grounded Captain America films usually do? You know, like, that's a question. But like, if the... Hope that whole film is set in the Oval Office with Harrison Ford's under Walt Ross. Absolutely. Absolutely, folks. I mean, why not?

Yeah. Great. But, you know, the cosmic aspect. We'll talk about it more. But that's also in the soup for me as I think about like eternals, et cetera. And I'm like, this area of the world that they want to explore, they were very open about the fact that they wanted to hop into the multiversal ideas and reach the various corners of space and expand our concept of what it means to be a. Marvel Superhero is not working as well for me

as some of the street level stuff did. Yeah. It's interesting because I love that part of it, not just in the MCU, but in general, I think it's something I tend to gravitate toward in superhero stories and fantasy and sci-fi stories. And one of the things that I liked about quantum media and found just genuinely compelling

was that really like unapologetically comic booky quality, right? And I think that in the way that that's unfurling across the multiverse saga, as a fan, like intellectually, I'm compelled by that. I like the idea of exploring the multiverse. I like the idea of exploring the timelines. I love the idea we've chatted about this lot on our pods before. We talk so much about theme and character arcs. Part of what's so interesting to me about variance

and variants meeting each other in multivores. storytelling is like, what do you learn about yourself when you're literally talking to another version of you? So this part of it, in addition to just the quirk and the oddity and the, the, irreverent and overt nerdiness that cosmic storytelling fosters, it gives us, I think, the potential for some real thematic richness. This is a classic, like, two things can be true at once for me thing. We're like, I think I believe all of that. It's part of why I still remain really excited for the multiverse saga as just a framework for the MCU. And I think it would be something that really delights comic book fans, it doesn't mean that every single version of it will be good. And I think

that what you're noting about that grounded nature, like, that is so central to the Ant Man franchise. And I think was really central beyond that to what made the Infinity saga work. The fact that you could move in and out, zoom in and out, that you, it's not just that you got to break from something at the scope and scale of Thanos. It's that you were reminded when you zoomed in on Scott Lang and his life in the streets of San Francisco. What was at stake? steak if Thanos snapped his fingers. Like what did regular life look like and what were people trying to protect? And you talk about that so beautifully across our many shows.

Like, show us what the people are fighting for, right? So that mix, I think, is paramount. And, you know, Sean and I, we were going back and forth on this a little bit on Big Pick because he challenged me a little bit on like, well, why is it a bad thing for a franchise to change? Like, do you want every single Ant Man movie to be the same? which I think is a valid point. And that's not how I feel, nor I think how many fans feel. But you can evolve, like, if we, if the Thor franchise had never evolved, we would

never have gotten Ragnarok. Evolution inside of a single character franchise is paramount to keeping things fresh. It's part of why the MCU remained so vibrant across its first decade plus. You have to do that and maintain those core strands of DNA, like the essence of why we care about the character and the world that character inhabits in the first place, right? So that's not always an easy thing to do. I was having this conversation with someone about that idea of like a grounded street level, which, you know, we found on the Netflix shows, or maybe you could argue we found more on the Disney Plus shows and that sort of stuff.

But like, they were like, oh yeah, like the first Iron Man movie. I was like, not just the first Iron Man movie. Iron Man 3 spends much of the movie in a kid's garage. You know what I mean? And it's like, and that's an evolution of a franchise, right? Iron Man 3, with, like, the infusion of Shane Black sensibilities and, like, all this other stuff that's introduced there is an evolution. All the Iron Man movies are not the same. But they all feel like Iron Man movies based on the strength of personality of Tony Stark.

And based on the fact that whether it be pre-battle New York or post-battle New York, he is battling inner demons and all that sort of stuff throughout. Like all of that stuff is there. But when you bring it down to a kid in a North Carolina in a garage, you know what I mean? It's just sort of like, again, those real world stakes. And that's what this film is, I think, attempted to do with the opening San Francisco section to like bring it back to this movie. But, I mean, the most important thing I have to tell you today here, Mallory Rubin, as a resident of the Bay Area, is that it has never been that sunny for any stretch of time ever in San Francisco. that is important for all of us to know. You know, I got one of the worst summers of my life in San Francisco,

like classic tourist, idiot, going out in the morning, cloud cover. I'm like, what a lovely low 60s day. I'm going to the stadium to watch the Giants game. Mid-afternoon, bright, sunny. I'm baking. I and Oriole fan have to go shell out. money on a San Francisco

fucking Giants hat to protect myself. Beautiful stadium though, beautiful ballpark. At least it's the right colors, right? It's nice. The right colors. Well, I mean, sure.

I guess you could look at it that way. In my personal probability field is one of the mallories wearing an orange and black hat wearing a giant's hat instead of an Orioles hat. I suppose it's possible. I suppose it's possible, Joe. We're going to hit all of that, yeah, as we go.

I think that'll come up a lot when we get to Scott. The playoffs are here, and you can predict the action all the way to the finals with Fandul predicts. Follow all the playoff dishes, swishes, wishes, and misses. Predict the spread, the total points, and even the game winner. Sign up for Fandual Predicts and predict it from the couch. Offered by Fandual Prediction Markets LLC, a registered futures commission merchant. 18 plus. Trading derivatives involve significant risk and may not be suitable for all investors. manage your activity with our consumer protection tools.

Let's do our deep dive here. Let's head into the quantum realm. And let's start with Kang the Conqueror. Have you heard of him, lad? We will hit both the mid credits and post-credits stingers soon. But as we're chatting about our quantum realm, King the Conqueror who we got in this movie, Joe, let's do just a quick bit of table setting here,

a very brief comics corner on who King is. Now, there's no way to sum up King's comics canon in a 90-second quick comics corner. It is impossible. We're talking about decades and decades and decades of not only decades of storytelling, but very complex and varied and tangled storytelling. That's part of the fun of King. Boiled down essence here.

Nathaniel Richards, 30th century character from other earth, Earth 6-311, discovers his ancestors time machine, begins to time travel. What could go wrong? He goes way, way, way, way back. This is when Raman Tut enters the pages of Marvel Canon. And as he travels across time, he spawns many variants and many decades of canon as a time-traveling criminal. Although Fantastic Four, the Avengers,

they're among his most frequent and greatest foes, lots of different versions of the Avengers face him in the pages of Marvel Comics. Powers. You know, he's a regular dude under attack.

Just a guy. Just a guy. And he's got that super genius intellect. He's got the time travel tech, which positions him to have an edge, pretty much always. Battle armor, ships, the force fields, the strength,

the speed, the radioactive weaponry, etc. his comics variants are typically their versions of prime king who spawn and generate as he travels across time creating branches. One of the things that's really interesting about them and that we get a feel for in the mid-credit stinger here and that we got a feel for in Loki is that they are as often at war with each other as they are with the heroes of Marvel comics. It's not like every single version of King gets along and they never have an issue with each other. They're often trying to thwart each other. Anything else on comics corner you want to add here, Joe?

Yeah, a couple things. Number one, one is something I love about Kang that folks who haven't read the comics might not know is that like Ramatut, like much like maybe some of the phases of the MCU, it wasn't initially the idea that Kang would be all these time-traveling characters and criminals across.

A lot of reccon of like, oh, that was also King. Oh, that was King. Oh, that was also Kang. Which is fun, like, in its own way, but confusing also, you know. I don't think we'll get that direct parallel with the MCU because they're not going to go back and, like, George Lucas style digitally add Jonathan Majors to the Infinity Saga. But I do think there's a real chance that we learned that King was touching or shaping a lot of what unfolded in the Infinity Saga and our characters past lives. Well, yeah. And especially, I mean, like, he's very familiar with the event.

And, you know, he says in this film, then he killed Thor in one version of reality, you know what mean? So I would not be surprised to find him lurking about. But just as we think of Captain America as like a man out of time, you know, I always love those when you can like sum up a character in like a pithy little comic book phrase or whatever, Kang is a man at war with himself. And that is, you know, to your earlier point about variants, especially like all that juicy stuff we loved in Loki season one of what is.

it mean when you meet yourself? Was it mean to love yourself? What does it mean to hate yourself? All that sort of stuff. That, that richness is all available to us in Kang. When King, yeah, King has certain antagonists in this film, be they sort of like Janet or Scott, etc. But who does he reserve his strongest vitriol for is for other versions of himself, the other Kang's? That's fun and interesting. It's great. It's great. Me too. Do you have a, do you have a favorite? Kang comic or a favorite Kang comic arc? I'm really enjoying the

the current run of Kang comics. I think that's really fun. Only myself left to conquer? Yeah. Yeah. But I think a good, a good, by the way,

like place for people to jump in. If anyone listening has not read Kang arcs before and is like, oh my God, I'm seeing 1960s is the starting point for a lot of this. How can I possibly hope to catch up? Don't worry about catching up.

Just pick a point and start. and that that 21, 22, 23 stretch, a perfect, a perfect place to begin your Kang Comics journey. And this is part of the virtue of Kevin Feige's new position as being in charge of both the publishing and the MCU arm, is that they can launch in 2021 a new Kang story that is easy for people to jump into as they know that they're going to be featuring Kang in a bunch of their synergy. Also, because of that, it does just give you even more reason to think that what's unfolding there might, might be useful. Irrelevant. To be aware of, yeah.

For me, I mean, there's a lot of really fun stuff here, and I find the, you know, stuff with Ravana Renslayer, a character we met, a character name we encountered in Loki Season 1. Will that be the same character? We'll find out. But like, Ravanna is a character in the comics who gives Kang, you know, when Jonathan Majer talks about Kang, he talks about a bunch of different analogs,

but Alexander the Great or Napoleon are these figures that he brings up. And I have a hard time identifying with, like, you know, people who would conquer lands. But a love-lorn time traveler? Ooh, I love a love-lorn time traveler. So Ravanna, who is Kang's, like, great love and sometimes enemy and sometimes ally, like, a real, this is how you lose the time war vibe. Like, I love the Ravana stuff. And then I will also say in terms of that whole like learning to love yourself, fighting against yourself, all that sort of stuff, the introduction of the younger variant of Kang, Iron Lad, into Allen Heimberg, Jim Chung's Young Avengers, starting in 2005, that's so interesting to me because that character, again, a young variant of Kang understands who he is going to be or could be in all these very.

various villainous forms and goes and tries to be a hero. This is a, that's real Loki stuff. Loki does that sometimes. You know what I mean? And it's just sort of like, can I be good? Is there enough goodness in me or am I destined to become a super villain? That's really meaty for me as well. How about you?

Do you have a favorite comic booker? I can't believe we made it 40 minutes without mentioning Young Avengers. Sorry, Jomey. We got there eventually. I think if I had to recommend and one arc for people to check out. Based on the thrust of the He Who Remains speech in the Loki finale and based on the way that Kang talked about his exile

and the Multifacial War here, and then what we got in the mid-credit stinger with the other versions of Kang. Yeah, we'll talk about that more in a bit. I would recommend Avengers Forever, which is wild and trippy and really fun in general, but particularly for the aspect of like Kang versus Amortis, versions of Kang facing off against each other

and trying to thwart each other. And that idea of like you're saying, the Kang as the true chief nemesis, Forever Crystal, just wild stuff. That would be the place I'd go. So that run begins in 98. Kurt Bucic. 12 issues.

You can read it in a weekend. It's a blast. Can I read you a great Kurt Bucic quote that I found in this wonderful Polygon article about King that I really loved? He said, he's not Dr. Doom. He's not the Red Skull. He's not Magneto. He's Alexander de Great in purple pinstriped hip boots at the head of a sci-fi army. And every battle is do or die because otherwise,

you ain't really alive. I just really liked that. Alexander the Great purple pinstripe boots. Purple pinstripe boots. My goodness. It's wonderful. The other thing that's central in that arc other than the purple pinstripe striped boots

is the nature of a very tenuous alliance. You know? When do you have to maybe team up with someone you would elsewhere in your journey opposed? So it's a rich text for for many reasons. Quantum mania's king,

and broadly as is always the case in an MCU adaptation, the question of how closely exactly a character or slice of the canon maps on to the comics, who can say, we'll find out as we go.

The MCU typically like incorporates the heart of something and then adapts pretty liberally to make something track in the cinematic universe. Exiled by his

variance into the quantum realm, a place out of time and space, so that he would be trapped there. Sabotaged his ship. Can't get out. He is seeking to repair this multiversal energy core on his neural ship so that he can again, so he can escape the quantum realm and again, travel the multiverse, conquer on their universes. He needs Janet's help to fix this in the first place. This is just a relatable storyline.

Homsd Among Us has not had to repair the multiversal energy corps. of our neural ship. So that we could travel the multiverse again and conquer universes. Like, just another day, another Tuesday. You know what I mean? Oh, and then who hasn't once again needed help

regaining the core, which is the thrust of the present timeline plot of the movie. Kang needs Scott and his pin particles to repair and return the core. The idea of variance, we're not going to get lost in a super complex what is a variant, what are timelines conversation here, we'll be here all day.

Maybe we'll do more of that in a later episode. But broadly, we have a couple different ways of thinking about how variants have emerged in the MCU so far. There are the other versions of you from other universes. So we can think of the three peters in No Way Home or Strange 616, Strange 838 Sinister, slash incursion strange, Defender Strange in Multiverse of Madness. We've also met

the diverging timeline, the branched timeline variants who are some sort of nexus event is unfolding and they are creating alternate timelines that the TVA would like to prune that he remains was pruning actively. So this is the Loki in the television show. Loki.

his awareness and knowledge of his prior life. He was supposed to be pruned. He wasn't. So he has maintained a level of awareness that is uncommon there. Anything else on the comics corner, the king, the conqueror we meet in quantumania before we move forward? On the subject of exile, having been exiled by the other kings, by the council of kings, there's a couple clear comments we made there. One again, is that Napoleon idea, right? Napoleon exiled to Elba like let's just put him on an island

and contain him and that'll be fine right and then spoiler alert for history it wasn't but should we go back to the top and amend the spoiler warning for today's episode? Yeah all of history is also in here and then also the Bible because well not the Bible actually

Virgil because the we get the fall the imagery of the fall of King into the quantum realm we see these things branching off, this falling

star, it's very Lucifer morning star, it's very cast out of heaven into hell, into the quantum realm, into the underworld, sort of thing. So I think we have to think of this as like, yes, a military dictator exile, but also like a fallen angel,

sort of, and to think of the quantum realm as a literary device, like an underworld is so interesting. Like, because a lot of self-reckoning happens when you're on an underworld journey. So that's where we are.

We got outright devil language from He Who Remains in the Loki finale. You came to kill the devil, right? So that is absolutely present in what is unfolding here. Jonathan Majors. This performance was, we agree, the highlight of the movie. And based on that mid-credit stinger,

we're getting a lot more Jonathan Majors playing different versions of this character across, certainly phase six, hopefully phase five. We know Loki in phase five at a minimum. Where do you rank this performance? What do you want to say about this performance? How riveted were you by this performance? How much did you love it?

How much hope does it give you for the rest of the multiverse saga? I have question, like, of, you know, because then, you know, we're treated to all these other Kangs, And then we're treated to one very specific Loki season two Kang, right? And I have a lot of optimism for that Loki season two. Same king. I can't wait. Timely.

Very excited. The council of Kangs felt a bit more like not fully formed, maybe not fully baked all of these ideas. It's just sort of like a real visual treat for comic fans and just sort of an idea of like what. what we can do. But when you compare the performance of He Who Remains to King the Conqueror, I can only just completely admire the instrument that Jonathan Majors has at his disposal here because, so like that finale is largely just Jonathan Majors, Tom Hiddleston, and Sophia de Martino as he who remains Loki and Sylvie.

Chadden about apples. Just like that. I remember Sophia DiMartino talking. about how Jonathan Majors never stopped moving, that he would just, like, be perching on a desk or, like, between takes doing somerselt. So he was just, like, constantly moving. And that character is not, I wouldn't call him, like, antic. There is, like, a calmness to us because he knows so much. But there's just constant movement and unexpected movement from him. Meanwhile, his approach to King the Conquer was never a wasted gesture. He's remarkably still in this movie. And when, you know,

there comes the battle at the end when he's got his full suit on and he's like blasting out energy, you know, blasts and stuff like that. But those are still very like contained and purposeful movements or when he's like wailing on Scott and stuff like that. But that chaos in contrast to him just like. Yeah. Thank you. Jonathan Major is like I did not not have pasta for an entire year to not show you. my arm here. But like just the fact that when he has

gotten Cassie in confinement and he is just tossing around with a flick of two fingers, again, it's just a very remarkably still performance from him. And so just even though, you know, there's like slight enunciation variations, like slight, slight accent corner stuff going on here, but mostly it's the physicality.

And again, that's just like the instrument that he has at his disposal where I just see a huge difference between He Who Remains and King, the Conqueror. Yeah. What do you think? Yeah. Yeah.

I'm interested in chatting in a couple minutes about the similarities between King the Conqueror and He Who Remains in terms of the substance of what they were sharing with the other characters. But I agree with you in terms of the performances and the presentation of these variants,

it's amazing. It's amazing to be able to give us two versions of the same being who seem utterly distinct and yet united. And that is the, that is the specific proposition and challenge of this phase, whether it's with King or with loki's or whatever the case may be, Peter's, strangers, what about you is true to who you are, no matter the context, no matter the circumstance, no matter the experiences that have defined your life. And what varies variant to variant universe to universe timeline to timeline. So I love that you called out the little flick of the finger because there are so many moments

across the movie where that is just like an utterly arresting thing to watch. The Cassie sequence in the prison is certainly top of the list. There's something so menacing and fearsome about moving one of your fingers like two centimeters and being able to inflict that level of pain and anguish on another person. And then you get to a moment during the thick of battle where what are we used to thinking of with Ant Man and the Wasp? Well, when you shrink down really small and you fly about and you move around, nobody can see you. Even inside of this movie when Scott

asked Cassie, did you see what I did? She's like, no, you're this pig, right? For King, there's that flick again and it knocks them across the quantum realm because he is that fully in control and in command. Do you want to remind me of is when Henry Cavill is Superman like turns his head and

clocks flash. Yeah. That one we're like, oh, great comp. Yeah. I love that. That's a great comp. And, you know, I was thinking a lot about

like, again, the comparison of how the MCU is rolling out, Keng, compared to how the MCU previously rolled out. and we have, we have this, because I think the question of like, was this the right movie to introduce Kang to the moviegoing audience is certainly part of the discussion out on the interwebs over the last few days. I kind of like the idea of putting a big bad in a small

franchise where you wouldn't expect it. We actually got a lot more of Kang in this movie than we got of Thanos and Guardians, which is the comp there. And, you know, if you make the cop then prior introduction, right, you get a wink in Avengers. You have an entire finale in Loki. So we've actually spent more time with King to this point in the new saga, certainly than we had with Thanos previously. Can we, in terms of that multiverse of it all and the different versions of the character and the different performances, can we chat more for a minute about he who remains in King the Conquer and what we have loved? learned from each of them.

You know, we get a snapshot in both Loki and quantum mania of kind of the multiverse of it all, the multiversal war, the history of the multiverse of war, what happened, what went wrong? Obviously, there's been some multiverse downloading in what if, in No Way Home, in multiverse of madness, but the real big, like, showcase speeches about the war, Loki and this film. the threat of incursions was very, we got some crucial canon in Dr. Strange there.

Boy, it feels like a long time ago that we were with the Illuminati and John Kuzofi's Reed Richards explaining to us that quote, an incursion occurs with a boundary between two universes erodes that they glide destroying one or both entirely, but we get some, we get an overt incursions mentioned in this movie, too. All of this is, of course, setting up Secret Wars. I feel like we actually got more insights in Loki, though,

in terms of the crucial canon front about what the multiversal war was. And I think that while I love Kang and majors, and this was one of the highlights in the movie, that part of it is one of the things that didn't quite, like, absolutely hit for me. Because we didn't learn a ton that felt new until we get to the stingers, right? Two things.

Yeah. Number one is this where I get to debut my Miss Minutes impression on Throwing averse podcast? And nothing would throw me more. And number two, and our pal Eric Voss, the new rock stars is the one who sort of pointed this out to me. When King is really getting heated talking about this with Janet, there's a really weird cut that makes me feel like, you know, he speaks in such vague terms what they took from me. you know, and we don't get more information on that.

And it's my understanding based on conversations I've had around with people I know at Marvel that, like, it wasn't always necessarily the plan that King was going to be, that King Dynasty was going to happen, that King was going to be the big bad of, you know, phase five and or six. And so it's possible that at one point in this movie, we got more of that story. what happened with this king? What are the specifics of the war? And they cut it out to save it for King Dynasty, etc. You know?

Can I hit you with my Miss Minutes impression? Yeah, give me a Miss Minutes impression. Give me some multiversal war history lessons here. I'm not saying it's good, but I'm saying it exists. Okay, goes like this. Long ago, there was a vast multiversal war. Wow. Countless unique timelines battle each other for supremacy, nearly resists.

resulting in the total destruction of, well, everything. But then the all-known timekeepers emerged, bringing peace by recognizing the multiverse into a single timeline, the sacred timeline. Yeah. That was marvelous. Just, yeah, I'm with Steve. 10 out of 10 no notes.

It's my dino DNA boys. Wow. You need to pull a Loki, that was from the Loki premiere. You need to pull a Loki finale comp. some point and just shock us by appearing out of nowhere on the Zoom. Yeah, give us a little miss minutes jump scare. Yeah. But that's like a really, that, that, that's pretty central canon.

And then, you know, we got more of it, of course, in the finale from he remains, paragraphs upon paragraphs of this, but, you know, he goes into to the history of his variants. Yons ago before the TVA, a variant of myself lived on earth in the 31st. century. However, not every version of me was so, so pure of heart. To some of us, New Worlds meant only one thing, New Lands to be. Remember when we heard the word Concord and everyone lost their minds and just was like, what a time to be alive watching television together? Look, you finale was so good. So how do these two versions of the character compare to you?

They're both manipulators in their own way, right? They are manipulating events to get what they want. They're seducers in their own way. I wanted even more of that in King the Conqueror. I really wish there had been a moment. We're going to talk about King and Janet. We're going to talk about King and Scott, et cetera. But both of them are given this moment of like, do this thing for me.

And in both instances, he brings up this question of, like, lost time, which is, I don't mean to skip ahead, but it's such like an interesting fallout from the snap and a really fun conceits, fun, your mileage may very devastating conceit, that I don't think they fully thought through. Oh, my God. Remember when Bucky just like crumbles? So sad. I just rewatched the dusting the other day.

Why did I do that to myself? Anyway. Heart wrenching. The snap is still something that they're trying to figure out how to do the fallout from. I don't feel so good. And Joe's like, this is a barrel of laughs. Actually, my favorite part is when, like, all the guardians are going. And we didn't yet know who was staying, right?

And all the guardians are going. And I'm like, oh, man, we're left with Quill. And then Quill went. I was like, oh, Nebula. Hell yeah. Fun, rock it. All right. Some paper football action.

Just around the bend. Okay, but it was a huge swing and very successful within the confines of those movies. But when you have to deal with the ramifications of that, the MCU has been taking various approaches. One is like just ignore, kind of ignore that it happened at all. Another that I would argue got them into trouble was like to swing too hard and what actually would be the sociopolitical ramifications of this, which is where Falcon and the Winter Soldier got a little like balked down, right? But this idea of lost time for Scott. You had the flag smashers at number one on your villains list, right? When we did our recent final, I remember.

And then you like argued against them because then we had to keep into the movies, no shows. You had to amend your list. You don't care about people. So you were like, get the flag smashers out of here. I believe corporations should be people. Anyway. So, um... Oh, God.

Point being. Lost time for both. Both Janet and Scott is such a compelling, interesting thing. And there are ways in which... And a shared experience, a shared child. Right. And something we love about the Loki finale is when he who remains weaponizes Sylvie's anger to get what he manipulates her into that while being kind of transparent about the manipulation. But he gets her to do exactly what he wants her to do.

And that is just a delight to watch. and there really isn't that much time. You know, they do it efficiently and not that much time. And we watch our Loki, you know, Tom Hiddleston, Grapp with his heartache around that and all that sort of stuff. And so that's so juicy. And I wanted more of that. And I think I was a little disappointed that Kang the Conqueror that, you know,

I'm glad that Janet Scott have clear moral compasses. But wouldn't it have been interesting to see them be a little bit more tempted by this offer of time, you know? Strongly agree. Strongly, strongly, strongly agree. I, well, let's put a pin on the Janet's moral compass thing until we get to Janet not telling anyone about King the Cocker. Let's circle back to that.

I'm excited to talk about. But I really agree with that. I think that... Is there a celebrity couple named Jang? Janet and Tang? Is that their ship? Hardcore ship it. Hardcore.

I'm assuming that in mere moments we will spend a solid half hour talking about whether we think Janet and Kang fucked. They did. Before we get to that, the last thing I'll say on the he who remains King front is while I agree with you that I longed for that really personally targeted, weaponized temptation. One of the things that I am enjoying across the two performances is the recurring, if you think I'm bad, wait until you meet the other me's speech. And I really like the idea that, and maybe this won't be the case, maybe there will be other Kengis who do something completely different. I like the idea that every variant will try

something like this. Or actually, it's not even about trying it, genuinely believes this. I am so fierce and formidable. I am the thing that you have to fear, which means you have to side with me because every other version of me is even worse. You can't trust them and I know because look at what they've done to me. Look at what I've tried to stop them from doing. The follow-up to you came to kill the devil right.

Yeah. Is, well, guess what? I keep you safe. Yes. If you think of people, well, just wait till you meet my variance. And we got a version of that from Kang the Conqueror in Quadimania. His whole, I know how it all ends. You know, what's coming? Me, a lot of me. This idea that if

I don't get out of here. This great doom in the form of many Kangs will befall you this thing that Scott can't, thankfully, can't shake at the end of the movie that has haunted him and traveled back with him up above into the streets of San Francisco. The sunny, sunny streets of San Francisco, yeah. Never a cloud in the sky in the Bay Area.

This king, King, the Conqueror, claims, you know, chaos. spreading across reality is universes, and universe is gliding endless incursions, I saw the multiverse and it was dying all because of them.

And he who remains is like, I must preserve this sacred timeline. There's a real parallel thing across that. So will we get that from all of the other versions?

Will they have a different tact? I'm genuinely excited to find out. I love that part of the multiverse. I really do. I really, but on that like

persuasion front, like one of my favorite A line that sent like a tingle down my spine Like gave me the old Petty Tingle basically was like when When don't call it the Peety Tingle Great stuff Love the Beatty Tingle When

Jan is talking to Cryler She's like what the fuck happened We fought against him and he says He can be very persuasive Tingles chills And then I wish I had just seen more of that persuading rather than like, get me this thing or I'm going to kill your daughter. Okay.

You know, that's a less interesting version of that. But yeah. Well, another stretch of the movie that's packed with spine-singling lines are the conversations between Kang and Janet. Their relationship was a real highlight of the movie for me, I think, in part because those scenes were the, you know, it's a little bit of the Tyrion Lannister. It's great conversations vibe. but it was a break from the slug fest

that populated a great swath of the rest of the quantum realm stretch of the film. Is Slugfest a joke at, you know, Veb? Like, are you making fun of Vib? I would never make fun of VEP. I would follow Vib into whatever whole counting, who's drinking future

he wants to lead me into. I love Vib. Loved. But those conversations were when we got to find out a lot about the characters on the scale of what we got to find out about the characters at all in the movie. And we got some great, great Jonathan Majors' performances and lines in this stretch. When Janet asked what, this is after she has touched his mind by touching his ship, who among us, and has gotten these glimpses of the atrocities, the horrors, the King of the Conqueror

has inflicted across the multiverse. And she's asking him, what he's going to do if he gets out? win. That moment. It's so good. Petey tingles everywhere for that moment. But my actual favorite, favorite moment of the whole movie comes just before that. Tell me. Which is when she touches his neural shift. Yeah. And sees everything. No. But when he realizes what she. seen. Sees it on her face right away.

And he has a look on... Could it be because she's holding the core for like 17 minutes and just seems transfixed clearly by witnessing some abject horror? Do you think it was that? Was that a giveaway? He has this look on the space because they go from this like, okay, okay. First things first. Jonathan majors Michelle Pfeiffer to the hottest people that have ever existed on this or any

other planet. Michelle Pfeiffer is in her 60s? Still can, still should, still would. Okay? Michelle Pfeiffer and Michael Douglas both. look fucking great. Phenom. Phenom.

They're like extremely hot castaway sapio-sexual connection. Let's do a science experiment over decades together. Yeah. Yeah.

It was amazing. And what I feel like you can see in Kang there is this chance to be like I don't have to be fucking Napoleon or Alexander the Great here. I just get to be a brilliant, like an extremely hot scientist and this other extremely hot scientist wants to do science with me. And we're so, oh, and I'm going to give her,

give her this gift. I'm going to take her home. This is what she wants. Like, I'm going to do this. I get to be for now, for right now, later I might, what, burn people out of time for what they've done for me. Likes to talk about burning people out of time. Yep. But for right now, I get to be a hero. I get to be, like, dashing and brilliant and all those sort of stuff like that. And then when he sees in her eyes, that she has seen this other side of him and his disappointment. He's like, oh, now you know. That...

Now you know who I am. That's the whole movie. It reminds me of that line delivery that Adam Driver gives in Last Jedi when Ray says, I know everything I need to know about you, right? And Caloran goes, oh, you do? Oh, you do.

Like, you've made up your mind about me. And oh, you're not going to change your mind about me. and sort of thing. And like, I mean, she does. But that disappoints. Disappointment. Crestfallen. He's crestfallen.

It's not like, it's not, oh, I've been figured out. Oh, you know, blah, blah. It's like he, I think he got wrapped up and being someone else for however long they were down there. This is a beautiful and very tender read that it's not just that his plan was thwarted. It's that he really wanted somebody to believe that he could be. a different kind of multiversal conqueror. I don't think in that moment he thought Janet could thwart his plan.

I don't think he thought Janet was a real threat to him in that moment. He didn't realize what she had, right? So I don't think it was like, anyway, I'm prone to attend a read. So perhaps I'm being too gracious or whatever. But like, I'd say him and I love it. The way that he tried to say one last time, like we can still go. We can leave right now. Yeah, was just.

I don't want people to think that I'm giving like, I'm like, oh, Kang, what a sweet romantic hero. You love King, you believe in King, and you want to conquer the multiverse with King. It's established murderous canon. Again, hoomst among us would it. But the point being, we've talked about Lucifer and Alexander the Great Napoleon, but another comp that I think is so fascinating that I've heard thrown around about King from Jeff Loveness is this idea of,

Heathcliff from Wuthering Heights that he thinks that Kang is like Bronte Corner. Steve, can we get a sound drop for Bronte Corner, please. Welcome to the Moors. If you've never read or seen a version of Wuthering Heights. Heathcliff is like one of the most miserable toxic, hot bastards in all

of literature. He just wanders around the moor with his like tits out essentially like whining over Kathy his long-loss love. But this idea of Kang, and this connects to like Ravanna Renslayer, this idea of Kang as this sort of like wounded lover. And if you think about the way in which when Janet comes back with Hank and with Hope, and she's like, he's never going to stop looking for me. That is like classic Heathcliff banging down your window.

We'll marry your sister. and law, we'll kidnap your daughter, we'll do whatever it takes to get you to pay attention to him. Like, that's what that energy is. You know what I mean? And, like, if you think about that, then, like, Cassie becomes this sort of, like, Kathy Lindt. Anyway, there's a whole, like, Wuthering Heights that you can map on here.

But, like, but that obsessive behavior from Kang and his, like, there are moments in this film where he just starts crying. Yeah. It's seemingly for no reason. And again, I think that's just Jonathan Majors and or the writers or and or Peyton Reed injecting this sort of like braunt-ish or bironic heroism into Kang that like is different from. Is President Loki actually, but is different from a lot of other villains that we get. And that, yeah, I mean that, you know, I feel like when we did our villains pod, there were a couple real patterns and through lines of what led to a compelling lasting. performance and some of that was the direct connections to our heroes and a shared history

with those heroes and a lot of it was that palpable humanity. I love the Heathcliff comp and the Wutherlander Heights comp and like it makes me think of, okay, part of this is just the product of how many times across time Kang has faced off against the Avengers. But like, what does it tell us that when Scott says he's an Avenger, he's like, have I killed you before? He literally can't remember But Janet occupies such in a fixed and untouchable place in his mind and in his heart that the second he sees hope next door, he says, hello jelly bean. He knows exactly who that is. That's amazing. Just gave me so strong, hello, Clarice.

Like, vibes are so good and so creepy, you know? But, like, then that's the, on the, on the handible front, like, that's the other thing that was really, that really clicked and worked about the performance and the performance. and the version of the character we met in this film is that you're drawn in by this magnetism. It's just riveting. And then you have a moment where Janet rightly points out that he's talking about eliminating entire timelines,

universes, swaths, legions of dead. And he says, I wish that mattered, Janet. He genuinely does not believe that that is a relevant data point in the context of his multiversal conquest. That's horrific. What a maniac. What a monster.

I love him. So they fucked. We're on the same page. I mean, we'll get to Janet Krylar and Hank Linda and the conversations about the sexual escapades in the Pim Van Dine decades past. It's just like stuffing in Turkey, Mallory, you know. Dude, I, okay. even for Ring ofverse, I'm not sure this is an appropriate thing to say on the podcast.

We might have to cut this. I'm sorry. You cannot convince me a movie-going consumer who has seen other movies that Michael Douglas, one of the most overtly sexual beings in the history of cinema, wouldn't immediately say,

I know exactly. where to put my hands and what to do here. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Michael Douglas for like all the 90s, all the movies were about like how like you would risk murder like being murdered or whatever to fuck Michael Douglas. It's worth it. Worth it.

Says the 90s. Oh boy. Anything else on the janitor front before we get to King and Scott? No, this feeds into Scott because something I do want to say. about Michelle Pfeiffer, like, I think the best scenes in this movie are between Michelle Fifer and Jonathan Majors. And I think Jonathan Majors and Michelle Pfeiffer are, like, actual movie stars. And that brings me to our beloved Paul Rudd.

And my spicy take here is that... Oh, my God. I'm so scared. I think Paul Rudd is a national treasure. And I think he's wonderful and so talented and perfect and lovely. and I'm not sure he's a leading man. That's my question. I don't know that I think.

I think Scotland works best in Civil War and Endgame when he is a supporting player. And I was looking at Paul Rudd's CV and I'm like, there is not a single Paul Rudd starring film that I'm like, yeah, this is it. And like you can take it like he's great in the Anchorman franchise or he's great, you know, he like shows up in forgetting Sarah Marshall or he's great in like

knocked up but then when he makes this is 40 which is a knocked up sequel where he's a star I'm like I'm less interested and so like this is my this is my this I think is the imbalance of the movie and again I love Scott Ling and I love Paul Rudd

look at us love Paul Rudd establish ring of verse again yeah okay now you love Paul Rudd I'm with you when you have something as strong as Jonathan Majors as King it underscores what I think is the wobbliness of putting Paul Redis Scott laying at the center of a film.

Okay. That's my assessment of what's going on here. I want to thank you for sharing this and feeling like you could share this with me and Steve and the Legions who are listening to this podcast. I'm fascinated by this. Here's why I'm so interesting. I just want you to think about it. I just want everyone to think about it.

This is not an anti-Paul Rudd take. this is a, is this tool in the Swiss Army knife better used elsewhere? Do you know? Okay. Here's, I'm going to hit you with my take now, which is, I think, maybe not, but I think almost the opposite take. So this is going to be interesting to talk through. Okay.

Which is. Because you're Kansas City fan? Sorry, go ahead. I mean, frankly, how dare you? I know. I was hoping to win you to my side by reminding you that Paul Rudd shows up at like every single Kansas City sporting event. How dare you?

I mean, look, I'm as much of an admirer of Patrick Mahomes as anyone. But as a Ravens fan, the idea of this stranglehold on the AFC for another decade, it's just too painful for me to even speak about. So, no, I am not a Kansas City Chiefs fan. I am, however, a Paul Road fan. And this was one of the things that really didn't work in the movie for me. We're saying the same thing didn't work, which was Kang Scott, but I think for different reasons. I felt the absence in this particular part of the movie of that signature, Scott Lang, Paul Rudd, charm, and humor.

And I wanted more of that more broadly, that Ant Man franchise energy across the movie, but particularly, like, felt it lacking in this dynamic. Because you have other moments of Scott levity. Relieving the pressure of a certain moment with the joke. You get it, you get like a tiny bit of it in the Scott King stretch in the movie, which just actually made me feel the absence of it more. Like you get it with, it's a moment you already mentioned. When Thor comes up, you know, are you the one with the hammer? And what does Scott say?

It's like, oh, yeah, we get confused all the time, similar body types. I needed so much more of that I crave for. for I craved more of that Paul Rudd charm that is so essential to how I think about Scott Lang and Amman and why Scott is a compelling figure and counterweight into

so much of the often very heavy and serious stretches of MCU storytelling. I love that tonal mashup typically. I really felt it was missing in this part of the story. Like when Scott is charging

into King's stronghold and shouting that his word our word is our we had a deal

our word is our bond I'm like what? What? Where's the zinger? Like where's the zinger? Yeah.

That's not Scott and that's not what Paul Rudd brings to the role. Again, I've been thinking I've been really trying to work this out hence my like Mike

it can cancel on the internet hot take about Paul Rudd, but like, or at least got like, but I think that like, I was thinking about that in terms of Tony, what Robert Downey Jr. does with Tony Stark in terms of blending those inner demons with that like snark and quip unrivaled anywhere. And I think that there is an attempt to sort of blend that Paul Rudd divorce dad affability, that sort of like Robin Williams and Mrs. Doubtfire and like Hook and Steve Martin 90's dad affability with

with something much darker and more serious and it just, like the peanut butter and the chocolate are not, I don't know why I keep coming back to fucking M&Ms, but like it is just not... We are recording at a meal time. So I think we're a mistake. We're both hungry. It's just not, it is not...

It is not working. But when Scott Lang is that's like the sweetening agent in something else, and that's why he's so good in endgame and so good in Civil War, it works better. It works perfectly. This, I think, also connects to what you brought up earlier about longing for a little bit more of that, like, overt temptation. Because even though that wouldn't be humor, even though that wouldn't be quirk and charm,

it would be something that is specific to Scott, right? And I think like that that's all kind of of a piece and like wanting a little bit more of the particular nature of Scott Lang, Ant-Man, established MCU character inside of the core hero villain dynamic. I think it's really cool that we got that with Janet and King. I thought that was great. Trailer misdirection are absolutely nothing new.

That's fine. But like you put it if I may quote you, even though you were here on the pod and could just say this yourself if I quote you to you on Zoom you know this like the idea of making it that get my McGuffin or I kill your kid

propulsive force instead of hey we're the same would Scott have said oh you're right we are the same I do want that time back sure I'll do what you say no of course not it's not like I think he should have done that or would have done that

but from the minute we're with Scott when he gets out of jail. He's a every, the orienting principle around which he loses his life is I have lost all of this time with my kid. After the blip, I have lost all of this time with my kid. And so that would have just, again, given us more of a

reason for this to be Scott in particular beyond just the fact that Ant Man movies have always involved the quantum realm and Pim particles were a part of the core blood. I mean, by core, I mean the multiversal engine core. Not like

I should probably I should probably say this for when we're talking about the Ant family, but I'm not going to do that. And I'm going to say this. Something that our pal Dave Gonzalez keeps quipping at me about this movie. He's like, well, Peyton Reed finally got to make his Fantastic Four movie because Peyton Reed has said in interviews that he basically pitched Fantastic Four movie back. And I think it was like 2003, something like that when it was at Fox. And yeah, 2002 or 2003 where he like pitched a Fantastic Four movie. movie at Fox. And I just think that, like, he tried to turn the Aunt

family into the Fantastic Four family. And the first Ant Man movie feels the closest to what we have decided we think an Ant Man movie should be. And a lot of that has to do with because it has a lot of residual Edgar Wright DNA on it. And Edgar Wright has his idea of who, who Scott Lang is, what, you know, what is at the core of him and all that sort of stuff like that. And I feel like we're just sort of like floating further and further away from that. And the core of him is that he's a character who gets to listen to Luis tell seven minute stories. And I.

There's no, no reason for Michael Pena to not be in this movie. Zero reason. I agree. Bring him into the goddamn quantum realm. I don't care. Why is he not in this movie? Of course. I don't understand.

It would be like an exponential effect on the way he responded to getting to drive one of the Pimparticle Hot Wheels. It would be incredible. I just watched the third Magic Mike this last weekend. Everyone knows that Magic Mike and Quantumania are excellent parallels. But what the Third Magic Mike does is it forgets all the things that were great about the second Magic Mike in pursuit of something else. And I'm just sort of like, why would you take the things that really work in your franchise out of your franchise and do something else entirely? Like, you know, we meet, again, I'm skipping ahead, but we meet all these characters in the Quantum Realm that I'm. I'm just sort of like barring space cheetah who I would spend 24-7 with personally.

Like, I'm like, I don't understand why you're trying, why you're sweating uphill to make me care about these characters when you have pre-established characters in this franchise that I care about that you could just put in here instead. And part of it, I think, is what I like to call the Rick and Mortification of the MCU because you've, Fygie who loves Rick and Morty has hired first Michael Waldron and now Jeff Loveness to Rick and Morty Writers and Jessica Gow over on Sheeulk, three Rick and Morty writers. Jeff Loveness, I think, is a genius.

Jeff Loveness wrote what I think is the best Rick and Morty episode, which is the bad of acid episode. And I'm not saying Rick and Morty, like it's a bad thing, though. Obviously, Rick and Morty is dealing with a lot of controversy right now, but that's neither here nor there. it's a sensibility that I'm not sure translates from a brilliant, oftentimes brilliant 25-minute animated show episode by episode to what the MCU is trying to do.

And so especially a lot of this quantum realm, flotsam and jetsam that we get that we see, but doesn't feel like it's sticky in any sort of way, don't feel like I'm emotionally invested in these characters. that feels like a rick immortification in a way that, like, I don't think works in this example, you know? Vib seems sticky. Literally. Literally. Love that guy.

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Call 1-800-526-7736 to learn more or visit Trimfair radio.com. Modoc. We'll chat about Modoc more later when we talk about more of the quantum people and the other characters we just met in the quantum realm. But Modoc was a real rarity as a new figure we got to meet in the movie who did have some sort of core interaction with Kang, and that taught us something about Kang, like, hearing Kang talk about how he can't remember the Avengers tells us something about King. Seeing him hurl Modoc across the prison for daring to speak to him tells us something

about King. This is not a character who thinks seriously about engendering loyalty or values that at all. So, like, if we had a little bit more of that, and of course with Scott and Luis and the ex-con group, like that idea of loyalty being so present in what makes like his friend group and found family so strong. Like the fact that those characters are willing to follow each other into a forest on truth serum. It is truth serum to make sure that they're okay was just like was something that was really missing.

And I think that the new family unit, getting to see how Cassie interacted with Janet and Hope and Hank was cool and nice. But to take out Luis. And also, I think, Maggie and Paxton, because the prior movies in the franchise had this really lovely. And I don't know if this is just like my child of divorce goggles. But like, I was really, really like that part of the franchise that you could see this like real modern family mashup of something that was. specific to the way this family looked and chose to like build a life and live and interact together. And just like none of that's, none of that's here. It doesn't mean I don't want Janet and Hank.

I thought Janet and Hank in this movie were delightful. But where were those, where were those Ant Man heartbeats? I missed them. I missed them. I did. Plenty of heartbeats in the Council of Kings, though. And we should probably hit the stingers before we moved to our aunt family. We talked about the mid credits already a bit.

definitely met Ramatut, definitely met Immortis Master of Time. There's a lot of debate on the internet about who the other, the third main variant who we meet there is. Obviously, we see a ton of other variants. We get the All of Us line. But I'm still sticking with Scarlett Centurion, even though this would be a real visual update on the character. We don't have the signature red here. There's some Iron Ladd speculation, some kid Amortis

speculation. To me, the main reason I think is Scarlet Centurion is because that's like the other primary, most central and relevant version of Kang, and so it would just make sense for that to be the other character. They showcased here, but we definitely got a lot of immorice, and that

feels very notable for what is to come. They're talking about how King the Conqueror is dead. I think we can all agree that he is not dead, and that we got a very long flashback of Darren Cross's Yellow Jacket being compressed into the quantum realm

to remind us that being compressed into a increasingly small subatomic level does not mean that you are actually dead. They talk about the Avengers. They talk about our heroes, how they are, quote, beginning to touch the multiverse and how they now are the threat that requires focus. This is all building, of course, toward Phase 6's Kang Dynasty. Is there anything else that you want to say about, you know, you mentioned the tone a little bit of this mid-credit singer,

earlier. Anything else in the mid credits and the Council of Kings here that you want to hit before we talk about Victor Timely for a second? Like a really fun visual, I think, you know, just like one of those ripped straight from the panel sort of situations. Though I will say, or no, what I want to say is I like the little text of I don't have the line in front of me, but it's something like, you know, must really bother you that you weren't the one to do it. Yes. to the to the possible scarlet centurion possible other other variant so that's a nice little like ooh what is that oh what does that mean right why is it this time as personal for this variant you know

so yeah i love that post-credit stinger without question one of the best parts of the movie joe i was just so sad it wasn't like sitting next to you so i couldn't like clutch your hand at this moment. The absolute glee that I experienced. I mean, first of all, super fun to see Victor timely. And I was surprised by that. But when we pan into the audience

and we get to see Loki and Mobius, I just lost my mind. I mean, if season two of Loki is Loki and Mobius hunting king across time? Through time? I will just be more delighted than I can possibly articulate,

which is tough because my job is to articulate by delight on podcasts. Victor Timely Super quick comics corner here is this is he's in in 1901 in the comics in Timely Wisconsin this is where he establishes

Chronopolis, chronopolis basically the the crossroads way to enter all the different aspects of the time stream in limbo for King. But I think the real notable thing about Victor Timely

in addition to okay this is a character in a certain point in time when this technological advancement wouldn't be present, who because of King's time travel has this technological advancement with him, this is not actually a variant. This is, this is King in disguise.

So is that also what's happening here, where this is Prime Kang pretending to just lay low? Or will Victor Timely in the MCU be a different version of King? I mean, what I anticipate, and I hope this happens, is like what I anticipate is like timely is just going to like be pretend to be this befuddled you know geeky yeah uh you know science guy look he's like no I swear he's a mastermind he's like no what me poor me poor inventive me I just loved when Mobius was like this you said this guy was like so terrifying it seems great this guy seems charming he is wonderful oh wow

Very persuasive. Yeah. Mobius is all of us. It's like, this guy is, I'm charmed. I am charmed. This guy, this extremely hot guy, this is a threat. Anyway. Speaking of charm, let's hit the aunt family.

We've touched on some of this, but we'll kind of run through it and see what is left to say. Scott's, let's open where the movie does, which is Scott's San Francisco strolls, his book reading. trips to the coffee shop, the opening and closing stretches of the movie felt like very true to that spirit of Ant Man that, as we've already discussed, was missing from some of the quantum realm-bound portions

of the movie that really zoomed in grounded nature. We'll talk about a little bit more like what was gained and what was lost in the quantum realm in a couple minutes. I do need to go to you, though, on Joanna Robinson and San Francisco, Francisco Bookseller Corner here and ask you about the reading for lookout for the little guy. First of all, will you be reading this when it is actually released in September in our world, which it is going to be?

But what did you think as an expert in Bay Area book selling? You know, it's really fun. So, yeah, this movie, this book is coming out in September. Why is this not coming out in tandem with the movie? What do you think that means? It wasn't done. Or there's information in there that they want to? That's what I'm wondering.

They also have their weird like spoiler window, so maybe they're like, we need everyone to have a chance who have seen this on Disney Plus before we put this out there. It's February. I know. On Disney Plus, I said it anyway. What's really fun, self-promotion corner, is that my book is coming out in November and this book is coming out in September. We were talking about, and then my pal, Anthony Breskin has a marble book that's coming out in the fall as well. And I was just thinking about all these books being like clustered together for a little display and how that could be really fun and a bookstores. Anyway, you ready to knock Scott Lang off the bestsellers list? I don't. Oh, it's happening.

It's happening. But bookseller corner, I'm assuming you're referring to my really grumpy text, a tweet that I put out yesterday. I just thought it was illuminating and insightful, but it was clearly a passion point for you. There's a bookstore in San Francisco called City-A-L-Ace bookstore, which is allegedly where Scott is having his book readers. And it was a famous bookstore. It is home of the beat poets. I bought some Carol back in the day. I bought some Alan Ginsberg there.

I was just talking to someone about like our first trip to city lights and what book we bought. And I bought Howell by Allen Ginsburg. Anyway, it is like a San Francisco literary institution. But it is also absolutely not where Scott Lang, Vanney Memoirist, is having his book reading. There are like strip clubs and adult bookstores and all the stuff around. there, which is fine. It's great. It's the flavor of the neighborhood, but I would not have a book reading where, like, kids are showing up an Ant Man costumes at City Lights, for sure. Also, Scott Lincoln definitely command a much larger audience than that. I would put him into a much bigger venue than, you know, the, the cramped corners of City Lights bookstore.

Someone suggested in my Twitter mentions that perhaps Scott used his Avengers influence to get that location in order to impress Hank and Janet. And that's truly like the only good explanation is that like to make good with his like in-laws, he's like, ooh, look, they let me read a city lights bookstore. I like that. I like that. Especially because Scott seemed so genuinely delighted and touched when he learned that Hank had, in fact, read the book. Every word of it. So appealing to Hank and Janet's taste with that. I like it.

I like it. In addition to City Lights, we visit some other institutions. We chatted about the price of the donuts earlier and the price of the coffee. Rubin, thinking that Scott is Spider-Man and then at the end of the movie realizing that he was not

and charging Scott $12 for a coffee. True, this is the stuff, Lionel territory for me where I'm like, this is what this is. I love those moments. They're so joyful and amusing. And I was glad we got them and wanted more. One thing that we have plenty of, though,

in this movie, Joe. Yeah. Family secrets. And here are just a few of them. Cassie's arrest. We're going to chat more about Cassie and Scott in a few minutes. Promise.

Cassie's gotten arrested once before when jail calls. Why is jail calling? And Scott has to go. Hope's already there. And over the course of his family dinner. What does Scott have jail stored in his phone?

You know. He has a long history with the legal system. Nobody told Scott that Cassie had been arrested before. Okay. Next family secret is that... Wait, sorry.

Really quickly. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry to interrupt your flow. One more San Francisco Corner thing. Oh, please. I should not be surprised by the City Lights bookstore thing because in the very first,

speaking of jail, in the very first Sandman movie, when Scott comes back from San Quentin jail, they drive through the Marin Headlands in order to get home, which is like physically impot. There's no route on this planet that would take you that way to get home from jail. But they just wanted that like glory shot of the Golden Gate Bridge.

And I can't blame them. But I'm just saying not a single location has been actually scouted, I think, in San Francisco, California. That's all. Speaking in glory shots of the San Francisco Bridge, I was going to save this for later. But I'll just ask now. Oh. Our hope it's got fucking on top of the Golden Gate Bridge. They're taking beers up there.

I hope they have some sort of fucking Harry Potter warming charm because it's cold as shit on the top of the gold is freezing out there. Are you kidding me? Like if they brought there like hanging out up there with a six pack. No, if they brought there like if they brought their tiny expand and then thus expandable space heaters up there, then sure. I hope they are. But otherwise, it is way too cold up there to have a romantic assignation. Would you freeze just to have sex at dizzying heights over the lethal bay? Me?

Certainly not. Yeah. Okay. As you know, I barely leave my home as it is. So, no, I would not. But I admire, I admire. Now, Scott and Janet, that's a. I would go for it.

Oh boy. Here's another question. Talk about a family secret. Hope has wings. Because she is the, why doesn't everyone have wings at this point, though? They seem so useful. This is another kind of like recurring bit in the franchise that just, you know, wasn't really present here. Because Scott is so aghast when he realizes that Hope has wings and he doesn't.

But of course he gets to fly on his. his aunts, you know, RIP Antony, we still miss you to this day. Antonio Benderas, like all of his little ants that he bonds with. You know, the ants will play a role in this movie. And Hank gets a lot of great ant-centric canon, but the Scott Ant Bond. Yeah, Bond. Yeah. Where did it go?

I miss it. He was like, hey, these ants, are they, like, scientifically advanced when he went down to their secret lab? because Cassie, with the help from Hank and Hope, has built this quantum satellite that sends a signal to the quantum realm, which I'm just going to say that signals in the quantum realm

is a large part of what the second movie in this franchise, Ant Man and the Wasp hinges on in terms of finding Janet. So despite these characters saying, Mom, we tried to talk to you and you wouldn't tell us anything, they definitely know that sending signals into the quantum realm.

As Cassie even says, yeah, it sends information back, but also that it can reach someone. Now, they don't know that there are other people are being streached on there because this gets us to our next secret. In addition to nobody telling Janet and Scott about this quantum satellite, Janet has not mentioned, Ken. She has not mentioned to anyone that she spent 30 years with this genocidal warlord.

and I just have a hard time believing this stuff. I have a hard time believing that Janet would not have mentioned this. I have a really hard time believing they wouldn't have mentioned the tool that they were building to Janet, particularly Hank, because the defining aspect of the recent years in his life was losing Janet, missing Janet, thinking about Janet, realizing that he could maybe find her in the quantum realm, and obsessively working on doing exactly that. So that was just weird to me, like that these characters, especially given that the movie hinges on their family unit and their family dynamic, weren't talking to each other about anything. And it's a plot device, right? It opens up. Modoc is there on the other end of that call. Whoops, it's Modoc. And they get sucked in through this portal into the quantum realm. But like, did that part work for you at all that these characters had no awareness about what was having? happening in each other's lives? I'll get back to a specific part of that was Scott and Cassie that really didn't work for me later.

But in general, how did that work for you? I would say even tougher for a lot of people is reconciling Janet's attitude about going into the quantum realm at the end of Amin a WASP versus fear here. Yeah. Yeah. I like the theory that it's possible that the Janet that we met in the second Ant Man's, film never met King because what happened with He Who Remains at the End of Loki is part of what causes King to get excelled into the quantum realm. So perhaps that Janet never met King, but now she has.

And this is what happens, folks, when you deal with nonlinear storytelling. But I don't know if that's what they're going to go for. But I do know, okay, speaking of not to promote other people's books necessarily, but my palanthony Bresikin, the Marvel book that he is coming out, is this massive timeline book, right? This like trying to wrangle and reconcile the continuity of the MCU via this book that they're putting out where they're like plod holes. No, we filled them. So I'll be very curious to see how Kang and nonlinear storytelling factors into something like that, you know? Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Interesting. I mean, even the little moment of Loki where, you know, the idea of like the Avengers, what happened with the Avengers meddling with time was supposed to happen because it was supposed to happen? It was supposed to happen? And then if you crack open a sacred timeline, how many versions of that do you have? And this idea of the sacred timeline is our idea of it has to be changed now because the TVA is so different now than it was at the beginning of Loki.

Yeah, sacred timeline's gone. Fractured. Timeline branches everywhere. And in that, and the sacred timeline was this one version of the thing. that that one variant, he who remains, wanted to protect and preserve in order to thwart his other variants. And so there's a part of you as a viewer that's like, well, maybe he was right to want to thwart them. Maybe he was right when he said, look, you should fear Kang the Conqueror, this other version of more. And yet, you can't, you can't land there because, like, this was a character

who was depriving everybody in the universe of free will, right? Like, that can't be the thing that we come down on the side of. I have artery ordered you a Kang was right mug, and it will be waiting for you when you get home. Do I have room on my mug shelf next to my Thanos was right mug? It's purple on the outside and like a greenie on the inside. Oh, Joe.

I don't have a Thanos was right mug. I would just like to state that clearly in case anyone is troubled by that. But will I, once you gift it to me, who can say? Will you have a, I loved my time in the quantum realm mug? Let's talk about what we gain

and what we lose in the quantum realm. And we already talked about just the character set and the choices to not have Luis and ex-con and that aspect of the story and what we really missed in that respect in terms of that heartbeat and charm. Overall, the visual palette, the setting, who we meet, what we see, where we go,

the heist, the quantum realm battles, the scale and context of the actual powers for these characters. They're shrinking in the growing when you're in this visual tapestry. What worked for you? What didn't? I think losing some of those really fun Ant-Man gimmicks, which are most at play in the first Ant-Man movie when you're talking about like Ant-Man on the grooves of a record,

zipping down a drain, all that sort of stuff. Again, that feels very Edgar right to me. And I feel like, again, we're moving further and further away. like just turning giant sometimes is not as interesting as some of that really fun stuff. So without those relative size dimensions, you know what I mean? You have like Ant Man fighting, again, it feels rick and morty, like fighting a tentacled sun. That's really fun, but like it's not giving me Ant Man. I did think the probability storm, and we have so many Scots and then eventually so many hopes.

together one place. As we think about this idea of a man at war with himself like Kang, and the only way that Scott is able to achieve this one thing down here in the probability storm is that all the Scots want one thing, which is to protect Cassie. There's something quite beautiful in there. Obviously, hilarious to have a Baskin-Robbins, Scott in there. Obviously, giving me a little bit of, like, ash in Army of Darkness, you know, Bruce Campbell, like, beating himself up sort of stuff.

Like, that's fun. But it felt like it missed some of an even richer potential of Scott learning something about himself through that. Like, what did he discover? And certainly, like, hope kind of feels like she's not in this movie at all, to be honest with you. So, like... Yeah, barely meant. Like, it's bizarre. Like, eventually Lily is physically there, but the character does not feel like.

She's there at all. When wasp comes back through the portal at the end for the big, the big punch moment, you're like, I forgot this. This is the second titular character in the movie. I mean, one of our listeners, and I think someone emailed me, but they might have tweeted it at me, but they were like, can we just pretend that the wasp in the title is Janet? Yeah, it's like, that's the wasp in this movie. But like, but I think that, and I don't know if it has anything to do with like,

eventually Lily's various opinions on things or social media presence. Maybe they're like, maybe we'll just dial her down so we don't have to like do too much of that. But it's odd. It's deeply odd hopes presence in this movie. And I think that like, and you and I both agree that the ending, let's come back to that. But anyway, so the quantum realm, I think you and I both agree that we miss some of the like Ant Man size gimmick stuff that is part of what gives this franchise, this particular franchise its distinct flavor.

Yeah. I thought the... I thought the... I thought the Quantum Realm looked really cool. Again, I mentioned already that overt comic booky vibe and aesthetic.

I like that part of it. You can't read a piece about Quantum Media without seeing a Star Wars comp in terms of the visual palette of the film, like a lot of cantina comps, etc.

I got a lot of Guardians of the Galaxy in MCN. see you energy from the quantum realm. That stuff was fun and cool. I think what you said I felt very keenly like, and the guys talked about this on the Midnight Boys,

part of what is so not just fun and cool and creative and inventive about the first two Ant Man movies, but again, I keep coming back to this. What is particular about this franchise? Why Ant Man? What happens here that isn't happening elsewhere? Or that when it does

happen elsewhere is equally delightful. something like getting the Empire Strikes Back Peter Plan in Captain America's Civil War because Scott has gone into being Giant Man, right? And they have to take that, oh my God, do any of you have shocking powers that you've been keep it quiet until now, right? Like those moments are so great. The briefcase fight in the first Amman movie, the train set, the idea. And it's like referenced here that a toy in a kid's bedroom could be the setting for

the cataclysmic showdown at the end of a more. Marvel movie is just so fresh and unique to this franchise. In the second movie, I think we have some of that. Like, you know, when you get a moment like Hope running along the edge of a blade of a knife's blade in the kitchen, or Scott using the bed of a truck as like a scooter, you know, a skateboard to get through the streets of San Francisco. So you have a moment like Cassie also can become giant already. And they both are giant and they're running into each other's arms and embracing. It's like, you're huge.

I know. And I'm like, are they? You can barely tell because there's, you've completely lost the context that makes those specific renderings unique. I think that this is like also a little

bit present in the heist plot because you have another classic, let's have a Scott Langheist, Scott's got to steal something aspect of the story. And so on the one you're like, cool, that's the thing about Scott, right? Scott can execute a heist. But think about Scott getting the Ant Man suit in the first place when he breaks into Hank's house.

And of course, that is a long con that Hank is running. Or the way that they work to thwart Darren at Pymtack. Like the level of ingenuity that is at play in the plan is something that is really particular to Hank, Scott, hope, their skills, their experiences, their desires. This heist was, I need you to go get this thing for me. And so you miss some of those elements that I think are really signature. And I think turning the suit into Iron Man Nanotech and taking it out of the like physical realm. This is the one thing I was like, fine, I'll allow it

because it's always, I'm just always like, there's no way Scott can get into the Ant Man suit this quickly. Like when the ants are counting down from 10 seconds in the jail, I'm like, There's just no way. So I was relieved. But yes, your point is valid. Oh. The probability field, the probability storm. I agree with you.

I think, like, it's kind of emblematic of the film overall where it's a fun idea. There's stuff about it that works and is amusing, like the Baskin-Robbins dude or seeing Scott go giant, one of the Scots go giant and, you know, turn into spaghetti strands a la. a la our dude Krasinski. Charles mentioned this on Midnight Boys. I thought this was a great point. None of those Scots have a different suit. Like, none of them other than Baskin-Robbins guy, has anything

about them that is unique. That's just, like, where is that level of inventiveness? Or, to your point about, like, the characters teaching each other something, and that, again, as we've talked about with Loki and the Stranges and the Peters is, like, really the appeal, I think, in so many ways of

thematically what these kinds of stories can allow, I'm sure it hits when they're like, we're all, we all want the same thing to protect Cassie. But we knew that about Scott that he cared about Cassie. And wouldn't that hit, wouldn't that hit that much more if it were like a kid and a gator and a woman and an old British man? And a box of line for the gator in his little plastic pool. Man, alligator Loki still just top tier stuff. Top tier stuff. Yeah, exactly.

It's just not. Yeah, I totally. I totally agree. And in terms of that, like, well, we all want the same thing. Cassie aspect. Let's get to Cassie and Cassie and Scott, because that was really the through line of the movie in terms of like the core dynamic that the story orients around. Catherine Newton. I want to say it. Yeah, Catherine Newton, big fan. I actually quite liked her in this. I think you were a little less high on her than I was. But like... I liked her a lot. That's not... I thought she was great. And I'm a big Catherine Newton fan in general. I'm excited about stature. I was. I was a lot. I was a big Catherine Newton fan in general. I'm excited about stature. I remain excited about Young Avengers. My nitpicks are about the Scott Cassie, where we find those two at the beginning of the movie. That's what I can't shake. I'm so curious for your thoughts on this. Well, I mean, again, scenes from a divorced family, like, there is a version of this

story where, like, despite Scott's desire to be close to Cassie, despite the time that he's lost with her, it's one thing to, like, show us hope and Scott and Cassie. all like cozyed up together and like, oh, we're together. But what's the actual day-to-day work involved in that? And so this idea, again, if you think of like Mrs. Doubtfire or Hook or something else in that sort of like divorced dad or in Hook, you know, Huck, you know, not divorced, but he might as well be absentee dad. I watched those movies when I was a kid. Not that the parent doesn't like care about his kid.

It's just like there's something in him or in the way. I think the issue with that So I think it's good that this movie starts With an initial distance Between Cassie and Scott So that we can move towards togetherness Like that's a good arc But I'm not sure what

The thing is that The thing is that Scott Right Did something Like what caused that change? Like it's Yeah and if like And if we meet Scott at the beginning of the film

And he's kind of a ridiculous figure who's like too self-obsessed about his book and stuff like that. There's a version of that that works where it's like this is maybe how he thinks he can prove to his daughter that he's worthwhile or whatever. Except instead, he's just a punchline of like literally everyone in the family. They're all, Janet is mocking him over pizza. You know what I mean? Like they're all laughing at him. Their nightly routine is, did you save the world?

You never mention it. Why don't you write a book about it, Scott? You know what I mean? So it's like, but like what? changes in this movie where they find each other in the end. Do you know what I mean? This is, yes. This is my, this was one of the, this is one of the things I'm having the hardest time shaking.

I agree with everything you said. I think like the actual choices are completely fine and defensible, but explain to us how the characters got to that point in a couple different ways. Like, the defining aspect of Scotland throughout the MCU is that he will do anything first kid and wanting to get that time back with her is the orienting principle around what she lives his life and he seems to have no idea what she's up to or what's going on with her. Now, people grow apart, people change,

but Cassie's not, as far as we understand it, like some rebellious kid who's not interested in sharing with her family, her best pals appear to be Hank and Hope. They're her lab partners. They know everything. Hope was the one who was there to bail her out at jail. She actually seems to be longing for more of this closeness with Scott and seems this was the other thing. Very disappointed in him because she's an activist, right?

Why is she in jail? She was protesting when the cops were there to try to break up an unhoused encampment. She was protesting. She shrunk the cop car. She's out there trying to help people and she's really disappointed. that her dad isn't doing that anymore. Now, if her dad's not doing that anymore and Cassie's disappointed, that tracks completely to me. My question is, why is Scott Lang, Ant Man, not helping people anymore?

What do we have in this universe that explains that to us at all? Like, I genuinely don't understand that. And you can sell me on him being at that place. I think this idea that he's like enjoying relishing and the celebrity of it when he couldn't get over being in Captain America's presence before. would be fun and interesting, but, like, give us a few more beats about what has happened in their lives.

He's still had... You mentioned the nanotech. Like, he's got the Ant-Man suit. He's using it to go drink beers atop the Golden Gate Bridge. Why isn't he helping people? Is he just waiting for the Avengers to call? Is he sad that they haven't?

I would... That would be interesting. That would track. But, like, give us a couple lines or moments that explain how these characters got to be in that place. I just... If the... If the...

if the... the core of the story is that relationship and then working, like you said, forward to a better place together again, which is especially rewarding and rich if we think back to the moment where young Cassie told Scott that she wanted to be, you know,

you need a partner. And he's like, well, I think she's talking about hope. Well, I want that. I don't know if she wants it. And Cassie's like, I mean me. And then we get to see that. We get to see them being partners. Like, how delightful, how wonderful.

What was the setback? What caused it? I just don't understand. I don't know. I've really had a hard time with that part of it. Anyway, there was still a lot of charm and heart. I did really like the training sequence. It was really fun when Cassie's like, I've got the secret suit that you didn't know about. I'm a badass and tries to fight and keeps fucking it up. And he's like, doesn't want her to do this and is afraid, but then can't help it. And he's like, let me train you in real time. That was great. Oh, boy. Young event.

Avengers. You hyped? Yeah, I have some questions. I think they're pressing a little bit of pause on it, not like a stop, but again, in this like slowdown phase. Because I think we, I mean, again, not to hop ahead, but I think of the ending, I think we agree that probably there's a version of this movie where Hope and Scott stay in the quantum realm. Let's just talk about it now. Right? Yeah. Like there's no way that there was. not a version of this movie. When Scott is saying, I don't have to win, we both just have to

lose. And Hope comes back. And then Hope shows up, but he's like, oh my God, you're here. Yeah, two huge sacrifices. And they're like, well, let's go home. What? And then the satellite.

And then she just yada yotted. Okay, so I have heard her rumor that there was a version of this movie that ended with Cassie basically sending out a signal and getting a signal back and that signal back perhaps being iron lad and being like the foundation of the young Avengers is Cassie needs to get her dad back from the quantum realm.

There's a couple possibilities here. One is that as to why they changed it. One is that they want to slow their role in Young Avengers while they figured everything out, what is working, what is not working, that sort of thing. Another is that maybe Scott lost in the quantum realm This is the story that they've already done before And they didn't want to do it again Like that's also possible, right?

Is the rat from endgame available In the universe where we get Scott in front? He's off for only now. Like his stars really climbs it. But there is this And again, I think this is something that like Dave Gonzalez has talked to me about this idea that like all the adults

were slowly being pulled off the earth. Like, Dr. Strange is gone. Thor is out in the back of the beyond of the universe. Hulk was until he came back at the end of Shioch, but he was gone. This idea that all the adult heroes were leaving. And so that's setting the stage for Young Avengers. I don't know.

Yes, I'm hyped. Yes, I still think they're definitely going to do it, especially since Marvel has basically been wanting to do. a teenage group since, like, it's when it first started to get a runaway's movie off the ground, like, way back at the beginning of the MCU. So, like, they definitely want to do it. I think they're just

in general trying to be more cautious about slowly one step in front of the other. Let's not do Young Avengers and Secret Invasion and Secret Wars and King Dynasty and multiple, you know what I mean? Like, let's figure it out. It's an interesting time to slow down on that after

debuting a dozen of the characters who are going to forge this. And how long are they going to stay young? You know what I mean? Yeah. I don't know. I don't have the answer. I just...

I'm excited for Young Avengers. Of course I'm excited. I just think they're trying to be careful, which we also appreciate. Yeah. Mostly I'm just like, get Bishop. Where are you? Come back. Get the Bishop.

I miss you. Man. Right? It immediately makes me crave some saracha and mac and cheese. hearing you say that. I do miss Kate Bishop. I really do. Anything else on Scott and Peanut or Cassie's stature in general that you want to hit? Nope, Scott and Peanut, Peanut and Jelly Bean. I think we're good. Let's roll forward.

Are Peanut Network's your favorite kind of Eminem? You've mentioned them a few times. Are they your number one Eminem? Interesting. Yeah. Okay. Without question. Oh. How about you? Hmm. I mean, I love a Peanut Eminem. Who doesn't? I guess people with peanut allergies. That would be who. I love a peanut butter Eminem delicious much better than Reese's pieces much better than Reese's pieces I love pretzel eminems

caramel eminems I mean Eminems are not necessarily my favorite go-to candy but I do love the variety You weren't there but at a Con of Thrones you were at that Con of Thrones and you weren't here for this We did a blind Eminem taste test

because there's like a bunch of really weird Eminem flavors from around the world and we had like internet international listeners come and bring us like their weird M&Ms from wherever. They like shipped them from Australia. That was a, there was like a jalapeno one. Oh, interesting. That was one of the wildest things that I've ever experienced. Anyway. That sounds great. I'm a, basic. Were there any with broccoli in them, any that led you like Michael Douglas was hangpin to say, holy shit, that guy looks like broccoli. Let's talk about Michelle Fiver and Michael Douglas.

Volcano Michael Douglas is. They both seem to be having an absolute blast making this movie, which I admire and love. I loved their like when they got their, you know, Mad Max Dune costumes. I loved those, but like coordinating burgundy's and tans. Some really good. They looked incredible. Yeah. Just great stuff.

Yeah. No notes. Time up down no notes. Only Michael Douglas could roll up with like the. clunkiest exposition about ants. And just be like, ants. And I'm like, yeah. This was legitimately iconic.

I mean, that moment, that line that reveal the earnestness with which he delivered that speech about the time dilation and their society, the socialism line. I mean, this was genuinely sublime. This was like. so funny and entertaining. Also, when they were talking about their sex lives, we've already talked about

King and Janet, but Krylar, this idea that he used to be charming and then Hank mentioning Linda, like, this is what I want, this is the spin-off I want from this movie.

Sure, I'm excited about. This is the stuff Lionel? This is the stuff, Lionel. I want Avengers After Scene after scene of Janet telling Hank about all the people she fucked and then Hank being like,

I tried to have dinner twice with somebody named Linda, but she wasn't you, babe. I need more of it. This was so good. The way that he said that. I have needs. She wasn't you, baby, whatever?

Oh my God. Michael Douglas. Just remarkable. Absolutely remarkable. Oh, boy. I loved it. I loved it. What did you think of the ants?

What did you think of the ants and through the lens specifically? of king because it was okay okay we're already talking about I got really up my own ass and pretentious talking about John the Majes and his instrument

and his physical movements or whatever but come on the man sold being like overrun by aunts you know what I mean like you sold it to me when he's just like standing there in his little dome when Modoc has his don't be a dick face turn giant smushy face turn

I hated Modoc by the way thank you oh no No, I didn't hate Monarch, but I laughed in a way that I didn't think they meant for me to laugh every single time he showed his face. Every single time that face effect came up, I was just like, what is happening? I mean. Who signed off on this? It was a choice. It was an active choice.

The final exchange, the two or three final exchanges, like when Cassie is telling him not to be a dick, when he hurls himself, at the force field around Kang, and then his death scene when he was like... So funny. You were like a brother to me. At least I died an Avenger? At least I died an Avenger. It was hysterical.

That was great. Every moment. Every moment. I still can't get over any of this. Like the choice to make Yellow Jacket, Modoc, when Darren Cross is not Modoc in the comics. Like, this was just such a bizarre stroke what I thought was inspiration and really liked.

Every moment where someone who knew Darren sees him and sees his face and has that response of like, that's a face. And they're, Darren? Darren? Hank best. Hank 10-0-10 best reactions. I loved it. It made me laugh. It did.

Modoff. On the like journalism and credibility front, someone told me, a source, a source told me that, Corey Stahl was Modoc. And I forgot that that was like a secret. And I thought it had been announced in the trades. And so I, before I were to The Ringer, I said this on the Loki podcast. And then it became, because I was at VF, it became a very fair journalist, Joanna Robinson announces that Corey Stahl will be, you know, that like, Darren Cross is returning as Modoc. And I was like, oh, no.

And I was also like, what if it's wrong? So when it turned out to me, I was like, thank fucking God. Anyway, I'm really sorry about that. I did not mean for that to come out so long ago. Well, at least the shot of his bare ass was a reveal in real time. Dripping with goo. Have this visual made its way into your nightmares yet? As your dream walking into other.

Deletting dreams. And I've taken to texting it to you as much as possible and I will continue to text it to you. The text that comes through with. this when we're not talking about quantum mania or thinking about quantum mania, it's going to hit me hard. It's going to shock me. I can't wait. I cannot wait.

I sent it to a friend of mine this weekend and he was at a child's birthday party and he said he screamed and laughed and then they were like, what are you laughing at? And he had to show them the Modoc buck that was on his phone. The Modoc book was great. It's art. We need more of the Modoc bud. Do you think we'll get, I mean, obviously this version of Modoc died and Avenger. in the presence of his brother, Scott Lang.

Will we get more live action modoc elsewhere in the MCU? All things are possible in the multiverse, Mallory. That's the beauty of it. That's the beauty of it. And one of the things that was possible in the multiverse was the ants best in Kang, which I do think we need to talk about for one more second before we get to some of our other quantum people, because on the one hand, needed more ants.

We already talked about that. The ants rule. The ants are part of the Ant-Man franchise. They're great. love an aunt. Yeah. Really, like, made me think about, like, if I had an aunt in my home killing an differently after watching.

Oh. Ant ma'am. I'm not sure if you've had this change of heart in your own life. I asked you for just... I can't remember the last time I physically killed an aunt. I prefer to lay traps for them so that I, my hands are clean. It wasn't me that did the killing. It was the poison goo.

Your soul isn't clean. You still did the thing. I don't know. I'm okay with it. This is some, like, he who remains logic here. Oh, boy. I, Joe, I just, I have to ask you to consider for a minute here. Yes.

An alternative future where the ants beat Thanos, best at Thanos, even for a minute. Kang obviously returns from being carried off by the ants. But I think this is, again, this is an interesting mashup of responses because, like, on the one hand, Ants beating Kang. Such a comic book thing. This is great. The fact that something like that can happen in a comic book story

is part of why we love comic book stories. It's also just the sort of like bonkers weird shit that we love about the Ant Man franchise. So in that sense, I really liked it. And like you said, when Michael Douglas is making this speech, I'm like, this is like nuts

in a great way that I adore and I long for. When it comes to specifically needing to establish Kang as the Thanos, level big bad of the multiverse saga. Was this at all a problem for you in terms of people needing to take Kang as seriously as they need to? Or do you think this is completely fine? And maybe even good because part of the overall Kang tapestry that they're weaving,

some of it is going to be about King the Conqueror, Kang Prime, an ultimate Kang, whichever ultimate king there is. But maybe not. Maybe the real threat is that you can't ever escape Kang. You beat one. There's another one waiting. Maybe it's that. Well, I mean, he escaped the ants with, like, just barely all he lost was a sleeve. Well, and then he had the other, like, yeah, the singeing and the missing his sleeve and the,

he seemed really stressed after the showdown with the ants, I will say, really stressed. It does not diminish Kang for me in my eyes. He is still the conqueror. A lot of discussion about the ants beating Kang. I mean, there was a theory. There was a theory, again, this is not, this is not like a rumor I heard. This is just like a fan theory was that Scottling was going to die at the end of this movie. Playing Modoc next.

Okay. Should Scott have died at the end of this movie, though? What do you think? Well, the idea was like kill Scott Lang to establish Kang as like that much of a threat. He killed Scott Lang, beloved Avenger Scott Lang. Well, we were mourning beloved Avenger Modoc. So that's something. You're right.

That's enough. It's the same. It's exactly the same. And we're mourning Zolom? Am I pronouncing that correctly? Zolm? The quantum person with the lamp head. Yeah, the quantum person.

I call them the yield site, yield light guy. I like Zolm. Do you want to talk about some of the quantum people? Doesn't seem like they lack much of an impression on you. But what does that mean? William Jackson. William Jackson, Hart. They're sentient. They make choices. They're conscious beings who live lives and forge bonds and wage freedom, fighting wars against King the Conqueror. Of course, they're people. William Jackson Harper. They're people. I'm just like as characters, did they feel like they really existed? William Jackson Harper as, is it quaz? Is that how you pronounce his name? I just called him Space Cheaty. But like, there was a rumor going around for a while that William Jackson Harper might be playing Mr. Fantastic. Fantastic.

And I'm like, well, this is a real, this is a real come down from that rumor. That being said, Space Cheaty was complete delight. And I loved him from start to finish. Same. He's the only one I really felt bonded to. And I think that's just mostly because I was just thinking of him as his character, Cheaty from the Good Place. But, and I thought that, like, VAB was, like, fun. But, like, Gentora, Katie O'Brien's character.

Yeah. I wish that I felt more connected to her because the movie still really wants. wanted me to. Yeah. And then Zolam also, it was a big like, no! And I was like, oh no. I think we're right. I'm higher on VAB.

V is a real 10-10-0-10-no-notes character for me. But other than that, it sounds like we're broadly in alignment here. I loved Quas. Gentura is emblematic of the, like, we didn't get to learn enough about the characters. We talked about this on Big Pick, and Sean, I thought it was interesting that Sean really seemed to be gravitating toward that aspect of the story, that he did. didn't have to, he seemed to appreciate the fact that he didn't have to forge meaningful connections to these characters because they were immediately going to be in 10 other movies. And I, I felt myself longing for a understanding of their history and their lives and how they became aligned, other than the fact that we know they're fighting against Kang who conquered their realm. And their buildings are sentient. And that's pretty cool. But like, here's the penis buildings. Penis upon. Here's the peni.

A penis? The feeling shaped like a penis where every limb looks like a penis? Great stuff. Here's the problem. You mentioned Sean's take to me a couple days ago we were talking about it. And so I've been thinking about ever since. And I'm like, well, when you think about a character like Luis, that's a character who's not going to exist outside the Ant Man franchise. But he's still a character that we like feel we like and feel connected to. So it's not that every character I meet needs to be in every single movie. but there's work, there's character work that they didn't do

with these quantum realm figures that I could see that they tried to do it but they didn't get there is all I'd say about that. Anything you want to say about Crylar? I did think of you because obviously you're a Succession scholar

and I couldn't help but think of Ordelon scenes from Succession and Billions while watching Crylar do you guzzle and crunch the little crab squeated with the big eyes? Do you think he should have had like a napkin on his head while he was eating? Yeah, I wanted to hear the exact purpose is debated.

Some say it's to mask the shame, others to heighten the pleasure in that sequence. Yeah, I just need a little Tom. Oh, wow. Soxession Tom. Broccoli guy? Amazing. An interested in a broccoli guy spin off? I am.

I love that. I love broccoli guy, mostly because of Hank's reaction time. Holy shit, that guy looks like broccoli. Like broccoli. Wonderful. Like great. There were delightful moments. Hank, no notes.

Yeah. Okay. Anything else on our characters before we hit our Easter eggs? Let's go for some eggs. Okay. I have a list of holes. And eggs. Easter egg basket.

What are your favorites? Which ones? There are a ton. I'm actually going to hang you with one from a listener that I thought was really cool. Delightful. Our listener Dave wrote it and said, at the beginning of the movie, the person that asked Scott, To take a picture with their dog is Mark Oliver Everett, the lead singer slash mine behind the band, The Eels.

That fact alone would be pretty cool, to me at least. What is even cooler, though, is that Everett's father, Hugh Everett, the third, is the person who is credited with the originating the many worlds interpretation of quantum theory. Basically, that random dog-loving jogger is a son of the man who came up with the idea of the multiverse. Incredible. I thought that was cool. What a great call-out and great. Yeah. Oh, my God.

Look at that. That's amazing. I was going to say, like, I really liked the callback to online close-up Magic University and the fact that Scott and Jimmy Wu finally got to share a meal. That was number one for me. That was great. Always loves to see Jimmy.

Definitely the same vibe in those two Easter eggs. Any others that really stood out to you? I mean, again, there are a ton. I liked when Scott pulled the circular part of Kang's compound and was using it to break through because, that was a very clear Captain America's shield nod and Scott is obsessed with Cap. So I enjoyed that. What else?

Did you think that King saying he wanted to conquer eternity was a nod to the character of eternity? Or just... I've seen that theory online and I don't vibe with it personally. Okay. Okay. I didn't feel the capital E in eternity. Fair enough. Fair enough.

Payton Reed is said in T.H.R. That the Back to the Future 2 is the inspo for the expanded pizza. And I know that Back to the Future 2 is like a particularly interesting film for Kevin Feigey. So I do like... I kind of like the idea that the Marvel, like, directors and writers probably like study anything Kevin Feigey's ever said about a movie he liked and go like watch it and study it and then be like, hey boss, I put a Back to the Future 2 reference in the movie. Or Peyton Reed just really loves Back to Future 2. That's possible. It's not a great movie.

but that's okay. Pizza look good. Look good. Lots of veg. Good veg. Yeah. I love to see them putting the PimpTec

to use out in the world. I'd love to know more about what Hope is up to now that she's in charge of the company, saving the world every day. We'd love to know more about what that looked like.

But it looks like a lot of gala and meetings to me. Hey, breaking out that new haircut, that new hairdo looking great. Ready for the red carpet. She had another one. She had another one in the end.

And at the closing montage. She had a blonde. She got some highlights. I loved it. Yet another. Yeah. Forever reinventing her hair. Wonderful.

Baskin Robbins ice cream cake for all at Cassie's fake birthday party. Just great. I can make a better ice cream cake than that. And I can't. I have no skills. Well, I mean, Baskin Robbins always finds out about some bar ice cream cake. You know, he was really focused on Scott's employee of the century plaque.

so didn't have as much time for the ice cream cake. Good old Dale. Any other Eastrags that you want to call out? I will say, him walking down the street with that hideous green cake, that really is a very Mrs. Doubtfire moment. Like, if you have to think about, go home, watch Mrs. Dowfire once you listen to this.

That's it. That's it for me for Easter eggs. Anything else before we go? I think it's time. Steve, I hope the sound, the sound cue is ready for secret scroll watch. Missed that.

I missed it. I had two real contenders here. I was torn between two picks. I can't wait to hear what you picked. Okay. I am going with Quas quaz quaz

aka space cheating only because I would like to see William Jackson Harper in more than just this movie. I respect Sean's desire to keep characters contained to a movie or a, like, trilogy or whatever. But William Jackson Harper deserves more than he got in this movie. He got plenty in this movie, but he deserves even more.

Deserves the moon. So I hope that he is a secret scroll. What do you think? I'm torn between the aforementioned Dale from Baskin Robbins, returning to the story in conspicuous fashion. I've got my eye on Dale. And I am also keeping a close eye on my fellow Rubin, on Rubin from Bridge Donuts.

You're interacting with an Avenger twice a day, every day, or how many coffees does Scott get every day? Who can really say? If he's anything like me, he's getting three. So that's a lot of meaningful contact. $36 of coffee. I mean, he wasn't paying a fucking buck until then. So no reason not to go back for cup after cup, you know?

They thought he was Spider-Man. Those are my two candidates. Do you have a preference between those two? You watched Ruben Roussa's car idea sketch? Like one of the things, the best things ever existed on the internet? I am I am familiar with his work from, I think you should leave. That's what I'm talking about. Yeah, I am indeed familiar.

I think it's just one of the best things I've ever seen and I think about it all the time. So it's a wonderful television program and can't wait for it to be back. We're close, right? We must be. Yeah. Think about those coffins all the time. Do you know what's wilder? Bando season 3 is almost here.

That's bananas. Lordy. Well, I think that's a wrap on today's pot. I think we did it. Yeah. We've started to crave citrus. You know, I want a lime. Joe wants an orange.

That means we've reached the end here. Time for citrus. The cravings have hit. Thank you to our aunt family, Steve Allman, for producing this episode. Regina Ram Gapal for his additional production work on this episode and Jomi Adoneron for his work on the social for this episode. Remember, as Joe just said, Mando.

Mando pods are common. We will have our Mando season three primer for you on the Ring of Verse feed later this week. And then next week, Wednesday, March 1st, Midnight Boys, Instant Reaction, Friday, March 3rd, House of Art deep dive into the season premiere. We will all be over on the prestige TV feed potting about the last of us for the rest of season one. Join us there as well. Please.

And until then, as Janet would say, turn it off. How? Feels like every product claims real protein these days. But real doesn't start on a label. It starts at the source. Like real California milk

from California farm families, it's real dairy delivering high quality, complete protein. With all nine essential amino acids to help build muscle, give you energy, and keep you satisfied longer. So keep it real.

Look for the seal. Real California milk.