The Ringer-Verse - Questions on the State of the MCU | The Midnight Boys

Episode Date: August 9, 2023

In this mega-sized episode, the Midnight Boys take on the burning questions about the state of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (10:24). They also bring forth their biggest quandaries about what the MCU can do moving forward (39:44). Later, they are joined by Joanna Robinson to discuss her upcoming book, 'MCU: The Reign of Marvel Studios' (99:16). Hosts: Van Lathan, Charles Holmes, Steve Ahlman, and Jomi Adeniran Guest: Joanna Robinson Social: Jomi Adeniran Senior Producer: Steve Ahlman Additional Production Support: Arjuna Ramgopal Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

For decades, the Vietnam War has been a Hollywood obsession. Apocalypse Now, platoon, full metal jacket, first blood. These were blockbuster films, embraced by audiences and critics alike. And for decades, they've helped us understand a painful war and understand each other. From Spotify and the Ringer podcast network, I'm Brian Raftery. And this is Do We Get to Win this time, how Hollywood made the Vietnam War. Listen on the big picture feed. For adults with Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis symptoms, every choice matters.

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tuberculosis. Tell your doctor if you have an infection, flu-like symptoms, or need a vaccine. Explore what's possible. Ask your doctor about Tramfaya today. Call 1-800-526-7736 to learn more, or visit Trimfaira Radio.com. This episode is brought to you by Spectrum Business. Fast, reliable internet means everything for your business. And even this podcast, that's why I trust Spectrum Business. They keep companies of all sizes connected with internet, advanced Wi-Fi, phone, TV, mobile services, plus 24-7 U.S.-based support. Millions of business owners already trust Spectrum Business.

So visit Spectrum.com slash business to learn more. Restrictions apply. Services not available in all areas. Welcome into the Ringerverse. This is, of course, the Ringers' nexus podcast, feed for all things. Fandom. We are. Joe Me the Explaner at Dinner on.

You've got questions. He's got answers. We are. Steve, the architect, Alman. The tinker of things. There is. We are, Ome, Van, here of the receding resurgent hairline, and we are. Cogue Baby Chuck, the 24-carried clothes.

And together, we are known as a midnight, boy. Boys. Fals on socials. Insta, Twitter, Facebook, TikTok, save Jomi's job. Jomi. Yes. Quick socials check in. Check in.

What's up? Are there any new features now that Twitter has become. New features? No. My favorite new feature is when you'll send a tweet and then you'll try to send another tweet. but because the first tweet didn't send, the second tweet also won't send, right? And so now when you think, like,

oh, I'm going to get a couple tweets off, since one tweet the first tweet didn't send, the other tweets also won't send. And so you look like an idiot tweeting out how's it far on a Saturday instead of a Friday, you know what I'm saying? Like, these things, this is my favorite part of X. It's just, it's great.

I love it. This is great for my mental health and my job. Got a minute, Jomey, real boring shit right there. Do we think the fight's going to happen? What do you want for me? What do you want for me? A fight's not happened. Elon is ducking that smoke.

This is the only time I've cheered for Mark Zuckerberg in my entire life. Yeah, I mean, I want Mark Zuckerberg to give Elon the smoke, but I really feel like it should be Jomey. Jomey has more problems with Elon than anyone right now, it seems. All right. Here's the thing, though. That bell rang. I'm still going to start.

I'm going to still keep hitting that. That's just the problem. All right, programming, remind. Got to do a different one now because, because, It's a shorter list. Programming Rema Baby. On Monday,

the Budmash crew discussed video game adaptions. Adaptations or adaptations? Adaptations. Adaptations. What's adaptions? Adaptions is...

It's like when you change. You change. An adaptation. An adaption is when you're a fucking whale, right? Or no, you're a fox. Or what is it? It's a wolf that kept going close to the water. Wait, you guys never heard that? Because it became a whale. I don't know what you're talking about right now. Wait a minute. You guys never heard this? You guys never heard this? A whale.

You think that the evolutionary chain of a wolf is a whale, a fox, and then the wolf? Wait, wait, wait, wait, no, no, hold on. Hold on. No. What I'm saying is that a whale is actually a wolf that kept going close to the water. And then he spent more time in the water and then he got a blowhole. And then he became able, he developed the ability to swim

and he is in the water now as a whale, but he started off as a wolf. I like Van's Evolution Corner. I think the Midnight Boys need to become a animal science podcast now. Wait. Hell yeah. Hold on for a second. Are you guys disputing this? Because this is what

I'm not disputing it. It's a bit of a... The way you went about describing it was not the most fluid. I mean, I haven't taken a science class in a minute, but that seems like I mean to go back and check my books a little bit. You know, I can't wait for this. I really can't. I can't wait for this.

You might be right. You might be right. I'm not disputing that most of the animals that we know now were in the fucking ocean. Here's the thing that I wouldn't even know what to Google to prove. No, it's reverse. It started off as some kind of wolf or a dog, and it kept going close to the water, to the ocean. And over time and time and time,

it got in the water, and then it adapted to the water, and then it became a fucking whale. It's facts. Okay, the Guardian says whale's ancestor was a wolf and hippo's clothing. Get the fuck off of me. That's what I'm talking about.

It ran like a wolf, waddled like a hippopotamus. Exactly. So bust this. Here's the thing. This is a big problem I have. And I said this before. I swear to God, I said this before. Not with you guys. There's an age that we get to that they stop teaching us about animals. We get to maybe like the eighth grade and they go no more animals. Like we learn a whole bunch of things, but we don't learn about animals.

That's why this knowledge, when I was a kid, maybe in the sixth and seventh grade, I was like, yo man, man, how the fuck? I thought about this for a week. straight. I was like, how could a whale be the descendant of a wolf? How does that? I thought about this for like a week straight. So let me ask you this, then what subject are you

booting out of the curriculum so you can learn more about animals? Do you know how much shit that we could boot? We could boot. I'm going to be honest with you guys don't Vance Hot-Tay corner. We could boot algebra. We could boot it. Algebra. No. Replace that with taxes.

No. I did calculus. I think calculus. I think pre-calculptial calculus you could get out of. Literally, we could do one semester of algebra. Like one. We could do one semester of algebra. And we could learn more about animals, more about our natural world, which would help us have more respect for animals, more respect for things that actually matter. Everything that you learned in algebra, your phone can do it.

You don't need it. It's just, I'm telling you, learn how to do your taxes. I don't disagree here. I don't disagree. All right, whatever. Now you guys got me fired up. Let's go. I'll remember the wolf.

I'll remember him. I was like, how could that be? My daddy said, they ain't true. God created all these animals as they were. And I'm like, Dad, that's probably, I can give you a million examples of whatever. He said, go in there and pray. And don't come back out until you believe that every animal was created just the way God wanted.

Was your father, Jamie Fox? Hopefully, they don't. know Jennifer. Oh, see? See? Oh, see now? Why would you do that? About to give me a relax.

I got to want it to just get him ramped up a little bit. No. Well, no. On Friday, Ben and Joanna are covering the second season of Star Trek Strange New Worlds, which a lot of people are enjoying that show. I got to be honest with you. There are a lot of shows that people are enjoying that we're not given enough coverage to.

This is facts. I'm sorry to bring it up like this. This is not facts at all. You don't think that people are enjoying My Adventures with Superman? No, I think a lot of people are. I'm excited to talk about it, but I don't think it is like a lot of people.

That are enjoying My Adventures with Superman? What are we counting as a lot? Like, what is a lot to you? Enough to get it trending on Twitter for like three or four days and have a lot of... Everything trends on Twitter. That's not true. That's not true.

You know how many shows come out and nobody... Secret Invasion? I saw more people interested in my event. is a Superman talking about a secret invasion. I can guarantee you more people watch Secret Invasion than my adventures of Superman. And I like my adventures of Superman. But what I'm saying is there's enough of a conversation

around the show that we could be talking about it. Star Trek, Strange New Worlds, other shows, Picard. Okay, we've left Picard completely out of the discourse here. All right, I'm just joking. Hold on. Come on, man. Picard was fun to watch, though. The third season. The third season.

Should be talking lower decks. See, we can't even be, we are even agreeing about which shows we want to cover. bro. Like, come on. This is what you did. I don't know why. For some reason when Steve said the third season, it made me think of Jordy LaForge and like, you can't you can't trust what Steve says about. You know what? You know what's

really trending? Exactly. That's the point. You want to know who's really trending? Fucking One Piece, Luffy, Gear 5. Real shit. That's what you should be talking about. Oh, so we're talking about the Netflix movie? We're talking about the Netflix. No, there's One Piece. What? There's One Piece, right? Oh, no. Luffy. Come on. Crash the Internet.

Yo, man. I'll tell you what. What is this? I don't know what this is. Hold on, I don't know one piece. So, I'm not in the, like, Shona anime like that. Like, you know what I'm saying? Shona. Locked in.

Shoney anime. Oh, boy. Right. Gear 5. Literally, I've seen every single human being I ever met my life. Hell of you. What's hype for this thing, bro? Gear 5.

On TikTok, on Twitter, on Facebook, bro. People were hyped about this one-piece episode. What is Gear 5? I can't spoil it for you. I'm not going to spoil it for you. Here's the thing. If you're not ready for the most important story that's ever been made in humanity, then you're not ready for it.

I can't spoil it. It crashed country roll. It crashed all the anime pirate sites. I'll watch it. But you know what? I'll watch it. But y'all got to watch some of my stuff. Jomi's never seen Superman 78.

I don't know how I did. I finished it. I finished it. You watched it? Okay. I finished it. I finished it. You like it?

He going around the world to save lowest. That was that mess. Something to me, man. You like that shit. It was nice. All right now. All right, today's show, if we could ever get to it, we're 10 minutes in and having even discussed what we're doing.

We're discussing the state of the MCU. Eight burning questions that will help us get to the bottom of the state of the MCU. And if the MCU was a state right now, it would be Florida. Hell, yes, it would be Florida. Wow. Because, yes. Tough. shit is all fucked up.

All right, Steve, give me a generic MCU spoiler for everything in the MCU to this day. We also have Joanna Robinson coming on to talk about MCU, the reign of Marvel Studios, which was written by her, Dave Gonzalez, and Gavin Edwards. We're getting ready to talk about the movies. You're listening to a reaction podcast. The spoilers are coming. Get us into the little MCU talk right here, my friend. All right.

So today we're doing a state of the MCU. We have eight burning questions. But before we get into that, I wanted us to, you know, talk about the rest of the year. What is coming out? We have Loki, the Marvels, or Echo. We have a couple questions. So my first one for y'all is, Van, which remaining project of 2023 is the most important for the MCU to get right? Loki, the Marvels, or Echo?

Stupid fucking question. I'm joking. I was just joking. Obviously, it's Loki, right? And the reason why it's- Really? Yeah, it's Loki, for sure. I'll tell you why it's Loki to me.

Oh, I guess it's not a stupid question. I was just joking. But the reason why it's Loki to me is because I feel like the Marvels, even though it's a movie and it probably has the most to lose in terms of people are going to have to go out to theaters to see it.

A movie is such an event that you can bank on a certain degree of the MCU-loving public to go. go and see the movie and give it a shot. It's got a big star in it. It's something that centers women as heroes coming off of the fumes of Barbie. I think that movie and the movement that it was able to create is probably going to help

the marvels in some way what lingers about seeing women as heroes and understanding. I think they're going to be able to tap into a little bit of that. So I think the Marvels is going to be okay. I can't speak for what the quality of the film will be, but I think the Marvels is going to be okay as far as getting people interested, right? Loki's a little bit different. Echo, nobody cares about either way.

No one cares. We're saying Echo is dead on arrival. It might be. And if it is, then so be it. If Echo ends up being something that we can enjoy, it's literally a cherry on top. Loki's different, though. Loki is a project.

that's a little bit more indicative of what both what people thought the MCU was going to be post in-game in terms of being able to weave the television shows into the narrative. And one of the only successes of that experiment, if Loki is bad, then that signals more than any other project. the creative funk that the MCU is in because we've seen it work. So we've seen Loki be good at a time where maybe things were a little bit more streamlined. If Loki is bad now, it indicates, in my opinion, that there is a problem central to the function of the MCU and their creative apparatus. So if you get a great season one and then a bad season two, adding to that how central the story seems to be, in the multiverse saga,

I just don't know if people won't be cratered, especially when you factor in their expectations. What about you, Chuck? I'm assuming that you disagree. So I was going to pick the Marvels because I think we forget the original Captain Marvel made

$1.1 billion at the box office. It was doing like Black Panther numbers. And I think, I don't know if Barbie is necessarily going to be a help. Because I think what made Barbie successful is what Marvel can't replicate, which is there's only one Barbie movie.

There's not a bunch of continuity. There's not a bunch of shit surrounding it. It is, you can take anyone to it. You don't have to prep for it. And people were waiting something for something that was different, original, and primarily, I think, made for women and young women to enjoy.

I don't know if the Marvels has all of that. I think the Marvels, one, has just the baggage of so many movies and TV shows at this point that it's just like, do you think the same audience is going to be willing to show up for it when they're just like, oh, I miss Wanda Vision or I miss Miss Marvel or I missed all of these things? I think that's one thing. I also think that if the Marvels doesn't do well, you kind of have a Brie Larson problem. I think where I think Brie has kind of been hinting or a little bit about maybe chafing against the MCU because I think unfairly she's been maligned a lot of times and she gets a lot of shit from a very

misogynistic audience. And if I'm her, I'm just like, why do I keep going through this gauntlet when it does not necessarily seem to be that rewarding? And I think lastly, if they don't get the marvels right, I don't know if I have much faith and Blade are fantastic for any of these other things. I really need to I need them to like to figure out the movies again.

Like an MCU, when's the last time an MCU movie made a billion dollars or over? I'm not sure. I think probably would be no way home. I think it was no way home. Yeah. Not even Wakanda Forever.

Wakanda forever made about eight a little bit over eight. Right. So if the marvels with everything that it has also makes eight, I would start to worry that there is a big, big softening. Like, that's just what's just going to be until the X-Men. So a couple of things there. Number one, I don't think that the benchmark for a successful MCU film

should be a billion dollars at the worldwide box office. I just don't think that. I think that there was a time when we saw a bunch of movies get to that spot. but I don't think that that should be a benchmark that they should chase because I think that a film like that and an achievement like that is, they probably come around a lot fewer the people think they did do. Now, in terms of the Captain Marvel and it getting to a billion dollars, I think that there were a lot of things that helped Captain Marvel get to a billion dollars,

just as I think there were a lot of things that helped Black Panther get to a billion dollars. I think one thing that helped Captain Marvel get to a billion dollars isn't necessarily the film itself. It was where the film fell into the overall MCU story. That was a movie that was between Infinity War and Ingame. So because of that, there were people who were going to go see it to understand how this character was going to come back and help the heroes defeat Thanos. And so that's probably why the film made as much money as it did. It was also the last film before Infinity War. Before Endgame.

Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah, so it comes out after Infinity War because, you know, Nick Fury dissolves at the end and he calls her. Or is that at the end of the End of the War? Yeah, yeah. So, yeah, that's one thing. So the billion dollar thing, I wasn't really non-plus that Guardians didn't get to, a billion dollars. None of that stuff.

The movies are good. But we have to be real though. I think that's what the company wants though. Because if they're going, I'm assuming this is like $200 million. This is a $200 million budget. So they're like if it doesn't get to a bill, Marvel has to start thinking, I'm like, does every movie that we make

have to be $180, $200 million just to make? Well, the company certainly wants every movie to make as much money as it possibly can. I think whether or not the film makes a billion dollars, that number. If the film makes $800 million, if the film makes $700 million, that's a shit ton of money at the movies. Right.

And we might be living in a spot now where the billion dollar mark might be reserved for special films and other times. I'm wondering if Winter Soldier made a billion dollars. I'm wondering if Civil War made a billion dollars. Civil War probably did. Civil War definitely did. Let me chat with it. Keep talking. I'm on this right now.

So I'm one, you know what I mean? And as the audience grow, I'm sure the films made more money, but I'm sure Dr. Strange didn't make a billion dollars. Civil War made a billion. Civil War made a billion bucks.

Winter Soldier made 7.14. So to a couple other things. I don't think when I say this about, I don't want to stay here too, too long, but I don't, when I say this about Barbie is, I don't think that the Marvels is going to have the same audience as Barbie.

Barbie is a cultural phenomenon. What I will say, though, It's easier for the movie to have come out post-Barby in terms of some of the themes in the film. Some of the themes in this movie with three female heroes uniting to fight and save the galaxy or whatever they're saving from whomever they're fighting is going to resonate. And you might see people a little bit more interested in this movie than they were before. There is something that's happening right now. And that's what I'm saying. I don't know that necessarily that means that the movie will make 50 million extra,

100 million extra. I can't put a number on it, but I think it's a good time for the movie to come out. Last thing I'll say before I let the men boys jump in is that a lot of the things that you're talking about are definitely valid concerns. I will say that I don't know how consequential film the Marvels is. We're not sure what the movie really means, right? We don't know how important it is. We don't know, even with Ant Man and the Lost Quantum Mania, we knew that we almost had to go out there and give that movie a shot

because Kang was in it. And we wanted to see kind of what he was doing and how things were going. The Marvel's is almost freed from a lot of the other things that are encumbered from the MCUs because it seems like a low-stakes movie. So if you go out there and it's a good film, the word of mouth could spread. But really, if the Marvel's bricks, Brie Larson, and what she's going to do in the future of the MCU, really the Brie Larson experiment has already been a lukewarm endeavor

in terms of not the way people are responding to her is terrible, right? But it's also true that she hasn't found the character. I think that that's okay. But to be fair, I think she is in Chris Hemsworth territory, where it took him, what, three, four movies to figure it out? It took him two Thor movies and two Avengers movies. This is what I would argue. I would argue it didn't take him time to find the character.

It took time for the character to find him. And the reason why I say it that way is because he was playing the version of Thor, like in Thor. He was playing that version of Thor to a T. The version of Thor that Taiko Watiti cooked up was a better and more charismatic version. of the character for Chris Hemsworth to be. And he fell into that like a fish into water. There was nothing wrong with his story before. It just wasn't that awesome.

And so because it wasn't that awesome is because of the world was very staunch and stuck up and straight back and all of that stuff. But when the change came, it was great for him. You know what I mean? Anyway, I've spoken too much. I'm going to personally say that I don't think that it's Loki, actually. I think that like, yeah.

And there's a thing where, like, I don't want to talk too much about expectations, but we can kind of assume that Loki can be good, and at the very least, it will be decent. And even if it is terrible, we can at least walk away saying at the end of the day, oh, they had a really great season one. They kind of fumbled it.

They didn't have the same creatives or whatever. Those things happen. It has happened, not just to the MCU, but for television shows in general. It is interesting to see that the first season two that an MCU television show will get. like that is interesting to know if that experiment,

if television can be longevity proven for the MCU, even though it really hasn't shown that. But I think that regardless of continuity, regardless of like stakes, the Marvels, I think, is more important to get right for the sheer amount of goodwill that it could foster if they do get it right. Movies have not been great.

The last thing that we've genuinely felt great about was Guardians. And that felt more like an outlier than anything else for the last good while. And if something that we, like the collective we were more or less Luke Warmon for its initial installment, Captain Marvel, we can say was mid or like fine to decent, whatever, if this ends up being good, if this ends up being even head and shoulders above quantumania or something like, like if it's a tick in the right direction, I think that that is actually putting enough gas in the tank for Marvel for goodwill for a couple of other things to come through.

because the idea of TV in the MCU is kind of in flux already, what with strikes, what with the idea that Iger wants to like ease on the gas for TV and streaming and all of that in general. But I think that what isn't going to be going away is the movies. And unless something goes catastrophic with the Marvels, I think that it's very important that they get the Marvel's right. I'm going to Zig where everybody's at. I'm going to say Echo.

Just kidding. Let's go. You like being serious, right? You like being serious. Come on. I can't even. Okay. Came in trying to get that out.

Now, I think it's the Marvels. And I think it's the Marvels because, like, we've already, like, Secret Invasion was the stopping point. The Cuban Invasion was the moment where they were like, we got to, we got to, like, rethink this whole thing. We got to start from scratch. You know what I'm saying? I think the conversations surrounding that show has already dealt enough damage

to where I'm sure, like, you know, like, I mean, there's a strike going on, you know. You stand with the actors. You stand with the writers. but when that's all of a sudden done, they got to come back and be like, hey, man, we got to fix this whole apparatus. You know, whereas the movies,

I've just been like, ever since the pandemic, and it's just been like going on, you know, making them cool, right? This was fine. This is a right. They're not making, you know, they're not making a billy,

like we said, outside of knowing at home, but they're still like, you know, generating some cash flow doing their thing. They've been, you know, depending on your variance, but they've all been like, all right, to a certain extent.

I think pre-end game, we had this run at the end there with Black Panther, Thor, Ragnarock, Infinity War, Endgame, like those last couple years where we were just like, darling, we'd show up to the Marvel movie, and it would blow our minds, right? We were like, man, this is crazy. we're having time of my life like literally the last three years of the infinity saga versus some of the best years to be a marvel fan right and we look at it now we're getting more

content but none of it is living up to that like not even close right so we're searching we're looking for that feeling again and i think it's going to be found in the movies rather than the tv shows and so they got to They got to get back to the bread and butter first. You know what I mean? It's like when somebody gets back from an injury or, you know, you're like, all right, man. Like, how do you get back? Start doing what y'all was doing first.

Then we can get back to all the nitty-gritty, the TV shows, all the little particular. I think once they start getting the movies back, right, then we can start having a conversation about the TV shows. Because cigarette invasion just showed us, like, hey, we need a, we need a pump them breaks a little bit. No matter what happens with Loki. If Loki's great, cool. Loki could be amazing and I don't think it will fix much. That's what I'm saying. That's exactly what I mean.

I'm fascinated and I'm interested in, but I don't see how that's possible because if the TV shows broke Marvel, right? So what Joe Me just essentially said was that the movies that we can all agree haven't been that great either, right? The movies haven't been that great either, right? But it was the TV shows and not the movies because we haven't spoken about quantum mania since it came out.

You know what I mean? We haven't talked about how much we despised or liked Thor, Love and Thunder. We haven't really discussed that. It seems that there's consensus that it's been the television shows that have made us go, Marvel really, Marvel really has a problem, right? Because we've gotten consistent television shows on Disney Plus. I can tell you guys right now, the streaming wars could go the way the streaming wars are going to go. I don't think that Disney Plus is going anywhere. And Disney Plus cannot survive without

its Star Wars and Marvel content. It can't. Like, it really can't. There are going to be more television shows on Marvel television shows on Disney Plus. I think you guys all make fantastic points. And I'm re kind of looking at the argument. But I think the thing that I can't come around to is that in some way the single most successful Marvel endeavor of the past three years if you exclude No Way Home, which you really can't, but if you exclude No Way Home because it's the third of a trilogy, it used a whole bunch of member berries and nostalgia tricks to get us back in.

If you talk about the most successful original sort of creation. And that's not to say that we haven't known Loki for a long time, but the show was a breath of fresh air in terms of the way it went about his story, has been Loki. It's been the only real cutting edge success that Marvel has had. If it comes back in the second season

with all the Kang stuff, with it being so integral to the multiverse saga, and they brick it, I can make an argument that that's going to affect people's interest for the saga itself, for everything after it, that people might be less interested

and all of that stuff. All the movies that you guys are talking about, everything that's going on, Loki is the show that did it. Loki broke the multiverse, and that was the moment from which all of these movies kind of spawned off of, right?

It's been the most important piece of fiction in this era of Marvel. It has been. And so to me, if you move on, you go to a second season, especially coming off the hills of secret invasion, and Loki sucks,

it just says that, hey, there's something going on that didn't go on before. I really think the Marvels could be fantastic or the Marvels could be really bad and it wouldn't matter much either way. I don't think that people care that much about the movie. I don't think that... Not only does it need to hit the same guise,

but I also think that it needs to keep that heart. I think as much as we're like, oh my gosh, he remains and all that bullshit, people liked it because they liked Tom Hiddleston and Owen Wilson and they liked Loki seeing Loki fall in love and Loki have friendships. And as much as we talk about the multiverse saga, when I remember Loki, I'm like, my favorite episodes were the slow moments, were the character moments, were us getting to spend time in something that felt a little smaller, even though the stakes were multiversal and time travel shenanigans. So I want more of that. I could care less about like how this pushes the MCU

forward. I just want to watch a good show with Hiddleston and Wilson at the center of it. If they do that, I'm just not going to complain. That's all they need to land. Well, they can't land that without doing the other stuff. No, but I think the other stuff will come. To me, I'm just like the emotional stuff that I liked from Loki is far more important than the shenanigans. Because I think the emotional stuff is what they're not getting right anymore. I don't care about any of these characters at all. I don't care about Sam Wilson.

I don't care about Bucky. I don't get a fuck about anybody. Loki was different. I care about, I care about Loki, I care about Wilson, I care about Sylvie, all of them, because they did a great job of making them feel like well fleshed out characters and not just chess pieces that they're moving so the multiversal saga can keep on going. So I think that's the most important part is, and what you hit on, I think that's a good point. I think the most important part is a good story, right, weaves all of that stuff into the narrative. and doesn't do it separately. When you talk about why secret invasion failed,

it's because they told us how we had to feel, right? Instead of letting us experience it in story, okay? Like seeing Tony Stark get his shit blown up and then decide not to make weapons and then seeing him really go from someone who is a profiteer to someone who essentially was a prophet who looked at, enemies that existed outside of the world and said, I know that we have to protect them, who became so obsessed with that notion that it affected his personal relationships

and that it drove him to do terrible things in some respect was a part of it. But it all happened through story. It happened through Tony did this and this led to Ultron. So you can't have Tony's emotional journey in that without the Ultron. You can't have Tony's emotional journey without the comic book happenings and the stakes that set up these big cliffhangers, right? It's not enough that Tony and Steve aren't getting along. They're not getting along because of comic book shit that you saw happen on the screen. And you care about that because Black Widow killed a bunch of innocent Africans.

We let her off the hook. We should probably Alabama her. Like they, they, she killed a bunch of innocent Africans. And because of that, there was all of this destabilization in the world. And what do you do to get it back stable? So I think one of the reasons why Loki works is because like the good old days, the emotion of the story, the evolution of the characters, it's tied into what's happening to them.

You care about Wilson and Omorbius and the jet ski because he talks about the jet ski in a place where you realize that they took all of his memories and they took so much time for him. It's the setting of the TVA and the fact that they sold the TVA as a quirky place outside of time where the infinity stones don't work where they can do whatever they want to you. And you start to wonder, well, what are these people's lives like? And I think that's the MCU at its finest. That's the MCU when it is actually cooking, is where the concepts and the execution of the comic book stuff enhanced the story, rather than, Nick, you're not the same guy you used to be. Gravick, I'm mad.

This is the faces you stole and not even, they don't even do that in the comic books. You know what I mean? I've been reading a lot of Invincible trying to get ready for it, and you just walk there with the characters. So I think that Loki's ability to do that, whether it's with Victor Timely, whether it's with Kang himself, whether it's with the new iterations of Sylvie and Morbius and everybody that we're going to see,

I think they need to show that they can still do it. I think that they need to show that they can actually conceptually get bigger, push the story further, further. And they do need to show that the multiversal saga makes sense. Because we still don't have proof of concept of that. When we first saw Thanos at the end of... of Avengers. Oh, Avengers.

Avengers. Avengers are, oh, my God, that's Thanos. Okay, and what they did was they took the next X amount of years to give us proof of concept that the infinity stones matter, that that storyline mattered. They gave us the power stone in one movie, the reality stone in another movie. They gave us the Tessorat and the struggles around all of that stuff and other things that happened. it was proof of concept that these stones matter. We still don't have that in this. You talk about making money.

The real money is going to be made if people care about the multiversal saga. If people care about that. And we still don't really have a reason to care. And so I think that this show needs to continue doing all of the stuff that you were saying. You're right about that. But it also needs to do the other stuff. And it has to do it well. men boys what do y'all think man i'm still laughing the fact that you said black widow killed all

them africans that was definitely scarlet witch oh did i say black widow you said black widow same shit the same shit they do it to us it definitely was like it was scarlet wish i'm sorry about that i apologize it was in my head it was really funny putting like putting the image man no but i think you do have a point there in the multiversal saga and how we've been we've been here for what how many years and we've gotten daily squat in terms of making it make sense. It's been like, well, since like 2020, 2021, right? Is Loki. So that's the first salvo into the multiversea saga.

Yeah, but like we haven't really got cooking on that. And so at a point, like, yeah, this is the show that got it cook and this is the show that got it started. We want to see it continue. But at the same time, I feel like the movies that have have had ample opportunity to delight the brands to continue to carry the torch and they haven't done that at all at least well at least the way this show has done it period and so i do through i do i do i do see your point where like all right this show has to continue to move that along the same time i think it'll be not better served but it it does it does amc a lot better if they got this going in a film somewhere not like to say that like loki should be

a film but to say if we could also get this level of understanding in the movie that people are like, oh, people like, you know, get their backpacks back on. We'd be, you know, we even have this conversation right now. And to you guys' point, we see how people, how excited people can get for the film-going experience and all of that stuff. I do see what you're saying.

I just happen to think that when I saw the trailer for, we even talked about it in the group text, when the trailer for Loki came out, it was like, please let this be good. Please, we need this to be good. I just don't think a lot of people. We're saying it because we're in the desert and we need a glass of water.

I'm worrying about Asoka. I'm reading, I'm reading theories and shit. I'm just like, you guys can stop right now. I know. But what I'm saying is, I just haven't heard a lot of people talking about the marbles as if it's that consequential. Like, oh, my God, this has to be good.

Like, we need this to be good. I don't think people, I'm just being for real. I think people are going to go see the marvels. I just don't think they care. Like, I'll be honest with you. I don't think anybody cares. We have an, I don't know if people care about. Hokie, though.

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All right, so, you know, the future of the MCU, you guys can hear us agonize it in our voice, agonize over it in our voices. So we got eight questions for the future of the MCU. Each midnight boy has been tasked with bringing two questions, concerns, or opinions to the table covering what they think is an existential threat to the facing the MCU. Chuck, what else? All right. So each midnight boy will introduce their topic to the group and the rest will debate its validity until all eight questions are answered. we're going to go Van, Charles, show me, Steve.

Each person gets one, and then we go right back up. Then, what's your first one? First things first. This is the first question I'm asking you guys. And I feel like I already know the answer, but I'm going to ask it anyway. It's more for the audience than it is for the Midnight Boys.

Are the fans being reasonable about the sky is falling response to the MCU currently? Are we spot on or are we spoiled? Spot on or spoiled? Spot on. because obviously we're not having as much fun with the MCU as we used to. I think everybody can agree with that. I think that's a thing.

But are we not having as much fun because this stuff is not as much fun? Or are we not having as much fun? This will be the end of the question. Because we're not letting ourselves have as much fun as we used to. Charles, give us the bad news. Come on, man. Like, come on, bro. Here's the thing.

This is what I hate. When there's a bad Star Wars movie, the democracy almost falls. Okay? They're just like, all right, we're sorry. When there's a bad DC movie, they reboot that whole universe. They're like, we are so fucking sorry.

With the MCU, it had so much goodwill built up over decades. We spent the last two years giving excuse after excuse. be like, nah, you know, it'll get better. It'll get better. You know, we just need another movie. We just need, hey, quantumaniums coming out. All right, multiverse and madness.

Come on. It'll get better. It'll get better. At what point do we just call a spade of spade? Like, if the shit's not there, if the movies aren't there, if the TV shows aren't there, it's like, we gave the MCU two years of goodwill. That might be history making. I don't think there has been any franchise that has gotten that level of, like,

we will stick with it. even when it is this bad. You don't think that the Snyderverse worlds are like that? The Snyder. I mean, think about it. They were allowed enough to get D.C. to give Zach Snyder $70 million more dollars to go out and make his movie.

Like, you don't think that there were people that gave them in the Snyder. How many movies are in the Snyderverse and how many MCU movies and TV shows we've just gotten in two years? It's probably twice or three times. as much content. And this is nothing against the people who make it. Because I honestly don't think it is as much the writers and actors and directors' fault as it is a big business decision where

they cooked up a bunch of shit that was not, it was not cooked. It was, it was underbaked. They gave it to us because they were competing with Netflix. They needed a streaming service. And at a certain point, as consumers, we can't keep doing this thing where we're just like, But look at all the shit that the MCU gave us. I'm like, yo, we're paying customers. You pay for Disney Plus. You pay for these tickets. If you don't like what you're getting, you need to tell them.

I guess the question is, and everything you're saying is real, because I definitely believe in sending my drink back to probably spitting our shit, you know what I'm saying? But the question is not so much that

we're not having fun and we should camouflage the fact that we're not having fun. The question is, are we not having fun because we are not, we are looking at things in an open and honest way and it's not fun, or are we not having fun

because of expectation and because of things in the past? Like what you're saying right now about the goodwill of the MCU is definitely a fact, right? but is there also a competing narrative that the expectations for the MCU are hurting our perception of this stuff as much as the goodwill is making us loyal to it?

And I'm not saying that it's true. I'm just asking. These are questions. I mean, if we're going to be honest, though, live by the sword, die by the sword. The MCU was living, they were living by expectations if we're being real because how many of the MCU movies

in the Infinity saga, if we're going to be honest, we're like not all there. They were a little mid. But it didn't matter because they were making history where you felt like you were a part of something. So even if a movie here, a movie there was like bad to, I don't care about this, at the end of the day, the expectations of, but one day we're going to get Thanos,

one day we're going to get the Infinity Saga in this epic. There are a lot, if we're going to be honest, there are probably more mid to bad MCU movies in the Infinity Saga. saga than classics or like great stay in the test of time. We did not care at that point because all you had was the expectations that it's going to be worth it and then it was. You can type it if we're going to be real. So, yeah, about the, let's let's let's let's let's go down the list right now.

Let's get it. I'm looking at the list right now. Okay. You got, we want to start from like the beginning. You want to go straight from the top? No, the entire infinity saga. the entire Infinity saga starts at Iron Man

and it ends at... Okay, Ben. No way home. All right. So, Iron Classic. The Incredible Hulk is fine. Just a fine movie. Whatever.

Iron Man 2, bad. Not great. Bad? Iron Man 2 is... Like, we've gone over this. I don't like Iron Man 2. Go for it.

That's fine. Thor pretty good. It's fine. Like, it's not a classic, but it's fine. Captain America, I don't like that movie. It's whatever. That's hard. disagree.

Hard disagree, but it's okay. The eventually. is classic, Iron Man 3 bad, Thor the Dark World, bad. I disagree again. Yes, okay. I'm giving you Thor the Dark World. Captain America, Guardians of the Galaxy, Age of Ultron, all classics. Just kidding.

Sure. I mean, you, hold on, hold on. You can say the age of Ultron is not a classic. I was joking. Age of Ultron is fine. But it's fine. It's cool. It's good.

It's cool. It's fine. Ant Man, I would say good. Not classic, but good. People like it. Civil War. I would not say classic. Good to great.

Civil War is not classic? Yeah, you're not. You're not, you're, okay, go ahead. You're not serious. Dr. Strange, whatever. Guardians of the Galaxy 2. That's a good movie. That's a good.

That's a good. That's a good. Spider-Man Homecoming, good. Ragnarok good. Black Panther good. Infinity War good. Ant Man and the Wasp, not great. Captain Marvel, not great.

End game, classic. Spider-Man, far from home. Good. Good. So you're wrong. So you're wrong. So you're wrong. No, I said classics.

Did I say? To rewind the tape, did I say classics? Classics. I was just like, it has more. You're wrong. It has more bad to, like, find movies than classics. Not good. What is it?

That's a crazy level to judge it on. Just for, because you're a real important critical voice here on the midnight. Peace. So for real right. Just for your own integrity. Just admit that you're wrong about what you just said because it's not true. Well, I said. that we, when the movies were made,

or quite honestly that, I remember we can go back on rotten tomatoes. We could see what people were saying about a lot of these movies. We didn't give a fuck about it because Infinity War was coming, okay? Okay, Charles, time for your question because I don't want to take about a time of mine.

What you got? All right, so, should we be worried about all of the fantastic four rumors swirling around and what that means for the larger MCU project? Because back in the day, if you were going to say the MCU has the Fantastic Four, people would be tripping themselves, they would be tripping over themselves to be like, I want to be Mr. Fantastic. I want to be the human torch. Like the MCU, this is going to be my springboard into the mainstream, or it's going to be my way to get back on top.

Steve, I don't know if this is true. All of the rumors are true, but they've been having a lot of trouble, it seems. landing this plane, and it worries me. Frankly, I'm not concerned really about any rumors about fantastic for it. Rumors being that, like, it's either troubled in development or they're having casting problems, correct? I just think that for the last couple of months, it's like every couple months is just like, all right, they went out to this actor, they went out to this actor, and we don't know if any of that's true, but it has been.

regardless of who they get. They could get nobody. They can get it. I hadn't heard of Chris Hemsworth before he was Thor. And now we all love Chris Hemsworth. Like, like Marvel can make stars. Like that doesn't matter.

I don't think they can make stars anymore. Not about it anymore. If they make a good movie, then that's all that matters. There's a lot of people that are only in the cart for the MCU still for like the X-Men and the Fantastic Four. For all the other things that the MCU is trying, they could give or take.

I think that's the more concerning part for me about the high stakes of actually like you want to talk about the things they need to get right in order to like really have people still on their side. If they get Fantastic Four wrong, if they get X-Men wrong, then we got major, major, major, major problems. It's interesting to see how far we could skate on like cultural ubiquity and like the fact that this is what pop culture is now. But to know that like, okay, people will.

be sat for Fantastic Four. People will be sat for that first Deadpool and sat for that first X-Men. Like, those are the three biggest strikes that they have to get wrong, in my opinion. So, in size of four is my everything. That's like the first movie. I saw it. I'm in love with this thing.

So I'm very, like, you know, attached to, you know, how they do this, how they get this right. And the thing that worries me the most. It's not like the room, like the casting roomers per se, it's about the specific like Adam Driver thing where like he read the script and he was like I'm good off that actually

I'm gonna keep my thing I'm gonna keep it pushing like that's the thing that gets me is like you didn't do you can't catch whoever but if the script's not there as stuff you know that means you know you're looking at something that like

even Adam Driver was like you remember that dude did rise the Skywalker you feel me he looked at that he was like nah I'm good I mean he was locked into the contract at that point. He didn't, you know,

he didn't really have a choice. But I think the thing that worries me is if it was like a hot script, to your point, like if this was a hot script, people would be jumping and you're like, yo, I could be, maybe you're not going to be

the next Robert Downey Jr. But whoever is Mr. Fantastic or Dr. Doom, you could run away with the MCU when it just doesn't seem like it's that hot of a property right now in a way that is weird because, to your point, Steve, it is Fantastic for Deadpool X-Men.

That is the shit that people are waiting for. None of it is shit that they started with, by the way. So I just want to let you guys know that this is emblematic of the point that I was making about the fans and their expectations. This is part and parcel what I'm talking about. Like, we are stressing over casting choices who wants to play Mr. Fantastic. who doesn't want to play Mr. Fantastic, who might be Sue Storm, who JQ is,

and we thought it was one guy and it's another guy, there hasn't been a day of shooting on the movie. Like, not one day. There hasn't been a day of shooting on the movie. And people are making their minds up, I don't want this person to play Mr. Fantastic. Don't want this person to play Sue Storm. This is what we need to do.

This is what we need to have. This is a level of scrutiny that did not exist in MCU before. And it's just, and so what I'm saying is this, like, I couldn't care less about any of stuff. It's fun to look at it, to kind of see it. But to like, we're so ravenous for all of this kind of stuff that we are, like, endeavoring into this in a different way. It's like the difference between.

That's unfair, though. It's not, it's not fair or unfair. It is what's happening. And it's not, it's not, it's not. I don't think it's fair. I don't think it's fair to them. And I don't think it's fair to us. The MCU is trying to hide its hand.

Here's the thing. You can't put Jim Hover as the Mr. Fantastic in a Doctor Strange movie. You can't be like, hey, we know that this fan casting is so important to y'all. But they did that because of the fans, Charles. They did that for us. They did that because of the fans. But it's the same thing, in my opinion, with what happened to Rise of Skywalker. when you talk to that ravenous fan base

and you're just like, these are the people that we are trying to either get on our side, get points with, or whatever. You can't complain when that side honestly loses their fucking mind at the dumbest shit where it's just like, the MCU has been doing a lot of

Easter eggs and bullshit that does not matter to talk to that fan. And then we're just like, the fans, they're in their expectations. I'm just like, hey, that's he's doing. But if you use the Disney, if you use the Disney example, that we have to look at what actually happened there. They made a movie that you guys all liked, right?

And the fans, Les Jedi. And the fans revolted. What fans, though? What? Enough fans to where they course corrected. So it doesn't even matter. Enough fans to where they course corrected. Enough fans went, that's not what I accept.

expected from Luke Skywalker or Star Wars. So now we're gonna, we need y'all to do something different. And they did it and it's, it sucked and they kicked their asses again. So what I'm saying, so, so look, I, moving on, I get this. Like, I get the Fantastic Four stuff and it's, it's sloppily being done. But as sloppy as the Fantastic Four burger of all the information is, we're also eating it in a very sloppy. way. We're biting too hard and it's getting all over our face and it's getting all over our fingers because we're so ravenous for it. And a part of that is just something that fair or unfair

to the fans or fair or unfair to the MCU is just didn't exist in a general way as much as it does now with all of the stuff that we consume on YouTube and all of that. Like I watch this whole thing is a bunch of news on nothing. Very little has happened. Like nothing has happened. But I think that, but that's what the MCU was. That's what got the MCU here. Like, you know what I'm saying? The fact that, like, they're the ones that made post-credit scenes a thing, what do we do when we walk out of the movie, every single, every new MCU movie,

we're just like, dog, I sat through all that shit, and then we get a little fucking, we get a little morsel that may or may not mean anything. Like, that's what I mean by. It's like, yo, you live by the sword, you die by the sword. They were the kings of, like, of making our expectations. through the roof. And when the content is not there, the only thing you can have now

is fucking bullshit YouTube videos about who's in the Fantastic Four, who's not, is Galactus gonna be Latino? Did it, da-da-da-da-da. Jami, what you got? So I'm gonna go to my second question. I think it kind of ties into

what we just talked about. We're sitting here for thinking about the Fantastic Four. Man, who's gonna do it? Who's gonna be in it? We're scraping our minds to see who can play read. We can't keep doing this till the X-Men come out, guys.

Like, at what point do we sit and just let this thing happen? Because if we think it's bad, we're the Fantastic Four, when they're like, hey, man, we're thinking about getting John David Washington to play Cyclops.

Oh, man, it's going to go crazy. You know, can we temper our expectations? Can we, honestly, can we behave when a time for the X-Men to come out. It's not only about the casting, about all this stuff, people are just like, cool.

All this stuff is kind of mids. Call me when Wolverine is back. You know, when Professor X-Shall, can y'all at me? You know what I'm saying? Can we get on it? Can we like find an equilibrium to where we're all chilling or relaxing? We're all being

very above board until the X-Men come out in approximately 2042. No. No. No. No. Can they behave? No. No. No. I mean, the X-Men,

the Fox X-Men, to be honest with you, the Fox X-Men world is what I think people now think the MCU world was. I think people think that the MCU has been as inconsistent as what those movies were. Because you

had some of those movies that were really, really good, but there wasn't a baseline of quality that was able to be a through line through the entire universe and who and what that was, right? And once the MCU really started to cook, people were like, man, think about what they could do with the X-Men. Think about what they could do with the Fantastic Four. Think about what they could do with Spider-Man. But it was always something extra, little man, yeah. Now, that's your big protein. That's your bread and butter. You know what I mean?

That's what they are waiting for something to save the MCU. Not to be a part of it anymore. They're looking for something to save the MCU. So people are never going to stop obsessing about it. Even after their cast announcements, when they announce who's playing all of these characters, you will see a fucking meltdown of epic proportions by people who go, no.

Give me fucking Jeremy Allen as Wolverine or we riot. Keep Jeremy Allen away from fucking Wolverine. Yeah, that's what they want. No, I think I like the fan casting and theory, man. He's in 824 movies now. Like, he's on a different trajectory of actor. He needs to win an Oscar. Nah, but you think that people don't like to buy boats and motorcycles.

That's the problem. Like, you're not out here. When you come out here, when you come out here, when you come out here, when you come out here, That might be the problem with Fantastic Four, though. But when you come out here... Because they don't want to back up the Brinks truck. You're going to see that there is one Daniel Day Lewis per generation. And the rest of them, they need to do a couple of them

so they can afford to be on the big boats and stuff like that. They want to make money as being an actor. Adam Driver said no. He's just like, I was Kylo Ren, fuck all this shit. He already did it. You said he has to do it a couple times. No, what I'm saying? No, he did all.

So I'm saying is he legitimately. legitimately did what I just said. That says, that's as weird and off-putting an actor a talent as we've seen and he's great, right? But the first chance he got to say, hey, I want to be able to do Noah Bombok films when I'm in, when I'm 39 or 40. So I need to give Disney three joints. He did it. He, nigga, he just did a movie. Oh, I thought I were saying like, an Adam Driver would be to be a Kylo Ren and then he would have to be a Mr. Fantastic. I think actors are just like, Adam Driver just did a movie

where he got stranded on Earth 65 million years ago and he's fighting against dinosaurs. He cares about money, bro. Like he cares about money. All right, mint boys, what you got? I guess Steve. Well, for my question being

if, you know, the idea of continuity is thought to be hindering the MCU, should the MCU focus on more isolated one-off films a la Matt Reeves' Batman and let actors and creatives only on for one film to tell more consistent and isolated stories. Absolutely. I think the MCU needs to prove that they can make a good, singular movie again.

I think they need to prove that what James Gunn had, what Tyca had, what Coogler had, was that these are signature filmmakers where I can tell that all of those directors made that film, and it was the film that they wanted to make. and it did not necessarily really have to connect with all this bullshit. Like you can say, of course, Guardians of the Galaxy had a gem in it. But if you take the gem out and you put any other McGuffin in, the movie still works. Emotionally, narratively, it functions. And I think that if I'm being real, I think the MCU needs to go back to the comic books a little bit.

I think they have to be like, what are the classic runs? Why do they fall in love with these characters? and do that, because I think if they can prove that they can get the next generation of directors to the next level, the next generation of actors to the next level, money-wise, fame-wise, I think the MCU is back cooking. I think what people are worried about now is since Cougler, Tyca, and Gunn, has the MCU been able to, stamp and validate another director like that. Have they been able to do that with another star? I don't think they have.

They haven't been able to take someone who, like a Chris Evans. Before Chris Evans was Captain America, he was doing well. He was a working actor, but I would not say he was like, nobody was just like, yo,

I'm really hankering for a Chris Evans movie. Oh, he was a very hot actor in the town. He had already done three superhero movies. Yeah, but they hadn't done, they didn't really do anything. No, I'm not saying that he was not successful. I'm saying that they took, yeah.

They took, it took Chris Evans from like, he's a pretty boy actor. Household name. Household name. He's a household name. He's in Knives Out. When you see Chris Evans in something, you're like, oh shit,

Chris Hemsworth is even a better example. Nobody gave a fuck about Chris Hemsworth. He gets one hot Marvel movie and all of a sudden he's on Netflix, extraction, all that shit. I'll ask you this, Van, when's the last time they did it? It's not like Simuloo is getting, Simululu's not in like a bunch of shit as the main guy.

Like he was in Barbie. Yeah. I mean, but he wasn't like. But he's, but he's got commercials and all of that stuff. So here's a deal. Because I,

you've seen Simuloo way more since he's been Sean Shoe. Yeah. Is Simuloo a household name at this point? I don't know. I wouldn't say that Chris Evans was a household name after Captain America, the first Avengers. Chris Evans was a household name maybe after Civil War, after the Avengers or

after that, it takes a little while. So even when the movies, I'd say the same thing about Chris Hemsworth, they played these characters for years, right? They played these characters for years and they became household names after them. I'd say two things of that. Number one, the first thing is that

the MCU is in a different place now, like once again, coming back to it than it was before. Before there wasn't as much hand-wringing around the casting of these people and the expectations of who you were going to cast was less important. Anybody could have played Thor that they liked. They were under no pressure

to cast a specific person type or bring somebody into the MCU Thor. They read a bunch of people and they cast a guy they liked and a guy who looked like Thor. It's just not the same. Now it's like, hey, you could get a bunch of different actors to read.

And if you cast somebody that nobody knows, some people are going to be like, I don't see him as his character. Fuck it, I don't like it. You know what I'm saying? Shit, it was like that all the way up to Spider-Man. I didn't know who Tom Holland was. I'm like, oh, okay, cool.

I mean, even, I remember how people thought about Chris Pratt being in Guardians. It was just like, the fucking Parks-Rat guy, really? But then some of the photos came out and it was like, oh, that nigga kind of swole. But to your point about whether or not the MCU should focus on more one-off movies, that would be dope, but I don't know if they can to me because I don't think they have the characters. I think doing a one-off movie with the Batman or the Joker or like Superman

or something like that is very easy. I think it's a lot more difficult to do like a one-off movie with a character that has so much mythology and decades of history built in. People are going to want to see a Batman movie always. They're going to want to see a Nolan version of Batman, a Big Snyder version of Batman. The interest in Batman has been baked in.

Batman is on Superman to this degree as well. Batman is in the movies. Batman is on TV. Batman is animated. Batman is everywhere. Sure, but how great would it be if we got ourselves another Iron Man movie and we were happy with the idea

that we're not shackled to Robert Downey Jr. I don't think it would work. You don't think so. I would Steve. I want a stand-alone Blade movie. I don't think that might work. On a smaller level,

you could do it. What about Fantastic Four or X-Men? What if you just got a good, self-contained X-Men movie? They already did it. So, like, it makes no sense to bring the characters

into the MCU and just say, these are the Fantastic Four. They have nothing to do of what's going on. The Fantastic Four don't got that kind of cachet. They're cool, and people like them,

but if you do that now, people are going to want to see them. It's a wholly different, like, situation than a Batman. Batman is the center of his mythology. The Fantastic Four are part of the Marvel universe. I understand. But for the household names that Marvel made, like the Captain Americas,

like the Black Panthers, like the Iron Man's of the world, to see different, slightly off-kilter, newer stories with singular stars that are like just there for like one, maybe two if they like it. And then they can just leave, wait.

Steve, oh no, Steve, you had me, you lost me right there. No, but like that's the point. It's the point that continuity

is ruining this. The idea that the, I'll tell you guys right now, those characters that you just named are still different than Batman, Superman. I understand.

I understand. The X-Men are different than Batman Superman? Like the X-Men are different. than Batman and Superman in that two of these characters came out in 1938 and are on their

ninth iteration of this. We're talking about radio. We're talking about... You keep trying to sneak Superman into that. You can't sneak Superman into this. What you're talking about? Why can't you think... More people in 2023 will pay money to see

anything that is X-Men in movies than Superman. It's like you're saying that only Sean Connery should have played James Bond. You're missing the point. Like, I'm not saying that at all. James Bond has actually, James Bond never had a sequel until Daniel Craig came along.

Every James Bond is a story is a standalone story. Sure. So the argument that you could make is, if every story is a standalone story, why would you ever have the same guy play James Bond, right? None of the movies are sequels to each other, right? That's almost a different way of telling the story. What I'm telling you guys right now is,

the X-Men are more popular than Superman, right? They're more popular than Superman. They are. I'm telling you that, like, Superman as a character right now, still has two different television shows, still has the animated movie, still has a presence in film, and they're still hand-wringing over who's going to play Superman.

There's a difference in the way that these characters are, in my opinion, there's a difference in the way that they are consumed by American audiences. Also, I'll say something else. Superman is a more quadriny character than the X-Men. If done right, you can make more money on a Superman movie than the X-Men movie because the X-Men are edgier. They fucking each other.

All of that stuff. What are you talking? What's the last Superman movie that worked? He's saying Superman for the kids. Yeah, but let's be real. There has not been a Superman movie that has worked. Worked in what sense? Honestly, commercially, critically.

So Manisteele didn't work commercially? How much did Manisteele made? About 670. Which is very, very good. Very, very good. Was that enough juice to get that character over the line in the way that, like, I'll put it to you this way. Iron Man had so much juice.

That first one in how self-contained it was. that it didn't matter if the sequels did not match the first one. The juice Robert Downey Jr. had took him through the fucking entire Infinity saga. Man of Steel didn't have that shit. Man of Steel outgrossed every X-Men movie except for Deadpool 2, except for Deadpool and Deadpool 2. And Dead Facts. Man of Steel made more money. Gotcha there.

Than Man Manor still made more money than X-Men The Last Stand. then Days of Future Pass, then actually maybe not Logan. This is domestic because I know that Logan, but Logan was also R-rated. Back to Steve's question. When I'm saying you're going to do a one-off character in the MCU, I'm not saying that people

wouldn't go see those movies. I'm saying it's not the same as some of the one-offs that we see other people do, where you make a Joker movie and it's about a character that we are so obsessed with We talk about Joker, you have several different iterations that will go watch it, like, just to see it. If you have an Iron Man movie right now and Shields, not Shield, but like, it doesn't have any connection to the larger MCU, Iron Man's mythology is not strong enough, even now, Iron Man's mythology is not strong enough to warrant that film.

name me four Ironman villains. Ironmonger, I can't. I can't. I'm just telling you what I can. I'm just telling you right now, Mandarin, Ironmonger, whiplash, I'm just telling you right. But that's the thing, though, like the idea of not shackling yourselves to just an Iron Man villain or just an Iron Man story, the idea that a movie can have an Iron Man in it, and simply exist outside of everything that's going on and just tell a good story, regardless of whether or not it's one of his signature villains that we can all remember so well or not. It doesn't have any signature villains.

That's what I'm saying, though. But the idea that he could just like, the idea that he can just be in a movie with the likes of a Dr. Strange or a crossbones or anybody else that's across anything that he could possibly run into, free of anything whether or not it needs to make sense, because that's what we're getting tripped up on in our crossbones. current MCU, that everything needs to connect. Everything needs to be tied to one certain hero with one certain story, with one certain type of continuity. I'm saying, should we throw that away, and just for the sake of making somebody's myth, mythos, or the success of a movie be a bit more ironclad, if an Isaiah Bradley, a Captain American movie could work, is it worth doing? If a Captain America movie that takes place in the 80s, is it worth doing?

Like, what's the value in that? For the sake of the, brand for the sake of the idea that that can carry over and give more success to the overall MCU, I think it could work. So, I mean, you guys have talked to it a lot, but the name of the game, like, the name of the game is ultimately, like, if you were to say, hey, let's do these smaller stories with all the characters that we know, like, you know, like smaller stakes, then, yeah, I think there's something there where not every, not every MCU movie has to be like, oh, man, the world is ending.

You know, you take it, you bring in a director, you bring in a filmmaker who has like an idea of, all right, cool, I want to tell a small little story, you know, that has, you know, these emotional beats. And they're not trying to fight to save the world. They're just trying to fight and save their family, trying to fight and save their neighborhood. Like, it's not crazy. But I can see that. I don't, I don't really see, like, a world where, like, these, where these things are, like, disconnected. You know, like that's the magic.

That's why we fell in love with it in the first place. That's why we're here is because, man, wasn't it cool when Dr. Strange showed up to see, you know? And like, I don't think, I think it'd be, I think it'd be weird if like they were like, you know, I mean, but they do this, DC does this. And even now they're like trying to like figure it out. Like they got two Iron Man at the same time or two badmans at the same time. right between bad man brave and the bold and the bad man and they got to be like guys it's two different

bad man well why don't don't think about it you know it's like a little confusing and a little trite to be honest with you i kind of feel like the reason the reason why the mcc works is because all these things you never you never you at least back in the day you should never know when somebody could show up i know and that's what i'm saying like the biggest problem the mc u has is like the average joe being like well do i need to have seen secret invasion to get what happens in the marvels so this is My next question is similar to Steve's. So if we're going to stay in reboot land,

let me say my question because I think we're all circling around it. Should the MCU try a hard reboot in the near future? And what I mean by that is less continuity, not hearing about the blip as much. When the X-Men and the Fantastic Four are here, they are palling around with not diet Captain America and diet ironed.

man or whoever is it. But like the real character, Steve Rogers, Tony Stark, all of that, is because that's what we've wanted to see versus if the X-Men come and the Fantastic Four are coming and we're still referencing the Infinity saga and this and that and Robert Downey Jr. isn't going to pop up. Is that what we really wanted to see? Because when I was dreaming about the Fantastic Four and X-Men being here, it was so they could pal around with the real heroes, not the, you know, Trader Joe's Avengers. Jesus Christ. So here's my thing about that.

That actually, that actually, that actually, actually feeds into a question that I, that I, that I was asking as well. And we can combine them because we're running along. Yours is good. Let's combine them. So the question is, is a push for diverse cast and representation hurting the MCU product? Fans say they wanted more of that, but it also seemed to be long in front. the good old days, can a non-straight white male MCU work? And those questions are basically the same.

And so there are two things that are at play here. One is that they don't like the movies as much as they liked the other films, right? But there's something else that if we really pay attention kind of speaks to maybe a deeper issue. They don't have as much patience for them. A lot of times when we're talking about what works in America or what works in American culture it's not what

it's not what is amazing like fresh out of the gate. Tragic Kingdom is no doubt, I think, like their third album, right? So there was a time, even in music where you can fuck around with it for a little while. It's, oh, this is our third album. We're the biggest group in the world now.

Now you come out, you flop. You pretty much dead, right? Things change. But some of the other characters, we've had more patience with them. Now, is that because the MCU is further along? Or is that because the diversity that people ask for for Asian, black, and female characters? It's just not a part of who we are as Americans. We have less patience for Asians, blacks, and women than we do for straight white males. So if the first fucking Captain America comes out

and it's good but not great or bad and not good to Charles, it's cool, the second movie is good. Thor didn't get his fucking movies right until his third film. Thor is really, for a lot of people, he's bad at 50%. For some people...

I mean, after Love and Thunder, it's like... Yeah, for some people. So, but a beloved character. So the question is, do they want this stuff? And I'll tell you this, and I've said this before, because these characters have had less energy put into them in their comic book runs, they also have less iconic stories to pull from. This problem doesn't just, it doesn't start, it doesn't begin and end with the MCU. It actually starts way before this.

There are not as many classic Shang Shi runs to pull from to make his character into something big that's on the screen. He doesn't have all of this different stuff because he's an underinvested into and really an undersold smaller character even in his own right. So is that going to work? Like when the Avengers are, to Charles's point, when the Avengers are Sam Wilson, Shong Shi, motherfucking Ironheart. Shuri. Maybe Captain Marvel. I'm just being honest. And I'm not talking about whether or not people are being racist, because I'm not indicting them in that way. I'm just asking, can it work?

Steve, go ahead and ask. I mean, Dan, you said something that I was already going to say, which is I'm like, if we think back to the movies where, oh, shit, the MCU got it right, before the MCU was really, really cooking, they leaned heavily on the source material. Winter Soldier, like, was based off comics that we loved. Guardians of the Galaxy was rebooted in the MCU.

Like, I remember reading those, like, modern Guardians of the Galaxy Annihilation Comics, whether it's extremist with Iron Man, you could go down the list. They are basing all of this stuff off classic material. And then, once they were kind of done with that, it's like, all right, we have so much juice. We could tell whatever story and y'all are going to be here. I don't know.

Does Sam Wilson, Captain America? have a classic run? Not really. I mean, he has some pretty, I've read some, when I first realized they were going to do it, I went back and read some pretty interesting stuff. But most of it's like street level and it doesn't really fit with what they're doing right now. It almost has to be like a one-off situation like Steve was talking about.

You know what I'm saying? But when I'm talking about like, like demon in the bottle, whether Iron Man 2 got that shit right is a classic storyline. You say that and people are like, oh shit, I know demon in the bottle. Of course. Sam Wilson doesn't have that. I don't think Captain Marvel, if I'm going to be honest, Captain Marvel, they've been trying in the comic books

to make Carol Danvers a lead. I don't necessarily know if she is yet. It's going to take time. I think there would have been room for, like, to fans, like, you know, talking about, like, the Washington Wizards Avengers, right? I think that, like, if you had, like, Dr. Strange, um, what's his name?

I can't remember these characters anymore. Carol Danvers, like Tachala as Black Panther, you know, God breast Chadwick. So like if he was alive, like in charge, I kind of like Spider-Man, kind of feel like you can roll with that. I kind of feel like those are like a top four. You can like, all right, cool.

We don't let those guys cook, right? Some of the decisions, you know, again, Chadwick, notwithstanding, so, you know, maybe not use Dr. Strain. and maybe not use Carol Danvers. Even Ant Man? Are they going to use Ant Man? Right? Even like Ant Man. And to elevate like these newer characters

so we don't have that much familiarity with and frankly haven't really seen like put in the hours. You feel me? Like ahead and be the new Avengers it's looking kind of like what are we like you know like I don't think it's like

I mean personally for me I don't think it's like a racially racial diversity thing. It's just like a storytelling thing of like, all right, these guys just got here. Jomi said, I don't think it's a racially racial diversity thing. You sound like a fucking Republican. It's not. We found a John Hsu of the MCU.

It's me. Joe is like, I don't think it's a racially racial diversity thing. Because, no, because I had a tweet where like they had to, like somebody, like, I don't know if it was a joke or not, but somebody was like, hey, you know, the New Avengers is going be the people to face Kang on be Sean Chee Latisha Wright's Black Panther and

and the new Captain Falcon I was like bro they send in the G they send in Washington Wizards sending G-Ligers out there bro right and people some people the mentions were like man you're racist you racist you know I was like not really like that's not my point

isn't about the race or the you know anything like that it's more like these characters just got here bro like it's one thing for them to like, you know, all right, man, we're here. You know, we got a face like, you know, Loki taking over the, trying to take over the world through like New York through a warmhole. That's different.

I could, I could see that. Kang, like, we've seen Kang put up, like, numbers in Loki. We've seen Kang put up numbers in, um, Amman, Quantamania. Like, I don't really see what a man with the birth suit is going to do against Kang. Like, I'm sorry, bro. That's just what it is, man. Like, let's be, let's be honest. Jomey, I'll ask you this.

Do you think that we would take Sam Wilson Cap more seriously if we were not introduced to him in a good-to-fine TV show? Same thing with Miss Marvel. If Miss Marvel, if they're like, we're doing a Miss Marvel movie, we're doing it right, she's one of the next big characters. And it was a movie versus a TV show that most people either didn't watch or didn't like, probably.

Would we take them more seriously as Avengers? because it's very hard to make somebody that you saw on TV seem bigger than life on the screen. They just ain't they find nobody. I ain't seen him put him no numbers against nobody, bro. All I see the bird suit man do is hold the truck back with his hands and talk to people. He was an agent kind of with fucking. Man, you know, like, you know what I'm saying?

Like, I really see him put in that work, you feel me? Like, and then when he was Falcon, he was just like, you know, he was doing his psychic thing, which is cool, right? You know, like we really getting like B-list squad members up here. Bram, we're telling them like, hey, this is the future. These are the people who are going to take you to the promise land. You know what I'm saying? Like, if it's like your team, your basketball team elevated like some G-leaguers

and some first year, second year guys. So, all right, guys, this is the team that's going to take you to the championship. We're going to look at them like, no, man. Iron Man Thor and Captain America are all G-leaguers, if we're going to be real in terms of movies. Yeah, but I, but I. But here's the thing, though, and I know we got to move on, but I'll say this, is that they changed the dynamic. They were B-listers because they didn't have any A-listers.

Now they have A-listers, so there can be B-listers. Like, you know what I mean? So now it's, I'm just, I'm telling you, I sometimes don't think that audiences want what they think that they want, especially parts of the audience that are vocal about this stuff, because it's like y'all niggas want you know niggas want iron man from mit y'all want tony stark and if they recast tony stark it would do better than anybody who they try to come up

and make an iron man sort of stand in it's just the way that it goes it's the fact of it And Jomey, you should have thought about the racial implications of calling them the B Squad. Like, you didn't think people was going to be mad about that. 90% of the people got the joke. It was 10 people were like, man, I can't believe you out there. We can't be lying now. We can't be like. Nobody's looking at fucking Sam Wilson, fucking Shang Chi and Shuri and being like, this is who I trust to save the M.C.

Like, come on, man. We got to be serious about this. All right. I mean, I've heard some things that. Sam is going to get a new suit. Is he going to get the Super Soldier, Cyril? He's going to get, I think they should make him take it. They, he has to.

Whoa, whoa, whoa. Yeah, bro, he's just a dude in his suit. I think, I think, I should make him take it. I think they should make him take it. They should strap a black man to a chair and force drugs to his face. Well, not, I mean, make him taking in terms of the people writing the story. You know what I mean? They should make it.

He should take the, I mean, he's not going to do it, but he should take it. But I've heard that. I mean, some of the leagues say, I've heard, some of the leagues say that he might get a brand new suit from the Wakandans and the suit might have all kinds of crazy shit that enables him to be formidable in these fights or whatever. So we don't know. And this is not for me.

I specifically said, do y'all, right? Because not me. Do y'all owe ages a shield an apology after she could invade? Let me explain. There's a couple of things here. show was terrible. Let's just be honest, right? Show was terrible.

Which show? Spent $160, 70-something million, right? And was just, was not great, okay? It was legitimately one of the worst things that we've ever seen put forth by the MCU, okay? When we go back and we talk about all, like, all the Marvel shows, like, as a whole, right? Asa's Shill stands out, I mean, because seven seasons, like, 100, and 30-something episodes. Like, it legitimately spans a long amount of time more than a lot of these shows can even, like, think about amounting to, okay?

And the stories that were told were not like, all right, cool, we're going to come in, we're going to change the MCU, right? This thing's going to happen, and it's going to affect the movie. No, right? The stories that were told in Anast's Shield were reverberated from the movies. The movies would happen. The show would take that information and let it open their world up. Hey, Jomey, Jomey, I need you to stop.

I gotta be real with you. I want you to take the podcast more seriously. I want you to take these conversations more seriously. This is the level of disrespect. Here's a deal. It's not, see, this is the level of disrespect. I'm trying to get it. It's not the level of disrespect.

What I'm telling you right now is, we don't care bro bro we bro bro bro bro we're like and this is what I'm talking about we don't care but this is what I'm trying to get at though it's like

the level of disrespect that the show that the show you know this shit got seven seasons Joe me bro you got what you got what you you got seven seasons bru

and I'm saying what you watch sugar invasion are we who cares show me you got Bigger fish to fry. Like, nobody cares, bro.

We're talking about the major leagues, Jomey. Nobody talking about agents to show, bro. Bro, it's just crazy. You're asking this, bro. You're asking us to come to a middle school basketball game, and then you get mad. From a team that won a ring in, like, 87. Like, it's not even mass.

I'm not, I'm not, bro. And that's the point. That's the point I'm getting at, right? This was the first endeavor of the MCU trying to tap into the television shows. And frankly, like, I think outside of, like, daredevil, maybe, this is the, and Loki, I was like, actually, Jessica Jones. Jessica Jones is a great show. Wait, no, no, no, don't tell me you're going to say

Agis of Shields is in the top three, top five. Actually, you can go to the ringer. Look, you can go to the ringer.com. I ranked it. I think I ranked it too. First of all, here's the magic of it. It could be, but it's also. Don't look at me like that, Trowell.

It is. No, no, no, hold on, hold on. It is. It could be. No, Van, hold on. Jomey, if I'm going to be real. But it's not just me. I'm not the only motherfucker alive.

Who thinks this shit. There are dozens of us. There are dozens of us. Sure. There might be like 12, 13. I'm telling me I'll trust these niggas. Y'all are, y'all,

like, it's, it's mind-blowing. Y'all sat through, like, the shit that, like, the shit that, I think,

and like the last point I'll make about this, the thing that we loved about Hawkeye was the story happens, right? It doesn't, we're not like, man,

I guess outside of like the kingpain thing, we're like, man, question about the MCU. You know, it was cool, story about Hawkeye and shit. Most of the shit,

is about Colson and the hummys on the bus for seven seasons. That's it. It's nothing crazy. It's not the hard. Like I said, none of the shit, you're not going back to the MCU, like, man, I wonder how A's the show is going to tie into Thor Ragnarock this week. Like, nah. This shit happens, it's cool.

That's the kind of shit we should expect from the television shows, right? Because they get to messy when you're trying to, like, do all the connecting to the bigger story, right? We, again, secret evasion. We left going, like, what was the point of any of this. Why were we here? All we got, like, they literally left a bigger mess

than when we found it, legitimately, right? The MCU was in, at least the state of the scrolls of the MCU was in a way worse place than when it started. Right. What was the point of all this? Nick Fury is still in space. Why is it all here? Why? What was the reason? What was the point?

I think shows like, like, Shield, have a good, like, all right, here's what we do. We tell like a little, like a, you know, however long arc, you know, they did like, you know, seven, eight episodes, eight episodes, eight episodes, whatever. And we keep it like that. We don't try and go into the bigger universe. We just tell these little secluded stories that are really well told with characters that we really, we really care about, we really love, and we keep it pushing.

There's no need to further some larger agenda. We just keep it moving. That's all I'm saying. That's what the show did well. And that's why it was on for seven fucking seasons. Right. Again, don't need to watch it. Just trust niggers when they tell you about this shit.

That's all I'm asking. Nah, nigger. It's not going to happen, bro. It's not going to happen. Sorry, Joe. I fuck with it, Joe. That's tough. I mean, like, I'm right.

I know I'm right. How about this? Is it no I'm right? How about this? And I just feel like, but it's not about it, you being wrong. Whether or not agents of shield is good or bad. It's about I don't care. You know what I'm saying?

But you know what, though? To your point, this is officially in the Midnight Mattercar to the Jomi Act of 2023. That means if you're going to dis it, you have to have seen it. That's the Jomey Act. I propose the Jomey Amendment. If you're going to dis it, you have to have seen it. I have to watch 130 episodes of Agents of Shield.

Nah, just watch. I watched a couple episodes of Agents of Shield, and I'm just like, you know what? This ain't going to be the one. I'm not going to hold you. Just like the first two thirds of, like season one, bruh, terrible. I was in the trenches, my wife. There's 22 episodes, the first two thirds of it. I was, dredger.

That's enough. That's enough kicking the ass. I'm not lying of y'all. I'm not lying to y'all. Like, it was hard, but we got to a point where they figured it out. That's the thing with these shows. There's no figure it out. We're going to give you six episodes.

Boom. It's going to be cheeks. They gave them 22 episodes. Like, after Winter Soldier, the show found a rhythm. The show found some good. And he started cooking. And we were like, oh, cool. That's why you get, like, what?

Like, what, let's say, like, 17 episodes. Yeah. Then you get another 150. We have talked way too much about agents of shield, bro. Like, Steve. Disrespect is crazy. The fans know. People know.

Listen and know. Stand with me. Come on. Steve, your last question, please. All right, I'll be real quick with mine. Positive or negative, how do you think the actors and writers strikes will affect the long-term impact of future MCU products? Oh, I think negative, if I'm going to be honest. I think that in a very, very good way, there is a reckoning in Hollywood right now where the actors and the writers are acting, are fighting for what they deserve.

And I think it just changes what the MCU means to Hollywood. I think for the last, what, 15 years or 15 plus years, the MCU felt like a place where a lot of people could make their name. They could go on to bigger things. You could prove that you could handle, you know, a $200 million budget or you could handle all these things. If we're going to be honest, the MCU put on a lot of very new faces. for better or worse, like directors who only had a couple indie movies aren't about whatever, or writers who maybe were only working on community or TV. I think coming out of it, though,

writers and actors are probably going to be asking, what does the MCU do for me besides money? Because I'll ask y'all this, Van, you're in the industry. Does the MCU feel like a creative hub anymore, where there used to be this kind of feeling that you could get a Guardians of the Galaxy or you could get something that was a little bit weird and wonky, and you had directors or writers

who could put their imprint on it. And as the machine has gotten bigger, it feels like writers and directors and actors and actors have less of a footprint on it because this shit needs to come out at a certain time. It's pre-vised. And I do wonder if, actors and writers are like, is this what I want to do?

If I'm not the marquee, first, second, third person on the, on the call sheet. Anything that's rushed is going to lose creative intensity and integrity. And anything that is shoehorned in, like, you need space to create and you need, things need to be able to breathe. And sometimes, you know, it's hard to do it under a creative, gun for lack of a better term. So that always happens. So by that definition,

I think it's definitely less creative, not because the creatives care any less, though, but because the infrastructure of Marvel has changed. So I think that's probably true. What else I would say is that it doesn't always have to be that way. Things can revert or they can grow or you can use your resources in different and better ways. but none of that stuff is going to happen

without the actors and the writers, the people who dream this stuff up and then put it on the screen. So I don't know exactly how the strikes will influence things or change things. We're now just basically learning how COVID changed so many different things.

You know, we had inklings of it when it was happening, but I think the full scope of how these things were changed are now kind of just rounding into form in terms of, you know, how we understand them. So we're not going to know. We know that we might get some of the movies later than what we thought. The question is, have they lost any creative momentum?

Have there been changes that have had to have been made on some of them? Do they look the same as they were originally intended? Hopefully they do. But, you know, the most important thing there is not how much MCU that we get. obviously we all agree that the most important thing there is people getting paid fairly and being able to share fairly in the things that they write produce and acting you know so that's what I would say to that uh Jummi so you got anything about ages this year before we leave we're about to sign the podcast off we're about to go you got anything was anything about Phil Colson

coming back from the dead he was going to say man came back from dead like a couple times And every time every time it was shocking I was like oh my gosh shout out to Clark Greg man keep getting them checks my boy happy for you okay big treat

not quite House of Midnight not quite the Jovanic experience but we're still joined by Joanna Robinson which makes this a very special episode of the Midnight Boys one of our very best friends and one of the smartest ladies

I talk to, smarts people I talked to. Look at that. Wow. People. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. Not even a lady.

I love it. If you guys did not know, which it would be our fault if you didn't know, Joanna has a book coming out. It is called MCU, the reign of Marvel Studios. She wrote it with somebody else, and she can tell you about them because it's all about a joke for us. Dave Gonzalez and Gavin Edwards. Good for them.

It's about Joe for me. That's the Joe. I'm just joking. Okay. We're here to talk about the book a little bit. Joe, first off, the question that you're going to be asked from everybody to interviews you about this book, but I have to ask you, why? Why do you think it was the right time to contextualize what the MCU has meant and what that film making revolution has been like? Well, thanks so much for having me and thanks for asking me.

Whoa, whoa, Joe, really, really quick. You got to stop. You acted like me every other interview. viewer like we don't talk to all the time. He asked me, he asked me like he was every other interview. What did you write this book? I'm in my bag. I'm in my bag right now.

Can I be Negro Lipton? You need the blue cards. Like the blue cards. No, we were approached to write the book at the in 2019, like right when end game was coming out. And it felt like a real big seismic moment in the culture, this like capper. of sort of unparalleled success. Also, we were right on the verge of this movement into television. We didn't know what was going to happen with Phase 4 at all, and we didn't know how tumultuous

that was going to be, and we didn't know we would wind up in 2023 with the Midnight Boys asking about the state of the MCU. But that's been a really interesting way to end writing the book, because we spent so long looking back at how the company was formed and the way their method works, Like, how did they make so many successful movie, a successful movie, and everyone in Hollywood is chasing them, and how do they make that happen? And then that becomes this question of like, well, what the fuck happened? What happened now? What happened that that sort of no one can touch us energy left and can they get it back? And I think studying how they put it together in the first place, and then the book does it. the very end of it, like, go into sort of like what's going on now, helps you understand perhaps what they need to do to get back on track, if that makes sense. Really quick, can I just ask, this is this book amazing, phenomenal, but I really want to know how do you attack trying to tell the story of the MCU when, as much as we feel like

we know the inner workings of the MCU, they are a very tight-lipped organization. And it is not an easy thing for a journalist to really. really get a lot of great information, which you obviously did. So how do the three authors be like, okay, how do we write a book about a behemoth that is so secretive? Yeah. And what happened at first is, you know, before we even said, you know, the publisher came to us asking us if we wanted to do this. And before we even said, yes, I was like, listen, I know what Disney is. Like, I don't know that I want to fight Disney in order to write this book.

And so we reached out to Disney and Disney's like, sure, write your little book, whatever. And I was like, are you going to block us? They're like, no, write your little book. It's fine. And then they changed their mind. And then they told a bunch of people not to talk to us. And so then it became this sort of more uphill battle for us. But what that meant, I think, is that I think, contrary to what you might think, we got a deeper story as a result.

Because that meant the people that were wanting to talk to us were, like, really wanting to talk to us. We still talk to everyone. Like, we have original interview stuff from, like, all the stars and Kevin Feigy and, like, all that stuff is in there. But when you get into some of the stories that they don't normally tell, I think some of those only came about because we had to dig for people who, like, Disney couldn't put a clamp on, if that makes sense. No NDAs. You're finally, like, so I, what was the story that when you guys landed it, like, the scoop that you're like, oh, shit, we're cooking with gas. Or is this too much spoiler territory? I mean, I feel like we got more information about, like, the Edgar Wright thing.

I felt like I never really got the full story behind what happened with A-Man. And I felt like we got the full, like, we talked to and got all sides and got the full picture there. And that was like, that satisfied me as a fan. Because, like, as an Edgar Wright fan and a Marvel fan, I've always been like, what exactly, you know, because everyone's like polite about it. But I'm like, but what really went down when that happened? Or, you know, just some of the early days, you know, how sort of wild it was on Iron Man in a way that I think people don't really fully understand. Like, how improbable that whole production was and how close they came to just, like, absolute disaster.

And I think, you know, stories about how China got involved in production, like all these, like, various things that we don't normally think about when we think about. Marvel was really fun to dig into. Van, you've read the book. Like, was anything, did anything stand out to you? Well, so here's the thing. I think that I realized, and I told you this already, how much I didn't know, because I'm going to be honest with you,

like 80% of this stuff I did not know. And what I mean by that is like, so the reason why I said the Eger Wright thing was such a good example of that, because I, the MCU moves in a way, and I think this is another reason why people should read the book. The MCU moves in a way,

particularly at that point to where a lot of these things will be left in this kind of state of perpetual curiosity. And when they were over, they were just over. Like Edgar Wright, one of the best filmmakers of our generation,

like almost cultivates on his own an ant-man origin and makes it his baby his whole thing. This was his deal. And then he's gone, right? And he's gone from it and we just go, oh shit.

Okay, no Edgar Wright. All right, Peyton Reed's doing the movie. Okay, the movie comes out in school. And then it's still weird when you see it because you'll see story by Edgar Ride and you'll see all of this other stuff and it's gone. And you don't really know and nobody talks about it. and then you kind of learn what happened. And you're like, shit. That's the perfect answer to Charles's question

because that's something that you remember caring about, but so much has happened since then that it doesn't feel like you still care about it. I mean, in the moment, it felt like it was buried. It was like, Edgar Wright's doing it, and then it was like, he's not. And I was just like, oh, what happens? But the reason why I had that response when Joe said that

is because that's something, when you read this book, That's something that's like, it creates the currency for while you're reading it. And like any good book has that moment. I'm reading the book right now called Never Split the Difference. And it's about this hostage negotiation, it's about how to talk to people. He talks about this specific voice that you use when you talk to people and you want to be influential. Are you trying to turn yourself into Idriselba and hijack?

Is that who you're trying to be? That's why I read the book. I read the book. He calls it the late 90s. He calls it the late-night FM DJ voice. And I use the voice on someone and it worked. But so for this book, and it's broken down much like the Marvel. It's very, you guys are so smart.

It's broken down in phases, like the, like the MCU is broken down. And it starts with phase zero, which is Kevin. Feige's beginnings and all the X-Men stuff and stuff like that. Donner, that's, yeah. And that's my question here. Specifically about the rise of Kevin Feige as a movie producer. When you think about he got his start, not in the MCU, but of the MCU, what did you learn about him?

And what should the audience be prepared to learn about him that makes him, it demystifies him a little bit and makes him a guy who we could understand would be in charge of this. There's never been a figure like Kevin Feigy before. And I think a lot of people that are maybe a little bit more late to it look at him and go, well, why is that the fucking guy that runs all of this stuff? You get a much better sense of how that happened from reading the book. What did you learn about Kevin Feigy from writing the book? Yeah.

So, like, Van and I are old, but Kevin Feigke is just like a little bit older than us and grew up. up on, like, a lot of the same blockbusters we grew up on. And he was a film, I think what was wild to learn about Kevin Feigy, some people know this, but like he was, did not grow up a comic book guy. He grew up a film guy, like a blockbuster film guy and like missed his prom because he was standing in line for the movies, like that kind of guy, like love the movies, desperate to be a filmmaker. That's who he thought he wanted to be. And so like the story of him trying to become a filmmaker and trying and failing to get into the film school that he wanted to get into and all the sort of stuff like that. And then like Charles mentioned Richard Donner

who made Superman. Figuigig gets hired by the Donors, Richard Donner and Laura Schuller, Donner, his wife, who is a producer. Richard Donner is a director. His wife's a producer. And Kevin Feigey working as their assistant, like getting coffee, walking the dog, watching the cars, all that sort of stuff. Like he learns that Lauren is always busy, whereas Richard Donner has major downtime between the movies. And he's like, wait, I kind of always want to be working. And I kind of feel like as a producer, I can kind of like make all the films, like maybe more power than the director. And so learning how he thinks about that and how he then translates that into, you know, being a very effective assistant to various important people, learning comic book.

Like, he just sat down and read all the comic books and now knows more than any of us do about comic books, but he learned that as an adult as part of wanting to be useful in this burgeoning industry of superhero films. Doing his homework. And then, like, when he runs the studio, he runs it as sort of like a director producer. And so every film, even though you have different, slightly different flavors and slightly different directors, after a certain point, like, not with Iron Man because he wants. wasn't in that position yet. But after a certain point, Kevin Feige is sort of a de facto director of all of the Marvel movies because he, he'll, he, we interviewed like one of his close friends who's a longtime Marvel producer and he told us just so much information about how Kevin works. Kevin doesn't like to talk about himself, but this other guy did. And, um, there's this one piece

he talked about where Kevin says like, you know, they're on set. They're like, we're not sure if the movie's working in. Kevin's like, just bring the piece. home and we'll figure out what the movie is. Meaning bring everything you have back to Burbank and we will sit together and we'll figure out what the movie is. And that's like, that's not what the usual head of a studio does. That's not even what the usual like executive producer does. Bring the pieces home and we'll make the movie.

And then so when you, when you get into phase four and when you get into like what's going on now and you remember that is just one man. and one man is not infinitely scalable, he can't say bring the pieces home on like five concurrently shooting TV shows and like three movies all, you know, like he can't do what he did

to make the ship so tight in the first place. Does that make sense? It does. And I'll say something real quick. Your book hasn't come out yet or in it, I've read it for a while, right? Yeah. I've read it a while.

ago. Yeah. There's stuff in there that we have been talking about that I really couldn't discuss about when we talk about what's wrong with the MCU and what's going on. And I think that once people read this book, it'll change the way they talk about the MCU because you'll see some things that aren't quite the same now that might have been a different way than that with some of the knowledge that's coming out. And that might also be why I go a little bit easier on the MCU because I see that certain things have to be

recalibrated. And a guy like Charles who hates the MCU. I see. I don't think the MCU. Can you stop saying this at all? Like, please. Don't use the book as a weapon against Charles. I guess my guy Charles has only ever been wrong once in his life and it's about the Barbie movie. Otherwise, I said I like the Barbie movie. The Barbie movie is your Spider-Verse. I gave it a seven. A seven is a good,

is a good score. Oh, Jesus. Let's not even start. Go ahead, bro. So I want to know, you kind of already touched upon it, Joe, but this is called the reign of Marvel Studios, FCU. When you start this in 2019, could you predict that things would go as haywire as they have. And a lot of it, to be clear, is not, like, the pandemic was not something that any of us

could see happening. So did you forecast it like, oh, by the time this book comes out, you will have people like me and Van constantly being like, what's wrong with the O'C you? No, it's so funny because, like, we just assumed it would just go up and up and up after endgame. Like, I had some questions of, like, when major players like Robert Downey Jr. and Chris Evans and Scarlett Johansson are like leaving the franchise. Yeah, you're like, is it going to feel as, you know, as special as it has given how long we've spent with these characters? So I did have that questions, but I didn't expect to feel the way I felt about Eternals or to feel the way I felt about, you know, some of the other things that that didn't land as successfully. And I thought their plan of building this new class, like I thought all of that was going to work better than it did.

So I definitely didn't think we'd be here. But what I like about where we landed is that, and originally the book was called The Rise of Marvel Studios, and we changed it to the reign of Marvel Studios because I'm not quite ready to call it like the rise and fall because I don't, I think it's silly to count Marvel out. Like they were on top for too long for us to just like be like it's over. Do you know what I mean? Any studio would love to have the problems that Marvel has right now where I'm just like, a failure for them would be the biggest movie for anyone else. Exactly. So Rise and Fall, I think, is incorrect.

But we liked the idea of rain because, like, it, it, they dominated for so long. And now there's some other things, you know, like the movie of the year, the movies of the year are like, you know, might be across the Spider-Verse. It might be Super Mario Brothers. It might be Barbie. But it's not like. It's not. It's fucking Barbie.

That's done. But it's not a marble movie. You know what I mean? And it's not. And they're not dominating in the television space either. We all came off of six weeks of secret invasion. And so then the book becomes not just, oh, what happened? Like what happened in the last 10 years?

It becomes, oh, what happened? You know what I mean? It becomes both of those. And it's for the people, it's for the fans. It's for the people who are so excited about those movies. and want to know how they were made and want to know all the secrets behind them. And then it's for the skeptics also

who are like, what's going on now? And can they get that back? Or even people who were like, I was never a fan of superhero. You know, our beloved snobbier friends who were like superhero cinema was ruining Hollywood, you know, the last 15 years or whatever.

And we love them. But I think the book is for them too because it's sort of like, what happened to Hollywood that Marvel was able to move in and take over? You know what I mean? I think that's in there too.

So I, we kind of wanted, there was a while where I was like, who is this book for? And then we decided, oh, it's for everyone.

That's what we tried to do, I think. It's everything bag of all of. How would you fix the MCU? Yeah, like, what's the one or two things that you would do? We'd be like,

this would help because it's so easy. It's so easy because the midnight boys could not agree on. It's so easy. It's two words. Do less.

Hell, yeah. Period. That's it. Do less. Shows? Less of everything. Like, give me, like, let's say we get, what if we get, like, two movies and two shows a year? And they're absolutely killer.

That would be incredible. Would Disney let, would Bob Eager, would Disney let them do that? I don't know. I don't know. But if you want it Marvel to be as good as it once was, do less. Look at the frequency. Look at what they were putting out before. Look at what they're putting out now. It is bananas. How many more hours of content they're responsible for. And again, you just can't scale up the secret sauce, which is Kevin Feigy. You know what I mean? Like he's got a ton of

talented people working for him. You guys have talked to him like one of my favorites named more. Like he's got this whole parliament underneath him. Like there are a lot of really bright, really, really, really inventive, really, really wonderful people there. There's just something about Kevin Feige. Yeah. That is not replicable. It's one Jerrybuss. I want to mention something weird.

I want to hold you the whole time, but there's somebody that I learned about in the book that has always been a mystical figure to me. Right. And it wasn't Kevin Feigy. Do you think that I know, you know who I'm going to say? I think so. Say it. Ike Pearl Mudder?

Ike fucking Pearl Mother. Oh, man. Oh, man. I fucking Pearl Mudder. Like, that's, like, in reading the book, I was like, because they talk about him as this, almost like Al Pacino and the devil's advocate. Like, he, you know what I mean? Like, he's behind and he's the machinations and he's bad.

Won't be photographed. Right. Won't be photographed. Isn't he the dude who, like, was just like, oh, James Gun got to go. like he's out of here. Yeah. That was a little more Ellenhorn, I think. But yeah, it's, uh, Ike has done some truly special stuff, truly special stuff.

So, and that's what I knew when we got into that in the book. And that's what I knew. Oh, shit. These motherfuckers don't care. Like we get into it. How did you guys get us? How did you get all the information on Ike that you did? like how i mean it's not i mean it's it's biographers i get not i know how you did it but i now feel

like i have a much better handle on who that gentleman is than i ever did before and i'm wondering why no one had done that before him and maybe tell people who he is and what they can expect to learn about him in the book right well ike ike is either the hero of marvel or the villain of marvel depending on the way you look yeah depends on how you look on it and when you're talking about and who you're talking to except and stuff like that toy biz but he rests he's a toy he's a toy guy rescues Marvel from bankruptcy, takes over Marvel, and he and this guy, Avi Arad, who's still around. You still see his name on Spider-Man movies and stuff like that. He and Avi are the ones who started making, quote-unquote, making Marvel films. What they were doing, they were licensing

Marvel characters out to other studios. So that's why Sony is making Spider-Man and Fox is making X-Men and stuff like that. But the reason that Ike likes that, and Avi Avia Rod was also a toy guy, that they then get the licensing on the toys. And they're like essentially trying to turn Marvel into a toy company. We've got all this IP. We can turn them into toys. Another really interesting figure in a guy I spent hours and hours and hours with. And I was really grateful he was so generous with his time was David Maisel. And he's the guy who came in and was like, why don't we make our own movies? And then we get all the money, not just the toy money. We get the movie money. And what if the movies are actually good.

He told, David told me he was inspired by seeing, I believe it was Daredevil. It was either Daredevil elector. I think it was Daredevil, the Ben Affleck Daredevil. And he was like, no, no. What if it's not this? And what if we make different movies? And so he convinced Ike. And then there's this whole thing about the Merrill Lynch financing deal that a lot of people

know about, but like we go into detail of inside the room of all of that negotiation and stuff like that. But then what happens is that. Ike, who is a friend of President Donald Trump and sort of, like, ran a shadow VA cabinet through Donald Trump's administration and stuff like that, has some pretty regressive ideas of what sells toys. What sells toys is always his most interested, like what he's most invested in. And in his mind, it's young white men preferably named Chris, right? And so time and again, you hear these stories about, you know, like, you know,

Like, on the slate of the very first movies that Kevin Feigy was interested in making, Black Panther, right from the beginning. That's what Kevin Feigy wanted to do. When they launched the Writers' Program at Marvel, where they bring in a bunch of novice writers to, like, sort of work out ideas, Black Panther, right away, right in the mix and stuff like that. But again, they had to wait and wait and wait because Marvel, New York, run by Ike, and then there was eventually this group called the Creative Committee,

were sort of blocking female-led properties, non-white-led properties, et cetera, et cetera. And so it becomes this battle for control of Marvel. And eventually, Kevin Feige, because he made Disney so much money, was able to call his shots. Did I answer your I? Absolutely.

I have a follow-up, though, because Van and I were discussing with the rest of the midnight boys, how the diversity efforts so far in terms of like these new things. And we were asking, is it too late? Where when the MCU is rising, they can introduce us to a bunch of characters

that we didn't give a fuck about. And then we obviously fall in love with them. Versus now, it's harder to sell a Shang Chi or a Captain Marvel or all of these characters when there is a big fatigue. So do you think that a Shang Chi or Captain Marvel could have worked a little bit better if they didn't come so late in the game.

Well, what's interesting is that, like, Captain Marvel, and Van and I were just talking about this other day, Captain Marvel made a billion dollars. Like, Captain Marvel was a huge hit. There was this, like, you know, bad faith, shitty internet backlash, but the movie itself was hugely popular, and it's because, I mean, it came out in the height of everything,

and Black Panther comes out, and it's a huge hit, and Captain Marvel comes out, it's a huge hit, and we're like, hell yeah, we're ready for movies that don't star a guy, name Chris. That's great. But I think that, but I would happily agree that like the character of Captain Marvel has not stuck, I think, the way that they were hoping it would. I'm really excited for the Marvels. I don't know how other people feel, but like, I don't know if it's foolish to hope, but like that trailer looks really fun to me. So I'm really excited for it. But it's possible that

it won't work, absolutely, because Carol Danvers has not been integrated into like the leadership role that we kind of expected her to take over from, say, Steve Rogers or something like that. So is it too late to introduce Shang-she or Kamala Khan or like whoever? And I think that that's an interesting question. Because they feel like B-listers. We've been talking where even if they are not, they seem, because we know Steve Rogers, Ironman, Thor, whatever you do after, we're comparing these characters. to people who are now iconic, which is tough.

Yeah, it's just, I still think that if the things were, I mean, I liked Shang Chi, but I didn't love Shang Chi. And so, like, I still think that if the things were better, if the stories themselves were better, this wouldn't be the issue. So, yeah, there's, like, there's, like, the people who are not as excited to see movies

led by non-white or non-male people or whatever. Those people exist. But I also just think in general, like, if Eternals had been, if they'd knocked that out of the park, then we'd be having a much different conversation. You know, so I just think if the stuff were better, you know, we wouldn't be here. I mean, I know that I bring up Wanda Vision a lot. I know that Wanda had previously been introduced in the MCU. Obviously, she wasn't a new character. But putting her front and center of her own show, like, I think Wanda Vision is an absolute killer show.

I love that show. I love that show. show. So, you know, I really think if they just focused on a few stories, it wouldn't matter who's leading those stories if the stories are great. And I think also, I mean, and I know you guys have talked about this before, they could never predict that Chadwick wouldn't be here to anchor that whole wing of, you know, to anchor the Wakanda stories. And so there's a lot of things like that where you mentioned COVID already. There's COVID.

There's the explosion of Disney Plus. But then there's just like a bunch of other things like what happened with Chadwick or, you know, Chris Hemsworth being diagnosed with something quite recently. So like perhaps hanging his hammer up or what's currently we're in the midst of whatever's happening with Jonathan Majors. Like there's a lot of things that they could not have seen coming. guys just not wanting to do these roles in perpetuity. These people being like, hey, I'm Chris Evans and I'm still in my prime, but I don't want to play Cap through my 40s. I want to play, I want to do the French connection.

And then if I want to be old man, Steve in my 50s, I'll come back. But there's a lot of things you couldn't predict. A lot of stuff was going right for him, too. Yeah. Yeah. The movie, the movie, the book is MCU, the rise of Marvel Studios. Oh, but here's the thing. Joanna Robinson.

Dave Gonzalez and Gavin Edwards. What? Y'all got Damon Lindeloff. Quote, beautiful. I watched all the movies. I devoured all the articles. I listened to all the pods. I thought I knew everything there was to know about the MCU.

And then I read this magnificent book. And emotional. Lindy, Lindy. The greatest. And here's a guy. Guys, if you guys send me, email me, reply on me on Twitter. If you guys buy this book.

For every person who buys this book, I will say something nice about the MCU. I will like every single person. See, we can't do that. You can pre-order. You can pre-order the book, MCU, the Rain of Marvel Studios. It's out October 10th, but we love pre-orders. Pre-orders help. Pre-order.

Pre-orders really help. Pre-orders really help, like, you know, because we're probably going to do a tour. And where we stop and getting to meet listeners and stuff like that, depends on how many pre-orders we do. So if you guys want to pre-order the book, maybe I'm, going to come to your town and I would love to meet you. Oh, that's a great thing. You want to meet Joe.

Buy the book. It's amazing. Okay. We're so happy that this is coming out for you. This is going to be a big, big deal. We want to get to the best bestseller. We're going to show this so many times. Oh, it's going to be a number one bestseller already.

I already know. I'll put it out there. It's going to the moon. Galactus. Joe, thank you so much for joining us. The name of the book is MCU. the reign of Marvel Studios. You guys make sure you check out

Joe and Mao on House of R and Lovers, enemies to Lovers, tropes and whatever other things they got going on. They did Long Wolf and Cub, which made me watch a lot of Long Wolf and Cub movies. And it's very sad most of them. I watch The Road, and that's not a fun movie to watch. Sorry.

My apology. I read the book. Okay, Joe, thank you so much for joining us on The Midnight Boys. Can't Wait. for everyone to get into the book. You're the best. Bye.

All right, guys, that's a robust midnight boys full of debate. And we're no closer to understanding the MCU. Nah, we can't do shit. We just talking. We just argue. We just arguing and talking it out.

We just really, this whole pile was vibes. We're getting back into some show coverage. So two episodes of Soka dropping August 23rd, we're going to be back into show coverage. That's right. Over the next couple of weeks, we're going to have a little fun playing around,

giving you shows that we like to give you guys about things that we like to talk about. Well, Superman. Well, Superman. Other happenings, Nerd News Minute going up. Could be some drafts. Could be some funny shit. You know what I'm saying? All types of stuff that you guys like when we're not on show covers.

But this fall is going to be pretty heavy over here with the Midnight Boys, when Asoka, Loki, a lot of different things that are coming out. We don't know. Echo. Echo as well. Echo as well. And a lot of video games coming out. Button Match is going to be on top of that. All types of stuff that are happening over here on the fucking feed.

The latest button mash, Ben and Jessica, discussed video game adaptations. Friday, Ben and Joanna are going to cover the second season of Star Trek Strange New Worlds. This pod is wrapped up. Follow some socials. Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, save Jomi's job. Our producer is Steve the architect Alman. Jomi, the explainer Adirond. Hashthach racially, racially, racial, what?

Racially racial diversity. Jomi, racially racial diversity. Adirond. That one's, that was just a stick. R-R-D. Racially, racially, racial. RRD, that's a new thing. This film got a lot of racially racial diversity, man.

We're going to start talking about the movies. We're going to do the most, we're going to do a draft of the movies with the most racially racial diversity. In cinema history, additional production from Ojun and Ron Kapal. Chuck take us out. The MCU is in the mud,

and Jomi is still in his feels. And if we've learned anything from this episode, we still don't get off. about agents. That's so nuts. There's race wars. Across the country, black Atlanteans defending our rulers.

The revolution is starting, guys. I'll be honest with you. You better be ready for it. Transatlantic slave points are kind of. I knew it was coming. You better be ready for it, Steve. Steve, how many of your cousins was down there in Montgomery?

I claim none of those people. Which side were you cheering for? Those people fucking suck. No, absolutely. not. Steve was, Steve probably would have been with us, but I probably would have like,

not let Steve help. Steve would have run down there. He was like, stand back, stand back. Steve definitely would have got Steve confused in one of the other ones. Like, it's just what it was. That's the thing.

Like, I can't get mixed up in the scuffle. Here's the question. Wait, let's be clear first for the audience. What are we talking about? What we're talking about is the incident that happened

in Montgomery where a black dock worker security guard, not sure quite what his capacity was. was trying to get a pontoon boat to move so that another boat that docked that docked, all the time could dock. He was then assaulted by a family of white people

that got off of the pontoon boat. They beat them up. Then all the surrounding black people jumped in and beat the brakes off of these people. A young hero jumped into the water, swam across the way. We had summons coming out. Aquaman. Aquaman. They calling him Michael B. Phelps.

They called him C-Mirder. They called him C-Mir. I see Blackwell-Man. Or Scuba Gooding Jr. You know what I'm saying? The memes are coming, but I can't really laugh at him like that. You can laugh at them. Here's the thing, though, before we get into the MCU, the thing is, if we're there and

it's going down and then all of a sudden somebody turns to Steve. even though Steve didn't have anything to do with it. Do we protect Steve? Is it on Steve to run away or don't we have to stand in between the people that are mistaking Steve from one of them be like, no, no, no, no, no, he's with us. He's with us. Who's protecting Steve in the group? Here's the thing.

Once the guy picked up the chair, I can't let my man Steve get hit by a chair. I'm not letting Steve get fucked up. I appreciate that greatly. I'm shielding him. Here's the thing, though, like... Steve, you do have to make an effort to get out of there. No, of course, of course. Because once they start hitting people with chairs and things like that,

and then they come in, and you're not getting out the way to come at you. Now I've got to protect you. Now they're looking at me. Of course. Like, I'm a traitor. What if, but what if this, this is my question. What if Steve starts running like Captain America in Infinity War? He's just like, yo, y'all are taking two, like, I'm going to be the first to defend him.

Like, what are we doing that? Hell not, because then he's going to get fucked up. Because at that point, the only thing that we can't, only thing that we see is the skin tone. Right. It's like, I'm like that. I'm like dash running across the water in Incredibles. Like, yeah. Yeah.

That would be hilarious. Here's the thing. If somebody does punch Steve, do you defend Steve with physical force? I think I'm more so doing, like, I'm more so protecting. Yeah. Because I don't want to like, you know, it's more of a deterrence to be like, hey, no, no, no, he's fine. I'm like, you know, stop because if I punch another black man, then soon they're going to be like race trader

and then it's going to be like rich too far. Exactly. You know what I mean? Exactly. Bridge too far. Then they go to your Instagram and they're like,

I knew he was probably fucked up anyway. Steve, you might have to eat some. I'm sorry. That's fine. That's fine. Nah, you can't let your homie get beat up. See, the Jomi,

Jomey, you'd be showing cracks in the armor, bro. You can't let you like, you can't let your homie get beat up. We're like, we fuck it with Steve. But the question is, because if the rolls are reverse,

I'm going to eat Steve. to get busy and I know he would. Yeah, that's fine, of course. Yeah, all right, that's enough of that. That's weird. Everybody will be, oh, Togo Roos. It's funny. Fuck out.