Warning. Today's episode contains spoilers for Black Panther, What Kind Of Forever, because we're gonna be talking about Ironheart and her history and the MCU and comics.
Hello.
My name is Jason Concepcion and I'm Rosie Knight and welcome back to X Ray Visions of Vodkas, Movie IV, your favorite shows, movies, comics at pop culture coming to you from my Her podcast, where we'll bring you three episodes a week every Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Monday.
Last news in today's episode, if you listen to the spoiler warning, you may have an idea what we're gonna talk about. We're getting you prepped for the Ironheart television show with the background on our history in both the MCU and comics. So maybe we'll do a little prediction. Maybe we'll do it dive into comics and let's see where this goes. Because iron Heart is a bit of a mystery prospect for us right now. We've only had a couple of adverts for it, a couple of trailers.
It's looking very different. We spoke to the fantastic Sam Bailey, So let's stick into what we already know about re Re and what that could tell us about the show.
Okay, let's talk about Rhewey Williams. Re Re makes her MCU debut in the twenty twenty two film Will kind Of Forever, directed by Ryan Cooler with the screenplay by Ryan and Joe Robert Cole. This is, of course, the first movie post the death of King T'Challa, the movie that really had to grapple with the untimely death of
Chadwick Boseman, who chocklingly passed away due to cancer. And just as a remembrance of this movie and the fact, you know, I watched it recently, rewatched it recently to say it, it does way better than it should considering the challenges that it.
Faced to be Ryan Coogler, who made this movie after the death of a close friend who was essentially the reason he could even make Black Panther. Is so heartbreaking. And yeah, I think that at the time, you know,
I mean, this movie made so much money. It's not that did not impact it in a you know, financial way, But I do think at the time it was tough for people to watch because the original Black Panther film had been such a joyous kind of celebration and such a cultural moment, and this movie had to be way more somber and had to actually, you know, reckon with the fact that Chadwick had died and then in this
version that T'Challa had died. And it's really really interesting, and they do a lot of really deep stuff when it comes to the exploration of nay More, who they kind of reimagine here is no More and they give him a fantastic origin story that we never got in the comics. One of the lines inactly.
Other thing that really impressed me was one the the retcon of no More and how seamlessly they made his name make sense, I know, biography of the character, and I was like, goddamn, that like really worked. That was really good. That really worked. I was. I was really
impressed with that. Let's talk about Rory Williams. So the plot of this movie hinges on the search for vibranium and the hunger, the desire that countries around the world have for this substance, which now that they know about it and know that it exists in huge quotes only seemingly in Wakanda as far as anybody knows, they would like it because they have discovered that it can theoretically
be used for weapons of mass destruction. And the idea is that, well, if hold on, now, Wakanda has potentially like advanced vibranium based weapons of mass destruction. None of us have it. We don't know what it is. And now we didn't even know this country existed on the on the level of geopolitical strength that it actually exists on. And all of this is new to us, and it's
extremely destabilizing and what's going on. So they hold all these hearings, and while they're holding the hearings in which they, you know, question Queen Romanda about the vibranium and Wakanda's possession of vibranium, they are also secretly spearheaded by the French. It's the French, those evil French cheese, those evil French cheese.
They are also the name of the world secretly hunting one for kind of vulnerable Wakandan bases where they could maybe steal some vibranium, or they are looking around the
world for other sources. And they are using the research of one MIT student, one genius MIT student named Reerey Williams, who has discovered a way to kind of like scan for vibranium, and they have found some under the sea, and this is what brings ree Rey Williams to the notice of both the CIA and eventually to Wakandan security agents and also the the Atlanteans. Do I have that correct, Rosa.
You have that correct? And also important to note that no more and kind of Wakanda and everyone other than famous right, you know, fed Ever k Ross don't know that she is like a student. They think this is some American weapons program, some American scientists, and it kind of comes as a shock, but wouldn't be a shock to us because we know that really is one of the most intelligent people in the Marvel Universe, sometimes the most.
I think that is still a lunari. I think Moon Girl is still technically the most intelligent person in the MCU. But it's a really interesting twist because then you also get this conflict once again Coogler doing what he does best, between even the more Shuri Wakanda. They come to mit at first because they think that Rear is an enemy, but really ends up being taken to Wakanda at first almost as a prisoner, and then ends up connecting with Shuri.
Having this really kind of beautiful friendship and finding herself even more so in the space of Wakanda and being able to build that first suit, and we get to see her in it, you know, momentarily during that crazy final battle, which I think for many people was kind of the question mark moment of like did the movie land for them? Did it not? There's this huge battle where they're luring the more and his warriors, and there's kind of this question over, you know if you're watching it,
like who should they really be fighting? And eventually, you know, we see that they come together and he surrenders, and they kind of make this almost like a loose friend kind of like it's not a true alliance, but it's like Talakan and Wakanda kind of wink at each other and say, hey, will we'll be there And then interestingly, which I thought was very interesting and I'm sure we'll see happen in Ironheart, we'll see this reckoned with but sure it makes really leave her suit in Wakanda. Oh so,
then much too much Wakandan technology? Do you feel like that's a bit unfair seeing as Bucky has a Wakandon arm that he's just throwing in the dishwasher. But no, he did.
They know him for several years there. To be fair to Bucky, he stayed there for for a number of years and gained their trust over time. Reary is still an unknown quantity, you two.
And I would also say point sets up a great thing for iron Heart because we know that she is now going to want to do anything to be able to create a suit that, as she says in the trailer, is undeniable. But that here we also see like she has already experienced what it's like to be able to build something fantastic, something unbelievable, which is what she did in Wakanda. So I think that adds like a really
interesting kind of cool conflict. And also, as you know, we talked about this when the movie came out, But the thing about this is there is this really interesting cultural exchange between Wakanda and the rest of the Marvel Comics universe. In the comics, like kids are often going for like a exchange trip y, you know, like going to Wakanda and coming back and sure, he's coming to America.
And so I think this is kind of a fun play on that in a movie that had to deal with a lot of serious stuff and yeah, the other fun things that come out of this. I don't think we're going to see, you know, impact Ironheart, but I do love and Barku ends up becoming King of Wakanda. Yes, I love Embarku so love that we all send you. And obviously in the mid credits scene, will this play
into the future of the MCU hard to know. We do learn that T'Challa has a son who Nakia has been kind of Bob and I don't love the fact that she just named him T'Challa. I understand, but in the nature of the naming conventions of Wakandan's in the comics, that is not what would happen. But I think it's very sweet. That moment definitely had all of us crying in the cinema, and that is that's why we leave Wakana forever. And as we said, re Rea's status quo at the end of that, she's back at MIT and
it's gonna be interesting to see. I'm guessing from what we've seen in the trailers she is back in Chicago and the show. I don't think she's in MIT anymore. I think that's over.
So let's talk about the show and what we know about the show. Here is the blurb the log line log sentence of Ironheart, which will debut shortly quote. Following the events of the film Black Panther Wikonda, Forever Mit student Reerey Williams returns home to Chicago, where she becomes entangled with the enigmatic Parker Robbins aka the Hood, discovering secrets that pit technology against magic, setting her on a
path of danger an adventure. Now, I think clearly, from what we know and from the kind of from the official language that's out there, it seems as if re Rey and Parker start off as allies, yes, and I think what will eventually drive them apart is well, I think very clearly we're going to see Parker get his powers in.
Yes, I think that we will explore the notion of magic in a more obvious way here. I would also say that if we look to the comics, because I think something that people have been understandably kind of confused about or worried about is like, well, how come when it's to show about a young black woman, suddenly it's about crime and it's about evil, and it's about are you what are you going to do? And obviously there are arguments of like a, well, why would you make
it easy? This is a realistic you know, they're trying
to do a realistic take. But what I think people aren't talking about is that this is actually all Also one of the key parts of Reeary's Law not obviously a dalliance with the Hood, but when Really was first introduced by Brian Michael Bendis, there was and Mike Diodato, there was a situation where she was kind of a she was just a teenage girl and they had a lot of issues with a similar like there was a sexy Jascott Campbell cover for her even though she was fifteen,
and that was in October twenty sixteen, and there was you know her, she was very much just like she stole an Iron Man suit and she made it her own, and it was a cool character that people were really excited to see designed. But it was when there was the Champions Run, which people did feel like kind of expanded her a bit more, which was your kind of
gym's up at Emilio Leso stuff. But it was really when Eviewing and Kevin Lebranda came on with her first solo series that re re really kind of started to grow out. And there had been criticisms of Revery Rely early on, very much in the same way I think that people talked about Amadea's show, but with him they were like, this is an interesting, complicated character. But with Really they were like, she's a sociopath. She's stealing all the time. Why is she doing this? Like why doesn't
she care about the rules? Like and so what Eve did was Eve you know who we love friend of the pod. You can listen to her talking about kind of Forever on our kind of Forever episode. But what Eve did was she basically made that part of Real's character arc was like the fear that I think we all have of are we a bad person? Could we do evil? Could we do harm? And basically made every choice that she made was about proving to herself that she wasn't that person and she wanted to help her community.
So I think, in its own way, it seems like the show is echoing that storyline in a little bit more. I would say, of what seems like from what we're seeing kind of a black and white way, but it also does seem like it's going to lean into from
our conversation with Sam Bailey. I think this notion of like a found family outside of the constructs of the MCU, and there's going to be these different characters like Parker, and it seems kind of a kind of crew of people who I think will see re re develop that with and then we'll have to make choices between good and bad and what she does. And I mean, isn't that the ultimate superhero kind of situation? Haven't they all had to do that at some point?
So let's talk about some of the interesting questions that linger over this. First of all, tell us about Parker Robbins in the MCU. So, okay, one of our one of the more recent Brian Michael. Yeah, a character who is significantly elevated by the run of Brian Michael.
Bendis across, isn't this isn't impact so big on the mc It's.
It's massive, maybe the you know, it's hard to say the single biggest person, but certainly one of a huge impact because a lot of the storylines and characters and frames for certain characters come from runs of it.
Also is very interesting because the original first phase of the MCU had a council that included Brian Michael Bendis that included Matt fraction, that included different comic but creators, so it's interesting to see them kind of still go this way. Also another iconic creative team here, because The Hood was actually created by Brian ca Vaughn and Kyle Holt. Brian Cavoughn behind Saga, one of our favorite a very sho BKV. Because also so basically Parker Robins is a
low level criminal. He is, Interestingly, I would love to see if they explore this, you know how the MCU as we've seen it with the new characters like Hawkeye, Kate, Hawkye. It's all about how it feels to grow up in the era of the Avengers. She remembers seeing Hawkeye look down on her and she had and in the comics, Parker Robbins is obsessed with super villains, like the clamorous life of a super villain. That he loves Electro, which I love because that's like a weird He dates.
Dates a super villain's daughter. Yes, yes, yes, loves supervillains.
Yes exactly, Like he's kind of obsessed with it and it's very all so, and I think I feel like this has gotta be intentional if you are a Batman fan, if you've read The Killing Joke, if you've read the original Golden Age Batman stuff, there is an origin for the Joker where he is essentially the Red Hood and he's a low level criminal. He wears the Hood. He goes and does his you know crime, He gets set up for it and he falls in the acme acid and he gets his acid. This is very much a similar.
Things the Cash.
Yeah, he has a pregnant girlfriend who doesn't know that he's a criminal, and he does a heist and incredibly this is like one of my all time favorite kind of comic book things. And I doubt that they're going to go this route, but I would love it. He stumbles upon a magical seance Jason.
As happens in the comics quite often.
Yeah, and Robins kind of thinks that he's killed this monster that sort of follows them, but it turns out that is not the case. And Robin steel's the monsters or the demon's kind of cloak that he left behind and his boots because who doesn't want a delightful pair of boots, and lo and behold, he finds out that the boots give him the power to like basically jump high, walk on air, and then the cloak is very much invisible, kind of cloak invisibility cloak coded. He can find different
ways to use it. But what he doesn't know, and this is the question. Now, they could easily do this because we have seen this character already. What he doesn't know is he essentially becomes like the herald or the host for the dread Door Marmou, the Lord of the Dark Diamond, and obviously we've seen Dormamo in the original.
Doctors think they will do that?
Is I think they will do because I think that there is a I think there's an interesting route they could go here that doesn't feel so insanely like cosmic, where it's more sort of like when he puts the hood on, he doesn't know why it controls him, or kind of green Goblin esque. I think that is very very and then maybe that you know, really's in Chicago. It's not that far from New York, Like if we need a doctor Strange, you know, they love to have Stephen Strange be the kind of overseer of a young
character nowadays. It's worked very well for them in Spider Man. So I'm going to be interested. The thing I think that is really intriguing about the Hood is he is just connected to so many weird characters, like one of your favorite characters, the Beyonder, and he is also you know, he has been kind of different. He's been in different spaces. He's been in Battle World, which we think is going to come up in Secret Wars. He has a gang.
He has a gang. He has in the comics at least you know towards the end of Dark Rain and the Siege, when it kind of when the Dark Rain falls apart. Well, first of all, let me just say this.
The thing that I like about Parker and the way that Brian Michael Bendis positioned him is he was and I think this can work in the current MCU is he was one of these villains, this kind of like new generation of villains who, alongside some of the bigger names, took advantage of the weakness of the superhero community in the wake of Civil War and the distrust that like the public had for them and the disappearance of various superheroes to become more powerful, to gain more kind of
criminal territory. And I think that's something that they can.
Do with very doable even post on this. Yes, because the Avengers are your new Avengers are essentially criminals.
Parker finagled like a sea. It literally a seated like the Evil Illuminati table off of this, and you're so right to mention his connections to other criminals. One of my favorites is he rescues and then kind of begins a relationship with Madam Mask.
Connected to Hawkeye again, I feel like connected to Hawkey feel good Hawkeye Marvel TV connections here because that is who Kate Bishop's mom was revealed to be. I just think there's so much interesting stuff that they could do that is easy to connect without anything.
Madam Mask in the comics is listen. I don't know that we ever see this character, but Madam Mask, at least in the comics, is the daughter of the beloved daughter of Count Nefaria, who is yes, is one of the strongest like strength wise just pure strength super villains. He's immortal. You can't kill him because of a science experiment he did, and he is like in the class of strength of like four and is I think one of the most interesting super villains because he's like truly
modeled after like a nineteen twenties silent movie. Oh yeah, mustache twirling type, like that's how he looks. He's got this like kind of evil guy mustache, and he dresses in cloaks and suits and stuff.
Oh yeah, which also very the Hood code. It the Hood is a very old school like kind of almost like Aerol Flynn in a Robin Hood movie kind of villain the so it have so.
One of the things I really like about the pairing of Reary and Parker is this idea of a generation clash of these two characters, one who will go dark, one who will go light, but both who are like coming up against the more established generation of heroes who are either gone or are there and are less effective than they used to be and are carving out their own like space within that. I think that can be.
I think that's a really point. I would also say, as you might have guessed from us talking about this, there is like an extensive amount of Parker Robin's Law, like he has been in everything from Avengers to ghost Rider, and interestingly, there was an era where he lost his powers. I feel like we could see that at the end of the movie. Potentially we also know that's when he
then made a deal with Mephisto. Mephisto, guys, everyone, so everyone has there was a time when in the comics that Parker Robins made a deal with Mefisto to get his powers back after he'd lost his powers and been thrown off Earth. And then he comes back to Earth. And this is very much in the kind of like space that a Midnight Suns could happen because he's with ghost Rider else a Bloodstone Talia war Road like. There is a lot of dark horror kind of more in that dial of Werewolf by Night.
Do we Seeisto in Hired Heart?
This is the question many people have wondered, whether we will see Mephisto and Iron Heart.
Or do we Is there a hint of Mephisto?
I think that I think that would be a Mephisto tease. Though they have been teasing Mephisto. Me and that Casey still know every day that we messed you guys around with the Mephisto stuff. We're sorry.
I still love Mephisto.
I still think it's a you know, an interesting point. And as we know, that's a plotline that Elizabeth Olsen would love to explore and we would all love to see it. There was a rumor for a long time that Sasha Bara Cohen was its absolutely crazy casting if true, and he is allegedly in this movie in the show in an unnamed role, so perhaps we could see Mephisto. Finally, it feels unlikely because Disney is definitely giving this one of those like not one hundred percent sure of it releases.
We get the first three episodes and then we get one, two, three weekly, which is nice to have the little extra space to discuss it, but only six episodes. I'm putting them the Fisto likelihood pretty low, unless they just want to get it over with because they're sick of us all talking about it. I feel like they know this is one of the ultimate MCU fang conversations that has been going on since twenty twenty one.
At please clearly know about it. I think that they're I think it's possible that there's a tease, but I think if if there's any real Mephisto action, yeah, I doubt we see it until like Secret Wars or something like that. I think so. And if it is, if it gets mad that like Doom reconfigured me exactly and has to sell his soul and get power from the physical, you know, if.
We're seething like a brand new day First Spider for the next Spider movie. My dream version would be that that is like Peter and he is a college professor who is teaching, you know, a class where or a high school where maybe Miles goes. I think that's where they should go with that. But I could see a version where because everybody forgot Peter, he maybe makes a wish that Mary Jane would still mj would still remember him,
and there could be a Mephisto introduction there. I will also say my thing that I hope that they do take with this is there has been so much cool stuff of Parker Robbins leading a gang. So he's had his Death Watch gang. He's had a cult known as the dark Holders who want to By the way, what did they want to do? They wanted to recreate the Dark Hold. That's something we need in the MCU again after every dark Hold was destroyed. That's connected to Jack Russell who he met with in debd in Well Wealf
by Night. So I actually hope that they play a little more on the darkness and the horror and the connections that he has to Hell, to Dormamu, to all these different places. I think it's going to be really interesting. And I do think as well. We know Dominique Thorne
is funny. We know that she held her own in this massive movie where there was this huge gaping hole of Chadwick's loss, and I am really excited to see her take on this kind of leading role in a space where it's all about her and it's all about Chicago, because that's the other thing. Eve Viewing is known for making really a real Chicago kid something that actually feels authentic to the people who live there, and we don't often get that. So I'm really excited about that. Parker Robbins,
I'm excited to see him. Let's see what they can do. I want to see how they bring the hood to life. Okay, I don't think there's a world where this happens, but you know, in the two thousand and eight era of the MCU, I would have said this, do you think there's a world where the reason that Parker needs really
is because he actually doesn't have any magic. How is a tool and he's kind of wizard of ozzing it and needs to help him make that's interesting, like the technology that makes him seem like he has.
Powers, interesting interesting twist, very skeleton crew esque in the mystery. I think that there is a chance for that. Yeah, I do wonder if that's actually a great idea, because you can have you could have Parker doing stuff that is rereas technology where everybody thinks, oh, this is a guy that can do things, and then at a certain point it he gets the powers, gets the actual magic hold, and next thing you know, he's really doing something that's really interesting and we'd.
Be a cool I'm here, I'm wondering because I'm thinking, like he's going to have this group. He's got these kind of big statements about like what would you do? Like would you do this thing? So I wonder if sometimes some of the text she's using, some of the tech she's creating, is maybe for that purpose. I like a kind of Wizard of Oz the Emperor is wearing no clothes kind of twist, and I feel like it'd
be very grounded in the MCU. But I also love magic, so I do hope we're going to have some kind of magical element or maybe his thing is that he collects kids and young people and people because we know at least some of the other people who are going to be in the gang. Maybe the notion is he kind of surrounds himself with people who have powers, who have skills to make himself seem like he also does. So I'd be interested to see that. How much for
that are we going to get in six episodes? I don't know, but I'm just basically stoked to see re recome to life, and I'm interested because I feel like the hood could be like a big win for them if they get it right.
Well. Ironheart drops June twenty fourth on Disney Pluse.
Disney Pluse, We'll be watching.
We'll be watching tomorrow on Excervision. Join us for another popcorn pop out as we review twenty eight years later.
The it's either the final movie in this That's How She's, That's How She's a twenty eight trilogy, or it is the first movie after the original duology that begins the next twenty eight your case, But Aaron just chatted.
Us and was like, why not both? And I'm like, yeah, it's twenty twenty five, baby, why not both?
Okay, that's it for this episode.
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