Warning, This podcast contains spoilers for the limited series Moonnight on Disney, plus a bunch of stuff from Moonnight Comics, also West Coast Avengers, some Spider Man, No Way Home, and Marvel movies in general. Hello, my name is Jason stepsi Ow and welcome to x ray Vision The Crooked Podcast, where we dive deep do your favorite shows, movies, comics and pop culture. In today's episode, previously on we recap
Moonnight episode one, the Goldfish Problem in the Airlock. We dive into our thoughts on the episode, some comics history about the character Rosie, will unpack who some of these folks are that we are seeing in the Moon Night television program, and we will discuss theories about what we think is going on. For nerd Out on Marlon James's novel Black Leopard, Red Wolf, It's really great. Actually, that's a great thing.
I love that book.
I love it.
And in the endgame we discuss which mythical god's powers we would like to bogart for ourselves. Joining me today to discuss this and more is the great, the powerful, the talented Rosie moon Night.
It's me when I have Twitter, that was my name at least once.
A year at least once a Yeah, Rosie, how are you?
Yeah good?
I'm excited to be here to talk to you about all this cool stuff and dig into some really weird comics, really weird.
Oh man, I've been reading a bunch of we'll talk about it. We'll talk about it when we talk about it. Let's get into the recap. Okay, recapping Moonnight, Episode one, The Goldfish Problem, written by Jeremy Sladerdricht by Mohammed Diab. We hear the strains of the Bob Dylan song every grain of Sand, and along with this we see hands breaking glass, pouring the shards of glass into a pair
of rattan slippers. This person who's breaking the glass then shoves his feet down in the slippers like an absolute psycho. We know we're dealing right away with a psycho, Rosie. This person then stands up to the crunching of glass
and then takes a walk. And then as the camera pulls out, we see that we're inside some kind of large what we would assume is a temple of some kind, and we can tell from the shot that that is Ethan Hawk, who is playing Arthur Harrow, the villain of our series Smash Cut, Stephen Grant wakes up in bed.
He removes the shackle from his own.
Ankle, which is tied to a load bearing pillar in his apartment. He then goes around his apartment and we see that he's placed sand around his bed so that he knows if he stood up in the night and left.
He has placed a.
Blue painter's tape on his door so that he can tell if someone's come in or if he has left, and all of that stuff seems undisturbed, groggy from lack of sleep. Clearly there's a person who's not getting a RESTful night of sleep. He's got we would assume from this like the Mike Birbiglia sleep issue, where he just will run around in the middle of the night, groggy from lack of sleep. Stephen goes to his job, which we see is in the gift shop at the British Museum.
Are they calling it the British Museum.
So this is very specific London Easter exit. The exterior that they use is of the National Gallery, which is Intra Square where we see him leaves. Now. The interior is the British Museum, which has very recognizable gift shops, and I think that at some point in the show they name it as something like the National Art.
Gallery, but it is not wrong to say it's in the British Museum.
And I will say it's very interesting because we also saw them use the British Museum as a location in Doctor Strange and The Multibus of Madness, most recent trailer. So yeah, he's got he's a gift shop. He's a gift shoppist at the museum, is what.
He's a gift shopist.
But Stephen Stevie, to his colleagues, is a bit of an amateur historian, specifically Egyptology. We learn from his conversations with a young museum goer that man Stevie really knows is shit. He knows what's going on, specifically about the history of ancient Egypt. He would love to be a tour guide, but here he is stuck in marketing and promotions, which we can just shorten to gift shop. One of his co workers comes over as he's working at the gift shop to confirm that they do indeed have a
date at one of the best steakhouses in town. And it's very clear that Stevie a k. Stephen doesn't know what she's talking about and doesn't recall asking her out, isn't sure who asked who out. That night, after work, Stephen goes to get some street food. He's hanging out in the park talking the ear off a street performer, one of those street performers who like spray paints themselves a metallic color and then pretends to be a statue.
Who do we now we're stepping on our later? Who are these characters?
Rosie?
But like you had a good theory on who this might be, and I think I agree with you.
So. In the comics from quite early on in the eighties, Moonnight has a kind of an ally who is like a homeless man who is a Sometimes he's kind of the Watson to Jake Lockley, one of Mark Spector's personalities, kind of sidekick, and sometimes he's more of just like an informant who hears things from the street. Because the original representation of Moonnight's different personas were to help him navigate through different class levels and spaces in the world.
That character is Crawley.
He does not have a history of being a kind of living statue as we see here, but he does look a lot like the character in the comics, and that is a credit for the actor who plays him at the end of the show, which says Crawley, so we can say that is him confirmed, confirmed, that is Crawley. And hopefully I think that means that, even if we don't get to see it here, I think Stephen is gonna have an ally and that makes me excited.
When Stephen goes back home, we get to see more of his sleep routine, pouring the sand around the bed, taping the door shut, chaining and changing his leg up. He lays in bed, throwing a Rubik's cube up up in the air and catching it, trying to sleep, reading books, listening to like a sleep tape that says, hey, you can try imagining yourself as the character in a story, or you could try this, or you could try that.
None of it works, said. He stays up reading about ancient Egypt, and then finally peaceful sleep comes over Steve and he dozes, and when he awakes he's in the Alps or somewhere in the mouse.
He says, he's in the Alps, and we'll get to why that's the thing later.
And this is the fat Horra. This is the fast horror moment as well.
Yes, so he's in the Alps.
His jaw is broken, but we watch it fix itself.
It is daytime.
Stephen doesn't remember anything about anything, how he came to be here.
Nothing.
A voice that we will, I think soon come to learn is kan Chu tells him.
Go back to sleep worm. You're not supposed to be here, so render the body to Mark. And clearly that is a reference to Mark Spector. Stephen, you know, going through his pockets trying to figure out what the hell's going on, finds a golden scareb in his pocket. He looks up, and two men in a castle step to take an interest in him, and then all of a sudden they
start shooting him. They chase him down the mountain and into town, and everyone in town in this small alpine village seems to be headed somewhere towards the village square. And when they get to the village square, they are all bowing in obeisance to our villain, Arthur Harrow. Arthur says a bunch of stuff, including we are here to make the earth as much like heaven as possible. We can see from what's going on that Arthur is somehow judging these people to see if they're worthy of entering
into this earth like heaven. A man steps forward, Harrow leads him through the ritual and he judges that person in Ohmit's name.
Here's our first reference to.
Omit, this mis deity, omit that this person, this man it steps forward, is a good man, has been judged a good man by omen. A woman steps forward next, and the scales of justice, which are a tattoo on Arthur Harrow's arm, turned red and the woman is clearly not a good person, and harrow' says, Ahmed has decided you got to die, my dear, and she drops dead.
Bye bye.
Harrow learns from the guards that are watching this take place that something went wrong with the quote hand off, and Harrow has his followers Neil leaving Steven the only one standing and he's standing there slack jawed at what he's seeing.
Harrow is like, oh, I recognize you.
You're the Mercenary, and recall in some of our previous conversations about this character that one of the egos of Moonnight is Mark Spector. This Mercenary character, he's kind of the original personality of moon Night. Grant has no idea what the fuck Arthur Arrow is talking about. He tells everyone, listen, I work in the gift shop at the British Museum.
Like what Harrow's like? Give me the scab and seems like, yeah, you got it here, here you go, and he tries to hand it over, but he hears Conshoy's voice, Hey, you will give him nothing. And then Stephen tries he might physically cannot hand the scarab over. He doesn't understand why he can't do it. A man comes up and
snatches the scab from Stephen. Grant comes to a moment later, his fists balled up, covered in blood, and people all around him are just knocked the fuck out, and he hears his conscience voice say, oh, the idiots back and Stephen runs for it. Pursued by Harrow's followers. A car chase ensues through the mountains, with Conshoot screaming at Stephen
to do this and that. Just when Steven is about to get taken out because one of these followers of Arthur Harrow has jumped onto the truck the van that he is driving. He passes out again, and when he wakes up more stuff has changed and This happens again and again and again, and eventually a landslide takes out a squad of the batties and Stephen wakes up in bed, still chained by the leg his tape intact over the door. Was this just a dream? What in the world is happening?
Stephen looks at his goldfish and he sees that the fin that had fallen off been injured somehow, has grown back. What is going on? Realizing he is late for that date with Dylan, Stephen rushes to his flat to change.
At the restaurant, he has been stood up by the date. He calls her.
She's irate, of course, saying that actually you stood me up. And he has no idea what date is? What the fuck is going on? His date is ruined, the date that he didn't even plan. He didn't even know who asked who're out? He goes home to eat a box of chocolates alone. While he's home, he finds a secret compartment in his living room, up in the ceiling above the waynscotting high on the wall. Rather, he finds another secret compartment, and inside that is a burner, flip phone
and an ID card. All the calls on the phone go to a number that is listed as Leila phone rings. A not British voice says, oh my god, thank god you're alive. And she's like, I haven't where have you been. I haven't heard from you in months? What's going on? And he's like, who's this and she's like, why are you talking like that? In a bad British accent, and
she calls him Mark and then the call disconnects. Stephen then hears a voice which is his own voice, talking to him and it tells him that he needs to stop because he's going to get himself into trouble. Stephen then, very very troubled, runs out of his apartment. He goes into the elevator. While he's on the elevator, he sees Conshu coming towards him and he's like in a puddle of fear at the bottom of the elevator.
He's screaming.
But then it turns out that actually it's an old woman who's on the elevator.
She's just as scared as he is.
And the very next thing Stephen knows is he's on a city bus.
Screaming just a little bit.
As the bus pulls away, Steven sees that Arthur Harrow was on the bus, and Harrow appears to Stephen later demanding the beatle. This is at the museum. Only Stephen can see and hear Harrow, if indeed Haro is even real. Harro wants the beatle returned to Ahmet Grant knows a little about her. Harrow tells Stephen that Ahmett could have solved all the world's problems if she had not been portrayed Harro and knows about the voice.
That is speaking to Stephen, the Conchu.
Voice, and Harrow judges Stephen and says, there's chaos in you, and Steven runs for it. Later in the gift shop, Stephen is tagging items.
The lights go out.
He hears this beastly kind of sound somewhere in the museum. Whining shadows in the museum start growing to monstrous sizes. Harrow comes over the pa He's like, give me the scaub or Steven will be torn apart. Steven runs from the monstrous creature. Mark Spector, Steven's alter ego, demands control of the body, and then we flash too. As Steven is running, we flash to all of a sudden, Stephen is in full Moonnight costume, but now we know it's Mark, and Mark has just fought the beast and won. That
is how the first episode of Moonnight ends. When we come back, we will be discussing what the hell all this means. We're stepping out of the air, locked to dive deeper into the world of Moonnight. Rosie, what did you think of this episode?
I feel like this was always going to be a complex It's going to be tough to start. It was gonna be tough to start, and there are some things about the show and kind of the representation of Stephen that I didn't love. I felt like his struggles were kind of played for laughs, and I felt like people were a little bit mean to him.
And I'm just the sweet guy.
Who likes nice stuff, so I was like, But the thing that gives me hope is it's doing the thing that all my favorite MCU shows do, which is it's really deeply taking from some incredibly weird comics and some super comics. So it's very much in the vein of Hawkeye and One Division in deeply taking stuff and plucking out characters and reimagining them. And I will always respect any superhero show that only shows like five seconds of a superhero suit.
I think that is very brave. What did you think about it?
Here's the thing about Moon Night. We've said this before on her podcast.
Moonnight is a character that I think you could argue is about vibes. Purely about vibes. There's never and your mileage may vary. If someone feels differently and has a different opinion, that's absolutely valid. But having read all of the Moon Nights, there's not really like a hammer Moon Night story. There's not like the iconic Moonnight tale, the great Moon Night Story.
The character has been.
Significantly changed almost every time he's appeared, you know, from his first appearance appearance in his solo in Werewolf by Night, to his solo titles, to his then revamped solo titles West Coast Avengers, and his several other launch solo titles after his appearances in West Coast of Vegersies, He's changed almost every time, and there's never really been that great, great,
great arc. I think mainly because he also doesn't have like his early villains were very problematic and he doesn't really have that great foil to fight, so it was in interesting at least for me, to reflect on how Moonnight Episode one was very much how I would imagine an adaptation of Moonnight taking place. It was pretty messy, it was all about vibes. There was something really intriguing about it, and I'm interested to see where it goes.
I think that I think that there's a chance for this to be really really interesting in the way that it intersects with the kind of ongoing and existing MCU which we are going to talk about shortly. But first let's let's talk about who some of these people were seeing. Here are some of these characters.
I actually think your villain you're kind of talking about, like the foil and everything. That's a really good place to launch off, because what Moonnight does here is it essentially creates wholesale a new villains for Moonnight. Now, Arthur Harrow was in one issue at one issue. He was in one issue ever, but this is the kind of thing I'm talking about. The show opens right and immediately it is just filled with Arthur Harrow easter eggs. So when we first meet Arthur Harrow in the show, he
is playing with the idea of pain. He's filling his shoes with a broken glass, you know, and in the original comic where he debuted, he was a scientist who was continuing Nazi experiments based on the idea of pain theory, and he was in the Yucatan in this Mayan temple. It's a very problematic issue, like a lot of that older stuff, the representation of different kinds of people, but the temple, once again, you get that immediate deep cut.
So it's not that Arthur Harrow didn't exist. But what they're doing is they're taking this name and this one appearance and expanding it into something larger. And I think that's really interesting, and obviously like it's Ethan Hawk, who doesn't want to see him get to kind of redefine this space. And something else that I think is really interesting about this is it is the most prominent time that we've seen Marvel do something that they've started to do, especially Hawkeye.
We talked about it a lot.
They take these names of famous Marvel characters and they recontextualize who they are as usually background characters, and that happened with Hawkeye's cosplaying crew, his LARPing crew.
Right this we see.
Them take a minor character who appeared in one issue and recontextualize it as a main villain, and that's something we're going to see in Multiverse of Madness as well with god Antos, who is only in a couple of issues. So I think that's really interesting, and I really I'm always interested in a story that explores like the mentality of cults and how they play on the vulnerable and how they take advice, and that definitely seems like what Ethan.
Ethan's Arthur Harrow seems to be playing into that with Mark and kind of trying to take advantage of Stephen feeling vulnerable and lost. So I think that is an interesting take. And we touched on Crawley, who's said by Sean Scott, so we think that's he's probably going to become an ally to Steven.
I would imagine when we get into the back half Exact series we will see more of a Crawley.
Yeah.
And so then we get into some really interesting stuff that kind of jumps off the the Moon Night Hawkeye crossover kind of stuff. So Stephen's mean boss in the museum who makes him do inventory, is credited as Donna, played by Lucy Thackeray, and she's like a very funny, like English like sassy character right now in the comics.
This is another likely nod to a Moonlight character from the Mark Spector Moonnight series, which was the nineties Moonnight series, and she was introduced in issue thirty nine a woman called Donna Craft who's basically Mark Spector's head publicist at his huge corporation that he owns called Spector Corp.
So they kind of rejig that here where she's just his boss at the museum.
But as we'll talk about later theories, I also think there's some argument of like is the museum what we're really seeing or is it a version of Spectacorp that Mark might have perhaps created to keep an eye on Stephen when he's away.
And also in another we'll talk.
About this too, but like her first appearance is in an issue with where Doctor Doom challenges done to go to the Latviian consulate and in this kind of quest for a stolen relic, and that will become relevant.
We will talk about that more in a moment.
Yeah, I think that one of the biggest questions people are going to have coming out of this is at the end you mentioned, you know, we hear him on the phone to this person who doesn't sound English who is called Leila, and in the credits we see that she's called Leila el Faoli, and there is not a
Marvel character who has that direct name. But the first most obvious one that I think if people have read Moonlight comics, they will probably realize that she seems to be likely will become a stand in for Marlene, who is Moonnight's on again, off again kind of lover, partner in crime, fellow adventurer, and some primo shots have kind of hinted at that. But there's some other things as well. There's a Marvel character called Lilah who was in the Moonlight comics who was more of kind of like a
mob boss. So that seems a little bit less likely, but worth mentioning because they like to roll stuff in. I think, okay, so we'll do the most outlandish one before I do the most realistic one.
Yeah, let's do the most So the.
Most outlandish one is a lot of people were like, well, the only famous Marvel Laila is Leyla.
Miller, which would be totally wild.
Would Layla Miller is a mutant known as Butterfly from House of m and it's been an X factor and.
She when House of M went down, she had kept her she kept her powers and also was able to kind of like he was a creation of House of M that survived post the dissolution of House of M.
And so like, you know, that's a character who has connections to Doctor do Him. But like the reality is in this kind of grounded, dark show where the thing that really seems to be relating and like speaking to people about this first episode is the kind of slightly more real take and a bit more of that fat man element. I don't necessarily know if this is where they're going to introduce, you know, just casually like introduce
a mutant. So I think the most realistic thing that would fit into the trend that Marvel has been doing of late, which is where they recontextualize a character who in the past was like at best kind of a stereotype.
And there is a character called the Scarlet Scarab who there's been two people who've held the mantle, Abdulphahl not for holy but it's similar, and then his son Memet, and that has been a character who was like briefly a villain and then briefly kind of heroic and was an adventurer and has a lot of ties to Egypt.
So I think if they're gonna go anywhere with that character, they're probably gonna do a recontextualization of the Scarlet Scarab where Laylor is this powerful adventurer who wants to kind of reclaim the things that have been stolen through colonialism and all that kind.
Of stuff, which is really cool and is also what people do.
You remember when everyone wanted to like cast oscar Isaac as Indiana Jones and they were like, just do it where he's Indiana Jones, but he's stealing.
This stuff back. Yeah, And I was like, that sounds good. So I think they're gonna play a little bit with that, And.
That's been a you know of when Killmonger first appears in Black Panther, that's the kind of vibe that he put forth, is like, this is a lot of these artifacts and these objects have been stolen, and it is interesting also to note that we've just been spending a lot of time in museums. So whether it's Black Panther or the Eternals or Doctor Stranger in the Multiverse matters, We're going to do it. Clearly, We're doing it here.
Rosie.
Let's talk about theories are theories about what is possibly going on.
So I had texted you as I.
Was watching this, and well, first of all, we should say that in recent iterations of the character Mark Spector, the Moonnight has been depicted as someone who is suffering from a form of disassociative personality disorder, did yeah, formerly called multiple personality disorder.
This kind of evolved over time.
Originally, as you noted, Moonnight had a number of aliases that he used to kind of like break down class structure and allow him to understand what was going on in the criminal underworld, right, he had a cab driver character, he had the billionnaire, his millionaire slash billionaire rich guy character, and then he had like some other ones.
So originally they said it was like psychic trauma from connecting with kN split his personalities. In the nineties they would kind of occasionally refer to it as schizophrenia.
And then the first time that it.
Was really like DD as disassociated identity sort of was like in the mid Zeros when Bendis brought him into the Old Universe, and from there it just kept evolving and went from kind of a narrative device to some people actually like explored it as part of who he was, and that has been like a core tenant of the character under many different names.
Yes, now, I think we both agree that I would not be surprised if they don't. Now they brought in a d ID consultant, and they've talked about that in some pre show interviews. I think that that is probably could easily be wrong, but I think that's probably a
just a bid to be responsible about the depiction. And I think, really, what's going on here, and I'm judging by the fact that Moonnight's costume just appears like out of right, I think what we're seeing here is some sort of multiversal convergence, some sort of action like that. We had talked previously in our low Key episodes about these this idea of nexus beings, these beings who like
act as convergence points throughout the multiverse. They're the same throughout the multiverse, and I think maybe there's something like that going on here. Notably, the Scarlet Witch is one of these very important nexus beings. But I think maybe there's something like that going on here where you have different versions of the person who is Mark Spector or Stephen Grant, and those different multiversal versions are converging on the same body and sharing the same.
Body, and that is why we get like.
This costume, like appearing out of nowhere and stuff like that.
I think that's probably what we're seeing.
I think that you're right, and I actually so. I love to I would.
This is something I always recommend to everyone who watches these shows. If you wait till the end of the movie or the end of the show, aside from probably getting some kind of stinger, sometimes you can see the special thanks, and that's where we get to kind of pay our respects to the creators who enabled these stories to be told, and the special thanks in these Marvel
shows have been very telling. In the first episode of Wonder Vision, they thanked Olivier Coypel and Brian Michael Bendis, and that was how we worked out the house of them was probably going to be a really big influence,
so there are secrets built in there. And at the end of the first episode of Moonnight they thank Jim Krueger, Alex Ross Doug Braithwaite, all three of whom worked on a book called Universe X, which featured a different universe version of Mark Spector who got his powers through vibranium. They also did design the Mummy style suit, so there's other reasons, but it's very interesting that they famously designed
this different Mark Spector from a different Earth. Then you also have Bill Sinkovic, famous Moonnight creator, absolute comic book artist icon but in one of his what if issues, he played with the idea that Mark Spector was from a different universe and he had three different old And then we also have Jeff Lemire, who has obviously was the author of one of the most popular current kind of takes on Moonnight and his mental health, but also as he has actually created multiple multiversal.
Moon Nights just alone, just him.
I think it's important that they brought in consultants and were thoughtful about the representation.
I didn't it.
Didn't speak to me as someone who is always thinking about that kind of stuff. I didn't feel like it was what I hoped it would be. But I have seen a lot of people who it really spoke to and they really related to it, and I think that that's really important and cool. So I think it's really good they did that, and you can't really do Moonnight without doing that.
Because of the history of the character.
But I do feel like from this first episode and the fact that the the idea is not actually mentioned in the context of the show of the first episode, and there's only six episodes. Yeah, they don't have a Doom Patrol level of three seasons or lee amount of episodes to really explore what d id means, how it happens,
the trauma that causes it. So I think that a multiversal idea of Mark essentially or Stephen struggling with multiple versions of himself from multiple different universes is actually very likely and also would tie into Kang. It would tie into the multiversal kind of mayhem that Marvel is really leaning into it at the moment, and it would make a lot of sense because these iterations, these versions of
Mark and Stephen are very different and the struggle. If this had been going on his whole life, you feel like maybe there would be some empathy from people who knew him, or he would have been able to access some kind of help. But it feels he doesn't seem to have the words to describe it. He talks a lot about he feels recent and I think that would be a really smart way of looking at the struggle
of all these different people. And also, like we know now that from what if that what happened in Loki, the different timelines that did affect the main MCU. So there's a chance that these mark spectors from different universes have either been pruned and so need somewhere else to exist or now exist because of split timelines, right.
I think that this is If I had to bet, I would say that this is not the quote unquote six one six MCU time.
This is taking place.
What we're mostly seeing is taking place in some kind of offshoot pocket universe. Yeah, that will then elements of which will then be brought into the main EMCU. Now I'm glad that you mentioned kang are multiversal Big Bad introduced in the Loki series is going to play such a large role in Face four. How we don't know
because we mentioned the Alpine location. Yes, now, very very clearly, Marvel is is like playing with the idea that that could be Latviia, the the Kingdom, the nation kingdom ruled by Doctor Doom victor von Doom there they want.
That's wheah.
They're teasing as if you've ever read a comic that has Latviria in it. And I wrote an article about this at Nerdiced that you can go and read that has visual imagery. If you've ever read a comic about lat Viria and you've seen an image of it, It is a Bavarian alpine town that in the mountains has a huge castle, you know, carved out of it that
is called Castle Doom. That little city is called Doomstat and it is in Latviia where Doctor Doom was born then left, then went back to reclaim his kind of like kingship or presidency or whichever version, and that whether look, we are not out here saying like this is confirmed, but whoever made this.
Show, there's a world where this is like a pre Doctor Doom Latveria alternate dimension.
But they're quick. They want you to think that, they want you to think that.
There was even that moment in the trailer where like loads of people reported on it. Then loads of people reported that it wasn't true, and as it's just a funny the cupcake truck that he steals during the mountain car chase, it's it's for a company called like.
Von Drumberg or something else. But people saw the vonde and they were like, oh my gosh.
And then it was really funny because everyone was like it was not that, but now you watch the episode and you're like, oh, but they want you to want this conversation.
They want you to say, is it.
And also, like we said, you know Moonnight has he's tangled with Doctor Doom. There's that two issue arc thirty nine and forty and Mark Spector Moonnight in the nineties where he kind of has this entanglement with Dr Doom and they play on a little bit of both of their sides, kind of both sides of their kind of like anti heroism, like could they be a hero? Could they be a villain? And I think that's really interesting.
Also in that issue, Doom is kind of approaching Mark about a relic that he stole, a latveriant relic, and in this we see Mark there with the scarab, a relic that he's stolen, a relic that is also in another good comic book nod Is, like directly from the comics. Mark is after he loses the power of Conshu, he meets the priests of Conshu and they end up giving him these relics, including a scarb that give him his power Kang.
As we talked about in our Loki episodes, and it's important to reiterate is a time traveler who, through his extensive time traveling, is just a crude extreme amounts of knowledge and expertise about the way the universe works, the fabric of the universe, and just understands how to kind of play reality like an orchestra. Now, a different version of variant of Kang in the Marvel Comics canon.
Is Doctor Doom.
Doctor Doom is a version of Kang in One Universe also a version of Kang Read Richards. I'm just going to put this out here right now as a thing that could happen. Jonathan Majors Kang playing both Doctor dooman Read Richards was on the team.
To see it.
It could have absolutely I think that by I think that one Jonathan Major's iconic can casting just can't get enough of that final Loki episode.
That would be incredible.
And I think that they made a statement as soon as you cast Jonathan Major's as Kang, you you introduced the probability and the likelihood that Read will be black.
And that's a world I want to live in.
And I think having all three of those characters as black characters in the MCU would be super interesting, and if they were brave enough to do all three played by Jonathan.
I Crazy Love, it would be insane.
It would be so good, it would kind of.
There's lots of easy ways to tie in. When Dr Doom first appeared, he appeared as a time travel villain who was constantly like traveling around and causing chaos. And then in you know, to bring the moonlight context back to it, Kang has ancient Egyptian yes, periohood where he's rama tat you know.
So right, So just to just to quickly reset on this, so Kang Kang lived in the three in like the the thirtieth century, and he was just like really bored with life in the thirtieth century because it was too peaceful. And he discovers a time machine. He starts traveling around the very first place. He ends up going his ancient Egypt, where he then becomes the ruler. He names himself Ramatad
and he rules for a large amount of time. He hides like a time machine and the fucking Great Pyramid, and he gets up to all kinds of trouble.
He tussles with.
The Fantastic four Yeah, and he messes around with the West Coast Avengers. After they get hurled throughout time into like six different timelines, some of the West Coast Avengers end up out in ancient Egypt where they have this adventure against Rama Tut. Now here's another interesting tian so Kang is Ramatut, remember that varyingt to Ramata. While Hawkeye is trapped in twenty one forty nine BC, he happens into the temple of Kanschhu, not understanding what the importance is,
and he's just like oh. He ends up through different turns of events because he kind of takes a liking to the defenders of the Temple of Kanchu. He like carves these little you know, the moon Night moon batter angs, moon rangs and different kind of like projectile weapons for the people of Kanchu. In other words, Hawkeye in twenty one forty nine BC designed Moon Night's scab dow. He made his weapons, which is another crazy little thing to it.
So all of which is to say, I wonder, I wonder if at the end of this we get some sort of Rama Tet Kang doctor doom Hint, some kind of drop about that that brings us into the stuff that we know we're going towards, because otherwise, you know, what is this series building towards? That's the thing I keep thinking, what is what is it here to do? Clearly multiverse is the order of the day. Does that get us to Kang? I think that there's a chance.
I do too, And I think that it's like important. You guys have heard us talk about Kang a lot, but like it. Kang is a because he's from the future. He is a descendant of Read Richard's father. Yes, and that's kind of why those three are all all seem so connected. I feel like I we talked a lot about Marvel Horror. Is this going to lead to Marvel Horror? The MCU Horror in the MCU that is definitely the big picture kind of situation.
Moon I made his debut in Werewolf by Night.
Yeah, we're gonna have the were Wolf by Night kind of were Wolf to be named Halloween Special. We know Blade is in the MCU now also connected to Britain and British museums and in the comics has a London set origin story. And I just never saw it coming that they would do like a Latvaria Teas But now they did it.
I'm like, this makes so much sense, Like the connection.
Is there, and these are the kind of things that we love about watching these shows. Even if in like a month the showrun is like it was just the Alps, we can all be like, well that was fun, you know.
That's still fun. I mean, is why we get into it now.
You mentioned like the crazy version of who Leyla could be. I'm going to go with a crazy version of a possible theory here. When I think Egypt and Marvel, I think really kind of like the original mutant and iconic X Men super villain Apocalypse, who it just so happens was played by Oscar Isaac's in X Men Apocalypse, a very very bad twenty sixteen X Men movie, But it's
I don't think we see Apocalypse here. But I wonder if we get a hit I was watching when they were in you know, in those temple scenes, like I do wonder if at some point they pan past the various statues, if one we get a rama tut or an Apocalypse statue in the background of one of these.
We know that the Fox X Men movies exist.
In this universe, right at least or at least they.
Will at some point because we have seen presumably Charles Xavier played by Patrick stewartt So there's no reason that I feel like you couldn't.
Allude to it.
Maybe Oscar wouldn't want to, because I feel like you probably like doesn't remember it fondly. But like I think that there's Egypt in Marvel is impossible to think of without thinking of Apocalypse because so much of Marvel is defined by the X Men, and ironically, even like the Rama Tut stuff, the Kang stuff, that's all way way down the recognition ladder compared to Apocalypse.
So when you have this who also, by.
The way, we're going to see him presumably inhabit many different characters and heroes and villains and versions, I don't see why there couldn't be a nod or something that is actually more direct, because I think that they've you know, they've sold this show as kind of like Raiders of the Lost Arc meets Indiana Jones meets the MCU, So I think we're going to see a lot more adventuring and actually going to Egypt, going to these spaces, and in that case, Apocalypse is like an outlier. But it's
like who wouldn't want to see that? Who wouldn't want to catch that easter egg?
More connections, possible connections to the larger MCU, the idea of chaos magic.
There's chaos.
That gets us to I mean, it's it's impossible not to think of doctor Strange and the multiverse lands and the stuff we might see there. The Schumer Gorath slash Garganta. We're gonna we keep callinghim Schu McGrath Gargantos. In the movie of the Lord of Chaos us uh tell us about what do you think do you think that we will get any kind of chaos magic Lord of Chaos Gargantos.
So in the comics bread crumbson.
Marks did or whatever they've called it has always been inherently supernatural because it was it was always connected in part to Conshu. And recently in the Marvel comics they actually wreckon Konshu to make him an elder god, which would sit him alongside Schumma Gorath and the other elder gods of the Marvel universe.
So that's a connection there. Schumigrath is the Lord of Chaos.
In fact, in the first Moonlight trailer they actually they actually kind of use Schumagorrath's famous video game quote, which is Arthur Harrow says to he says to Steve, you know, he' says, Oh, there's chaos in you, and then he says, embrace it, and Schumer Gorath's phrases embraced chaos. Recently, the first official kind of MCU big dig into chaos magic was that is what Agatha Harkness tells Wonder that she uses, and she says, and that makes you the Scarlet Witch and
the Dark Hold. That is a chaos magic book. You know, I think it's very likely the different magics of the MCU kind of come together under that banner. And I think as well, like the chaos in New Thing is really interesting because obviously it seems like he's talking about the struggle between Mark and Stephen, but it could be that he's sensing all these different people from different planes. If Stephen is an exus or Mark is a nexus being, because they haven't really made.
Clear who the kind of primary.
Version of the character is in this universe, but whoever it is, if they're a nexus being, that means that they could be contacting and connected to every single multiverse at the same time. Which is incredibly chaoic and is connected to what wander can do again back to chaos magic. So I think there's definitely something in that.
I think that there is a pretty good chance that this is our introduction into the idea of nexus characters, or the idea of like multiple characters in having the same body. Okay, more interesting connections, just stuff that I picked her. We mentioned West Coast Avengers, and by the way, that like time travel Adventure arc is, I think West Coast it starts in like West Coast Avengers twenty.
I want to say, I'm in that the page you sent me killing it of Hawkeye talking to Konhu is like some of the coolest comic book I've seen in an.
Age when he really gets fantastical, is just is just wonderful one of wonderful artists. I can't help but notice that, first of all, on a Hawkeye series, as we talked about, you know, one of the places that are Hawkeyes are two Hawkeyes laid up was the apartment of more Brandon, who in the comics is the actress who gives her her Rancho palace Verdice estate to Hawkeye and Crewe to
use as the West Coast Avengers compounds. Okay, we've got her, and they very specifically mentioned her name, and that can only mean we're at some point going to the West Coast. Whether it's you know, who goes unclear, whether it's Caden Clint, but like, we're going to the West Coast. Moonnight has some adventures with the West Coast Avengers and the comics, so we have that connection also with that kind of
like time traveling adventure. I wonder we don't have a team yet, right, that's the one thing that in Phase four that we don't have.
We've had these team up movies with Spider Man.
No Way Home is essentially a team up between multiple Spider Man, right, and a doctor change with the Multiversal Madness will be some kind of team up movie, but similarly it will entail multiple versions of the same characters, right, where as a team up movie. I do wonder if we're not headed towards like a West Coast Avengers.
I know, I think that we kind of vaguely touched on this with Hawkeye, but like in the recent one of the recent Kate Bishop Hawkeye runs, she moves to La and I think that there's something with them making Moira her aunt in the show. I think that the version that we get of whatever the next iteration of the Avengers is might be a kind of melding of Young Avengers with West Coast Avengers and kind of have them based out in California for a change of pace,
change of tone. You can kind of draw from some of that wackier West Coast Avengers stuff, because throughout history they've.
Just had some really cool weird arcs.
The West Coast Avengers is so integral to the stuff we saw in Wonder Vision, which I know now feels like it was like a million years ago, but that established the tone for these shows, and so much of that came out of that, and a lot of the exploration of what we still have to look at with Wander and with the White Vision and where he stands now is that all is derived from West Coast Avengers. So I think that's like a really big touch point.
And my biggest question is, like, are they not establishing a brand new team of Avengers, New Avengers, Young Avengers, West Coast Avengers, Uncanny Avengers.
Like whatever is it?
Savage?
Certainly, you know, yeah, I would rather keep that one out in the pocket. But like, is it because their focus right now is like Fantastic four and the X Men, and then when the X Men appear, we get some kind of new Avengers team, and then we have you know, Avengers versus x Men, which I think is the big thing like every comic book person wants. But I wonder because I feel like every other phase has been so defined by the Avengers team, and we have all the
pieces here for something new. You know, for a long time, it seemed like Captain Marvel would be the Captain America and we would have these different legacy characters, but that hasn't come together in the way that a lot of us expected. So I'm really interested did because, like you said, you made a really great point where you're like, they're almost doing these team up movies because they don't have a core team, and people love the team up movies.
People seeing the team.
What happens after Doctor Strange? You know, is it a different kind of team? Is it an Illuminati instead of an Avengers? You know? Is it a dark Avengers, which we kind of think that we've been seeing seeded in some of the TV shows.
It is an exciting and unpredictable time.
Yeah, we're really we're really in some unexplored territory. Uh, it feels like we're flying by the seat of our pants with some of this. One more one last thing you mentioned it a little bit. There's something not right about this museum, right, Like, first of all, Steven's apartment for somebody who works in the gift.
Shop, is that's a minimum wage?
It's galatial like it is stacks of books, high ceilings, like is freaking huge.
Now you could say.
That's some of his Marks Spector money or whatever, the mercenary Like okay, but like, does Mark Spector even exist in this reality?
Yeah?
Also, I think you touched on something here because the number one thing that I think a lot of Moonnight fans and Moonnight readers and even casual Moonnight kind of noah about us were confused about is In the comics, Stephen Grant is the billionaire millionaire.
A movie producer, usually right making a.
Latest iteration the movie producer, but generally he's the Tony Stark persona. He's the Bruce Wayne right, So people say, why would this guy be working in a gift shop? So does this mean that the museum is a front
for something else? Is this really what Stephen is experiencing that I think the apartment is such a good catch that I hadn't really thought about, because like, owning a house in London is a myth, Renting a house in London is a myth, and so to have that in the center of London when you work a minimum wage, you with no benefits and and kind.
Of that is a great little clue that whatever.
This version of and that would kind of explain away like Donna, you know JB who is the security guard who I'm sure is gonna is gonna play a bigger part and have a kind of more serious role. These characters are like not nice to Stephen, and there doesn't really seem to be a.
Reason they're not nice to him, But they're also they're familiar. They're familiar exactly and not at all surprised with how weird he is about losing time, being forgetful about stuff. Like they're extremely mean to him, but they're also like not put off by how strange he is acting at times.
Yeah, and it doesn't seem like it comes from a place of empathy. It seems like it comes from like, oh, we expect it. So I really think there might be something interesting to the idea, especially if you're talking about this bubble kind of universe that you were talking about, the Pocket universe. You know, I think there's something very interesting to the idea that the museum is a fragmented
part of something, something created to distract him. You know, maybe something even created by a different version of Stephen to you know.
What's the word.
You just wanted to have a normal life. You don't want the drama, you don't want the to Okay, go and work in a museum where your passions are. And I do think something else that's like interesting to me on a rewatch, right, there are hints in this first episode of Stephen's like deep deep intelligence and passions and the things that he knows a lot about, and that kind of contradicts the general representation, which is kind of
he's like a bumbling, kind of silly guy. And I think that is also very interesting when we're thinking about, like what is this version that we're seeing and what is really going on behind the kind of curtain.
It's a fascinating, interesting first episode, a little bit of a mess, but with some really intriguing things, and I can't wait to talk about how this could possibly connect to the larger MCU. More with you, Rosie up next nerd Out. In today's nerd Out, where you tell us what you love and why, Jed pitches us on the twenty nineteen fantasy epic bestseller that is excellent, really really good, Black Leopard Red Wolf by Marlon James.
It is an excellent book. Pick it up.
Hello, Jason, It's me Jed Segovia, shout out to my fellow Filipino American host of X Ray Vision, and I am urging you to pick up Marlon James this brutal and beautiful fantasy epic novel, Black Leopard Red Wolf. And I came across this because I love fantasy. I read The Silmarilion in college and I couldn't even get through
the first Lord of the Rings novel. And I just wanted to find novels that were just away from the traditional Western eurocentric settings of castles, knights, dragons, the stuff that's become Hollywood ip and it came across Black Leopard, Red Wolf, written by Marlon James, and this story. It's a beautiful epic set in a very vivid and brutal
version of Africa inspired by African myth and history. James has jokingly referred to this story as an African Game of Thrones, But while it has all the hallmarks of that kind of story Warren Kingdom's Palace, intrigue, monsters, magic, fascinating characters, it's inspired by a culture that, in my experience, has rarely appeared in acclaimed Stateside novels. And this book is the first book of a planned trilogy called the
Dark Star Trilogy. And this first book centers on Tracker, a bounty hunter with a magic nose capable of tracking anything and anyone, which he uses to track down missing women, floundering husbands, or any lost person in all of these myriad kingdoms across this magical land, and his sordid life of tracking eventually leads him to encounter what would become a companion and Freney Leopard, a shape shifting leopard and
master archer. And the core of the story is a quest that Tracker and Leopard are brought into by a motley crew of princesses, giants, mercenaries and witches to rescue a kidnapped child from a band of vampiors and monsters going around tearing up the land killing entire families. It's just such a beautiful and such a vividly written novel.
It's like reading an rated final fantasy story. Is set in Africa, the violence is viseral and the magic is fairy tale like, but not in that sanitized Disney sense, but in the classic Grim Brothers sense of grotesque and body horror. The characters are flawed, but they're absolutely magnetic to read. And what I love is that the characters aren't even like this gender. Tracker is queer, the Leopard is queer, and there are full on sex scenes between
multiple members and the same gender. It's treated as a matter of fact and very refreshing to read in a novel of this genre. And it's a perfect time to get into it because the second book had come out in February, and the narrative picks up from where the first book ends, and it's just really exciting because this second book, the point of view is then written from the point of view of another character in the first book,
Black Leopard and Red Wolf. So the thing is, the film rights to Black Leopard and Red Wolf have already been bought by Michael B. Jordan Killmonger himself. I really urge you to check out this book. It's a great read. We will definitely be seeing an adaptation soon in the big screen or in any of these big streaming services. Peace out and enjoy.
Thanks Jed for submitting. If you want to be featured, send your nerd out pitch to x ray a cricket dot com. Instructions are in the show notes.
Up next, the End Game, Rosie.
We are in the Endgame now, and today we are pondering the question, if you could have the powers of any mythical god, who would it be? This is interesting, this is a fascinating one, Rosie. Do you want to go first?
This is a tough one.
I'm gonna go for comfort over anything else. If I was gonna become a Greek god and get any or any kind of mythological god and get any power, I would go for ambrosia.
I would take a lot of food. I'm like, I want abundance.
I want to feed people delicious stuff. I want my friends to eat the food and feel so nourished. I want to never be hungry. I make everyone food so they're never hungry. I don't know if that's how our powers work, but.
That's how I'm taking it.
I just love it.
I love food. I love the relevance of food and mythology.
You know, I think a lot of about like the myths of like posephony and stuff.
Those were the stories I always remembered.
So I kind of like the idea is food is this nourishing thing on like a metaphorical level and a physical level.
And I love eating. So that's what my one wall.
Then if you're going to do that, then I'm going to pick me.
I have to pick Bacchus, the god of wine and parties, so that we could just like throw a crazy, crazy feast. Bacchus, Uh, you know, you know him alias liber Where we get the word libations always pictured in conjunction with like vines and vines of grapes, always holding a drinking cup with like a crown of grapes and stuff. Bacchanalia is a word for just kind of like an ecstatic party.
Uh.
I don't what are Bacchus's powers, just kind of like physical pleasure and partying, and I feel like me of it together. I think what an incredible pair. Uh that's it for the end game.
Who would did you pick?
What power would you pick? Of a mythological of an ancient god or creature. Hit us at hashtag XRVN game to give us your pick. Big thank you to Rosie Night for joining us on X ray Vision. Rosie Plug Everything, Plug everything you got.
Yeah, come, I'm Instagram, Rosie Marx mr X. Same on Letterbox, where I've actually been doing a really good job of putting every movie that I watch. I don't review many of them, but I log them and you can laugh at all my bad choices or watch along to all these great bad movies with me.
If you like Easter eggs.
And want to dig more into that, there's a big Easter egg piece up at Nerdice for this episode of Moonnight. There will be weekly that is what I do. There is also a that vary a piece. There is also a piece about mine and Jason's nexus being theory. There is all kinds of fun stuff there. I have a Godzilla comic coming out. You cannot reorder it, yeah, but you can let your comic shop know that you think it looks really cool and hope they will.
Pre order it.
If you live in the LA area, tell your comic shop to hit me up. We will be doing cool signings. I can't announce any right now, but I will announce them when they are close and yeah, and.
Then obviously listen to us on x ray Vision.
Check out our videos on the Uncultured YouTube channel. Check the next episode on April eighth, where we will be diving into the sci fi multiversal action film Everything Everywhere, all at once, So see that if you have a chance to see it, or if you haven't seen it yet. We'll surely be discussing more Moonnight and other episodes of that and probably Halo as well. And again, send your nerd out submissions to x ray at cricket dot com. Don't forget to hit us with the five star ratings.
We love those. X ray Vision as a Cricket Media production. The show is produced by Chris Lord and Saul Rubin. The show is executive produced by myself and Sandy Gerard are Editing and sound design is by Vasili's Photopoulos. Delon Villanueva and Matt de Group provide video production and Court and Alex Releford handles social media. Thank you to Brian Vasquez for our theme music.
Bye Bye
M HM