The Marvelous MCU TV Shows of Disney+

This podcast contains spoilers about the series WandaVision, Falcon in the Winter, Soldier Loki, and the film Black Widow, and only wat to the Watcher knows what else. We're gonna be talking about a lot of stuff, so you have been warned. And Nowlex re Vision, Hello and welcome to the debut episode of expert Vision, the Crooked Podcast, where we discuss all the happenings in the various nooks and Cranny's nerd culture joining me today. He's a writer on

I am great? First of all, thank you King for that intro. I'd love to hear it. I'd love to see it. I love when I get gassed up at twelve thirty on a on a Thursday afternoon.

I love I love all of it. Man. How are we doing? How are we living over here?

We're living pretty well.

I gotta say, and just to gas you up even further, the apartment is coming together, not just from the content that you're putting out on the social media feeds, but I can see it live and the zoom behind you.

It's looking great, and it's looking thank you.

Thank you.

I got this here, couch set up, I got my little bar cart. Yeah all right here. You know, it's slowly becoming from a dirt bag bachelor pad to just a normal bachelor pad. So like we're thriving over here in a storic Filipino town.

I absolutely love it, and the people love it, and the community is happy to have you as part of as their neighbors.

Yeah, the skunks have welcomed me and now one of them at one of their own.

Let's go to previously on our news segment. First up, the good people at Disney and Lucasfilm announced Star Wars Visions and dropped the trailer for Star Wars Visions and anthology series featuring nine short films produced by seven of the top Japanese anime studios around, including production ig of Ghosts in the Shell Fame. It arrives on Disney Plus September twenty second. This trailer had me so unbelievably excited.

I was so hyphed.

It's like if you could distill down every single thing that I love that brings joy in my heart. It's lightsabers and like fast paced, nigh incomprehensible anime showed in fight scenes. I want all of it injected directly into my vein.

I also love that they were like, you know what, actually, Grievous was kind of an anime character. Now let's actually do it with this multi armed lightsaber wielding Jedi person.

I am.

It looks so unbelievably good and as Lucasfilm producer Josh Rhyme said, each studio has different styles and different tones, and that really came through in the trailer, like, yeah, Settle, each little snippet from each little short film has its own vibe.

It's it's it's one of my favorite. I mean, they haven't done those in a while, Like I always love those, like like like Anthology animated series used to watch, Like I think Something Circus was one I remember watching the eighties, but it was like just a like four or five different shorts off from like the top directors at the time doing stuff, and like this is something that I haven't seen in a very long time, and I'm so stoked that they're just like taking these giant swings on

It's so so fun. Asian representation immediately increases by about thirty in.

The Star Wars.

Yeah, and it.

Honestly looks so like you're the I mean, you know a lot more about anime than I do. What are your like, what are your touchstone pieces of of.

Oh Boys story? I mean, hope you have forty forty five minutes. I'm gonna yell directly about them. Uh uh Astas I mean that's the ago, that's the one that got me into it. As soon as as Tunami dropped when I was like twelve, I was like, all right, this is gonna be my personality for the rest of my life.

All Right, this is it. It's done.

Uh, you know, I got that, you know, Cowboy Bebop just a great mix of like all the weird genre stuff and then just like oh they also are like it's like an X file and every people they do it do a weird thing. And and and then I got I gotta hold it down for Mobile Studit Gundam, I cannot. I would be remissed if I didn't mention my giant love for Mechs if I've asked about the anime.

It feels like a thing that kind of obviously it's in some form of fashion like a test run, but.

Like, yeah, this is gonna hit.

Yeah, Like I've never been more convinced that a thing will hit, Like there will be there's a built in audience that is gonna snort this.

Yeah.

Stock is at an all time high for weeb nonsense, and this is exactly what what we need right now.

Yeah.

The Spider Man trailer dropped after twenty four hours in which someone associated with the VFX production maybe leaked a video of.

A phone that was playing the trailer.

That person has probably been sniped by Kevin Feigey and their body has been shipped to a black site somewhere, but let's talk about it, because the trailer was super exciting and has a lot of people talking, and man, I just can't believe like the audacity to be like, let's do one More Day.

Yeah, Yeah, enormous swing on their part. No one's coming, Like I'd been in that building and like I didn't see that one coming. I was like, this stuff great. I'd not say they picked the one the most divisive Spider Man story. You'd be like, you know what, We're gonna make this great.

So let's say so let me add some context here. One More Day in the wake of Civil War.

Civil War the storyline in which Spider Man's identity is revealed in one of the great like shock cliffhanger pages, like in recent Marvel history, He's a Spider Man, unmasks Tony Stark standing behind him.

Uh and one More Day?

Was it like kind of attempt to deal with the fallout from that. Obviously Spider Man had guarded his secret identity quite closely, and all his enemies are like, oh, it's open season on Peter Parker now, so how do we.

Deal with this?

So one way they dealt with it was make a deal with Mephisto. Literally the Devil, the Marvel's version of the Devil to erase this from happening in exchange for Peter and Mary Jane's marriage breaking up.

Yeah.

This was then recontextualized again by Joe Cassada as kind of like doctor Strange getting involved and making everybody forget and they're just doing it. Man, it's wild. They're doing this shit, as you mentioned, extremely divisive.

Yeah, I love that one.

This is the one, Like this is the character that they got back, probably the latest, I'd say, like, I mean, I guess Fantastic four, but like in the cultural like Phase three and four, like Spidy is the last one they got back. And not only is it the one that they got back, they're beating everyone to the punch with doing the first multiverse movie, like Justice League attempted it, and I'm sure they feel a little undercut now that they know that they're doing the flash one that has

I mean it feels like, you know, X Men on deck, but so pretty much this is confirmed. Right, We're going to see Alfred Molinas in the trailer, so he's there, major villain from the original Spider Man movies. We're gonna see the Green Goblin. We see a pumpkin bomb in there, we see the fallout for what we imagine as an attack by Electro, and we see like the silhouette of the Sandman seeming like he's protecting Peter. Actually yeah, and

This is wild. Now.

In the comics, Peter only beats the Sinister Six two ways. The first way is the Sinister Six are legitimately fucking morons and they're like, yo, let's I know we got together, all six of us, but let's attack Peter one by one.

Yeah, yeah, yeah's a big final kung fu fight energy, Like, all right, we're gonna take this guy on one at a time. He's gonna kick us in the face, and then then we're gonna be defeated. Yeah, it's they never really stick the landing when it comes to beating Peter Parker.

So that's the one way.

And then the second way is he gets back up now strange doctor Strange in the movie doing doctor Strange shit, doing typical doctor Strange.

I'm kind of a scumbag ego maniac.

Me flick up the whole status quote for you real quick, right, And it's not even like I'm helping Peter.

It's more like Wong told me not to do it, so I'm fuck do it.

Yeah, yeah, like all right, I'm all right, I give you a mulligan on the time. Fool me once I messed up with the timestone right right, second time, I can do the multiverse that I got locked in the back.

I got it.

King.

They must like divert him somehow, right like sea way through the movie, he has to go away because he's too op like as well, like he would just like snap his fingers and then all of Sudder's six just go to like some hell dimension.

Yeah.

I imagining like he's gonna get sucked aside pretty quickly. He's like he's a guy that can like do his little gang signs and just makes dock Hawk's arms disappear. Like I'm imagining he's gonna get sucked away and then like we'll see what happens with him in the Multiverse of Madness Doctor Strange's second movie, and like that'll explain everything, because yeah, he embarrassing everybody in that center to sticks real quick. It'd be a one act movie. It'd be

Let me ask you, people, like, there's a lot of everys's wander vision.

It's a lot of like Mephisto.

Uh, I'm a.

Fystem, a fystem I don't And people are like, man, is this the real Strange?

Is he Mephisto? He's why would he be this reckless?

Yeah, like doctor Strange, not in the comics, is a reckless guy. His character loop is basically, oh, let me fool with this demonic shit to get something done, and then oh no, the fallout from the demonic shit, and then finally I've learned my lesson. I'm not gonna fuck with the demonic shit anymore, and then the cycle begins again.

For a while.

But like in the movies, the ancient one is like Stephen, don't like steal books, don't fuck with time, don't do all that shit. And then Steven's like, I'm gonna do it anyway, and then succeeds like he learned the.

Exact opposite lesson of what everybody told him to.

So now when it comes time to push the envelope, Doctor Stranger one hundred gonna push the envelope and and Wong's warning not to do it is anything.

Yeah, like his biggest, biggest character with this, Thus Fards giving Denos the timestone, It's like, hey, trust me, it's gonna work out in the end. It's gonna take a couple of years to get there, but trust me, we're going to take the landing even though everyone told him not to do it. So like that's that's really built into his cinematic character quality, Like that's his arc is being an ericon ansehole.

Now, some fun little tidbits from the trailer as Peter is being interrogated by Stewie from Succession.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, you don't see the bottle of coke right under his gun holster.

We see that Stewie belongs to an agency called the DODC, the Department of Damage CROLL, which is a public private partnership between Stark Industries and the government to basically like clean up damage. It's one of the great Like Tony Stark is actually one of the biggest pieces of shit in the Marvel University. He has figured out a way to monetize the destruction that he himself is responsible for.

He puts money back in his own pocket whenever he boots up a new Iron Man. So it's great. Yeah, I love it.

You know, no notes, it's no notes at all. It's absolutely unbelievable.

Let's see what else we have MJ and Peter chilling on the roof of Midtown School of Science and Technology with MJ, which is with MJ kind of making a reference to Jessica Drew aka Spider Woman, who will be in into the Spider Verse two played by Isa Ray of course not a Marvel movie.

Yep.

We see the Black Spider Man uniform which uh is, how did I can't wait for him to pop this one out?

Yeah? Yeah?

I Also I can never trust these trailers because with the remember what the in game trailers like, they just fully threw in characters that just weren't not dressed the same. So like, I'm like, is that actually in the movie? Is it gonna be something different? Like are they just gonna use their crack VFX team to put another suit on them or what the deal is?

One hundred percent?

Like, there's a there's a part of this trailer where is talking to someone who is in a car. That person looks to be completely like photoshopped in over somebody else.

Like who is Peter actually talking to?

That is the question because that is one hundred percent not gonna be who he's talking to. The big theory is that, in addition to the Sony villains definitely being in this, will we see the previous Spider dudes? Will we see Andrew Garfield? Could we also possibly see Charlie Cox from Daredevil aligning the Netflix Marvel multi versus. That has not been confirmed at all, But what do you think Spider Ham? Could we see Spider Could we see Spider Ham in here?

Yeah, we're gonna see nor Spider Man. He's gonna swing through, deliver a couple of downbeat jokes, then swing out.

Uh, I don't know.

I can only guess with the multiverse have carte blanche, and it seems like they basically own everything Marvel side except for Sony stuff, you know, outside of the deal

Uh, yeah, this was super fun.

What is your wildless theory of what might possibly happen in this movie?

Oh boy, okay.

I think, uh, Peter is gonna get stuck in the Sony verse, like he's gonna be completely cut out from the mc years.

He's gonna be sticking. He's gonna drop in. It's like a porter's gonna open up.

He's gonna fall into like a crab shack outside of San Francisco and see Eddie Brock Pulp and a Mercy. I be like you would have come with us, and then like they're gonna ride off into like the sunset. That's my That's my wildest big swing pitch for like how they get around getting Peter back into the MCU.

My wildest big swing pitch is Ultimate Universe, Ultimate spier Man Peter Parker spoiler like is grievously wounded taking out the Sinister Six, and in the kind of like converging of multi verses, we get Miles Morales introduced into the MCU.

Boy Boy.

At the last fifteen minutes, I see a fucking black Puerto Rican kid pull up the last game over. I'm doing three laps around that theater. It's game over. B You're never seeing me again. I'm done. I'm just gonna be living that. I'm gonna live at the Vista. It's gonna be game over.

I cannot wait for this movie will be released December seventeenth, twenty twenty one. See y' all there, and then finally seemingly responded to Bob Jpex's y Chi's an interesting experiment comment, The Disney CEO revealed on an investor call that hunk Chi would only appear in theaters, it was not going to be streaming, much like the Black Widow strategy of a few weeks back, and then he characterized that kind

We are the underdog. We are underestimated. We are the ceiling breakers.

It ended there clearly, like all sides decided, Okay, that's enough, go to your corners and let's launch this movie.

Yeah.

That screams like one of those things where like, even with the best context, it's one of the things you like, maybe you just shouldn't have said that out louder. You should not have left the confines of whatever zoom call you had. He's not going to do anything but poison the good will.

Just like, let's be as careful as we can as we launched this film speaking of shang Chi. So the premiere was here in Hollywood at the you know, up on Hollywood Boulevard, at the l CAPI ten and the famous Manchinese Theater. And okay, so this is a story I told on social media and I'm gonna tell it here now to give it the full context.

Okay.

I received an email saying, hey, you've been confirmed invited for and I'll admit it does say in the subject line the shan Chep Premiere.

Okay.

And then it was a whole lot of text about stuff with like and it's one of those pr emails where like certain things are highlighted to let you know it's important cause there's so much text. And most of the stuff those highlighted was like what time to arrive, where to go so that you can check in? I thought, and again I just scanned the email. This is a hundred present my fault. I thought, Okay, this is just like a screening or it's one of those screenings that

I assumed it was that.

And then I invited my friend Sean right and I forwarded him the email here's where.

You got to go. He didn't flag anything.

So I show up at Hollywood and Orange and I'm in black workout shorts, a black hard Boiled T shirt the John Woo movie Hard Boiled, a black like baseball cap. I got a little Man Bagget's from Tomorrowlan, who's a Japanese brand. And then I'm wearing and this is the toughest part, admittedly, and I'm wearing Adidas slides, no socks, and.

Go ahead, I just I mean, I said this under the tweet. But drip God, drip god, Jason came through. You killed that game. I love it like I love I love the cadsun and stuff it. I love that you made a statement. I got no notes I would think ELD be this.

I appreciate it.

And then the slides are the toughest part, not only because it's like no socks on the red carpet and slides. But it was like these are the slides I wear to like go run get the mail. Like they're not they're not in good shape, you know what I mean, Like they're not doing great.

They seen some miles, they've seen some stuff.

The shread is worn down on those.

And then my friend Sean was in like bur like birkenstock clogs, white socks.

This is actually kind.

Of very comfortable, like Uniclo like wool blend cotton. Oh yes, yeah yeah, and then an a twenty four T shirt like a studio not the studio releasing a movie that we get there, and so we're waiting at will call and we go in and we got you know, presented our credentials, got all our stuff, showed our vaccination status, et cetera. I got our things and then realized that the only way to go, like security was set up in such a way that we had to walk the

People are taking pictures of him. He's right there.

I look up on the platform like maybe twenty feet away is Simoulu being interviewed, Like we're walking there and we look like dog shit. Now I want to say that it was both not as bad and kind of worse than it seems through social media. In the sense that it was not as bad. It was not as bad because nobody paid any attention. Nobody'd like notice there were cause players there.

Nobody cared.

And also, like you know how it is like la fashion rules are that the person who's dressed down the most is like the richest person, the most important person.

About to say yeah, so you lucked out because of streetwear, Like he came through like when I'm I'm looking at the picture like right now on my giant widescreen, and I'm like, oh, this guy is so comfortable. He's his What the subtext is like, this ain't no big deal because we get six more of these beautiful movies some shang cheap babies, so it's all good.

We're just rolling through and I love it. I love the casual energy.

That's right.

So but on the other hand, it was worse in that I mean we were right there, like I walked by Ben Kingsley like it was and then we get inside the theater and they're streaming the presentation, like you know, the red carpet stuff, directly to the screen, so I could see, I could imagine what we looked like walking in the background of like these shots, and I was like, Yo, this.

Was someone would definitely Oh, that's got to be the director. He's like a tike. He's got like a chill, like low key vibe like that someone was you. You probably got some brownie points in that or in that end. So like glass half full, I think I think I think you played the right card. Honestly, I would have pulled up in the exact same fit. To be honest with you, like short, short sides out maybe as you know, let's go, let's let's let's let's go take it on an adventure.

Well, the lesson is, folks, just read your emails. That's all, read them all the way through. Yeah, okay, Welcome to the air lock. This is the segment where we discuss whatever it is the subjects that we are exploring in this particular episode. For this episode, the debut episode of Extra Vision, we're talking about the Disney Plus shows and how they kind of like set the stage for what Phase four is going to be looking over this stuff.

Yeah, you know, we're obviously about to get into it, but like it's what they have captured. I mean, I'm look, the calls come from outside the house. I'm in a huge stand. I love I love all this shit. I'm a company man through and through, so like I'm very biased, but like what I love that they've been able to capture, particularly with Phase four, is the like whenever you read a comic, if you're a combook fan, like the status

That Alligator Loki will be back. I've never been more sure of anything that Allgator Loki.

Well, we're gonna get pet Avengers at some point, Lockjaw and Alligator Loki and the other four frog Yeah, yes, all of them are going to be here Rocket Raccoon, that's kind of below him. I guess let's start with Wana Vision, which came out in January of twenty twenty one. Strange things afoot in Westview, New Jersey, an idyllic suburban town where a Vision and want to maxim Off have made their home. But of course everything is not as

How will the X Men happen?

I think that you know, the recent Eternals trailer gives us yet another avenue for how the X Men might happen. But this was, you know, in the Marvel universe to date, you got powers either by science, experiment, science accident.

Yep, you are a god and you know basically that's it.

Yeah, what we got here in WandaVision is the seeming hint that Wanda was born with her powers. Now could does that make her a mutant?

Does? Is that a magical thing? We don't know?

But in that flashback where we saw her parents' apartment get bombed, it is heavily suggested that she used tex powers in that moment. M.

Yeah, it was all these three shows hit three different, very slight different slices of the Marvel the Marvel over arching universe. We have Mystic high Strangeness Marvel, we have Espionage Military Marvel, and then my personal favorite cosmic Marble.

Right now. We gotta act with the.

We got lot of and I love that, but I also love the intredation of like you know, we have sword is like said on screen, like physically it's not just like Nick for You're hanging out with scrolls and space assumingly like it's we get all that, and then we have like the cosmic era, the cosmic of it all with like she's like actual projecting towards the end and like she's like gearing up and all that fun weird stuff that like, to me, it's the perfect distillation

I like, yeah that way, Yeah, then get out of here. Uh.

There's also like a really.

There's something really interesting about the way it the statement it kind of makes about like how powerful certain like desires are in the American subconscious, Like they're like so usually a superhero story is some one gets powers or their powers awaken and they step into this new world and have these amazing adventures out in this strange place, like Vision and Wanda have done that. They have their powers,

Yeah.

And the other part of it is we also learned like a really cool secret power that Vision had is an ability to buy a house without anybody.

Having any idea.

Like this guy, I don't know where he got the money, Like did he sell a piece of his fingernail like vibrate and get like two million dollars in money, like for vibrated, Like how did.

You do this?

I love the idea of him going to a bank to get a loan and then entering into escrow to buy a house in New Jersey and no one's like, hey, remember that time that giant dude floated down from on high to like buy a lot of land.

He had no id, he was like apparently he was born three and a half years ago, but appear to be like a middle aged man.

Uh.

It was absolutely bizarre. But he had the money. Yeah, like that was he.

Was the only dude that Tony was paying when they were on the New Avengers. That's the only one. There's like either you were or you you were or Falcon. It's like, I'm sorry, I gotta go with you man.

Yeah, sorry, you no money for you?

Yeah.

But like but but vision can buy a house.

Yeah, I guess like when you don't have to eat or buy cars like you do you save a lot.

Yeah, he's not paying for gas, he ain't nothing. He can fly, he float where he needs to. Yeah, he's good. He's probably got no doors. On the house too, so like before, because he could just like step through things and like you know, we got a lot of entry ways.

Yeah, he's got he's got it.

Some other things we learned are that something about Wanda's powers. She creates this hex sphere that changes the reality of everything that's happening inside, and Monica Rambeau goes inside of it and comes out with the powers that we think will lead to her.

Becoming a spectrum.

And so this raises the possibility that now we have, along with being born with powers, yet another way that you can be powered up, which is you come into contact with Wanda's magic.

Yeah, and all of a sudden.

You have these abilities, which is a tremendous thing. They also used Wanda's energies to power up Vision in his in his white vision form.

Yeah, I'm very curious to see what comes out of this if we do get some like tertiary characters that like, yeah, maybe they're not mutants or that in humans, but like this is like the their version of what that would be.

Right, all those people that were inside, like what happened to them did did they were their cells mutated as well? It's like it is it's certainly on the table. Also, Sword, we get our first glimpse of Sword and we get to see how they work. They are the sentient I love Marble acronyms, so the freaking best, honestly, Yeah, they are the sentient Weapons Observation and Response Division. How long did it take them, by the way, just to sit there? Okay, Like how do we.

Love it?

Yeah?

I love it because they have Hammer too in the comics, and like they just just never address what hammer is, like whatever, we're gonna fix this later, and they just never address what hammer could possibly stand for.

My favorite thing also like is post Like I don't know if you read Nick Furyver Shield. It's like an eighties limited series where Nick finds out that like a shield is basically all a hydroplot like a lot of Captain America Winter Soldiers was based on this, and and so they just they dismantle Shield and then they rebuild it but also as Shield. But then they just change, like what all the what all that acronyms. They're like, now, let's turn the page at a new start, where what

We already have the shirt, so like there's a pre lock were.

I got the pens. I don't want to get a new mouse path. Yeah.

Yeah, it's a rebranding. Will be good Chield two point zero.

But I think one of the.

A thing that I am really interested in is so sentient weapons observation and response to vision.

Obviously, like the director h H.

Tyler Hayward was like super invested in examining vision his body, understanding how it works. I think that there's a world in which this is like the MCU precursor to the Sentinel program, Like this is the start of the Wow.

Yeah yeah, yeah, I could see this.

Is how this is how it begins. And then Hayward loses control of white vision. But like all the data that they got from examining him leads them to like kickstart the actual sentiment. That's a I don't know if it's a theory or something that seems pretty obvious or whatever, but that's the thing that I've been saying.

You know, A good thing that.

I also love about Marvel is that, like you can they will leave uh they only something dangling for years and never pick it.

Up for years and years and years.

Yes, Like I think everything is an offering to them, Like I would be super into that's how they backdoor into the Sentinel program and like that's like, you know, if Wanda is the original mutant or like she's like the precursor for certainly mbidence, it seems like an easy end for how we get get those guys set up to fight each other.

Yeah, it's you mentioned that.

It's something I've noticed too, and as I've seen like more people writers with like improv backgrounds go into comics, it kind of like philosophically makes sense because a lot of it is this like oh there's this like yes that has been dangled for years and now someone comes in and just goes, I'm gonna take that.

I'm an run with it, like another thing off that.

Yeah, that's the truly freeing thing about comics is I mean, it is daunting in that you have sixty years of sixty seventy years like Lord to deal from, but it's also like, yeah, this issue this person said he duck left under a fight, and then like you know what, six years later, I'm gonna pay that off and tell you exactly why he always Ducks left.

We Heed's into a fight.

Let's see, we got our first appearance of Agatha Harkness in WandaVision Ni Immortal Witch, Powerful Magic User. She tells us that Wanda is this fabled and previously thought to be legendary super uber ultra witch names Scarlet Witch, and we get that. Yeah, we get that first first mention of her actual code name, Scarlet Witch. And then of course we get the appearances of Billy and Tommy in the comics as Wicked and Speed. They're in WandaVision in

I mean, they're all there, They're all like, they're all later out there. Yeah, yeah, they're the only person they're missing. Is I think, is Hopling right? And I'm sure there there's gotta be a scroll hanging out there somewhere they can they can Hulkling.

Is it.

They've already got Kate Bishop we know is coming?

Uh stature uh stature, is there is like already in the universe. Kid Loki like just appeared in the in the Loki series and then uh, Miss America, Yeah, we understand is going to be in Doctor. So that team is there, Uh super excited about that. Let's move on to Falcon and Winter Soldier, which I thought, this is so for me, the the least satisfying in terms of like execution as a story. But I give them heavy, heavy, a heavy pass because COVID like absolutely wrecked their production schedule.

And hair, like it might have come in her own clothes.

Yeah, this is the one that screamed the most, Like we were supposed to be led up by Black Widow and then that just did not happen for a year and a half. So like she shows up, You're like, I feel like there was a scene in another movie that gave me context like what this person, because she had like in Falcon Winnisoda, she had like ticks and stuff that she was doing, like here's like my car

Give me give me.

Someone green, good, more goodmore, she hulked drags. I'll take anyone. I'm open to all of them. But I do enjoy what they did status quo wise, I'm a huge fan

We can't do Old Hawkeye anymore.

We need to have Young Hawkey, and I'm assuming the same thing's gonna be happening to the rest of these series. Like that was my big takeaway that I'm like, oh great, now we're fully cocked into eighth gear, running running head first into like comic book fille, which I'm all for.

I am all for it as well, So quick recap.

In the aftermath of the Blip, Sam Wilson, the Falcon, and Buckie Barnes aka the Winter Soldier face off against a super soldier serum enhanced terrorist group led by the passionate flag smasher Karl Morgenthau. Sam rejects Captain America's shield think he should stand in a museum, only to find it into the hands of the very aggressive John Walker, who quickly becomes.

Powered up on his own.

And really the big paradigm shift and is a massive, massive, massive recontextualization of marvelore is we get the storyline based on truth, Red, White, and Black by Robert Morales and Kyle Baker, in which we discovered that the super soldier program did not stop with Captain America, did not stop

This is a I mean, it's it's a huge thing.

And yeah, shouts to Carl Lumbley, who is just you can't take your eyes off.

Yeah, he's captivating.

He's captivating, and like he's like one of those like he sort of got from the same school like Viola datis, like you want to see them in pain, Like I think when character they do pain so well. I one of the This is just like a side from that.

No.

Ever, like I love that what it sets up status quo wise for going for when it comes to Marvel.

Same and as a layer of complexity too, because that's kind of like I want to say.

More of a uh, I guess, more of a DC thing.

This this idea of actually the government in the military are like unambiguously bad.

They're doing bad.

Shit all the time, and Superman either doesn't know about it or like is kept in the dark about it. And it's only through the actions of like quasi criminal heroes that like any of this stuff gets exposed. Marvel kind of like toes that line where it's like, yes, the Sentinel program was supported by the US military and it is an absolute project of the United States government. But also and yes, like the Sentinels wiped out like

Rogue operations, Yeah, they're never explicit.

Like the most explicitive is like you know, winners holdiers, like you know what show was actually full of Nazi the entire time, and we do have a master kill list that from Tony start to just like regular surgeons that's on ours but like, I like this the first time they were they're like, you know what, the government actually a cab, Like maybe they are a little bit of a cab and they're not.

Guess what, guess what?

It wasn't good like Erskine was was definitely an outlier in that room. And we get our first appearance of Madrapoor, which is the oligarchical, quasi lawless Asian city state which is based on Singapore, which, despite its location, curiously devoid

This is the show I think that I'm it's sort of like that connected tissue in like Phase two where it's like we got to get the Avengers together. It's basically what I sort of felt from this for I mean whatever, Like that's not a condemnation or anything, but like I'm most excited about, like you said, like what this Thunderbolts is going to look like. That was my big takeaway from this, Like I love what they possibly

They So that's episode five of this series is where you get the whole download on on what was going on with the Super Social Program post Captain America, uh and what happened with Isaiah Bradley. They went extremely hard

It was like, holy ship, we're doing it.

Yeah, we're going.

He basically called him a cornball brother and he did. How you feel about that?

King?

I was?

I was.

I was surprised, and I was really kind of proud of of Marvel for going, Yeah, Darren going that hard with it, having that kind of conversation in that context on a Disney Plus show, Because if you're gonna if you're gonna explore that kind of subject matter in that kind of way.

You kind of have to have that. Somebody has to have that conversation.

Yeah, I mean everyone's been thinking, well, everyone that's you know, not a straight white guy has been thinking that the entire time. You're like, you're really gonna put the stars and bars across your chest? Like that seems a little I don't know about that one. King, Like I don't know about that one. Let's run the tape back and

I'm very curious to see like what he's doing.

Say, absolutely the same kind of vibe. Also, it's like, you know, Steve, we're out of our heroes now will be operating we might assume out from under the umbrella of Tony Stark's incredible wealth. Yeah, so like like in the comics, like in the in the Sam Wilson Captain America comics where Sam's out there and he like sets up a one eight hundred number and he's doing stuff like on it, it's much more ground level, like he's

Yeah, you know that bikes me curious.

This is a complete wild pitch, but I wondered if that becomes like their version of Heroes for Hire. It's him and Bucky, yeah whoever, like getting a call on like the Falcon phone and being like, all right, we need to go bust up some guys in Lower East Manhattan or whatever. And that's how we're taking care of the boat this week maybe.

And next up most recently is Loki. The series Loki.

After the events of the Avengers and the Time Heist in spring twenty twelve, Loki is he escapes into the timeline, he is captured by the TVA, and there he discovers that not only are there multiple versions of himself through multiple versions of the Timeline that he knows, but reality and time itself are just like way way, way, way, way way way weird than he could have ever imagined. And this one it is like a colossal fl that just like on the final episode of like Loki, on

Yeah, now the stakes a right, I mean Waltrin put his foot all up in this thing.

Is that. I love that.

Like you're saying, like the final episode, like we're not going to get people fighting, It's gonna it's gonna be twenty five minutes of three classically trained, fantastic actors acting the shit out of a scene, and the blocking is Jonathan Majors eats an apple and sits weird on a chair Like that's it. That's the most action that happens. As you give a huge download and red conn of like everything you've experienced up at this point for the

They captured that beautifully.

And this is just another small detail that also made me love it, Like where they're stuck on like the at the end of Existence whatever, and they're in like the low key base and they're pinning down to the dirt. It's like a little Loki trapped in like a little jar. I'm like, that's one hundred percent weird comic book that someone draws in like one panel that like yeah, people will take a screencap on and then like it never

And like I.

Cannot wait to see more more of this because now there's stakes, Like like you say, like they reset the new status quote like what's going to be happening and then're all with universes going forward.

Yeah.

The thing, the thing that has always like gripped me about comics from the first time I started reading them was just like the complete boundless energy of the things that you could see, like crazy aliens that you would never expect, like weird world stuff happening on like in the past that's also happening in the future, like huge monsters that live under the ocean, Like there's there was

Says something like what does he say?

He says like, oh, yes, you know, we're supposed to enter into an adventure and emerge forever change, Yeah, which is like a direct reference to the know the fame Dan Harmon story circle, which is how he designs many of his stories about a hero like entering a new world, et cetera.

And it felt like a call that.

Yeah, it felt like it had to shout out my favorite line and that it's also the exact same scene is like we're crossing the threshold, like he just blatantly says it. I'm like, oh, you can just say that, Like that's how you can like get that in front of that, Like he just blatly says it. As they're like discovering that, like the universe has now entered the point where he doesn't know what's gonna happen. Like I loved all that stuff. It's the most fun to me.

Yeah, and it's so the big setup is the multiverse exists now, and so while in the TVA era there was essentially one kind of big outcome that was cycling all the time. And while there were many, many, many we should assume different timelines. They weren't technically infinite because they were always pruning these wild timelines that diverged too much from the kind of central quote unquote six one sixth timeline. Now it's all fractured. There's stuff all over

They didn't courage, they didn'courage.

It feels like they're going to do it right because so Incursions is for those that don't know, is a sprawling Jonathan Hickman storyline about the collapse of the multiverse and the kind of desperate fight by a select and secret group of heroes on Earth to allow Earth to survive by destroying every other Earth that crashes into it.

That means they're destroying entire realities of other people.

And you know, in the in the opening uh cinematic of the finale of Loki, you see like these two worlds kind of crashing, and man if they did it, yeah.

Oh boy, I'm I'm literally getting goose pumps right now. It's like that's one of my I mean, Hickman is a comic writing god, but like that to me is like one of my absolute favorite series. I hope that that's what the building towards, because they will have absolutely every single one of my sense for the next three phases if that's what they're building towards.

Uh So, this series introduced the TVA, which is the kind of like bureaucratic governmental agency that manages the timeline this is this comes directly from the pages of Walt Simons's Run on Thour. Mobius was based on you know, beloved Marvel editor and writer Mark Grunwald, who also wrote a lot of the material that ended up in Fulcon and The Winter Soldier, and Mark as an editor, was known as like the lore guy. Like if if you were a writer, you're writing something like, hey, can I make?

Those the glue guys of the comic book world, the glue.

Guys of the comic book world.

And so it was a fun little homage to him that he then becomes Mobius in the comics, and then that carearacter is now on TV doing that exact same thing. We get the first appearance of Ravona Renslayer, who is in the comics a love interest of Kang. We get the first appearance of Sylvie, a Loki variant whose nexus event still remains unknown, and then of course we get Kang.

Yeah, I mean, I mean, I mean, I don't know if they're how close a sticking in the comics, but like you know, the Fantastic Four is coming out at some point, Like I'm assuming he's I mean, part of me is just like, I mean, we're gonna have a black read.

Richard's like, that's that's honestly what I what I I'm opening to.

I think so like that's on the that's heavily on the table.

So we should let's quickly Oh sorry, I got tunnel vision.

We got on back it.

So Kang So the Kang the Conqueror is actually several discreet characters. They're all the same person at different stages of this person's extremely long life.

They were born Nathaniel.

Richards Okay, who is read Richard's father from another timeline, who gets bored with how like peaceful everything is in his timeline. He finds a time machine. He goes off. He becomes the King of the Pharaoh of Egypt, and that's his Rama tut kind of personality. The Fantastic Four tussle with him there. He goes back into the timeline decides, you know what, like Egypt is not enough. I want to conquer like all of time, he becomes Kang the Conqueror.

So really who we saw was immortals yea.

But yes, as you noted, this raises the possibility that this character is Read Richard's dad. We could have a black Read Richards, which fantastic, I love it. Yeah, we could, And I should add that means potentially like a black Doctor Doom as well, because there is also the suggestion that like doctor Doom is.

A variant of one of the Kang variants.

I think he's that's a long way of us saying that I think he's gonna be here for a while, Like Jonathan Major when he's like young, you know, so like he his face screams, I got ten of these in me, So I feel like I feel like he's going to be.

Here for a minute.

And none of this works, by the way, if he's not, yeah, like go like putting up like fifty points, twenty rebounds and twenty assists. Yeah, like it in forty eight minutes of like like he just like absolutely destroyed it. I'm

Go, now I gotta buy like yeah, and then you see like check out King continues and Masters of the Universe numbers tventy four or whatever.

Yeah, I'm excited about that. Welcome to the Omnibus. This is the segment where I will give us some historical contexts, some pop cultural context to the subjects that we are discussing during the episode. And for this episode, let's talk about Loki's history, both as a comic book character and as a figure in Norse myth. Loki on Disney Plus represents the continuation of a tale that has existed in popular storytelling traditions for over a thousand years, which is

In that film.

Loki then straight up stabs Phil Colson in the back and okay, he didn't die then, as Agents of Shields fans know. And of course the last half hour of the Avengers movie is an extended reference to nine to eleven, with various buildings in Manhattan getting destroyed once again. The Avengers, which pulled in a billion and a half dollars, compares Loki to Hitler and bin Laden. And now we watched Loki in Loki's very own show, and we're like, yeah,

He is a trickster. He's fond of pranks.

He creates mischief by reacting creatively to happenstance and fate. Not a hero, he's also not necessarily a bad guy. He is a foil, a kind of arch nemesis for the Norse gods and a reason for them to use their godly powers. He plays, of course, a similar role in the MCU, providing the catalyst for the avengers to assemble sometimes though the gods need to be taken down a peg. Loki plays a subversive role in this belief system by openly criticizing, even mocking, the gods for their

He hates it.

It infuriates him, which I find quite relatable. Right, Balder is this beautiful, powerful god. He is now totally invulnerable because his mother couldn't bear the thought of any harm possibly coming to him, And Loki is like, this guy has everything, and now he has this too.

Ah but wait.

Driven by this annoyance and curiosity, Loki, disguised as an old woman, chats with again discovers that Friga cut a corner she didn't get an oath from a certain species of bush which attaches itself to trees and retains its green throughout the winter, called mistletoe. Loki runs off and finds some. He makes a little dart out of a sprig of mistletoe and convinces the god Hod to throw it at Balder, and Hod does and baldered eyes.

A lot of.

Terrible things happen after this, including the gods in their wrath, tying up Loki with one of his children's intestines, which is aggressive, and eventually Ragnarok. Of course, the death of the gods followed in good time by the rebirth of

Welcome to the.

Hive Mind, our panel segment where we bring in some special guests to discuss a particular subject from this conversation now so that we can dive deeper into the worlds of Phase four and other places and other universes. Export Vision welcomes its very first guest panelist for turning from a recent visit to the void. He is my variant from the Greek multiverse. The co host of How did This get made? Please welcome Jason Manzucas. Jason's great to say, let's do.

This, do this.

I last saw you on the dough Boys twenty four hour stream in which I showed feet and we broke and we broke their their payment platform.

But they had a they had a they were raising money for charity.

We went on together and we we demanded that the audience give money so much and they they listened and they they they did it.

They they contributed in such large amounts they crashed the PayPal system for that charity fundraiser.

It was awesome.

It was an amazing and we raised so much money. You showed your feet I did.

Those are out there if you want to if you want to see him.

Feet, they're on Wiki Feet.

Check it out.

You've all got a subscription.

So the thing I wanted to talk to y'all about today is has is is what we are seeing in these Disney Plus shows a kind of uh new kind of storytelling. So in the finale of Loki, the final thirty minutes is the introduction of this character Kang slash Mortis slash whoever.

They don't tell you even the character's.

Name, tell you basically nothing about him, accept some exposition about how he came to be in this place, and it's and much like the way Thanos was introduced at the end of Marvel's The Avengers, where it was just like, who's that Loki the finale just kind of said, here's

People will explain it to you. We're not going to do that.

We understand that, and we're just going to get on with the show. That was like a wild move and flex to me, and it worked.

Yo. When you consider I mean to me, it is absolutely bananas. And I think we talked about this on a text chain we're on, Jason, It's absolutely bananas to me.

The magic world? Are they going to show up in that?

And I feel like they really kind of gave us a good example of like, oh no, that's not happening, this is the TV shows.

And then they did it.

It was almost like they lulled us security because to put to put Kang in not just any because you say, you know, like yes, the fan of teaser is just that, it's like a post credit to teaser.

This is you.

They give Jonathan Majors a like thirty minutes and just are like, Okay, go do it.

And he.

It was electric to watch him.

It was so exciting and I say that as a fan, you know, as a fan of Kang and as a fan of this kind of storytelling and all of that. But even still I was like, even to me, I was like, I cannot believe they're doing this. I cannot believe this. This is exciting that.

They're doing such a huge move buried into this TV show.

It works because like my mom knows who Thanos is. Like my sixty three year old black Southern mom from North Kronta knows what the Infinity gyms are strictly because of Marvel. So like the fact that like, like you know, parents are like two years behind. So the fact in two years she can be like that Kang fella is so handsome like that is a mind boggling to me.

Just shooting them out of your out of your Yeah, yeah, that's why.

I got this.

It really does feel like a new potentially a new kind of format because Okay, you mentioned like that the previous shows like Lulled Us to Sleep a little bit, and I agree.

Like for Wanda Vision, it was like, oh, who is is it gonna be? Is it gonna be a fisto?

Who's gonna be And then it turned out to be Aga though, who's legitimately the third character after Wanda and the vision that is introduced in the like but one of the first characters that is on the screen.

And then for a Falcon, the Winter Soldier.

The power Broker turned out to be Sharon, who was there all the time and was so obviously shady that it almost felt like a red herring.

How obviously shady she was.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, she would just be like, hold on, let me shoot these guys just as they're about to tell you the secret.

Ye, who's theer?

I'm not sure.

Let me put on my leather jacket and bring some dark liquor. That's so you know that.

Uh? And then and then that was you know, a lot of as as the kind of speculation kicked into high gear as we ended, as we like came towards the finale of Loki and people like, oh, who's you know, who's who's ultimately behind the Timekeepers? Who is it is gonna be another ary of Loki? Is like gonna be Friga, which is my personal theory, Who's it gonna be?

And uh?

And I kept coming to well, there's no way it's gonna be Kang because you don't introduce you don't do that. Yeah, you like there's no hints that it's him, Like there's no suspicion that it's him. There's no you don't see his picture on the back of a screen somewhere.

Like they don't it's he. There is no they don't seed it at all, which is.

There's where someone's like to do that, you have to be some sort of conqueror, Like there's just like nothing that pipeline is. Lady just pops up. It's like, Yo, we're about to act for thirty minutes. I hope you guys are ready.

And what I think what I loved about it was because and and yeah, zag I think you're right, like yes, this is turning on a lot, like how pop these things are are kind of it's so weird, you know, like I grew up, you know where nerd culture was for nerds and you were bullied for liking these things. And now nerd culture obviously is culture, which is all of pop culture, which is you know, great and exciting.

And I love that.

It means I get more Marvel stuff and more Star Wars and all and more of all the stuff. I have, more sci fi, more fantasy, more like I get it. Like I'm like so excited, but it's I'm I'd be curious because there it's such a Marvel now, the mcu is is so big that yes, I'm certain there are a lot of people who are getting turned onto the comics.

But I really wonder for casual Marvel fans, what does this feel like?

Like?

What does this like like like when they're watching that Loki season finale.

Obviously it's enjoyable, and do you get the same out of it if you have no idea that that's Kang or who Kang is?

Like?

They have to be threading the needle of giving the casual viewer a satisfying experience and a satisfying, frankly season finale, even if you're like I don't know who Immortis is, or I don't know who Kang is, or I don't know about the multiverse or I don't know I'm a casual fan. So I think that the fact that it even worked for those people is testament to like what a good job they did with this show, you know, like Loki to me is and I enjoyed WandaVision. I

Yeah, I mean we've been we've just yelled about this for the past hour. But like it's the most distilled version of what a comic book gets. It's big, it's weird, it's cosmic. You're talking about like ends of time. You're talking about these abstract entities and deities that you know.

Thanos wasn't even like that.

He was just some dude, like you want some vinity zones, We got a whole fucking drawer full of them. Like, well, let's move on to the next thing. So, like what I love is that it's setting up a completely new status quote, which is also my favorite thing about comics is that like we're gonna reset this after that we do like a twenty issue run and now it's done, and now we're gonna move on to the next thing.

And I think it's really exciting that they did it with Loki.

You know, Loki is like the MCU's closest thing to like a Jamie Lee, Yes, yeah, yeah, like a character who is beloved and charming but has gone from a villain to a good guy to existing in the gray area.

They both are obsessed romantically with their twin.

They both fall in love with a with an identical twin of their of themselves.

I mean they unambiguously in Marvels the Avengers compared him to Hitler, like a and a Holocaust survivor in Germany stands up and says, they have always been met like you and by which I mean Hitler, who, by the way I experience firsthand, you are Hitler's And now they have managed to turn that character into like.

Somebody that we like, that is, and not only like, not only like, but this season of television we got like a before Sunrise rom com. We not only do we like him, but like we're rooting for him to have like a walk and talk with a beautiful woman and try.

And kiss her.

I mean, you're like, this was a genocidal lunatic some years ago, and that I think is a pretty cool feat. Yeah, And the fact that they were able to do it, I think I think they were very smart to use Loki as the pivot point because he's beloved, people want to watch Loki. It wasn't I don't think they could have done this introduction of the multiverse inside of a story.

With other characters, and you know benefit of that's also like it's a new Loki a variant obviously, so look, you get to hit all it's like the greatest hits with this beats Like you get to see him go from bad to good within an episode, and then like it catches up anyone else who has not seen all the Thor movies who like necessarily isn't caught up on like Thor lore or Loki lore and like you see

They did a great job too, just like grounding all of these shows actually, but like Loki in particular, grounding it in a real, like deep like emotional question, and like what does it mean to try and be a better person in a world in which your specific role requires you to never become a better person? And if you ever actually make any headway in accepting the pain that you've caused others, in trying to better yourself, in trying to be empathic and understand other people's situations, we

All the time, What is there a way to not do that?

This show is the inverse of the good perty yeah yeah, yeah, yeah yeah, where people are encouraged to get better and evolve and become more empathic and become better people. This storyline is if you diverge and you try and be a better person or try and change the way a loki is a loki, You're gonna get prune.

You know, you're gonna it's over.

You were talking about Jason how like that. You're just like a fan of this stuff, so of course you're biased. I am too, Like I've acknowledged my bias many times, and I think part of that is, like, and the thing that fascinates me about this question is this idea that like serialized storytelling through comics, that kind of style of storytelling is like merging with TV in interesting ways.

Who is this hooded villain whatever?

And then at the end they take off their hood and it's like Ultron or someone I never expected in the comic books. I'm like, yo, I get that that I'm buying the next issue. I understand this, this is set up. This is fine in television that never really happens, and we're so programmed by the various structures of storytelling that are very common, that stuff that, when you really think about it, that is actually kind of weird and strange, feels very normal.

For instance, like.

If you watch a Marvel movie with a kid and there's that opening scene where it's like, you know, there's some heist going on, and then like somebody says, mysteriously, hey, do you have the thing?

Yes, I have it. I'll inform the master. Does he know? Yes, he knows. Like if you watch all with the kid, the kid's like, what what's happening? What are they taught?

Whereas you understand they're gonna tell me what this is. I don't need to know anything about this. I understand that this is set up for a thing that happens later. So it really feels like they're through these various flexes of we are the biggest like storytelling engine in entertainment right now, they're actually creating these weird new pockets and styles of storytelling.

What here's what they're doing. I think this is and which is interesting. I wonder if this is purposeful or if this is just kind of how they run, which is they have successfully Kevin Figy, I'll put this at Kevin Figy's feet. I think Kevin Figy has successfully trained the public to watch Marvel movies to at the very beginning was they were comic book movies, but they didn't operate like comic books, right. They were just the characters

Ye.

So like when sometimes you know, you'll pick up a comic I'll read I'll pick up a Spider Man at you and I'll be like, suddenly he's wearing like a different suit and he has like and someone's dead and I'm like, wait, what did I miss? I've read this every month and.

Someone is like, oh.

There was a six issue mini series in which in which Aunt May died and something.

You have to go read that.

And that's what they're doing now in their properties over across platforms. So if when we come back and ant Man in the Wasp, or when King variants Yeah starts showing up in Doctor Strange and and ant Man in the Wasp, when Kang starts shout up, there's gonna be a lot of people who didn't watch Loki, but who watched but who watch all the movies, who are like, who's that guy?

And people are gonna have to be like, oh, he was introduced in Logi ba ba bah.

And that's comics. That is the that is how we process comics. Important things happen not always in the mainline book. Sometimes it happens in the offshoots or one offs or in an annual you might not have read all sorts of stuff.

Yeah, that's that's absolutely one d percent how it works. And like I love that they're at this, I mean,

And they're they're just constantly making it possible so smartly in a way that I think the DC films have failed. They've smartly, like they're walking their audience into more and more complex storytelling and bringing them along for the ride. They're not just dumping this huge audience into the deep end like they're on you know, this has been going on since you know, so this is twenty years in. You know, like you couldn't have done Loki the TV

Kang at the end.

It wouldn't work really, you know, to have such an important you're a cur in movie five or something like that. This is to introduce the multiverse. You needed twenty years of runway to be like, now everything is possible, and.

This is really what sets up What If, which is the animated anthology series currently wearing on Disney Plus.

Which I want to say, if there are people out there who are thinking I don't love cartoons or cartoons feel like the they sometimes people think like, oh, those must be for kids, those must be like the Marvel kid like, and I'm telling you watch What If.

It's so good.

The action is so good.

First of all, the animation style is it's gorgeous, beautiful, like I want to watto fall into every single pan.

Oh.

On top of that, like the animation of the action is so seamless and smooth.

I don't it is.

There's one scene in the in the first episode where Peggy Carter becomes you know, infused with the super Soldier serum and she becomes Captain Peggy Carter where she like jumps through the canopy of a German bomber using the shield and it is like pulse found it stuff.

Yeah, Oh yeah, it's great that that episode and the second episode that Chadwick Boseman What If T'Challa was star Lord episode incredible, incredible fight sequences.

The Yeah, the animation is like straight.

Out of the gate, incredible, I think, Yeah, I know, I've read other places that people don't love it.

I don't know why. I'm totally into it. I really am. I think.

I mean, I have a few little nitpicks here and there, but most of those are because again, I think the things that I'm nitpicking are the things that I'm nitpicking because I'm a super fan. But I suspect for a casual fan, it has to run this way, you know what I mean? Like and and I understand that. I think I think for such again again, for what could have been a toss off animated show for kids, like what If?

Because what If?

We should say, I don't know if you've already talked about it, forgive me if this is repeat information, but what If.

Is based on the.

It's based on the comics what If, in which they take traditional Marvel storylines and flip it on its head.

So what if Gwen's Stacy had lived?

Or what you know, like what If?

And so they'll basically use it as an opportunity to tell a one off story or a or a little chunk of a story in a world in which the circumstances were totally different, right, and those are they're fun.

They're like Twilight Zone episodes of the MCU kind of.

Is that Yes, I think that's exactly correct, exactly yeah, And so the TV show is uses that as a jumping off point, but they're they're wetting it to their new introduction of the multiverse at the end of Loki.

So so these aren't just kind of fantastical hypothetical like what if this happened.

They're saying, these are the events of the multiverse.

So there is a universe in which Ta'chala has taken not Peter Quill or Peggy Carter was turned into Captain Carter instead of Steve Rogers. Like, so they're saying, through the character of Uwatu the Watcher played by Jeffrey Right, they're saying, all of the multiverse is now available to us, let's tell stories inside of That's cool.

It's dope as fucking Also, it gives you like the possibility of like, yeah, maybe we loved maybe want to see more of Captain Carter, so we're just gon spin out to like her own TV show or like yeah.

Well you know what they said.

They said that every season of What If will have another installment of oh.

Really, Oh wow, that's actually great because I was like, where's so that for the other seventy minutes of this show when she popped.

Out exactly because that, I will say that is my only complaint.

My only complaint is there I feel like they're trying to fit move length plots into thirty minute shows, and my feeling is no, no, no, don't don't think you need to adhere so much to the But this, again, I think, is them walking their audience into that more complex idea because I think there's a lot of people probably being like, what the fuck's going on?

Yeah?

You know, well, Jason Manzucus, thank you for walking into the debut episode of Extra Vision.

It has been a pleasure.

I have you.

Thrilled to Jason, There's nothing I want more in the world than listening to you. I've missed it in my life, talking about pop culture, talking about the stuff that we both love.

Yes, I get to text with you and rant and rave about it, which I adore.

But it makes me so happy that you're doing the show, and I cannot wait to smash the subscribe buttons and listen to it every week.

Can't wait to Gig and Zig.

What a what a delightless of you.

It's so fun so great, so funny.

I love it.

Thanks for having me.

Welcome to our endgame segment where we play a game at the end of the episode. That's right, it's a very clever title. Today's game is Who's Your Neville or Who's Your Gollum? This is a reference to Nevill Longbottom from Harry Potter and Gollum from Lord of the Rings.

Who is the character that is seemingly on the outside, not really that.

Important, kind of like on the edge of the story, but then all of a sudden at the very end, they take the sword of Gryffindor and they slay the snake or they become the only way that Frodo can get away from the ring, like they become vital in the final moment in that final fight when everybody steps out of the portals against Kang. So the characters will be from only these Disney Plus shows that we've talked about today, WandaVision Falcon in the Winter Soldier and.

Loki and Zig. Who is your Neville or who is your golle I?

It is a hard decision. I Ye, I think I think I'm gonna put my money on Wickan. I think, oh this is good. I think it's gonna be all. It's gonna be a long walk to get there. It's long payoff. It's gonna take a couple of movies and a couple of TV shows. But I think I think they're gonna be like Wicked, You're the only you and and kid Loki, They're gonna come together and like you're the one that's gonna defeat him through the power of

So like, I'm money's all on Wicked. Baby, I'm going all in.

I love that.

I'm gonna I'm going to uh man, I'm gonna use I'm just gonna repurpose my Tyler Hayward is the progenitor of the Sentinels theory, and I'm gonna say it is Director Tyler Hayward of Sword the Sentient Weapon observation and response to vision. His interest in thinking machines that are also weapons leads me to believe that maybe he will create a program of thinking robots that whose only mission

That's it for today. Thank you for listening to the debut episode of X ray Vision.

Check us out wherever you get your podcast zig It's been fantastic hang out with you.

Thanks for having me brother, always a fan, love that you're back in the nerd game. That you ever really left, but I'm stoked. Thanks for having me man.

Let's go.

X ray Vision is a Crooked Media production. The show is produced by Chris Lord and Saul Rubin. The show is executive produced by myself, Tason Cantepsiona and Sandy Gerard. Caroline rest and Rest in Peace and Carlton Gillespie are our consulting producers, and our editing and sound design is by Sarah Gibblaska and the good Folks.

At chapter four. Thank you to Brian Vasquez for our theme music.