Warning.
Today's episode contains spoilers for Marvels, Thunderbolts, Astros.
The asterisk is important, guys, it is important.
It's important.
Hello.
My name is Jason Concepcio and I'm mesday Night, and welcome back to x Ravis in the podcast where we dive deep to do your favorite shows, movies, comics, and pop culture.
Coming to you from my Ora podcast where.
We're bringing you three episodes a week every Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday.
Busters.
In today's episode, we've been prepping for it.
We've asked who they are. We have gone on a journey with you, reading.
The first ever issue of their appearance, Thunderbolts number one from ninety ninety seven.
And now it is here.
We are somehow already in May, and the Thunderbolts is on our greens. It's the second of our three Marvel movies. We are getting this year, back to the three a year timeline. It hasn't been like that for a while. We had Captain America, Brave New World. You can listen to our episode about that. Now we have Thunderbolts, and soon we will be introducing the Fantastic Four, So make sure you listen to us talking all about it now and how these could connect to the future of the MCU.
Let's do it.
Okay, let's stick into it.
Rossie, do you want to recap this one for us?
Yeah, I'll do a little recap.
So I'm going to start with Bob because I think that is a major plot line here.
To talk about the movie, we have to talk about.
Bob, played by Lewis Pullman in a role that was definitely originally written for Stephen Yurn. You can like feel Stevens kind of shadow over this, though.
Lewis does a great job.
We meet Bob as we meet Elena play by follow us p US agent Wyatt Russell and Ghost Tanner John Cayman in the bows of Valentina Allegra Dyfontein's Volcano Layer.
Now, I will say, if you are a comic book fan, you may have noticed that the.
Thunderbolts have a layer like that called Thunderbolt's Mountain, So that was a nice nod there. None of life has not been going well for any of them, and the three villains are there.
To kill each other. They've been set up by Valentina.
They are rogue operatives and she wants to tie up the loose ends also there in a wee rewrite moment, sorry rip to that task Master.
Task Master is there too.
Ghost shoots her in the head, which sets up the darker tone of this movie, and Olga Corilenko's controversial task Master is no more.
As the Walker, Ghost.
And Yelena have a really, really excellently choreographed fight scene, Bob emerges and he seems like a strange little guy. We love a little guy here. He doesn't really know what's going on. But as they escape and Bob decides to sacrifice himself to help them, we learn the actual Bob is part of a super Soldier serum test subject project and again.
They ever learn you.
Make it, babe.
So Valentina has been running an illegal, dark ops version of the Super Soldier project called the Century Project. As you will know, the Century is a combo character. We will get into that more as the film goes on. We also learn how Valentina is like evil. If you didn't know, she has been killing test subjects. She's about to burn these three kind of anti hero villains alive to get rid of them, tie tie up all the loose ense.
She does not care.
All she cares about is her political career, which is not going well. She's about to be impeached because of all of her shady behavior and alas the brave sweet Bob, who tries to sacrifice himself, gets shot and then flies up into the sky like Superman because the sentry is
essentially was introduced as Marbles Superman. He ends up in the hands of Valentina Alegrity Fonteine, and she, essentially like Mummy, issues him into becoming this like telepathic telekinetic superhero that she needs to control the country and its current kind of superhero power void.
She puts on a blue sweater.
She says, oh, do I look nurturing enough and goes in and help and basically manipulates him into becoming her superhero.
But as her assistant Mel, who I'm still rooting.
For to be Songbird, I believe it could happen, Mel kind of highlights her Hey Bob clearly has some kind of mental health issues. If you are someone who suffers from manic depression or who has a loved one who suffers from manic depression, you will probably recognize that.
In the way that he talks.
Valentine doesn't care because she's a terrible person, and it seems interestingly that Bob has been having these experiences throughout his life from when he was a child, where he will black out and then he doesn't remember what happens and bad things happen, which makes me think maybe they're hinting that he's a mutant in this universe anyway, Soon he transforms into the golden haired, golden suited Sentry and battles his former friends the Thunderbolts, especially ful to Yolna,
who he connected with on an emotional level, which will be a key part.
Of the film. He turns quickly.
After realizing that Valentina is not a good person, into the literal negative space, the void, sucking people into his darkness and on the streets of New York, leaving nothing more than these kind of terrifying, burnt out silhouettes. Great
visual here and what we saw in the trailer. Now that we're caught up and Bob, we can kind of join the Thunderbolts in their third act battle to save New York by helping him, And it's clear that that Elena and Bob connection and the way that the two of them emotionally bonded over having depression over their own trauma over things they had done in the past. It makes her feel like she's willing to take a risk, and as all of New York is sucked into the Void, she steps into it in order to find Bob.
And help him.
And I have to say, I think this is one of the coolest sequences in the movie where we really get a kind of almost Doctor Stranger in the multivers of Madness wonder vision, kind of surreal moment as Yolena fights through the void, which in this version, which is new for the movie, essentially gives her a maze like house where every room is a different thing she is ashamed of. It's kind of your nightmare situation. It's rumination
turned up to eleven. I will say. Aaron just wants to point out and I know it was controversial that I mentioned Multiverse and Madness. Aaron wants to say, this movie's better than Multiverse and Madness. Don't get turned on it, you know what I want? Yeah, from a movie, but yes, this is definitely more grounded as it's happening. Bucky, he who is a congressman that didn't you know, succeed. He's been a congressman for six months.
Now he's back.
He's helping the Thunderbolts try to fight against the Valentina alegra dyfonteinevi All and Elena is inside having to fight through these moments. The big one that we see is her introduction as a black widow, where she had to lure a friend of hers to the woods and be shot in the head by an operative. It doesn't seem like the friend did anything wrong, it was more of
a test of her loyalty. And as she finds Bob, he is hidden in an attic where he basically has to watch his dad beat his mum and beat him kind of over and over again, but he claims that is the best room in the house for him, which tells you a lot about his history and his life. Luckily, she finds Bob. She convinces him to leave with her,
but the Void tries to stop them. When we get these really crazy surreal moments to Void wrapping things around their neck, we learn you can't die inside of the Void, you just live in the pain forever, which is really horrific.
We get some great Florence Puwiulaana moments here.
She very famously jumps off the tower second highest building in the world. That's what opens the movie, and here we get to see Florence doing some really outrageous action,
but ultimately she and Bob cannot save themselves alone. And this is where the real thread of the movie comes in, which is Red Guardian, who has been helping the Thunderbolts and is very much in love with the idea of being part of a team, shows up with Bucky Ghost and US Agent and the community care that they bring into this mean that Bob and Eulna can get out, and that is the big kind of theme of this movie, is the idea that building a community and building a
group of people who will help you can get you out of a very very dark place, in this case of literally a dark place because.
Of the void.
They escape and luckily everyone including the child we see get sucked into the void very early on, is back.
They're out of that moment.
I think, honestly gonna need a lot of therapy if you were trapped in that, because it was horrific. And they see Valentina, they're like, we're taking her in and they follow her through a construction scaffolding kind of moment. Tricky, tricky, stop Valentina and you think, oh, finally she's going to get what's you know, what she deserves. Us agent wants to kill her, understandably, but Bucky's like, we're taking her in alas she is much smarter than they give her
credit for. They walk through, she's assembled the press and she has decided to turn this into a pr moment where she claims, actually, what me and my assistant Mel have been working on is this secret project. And it's not the Century Project.
Obviously that wasn't me. Who was the Void? Who knows that was really bad? But guess what it was? This new team who you just all saw save New York. And what is that team's name? Jason? And why was the asterisk there?
This is the new Avengers folks unexpected balanced secret and while it takes an heroes by surprise.
Elena instantly realizes that it gives them great leverage, and she lets Valentina know whispering we own you now as the group kind of all silently agreed to go along
with her little scheme. And we see that they take up residents in the Avengers Tower, which Valentina bought, and they are seemingly the city's newest crime fighting team, and let's go to an ad break and afterwards we will come back and talk about the post credit scenes and where this leaves the MCU as we go forward into the rest of twenty twenty five, and we're back.
We're back to post credits scenes in this movie. The mid credit scene features a red Guardian in civilian clothes in like a Whole Foods and he is standing in the cereal aisle because he can't wait to press the wheaties box featuring the New Avengers on the cover on anyone who wanders into the aisles.
This is his dream come true.
It's his dream come true, the American dream folks, It's happened. And then the final stinger, very interesting features it. We've jumped ahead some amount of time fourteen months, I believe fourteen months. The new Avengers are in their Avengers their new Avengers Tower, which is the old Avengers Tower, but now least and upgraded by the Countess Valentina Dyfontaine, and they are frustrated and having a conversation because they are apparently being suited by Sam Wilson and his Avengers group.
Who have he has copyrighted the name the Avengers, right.
It's under the you know og Avengers LLC.
And he is trying to clawback the name, the iconography, the IP from the New Avengers.
So that's going on. And it also.
Seems like the public, you know, public opinion is with Sam and his other Avengers, the Original Avenger, whatever you want to call them, and it is only very tenuously attached to the New Avengers, if they were ever attached to all the New Avengers. Throughout the movie, it's played up. Their loser status is really played up, as is their outsider status and the fact that you know, this is a group of highly contentious individuals who are only barely
a team. And I think this is best exemplified by you know us agent who is referred to as like dime store Captain America in a variety of different ways.
Everyone in America knows that he killed that man with his shield, Like you're not necessarily going to be turning people onto their side with kind of unknown heroes or failed congressman.
He was careful.
Yeah, he was captual week official Captain America for a week, and that's.
A tough look.
And he is a core member of the New Avengers. So while that is going on. They get an alert satellite alert because there is a some kind of craft that is entering orbit.
Yes, and an extra dimensional crop extra dimension coming from somewhere else, some.
Other dimension, and they zooming on it and it is clearly the Fantastic four rocket ship.
Now he's seen this, very nice Fantastic for rockship. I also want to say they mention multiple times in this post credit scene that there's some kind of a space crisis going on, which.
I think there's a space crisis.
I think my gut would say it's some kind of understanding of Galactus being there. But I also think it's a smart way to essentially explain away the big questions of like where was Dead Evil, where I was Spider Man, Like potentially there is a bigger crisis that these other heroes were involved with during the couple of days that this movie well let's talk about it.
So I think what the crisis is is the incursions, and I think what's happening we should say that we don't know in this Fantastic for a rocket ship whether that is the First Family.
Powered or unpowered.
Is this the flight that gets them the powers or is this coming on the heels of Fantastic for the movie or someone else in the ship.
Aaron is, Oh, that's a good point. Aaron said, yeah, i'd be so.
I think this is them coming off the Galactus has destroyed, there's a planet, and they're coming to warn offs for dooms Day.
Well, I think this is I think the Space crisis are the incursions that have kind of been happening already throughout m HM, several Marvel movies leading up to this, right, it's been hinted at and it's been showed like explicitly in various scenes through multiple dimensions that there are dimensions are crashing into each other, destroying both dimensions. So I think what they're setting up is this is beginning to
happen in six one six. I think wherever the Fantastic Four are, they're not only dealing with Galactus, but the fact that these incursions are happening, and I think they are traveling.
To our world basically.
To either trying to basically try and stop these incursions they're coming from this other dimensions. I think that's probably what this is. The Space crisis is those the fact that the multiverse is collapsing into itself.
What you what are your thoughts.
No, I think that's I think that's a great take. I definitely I'm like Galactus Superstan. I love Galactus. I love the comics that he is in.
I love the character.
So to me, I was like, I wonder if they are sent saying that Galactus is coming. It seems like the New Avengers are not getting all the information. They just know that there is some kind of outer space crisis. So I'm interested, But I think incursions is much more likely, and I think that the Fantastic Four are probably in that ship.
Though I do think.
There's a version of it where it's just Franklin or something like that, you know, because we know Franklin will be born during at some point in the movie. It looks like and we don't know kind of what the timeline of that is going to be compared to where we are.
It did give Superman, you know.
With the kind of idea of like you've got to be launched through time to save yourself, launched through space.
But I think at the moment they've done something.
Very clever, which is they've established the Fantastic for exist. You're going to see them soon and we can decide whatever we decide when the Fantastic Four movie comes out, you know, so it's kind of open ended.
So let's talk about this movie and our reactions to it. Your thoughts on Thunderbolt's asterisk.
I was not at all surprised to see all the great reviews coming out. I think this is one of the MCU's most emotionally authentic movies. I think it's that way. I think it's actually quite rare because if you look back, there are not many Marvel movies that have something really big to say, outside of say, Black Panther. I think that this movie comes in with a really direct and good,
universally relatable story about mental health. I actually think that is the thing that is smartest about this version of the Void.
They did not do.
The mystery that we got from the Rick Veach and Jay comics, where the Void nobody.
Remembers that it was a.
Much bigger than he has to go and get them, and he's fighting against the Void and you don't know they're the same person. Instead, they translate that here to how does it feel when you have the worst day of your life and you think you're totally alone? And I think that's incredibly clever and smart, because everybody has felt that way, whether you have severe mental health struggles or whether you just have a bad day, You've.
Felt like I'm alone.
Nobody wants to help me, and I wish there were people who would come and get me and say, hey, it's gonna be okay. Hey we can work together. And this movie in that way becomes, like I said, universally relatable. I think Lewis Pullman is incredible as Bob. My letterboxed review was basically nice.
Son of Bill.
Yeah, it was basically like, hey, I can't change who I am. I would die for Bob like I love this kind of character. I love a character who is trying their best. I love a character who has done terrible things and wants to make up for them, which is something that runs through the through line of this movie. I think it's incredibly efficiently made. I think it's edited really well. I think the action is good.
There is. They do not have a lot of needle drops in this movie.
In fact, the only needle drop is a genuine pony song that I fucking love, which is played for a good comedic effect, which I thought was very interesting. The strongest thing I think about this movie is I think that the EMCU could learn a lot from this idea of, Hey, here are some people who live in this world who
you wouldn't normally get featured in this way. Here's two days of them living and trying to survive in this world where people have all kinds of superpowers, all kinds of agendas, and all kinds of kind of abilities to bring these terrible and brilliant things to life. I think this almost works as like a pocket story within the MCU, and I think it's intimate and small and interesting, and I think that the quick timeline does avoid a lot of those questions of.
Like where's dead of or where's Spider Man?
And obviously then you get this kind of idea of this bigger space crisis that people are focusing on. I think they could do a lot more movies like this. I think it it's kind of akin to what they were doing with Marvel Studios Presents, you know, which I thought with and I feel like this is that on
a bigger scale. I did really think it was just a really great, well made movie, but there's there's a little something about it where I didn't connect emotionally in the same way that I do with a lot of these movies where I come out and I'm like, I have to see it again, Like I have to see more of these characters now. That is to say also, I love Florence's Yelena.
I think she's brilliant.
I love that the director understood that if you have Florence Pew in your movies, you just have to do loads of close ups on her face because she's such a fantastic face actor.
And we open with her face and we end with her face.
So I'm always sang after this. I think this is some of the best actual acting in an MC movie that we've seen in a little bit.
And it is a return back to what made Phase one so beloved, which is characters, an in depth character x and they get a lot of that in just.
This kind of, you know, two hour movie.
And I will say as well, I loved in the first third of the movie. I love the Hannah John Kaman representation of ghosts. She got so much more personality, so much more kind of intricacy, so much more humor, which I think really comes with being someone who has chronic illness like she does.
In Chronic Pain.
I don't necessarily think they did a lot with her post that, but I thought that was really good. I am like, honestly, I love why at Russell. He's one of my favorite actors working right now. But I am like a US agent in the MCU hater, like I don't really need him to be in this story.
I don't like him. It's not for me.
But I love to see Bucky Sebastian Stan doing a lot here. I thought it was great, and I think it's a great vehicle for Florence Peugh. For some reason, though, it just like I don't I maybe because it was actually like a little real.
I am someone who struggles a lot with my mental health. Maybe that was like a little raw.
But I don't feel like I'm gonna rush back and go and see it again in the way I would with some of these films.
I understand what you're saying. I liked it for a lot of reasons. I think that all the reasons that you said. I also think this is kind of new territory for a Marvel movie, and so I thought that the lack of a traditional third act big dumb fight.
Was really really frushing.
I love the way they solved that problem same.
I liked that it was more connected to like emotions and how characters are feeling about where they stand in the Marvel continuity. I feel the same as you as us agent. You know, I don't like him in the comics. I don't like him in the movie. I don't like him as a character.
As a person. I think he's a piece of shit.
But I do like that he is basically like he kind of exists to be, like, how about this piece of shit? Like everybody hates him, So that's nice. And I thought, same as you, I thought it was really well made. I thought it was very fun. I think the kind of central emotional generator of can these broken people come together and learn to forgive themselves?
I thought was.
Really affecting and resonated with me. I understand what you're saying about the quote unquote feeling because I think for me, you know, like I put on The Infinity War the other.
Day because like me, these are escape movies.
For me, I love I love just like falling into this world and like watching good Triumph of Evil, and so I do think that, like to your point about the feeling, it is a different feeling than the kind of Marvel movie at its height, you know, of the height of the hype, at the height of the success. Kind of feeling of this like triumphant, almost like energizing theater experience. It's not quite that thing. It's again new emotional territory. But I think I.
I liked it.
It seems maybe more than some others.
Yeah, I think it's I think it's a big swing, and I think the novel is a point where it needs to do big swing.
And I like and I really resonated with the way it addressed. This is a movie that addresses both the decline quote in air quotes of the franchise. I would call it more of a it's more of a more of a real more of a like an adjustment. It addresses that kind of post euphoria of the post endgame like world on multiple ways, both in the way we in the real world react to the franchise and also how the characters are reacting to this world without heroes.
I found that to be It's definitely new emotional territory again, but I like that kind of like man a commentary on we live in a world without heroes, Now, what are we going to do? I like the all detail of like you have Yolena and like Bucky standing on the street in New York City near Grand Central, like like where the Avengers.
Like, Yeah, it's much a recognition of like is this a new star in place?
And people are just walking by them without even looking, like this is a world in which now this is normal. There is fucking a former Red Room spy and the Winter Soldier having an argument in the middle of the street, and everybody's like, I gotta go to work, Like I get my car out, he destroy it, Like like I liked. I liked all of that, so I think I responded a little bit more to it than others. But it definitely feels like a it's a Connector movie. It's not
a destination movie. And it's true that Civil War or Infinity War, which is more of a Connector movie too. I realized that or Endgame was It's it's more of a movie to get to the other movies and a transitional movie both for these characters and their emotional arcs and in the overall plot of the MCU.
I liked it.
Yeah, yeah, I acknowledge that it's definitely a different feeling.
But I'm interested because there's like the critical reception has been really good so far. Obviously it's early on, but we're still in that nineties. I think of the kind of big rotten Tomato review score, and also as well, definitely, I think it's the highest score that we've had, maybe for a MCU movie since pre COVID.
So I'm interested that let's tap in because me and you.
Are so engrossed in this stuff day to day, whether it's the comics we read, the way we rewatch these movies. Let's tap in a Boo and Arra because I would just love to know a little bit about, like how they responded to the film. Welcome, I'm on super producer crew who are now on New Avengers instead of all Jedi Council. Let's keep our ip straight. Boo, how did you respond to the Thunderbolts?
I think, Rosie, you articulated what I basically have not been able to since I saw it. I thought this was a well constructed film. I thought this was a better swing at the plate by Marvel than many of their recent offerings. Let's say, you know, like this far exceeds some of the recent Marvel films and TV shows. Yeah, in the last couple of years, certainly since the Infinity Saga. But I too walked out of the theater not buzzing.
Usually I'm walking out of a Marvel movie like buzzing and excited to talk to everyone about it and geeking out, ready to go home and google all the new lore and characters that were introduced, etc.
Etc.
I walked out of this film texting Aaron and going fine, I had fun, and there wasn't much more of an emotional response beyond that. But I don't think that takes away from the film being well constructed, as you said, being a big swing for Marvel in a different direction, which is I think that sort of fresh thinking and fresh takes is certainly what the franchise needs and has needed for a while. So I'm very much in your camp, Rosie.
Aaron, how did you feel when you got that text?
I was shocked because I actually really really enjoyed it. I have a very different take on us Agent. I hated him and Falcon and the Winter Soldier, and I loved him here. It's a very different thing because he's not the main character. But it sort of reminded me of Thor where the first Thor he's meant to be dramatic and have all this gravitas, and then they were like, we can use him as a comedic character. And I thought the use of us Agent as like the dumb
bro was great. Him making the joke about his shield being a taco him like they're standing in the desert and he bends over to get the cat this fruit and he's just slicing it up, like giving out life advice even though his life sucks. I love that. I thought that was all really well done, and I liked him a lot, And that is indicative of what this movie did, which is make you care about characters who
were not a list before this. Other than Yolena, who was really a supporting character in Black Widow and then had a great guest spot in Hawkeye.
She was the lead.
But everyone else I thought was lifted so much from their previous iterations and I really liked that. And I thought Centry was great. The sound design of him zapping people out was amazing. His look with like just fully dark and then these like bright two small bright eyes was really powerful. So I thought it was really good.
I don't think it's it's not Winter Soldier, it's not Black Panther, but this is something that I was reassured to know that Marvel can still make a film and make you care about the characters, which I think they haven't done in a very long time because they've relied on the fact that they think you already care about everybody, and here they actually made you care about them, which I think was really good.
Yeah, I think that you also, I think something else that's interesting here that is different to say, your quantumnia, your multiverse madness. It feels very grounded in reality. They have leaned into this idea of we're doing the stunts, we're doing practical, we're doing it on sets, you know, And I think that you really do feel that in a way that feels different to all the rest of the post Infinity Saga kind of movies where everything.
Was I mean Black Widow kind of, but that still felt very CG heavy.
It has some of the most critique CG in the MCU sayme with thor Love and Thunder, So I think that's another thing. I'm interested to see how it hits, because this is what people have.
Been asking for.
What does it look like when you have a ragtag, smaller group it's in its own way. It's very much Marvel doing the Suicide Squad, which I think for me didn't immediately hit in the same way because I was one of the people who just really loved the James Gunn Suicide Squad movie.
I think it had more of that balance I look for.
But I did really and I did still think like, this is a new space for Marvel and they need to be going into new spaces, and that is that's that's kind of what we're looking for as Aaron and Abou as people who you know, you said, you go and like you look at the law, you see this google ability. You want to know about the new characters. How did the final post credit scene feel for you? Like, are you excited for the Fantastic Four? Did it feel
kind of like a surprise To me? It felt a surprise that it was so soon, but I also forgot the movie comes out in a few months.
Yeah, So how did that land for you guys?
And how did it land for your screening Because my screening in the Grip it was very quiet.
It was not the old really feeling of Yeah, I did not have that excited crew. So what was it like for you guys.
Well Erin and I were at the same screening together. I feel like Aaron, people were buzzing when the Fantastics Worship, like once it was clear that this was the Fantastic Worship and that's what we're teasing.
I should add that I think LA screenings, at least the ones I've been to recently, it's a lot of industry.
Yes, it's not how it used to.
It's not the same as how it used to be where people were like screaming and crying.
It's not it's like I have a podcast, I read about this stuff, or you know, like I write for Marvel Comics and I got a comp like it's so it's a lot of people who are.
In the industry.
Yeah, they did use I feel like we did used to have more of a reaction based audience.
For the MCU.
But I do think as well in LA, like you say, juston, a lot of people might be working on these things, might already know what's happening, might have been leaked. But I love to hear that it was exciting. Was it exciting for you guys? Like do you feel like you want to know what happens next?
I personally do yeah, I actually, uh, Fantastic four I did not grow up with and I know very little about actually, and so the fact that I that the post credits scene got a response out of me is interesting. I didn't think I didn't think it would, but I was really excited. I was like, oh my gosh, I'm ready, I'm ready.
I think one thing, one thing that Joelle brought up earlier was this post credit scene is tied to something we know is coming out. This isn't Ted Lasso guy as Hercules that we just may never see again.
It's a Phase one type of step.
Thor's coming next. So here is Thor's hammer.
And then whether or not I am like just an idiot or what, but you said it, Rosie, so I feel good. My first thought was, it's Franklin that it's not Fantastic for No, I'm I.
Think there's a lot of scope for it, and I think those are the kind of conversations that we love to have about this. So I will say, Jason, what is your big kind of like where does this leave the MCU, Like what do you think this sets up not just the Fantastic four sequence but also the New Avengers, Like do we get a New Avengers movie. Are they just one of many teams? What do you think this sets.
I think I think this sets up as we head into Doomsday. I think this sets up a continuity where there are lots of hero groups, but they're kind of fragmented. It feels like a kind of soft adaptation of the Dark Rain continuity, in which Norman Osborne took you know, at the head of a Avengers, an evil Avengers team basically takes control of, you know, the United States Defense establishment, but with Valentina in that role, and the New Avengers
is kind of her dupe. So I think what we're going to what we're going to see is a lot of infighting as we head into doomsday. Yeah, a kind of like larger version of the Act two and three of your typical superhero team up movie, in which most of the fights are the superheroes fighting each other before they decide, oh, we got to fight the bad guy exactly.
Yeah, I think that too.
I think that I think this establishes a world where there's going to be multiple Avengers teams. I think we will get our Young Avengers, our West Coast Avengers.
Maybe they're the same. We could have a Mighty Avengers.
We could have an a force where it's the all female Avengers.
Do I think all of them will get their own movie or their own moment?
No, not particularly, but I do think that we'll get to see these teams kind of popping up in what is essentially a power void, and I think all of them will come in to play with Doomsday, creating you know, some battle world situation where they're fighting each other, or where they all have to team up to fight against Victvan Doom. I think that is a very fun place to be, very comic bookie place to be.
Aaron and Abou, how.
Did the New Avengers kind of title shift hit for you? Because obviously for me and Jason, we're immediately like, oh shit, like the Brian bendis new Avengers, Like this is such a big deal, Like this isn't really the team, but how could it work?
Did that feel like a huge.
Moment when we're talking about Avengers because we haven't heard that phrase actually used again since the original team?
Like how did that feel for you? Guys?
Yeah?
I really liked it, And in a way, I kind of think if if I had a friend, hypothetically who had not watched anything since Endgame and was like, oh, I heard there's there's gonna be some more Avengers movies, Like this is a great place to start, Like, come in here, people, you missed it such stuff, you could just jump in here.
Yeah.
So I don't know if they've marketed it that way enough, because I think that there's obviously been fatigue and and things have not gone as well with some of the previous movies. So if someone didn't enjoy those or didn't see them or saw how bad stuff was getting reviewed, this would be a great one for them to watch and be like, oh yeah, I like a good superhero action movie. This one's a little different, like you were saying. It's not a third act cgi punch fest like it is.
It is like in a good way, the power of friendship wins the day, and this would be a great thing. Yeah, this would be great. Watch this, then you'll get excited for Fantastic four or go see that and then go watch.
I like that take.
I think you're onto something. Boo, how did how did the New Avengers sing hit for you?
Were you like okay, I want to know more about this team, or like that's random.
No, I really liked it as well. That that was one of the things where I was googling New Avengers on my way out of the theater. You know that that was an example of a New Lord tidbit or a comic series that I have not read that I now want to because this movie has introduced it to me. Although I will say I wasn't surprised by the reveal, and I was like, how do I know this? Did I read a spoiler or a leak somewhere?
They actually they actually kept this spoiler out of it.
But I do believe me and Jason, I think specifically, and I think we can read right right now.
Because we I think we were saying New Avengers or Dark Avengers were kind of all take And I will say something I thought they did really well. I thought that moment in particular, showcased how clever Valentina is and how she's kind of this like, she's kind of this mirror Tony Stock. It's like, what if Tony Stock was just always scheming? Well, if he actually like hadn't changed for the better and was instead always manipulating and skiming.
So they did a great job of mirroring a lot of previous Marvel things. So Tony announces he's iron Man off the Cup at a press conference. Valentina has planned and plotted this out similarly like the fight that is happening right there by Grand Central in Avengers Tower is Avengers One, Like, there's so much in it that I thought they did these nice callbacks to which also you know you're gonna get compared to it, but I thought they stood up pretty well well.
I thought I thought one of the most beautiful shots in the movie was right at the start where Elena gets her own hallway scene much like your sister yeah away. I thought that was a really beautiful tracking shot from above.
You also as well great because it's very old boy. It's very referential to Dad Evil. It's very much about how getting her and scene and we kind of see in the shadows, faw.
In the shadows and we get to see how far the MCU has come. Because that is a very incredible scene. But it's also very notorious because it's clas like giant big boob like the boobs a jiggle in the wig is wigging like it's very much like she's so sexy she could kill you but wouldn't you want her to. That was the original kind of introduction of Black Widow. This shows Elena just.
Does a force to be reckoned with.
I will be two things that I want to call out. One, I will be interested to see where they go with Valentina from here. She's like, it's clear that the idea is like combine the worst parts of Stark and nick Fury into an even more secretive and a moral kind of spymaster behind the heroes.
Eager to see if.
She steps meaningfully either way into the good guy or bad guy mode going forward.
That will be interesting to see and task master.
I'm like, I wish that was a little bit more send off. I think Elena does a lot in honoring her after her ignominious and very quick death at the hands of ghosts, but I do wish there would have been a little bit more like that's one of the more tragic characters in the in the MCU, definitely, Black Widow is definitely the lead in movie to this movie. Like that's if you were going to watch one thing heading into this and you didn't want it to be Falcon in the Winter.
Which is fair, but it should be Black Widow.
Yes, absolutely, that's the homework movie. I want. I did want to ask the group, this is a very funny movie, what was what was your most laugh aulloud moment? Because for me, it was when Bucky gave his business card assist.
Trash.
That was. I will say the comedy was really good. I definitely, I definitely liked that aspect of it. I think for me it was like I was not a big Red Guardian fan.
In Black Widow.
I felt like it was like too much of a kind of outrageous sort of like Tropy version. But I felt like in this they really grounded him. Harbor did some great work, and I think I just like the kind of silliness of how into making the team he was. And I think my biggest laugh outline scene, because this is just the classic me kind of thing, is like at the end in the post credit scene where they reveal that you know they're being sued by Sam and he's like, he's he's gonna make it Avengers with a Z.
I was dying.
I have often talked about how I want to make like an Avengers team that has a Z at the end, and that would be my pitch to me.
He should have just gotten I think I think the Bootleg.
I think those kind of jokes where it's understanding the fandom and income versation with all of us who watch it. I think that's why the mc U succeeds best. And I thought that stuff was really funny. I also just loved seeing Ghost and Yolena gang up on us agent.
It was so natural and.
So and they had a lot of really great, witty kind of buns.
I thought that all climbing up the tower the Elevator show, Yeah.
And so that was gonna be mine. But I'll call it another one. When they're in the panel van heading to New Avengers Tower and they're talking about their weapons and Lana is like, yeah, I got these stingers. I'm using these black little stingers.
And then you just like I got the forty five. Oh wow, long.
So roasting them that was great.
And then you know what in the Stigger, when they're all coming in from what I guess is a mission or something, and they're like, you know, space crisis would have been eight if we could have had Century to like, how are we gonna like go into space?
Like?
And then Red Guardian is like, well, why can't Century ever come with us?
And then they're like, how would we go with it?
We would all yes, yeah, and then and then.
Bob has that great return where he's like, higas I thought we talked about this, like I can't be the century without the other guy. The other guy coming out like that would so like, but I can stay here, and like you.
And I did the dishes, I have to say, like Lewis Pullman, the man that you are, because that ship was written for Steve and you had and I could hear every single line delivery, but you made it your own. And that was another of my favorite moments. Jathon as the new Avengers, like Hulk the Titan who you can't really trust, like in a pinch, I think that.
I think that's interesting.
Territory.
Well, it's been wonderful to talk to you guys about this.
Oh my gosh, we are the Avengers with the Z that's this, this we are. I think we got to put Tuesday jam Wow, that's us, guys.
In the next few episodes of Extra Vision.
On Tuesday, we have our reaction to the Last of Us episode four, and we returned to the world of and Or with our recap on Wednesday, and our and Or roundtable for episode seven eight nine of season two on Friday.
That's It for this episode.
X ray Vision is hosted by Jason Spci and Rosie Night and is a production of iHeart Podcast.
Our executive producers are Joel Monique and Aaron Kolefman.
Our supervising producer is Abuzafar.
Our producers are Common, Laurent Dean Jonathan and Fay Wag.
A theme song is by Brian Vasquez, with alternate theme songs by Aaron Kauffman.
Special thanks to Saul Rubin, Christ Lord, Kenny Goodman and Heidie Are Discord Moderator m
HM