Marvel News & Notes

Murphy says he's found evidence that Shang-Chi will have a flashback to the Song and Seljuk Dynasty's (960-1279 and 1037-1153; for those unfamiliar they reflect the geographical areas of China and Persia/Iran, respectively), but doesn't state what that evidence is. He claims this will connect the Mandarin to Genghis Khan and believes it is the reason for the casting call GWW's broke in August about a 'ruler of an ancient, distant kingdom' (at the time GWW, Murphy, and Conrad thought it was for Namor--Namor's eminent return is something Conrad was pushing in January, claiming the rights were back, a theory whose issues I go through via the link and was indirectly debunked by Mark Ruffalo not long after). If both regions are meant to be connected to Khan, then it's not the Seljuk Dynasty, but the Khwarazmian Dynasty (1077-1221) that's relevant. It's also a little puzzling that the descriptor is 'a distant kingdom,' given that Mongolia is literally right next to China. That aside, Murphy's idea is plausible (Marvel isn't going to get bogged down in historical pedantry, eg they have a South Korean playing Gilgamesh, perhaps the most iconic Middle Eastern character of history/folklore in that region), and while I think its odd connecting Mandarin to the Mongolian conqueror (I can't imagine the Chinese view him very positively), that does match comicbook lore.

Lizzie Hill was combing through resumes (I don't know where--IMDB Pro?) and a stunt person included a credit that reads WandaVision (Ep.109). She jumps to the conclusion that the show will have more than the expected six episodes and that's certainly plausible. I'm less concerned with the episode count than the length of the episodes--will we get truncated, network-TV style stories? Or will it be better developed, HBO-style long form storytelling? I have no idea, but if this is correct I feel it's likely the former (which is disappointing).

The casting notice above has Murphy, Daniel, Tim (LotLB), and others speculating that Echo is coming to a Disney+ show shooting this fall (Ms. Marvel, Hawkeye, She-Hulk, or Moon Knight). It's via casting director Sarah Finn for a "deaf female, Native American, First Nations, Indigenous or Latinx, 18 or older." The casting sheet above is courtesy of Tim, who is the only one who showed it. Very few Marvel characters match this description (assuming, of course, it's not an original role). The only issue I have with it is that Echo seems attached to the Daredevil IP, which would legally make her ineligible for casting until November. Murphy points out the casting call could be for The Mandalorian (since Finn is casting for it as well) and that seems more likely to me.

LotLB with a Sutton-derived list for Disney+ (Tim clarified that these lists are actually R&D (research and development), not reserve lists, but they used the former term to protect their sources--apparently that's no longer a concern). This clarification reminded me of a theory I had awhile ago that Deadline's mistaken story about Deathlok was due to misinterpreting such a list--the writer learned Deathlok #1 was being researched and assumed it was about the titular character rather than the Grapplers (who seem to be coming to Falcon and the Winter Soldier). The list:

• Nicholas Trask (not the X-Men Trask) - His name hasn't come up before
• Lucia Von Bardas (Latverian) - Conrad repeated this without attribution--we've gone over his habit of doing so many times before
• Figment - Also new in rumours
• Hijinx (part of the Canadian Ninja Syndicate) - New
• Kamran - He was included in a casting sheet for Ms. Marvel reported on in February; Daniel repeated this idea without attribution a few days after Sutton (I'm uncertain why he's piggybacking on Sutton when he had TI to use months ago)
• Starjammers - In March Reddit said a show or film was in development
• Frenzy (a mutant villain) - New
• Titania - Common speculation since She-Hulk was announced, but not specifically brought up until March when Murphy speculated the Grapplers would appear in Falcon and the Winter Soldier

About a week ago I dropped a Wolverine scoop sent to me by Mikey Sutton. I won't repeat the information here, but for those who missed it they can check it out via the link. Sutton says he'll send me an Excalibur scoop sometime soon (the missing element Jarbo was supposed to add to the May scoop jam).

Another MCU R&D list from LotLB via Sutton, which features a lot of characters who have come up before:

• The Sons of the Serpent - New
• Hulkling - Speculated ever since the Cassie Lang scoop back in 2018, but a casting sheet for him has been floating around since January (the text of the sheet here)
• Iron Lad - See above, but no reputable scooper has specifically mentioned him previously (WGTC did last January, but otherwise it's radio silence--outside of Kang speculation, that is); my issue with him is the same with any successor character: how many can you have before it becomes repetitive or redundant? There's no Iron Man now, so it's fine, but once you add Ironheart you could hit some problems
• Prodigy - New
• America Chavez - Common in the rumour mill, with GWW saying a show was coming back in August and then TI believing a casting call was for her in January
• Marvel Boy (Noh-Varr) - New
• Wiccan and Speed (Tommy Shepherd) - Two characters seemingly confirmed by the WandaVision trailer, but have been in the rumour mill forever (eg)

LotLB also dropped two Sutton Q&A videos with these tidbits (to make my comments standout I've put them in red):

• Reiterated what they said (via TBK) about Dwayne Johnson/Namor over a year ago [For issues with Namor see above]
• Firestar is coming [I believe the only time she was brought up before was back in August by LotLB in a Spider-Man context--when Peter Parker is in college; Daniel echoed this new scoop a day later without attribution (Conrad promptly repeated him)]
• Moon Knight will be heavily steeped in Egyptian mythology [Sutton said this in September, but at that time didn't think Marvel would use his multiple personalities; Sutton had Pedro Pascal in the role, which I found exceedingly odd given his age and that he's not Jewish (he's also shooting Tropico when Moon Knight's production is thought to begin)]
• Ghost Rider will probably be Johnny Blaze, but it's unclear if he'll be in film or on Disney+ [The rumours about Ghost Rider have been dizzying in their variety and complexity--for Sutton it went from Alejandra Jones in September, to Blaze in January, to Jones appearing in Blade in February, to her being trained by Blaze shortly afterwards (not sure if that's supposed to be in Blade or not; it's worth pointing out that these ideas have never been mutually exclusive--as in, they don't inherently contradict one another)]
• Reiterated that Devil Dinosaur will appear when the X-Men go to the Savage Land [Something he broke in May]
• Gambit will have a Disney+ series before joining the X-Men (barring a change) [He first said this back in August and put out a reserve list in February--in the first instance it was the Fox project brought into the MCU, which was not specified subsequently and I think there's no chance that Channing Tatum's project is something Feige is interested in]
• Bernthal's Punisher won't (physically) appear until Midnight Sons [Sutton has consistently said the Netflix actors would carry over to the MCU--I'm not persuaded by his argument (eg), but this long gap for Bernthal would skip past his (current) busy schedule]
• Marvel has big plans for Black Knight (not specifically The Eternals) [Back in August LotLB had Black Knight as part of Excalibur and this was repeated by Sutton in November (which weirdly echoes an old Ain't it Cool rumour from 2018); I have vague recollections of LotLB making the claim about him post-Eternals before, but I can't find it, so take my memory with a grain of salt]

This is a brief aside and I'm not picking on Murphy specifically, just using him to illustrate a point since I see this all the time (and not just in Marvel circumstances). Recently he posted that Marvel has resumed casting for Ms. Marvel and that filming might begin sooner than later. This isn't unexpected, so I didn't report it. Given that, why am I talking about it now?

The casting of Kamala Khan is certainly one that is of great interest to many (my Twitter DMs are proof as they are filled with questions about when and who and if)

Murphy's DM volume is proof of absolutely nothing--it's not even an accurate assessment of the interest of his Twitter followers (at best it's an indicative sample of those who send him DMs). His conclusion represents two things:
1) Anecdotal evidence (evidence collected in a casual or informal manner and relying heavily or entirely on personal testimony)
2) Confirmation bias (the tendency to search for, interpret, favour, and recall information that confirms or support one's prior personal beliefs or values)
The proper way to assess relative popularity is from large pools of data (in this case things like comic sales, Google Trends, publicly voted popularity lists, etc). When you do that research (as I have done in the past for Ms. Marvel, eg, eg, eg, and eg) you discover that Kamala Khan is a niche character the general public has never heard of (this also applies to Shang-Chi, The Eternals, etc). Marvel is well aware of this void in awareness and I think that's the main reason Kamala is starring in the upcoming Marvel video game. This evidence does not mean her show won't succeed and make her popular, just that Murphy's assumptions have to be ignored. There's nothing wrong with enjoying and promoting something you like that's obscure, but you have to be realistic about it (eg any time I've talked about Alpha Flight, for instance).

I wanted to briefly comment on the news of Michael Keaton returning as Batman for DC. I saw Batman (1989) in theaters when I was fourteen--it was the first competent superhero film I'd seen since Superman 2 (1981) and, while it's campy (as one would expect from Tim Burton), it remains one of the better Batman films to date. Batman Returns (1992) is still, in my opinion, the best Batman film we've ever had--The Dark Knight (2008) comes close, but has plot problems and pacing issues, so slides into second for me (buoyed by Heath Ledger's magnificent performance). That's where I'm coming from--Keaton is my favourite Batman. Given that, in theory I'm happy to see him come back to the role. However, Keaton cannot hold up a film if the writing is bad. Who are the writers of The Flash? Andy Muschietti and Christina Hodson. The latter gave us Birds of Prey (yikes!), showing no instincts for the genre at all. Muschietti's recent efforts were It (which looked fantastic, but whose writing was average), followed by the largely unwatchable sequel. None of this gives me confidence that we'll see Keaton used effectively (although there's no harm in hoping). DC's major Achilles heel for decades has been writing, stretching all the way back to Batman Forever (1995). Marvel mitigates the issue by having no hesitation in bringing in new people if something isn't working. Joss Whedon on The Avengers is the most famous example, but here are all the cases I'm aware of:

• Iron Man (2008) - Two sets of writers (Fergus & Ostby, Marcum & Holloway), with much of the film re-written on-set when filming commenced (not to the point of changing the credits, however)
• Thor (2011) - Four credited writers/writing teams, with Nichole Perlman being an uncredited script doctor on-set
• The Avengers (2012) - Whedon killed the Zach Penn script (who wrote The Incredible Hulk)
• Iron Man 3 (2013) - Two credited writers with Whedon doing uncredited tweaks
• Thor 2 (2014) - Three writers/writing teams were brought in to rescue a Don Payne script (he was also behind the story of the first Thor); Markus & McFeely were the last to try and save it
• Guardians (2014) - Gunn made significant changes to Perlman's original script (although seeing the downgrade of the sequel without her help makes it clear her contributions were important)
• Ant-Man (2015) - Two writing groups still required on-set doctoring from David Callaham
• Spider-Man (2017) - Three different writing teams still required uncredited Eric Pearson contributions
• Thor 3 (2017) - Taika famously talks about how everything was improv'd (ala Iron Man), but given the published script we know that's exaggerated; this is another film Pearson did uncredited re-writes for
• Ant-Man 2 (2018) - Two writing teams still required Adam McKay to try and help spruce things up
• Captain Marvel (2019) - No Marvel film had more hands involved in it, but the dialogue seems largely via the (now departed) directors and Robertson-Dworet
• Black Widow (2020) - Both the original Schaeffer script and emergency Ned Benson re-write were tossed in favour of script doctor Eric Pearson, who has the only writing credit
• Shang-Chi (2021) - It's rumoured that Callaham's script required emergency re-writes, but this remains unconfirmed
• Doctor Strange 2 (2022) - Jade Bartlett's initial script is already gone, with Michael Waldron taking over

This is admittedly a long digression, but I wanted to show that the MCU's approach hasn't changed and that (with very few exceptions) they are less interested in an auteur's vision than they are with what they see as both quality and consistency in their films. DC has leaned so heavily on director visions that the films wind up being all over the place (and, alas, rarely at a high level).

Conrad put out an article where he says there's a dangerous YT faction who are using fake scoops to profit off spec books. He names no one specifically and offers no evidence, but the only channel that fits his premise is LotLB (whom I've discussed ad nauseam). I had a similar concern about them initially, but as time has gone on that quickly faded. Conrad is not someone who should be accusing anyone of malfeasance anyway, given his long track record of stealing other people's scoops (including those from LotLB, ironically enough). I'm less interested in his conspiracy than I am in two other things (one in the article and one I'm reminded of by the article).

• 1) When Conrad talks about how he could indulge in this abuse as well, his only example is The Eternals scoop he had over two years ago--it really has been that long since Conrad scooped something and its little wonder his YT channel is basically dead and, minus the support because of Covid, his Patreon flatlined years ago. He is virtually irrelevant as a scooper and barring another significant scoop, destined to fade into oblivion
• 2) Since we're dealing with baseless theories, let's indulge one I had a long time ago. Who killed LotLB's original channel? Tim's theory at the time was related to the music he had on his channel, which is plausible. Briefly I considered the possibility that Conrad himself was been involved (given his hostility to LotLB), but while false flagging is an option for him, I don't think Conrad has the pull for that and I very quickly came to Tim's conclusion

Conrad's content these days is just repeating what others have reported. I can't remember the last time he claimed to break a story--off the top of my head it's his debunked claim about Namor in January, but there's good reason to believe even that idea was gleaned from someone else (Murphy or Sutton). When I think of Conrad, I think of his insistence that the title of Avengers: Endgame was going to be Annihilation. Having things like that blow up in his face has made him more reluctant to claim insider knowledge (something we know he doesn't have), but without scoops, what is the purpose of his site? He can't switch to opinion, because his opinions are identical to the bigger scoopers (I went over this a long time ago--outside of LotLB, the scoopers all share the same ethos and aesthetic, so if one has an opinion it's shared by all of them). It would be sad if he wasn't such a toxic person online.

This article is written by Peter Levi (@eyeonthesens)