Marvel News & Notes

After a solid month and a half of torrential amounts of MCU news, things slowed down this week. In the lead-up to episode seven of WandaVision not much dropped other than the episode length (38 minutes)--I assume this came out to debunk the rumour that the last three episodes would be longer (cf). If the show's total runtime includes its lengthy credits, it means the final two episodes will be longer (there's c.107 remaining of a six hour show, so less the credits that's about 45-minutes each). Can the show wrap-up successfully in that time? It depends on how good the payoff is. I expect the resolution to make sense, but will it be satisfying? Time will tell.

While I really enjoyed episode seven, it was a slight step down from six, which itself was down from five (the current peak for the series). Wanda's story was unusually middling (there wasn't enough weight to her unhappiness), while Monica's origin story continues to struggle (more about that below). Vision's arc was the highlight, as he learned the truth of his past from Darcy and shrugs off the binds of the WandaVision show-format. The Agatha Harkness reveal failed for me--the last thing I expected was a villain song straight out of Disney animation--it wrecked my immersion and I'm curious how others reacted to it--the tone was so cartoony it stripped away the threatening atmosphere. With Agatha admitting to killing the dog, redeeming her is going to be difficult (if, indeed, the show goes that way).

The big question to ask is: why did Agatha reveal not just herself but her deeds to Wanda? Presumably she feels like Wanda can do nothing to stop her at this point, but stop her from what? We don't know what Agatha's goals are, so the only feeling is uncertainty--she's an antagonist, but of what kind? We also learned that Evan Peters' character is her colleague or under her control (who he really is we don't know--some still believe he's the Fox Quicksilver, others do not--I lean towards the latter).

Monica's aerospace engineer tease resulted in nothing this episode (even the fanboys were disappointed)--either the person who assisted her is more meaningless than the Skrull kid from Captain Marvel, or the reveal has been pushed off to the final two episodes. This segues into the continuing issues with Monica's origin. There's no sense of danger when she re-enters the hex--nothing bad has happened to her from doing it (she's rewarded with super powers), so there's no tension to the scene. Lack of stakes has plagued Monica--getting powers while trying to help people isn't a bad premise, but the lack of consequences robs it of its potency (her speech to Wanda this episode is almost identical to what she told her in episode five). It's sad to say that Monica herself doesn't seem necessary for the story--any agent sucked into the hex could have performed her role, which is to say the fact that it's Monica hasn't been important. I think what the writers are trying to do is use the death of Maria Rambeau as the emotional connection between she and Wanda, but because Maria dies off screen and Monica never mourns for her, the impact isn't felt. Much of her story feels like it was dictated by Marvel execs rather than coming from the showrunner.

We're supposed to be concerned with Hayward's upcoming attack, but he's been so comically inept thus far it's impossible to feel worried. If Hayward's attack is effective, it's going to be incongruous with his portrayal. As I said in my review last time, the writers did not invest enough time in the SWORD B-plot and because of that, its antagonist is as threatening as a wet noodle. Why they gave Hayward no positive motivation to act as he does is baffling--all they needed was a line about how something happened to people close to him that's echoed by this situation (as in, superheroes causing damage, ala Zemo) and the groundwork is laid, but clearly the directive was to make him unsympathetic, which gives us a poorly conceived villain (you can only get away with a one-dimensional villain if they pose a threat to the hero, and even then it's not a good idea).

A question no one is asking: how has Jimmy Woo forgotten his missing person all this time? We still have no idea who it is, or why Woo would keep it to himself. Speaking of Woo, if you were to cut him from the show entirely, would it impact anything? The answer seems to be no--clearly Hayward wanted to send Monica to the hex regardless, so Woo is simply an excuse. Perhaps his neglected missing person will change that, but again the writers haven't made the effort to meaningfully integrate the specific character into the plot.

I thought the Agatha reveal could be a partial debunking of Murphy's source for the show (who seemed to say Agatha was Nightmare--an unlikely reveal after just having a reveal). However, a kind Redditor (who had more patience going through the poster's history than I did) combed through their claims and posted them. These are the ones for the show (I'll deal with the others below):

• Evan Peters is playing Peter Maximoff from the Fox X-Men movies. His appearance is not a gag or a misdirect or a Mysterio-esque fakeout. He is not a villain.
• Wanda finds out about mutants thanks to an unrevealed guest star.
• The main villain is Nightmare.
• Kathryn Hahn plays Nightmare in some way. A popular theory that the poster seems to believe is that Nightmare is controlling Agatha Harkness.
• Wiccan and Speed are alive after Episode 7.
• Wandavision will explain what's going on with the multiverse. It'll make more sense after the show.

What's weird about the poster's thoughts is why wouldn't Quicksilver (if he is from the Fox universe) be the one to reveal mutants to Wanda--he is a mutant and a surprise guest star. In terms of testing the veracity of what's left, we'll need to see Nightmare, have Agatha controlled by that character, and someone other than Quicksilver reveal mutants. The upcoming episodes also pose some issues for Murphy, as he predicted elements that seem unlikely given how this episode ended (Wiccan and Speed being bullied in high school--is there really time for the two to return to regular Westview hijinks when Hayward is supposed to attack that day?).

Speaking of WandaVision news, Paul Bettany revealed that we have not seen the actor he was looking forward to working with yet, so that mystery remains. For those who still have Magneto hopes, Ian McKellan is someone he has worked with, but he hasn't worked with Michael Fassbender. I think it's unlikely the character will appear (however much I'd enjoy it). He's acted with James McAvoy, incidentally, but not Patrick Stewart.

Sutton offered a theory rather than a scoop about what's happening in the show (based purely on comicbook nods): the Nexus commercial is related to the Nexus of All Realities (the gateway into the Multiverse), Jennifer Kale (who he believes is Dottie) is the only one who can open it, Man-Thing guards it (thus all the vines in the basement), and the book is The Tome of Zhered-Na; Kale can only use the Nexus if accompanied by a member of the Underworld, which he believes is Mephisto. This would make whoever is playing Mephisto the 'big reveal' and Dottie as a witch is possible, albeit its late in the game to introduce so many characters. Kale has come up in speculation before (originally with LotLB (TBK) back in September of 2019 as part of an R&D list); Man-Thing was originally part of Jeph Loeb's Hulu plans, but by October of 2019 both Sutton and Daniel claimed he'd appear in the MCU (Sutton has put both characters into Midnight Sons).

Unrelated, Sutton adds that AoS is canon and anything said to the contrary is ridiculous--the man dost protest too much, methinks. For Mikey's sake, here's where I go through the numbers of that show to illustrate how difficult it would be to enforce it upon MCU fans who ignored it in droves.

The Daily Telegraph is reporting that Jennifer Lawrence is going to Australia to film The Fantastic Four. Apparently she'll first shoot a series of some sort with Joel Edgerton, and then transition into Fantastic Four. This suggests we already have an (unannounced) writer for Fantastic Four--in fact, there must already be a script. Murphy's site accepts this as real and it's hard to imagine the Telegraph making it up. The obvious guess would be that she's playing Susan Storm, which (if true) would fit my idea of going younger than the usual fan casting of Emily Blunt (Lawrence turns 31 in August, Blunt turns 38 in a few days). This wouldn't necessarily eliminate John Krasinski as Reed Richards, as the character has always been older than Sue. My guess is rather than a race-swapped Johnny Storm, the MCU will go with a race-swapped Ben Grimm to diversify the team (avoiding copying the horrendous Fox film). [I should note, Sutton said there was interest in the actress yesterday, but that no talks had yet occurred.]

Hill has deduced that Arian Moayed has been cast in Spider-Man 3 as a detective. This lines up with the casting call Daniel put out recently for a male BIPOC detective. In a crowded cast this has to be a very minor role.

The aforementioned Redditor (above) had this to say about the film:

• Spider-Man 3 is a Spider-Verse movie because of the events of Wandavision.
• Tobey and Andrew will appear. Tom Holland lied about them not appearing.
• Jamie Foxx as Electro is a different and fresh take on the character in the MCU timeline. This applies to other characters as well. It is explained with the multiverse.

None of these claims originate with the poster. Feige gave away the connection between the show and the film, the appearances of the other Spider-Men goes back to Sutton in May, and Foxx gave away who he'll play in a deleted post (Instagram I think).

Here are the final purported scoops from the poster:

• Marvel is going to pick and choose who they like and multiverse them in however they want. Multiple X-Men are crossing over.
• Sony is partially doing the multiverse stuff to give themselves more options. Disney can keep Holland, and Sony can keep making their own movies with different versions of characters while still having it make sense.

These are, again, not original scoops. The moment Evan Peters was revealed (cf) the approach became apparent (Charlie Cox simply adds fuel to the idea); the latter is a broadly held sentiment. As I said about a month ago (cf) when discussing the poster, I think they have real WandaVision inside information, but not anything else.

THR (Aaron Couch) reports that actress Laurel Marsden has been cast as Zoe Zimmer in Ms. Marvel. I don't know the actress or the character, but in researching it she was created for the third run of Ms. Marvel in 2014 by G. Willow Wilson; she's a French immigrant who is a lesbian schoolmate of Kamala's; she starts off as a bully, but then becomes a friend. She's had zero resonance outside the IP (literally no appearances outside Ms. Marvel runs), so unfortunately like the rest of the cast, isn't going to raise the temperature of anyone who isn't already a hardcore fan (keeping in mind some of those fans were already in an uproar about other casting). I have a lot of concerns for Ms. Marvel--it will be interesting to see how it's received.

Crazy Days and Nights claims Brie Larson is in Australia filming scenes for Thor 4. I mentioned before that I have no idea how credible the site is, but as ideas go it's plausible. Sutton has signal boosted the idea, but added no new information. Sutton's choices for signal boosting are interesting (this site, Small Screen, and Giant Freakin Robot)--these are not typical places for people to go, but perhaps its quid pro quo in that they've reported on him (Mikey is banned from Marvel Reddit sites and hated intensely by Daniel and his buddies).

Sutton posted a Heroes for Hire scoop, although he's not the first to have the idea. He's long predicted an Iron Fist show (cf) with Luke Cage appearing in other people's IP, but not this specific scenario. Here's what he says:

[Heroes for Hire] established the black guy/white guy buddy dynamic years before Hollywood took it to the bank in films like 1982’s 48 Hrs. and later the Lethal Weapon franchise. … Marvel Studios has been looking for ways to reboot them for Disney Plus. As usual, Marvel Studios looks to the past to see what worked in the comics. … From what I’ve heard, the plan is to follow the blueprint of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier on Disney Plus. That show is influenced by ’80s action movies. This will be of a similar flavor but with the added spice of ’70s martial arts and blaxploitation fare.

I've gone over the issues with Mike Colter's age--a show like this wouldn't appear for another couple of years, if not longer (following Sutton's own theories, it would post-date Shang-Chi 2, which isn't even on the schedule). How much longer can Colter keep Cage's physique? That aside, I've said repeatedly that Heroes for Hire is the only way we get Iron Fist back as a star (or co-star). Cage has a bit more cache as he can diversify other IP. I think the idea in general is credible, but I'm less sure that Sutton's version is correct.

Andy Signore says Coulson is coming back to the MCU along with Chloe Bennet's Quake in Secret Invasion. One way he differs from Sutton is that it's not a continuation of Agents of SHIELD, but something new entirely (almost certainly via the Multiverse). I'll remind you that Andy is not yet a verified scooper, so content from him has to be taken with grains of salt. With that said, is it possible select characters from AoS could show up? Yes--the Multiverse offers those opportunities. Certainly for Coulson, whose appearance in Captain Marvel was squandered, it would be a chance for the MCU to try and tap into what made him an appealing support character in Phase One (although, again, he's had a complete character arc, so what do you need him for?).

After Signore posted this, he followed it up by saying Daredevil (Charlie Cox) will also be on the show. If this is true, this is the first character appearing that's actually interesting--I've mentioned before that the whole Skrull-thing does nothing for me (neither do AoS characters, including Coulson). This is the what the show needs to draw in casuals--people aren't going to show up just for Nick Fury (which is why it's not the Nick Fury show--the same applied to War Machine--it's an Armor Wars show).

Daniel claims Marvel has had talks with actress Jessica Rothe for a role, but doesn't indicate what the soon-to-be 34-year old was approached for (he likely doesn't know). Visually she'd suit either as Susan Storm or Clea [Murphy says not the former], but if true it could be for almost anything (and not necessarily a major role). I'm completely unfamiliar with the actress, so have no strong reaction to the idea.

More Daniel rumours (grains of salt required):

• Keanu Reeves still up for Ghost Rider [This seems to be an attempted rebuttal to Skylar Shuler]
• AT&T doesn't care about the comics so will let that branch either die or sell it off [This isn't Marvel but I included it because I recognize the source of the rumour: Bleeding Cool and LotLB (TBK) reported the basic idea last February; the immediate impetus of this, however, seems to be a Bleeding Cool article from earlier this week; after I initially wrote this down Daniel shifted the comment from his rumour section to a his more 'verified' area]
• Spider-Man will get a re-match vs Falcon and Bucky in a future project [I'm not sure their comedic fight in Civil War is begging for a re-match]

Sutton claims Sony is interested in Karl Urban for Kraven. This would be an excellent choice, although I'm not sure Urban wants to involve himself in the chaotic mess that is Marvel Sony (we know he can be picky about projects, as he refused to attach himself to Judge Dredd: Mega City One until he was happy with how he'd be included).

This article is written by Peter Levi (@eyeonthesens)