Marvel News & Notes

The Superbowl Falcon and the Winter Soldier trailer was mostly an echo of what we've seen before, but with two elements that stood out to me:

• 1) Zemo's declaration that he doesn't believe superheroes should exist. This fits his motivations from Civil War and seemingly makes him the antagonist; I still feel he's more likely to be an anti-hero who eventually becomes part of the Thunderbolts.
• 2) Scoopers are pulling back from the idea of Erin Kellyman playing Songbird (Murphy, who is the source of the idea, is now saying that's not who she is)--if that's correct, perhaps she's based on one of the rumoured Grappler characters (cf, Gladiatrix, Cowgirl, and Battleaxe, who all have red hair), or more likely someone entirely different.

The latter point is, incidentally, a good example of how Murphy's attempts to connect the dots do not always work (let us recall Kellyman was the second person he picked as Songbird). Fans tend to give his speculation the same weight as his scoops, when the two are very different (as he points out himself).

The trailers make Falcon's arc seem very clear: he considers the shield, rejects it because of its secret history, Bucky reminds him people need a symbol of hope and after John Walker fails, he takes up the Cap title. That said, we are still unclear what's happening with Bucky or what Marvel wants to do with the John Walker character (if anything). In the comics Walker is ultimately redeemable, but the simpler route is to make him a villain. I have no idea what they want to do with Bucky, but given how young and popular Sebastian Stan is (he turns 39 this year), I expect him to have a future, but where do you take the Winter Soldier? I'm hoping for some unexpected twists in the show--it would be interesting for Falcon to reject the shield because he doesn't need it to inspire people, but I don't think Marvel will go there (or, at least, not in this show--I feel like the crescendo for him is becoming the new Cap).

A final note: I expect any criticism of the military in the show (which we're expecting in relation to super soldier experiments in the past) will be minimal or deflected onto a rogue element. I believe this is the case because Marvel has a good relationship with the military and goes out of their way to avoid any serious criticism (as seen in the milquetoast nods to sexism in Captain Marvel).

We received some interesting insight from WandaVision showrunner Jac Schaeffer about why Evan Peters was included in the show:

We loved the idea of [bringing him back]. And then we were like, how in the world are we going to make this make logical sense? Like, how do we justify this? Because that's the thing, you can hatch a million great ideas, but to make them land, to make them be grounded, to make them feel organic to the larger story. … And we had long had the idea of the trope of the brother, or the relative, or whoever comes to town and like, stirs things up with the family--that sitcom trope. … I think Kevin [Feige] wanted to make sure that there was a reason for it, that it made sense. And I hope that's what we did.

It seems like what Schaeffer was most excited about was the sitcom trope itself, not specifically Quicksilver or the Evan Peters version of him. It's also clear Feige's interaction with the idea wasn't a grand scheme to introduce mutants or the Fox IP, but simply that whatever Schaeffer did in the show made sense. This is deflating for all the complicated theories about Peters (meaning we can almost certainly say goodbye to the Magneto theory).

I wonder what Marvel is going to take away from the response to the show thus far. When you comb through the numbers what's clear is the sitcom element received a muted response--something very relevant for the upcoming She-Hulk--however, the mystery element, the parts that fit firmly into the MCU's umbrella, have succeeded. We've seen a similar trend, if less clearly, in the response to Black Widow's marketing (reactions to the humour are mixed, but reactions to the dramatic moments are strong). The lesson isn't to steer away from comedy, but I think the dated, by-the-numbers jokes need to be scaled back (particularly in moments that lack dramatic tension).

One thing I haven't seen pointed out about the cast, and this is a very minor thing, is Schaeffer's connection to Emma Caulfield Ford--the latter was the lead actress in Schaeffer's first film Timer (2009), which is likely why she was approached to be part of WandaVision.

Something I've been wondering is why Schaeffer's Black Widow script required two emergency re-writes (such that she only received a story credit). My guess is that Schaeffer is primarily a comedy writer--that's where her sensibilities are--but Black Widow is a very grounded character and her script couldn't get there (requiring the late, emergency changes to the film). The writing in WandaVision has been solid, although Tyler Hayward (perhaps simply because of the actor) is an exception.

Multiple sources (Daniel, The Illuminerdi, Andy Signore, etc) are reporting that Keanu Reeves has been offered the part of Kraven the Hunter (for a Sony solo film--the supposedly upcoming J. C. Chandor film). It's certainly a role the actor can fill, albeit at his age (56) the character won't be around for long. While Reeves is ubiquitous in rumours, none of the scoopers have put him in this role (there's a 4chan post from October that has him in the role, but that post contains other errors, so it's likely a lucky guess). Sutton had Keanu as part of a Ghost Rider series less than two months ago (that article has been deleted, although it may reappear when Sutton finishes updating Geekosity), which Daniel (in his rumour pile) also put out recently. Until we have something official we can't really assess what's going on.

Dietsch claims Chris Evans is returning to the MCU to play not just Steve Rogers, but to reprise his Fox role as Johnny Storm. He also believes that Jessica Alba is being asked to return. I frankly don't believe this--nods to the Fox X-Men have some cache, but the Fox Fantastic Four is terrible and having Evans play two characters pushes the boundary of confusion for audiences.

Speaking of Dietsch, I want to point out a couple of habits he has that are ringing alarm bells for me: 1) He echoes the WGTC habit of repeating in every post that his information comes from a source that gave him information on a pair of limited specifics, 2) He talks about how the information he has lines up with previous scoops (of course they do, they all come from the same person). I'm not drawing conclusions yet, but given how closely these tendencies align with WGTC I wanted to mention them.

Lauder says Feige wants to bring back Mike Colter as Luke Cage and his source believes he's meant to be involved in the Moon Knight series. Sutton has signal boosted the story (as he has, I believe, with all of Lauder's work), as it roughly echoes what he's said. The rumours about the various Netflix characters are persistent, but how does this help the MCU (cf)? With Charlie Cox and perhaps Jon Bernthal, you can argue they add some excitement if they appear, but I don't think that's true otherwise (or for any character from AoS etc). To me this only make sense if there's a limited future envisioned--if Luke Cage is meant to appear once or twice and be done (Colter is an older actor, after all). It's much, much easier to recast the actor, both to get more mileage out of the IP and to avoid any confusion over Netflix continuity.

Dietsch is not afraid of hyperbole, which in fairness to him is an issue for most scoopers (reliable or not). We see this in his 'expose' of who will appear in Secret Invasion: the announced Fury and Talos, along with the expected Captain Marvel, Monica Rambeau, Ms. Marvel, and the odd add of Quake (cf). This is a cast list you or I could have assembled--it's pretty basic speculation. He adds that this list of characters "are in the running", which means it's not even confirmed, but the kicker for me is this: "Marvel wants Secret Invasion to be the kind of mega-event [like] the Avengers film series." This is absurd--if Marvel thought this was an Avengers-level event it wouldn't be airing on Disney+.

KC likes my theory (although I doubt he got it from me) of Wonder Man being used as the basis to bring Vision back to life (or whatever life he currently has within Westview). For this theory to have any weight we need to definitively see Wonder Man soon--the next episode most likely--or its far too late to introduce him (assuming he's to be an active character within the show). We certainly need an antagonist to show up soon--since I'm assuming Wanda is not the ultimate villain--but that revelation can wait a little longer.

Sutton appears to be doing some spring cleaning as he recycled his old Iron Fist (link below) and Inhumans (cf) scoops on Geekosity. The most interesting element to me is that he wrote he's unsure if Inhumans will debut in Ms. Marvel, something I considered largely settled amongst scoopers (if she's going to be an Inhuman, surely that's their introduction--someone must have pointed this out to Sutton, as in a follow-up he echoes that sentiment while recycling his old idea of Vin Diesel as Black Bolt--link above). Mikey can't resist bringing up AoS again (suggesting its continuity will be maintained for the rebooted Inhumans), an idea I'll continue to reject. The other element of note is he's adding a new justification for the Iron Fist reboot: Cobra Kai. Sutton believes the success of the show (now on Netflix), has created renewed interest in the property. This is an odd thing to add, because he gave the exact same scoop without that justification previously and it's not like Cobra Kai is new. He seems to be suggesting the original interest had died down for unknown reasons, but the third season of Cobra Kai reignited it--I find that hard to believe, since that show has been popular since its debut in 2018 (so if nothing has changed with it, why would it change opinions on Iron Fist?).

A couple more rumours from Daniel:

• Ironheart will be bisexual [I have no idea if she is or isn't in the comic--I don't really care because I don't care about the character; granted, this could be another WGTC-style clickbait rumour, as Daniel makes these kinds of claims regularly]
• Keanu Reeves is still up for Ghost Rider despite Daniel's own scoop that he's Kraven [Try to figure that one out]

This article is written by Peter Levi (@eyeonthesens)