JonnyLaw

They may not actually go this route, but introducing the multiverse seems like an easy way to introduce a whole slate of new characters you’ve just gotten access to, so it’s less “we’ve run out of ideas” and more “let’s introduce something cool to have an in-universe explanation as to why mutants and the Fantastic Four haven’t been around yet.” They could definitely overdo it, but they’ve just now introduced it. I wouldn’t be surprised if they kept things focused on the main MCU after Phase 4, and any multiverse related shenanigans are kept in What If! or something like an Exiles series.

The superhero fight was really good, but it bordered on the edge of my suspension of disbelief with Artemis constantly being slammed into brick walls or through toilets and such. She’s just an incredibly athletic high school kid, so she shouldn’t have been able to go toe to toe with Hourman like that, but that was a relatively minor quibble. Eclipso is awesome, and they seem appropriately afraid of him, although the number of people willing to touch random black goo is a little too high.

Just caught up to the Stargirl where Eclipso escapes from the Black Diamond and this is such good shit.

They released a mid-season trailer which seems to show a lot more.

They also announced four new release dates for Marvel movies in, iirc, 2024.

Same here, although it will be Gizmodo or AV Club for me.

Yes, I know. My point is simply that if someone has been watching for those connections, they haven’t seen them yet.

There’s definitely been rumors, and I thought Strange talking to the Watcher was a hint of things to come, but so far none of that has shown up on the screen.

My daughter hasn’t been watching any of the Marvel stuff, so I wasn’t watching it with kid appropriateness in mind, but that said, it seemed pretty gore-free given what it was. You don’t really see any actual bites that I can recall, but obviously some of the zombies can look pretty scary. I liked this episode. I liked how they replaced Reed/Sue with Pym/Janet, which made sense. I liked Wanda as the big bad, which seemed kind of meta with the MCU Wanda being key to the Multiverse and the Zombies in the comics traveling the multiverse. Happy going “Blam!” made me laugh. I’m not surprised at the kind of middling response this show has gotten so far given one of the big hooks of the MCU is how connected everything is, and then you have this show with a bunch of one-offs.

This was a good reminder to go mute “Shang-Chi” on Twitter. Maybe “post-credit” too.

I assumed the ending implied Ego’s failed plan from Guardians 2 would actually work as Peter was alone and without the Guardians as backup.

I’m sure there was some sort of reasoning, but they haven’t said what it is. IIRC, Batista said he wasn’t even asked.

Damn, I also thought it was Coulson.

Same here. I still wouldn’t be surprised if it was.

There’s also someone holding a graffitied picture of Peter with horns and a mustache that says “The Devil In Disguise,” but since they put that in the trailer I’m going to chalk it up as a knowing tease, similar to the stained glass window in Loki.

Yes. After people complained about how Peter would never make a deal with the devil, it was “revealed”/retconned that MJ whispered to Mephisto that Peter would never make the deal unless she told him to (or something like that) and also made Mephisto promise to leave Peter alone forever. I don’t recall/care enough to get the specifics right, it’s still stupid and Peter still agreed to it. I will admit it’s a slightly better defense of OMD than Quesada’s early “Well, you know, Mephisto isn’t really the devil…”

Going to Dr. Strange and accidentally screwing up his spell as he starts to think through the consequences of the spell is much more in character for Spider-Man than making an actual deal with the devil, so hopefully it won’t be as horrendous as OMD.

I’d held off on watching the leaked trailer and was about to go to bed tonight when I saw this trailer was released. Now I’m too hyped up to go to bed.

Good Ol’ impatient Matt… Now I’m the impatient one. A massive smile came to my face at the end.

The AV Club compared the What If? Thanos to Jerry Gergich, which is perfect.

I too thought it was fine. I liked last week’s ep better than this one though. I thought the big reveal for Omega was that she was basically a backup copy of Jango Fett’s DNA in the same way Boba was.

The Marvels has started filming.

I thought this was really solid. I loved First Avenger, so this being in the same vein was great. I thought I read she’d be a recurring throughline in the show, so when she entered the portal, I assumed that would lead to something. Then, with the way the show ended, I wanted to see what happened in that world next, which is probably about as much as this show can ask for with each episode.

There’s more out there, but it’s honestly too annoying to tell what’s real and what’s fanmade. In the same vein, there’s a leaked trailer floating that is almost definitely fake.

For background: