Speaker 1: Warning, This podcast contains spoilers for the limited series Moonnight
Speaker 1: on Disney, plus a bunch of stuff from Moonnight Comics,
Speaker 1: also West Coast Avengers, some Spider Man, No Way Home,
Speaker 1: and Marvel movies in general. Hello, my name is Jason
Speaker 1: stepsi Ow and welcome to x ray Vision The Crooked Podcast,
Speaker 1: where we dive deep do your favorite shows, movies, comics
Speaker 1: and pop culture. In today's episode, previously on we recap
Speaker 1: Moonnight episode one, the Goldfish Problem in the Airlock. We
Speaker 1: dive into our thoughts on the episode, some comics history
Speaker 1: about the character Rosie, will unpack who some of these
Speaker 1: folks are that we are seeing in the Moon Night
Speaker 1: television program, and we will discuss theories about what we
Speaker 1: think is going on. For nerd Out on Marlon James's
Speaker 1: novel Black Leopard, Red Wolf, It's really great. Actually, that's
Speaker 1: a great thing.
Speaker 2: I love that book.
Speaker 3: I love it.
Speaker 1: And in the endgame we discuss which mythical god's powers
Speaker 1: we would like to bogart for ourselves. Joining me today
Speaker 1: to discuss this and more is the great, the powerful,
Speaker 1: the talented Rosie moon Night.
Speaker 2: It's me when I have Twitter, that was my name
Speaker 2: at least once.
Speaker 3: A year at least once a Yeah, Rosie, how are you?
Speaker 2: Yeah good?
Speaker 4: I'm excited to be here to talk to you about
Speaker 4: all this cool stuff and dig into some really weird comics,
Speaker 4: really weird.
Speaker 1: Oh man, I've been reading a bunch of we'll talk
Speaker 1: about it. We'll talk about it when we talk about it.
Speaker 1: Let's get into the recap. Okay, recapping Moonnight, Episode one,
Speaker 1: The Goldfish Problem, written by Jeremy Sladerdricht by Mohammed Diab.
Speaker 1: We hear the strains of the Bob Dylan song every
Speaker 1: grain of Sand, and along with this we see hands
Speaker 1: breaking glass, pouring the shards of glass into a pair
Speaker 1: of rattan slippers. This person who's breaking the glass then
Speaker 1: shoves his feet down in the slippers like an absolute psycho.
Speaker 1: We know we're dealing right away with a psycho, Rosie.
Speaker 1: This person then stands up to the crunching of glass
Speaker 1: and then takes a walk. And then as the camera
Speaker 1: pulls out, we see that we're inside some kind of
Speaker 1: large what we would assume is a temple of some kind,
Speaker 1: and we can tell from the shot that that is
Speaker 1: Ethan Hawk, who is playing Arthur Harrow, the villain of
Speaker 1: our series Smash Cut, Stephen Grant wakes up in bed.
Speaker 3: He removes the shackle from his own.
Speaker 1: Ankle, which is tied to a load bearing pillar in
Speaker 1: his apartment. He then goes around his apartment and we
Speaker 1: see that he's placed sand around his bed so that
Speaker 1: he knows if he stood up in the night and left.
Speaker 3: He has placed a.
Speaker 1: Blue painter's tape on his door so that he can
Speaker 1: tell if someone's come in or if he has left,
Speaker 1: and all of that stuff seems undisturbed, groggy from lack
Speaker 1: of sleep. Clearly there's a person who's not getting a
Speaker 1: RESTful night of sleep. He's got we would assume from
Speaker 1: this like the Mike Birbiglia sleep issue, where he just
Speaker 1: will run around in the middle of the night, groggy
Speaker 1: from lack of sleep. Stephen goes to his job, which
Speaker 1: we see is in the gift shop at the British Museum.
Speaker 1: Are they calling it the British Museum.
Speaker 4: So this is very specific London Easter exit. The exterior
Speaker 4: that they use is of the National Gallery, which is
Speaker 4: Intra Square where we see him leaves. Now. The interior
Speaker 4: is the British Museum, which has very recognizable gift shops,
Speaker 4: and I think that at some point in the show
Speaker 4: they name it as something like the National Art.
Speaker 2: Gallery, but it is not wrong to say it's in
Speaker 2: the British Museum.
Speaker 4: And I will say it's very interesting because we also
Speaker 4: saw them use the British Museum as a location in
Speaker 4: Doctor Strange and The Multibus of Madness, most recent trailer.
Speaker 4: So yeah, he's got he's a gift shop. He's a
Speaker 4: gift shoppist at the museum, is what.
Speaker 3: He's a gift shopist.
Speaker 1: But Stephen Stevie, to his colleagues, is a bit of
Speaker 1: an amateur historian, specifically Egyptology. We learn from his conversations
Speaker 1: with a young museum goer that man Stevie really knows
Speaker 1: is shit. He knows what's going on, specifically about the
Speaker 1: history of ancient Egypt. He would love to be a
Speaker 1: tour guide, but here he is stuck in marketing and promotions,
Speaker 1: which we can just shorten to gift shop. One of
Speaker 1: his co workers comes over as he's working at the
Speaker 1: gift shop to confirm that they do indeed have a
Speaker 1: date at one of the best steakhouses in town. And
Speaker 1: it's very clear that Stevie a k. Stephen doesn't know
Speaker 1: what she's talking about and doesn't recall asking her out,
Speaker 1: isn't sure who asked who out. That night, after work,
Speaker 1: Stephen goes to get some street food. He's hanging out
Speaker 1: in the park talking the ear off a street performer,
Speaker 1: one of those street performers who like spray paints themselves
Speaker 1: a metallic color and then pretends to be a statue.
Speaker 1: Who do we now we're stepping on our later? Who
Speaker 1: are these characters?
Speaker 3: Rosie?
Speaker 1: But like you had a good theory on who this
Speaker 1: might be, and I think I agree with you.
Speaker 4: So. In the comics from quite early on in the eighties,
Speaker 4: Moonnight has a kind of an ally who is like
Speaker 4: a homeless man who is a Sometimes he's kind of
Speaker 4: the Watson to Jake Lockley, one of Mark Spector's personalities,
Speaker 4: kind of sidekick, and sometimes he's more of just like
Speaker 4: an informant who hears things from the street. Because the
Speaker 4: original representation of Moonnight's different personas were to help him
Speaker 4: navigate through different class levels and spaces in the world.
Speaker 2: That character is Crawley.
Speaker 4: He does not have a history of being a kind
Speaker 4: of living statue as we see here, but he does
Speaker 4: look a lot like the character in the comics, and
Speaker 4: that is a credit for the actor who plays him
Speaker 4: at the end of the show, which says Crawley, so
Speaker 4: we can say that is him confirmed, confirmed, that is Crawley.
Speaker 4: And hopefully I think that means that, even if we
Speaker 4: don't get to see it here, I think Stephen is
Speaker 4: gonna have an ally and that makes me excited.
Speaker 1: When Stephen goes back home, we get to see more
Speaker 1: of his sleep routine, pouring the sand around the bed,
Speaker 1: taping the door shut, chaining and changing his leg up.
Speaker 1: He lays in bed, throwing a Rubik's cube up up
Speaker 1: in the air and catching it, trying to sleep, reading books,
Speaker 1: listening to like a sleep tape that says, hey, you
Speaker 1: can try imagining yourself as the character in a story,
Speaker 1: or you could try this, or you could try that.
Speaker 1: None of it works, said. He stays up reading about
Speaker 1: ancient Egypt, and then finally peaceful sleep comes over Steve
Speaker 1: and he dozes, and when he awakes he's in the
Speaker 1: Alps or somewhere in the mouse.
Speaker 4: He says, he's in the Alps, and we'll get to
Speaker 4: why that's the thing later.
Speaker 2: And this is the fat Horra. This is the fast
Speaker 2: horror moment as well.
Speaker 3: Yes, so he's in the Alps.
Speaker 1: His jaw is broken, but we watch it fix itself.
Speaker 3: It is daytime.
Speaker 1: Stephen doesn't remember anything about anything, how he came to
Speaker 1: be here.
Speaker 3: Nothing.
Speaker 1: A voice that we will, I think soon come to
Speaker 1: learn is kan Chu tells him.
Speaker 5: Go back to sleep worm. You're not supposed to be here,
Speaker 5: so render the body to Mark. And clearly that is
Speaker 5: a reference to Mark Spector. Stephen, you know, going through
Speaker 5: his pockets trying to figure out what the hell's going on,
Speaker 5: finds a golden scareb in his pocket. He looks up,
Speaker 5: and two men in a castle step to take an
Speaker 5: interest in him, and then all of a sudden they
Speaker 5: start shooting him. They chase him down the mountain and
Speaker 5: into town, and everyone in town in this small alpine
Speaker 5: village seems to be headed somewhere towards the village square.
Speaker 5: And when they get to the village square, they are
Speaker 5: all bowing in obeisance to our villain, Arthur Harrow. Arthur
Speaker 5: says a bunch of stuff, including we are here to
Speaker 5: make the earth as much like heaven as possible. We
Speaker 5: can see from what's going on that Arthur is somehow
Speaker 5: judging these people to see if they're worthy of entering
Speaker 5: into this earth like heaven. A man steps forward, Harrow
Speaker 5: leads him through the ritual and he judges that person
Speaker 5: in Ohmit's name.
Speaker 3: Here's our first reference to.
Speaker 1: Omit, this mis deity, omit that this person, this man
Speaker 1: it steps forward, is a good man, has been judged
Speaker 1: a good man by omen. A woman steps forward next,
Speaker 1: and the scales of justice, which are a tattoo on
Speaker 1: Arthur Harrow's arm, turned red and the woman is clearly
Speaker 1: not a good person, and harrow' says, Ahmed has decided
Speaker 1: you got to die, my dear, and she drops dead.
Speaker 3: Bye bye.
Speaker 1: Harrow learns from the guards that are watching this take
Speaker 1: place that something went wrong with the quote hand off,
Speaker 1: and Harrow has his followers Neil leaving Steven the only
Speaker 1: one standing and he's standing there slack jawed at what
Speaker 1: he's seeing.
Speaker 3: Harrow is like, oh, I recognize you.
Speaker 1: You're the Mercenary, and recall in some of our previous
Speaker 1: conversations about this character that one of the egos of
Speaker 1: Moonnight is Mark Spector. This Mercenary character, he's kind of
Speaker 1: the original personality of moon Night. Grant has no idea
Speaker 1: what the fuck Arthur Arrow is talking about. He tells everyone, listen,
Speaker 1: I work in the gift shop at the British Museum.
Speaker 1: Like what Harrow's like? Give me the scab and seems like, yeah,
Speaker 1: you got it here, here you go, and he tries
Speaker 1: to hand it over, but he hears Conshoy's voice, Hey,
Speaker 1: you will give him nothing. And then Stephen tries he
Speaker 1: might physically cannot hand the scarab over. He doesn't understand
Speaker 1: why he can't do it. A man comes up and
Speaker 1: snatches the scab from Stephen. Grant comes to a moment later,
Speaker 1: his fists balled up, covered in blood, and people all
Speaker 1: around him are just knocked the fuck out, and he
Speaker 1: hears his conscience voice say, oh, the idiots back and
Speaker 1: Stephen runs for it. Pursued by Harrow's followers. A car
Speaker 1: chase ensues through the mountains, with Conshoot screaming at Stephen
Speaker 1: to do this and that. Just when Steven is about
Speaker 1: to get taken out because one of these followers of
Speaker 1: Arthur Harrow has jumped onto the truck the van that
Speaker 1: he is driving. He passes out again, and when he
Speaker 1: wakes up more stuff has changed and This happens again
Speaker 1: and again and again, and eventually a landslide takes out
Speaker 1: a squad of the batties and Stephen wakes up in bed,
Speaker 1: still chained by the leg his tape intact over the door.
Speaker 1: Was this just a dream? What in the world is happening?
Speaker 1: Stephen looks at his goldfish and he sees that the
Speaker 1: fin that had fallen off been injured somehow, has grown back.
Speaker 1: What is going on? Realizing he is late for that
Speaker 1: date with Dylan, Stephen rushes to his flat to change.
Speaker 3: At the restaurant, he has been stood up by the date.
Speaker 3: He calls her.
Speaker 1: She's irate, of course, saying that actually you stood me up.
Speaker 1: And he has no idea what date is? What the
Speaker 1: fuck is going on? His date is ruined, the date
Speaker 1: that he didn't even plan. He didn't even know who
Speaker 1: asked who're out? He goes home to eat a box
Speaker 1: of chocolates alone. While he's home, he finds a secret
Speaker 1: compartment in his living room, up in the ceiling above
Speaker 1: the waynscotting high on the wall. Rather, he finds another
Speaker 1: secret compartment, and inside that is a burner, flip phone
Speaker 1: and an ID card. All the calls on the phone
Speaker 1: go to a number that is listed as Leila phone rings.
Speaker 1: A not British voice says, oh my god, thank god
Speaker 1: you're alive. And she's like, I haven't where have you been.
Speaker 1: I haven't heard from you in months? What's going on?
Speaker 1: And he's like, who's this and she's like, why are
Speaker 1: you talking like that? In a bad British accent, and
Speaker 1: she calls him Mark and then the call disconnects. Stephen
Speaker 1: then hears a voice which is his own voice, talking
Speaker 1: to him and it tells him that he needs to
Speaker 1: stop because he's going to get himself into trouble. Stephen then,
Speaker 1: very very troubled, runs out of his apartment. He goes
Speaker 1: into the elevator. While he's on the elevator, he sees
Speaker 1: Conshu coming towards him and he's like in a puddle
Speaker 1: of fear at the bottom of the elevator.
Speaker 3: He's screaming.
Speaker 1: But then it turns out that actually it's an old
Speaker 1: woman who's on the elevator.
Speaker 3: She's just as scared as he is.
Speaker 1: And the very next thing Stephen knows is he's on
Speaker 1: a city bus.
Speaker 3: Screaming just a little bit.
Speaker 1: As the bus pulls away, Steven sees that Arthur Harrow
Speaker 1: was on the bus, and Harrow appears to Stephen later
Speaker 1: demanding the beatle. This is at the museum. Only Stephen
Speaker 1: can see and hear Harrow, if indeed Haro is even real.
Speaker 1: Harro wants the beatle returned to Ahmet Grant knows a
Speaker 1: little about her. Harrow tells Stephen that Ahmett could have
Speaker 1: solved all the world's problems if she had not been
Speaker 1: portrayed Harro and knows about the voice.
Speaker 3: That is speaking to Stephen, the Conchu.
Speaker 1: Voice, and Harrow judges Stephen and says, there's chaos in you,
Speaker 1: and Steven runs for it. Later in the gift shop,
Speaker 1: Stephen is tagging items.
Speaker 3: The lights go out.
Speaker 1: He hears this beastly kind of sound somewhere in the museum.
Speaker 1: Whining shadows in the museum start growing to monstrous sizes.
Speaker 1: Harrow comes over the pa He's like, give me the
Speaker 1: scaub or Steven will be torn apart. Steven runs from
Speaker 1: the monstrous creature. Mark Spector, Steven's alter ego, demands control
Speaker 1: of the body, and then we flash too. As Steven
Speaker 1: is running, we flash to all of a sudden, Stephen
Speaker 1: is in full Moonnight costume, but now we know it's Mark,
Speaker 1: and Mark has just fought the beast and won. That
Speaker 1: is how the first episode of Moonnight ends. When we
Speaker 1: come back, we will be discussing what the hell all
Speaker 1: this means. We're stepping out of the air, locked to
Speaker 1: dive deeper into the world of Moonnight. Rosie, what did
Speaker 1: you think of this episode?
Speaker 4: I feel like this was always going to be a
Speaker 4: complex It's going to be tough to start. It was
Speaker 4: gonna be tough to start, and there are some things
Speaker 4: about the show and kind of the representation of Stephen
Speaker 4: that I didn't love. I felt like his struggles were
Speaker 4: kind of played for laughs, and I felt like people
Speaker 4: were a little bit mean to him.
Speaker 2: And I'm just the sweet guy.
Speaker 4: Who likes nice stuff, so I was like, But the
Speaker 4: thing that gives me hope is it's doing the thing
Speaker 4: that all my favorite MCU shows do, which is it's
Speaker 4: really deeply taking from some incredibly weird comics and some
Speaker 4: super comics. So it's very much in the vein of
Speaker 4: Hawkeye and One Division in deeply taking stuff and plucking
Speaker 4: out characters and reimagining them. And I will always respect
Speaker 4: any superhero show that only shows like five seconds of
Speaker 4: a superhero suit.
Speaker 2: I think that is very brave. What did you think
Speaker 2: about it?
Speaker 3: Here's the thing about Moon Night. We've said this before
Speaker 3: on her podcast.
Speaker 1: Moonnight is a character that I think you could argue
Speaker 1: is about vibes. Purely about vibes. There's never and your
Speaker 1: mileage may vary. If someone feels differently and has a
Speaker 1: different opinion, that's absolutely valid. But having read all of
Speaker 1: the Moon Nights, there's not really like a hammer Moon
Speaker 1: Night story. There's not like the iconic Moonnight tale, the
Speaker 1: great Moon Night Story.
Speaker 3: The character has been.
Speaker 1: Significantly changed almost every time he's appeared, you know, from
Speaker 1: his first appearance appearance in his solo in Werewolf by Night,
Speaker 1: to his solo titles, to his then revamped solo titles
Speaker 1: West Coast Avengers, and his several other launch solo titles
Speaker 1: after his appearances in West Coast of Vegersies, He's changed
Speaker 1: almost every time, and there's never really been that great, great,
Speaker 1: great arc. I think mainly because he also doesn't have
Speaker 1: like his early villains were very problematic and he doesn't
Speaker 1: really have that great foil to fight, so it was
Speaker 1: in interesting at least for me, to reflect on how
Speaker 1: Moonnight Episode one was very much how I would imagine
Speaker 1: an adaptation of Moonnight taking place. It was pretty messy,
Speaker 1: it was all about vibes. There was something really intriguing
Speaker 1: about it, and I'm interested to see where it goes.
Speaker 1: I think that I think that there's a chance for
Speaker 1: this to be really really interesting in the way that
Speaker 1: it intersects with the kind of ongoing and existing MCU
Speaker 1: which we are going to talk about shortly. But first
Speaker 1: let's let's talk about who some of these people were seeing.
Speaker 1: Here are some of these characters.
Speaker 4: I actually think your villain you're kind of talking about,
Speaker 4: like the foil and everything. That's a really good place
Speaker 4: to launch off, because what Moonnight does here is it
Speaker 4: essentially creates wholesale a new villains for Moonnight. Now, Arthur
Speaker 4: Harrow was in one issue at one issue. He was
Speaker 4: in one issue ever, but this is the kind of
Speaker 4: thing I'm talking about. The show opens right and immediately
Speaker 4: it is just filled with Arthur Harrow easter eggs. So
Speaker 4: when we first meet Arthur Harrow in the show, he
Speaker 4: is playing with the idea of pain. He's filling his
Speaker 4: shoes with a broken glass, you know, and in the
Speaker 4: original comic where he debuted, he was a scientist who
Speaker 4: was continuing Nazi experiments based on the idea of pain theory,
Speaker 4: and he was in the Yucatan in this Mayan temple.
Speaker 4: It's a very problematic issue, like a lot of that
Speaker 4: older stuff, the representation of different kinds of people, but
Speaker 4: the temple, once again, you get that immediate deep cut.
Speaker 4: So it's not that Arthur Harrow didn't exist. But what
Speaker 4: they're doing is they're taking this name and this one
Speaker 4: appearance and expanding it into something larger. And I think
Speaker 4: that's really interesting, and obviously like it's Ethan Hawk, who
Speaker 4: doesn't want to see him get to kind of redefine
Speaker 4: this space. And something else that I think is really
Speaker 4: interesting about this is it is the most prominent time
Speaker 4: that we've seen Marvel do something that they've started to do,
Speaker 4: especially Hawkeye.
Speaker 2: We talked about it a lot.
Speaker 4: They take these names of famous Marvel characters and they
Speaker 4: recontextualize who they are as usually background characters, and that
Speaker 4: happened with Hawkeye's cosplaying crew, his LARPing crew.
Speaker 2: Right this we see.
Speaker 4: Them take a minor character who appeared in one issue
Speaker 4: and recontextualize it as a main villain, and that's something
Speaker 4: we're going to see in Multiverse of Madness as well
Speaker 4: with god Antos, who is only in a couple of issues.
Speaker 4: So I think that's really interesting, and I really I'm
Speaker 4: always interested in a story that explores like the mentality
Speaker 4: of cults and how they play on the vulnerable and
Speaker 4: how they take advice, and that definitely seems like what Ethan.
Speaker 4: Ethan's Arthur Harrow seems to be playing into that with
Speaker 4: Mark and kind of trying to take advantage of Stephen
Speaker 4: feeling vulnerable and lost. So I think that is an
Speaker 4: interesting take. And we touched on Crawley, who's said by
Speaker 4: Sean Scott, so we think that's he's probably going to
Speaker 4: become an ally to Steven.
Speaker 1: I would imagine when we get into the back half
Speaker 1: Exact series we will see more of a Crawley.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: And so then we get into some really interesting stuff
Speaker 4: that kind of jumps off the the Moon Night Hawkeye
Speaker 4: crossover kind of stuff. So Stephen's mean boss in the
Speaker 4: museum who makes him do inventory, is credited as Donna,
Speaker 4: played by Lucy Thackeray, and she's like a very funny,
Speaker 4: like English like sassy character right now in the comics.
Speaker 4: This is another likely nod to a Moonlight character from
Speaker 4: the Mark Spector Moonnight series, which was the nineties Moonnight series,
Speaker 4: and she was introduced in issue thirty nine a woman
Speaker 4: called Donna Craft who's basically Mark Spector's head publicist at
Speaker 4: his huge corporation that he owns called Spector Corp.
Speaker 2: So they kind of rejig that here where she's just
Speaker 2: his boss at the museum.
Speaker 4: But as we'll talk about later theories, I also think
Speaker 4: there's some argument of like is the museum what we're
Speaker 4: really seeing or is it a version of Spectacorp that
Speaker 4: Mark might have perhaps created to keep an eye on
Speaker 4: Stephen when he's away.
Speaker 2: And also in another we'll talk.
Speaker 4: About this too, but like her first appearance is in
Speaker 4: an issue with where Doctor Doom challenges done to go
Speaker 4: to the Latviian consulate and in this kind of quest
Speaker 4: for a stolen relic, and that will become relevant.
Speaker 3: We will talk about that more in a moment.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think that one of the biggest questions people
Speaker 4: are going to have coming out of this is at
Speaker 4: the end you mentioned, you know, we hear him on
Speaker 4: the phone to this person who doesn't sound English who
Speaker 4: is called Leila, and in the credits we see that
Speaker 4: she's called Leila el Faoli, and there is not a
Speaker 4: Marvel character who has that direct name. But the first
Speaker 4: most obvious one that I think if people have read
Speaker 4: Moonlight comics, they will probably realize that she seems to
Speaker 4: be likely will become a stand in for Marlene, who
Speaker 4: is Moonnight's on again, off again kind of lover, partner
Speaker 4: in crime, fellow adventurer, and some primo shots have kind
Speaker 4: of hinted at that. But there's some other things as well.
Speaker 4: There's a Marvel character called Lilah who was in the
Speaker 4: Moonlight comics who was more of kind of like a
Speaker 4: mob boss. So that seems a little bit less likely,
Speaker 4: but worth mentioning because they like to roll stuff in.
Speaker 4: I think, okay, so we'll do the most outlandish one
Speaker 4: before I do the most realistic one.
Speaker 3: Yeah, let's do the most So the.
Speaker 4: Most outlandish one is a lot of people were like, well,
Speaker 4: the only famous Marvel Laila is Leyla.
Speaker 3: Miller, which would be totally wild.
Speaker 4: Would Layla Miller is a mutant known as Butterfly from
Speaker 4: House of m and it's been an X factor and.
Speaker 1: She when House of M went down, she had kept
Speaker 1: her she kept her powers and also was able to
Speaker 1: kind of like he was a creation of House of
Speaker 1: M that survived post the dissolution of House of M.
Speaker 4: And so like, you know, that's a character who has
Speaker 4: connections to Doctor do Him. But like the reality is
Speaker 4: in this kind of grounded, dark show where the thing
Speaker 4: that really seems to be relating and like speaking to
Speaker 4: people about this first episode is the kind of slightly
Speaker 4: more real take and a bit more of that fat
Speaker 4: man element. I don't necessarily know if this is where
Speaker 4: they're going to introduce, you know, just casually like introduce
Speaker 4: a mutant. So I think the most realistic thing that
Speaker 4: would fit into the trend that Marvel has been doing
Speaker 4: of late, which is where they recontextualize a character who
Speaker 4: in the past was like at best kind of a stereotype.
Speaker 4: And there is a character called the Scarlet Scarab who
Speaker 4: there's been two people who've held the mantle, Abdulphahl not
Speaker 4: for holy but it's similar, and then his son Memet,
Speaker 4: and that has been a character who was like briefly
Speaker 4: a villain and then briefly kind of heroic and was
Speaker 4: an adventurer and has a lot of ties to Egypt.
Speaker 4: So I think if they're gonna go anywhere with that character,
Speaker 4: they're probably gonna do a recontextualization of the Scarlet Scarab
Speaker 4: where Laylor is this powerful adventurer who wants to kind
Speaker 4: of reclaim the things that have been stolen through colonialism
Speaker 4: and all that kind.
Speaker 2: Of stuff, which is really cool and is also what
Speaker 2: people do.
Speaker 4: You remember when everyone wanted to like cast oscar Isaac
Speaker 4: as Indiana Jones and they were like, just do it
Speaker 4: where he's Indiana Jones, but he's stealing.
Speaker 2: This stuff back. Yeah, And I was like, that sounds good.
Speaker 2: So I think they're gonna play a little bit with that, And.
Speaker 1: That's been a you know of when Killmonger first appears
Speaker 1: in Black Panther, that's the kind of vibe that he
Speaker 1: put forth, is like, this is a lot of these
Speaker 1: artifacts and these objects have been stolen, and it is
Speaker 1: interesting also to note that we've just been spending a
Speaker 1: lot of time in museums. So whether it's Black Panther
Speaker 1: or the Eternals or Doctor Stranger in the Multiverse matters,
Speaker 1: We're going to do it. Clearly, We're doing it here.
Speaker 3: Rosie.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about theories are theories about what is possibly
Speaker 1: going on.
Speaker 3: So I had texted you as I.
Speaker 1: Was watching this, and well, first of all, we should
Speaker 1: say that in recent iterations of the character Mark Spector,
Speaker 1: the Moonnight has been depicted as someone who is suffering
Speaker 1: from a form of disassociative personality disorder, did yeah, formerly
Speaker 1: called multiple personality disorder.
Speaker 3: This kind of evolved over time.
Speaker 1: Originally, as you noted, Moonnight had a number of aliases
Speaker 1: that he used to kind of like break down class
Speaker 1: structure and allow him to understand what was going on
Speaker 1: in the criminal underworld, right, he had a cab driver character,
Speaker 1: he had the billionnaire, his millionaire slash billionaire rich guy character,
Speaker 1: and then he had like some other ones.
Speaker 4: So originally they said it was like psychic trauma from
Speaker 4: connecting with kN split his personalities. In the nineties they
Speaker 4: would kind of occasionally refer to it as schizophrenia.
Speaker 2: And then the first time that it.
Speaker 4: Was really like DD as disassociated identity sort of was
Speaker 4: like in the mid Zeros when Bendis brought him into
Speaker 4: the Old Universe, and from there it just kept evolving
Speaker 4: and went from kind of a narrative device to some
Speaker 4: people actually like explored it as part of who he was,
Speaker 4: and that has been like a core tenant of the
Speaker 4: character under many different names.
Speaker 1: Yes, now, I think we both agree that I would
Speaker 1: not be surprised if they don't. Now they brought in
Speaker 1: a d ID consultant, and they've talked about that in
Speaker 1: some pre show interviews. I think that that is probably
Speaker 1: could easily be wrong, but I think that's probably a
Speaker 1: just a bid to be responsible about the depiction. And
Speaker 1: I think, really, what's going on here, and I'm judging
Speaker 1: by the fact that Moonnight's costume just appears like out
Speaker 1: of right, I think what we're seeing here is some
Speaker 1: sort of multiversal convergence, some sort of action like that.
Speaker 1: We had talked previously in our low Key episodes about
Speaker 1: these this idea of nexus beings, these beings who like
Speaker 1: act as convergence points throughout the multiverse. They're the same
Speaker 1: throughout the multiverse, and I think maybe there's something like
Speaker 1: that going on here. Notably, the Scarlet Witch is one
Speaker 1: of these very important nexus beings. But I think maybe
Speaker 1: there's something like that going on here where you have
Speaker 1: different versions of the person who is Mark Spector or
Speaker 1: Stephen Grant, and those different multiversal versions are converging on
Speaker 1: the same body and sharing the same.
Speaker 3: Body, and that is why we get like.
Speaker 1: This costume, like appearing out of nowhere and stuff like that.
Speaker 3: I think that's probably what we're seeing.
Speaker 2: I think that you're right, and I actually so. I
Speaker 2: love to I would.
Speaker 4: This is something I always recommend to everyone who watches
Speaker 4: these shows. If you wait till the end of the
Speaker 4: movie or the end of the show, aside from probably
Speaker 4: getting some kind of stinger, sometimes you can see the
Speaker 4: special thanks, and that's where we get to kind of
Speaker 4: pay our respects to the creators who enabled these stories
Speaker 4: to be told, and the special thanks in these Marvel
Speaker 4: shows have been very telling. In the first episode of
Speaker 4: Wonder Vision, they thanked Olivier Coypel and Brian Michael Bendis,
Speaker 4: and that was how we worked out the house of
Speaker 4: them was probably going to be a really big influence,
Speaker 4: so there are secrets built in there. And at the
Speaker 4: end of the first episode of Moonnight they thank Jim Krueger,
Speaker 4: Alex Ross Doug Braithwaite, all three of whom worked on
Speaker 4: a book called Universe X, which featured a different universe
Speaker 4: version of Mark Spector who got his powers through vibranium.
Speaker 4: They also did design the Mummy style suit, so there's
Speaker 4: other reasons, but it's very interesting that they famously designed
Speaker 4: this different Mark Spector from a different Earth. Then you
Speaker 4: also have Bill Sinkovic, famous Moonnight creator, absolute comic book
Speaker 4: artist icon but in one of his what if issues,
Speaker 4: he played with the idea that Mark Spector was from
Speaker 4: a different universe and he had three different old And
Speaker 4: then we also have Jeff Lemire, who has obviously was
Speaker 4: the author of one of the most popular current kind
Speaker 4: of takes on Moonnight and his mental health, but also
Speaker 4: as he has actually created multiple multiversal.
Speaker 2: Moon Nights just alone, just him.
Speaker 4: I think it's important that they brought in consultants and
Speaker 4: were thoughtful about the representation.
Speaker 2: I didn't it.
Speaker 4: Didn't speak to me as someone who is always thinking
Speaker 4: about that kind of stuff. I didn't feel like it
Speaker 4: was what I hoped it would be. But I have
Speaker 4: seen a lot of people who it really spoke to
Speaker 4: and they really related to it, and I think that
Speaker 4: that's really important and cool. So I think it's really
Speaker 4: good they did that, and you can't really do Moonnight
Speaker 4: without doing that.
Speaker 2: Because of the history of the character.
Speaker 4: But I do feel like from this first episode and
Speaker 4: the fact that the the idea is not actually mentioned
Speaker 4: in the context of the show of the first episode,
Speaker 4: and there's only six episodes. Yeah, they don't have a
Speaker 4: Doom Patrol level of three seasons or lee amount of
Speaker 4: episodes to really explore what d id means, how it happens,
Speaker 4: the trauma that causes it. So I think that a
Speaker 4: multiversal idea of Mark essentially or Stephen struggling with multiple
Speaker 4: versions of himself from multiple different universes is actually very
Speaker 4: likely and also would tie into Kang. It would tie
Speaker 4: into the multiversal kind of mayhem that Marvel is really
Speaker 4: leaning into it at the moment, and it would make
Speaker 4: a lot of sense because these iterations, these versions of
Speaker 4: Mark and Stephen are very different and the struggle. If
Speaker 4: this had been going on his whole life, you feel
Speaker 4: like maybe there would be some empathy from people who
Speaker 4: knew him, or he would have been able to access
Speaker 4: some kind of help. But it feels he doesn't seem
Speaker 4: to have the words to describe it. He talks a
Speaker 4: lot about he feels recent and I think that would
Speaker 4: be a really smart way of looking at the struggle
Speaker 4: of all these different people. And also, like we know
Speaker 4: now that from what if that what happened in Loki,
Speaker 4: the different timelines that did affect the main MCU. So
Speaker 4: there's a chance that these mark spectors from different universes
Speaker 4: have either been pruned and so need somewhere else to
Speaker 4: exist or now exist because of split timelines, right.
Speaker 1: I think that this is If I had to bet,
Speaker 1: I would say that this is not the quote unquote
Speaker 1: six one six MCU time.
Speaker 3: This is taking place.
Speaker 1: What we're mostly seeing is taking place in some kind
Speaker 1: of offshoot pocket universe. Yeah, that will then elements of
Speaker 1: which will then be brought into the main EMCU. Now
Speaker 1: I'm glad that you mentioned kang are multiversal Big Bad
Speaker 1: introduced in the Loki series is going to play such
Speaker 1: a large role in Face four. How we don't know
Speaker 1: because we mentioned the Alpine location. Yes, now, very very clearly,
Speaker 1: Marvel is is like playing with the idea that that
Speaker 1: could be Latviia, the the Kingdom, the nation kingdom ruled
Speaker 1: by Doctor Doom victor von Doom there they want.
Speaker 2: That's wheah.
Speaker 4: They're teasing as if you've ever read a comic that
Speaker 4: has Latviria in it. And I wrote an article about
Speaker 4: this at Nerdiced that you can go and read that
Speaker 4: has visual imagery. If you've ever read a comic about
Speaker 4: lat Viria and you've seen an image of it, It
Speaker 4: is a Bavarian alpine town that in the mountains has
Speaker 4: a huge castle, you know, carved out of it that
Speaker 4: is called Castle Doom. That little city is called Doomstat
Speaker 4: and it is in Latviia where Doctor Doom was born
Speaker 4: then left, then went back to reclaim his kind of
Speaker 4: like kingship or presidency or whichever version, and that whether look,
Speaker 4: we are not out here saying like this is confirmed,
Speaker 4: but whoever made this.
Speaker 1: Show, there's a world where this is like a pre
Speaker 1: Doctor Doom Latveria alternate dimension.
Speaker 3: But they're quick. They want you to think that, they
Speaker 3: want you to think that.
Speaker 4: There was even that moment in the trailer where like
Speaker 4: loads of people reported on it. Then loads of people
Speaker 4: reported that it wasn't true, and as it's just a
Speaker 4: funny the cupcake truck that he steals during the mountain
Speaker 4: car chase, it's it's for a company called like.
Speaker 2: Von Drumberg or something else. But people saw the vonde
Speaker 2: and they were like, oh my gosh.
Speaker 4: And then it was really funny because everyone was like
Speaker 4: it was not that, but now you watch the episode
Speaker 4: and you're like, oh, but they want you to want
Speaker 4: this conversation.
Speaker 2: They want you to say, is it.
Speaker 4: And also, like we said, you know Moonnight has he's
Speaker 4: tangled with Doctor Doom. There's that two issue arc thirty
Speaker 4: nine and forty and Mark Spector Moonnight in the nineties
Speaker 4: where he kind of has this entanglement with Dr Doom
Speaker 4: and they play on a little bit of both of
Speaker 4: their sides, kind of both sides of their kind of
Speaker 4: like anti heroism, like could they be a hero? Could
Speaker 4: they be a villain? And I think that's really interesting.
Speaker 4: Also in that issue, Doom is kind of approaching Mark
Speaker 4: about a relic that he stole, a latveriant relic, and
Speaker 4: in this we see Mark there with the scarab, a
Speaker 4: relic that he's stolen, a relic that is also in
Speaker 4: another good comic book nod Is, like directly from the comics.
Speaker 4: Mark is after he loses the power of Conshu, he
Speaker 4: meets the priests of Conshu and they end up giving
Speaker 4: him these relics, including a scarb that give him his
Speaker 4: power Kang.
Speaker 1: As we talked about in our Loki episodes, and it's
Speaker 1: important to reiterate is a time traveler who, through his
Speaker 1: extensive time traveling, is just a crude extreme amounts of
Speaker 1: knowledge and expertise about the way the universe works, the
Speaker 1: fabric of the universe, and just understands how to kind
Speaker 1: of play reality like an orchestra. Now, a different version
Speaker 1: of variant of Kang in the Marvel Comics canon.
Speaker 3: Is Doctor Doom.
Speaker 1: Doctor Doom is a version of Kang in One Universe
Speaker 1: also a version of Kang Read Richards. I'm just going
Speaker 1: to put this out here right now as a thing
Speaker 1: that could happen. Jonathan Majors Kang playing both Doctor dooman
Speaker 1: Read Richards was on the team.
Speaker 2: To see it.
Speaker 4: It could have absolutely I think that by I think
Speaker 4: that one Jonathan Major's iconic can casting just can't get
Speaker 4: enough of that final Loki episode.
Speaker 2: That would be incredible.
Speaker 4: And I think that they made a statement as soon
Speaker 4: as you cast Jonathan Major's as Kang, you you introduced
Speaker 4: the probability and the likelihood that Read will be black.
Speaker 2: And that's a world I want to live in.
Speaker 4: And I think having all three of those characters as
Speaker 4: black characters in the MCU would be super interesting, and
Speaker 4: if they were brave enough to do all three played
Speaker 4: by Jonathan.
Speaker 3: I Crazy Love, it would be insane.
Speaker 2: It would be so good, it would kind of.
Speaker 4: There's lots of easy ways to tie in. When Dr
Speaker 4: Doom first appeared, he appeared as a time travel villain
Speaker 4: who was constantly like traveling around and causing chaos. And
Speaker 4: then in you know, to bring the moonlight context back
Speaker 4: to it, Kang has ancient Egyptian yes, periohood where he's
Speaker 4: rama tat you know.
Speaker 1: So right, So just to just to quickly reset on this,
Speaker 1: so Kang Kang lived in the three in like the
Speaker 1: the thirtieth century, and he was just like really bored
Speaker 1: with life in the thirtieth century because it was too peaceful.
Speaker 1: And he discovers a time machine. He starts traveling around
Speaker 1: the very first place. He ends up going his ancient Egypt,
Speaker 1: where he then becomes the ruler. He names himself Ramatad
Speaker 1: and he rules for a large amount of time. He
Speaker 1: hides like a time machine and the fucking Great Pyramid,
Speaker 1: and he gets up to all kinds of trouble.
Speaker 3: He tussles with.
Speaker 1: The Fantastic four Yeah, and he messes around with the
Speaker 1: West Coast Avengers. After they get hurled throughout time into
Speaker 1: like six different timelines, some of the West Coast Avengers
Speaker 1: end up out in ancient Egypt where they have this
Speaker 1: adventure against Rama Tut. Now here's another interesting tian so
Speaker 1: Kang is Ramatut, remember that varyingt to Ramata. While Hawkeye
Speaker 1: is trapped in twenty one forty nine BC, he happens
Speaker 1: into the temple of Kanschhu, not understanding what the importance is,
Speaker 1: and he's just like oh. He ends up through different
Speaker 1: turns of events because he kind of takes a liking
Speaker 1: to the defenders of the Temple of Kanchu. He like
Speaker 1: carves these little you know, the moon Night moon batter angs,
Speaker 1: moon rangs and different kind of like projectile weapons for
Speaker 1: the people of Kanchu. In other words, Hawkeye in twenty
Speaker 1: one forty nine BC designed Moon Night's scab dow. He
Speaker 1: made his weapons, which is another crazy little thing to it.
Speaker 1: So all of which is to say, I wonder, I
Speaker 1: wonder if at the end of this we get some
Speaker 1: sort of Rama Tet Kang doctor doom Hint, some kind
Speaker 1: of drop about that that brings us into the stuff
Speaker 1: that we know we're going towards, because otherwise, you know,
Speaker 1: what is this series building towards? That's the thing I
Speaker 1: keep thinking, what is what is it here to do?
Speaker 1: Clearly multiverse is the order of the day. Does that
Speaker 1: get us to Kang? I think that there's a chance.
Speaker 4: I do too, And I think that it's like important.
Speaker 4: You guys have heard us talk about Kang a lot,
Speaker 4: but like it. Kang is a because he's from the future.
Speaker 4: He is a descendant of Read Richard's father. Yes, and
Speaker 4: that's kind of why those three are all all seem
Speaker 4: so connected. I feel like I we talked a lot
Speaker 4: about Marvel Horror. Is this going to lead to Marvel Horror?
Speaker 4: The MCU Horror in the MCU that is definitely the
Speaker 4: big picture kind of situation.
Speaker 3: Moon I made his debut in Werewolf by Night.
Speaker 4: Yeah, we're gonna have the were Wolf by Night kind
Speaker 4: of were Wolf to be named Halloween Special. We know
Speaker 4: Blade is in the MCU now also connected to Britain
Speaker 4: and British museums and in the comics has a London
Speaker 4: set origin story. And I just never saw it coming
Speaker 4: that they would do like a Latvaria Teas But now
Speaker 4: they did it.
Speaker 2: I'm like, this makes so much sense, Like the connection.
Speaker 4: Is there, and these are the kind of things that
Speaker 4: we love about watching these shows. Even if in like
Speaker 4: a month the showrun is like it was just the Alps,
Speaker 4: we can all be like, well that was fun, you know.
Speaker 3: That's still fun. I mean, is why we get into
Speaker 3: it now.
Speaker 1: You mentioned like the crazy version of who Leyla could be.
Speaker 1: I'm going to go with a crazy version of a
Speaker 1: possible theory here. When I think Egypt and Marvel, I
Speaker 1: think really kind of like the original mutant and iconic
Speaker 1: X Men super villain Apocalypse, who it just so happens
Speaker 1: was played by Oscar Isaac's in X Men Apocalypse, a
Speaker 1: very very bad twenty sixteen X Men movie, But it's
Speaker 1: I don't think we see Apocalypse here. But I wonder
Speaker 1: if we get a hit I was watching when they
Speaker 1: were in you know, in those temple scenes, like I
Speaker 1: do wonder if at some point they pan past the
Speaker 1: various statues, if one we get a rama tut or
Speaker 1: an Apocalypse statue in the background of one of these.
Speaker 4: We know that the Fox X Men movies exist.
Speaker 2: In this universe, right at least or at least they.
Speaker 4: Will at some point because we have seen presumably Charles
Speaker 4: Xavier played by Patrick stewartt So there's no reason that
Speaker 4: I feel like you couldn't.
Speaker 2: Allude to it.
Speaker 4: Maybe Oscar wouldn't want to, because I feel like you
Speaker 4: probably like doesn't remember it fondly. But like I think
Speaker 4: that there's Egypt in Marvel is impossible to think of
Speaker 4: without thinking of Apocalypse because so much of Marvel is
Speaker 4: defined by the X Men, and ironically, even like the
Speaker 4: Rama Tut stuff, the Kang stuff, that's all way way
Speaker 4: down the recognition ladder compared to Apocalypse.
Speaker 2: So when you have this who also, by.
Speaker 4: The way, we're going to see him presumably inhabit many
Speaker 4: different characters and heroes and villains and versions, I don't
Speaker 4: see why there couldn't be a nod or something that
Speaker 4: is actually more direct, because I think that they've you know,
Speaker 4: they've sold this show as kind of like Raiders of
Speaker 4: the Lost Arc meets Indiana Jones meets the MCU, So
Speaker 4: I think we're going to see a lot more adventuring
Speaker 4: and actually going to Egypt, going to these spaces, and
Speaker 4: in that case, Apocalypse is like an outlier. But it's
Speaker 4: like who wouldn't want to see that? Who wouldn't want
Speaker 4: to catch that easter egg?
Speaker 1: More connections, possible connections to the larger MCU, the idea
Speaker 1: of chaos magic.
Speaker 3: There's chaos.
Speaker 1: That gets us to I mean, it's it's impossible not
Speaker 1: to think of doctor Strange and the multiverse lands and
Speaker 1: the stuff we might see there. The Schumer Gorath slash Garganta.
Speaker 1: We're gonna we keep callinghim Schu McGrath Gargantos. In the
Speaker 1: movie of the Lord of Chaos us uh tell us
Speaker 1: about what do you think do you think that we
Speaker 1: will get any kind of chaos magic Lord of Chaos Gargantos.
Speaker 3: So in the comics bread crumbson.
Speaker 4: Marks did or whatever they've called it has always been
Speaker 4: inherently supernatural because it was it was always connected in
Speaker 4: part to Conshu. And recently in the Marvel comics they
Speaker 4: actually wreckon Konshu to make him an elder god, which
Speaker 4: would sit him alongside Schumma Gorath and the other elder
Speaker 4: gods of the Marvel universe.
Speaker 2: So that's a connection there. Schumigrath is the Lord of Chaos.
Speaker 4: In fact, in the first Moonlight trailer they actually they
Speaker 4: actually kind of use Schumagorrath's famous video game quote, which
Speaker 4: is Arthur Harrow says to he says to Steve, you know, he' says, Oh,
Speaker 4: there's chaos in you, and then he says, embrace it,
Speaker 4: and Schumer Gorath's phrases embraced chaos. Recently, the first official
Speaker 4: kind of MCU big dig into chaos magic was that
Speaker 4: is what Agatha Harkness tells Wonder that she uses, and
Speaker 4: she says, and that makes you the Scarlet Witch and
Speaker 4: the Dark Hold. That is a chaos magic book. You know,
Speaker 4: I think it's very likely the different magics of the
Speaker 4: MCU kind of come together under that banner. And I
Speaker 4: think as well, like the chaos in New Thing is
Speaker 4: really interesting because obviously it seems like he's talking about
Speaker 4: the struggle between Mark and Stephen, but it could be
Speaker 4: that he's sensing all these different people from different planes.
Speaker 4: If Stephen is an exus or Mark is a nexus being,
Speaker 4: because they haven't really made.
Speaker 2: Clear who the kind of primary.
Speaker 4: Version of the character is in this universe, but whoever
Speaker 4: it is, if they're a nexus being, that means that
Speaker 4: they could be contacting and connected to every single multiverse
Speaker 4: at the same time. Which is incredibly chaoic and is
Speaker 4: connected to what wander can do again back to chaos magic.
Speaker 4: So I think there's definitely something in that.
Speaker 1: I think that there is a pretty good chance that
Speaker 1: this is our introduction into the idea of nexus characters,
Speaker 1: or the idea of like multiple characters in having the
Speaker 1: same body. Okay, more interesting connections, just stuff that I
Speaker 1: picked her. We mentioned West Coast Avengers, and by the way,
Speaker 1: that like time travel Adventure arc is, I think West
Speaker 1: Coast it starts in like West Coast Avengers twenty.
Speaker 4: I want to say, I'm in that the page you
Speaker 4: sent me killing it of Hawkeye talking to Konhu is
Speaker 4: like some of the coolest comic book I've seen in an.
Speaker 1: Age when he really gets fantastical, is just is just
Speaker 1: wonderful one of wonderful artists. I can't help but notice that,
Speaker 1: first of all, on a Hawkeye series, as we talked about,
Speaker 1: you know, one of the places that are Hawkeyes are
Speaker 1: two Hawkeyes laid up was the apartment of more Brandon,
Speaker 1: who in the comics is the actress who gives her
Speaker 1: her Rancho palace Verdice estate to Hawkeye and Crewe to
Speaker 1: use as the West Coast Avengers compounds. Okay, we've got her,
Speaker 1: and they very specifically mentioned her name, and that can
Speaker 1: only mean we're at some point going to the West Coast.
Speaker 1: Whether it's you know, who goes unclear, whether it's Caden Clint,
Speaker 1: but like, we're going to the West Coast. Moonnight has
Speaker 1: some adventures with the West Coast Avengers and the comics,
Speaker 1: so we have that connection also with that kind of
Speaker 1: like time traveling adventure. I wonder we don't have a
Speaker 1: team yet, right, that's the one thing that in Phase
Speaker 1: four that we don't have.
Speaker 3: We've had these team up movies with Spider Man.
Speaker 1: No Way Home is essentially a team up between multiple
Speaker 1: Spider Man, right, and a doctor change with the Multiversal
Speaker 1: Madness will be some kind of team up movie, but
Speaker 1: similarly it will entail multiple versions of the same characters, right,
Speaker 1: where as a team up movie. I do wonder if
Speaker 1: we're not headed towards like a West Coast Avengers.
Speaker 4: I know, I think that we kind of vaguely touched
Speaker 4: on this with Hawkeye, but like in the recent one
Speaker 4: of the recent Kate Bishop Hawkeye runs, she moves to
Speaker 4: La and I think that there's something with them making
Speaker 4: Moira her aunt in the show. I think that the
Speaker 4: version that we get of whatever the next iteration of
Speaker 4: the Avengers is might be a kind of melding of
Speaker 4: Young Avengers with West Coast Avengers and kind of have
Speaker 4: them based out in California for a change of pace,
Speaker 4: change of tone. You can kind of draw from some
Speaker 4: of that wackier West Coast Avengers stuff, because throughout history they've.
Speaker 2: Just had some really cool weird arcs.
Speaker 4: The West Coast Avengers is so integral to the stuff
Speaker 4: we saw in Wonder Vision, which I know now feels
Speaker 4: like it was like a million years ago, but that
Speaker 4: established the tone for these shows, and so much of
Speaker 4: that came out of that, and a lot of the
Speaker 4: exploration of what we still have to look at with
Speaker 4: Wander and with the White Vision and where he stands
Speaker 4: now is that all is derived from West Coast Avengers.
Speaker 4: So I think that's like a really big touch point.
Speaker 4: And my biggest question is, like, are they not establishing
Speaker 4: a brand new team of Avengers, New Avengers, Young Avengers,
Speaker 4: West Coast Avengers, Uncanny Avengers.
Speaker 2: Like whatever is it?
Speaker 3: Savage?
Speaker 4: Certainly, you know, yeah, I would rather keep that one
Speaker 4: out in the pocket. But like, is it because their
Speaker 4: focus right now is like Fantastic four and the X Men,
Speaker 4: and then when the X Men appear, we get some
Speaker 4: kind of new Avengers team, and then we have you know,
Speaker 4: Avengers versus x Men, which I think is the big
Speaker 4: thing like every comic book person wants. But I wonder
Speaker 4: because I feel like every other phase has been so
Speaker 4: defined by the Avengers team, and we have all the
Speaker 4: pieces here for something new. You know, for a long time,
Speaker 4: it seemed like Captain Marvel would be the Captain America
Speaker 4: and we would have these different legacy characters, but that
Speaker 4: hasn't come together in the way that a lot of
Speaker 4: us expected. So I'm really interested did because, like you said,
Speaker 4: you made a really great point where you're like, they're
Speaker 4: almost doing these team up movies because they don't have
Speaker 4: a core team, and people love the team up movies.
Speaker 3: People seeing the team.
Speaker 4: What happens after Doctor Strange? You know, is it a
Speaker 4: different kind of team? Is it an Illuminati instead of
Speaker 4: an Avengers? You know? Is it a dark Avengers, which
Speaker 4: we kind of think that we've been seeing seeded in
Speaker 4: some of the TV shows.
Speaker 2: It is an exciting and unpredictable time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we're really we're really in some unexplored territory. Uh,
Speaker 1: it feels like we're flying by the seat of our
Speaker 1: pants with some of this. One more one last thing
Speaker 1: you mentioned it a little bit. There's something not right
Speaker 1: about this museum, right, Like, first of all, Steven's apartment
Speaker 1: for somebody who works in the gift.
Speaker 2: Shop, is that's a minimum wage?
Speaker 1: It's galatial like it is stacks of books, high ceilings,
Speaker 1: like is freaking huge.
Speaker 3: Now you could say.
Speaker 1: That's some of his Marks Spector money or whatever, the
Speaker 1: mercenary Like okay, but like, does Mark Spector even exist
Speaker 1: in this reality?
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 4: Also, I think you touched on something here because the
Speaker 4: number one thing that I think a lot of Moonnight
Speaker 4: fans and Moonnight readers and even casual Moonnight kind of
Speaker 4: noah about us were confused about is In the comics,
Speaker 4: Stephen Grant is the billionaire millionaire.
Speaker 2: A movie producer, usually right making a.
Speaker 4: Latest iteration the movie producer, but generally he's the Tony
Speaker 4: Stark persona. He's the Bruce Wayne right, So people say,
Speaker 4: why would this guy be working in a gift shop?
Speaker 4: So does this mean that the museum is a front
Speaker 4: for something else? Is this really what Stephen is experiencing
Speaker 4: that I think the apartment is such a good catch
Speaker 4: that I hadn't really thought about, because like, owning a
Speaker 4: house in London is a myth, Renting a house in
Speaker 4: London is a myth, and so to have that in
Speaker 4: the center of London when you work a minimum wage,
Speaker 4: you with no benefits and and kind.
Speaker 2: Of that is a great little clue that whatever.
Speaker 4: This version of and that would kind of explain away
Speaker 4: like Donna, you know JB who is the security guard
Speaker 4: who I'm sure is gonna is gonna play a bigger
Speaker 4: part and have a kind of more serious role. These
Speaker 4: characters are like not nice to Stephen, and there doesn't
Speaker 4: really seem to be a.
Speaker 6: Reason they're not nice to him, But they're also they're familiar.
Speaker 6: They're familiar exactly and not at all surprised with how
Speaker 6: weird he is about losing time, being forgetful about stuff.
Speaker 6: Like they're extremely mean to him, but they're also like
Speaker 6: not put off by how strange he is acting at times.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and it doesn't seem like it comes from a
Speaker 4: place of empathy. It seems like it comes from like, oh,
Speaker 4: we expect it. So I really think there might be
Speaker 4: something interesting to the idea, especially if you're talking about
Speaker 4: this bubble kind of universe that you were talking about,
Speaker 4: the Pocket universe. You know, I think there's something very
Speaker 4: interesting to the idea that the museum is a fragmented
Speaker 4: part of something, something created to distract him. You know,
Speaker 4: maybe something even created by a different version of Stephen
Speaker 4: to you know.
Speaker 2: What's the word.
Speaker 4: You just wanted to have a normal life. You don't
Speaker 4: want the drama, you don't want the to Okay, go
Speaker 4: and work in a museum where your passions are. And
Speaker 4: I do think something else that's like interesting to me
Speaker 4: on a rewatch, right, there are hints in this first
Speaker 4: episode of Stephen's like deep deep intelligence and passions and
Speaker 4: the things that he knows a lot about, and that
Speaker 4: kind of contradicts the general representation, which is kind of
Speaker 4: he's like a bumbling, kind of silly guy. And I
Speaker 4: think that is also very interesting when we're thinking about,
Speaker 4: like what is this version that we're seeing and what
Speaker 4: is really going on behind the kind of curtain.
Speaker 1: It's a fascinating, interesting first episode, a little bit of
Speaker 1: a mess, but with some really intriguing things, and I
Speaker 1: can't wait to talk about how this could possibly connect
Speaker 1: to the larger MCU. More with you, Rosie up next
Speaker 1: nerd Out. In today's nerd Out, where you tell us
Speaker 1: what you love and why, Jed pitches us on the
Speaker 1: twenty nineteen fantasy epic bestseller that is excellent, really really good,
Speaker 1: Black Leopard Red Wolf by Marlon James.
Speaker 3: It is an excellent book. Pick it up.
Speaker 7: Hello, Jason, It's me Jed Segovia, shout out to my
Speaker 7: fellow Filipino American host of X Ray Vision, and I
Speaker 7: am urging you to pick up Marlon James this brutal
Speaker 7: and beautiful fantasy epic novel, Black Leopard Red Wolf. And
Speaker 7: I came across this because I love fantasy. I read
Speaker 7: The Silmarilion in college and I couldn't even get through
Speaker 7: the first Lord of the Rings novel. And I just
Speaker 7: wanted to find novels that were just away from the
Speaker 7: traditional Western eurocentric settings of castles, knights, dragons, the stuff
Speaker 7: that's become Hollywood ip and it came across Black Leopard,
Speaker 7: Red Wolf, written by Marlon James, and this story. It's
Speaker 7: a beautiful epic set in a very vivid and brutal
Speaker 7: version of Africa inspired by African myth and history. James
Speaker 7: has jokingly referred to this story as an African Game
Speaker 7: of Thrones, But while it has all the hallmarks of
Speaker 7: that kind of story Warren Kingdom's Palace, intrigue, monsters, magic,
Speaker 7: fascinating characters, it's inspired by a culture that, in my experience,
Speaker 7: has rarely appeared in acclaimed Stateside novels. And this book
Speaker 7: is the first book of a planned trilogy called the
Speaker 7: Dark Star Trilogy. And this first book centers on Tracker,
Speaker 7: a bounty hunter with a magic nose capable of tracking
Speaker 7: anything and anyone, which he uses to track down missing women,
Speaker 7: floundering husbands, or any lost person in all of these
Speaker 7: myriad kingdoms across this magical land, and his sordid life
Speaker 7: of tracking eventually leads him to encounter what would become
Speaker 7: a companion and Freney Leopard, a shape shifting leopard and
Speaker 7: master archer. And the core of the story is a
Speaker 7: quest that Tracker and Leopard are brought into by a
Speaker 7: motley crew of princesses, giants, mercenaries and witches to rescue
Speaker 7: a kidnapped child from a band of vampiors and monsters
Speaker 7: going around tearing up the land killing entire families. It's
Speaker 7: just such a beautiful and such a vividly written novel.
Speaker 7: It's like reading an rated final fantasy story. Is set
Speaker 7: in Africa, the violence is viseral and the magic is
Speaker 7: fairy tale like, but not in that sanitized Disney sense,
Speaker 7: but in the classic Grim Brothers sense of grotesque and
Speaker 7: body horror. The characters are flawed, but they're absolutely magnetic
Speaker 7: to read. And what I love is that the characters
Speaker 7: aren't even like this gender. Tracker is queer, the Leopard
Speaker 7: is queer, and there are full on sex scenes between
Speaker 7: multiple members and the same gender. It's treated as a
Speaker 7: matter of fact and very refreshing to read in a
Speaker 7: novel of this genre. And it's a perfect time to
Speaker 7: get into it because the second book had come out
Speaker 7: in February, and the narrative picks up from where the
Speaker 7: first book ends, and it's just really exciting because this
Speaker 7: second book, the point of view is then written from
Speaker 7: the point of view of another character in the first book,
Speaker 7: Black Leopard and Red Wolf. So the thing is, the
Speaker 7: film rights to Black Leopard and Red Wolf have already
Speaker 7: been bought by Michael B. Jordan Killmonger himself. I really
Speaker 7: urge you to check out this book. It's a great read.
Speaker 7: We will definitely be seeing an adaptation soon in the
Speaker 7: big screen or in any of these big streaming services.
Speaker 7: Peace out and enjoy.
Speaker 1: Thanks Jed for submitting. If you want to be featured,
Speaker 1: send your nerd out pitch to x ray a cricket
Speaker 1: dot com. Instructions are in the show notes.
Speaker 3: Up next, the End Game, Rosie.
Speaker 1: We are in the Endgame now, and today we are
Speaker 1: pondering the question, if you could have the powers of
Speaker 1: any mythical god, who would it be? This is interesting,
Speaker 1: this is a fascinating one, Rosie. Do you want to
Speaker 1: go first?
Speaker 2: This is a tough one.
Speaker 4: I'm gonna go for comfort over anything else. If I
Speaker 4: was gonna become a Greek god and get any or
Speaker 4: any kind of mythological god and get any power, I
Speaker 4: would go for ambrosia.
Speaker 2: I would take a lot of food. I'm like, I
Speaker 2: want abundance.
Speaker 4: I want to feed people delicious stuff. I want my
Speaker 4: friends to eat the food and feel so nourished. I
Speaker 4: want to never be hungry. I make everyone food so
Speaker 4: they're never hungry. I don't know if that's how our
Speaker 4: powers work, but.
Speaker 2: That's how I'm taking it.
Speaker 3: I just love it.
Speaker 2: I love food. I love the relevance of food and mythology.
Speaker 4: You know, I think a lot of about like the
Speaker 4: myths of like posephony and stuff.
Speaker 2: Those were the stories I always remembered.
Speaker 4: So I kind of like the idea is food is
Speaker 4: this nourishing thing on like a metaphorical level and a
Speaker 4: physical level.
Speaker 2: And I love eating. So that's what my one wall.
Speaker 3: Then if you're going to do that, then I'm going
Speaker 3: to pick me.
Speaker 1: I have to pick Bacchus, the god of wine and parties,
Speaker 1: so that we could just like throw a crazy, crazy feast. Bacchus, Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, you know him alias liber Where we get
Speaker 1: the word libations always pictured in conjunction with like vines
Speaker 1: and vines of grapes, always holding a drinking cup with
Speaker 1: like a crown of grapes and stuff. Bacchanalia is a
Speaker 1: word for just kind of like an ecstatic party.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 1: I don't what are Bacchus's powers, just kind of like
Speaker 1: physical pleasure and partying, and I feel like me of
Speaker 1: it together. I think what an incredible pair. Uh that's
Speaker 1: it for the end game.
Speaker 3: Who would did you pick?
Speaker 1: What power would you pick? Of a mythological of an
Speaker 1: ancient god or creature. Hit us at hashtag XRVN game
Speaker 1: to give us your pick. Big thank you to Rosie
Speaker 1: Night for joining us on X ray Vision. Rosie Plug Everything,
Speaker 1: Plug everything you got.
Speaker 4: Yeah, come, I'm Instagram, Rosie Marx mr X. Same on Letterbox,
Speaker 4: where I've actually been doing a really good job of
Speaker 4: putting every movie that I watch. I don't review many
Speaker 4: of them, but I log them and you can laugh
Speaker 4: at all my bad choices or watch along to all
Speaker 4: these great bad movies with me.
Speaker 2: If you like Easter eggs.
Speaker 4: And want to dig more into that, there's a big
Speaker 4: Easter egg piece up at Nerdice for this episode of Moonnight.
Speaker 4: There will be weekly that is what I do. There
Speaker 4: is also a that vary a piece. There is also
Speaker 4: a piece about mine and Jason's nexus being theory. There
Speaker 4: is all kinds of fun stuff there. I have a
Speaker 4: Godzilla comic coming out. You cannot reorder it, yeah, but
Speaker 4: you can let your comic shop know that you think
Speaker 4: it looks really cool and hope they will.
Speaker 2: Pre order it.
Speaker 4: If you live in the LA area, tell your comic
Speaker 4: shop to hit me up. We will be doing cool signings.
Speaker 4: I can't announce any right now, but I will announce
Speaker 4: them when they are close and yeah, and.
Speaker 2: Then obviously listen to us on x ray Vision.
Speaker 1: Check out our videos on the Uncultured YouTube channel. Check
Speaker 1: the next episode on April eighth, where we will be
Speaker 1: diving into the sci fi multiversal action film Everything Everywhere,
Speaker 1: all at once, So see that if you have a
Speaker 1: chance to see it, or if you haven't seen it yet.
Speaker 1: We'll surely be discussing more Moonnight and other episodes of
Speaker 1: that and probably Halo as well. And again, send your
Speaker 1: nerd out submissions to x ray at cricket dot com.
Speaker 1: Don't forget to hit us with the five star ratings.
Speaker 1: We love those. X ray Vision as a Cricket Media production.
Speaker 1: The show is produced by Chris Lord and Saul Rubin.
Speaker 1: The show is executive produced by myself and Sandy Gerard
Speaker 1: are Editing and sound design is by Vasili's Photopoulos. Delon
Speaker 1: Villanueva and Matt de Group provide video production and Court
Speaker 1: and Alex Releford handles social media. Thank you to Brian
Speaker 1: Vasquez for our theme music.
Speaker 3: Bye Bye
Speaker 4: M HM