On this episode of X-Ray Vision, Jason Concepcion and Rosie Knight prepare themselves (and you) for Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania! First in the Previously On (1:36) Jason and Rosie run through a trio of Super Bowl trailers, including the fifth installment of Indiana Jones, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, and The Flash. In the Airlock (27:05), they dive deep (deeep) into all things Ant-Man, recapping Scott Lang’s journey in the MCU so far, providing Comic Footnotes, and unpacking Kang as well as MODOK. Then in Nerd Out (1:06:57) a listener pitches the show Twin Peaks.

 

Note: Wrong timestamps are an unfortunate side effect of a new ads system. Thank you for your patience.

 

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Nerd Out Submission Instructions!

Send a short pitch and 2-3 minute voice memo recording to xray@crooked.com that answers the following questions: 1) How did you get into/discover your ‘Nerd Out?’ (2) Why should we get into it too? (3) What’s coming soon in this world that we can look forward to or where can we find it? If you’re sending a theory, feel free to send only a summary of your theory (no audio needed) for Jason and Rosie to react to on air.

 

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Join the X-Ray Vision Discord

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The Listener’s Guide for all things X-Ray Vision!

 

Flashpoint (2011) – Written by Geoff Johns, art by Andy Kubert.

 

Citizen Kang (first appearing in Captain America Annual #11) – Created by Roy Thomas and Larry Alexander.

 

Scarlet Centurion – A Kang variant from Earth-6311.

 

Rosie’s IGN article on MODOK. 

 

TRANSCRIPT

 

Jason Concepcion In order to support our show, we need the help of some great advertisers. And we want to make sure those advertisers are the ones that you actually care about. But we need to learn a little bit more about you to make that possible. So we are asking, humbly, for you to go to podsurvey.com/Xray and take a quick anonymous survey that will help us get to know you better. That way we can bring on advertisers. You won’t want to skip. Once you’ve completed the quick survey, you can enter for a chance to win $100 Amazon gift card. Terms and conditions apply. Again, that’s podsurvey.com/Xray. P-o-d-s-u-r-v-e-y.com/Xray. Thank you for your help. Warning This podcast contains spoilers for Ant-Man, Ant-Man and the WASP plus Captain America, Civil War, Avengers, Endgame, and basically anything that the character Scott Lang has been in in the MCU, plus a tiny, tiny, tiny, teeny, tiny spoiler for Thor, Love and Thunder. Yeah. Hello, my name is Jason Concepcion.

 

Rosie Knight And I’m Rosie Knight.

 

Jason Concepcion And welcome to X-ray Vision, the Crooked Media podcast, where we dive deep into your favorite shows, movies, comics and pop culture.

 

Rosie Knight In this episode, we got a whole bunch of stuff to dig into on a Previously On It’s all those Super Bowl trailers Indie 5.

 

Jason Concepcion Oh yeah.

 

Rosie Knight Guardians of the Galaxy 3 and our first Look at The Flash. So that’s a lot to talk about. In the airlock is the Ant-Man Primer. Everything you need to know from the comics and the movies for Ant-Man and the WASP Quantumania and in Nerd Out is from our listener Scott on the cult classic TV show Twin Peaks. A real just obviously like a full blown classic there.

 

Jason Concepcion And if you want to jump around, check the shownotes for the timestamps. We understand that some of you might have might be having some issues with the timestamps not being accurate due to reasons that are too complicated for us to get into right now.

 

Rosie Knight Above our pay grade.

 

Jason Concepcion Which is to say is we’re looking into it. Yeah. Up next, Previously On. First up, Super Bowl trailers. *Music sounds*.

 

Rosie Knight Football. Football.  Football.

 

Jason Concepcion First of all, I think we were talking about in pre-pro and it’s worth mentioning is the media companies and studios continue to react to the pressure of falling stock prices and potentially the popping of the streaming bubble. And it seems like everybody bought the 15, what is it? The 15 to 30 seconds.

 

Rosie Knight 15 to 30 seconds. It depended.

 

Jason Concepcion Yeah. Brought that bought a 15 to 30 second trailer slot not the full minute and then pointed everyone to thier.

 

Rosie Knight Go online.

 

Jason Concepcion Yeah go online. It’s on YouTube now.

 

Rosie Knight It’s on Instagram on socials.

 

Jason Concepcion Which is smart because they make the ad money off of their own YouTube. So why, why not do that? First up, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, directed by James Mangold, starring Harrison Ford. Back again.

 

Rosie Knight He’s back, baby.

 

Jason Concepcion He’s back. Phoebe Waller-Bridge. Indy’s granddaughter. No, Indy’s.

 

Rosie Knight God daughter.

 

Jason Concepcion God daughter. Excuse me.

 

Rosie Knight Maybe they’re related, though, it could be a twist. Could be a twist.

 

Jason Concepcion You never know. John Rhys Davies, Charlotte, Renée Wilson. And more and more and more.

 

Rosie Knight So many names.

 

Jason Concepcion First of all. I want to be de-aged one day.

 

Rosie Knight I believe in you. I believe in you. We can do it. We’ll be doing. We’ll be doing something in, like, 80 years  and they’ll de-age us,  to talk about when we were on the podcast.

 

Jason Concepcion So we’re also watching a Shrinking in this household. The Apple TV Plus show starring Harrison Ford as a therapist who has Parkinson’s. And he looks approximately 50 million years older in that show as he does in this movie and so.

 

Rosie Knight Legit.

 

Jason Concepcion Kudos. Kudos to the technicians

 

Rosie Knight They’re smoothing him out.

 

Jason Concepcion In this movie. It looks, this. Listen, I’ll see it. It looks fun.

 

Rosie Knight Yeah.

 

Jason Concepcion Let’s go.

 

Rosie Knight It looks fun. John Williams. We’re not going to get much more music from John Williams, so I’m taking it. Sir John Williams score. I love Mads Mikkelsen. He was basically born to play like a Nazi in an Indiana Jones movie. So good for him. Hope that leads to some more Disney approved performances. I would like to see him appear in the MCU more often as different characters. So yeah, it looks fun. I’m sure it’ll be great

 

Jason Concepcion Shouts to Steven Spielberg. Shouts to Steven Spielberg for just collecting a check, for doing nothing, for just sitting back.

 

Rosie Knight Proud of him. Also.

 

Jason Concepcion Making the Fablemans and collecting a check.

 

Rosie Knight James Mangold. He’s doing this movie. Let’s see what he does with the weird supernatural type adventure, because that’s probably what we’re going to need to see in Swamp Thing 2. So it’s a nice thing to see. I’m very interested. I’m a big lover of the original Indiana Jones movies.

 

Jason Concepcion Yes.

 

Rosie Knight Crystal Skull. I don’t love it so much, but I love some parts of it. You know, it’s like this. There’s fun to be had. So I’m hoping this is more like, you know, the originals. And it will be interesting to see. I do believe that the requel can be done well. I was a huge fan of the, you know, Force Awakens Last Jedi.

 

Jason Concepcion Yeah.

 

Rosie Knight So I believe it can be done. I’m interested to see it. What does this trailer show us that’s new? Not much.

 

Jason Concepcion Not much. Not much. I will say I’m very happy to see them refocusing Indy on fighting Nazis, something he’s great at and and kind of steer him away for something else that he’s also great at, which is stealing the cultural heritage.

 

Rosie Knight Yes.

 

Jason Concepcion Of various people’s across the world.

 

Rosie Knight Thank you.

 

Jason Concepcion So that he could put them in a museum.

 

Rosie Knight Or a warehouse, that no one’s ever going to see them in. I mean, either way, bad. I still I know I’ve talked to my before, but I still live for the Twitter-created Oscar Isaac Indiana Jones reboot where he’s stealing things back from museums. I would love to see it. But you know what? Indy, focus on beating up Nazis. That’s the message we all need right now. Proud of you. Keep going.

 

Jason Concepcion Up next, Guardians of the Galaxy 3, releasing May 5th, 2023. It was so interesting that James Gunn had more Marvel stuff, you know, really, that DC stuff he directed and written by James Gunn, his last official Marvel movie property, starring all our favorites back again and adding, Chukwudi Iwuji as  the High Evolutionary, not to mention Will Poulter is Adam Warlock. Potentially, opening the door to a Rosie favorite.

 

Rosie Knight Ah, it’s true. Look, I’m. Be real, okay?

 

Jason Concepcion Will she be there?

 

Rosie Knight Will Bova be there?

 

Jason Concepcion Will Bova be there?

 

Rosie Knight I thought maybe they would put it in the trailer. No, I think it’s more likely that we might see Bova on Count Earth or wherever they end up. But I will say, if you are a fan of the Marvel cosmic, you are going to be eating well when you watch this movie. You’re going to be feasting. To see Adam Warlock on the screen, I feel like that is something even in the world where Jim Stalin’s Thanos is one of the biggest villains in the MCU. I did not expect to see an Adam Warlock. I love Will Poulter. He is brilliant in Midsommar. He was brilliant in his the interactive episode of Black Mirror on Netflix, which just so interesting. And I would love to see where this is going to go. I am excited. I will not hold my breath for Bova, but I will scream in the screening if she’s there like I did for Mount Wundagore. And now I have a Bova tattoo so no one can question my dedication.

 

Jason Concepcion So this feels like in in the trailer, Drax appears to be suffering from some sort of malady. Now in the comics,Drax was created as a super weapon, specifically designed to kill Thanos. I wonder if they’re bringing in that kind of super weapons thing into the movies.

 

Rosie Knight Yeah.

 

Jason Concepcion So that Drax. Because I. Battista has said this is his last outing as Drax, and I wouldn’t be surprised if we saw Drax die here. I wouldn’t be surprised if we saw.

 

Rosie Knight Many of them die.

 

Jason Concepcion Chris Pratt as Star-Lord die here, but it feels like there’s they’re going to find a way for Drax to get on on the Viking funeral boat and sail off.

 

Rosie Knight It feels like it. And you know what? Dave’s ready. He said, Why on earth? Why isn’t anyone costing me in romcoms? The world needs to know. I’m ready for the Dave Bautista romcom. So I’m happy for him. You know, Drax. I feel like he made that character into something so brilliant and accessible and funny. But he’s spoken about not necessarily being like the deepest role for him. So I think you’re right. I think we could see something like that. The trailer is very heavy handed on it being the end of the road and facing the music since you’ve been gone, you know, there’s kind of playing on this idea of Quayle and Gomorrah and then new relationship posts, you know, the events of Endgame. So I think if you’re a big Guardians fan, you’re going to get a lot of not fan service, but a lot of payoff on these relationships that you care about. I’m most interested to know whether this is like a real ending of the Guardians of the Galaxy, or if they’re essentially clearing the way of this team. Because in the comics Guardians, like many teams, there’s been so many. And I think once you introduce High Evolutionary, once you introduce Adam Warlock, you’re getting more into the Marvel cosmic, you’re going into the Infinity watch, you’re getting into that kind of stuff. So I think we could see a different Guardians team, but I think this is the end of this Guardians team. I think this is going to be a very emotional movie about Rocket that seems to be kind of the heart of the film. We see him talking about, you know, the High Evolutionary who wants to like make the world better, but then Rocket kind of says in this really great, very James Gunn line is like, he didn’t want to make things perfect. He just hated things the way they are.

 

Jason Concepcion The way it was. Yeah.

 

Rosie Knight And I thought that was like, really powerful. It looks like we’re going to get some kind of flashback to what we all assumed, which was that in MCU Rocket was created by the High Evolutionary and was one of his earlier experiments. So yeah, it’s going to be interesting. Rocket seems to have a cuter friend, partner, lover, buddy, sibling. We don’t know.

 

Jason Concepcion love that.

 

Rosie Knight But it looks cute. And Will Poulter is looking like they painted him gold with face paint. And I’m obsessed that that is the route that they went. I’m a big fan. So. Yeah, it looks looks good. I’m excited. I’m intrigued to see where it goes. Will Bova be in it? I can only dream.

 

Jason Concepcion Did you. Did you notice Nebula is blade hand? She got some upgrades in the in the time off.

 

Rosie Knight I have to say, if there’s one character that I want to see stick around in the MCU from this team is Nebula. I think the arc that they gave her is just so brilliant. And in the comics, you know, Nebula is Thanos granddaughter and she is the one that Thanos kills in order to get the gem. And I just think there’s so much ripeness that they’ve kind of left to expand and explore with this character by not having her take that role and having Gamorrah take that role. So I’d love to see Nebula stick around. I think Karen does such a good job and I like this kind of idea of her as like a cool, ever evolving cyborg, which they kind of play into in the way Thanos was torturing her. But then to get the growth also, look, I know we’ve been saying it and I’m going to say again. Adam Warlock turning up. It really is hinting that that Thanos might come back. So having some connections to Thanos, I think at some point he will come back. Will it be in ten years? Will it be in 15 years? Will it be in 20 years? But he is going to come back at some point. There’s multiple Thanoses in Jim Stalin’s hilarious canon that he has managed to create whenever he comes back. There’s like many, many clones of Thanos. And as they even played with the idea, in Endgame where we saw the, you know, the earlier version of Thanos. So I think that we shouldn’t necessarily put that way, especially with Starfox showing up with pth patrol. These are cosmic characters who are very deeply connected to Thanos. So yeah, I would like to see it. I love I love seeing Nebula. I think she’s probably her and Rocket are probably my favorite characters from the Guardians.

 

Jason Concepcion I mean, I wonder if off our previous conversation about Drax in the in the comics being created is like this kind of super weapon designed just to kill Thanos. I wonder if the High Evolutionary has some Thanos DNA and he’s making stuff.

 

Rosie Knight Oh, my God, that’s actually such a good call. Especially because they, like we said, there’s multiple versions of Thanos. You could go back through time. You know, you could just go and pick up his head that they chopped off while he was just trying to make some porridge adt the beginning of Endgame. A very disrespectful thing that he was just trying to eat some nice food, just trying to retire and they chopped off his head. I didn’t see what they did with the head. The high evolutionary could have gone there and got ahead. I think that’s a very very good call, especially because the way that they played with that aspect of Drax in the movie was that Thanos had killed his family, so he wanted to kill them and he was kind of this killing machine, but in an emotional way. So that would be really interesting. Also, you know, there’s always a chance that Drax is someone who the High Evolutionary has come into contact with before and created that weapon himself. You know, I think we’re going to find out that the High Evolutionary, I don’t think he’s going to be like a Kang-level puppet master, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they find ways to connect him to other characters that aren’t just Rocket.

 

Jason Concepcion Whois in the the second version of The Guardians? If we can indeed say that we’re not already in a second version of the Guardians team since Nebula is on the team now, and I guess Thor was with them for a little while. Who will be in the post? I’m just assuming post Quill post Drax. I think Nebula will still be there.

 

Rosie Knight I love the idea.

 

Jason Concepcion I think that Gamora will still be there. I think Drax will be gone.

 

Rosie Knight Mm hmm.

 

Jason Concepcion I am hoping Rocket will still be there, but you never know. Adam Warlock.

 

Rosie Knight Yeah. I think.

 

Jason Concepcion Right? It seems like they’re setting that up through.

 

Rosie Knight Some kind of Infinity Watch crossover. Also, if we were going to see like, a Nova, that would be a good place for him to go. You know, we’ve we’ve been talking about that Nova movie bringing in Nova. We know that The Marvels is going to be playing with the Kree War stuff. So I think we could see that as a place that he would be introduced. I mean, look, this is a character we’ve talked about a lot because we’ve been interested in seeing them come. But like Moon Dragon, that was the character we were talking about.

 

Jason Concepcion I mean, Drax’s daughter, basically.

 

Rosie Knight Yeah, he’s a character we were talking about a lot during WandaVision. Yeah, that definitely feels like something. And I think the idea of using the team names, kind of not everyone expected them to do with Avengers, but they never really landed on. Guardians could be an interesting secondary space for that. Also, the real truth is that Guardians had so many members. And really the team that we have is not even, it’s not even really like akin to the teams. I mean, there’s a Guardians team that has, like, Yellowjacket.

 

Jason Concepcion Yeah, I bet you I bet you one of the Skrulls from Secret Invasion goes to space.

 

Rosie Knight Oh. I could definitely see. I really thought we were going to get that, like as Guardians of the Galaxy like that. But, you know, I will say as well, you know, you could have someone like Cosmo, who we know is going to play a role in this. They were h,e was actually like or she, depending on the cannon, was actually like in the team in the comics.

 

Jason Concepcion That’s right.

 

Rosie Knight We could have a Cosmo. That would be so cool. I mean, there’s a version that has Carol Danvers in it as Captain Marvel.

 

Jason Concepcion That’s right. You know, I think she’s probably a little too high power.

 

Rosie Knight I think so, too. But maybe there’s a version where Monica Rambeau ends up in there, though. I would love to see her on an Avengers team. You know, there’s just a lot of fun stuff. I mean, we’re getting kind of into characters they don’t have, but there is just so much space you have like Cosmic Ghost Rider. That thing’s been in there, there’s Kitty Pride. I just think this is a team that probably going to keep her on. I mean, we saw, you know, Brett Goldstein as Hercules. And there was a version where Hercules was in it. So I just think there’s like a lot of fun that could be had with this team, So don’t expect them to disappear. But I think you can expect to say goodbye to the majority of this team. But I think you’re right. Gamora and Nebula, that’s probably you’re sticking around with maybe Groot, but like, I thik Groot will be there.

 

Jason Concepcion Yeah, we got to have Groot in there forever. Okay, Next up. Here it is, folks. You’ve been waiting for this one. The Flash releasing June 16th, directed by Andy Muschietti, written by Christina Hodson, starring Ezra Miller as Barry Allen. Sasha Callie asikala is Kara Zor-El. Michael Shannon is back as General Zod.

 

Rosie Knight That was a surprise for me.

 

Jason Concepcion It was big. I think the big surprise and Michael Keaton as Batman.

 

Rosie Knight Batman. Which one?

 

Jason Concepcion Which one? Okay, we’ll get to that in a second. So this is this is a you know, a direct adaptation of the the cross to DC crossover event Flashpoint that essentially ended the DC Universe ahead of the new 52 relaunch Center, which is a super cool crossover, certainly one of the most fun ones they’ve done in recent times.

 

Rosie Knight It was a huge event. It’s kind of hard to overstate how much of a big deal it was at the time, and it was Geoff Johns. It was Andy Kubert. I mean, the Kuberts are like comic book royalty. So, yeah, it was it was a huge thing. And basically it essentially like set off.

 

Jason Concepcion It was the crisis of its day.

 

Rosie Knight Exactly. And it set everything off into like a much worse world. That’s like the main thing to say, like before New 52 when Flashpoint actually happened, the universe was so much darker, everything was bad. We will get to that when we talk about Keaton, but yeah, I, I, I didn’t realize I kind of somehow slipped my mind through all of this, like it was written by Christina Hodson, who I love who wrote Birds of Prey. So that is kind of exciting to me. I’m trying to focus on the positives. Obviously, we’ve talked a lot about Ezra and their troubles, and I do still, I don’t necessarily think this is the most. I’m not necessarily sure if there is a good way of releasing this movie at this point, but you know  what, it is out there. So yeah Christina Hodson, I think that’s great. I love Kiersey Clemons. I thought that was such a great Iris West casting and she did not get her due in the Snyder release that we got. So I would love to see that explored more. I was very excited to see Sasha as Kara. I think there’s a big chance that from what we see in this trailer, that will be the Kara who goes on to the gun-a-verse.

 

Jason Concepcion Right. So in Flashpoint. We do this without spoiling anything, in case you want to go back and read Flashpoint on your DC Universe app.

 

Rosie Knight DC Universe Infinite or or any library app.

 

Jason Concepcion A Barry Allen wakes up one day and there are no superheroes, a.k.a. Metahumans and his mom, who had previously died in his world, is alive and he has to figure out what’s going on. He meets a different version of himself. He realizes that he fucked something up and he created a world where there are no superheroes. All this is in the trailer, and then he has to team up with this kind of ragtag alt versions of characters in order to kind of put things back the way they were. And he’s sort of successful and it’s super fun. Now, in FlashPoint, Barry does team up with a reverse version of himself and Batman. But the Batman in the Flash winning, I guess is kind of a spoiler, but not really.

 

Rosie Knight This is a this is a light context spoiler.

 

Jason Concepcion Light comics spoiler.

 

Rosie Knight Interesting and also now like over ten year old comics.

 

Jason Concepcion It’s over ten years. Okay.

 

Rosie Knight But you know what? It’s a it’s a really outrageous choice that I’ve been waiting for them to do for a long time. So.

 

Jason Concepcion Yes. So in the comics that the Batman that Barry Allen teams up with is Thomas Wayne Bruce’s dad, not Bruce. So begging the question, is Michael Keaton playing Bruce or Thomas?

 

Rosie Knight Exactly. Because and the thing is about Thomas, the Thomas Wayne Batman is he is incredibly brutal. He kills his.

 

Jason Concepcion More. He’s like, kill everyone.

 

Rosie Knight He’s traumatized by what happened because in that universe ,that Barry created, basically the in the Night in Crime Alley, it was Bruce who died and his parents survived and that ruined Thomas’s life. And that drove Thomas to become the Bat. I think it is probably a safe bet to guess that there is a 5050 chance that he is going to be Thomas Wayne, not Bruce.

 

Jason Concepcion That would be crazy.

 

Rosie Knight I would love it. I would love it to be like our Keaton-verse, like Suave. But he looked a bit rough and ready in the trailer. He kind of looked tired. He looks angry. Every Batman is apparently annoyed by the Flash. So that continues.

 

Jason Concepcion The action is like there’s that shot of him dropping down onto some baddies and just cleaning up. And yes, we are talking about a Batman movie, Michael Keaton’s Batman movie that came out in 1989 and had a different style.

 

Rosie Knight I was going to say, my guy, he loves guns. He shoots people all the time in that movie. So it wouldn’t be too far off.

 

Jason Concepcion But. This felt. It is. It feels to me very possible that it could be Thomas.

 

Rosie Knight Definitely could be possible. I also thought it was cool that like the version of Kara that we see in this. So there was a lot of there’s been obviously a lot of rumors surrounding this movie and there was a lot of talk about and this was public. But Andy Muschietti, the director, shared about casting Supergirl and how there was going to be a Young Justice League that was kind of led by the Supergirl. And, you know, Michael Keaton was originally going to be in the Batgirl movie, and that was kind of this idea that that would be the new world’s finest, you know. But we do get to see Sasha Hair as Supergirl. I thought the Supergirl look was really cool. I thought the suit was nice. And they kind of do this cool thing where they reflect car being in prison, just like Clark was in the Flashpoint comics. So she is our Superman here. She’s our Kryptonian. And I’m very interested to see it looks cool. I think, like I was saying, I think we can assume from that kind of rough, gritty story that they’re giving her hair, it would be that would fit very well into the the Supergirl Woman of Tomorrow story based on the Tom King, Bilquis Everly comic that we were talking about that James Gunn is going to announce. So she is, I think, a top contender to come over to.

 

Jason Concepcion I agree.

 

Rosie Knight Also, interestingly, so James said, James Gunn said this is the reset movie. Right. And everything afterwards ties in. So after you’re going to have Blue Beetle. But we’ve heard, rumor has it also I think it was maybe even confirmed that Michael Keaton is going to be in Aquaman two. And Aquaman two does directly connect to James Gunn’s universe. So I’m very interested to see what happens there. That’s these are the questions I need answered.

 

Jason Concepcion And we should add that we you know, one of our predictions and honestly, a pretty pretty straight line supposition that we’ve drawn on this podcast is that much like the Flashpoint event in the comics, this movie will essentially kill off the Snyder verse version of the DCU and then move towards we just call it James Gunn’s New 52 or whatever, you know, the James Gunn era. It’s pretty clear before that pivot was kind of grafted onto this movie that this was going to just kind of come together.

 

Rosie Knight Yeah.

 

Jason Concepcion All the disparate DCU stuff that already was out there, including a significant amount of, you know, Snyder directed and creatively informed projects. But it does feel like they’re going to move into a New 52 kind of paradigm after this.

 

Rosie Knight I think so. Because I was very interested to see Zod here, right? That wasn’t something I’d heard about, wasn’t something I was expecting. And I would assume that because there’s no humans in this world, no one could stop Zod invasion. You know, Henry Cavill Superman stopped in Man of Steel by murdering Zod. Shocking, shocking thing that happened. Spoiler alert. But. But yeah. So I think that is very interesting because you’re also already basically, essentially creating a world without Superman, which I think is really interesting and sets up a new space for this young Superman movie that they want to do. That’s probably going to be more of a classical Superman , all star Superman. This kind of idea of a hope for Superman, a Superman who wouldn’t snap someone’s neck even if it would maybe save the world. So, yeah, it’s very interesting. It’s coming out. I guess, that’s.

 

Jason Concepcion I mean, well here’s the other thing. I think that part of this, obviously, you never know. But I think that part of this new 52 style reboot that they’re going to do after Flashpoint, my guess is it will include Barry Allen exiting stage left and Wally West entering stage right.

 

Rosie Knight Of course, that’s how it feels I have to say my greatest hope for this movie was that. We would get a kind of very quick oh, no, Barry Allen is lost in the Speed Force. Here’s Wally West. Wally. Here he is. The Wally casting in in the CW is super great. You know, KENYON Lonsdale was just absolutely terrific in that role.

 

Jason Concepcion So we cannot forget that the CW did Flashpoint.

 

Rosie Knight They’ve done it.

 

Jason Concepcion A whole nine years ago.

 

Rosie Knight This all happened. But yeah, I was hoping for that. I think that would have been that. I think there is a more holistic, sustainable, like realistic about the troubles that have happened to do with this movie. But you know what? It is not going to happen. But I do think you’re right. I think that an outcome of this movie may well be. Flash, Barry Allen, you’re into the Speed Force, my friend. And then Wally West. Oh, you’re out of the Speed Force. Nice to see you. You’ve come from the future. You’ve come from the past.

 

Jason Concepcion Yeah. I mean, he’s already interacting with in the trailer.

 

Rosie Knight Yeah.

 

Jason Concepcion At least one version of reverse flash, one version of himself, and he will likely interact with more.

 

Rosie Knight Yeah.

 

Jason Concepcion And I think it’s an easy way to just be like, Oh, who are you? My name is Wally, I’mfrom another dimension. I’m also The Flash.

 

Rosie Knight You know, I have to say, okay, just because I just have to say this, I’m not going to any spoilers, but if you if you do, if you are interested in the Flash and you like the Flash and you like DC Comics, the the first episode of the last season of The Flash, it’s very CW Don’t be surprised. But I had to watch it because the end of it is absolutely insane and introduces like the craziest deep cop but new character from Dark Nights, Metal. And it’s just absolutely bonkers. And everyone should go watch it because what happened at the end, I was like, This is not real, but this is happening. So that’s just a fun aside. Go watch on the CW app, get prepared for your Flash experiences and learn about a new scary reverse Flash. But yeah, I think you’re right. There’s going to be multiple Flashes. I wasn’t prepared for the fact that we were going to be seeing like multiple Ezra’s. I kind of didn’t really consider how focused this film would be on them and on their version of Barry. But you know what? I would. It’s coming out and it’s coming things, there’s things to talk about and hopefully they are getting the help they need and so are the people around them that they have hurt. And I hope that there is a good side of the corporate kind of conversation they’re having about Ezra’s getting help. I hope that expands to the people to Ezra hurt too. And yeah.

 

Jason Concepcion Completely. I could, I wholeheartedly agree. Up next, the airlock. Well, we’re stepping out of the airlock and onto the streets of San Francisco to give you a primer on Scott Lang’s Ant-Man, The Quantum Realm, the MicroVerse Kang, and He Who Remains before the release of Ant-Man and the WASP Quantumania on February 17th. We’re going to tell you about the history of Ant-Man, the suit throughout the MCU, up to where we are right now in the movies, including some explainers based on the comic histories of the people, places and things that are interacting with Ant-Man, Scott Lang and Henry Pym. Let’s start with. Ant-Man in the comics. Rosie, tell us some history about this character.

 

Rosie Knight Cool. So, I mean, in the comics, we all know in the MCU that the first Ant-Man that we probably met with Scott Lang in the comics, it was Hank Pym first debuted in 196’s Tales to Astonish 27, created by Stan Lee, his brother Larry Lieber, who drew the long time syndicated Spider-Man comic, and Jack Kirby, of course. But Hank is one of those really funny characters where there’s like 15 different first appearances because he’s had so many different characters. So they decided to retroactively reveal he’d actually been in Strange Tales a year before. But if you’re talking about him in his Ant-Man suit, too, that we know, that was Tales to Astonish 35 put on that suit and kind of never went back. Ant-Man became a prestige hero. There’s lots of funny adventures he’s psychically controlling ants. He’s fighting Loki with ants. And hilariously, Hank’s. It’s really interesting that we never got a Hank on The Avengers because Hank has been on so many Avengers teams Avengers, A.I., Secret Avengers, Black Ops Unit, Mighty Avengers, Grandpa, the Time Displaced Avengers, and he was even on the Illuminati. So this is like a legit Marvel.

 

Jason Concepcion Well.

 

Rosie Knight Heavyweight. He was. He was. He popped up. Yeah, he made it. He made an appearance. But this is a man who, like, has been a stalwart MCU character. But maybe one of the reasons that he wasn’t the first choice to be the main Ant-Man is a because he is an older hero. You know, this is someone from the sixties, so it makes sense that the MCU wanted to give their heroes a lineage and legacy. But also throughout the comics, he has had a a troubled past.

 

Jason Concepcion A spotty past.

 

Rosie Knight A spotty past of treating people badly, which will kind of get to when we talk about another one over here. But that’s our first Ant-man, it was Hank Pym.

 

Jason Concepcion Let’s talk about Ant-Man in the MCU. So the story of Ant-Man in the MCU, the Ant-Man identity begins with Hank Pym, a brilliant, energetic and arrogant. But you know what one might say? Fairly so. Young scientist dates are kind of fuzzy for a lot of stuff in the MCU, But when when we have specific dates will tell you. But sometime in the late sixties to early seventies, Pym made the physics discovery of a lifetime. The particles he discovered, which he named after himself, allowed him to shrink or grow matter to mindblowing scales. Pym developed to suit the Ant-Man suit, and as a member of S.H.I.E.L.D took part in secret missions that spanned the globe. At the same time, Pym had developed a technology that allowed him to communicate and control ants. And these ants often became his teammates in these very secret missions that he underwent.

 

Rosie Knight Yeah, I love the ant powers are like some of the best kind of funny Hank Pym series. Like he will use the ants and we get to see that a little bit in the MCU, which I really love. Especially Scott loves to have a giant size ant as a friend.

 

Jason Concepcion So it’s always fun.

 

Rosie Knight That’s a really, really good stuff.

 

Jason Concepcion By 1970, Pym was working out of the secret S.H.I.E.L.D lab at Camp Lehigh in New Jersey. You might remember, this military base is the place that Steve Rogers underwent training to become Captain America. It’s also where by 1970, the Tesseract, a.k.a. the Mind Stone, was being studied. And as the seventies turned to the eighties, Pym was collaborating with another brilliant scientist, Dr. Bill Foster, on an interdimensional transportation device that would, in theory, allow access to a subatomic realm, which they named the quantum realm. The project stalled out because of Hank Pym is a fucking asshole.

 

Rosie Knight Literally. And that is comic book canon. Comic book.

 

Jason Concepcion Fucking asshole.

 

Rosie Knight He sucks.

 

Jason Concepcion He’s a fucking dick. He. He and Bill Foster just couldn’t get along.

 

Rosie Knight Had enough. And guess what? So, Bill Foster, that was like such a massive moment for Marvel fans and fans because he is like a key part of the law.He

 

Jason Concepcion Bill Foster is a very important person.

 

Rosie Knight He’s a very important character. First arrived in Avengers 32 in 1966, the Stan Lee creation, this time with Don Hack, like he was a scientist from Watts, Los Angeles. Like how many superheroes come from Watts? And he was hired by Tony Stark, which you will see is a trend of Ant-Man. Characters actually eventually end up working alongside Hank Pym. And Foster ended up kind of show showing that he was the better scientist. He helped Pym reconfigure his formula after Pym got stuck at, like, ten feet. He was trying to be giant, and he got stuck at, like, ten foot tall. Foster helped Pym sort that out, and he would later on, duplicate the Pym particles to create his own powers, which he managed to do without Hank’s help. And that was how he became Goliath. And he’s just such a rad character. But guess what? He stopped working with Hank in the comics. Because Hank sucks and they fell out and they had a beef, and then he didn’t want to work with him anymore. So that is comic book canon.

 

Jason Concepcion And then he got killed in Civil War.

 

Rosie Knight Rude.

 

Jason Concepcion Rude.

 

Rosie Knight And next up is one of my favorite characters ever, someone that I felt was not getting her due in the MCU. But I feel like that kind of change in that now, which is Janet Van Dyne, a.k.a. the original WASP, she’s founding.

 

Jason Concepcion One of the great leaders of The Avengers.

 

Rosie Knight Not only the founding member, also she was the one who came up with the name in the last panel of the first issue of The Avengers. She is the one who said. That’s our name, baby. The Avengers. She called them that. You know, she was another us to astonish character. Came out in 60 threes Tales to astonish 44 Stanley, Ernest Hall and of course, Jack Kirby. One of my favorite things about the Lost Boys. She’s like a fashion designer and an inventor and her relationship with Hank Pym, as we kind of mentioned, like that was his wife. That was his team mate. But Hank is abusive in some comics. He had addiction problems. He had problems with his ego. So that’s kind of a a struggle, which I understand why they didn’t necessarily want to dig into it. But I do think it’s important to mention, like Janet was the first woman on The Avengers, a leader of The Avengers. She is a big part of why Monica is on The Avengers. I just think she’s incredible and I’m really glad that Michelle Fife is playing that because she is an icon and I’m he’s fantastic. She’s so good. And I was really happy when the second movie dug more into Janet and her kind of impact. I’ll be very interested to see when we go and see Quantum mania tonight, I will be interested to see how much of Janet story they they build in.

 

Jason Concepcion Yeah. So by the eighties in the MCU, Hank was teaming up with his by now wife. We assume Janet Van Dyne a.k.a. the WASP who was doing missions right beside Hank in a suit that Hank also designed the wasp suit and. In 1987, Hank and Janet were on a S.H.I.E.L.D operation to stop a Soviet missile launch. The mission was a success. But Janet, who shrunk to subatomic size to get inside the weapons casing and disrupt the missile so it wouldn’t hit its target was lost forever. It was thought forever in the quantum realm. Hank and Janet’s daughter, Hope, would then have to live the rest of their lives without their mother, they thought. And this was especially traumatic for Hope, whose last memories of her mom are a precious thing to her, as we saw in the first Ant-Man movie. Now, Pym had always done things his own way within S.H.I.E.L.D. And this was mainly because he did not trust S.H.I.E.L.D with his technology. He never he did missions himself because he didn’t want anybody touching Pym particles, being involved with Pym particles who he could not control. Now, it turns out Hank was right about that.

 

Rosie Knight He was right. Also.

 

Jason Concepcion Because S.H.I.E.L.D. It turns out he was right. Because S.H.I.E.L.D was actually a Hydra.

 

Rosie Knight Hey spoiler alert. They were Nazis. Sorry. Like he was right. And guess what? They were trying to steal your shit, just like they were trying to steal everyone’s shit. So you know what? He does suck. But he was right.

 

Jason Concepcion He was right about this.

 

Rosie Knight He was right. He was right.

 

Jason Concepcion Now, Pym would about a couple of years after the fateful mission to stop the Russian missile. Pym would quit S.H.I.E.L.D in a rage when he discovered that S.H.I.E.L.D. Very. Shetterly was trying to recreate his Pym technology without involving Hank and without him knowing. After S.H.I.E.L.D, Pym founded Pym Technologies in the Bay Area, which is a company that research and produce consumer grade nanotechnology, the kind of nanotechnology that you would use in the medical field to improve people’s lives. In 2015, a fellow named Scott Lang, an engineer turned thief, was released from prison. Scott spent the next few months trying to get his life on track. He worked at a Baskin Robbins, among many other fateful attempts at getting a job and attempted to rebuild his relationship with his young daughter Cassie, who whose, you know, a majority of his of her life he had missed while he was in prison. Frustrated and struggling financially, Scott gets roped into a heist job and the target turns out to be some rich guy’s house where there’s a safe. And inside the safe, there’s this, like, weird motorcycle looking suit, plus a funky metal helmet.

 

Rosie Knight I wonder what that could have been?

 

Jason Concepcion It turns out it’s the Ant-Man suit, Rosie.

 

Rosie Knight Shocking. So, yeah. We met him in the MCU. Like we were saying, is the first kind of Ant-Man that we really got to know. But Scott actually didn’t debut until, like, a decade plus and over 180 issues of Avengers after his counterparts. In 1979’s Avengers 181. Created by David Michelinie, Bob Lee and John Byrne. And just like the movies, he’s a reformed thief and a kind of electronics expert. And he kind of gets on the straight and narrow by being hired by Tony Stark. He’s quite generous guy in the comics. Old stark.

 

Jason Concepcion Yeah. Tony Stark is, hires people.

 

Rosie Knight He hires people he needs. He needs people to hire. He needs workers .

 

Jason Concepcion And we should add, a kind of a big deal because throughout this period of Tony Stark’s comic’s history, this guy’s business was, like, on the verge of failure all the time.

 

Rosie Knight Yeah.

 

Jason Concepcion He was very, very rich, but he all but the business was always like almost going out business or going to be taken over by Stane International.

 

Rosie Knight Oh, my God.

 

Jason Concepcion This, that, and the other.

 

Rosie Knight And also, I will just say, unlike the MCU Tony Stark, in the comics, Tony Stark did pay The Avengers, so he was also paying the Avengers and his business was going broke. Tough times, but yeah, Scott Lang is actually a very I feel like he’s one of the most comic book canonically like, correct characters that we’ve gotten in the MCU. Very dedicated to his daughter Cassie, who also, like came around in the same year as Scott as part of this redemption arc that he kind of was going on. And it’s interesting because, like in the movies, something I always find funny. I was rewatching Civil War recently, and it’s so fun when he gets bought on to that Avengers team, the kind of team captain. He so desperately wants to be. And then, you know, he ends up really something I saw that was really interesting when I was watching the Quantum Mania premiere was that it was it was Paul Rudd who really wanted Scott to go into the quantum realm, and it was him who suggested this idea of the end of the first movie, him going in, and it was him who kind of really wanted that to be a part of the way that they saved the world and end game. So I love that he is so passionate about the character and it’s really interesting because he’s still on the outskirts of the Avengers team in the movies. In the comics. He’s been in The Avengers, Fantastic Four and Guardians of the Galaxy. Maybe he’ll be in that Guardians team. Maybe it will be, Maybe Scott’s team.

 

Jason Concepcion So who hired Scott’s friends to rob this house where the Ant-Man suit was stored? It was none other than Hank Pym, who hand-picked Scott to be his successor. Hank and Hope then spent some time training up Scott. And we get there some fun moments where he learns to control the ants and he learns to dive through a keyhole.

 

Rosie Knight And that first movie is so great.

 

Jason Concepcion It’s so fun. And after all that, his final test in the field is to break in to the Avengers facility in upstate New York, where he comes to blows with the Falcon. Hank in Hope after this, then gives Scott his real mission, break into Pym Technology’s corporate lab to steal the knock off Pym Tech that Hank’s former protege, Darren Cross.

 

Rosie Knight Dun, dun, dun.

 

Jason Concepcion Has been working on and hopes to sell to the highest bidder. Scott succeeds, but it’s very messy. And in his final showdown with Cross, Scott, like Janet Van Dyne before him, sinks down, shrinks down to subatomic level in order to mess with Cross’s yellowjacket suit from the inside. Cross then disappears into a portal and is gone. We think for good. Is he dead? We don’t know where he went at that time. Scott then floats into the strange and wonderful quantum realm. Unlike Jan Van Dyne, however, Scott is able to escape and return to his family and his new on again, off again. We don’t know what their situation is now. Hope Van Dyne some time later is Rosie mentioned during the events of Civil War. Scott is recruited by Team Captain America. He takes part in the fight against Iron Man’s Sokovia Accords side at the airport in Germany.

 

Rosie Knight The team I would have been on.

 

Jason Concepcion Shortly thereafter arrested. Same. Scott then strikes a deal with the DOJ. He gets two years of house arrest. Not bad. And at the same time, Hank and Hope are building a quantum tunnel in hopes of rescuing Janet, who they believe to be alive in the quantum realm. They kidnap Scott, get him involved in a scheme to help Hope acquire the components, which Hank needs to complete the tunnel at which they managed to do, and using the device as a conduit. They confirm that Janet is indeed alive because she then takes control of Scott’s body for a short period of time. Later, after all the hijinx with Ghost and and the kind of reckoning with the trauma of Hank’s relationship with Bill Foster, which we don’t have time to get into. Scott In order to help Ava, who we know as ghost to due to the quantum telling effect, was left in a state of between phase, like a D phase matter. Scott then enters a mobile version of the Quantum Tunnel, which is housed incongruously in his friend Louise’s van. And it is this attempt to help Ava, a.k.a. Ghost, by bringing back some quantum particles from the quantum realm, which causes Scott to be trapped in the quantum realm. And he is trapped there for a number of years until he, Mrs. Santos’s invasion, misses the snap and misses all of this. And when he emerges in the year 2023, he discovers that his daughter Cassie survived Thanos snap and is now a grown teenager.

 

Rosie Knight He missed a lot of time and that that sting from the end of Man and the WASP is so great when he’s in there, he’s bantering away and then we just see. Janet and Hope and Hank, and they all get dusted. And we all know what it means. And Scott’s just in there, trapped in the quantum realm. Trapped in Louie’s van. Good old Louis. I hope he’s here. I hope he’s here this time.

 

Jason Concepcion I would love to see him. What an affect he’s had on the MCU.

 

Rosie Knight When really let him open the movie with one of his famous monologues explaining everything that ever happened in the MCU. We need to see it. We need to see it. So Cassie survived. We got the first version of Cassie. Then Cassie was recast, and now we have the third version of Cassie, who will we’ll actually see in the movie. And she debuted, like I said, in the same year, 1979, she first appeared in Marvel premiere 47, created by David Michelinie and John Byrne. But we got to fast forward decades. She was just is she was Scott’s kid, his loving kid, the kid he wanted to make good for. But it was in 2005, young Avengers number six where she took on the name as Stature because she kind of had a power similar to her father’s. With the suit, she could change her build and size. They kind of went through and teen they were kind of funny names, but Stature was the one, though, as we have learned through these trailers and the promotional materials, that is not the character that we will be seeing Cassie, That is not the alter ego we’ll be seeing her take on. She is going to be taking on a much more contemporary moniker, which is from Astonishing Ant-Man number six and that stinger and that kind of more aligns with Ant-Man and the WASP and this kind of bug hero lineage. But I’m really excited to see where Cassie goes again. This is another young Avengers member, so I feel like people are going to be getting there’s so many young Avengers now and all of us young Avengers fans are like, What is happening?

 

Jason Concepcion They’re going to.

 

Rosie Knight We know it’s happening.

 

Jason Concepcion We know it’s going to happen. It’s going to happen. So after Scott reemerges from the quantum realm, he discovers, you know, that the snap is a thing that happened and realizing that he has some information that might be useful to the heroes in this world. He travels to the Avengers facility in New York in Louis’s van, and tells the surviving Avengers a crazy tale about surviving in the quantum realm and the time traveling effects they’re in. This allows Tony Stark to build a time machine, which he does. Just like in his off time at his house he designs it, drives back to this Avengers facility, is like, Hey, I figured I feel about time travel. Did you try it? Yeah, we tried it. It turned Scott into a baby and then it all ended. And then Tony’s like, Don’t worry. I figured all of that out. This allows the Time machine, allows the Avengers to use the quantum realm to travel through time and steal the Infinity Stones from the past and thus defeat Thanos. And when last we saw Scott heading into Quantum Mania, he was standing with Hank Hope and Janet at Tony Stark’s funeral. Be really interesting to see what Scott has been up to since.

 

Rosie Knight Yeah, and I think you did of you brought up a really important point here, which is though the quantum realm allowed them to create this time machine. Right. Which is the idea that time reacts differently in the quantum realm. So you can go in at one point and come out a different point. Right? That seems like it’s going to be incredibly relevant as we go into Quantum Mania, a film about a man obsessed with time. KANG He’s loves time. Loves time travel, needs to be in control of every time. I’m very interested to see how long our heroes are going to be in the quantum realm, in the quantum Zone. How long this movie takes.

 

Jason Concepcion X-ray vision will be back. And we’re back. Why don’t you tell us about the quantum realm and then will you put on the tinfoil hat and we’ll start discussing various ways this could go?

 

Rosie Knight Okay. So we love the quantum realm. We talk about it. We our favorite things. We also talk about how the quantum realm in the MCU is always kind of felt like, is it the quantum realm? Is it the kind of is it like going to be their version of the negative zone? So basically, the most interesting thing here that we don’t often talk about because it’s such a weird old part of comics is the idea of the microburst, which is what the quantum realm was originally known as, and was the place where the Pym particles could take you. And the reason that this is particularly interesting is that this is an old this is first ever from Captain America Comics 26.

 

Jason Concepcion In the forties.

 

Rosie Knight 1940s.

 

Jason Concepcion This idea.

 

Rosie Knight Like this is like some old, weird stuff and and it’s where Captain American Bucky end up traveling to this subatomic world. It was written by a pope by Ray Cummings in pencil, by an ice called Sid Shores. And you’re talking about an idea that is so old. And it just made sense for them to say, well, that’s that’s the that’s why the pym particles would take you. It’s a subatomic world. It’s basically what we know is the quantum realm in the MCU. But the micro stuff becomes more interesting as we head into quantum mania, because the most interesting thing about it is that. Like so often in the MCU with Thor Ragnarok, which was essentially like a Planet Hulk adaptation. Marvel seems to enjoy looking to Hulk comics to expand the stories that they are telling. And in Quantumania, we have not seen it yet. But from what we’ve seen in the trailers, it really seems like we’re looking at another kind of Hulk adaptation in Avengers. Yes. At issue 88, Shrunken Hulk gets sent to the microverse, and it kind of begins this journey through this place called Chi, where Hulk meets one of his most famous romantic dalliances known as Jarella. Now, this is really important because one of the characters that we know will be in Quantumania is Jen Tora, who is the niece of Jarella. And in the from what we know of the character, she will fight alongside VEB and Quaz as one of the quantum realm’s freedom fighters and Jen Tora in the comics is a freedom fighter. So that is a very interesting.

 

Jason Concepcion Right.

 

Rosie Knight Microverse connection.

 

Jason Concepcion So so we should add that when, when the Hulk goes there, what he finds is like a despotic ruler. Who is being confronted by various freedom loving rebels in the microverse.

 

Rosie Knight Sound familiar?

 

Jason Concepcion Then Hulk then aligns with. Yes.

 

Rosie Knight Yes. Sounding very much like what we may be seeing in the old Quantumania. Other things that the movie seems to be directly taking from Krylar, the character we know Bill Murray will be playing. His first and only appearance is in Hulk 156, in the Microverse, which is when Hulk reunites with Jarella at micronic size. And it is just a very interesting space to be taking from now in the MCU. I mean, in the Marvel Comics universe also could be called the MCU, just saying, but that the quantum realm in the micro must have become the same thing, a lot of which is to do with like strange licensing.

 

Jason Concepcion Yeah, IP and branding.

 

Rosie Knight IP issues. But yeah, basically the microverse is a very interesting deep sci fi space. And it seems like from what we’ve seen of Quantumania so far in the trailers, it’s taking very heavily from these Hulk issues and also from this older version. This is less of the cosmic kind of purgatory that we saw Jana in. And this looks more like a Star Wars style high fantasy. Yeah, Hi sci fi space. And as Jason pointed out, despotic leader who is being confronted by freedom fighters, we can assume Kang is going to take that role when we go and see the movie tonight. So, yes, very interesting. Also deep connections to some of my favorite things, you know, like the Silver Sapphire and Galactus. So I’m really excited. It’s also, as we are in the Kang the Conqueror space, we should probably just mention we’re going to keep saying it until it happens. But there is high potential here for for Fantastic Four tease or a Fantastic four crossover.

 

Jason Concepcion I mean, you know who that shrank down and stuck in the micro verse slash quantum realm for a little while? Doctor Doom. I mean, what if there’s a world in which Doctor Doom is the despotic leader and Kang is like the leader of the.Upstart rebels who need Scott’s help?

 

Rosie Knight Look, I understand. I understand the way that the trailers have set this up. And I know how you know Kang is going to be. I know he’s the conqueror, so I know he’s the bad guy. But, like, wouldn’t it be cool if he wasn’t? Wouldn’t it be cool if this was a more empathetic Kang and Krylar was the despot? Or Doctor Doom was the despot? Yeah. I would really like to see it because, like, I just love Jonathan Majors. No, but I. I’m very I’m very interested to see where this goes, especially because the the correlations between the way we’ve seen the quantum realm in the MCU and what we know of the negative zone as this kind of portal between universes in a time where time goes differently. I would be very interested to know. If rather than quantum realm and the microverse being the two names for these things in the MCU, its quantum realm and the negative zone. I wonder if there is a space where those two crossed over. And I think like with Kang, obviously being a direct descendant of, you know, Reed Richards father, also Nathaniel Richards, I’m just so interested to see if they’re going to finally commit. We know they’re making a Fantastic Four movie.

 

Jason Concepcion Yes.

 

Rosie Knight Like we know they’re doing it, but are they going to lean into that here? Is that going to be a stinger? Are we going to get references within the quantum realm to perhaps another despotic leader who they kicked out or a door that leads to a different space? I don’t know. I’m very interested to see it.

 

Jason Concepcion So let’s talk about Kang, a character who we kind of first met at the end of the Loki series on Disney Plus. We met a character named He Who Remains. Now, this is a pretty, a large adaptation of the He Who Who Remains from the comics, a completely same name, completely unrelated in terms of like what those two characters are. But in Loki, He Who Remains, was essentially a version of Kang, who defeated all the other versions of himself throughout the multiverse in order to bring a kind of stability to a limited multiverse, which he then kind of curated almost like a gardener, in hopes that the other, more warlike versions of himself would never arise to challenge him.

 

Rosie Knight Yeah.

 

Jason Concepcion And we have to assume that the Kang that we meet in Ant-Man and the WASP Quantumania is going to be the evil, most warlike.

 

Rosie Knight Who.

 

Jason Concepcion The bad version of He Who Remains?

 

Rosie Knight I think so.

 

Jason Concepcion Befpre he managed to kill all the other versions of himself.

 

Rosie Knight And Jonathan Majors has done interviews where he’s basically said, like the character is so different that to him they don’t even correlate as connected. Like He Who Remains is one thing. Kang The Conqueror is something entirely different. It will also be very interesting to know, like, was Kang  put in the Quantum realm? Like, did He Who Remains put him there?.

 

Jason Concepcion He was trapped there.

 

Rosie Knight I think so. He was trapped there.

 

Jason Concepcion Yeah.

 

Rosie Knight I think in the most recent trailer, he even says this place isn’t what you think. It’s a cage. You know. So I love.The idea of this kind of immense, vast world. And that’s the only place that you could trap this powerful being, Kang the Conqueror. And, you know, this is. This is very interesting, too, because I feel like we’ve talked kind of about time, right?

 

Jason Concepcion Yeah.

 

Rosie Knight But we know that in the MCU version, one of the biggest things that He Who Remains introduced in Loki was that rather than Nathaniel Richards in the 31st century discovering time travel, he discovered multiverses. So I’m very interested to see how that changes our KANG.

 

Jason Concepcion If it does, yeah.

 

Rosie Knight And if it changes them.

 

Jason Concepcion Well, I have to say, like as we saw from the Quantum Tunnel, they’re kind of the same thing, because you go from.

 

Rosie Knight They’re merging them

 

Jason Concepcion They are merging. Time does not move in the same way in the quantum realm as it does in the regular dimensions. Therefore, if you enter the quantum realm, you’re essentially stepping outside of time and from there you can enter any other time stream. I can only assume that. So part of what makes Kang so powerful is he has access to this time machine, and because he has this time machine, he’s basically able to study millions of years of history and figure out like, how to beat every foe, how to design every weapon, and how to overcome every single obstacle and and variation of obstacle, because he’s just use this time machine to study every variation of every event.

 

Rosie Knight Yeah. And what he can do that is so utterly unique is, for example, I’ve been reading some really weird Kang Comics recently trying to work out which variants we might see. And also just because I like weird shit and there is a version in The Citizen Kang Crossover, there is a version of Kang who wants to escape. Kind of being captured and being stopped. So he goes back to the 19th century and he sets up a township called Timely, Wisconsin, named after Marvel’s original name. And his name is very timely. One of the this is like a Bova level new obsession of mine. But in that way, what he does is in 19th century middle America, he teaches everyone there how to become a scientist, how to make and crazy futuristic inventions. So he’s not only able to go and learn from different places, but he can then share that knowledge and change the stream of time and build these spaces that make him immensely more powerful and essentially creates pockets throughout time of different backup plans and different back up Kangs. You know, so you’re right, it’s basically the same difference now. And something else is really interesting in there. When I was reading it, and this is something I think that we kind of it’s very tin foil, but it’s really fun and we have kind of thought about it before. There is this kind of general rumor almost. It’s never confirmed. But this idea that while Kang is on his travels, he meets Doctor Doom and he he learns that Doctor Doom could be his ancestor. It’s never confirmed, but there’s this kind of could it be? And then that puts him and Reed and Doom all in this familial line of absolute geniuses. So Kang is just the most powerful. You thought Thanos was powerful? No. Thanos needed the stone. He needed the gems. He needed the gantlet. Kang doesn’t need that Kang as his no floating time platform in his time chair. And he must do whatever he wants from Chronopolis, which is essentially a palace where he can travel through to every portal, where every Kang exists in the timeline.

 

Jason Concepcion Should we talk about notable versions of Kang?

 

Rosie Knight Yeah, I think the term being not notable. Sorry, guys. It’s just a weird guy with a mustache. But it’s an interesting it’s an.Interesting use of his powers. Yes. I mean, the notable we’ve kind of touched on some of them, but you have like.

 

Jason Concepcion We’ve touched, you know, in in different episodes of this kind.

 

Rosie Knight Rana Tut. The Pharoah. Kang wants to go back. He wants to be all powerful. So time travels to ancient Egypt and he becomes an incredibly powerful pharaoh. And that’s one of the most famous gang variants.

 

Jason Concepcion This is like his first attempt at time travel. Basically the first thing he did was.

 

Rosie Knight He was like, he was like, Where do I want to be most powerful? Okay, cool. I’ll just go in my sphinx shaped, you know, spaceship, and I’ll just become the leader of ancient Egypt as you did.

 

Jason Concepcion Imortus.

 

Rosie Knight Yes, that’s my big one. Imortus is, like, I would say, probably the most famous version of King. Very good green and purple colored color costume that you would love. I would say, like, visually, that’s the one that inspired He Who Remains the most.

 

Jason Concepcion Yes.

 

Rosie Knight And it’s really interesting because he is a little bit like He Who Remains in that he kind of becomes wary of being like.

 

Jason Concepcion He’s tired of all this shit.

 

Rosie Knight This brutal, This crazy. Crazy guy. But he’s still not like a good guy. He’s still doing mad.

 

Jason Concepcion No.

 

Rosie Knight Probably still causing mad problems. He fights the Avengers of law. He also like teams up with, like really strange historical figures like Paul Bunyan and Genghis Khan. You know.

 

Jason Concepcion Historical figures quote Paul Bunyan.

 

Rosie Knight And he will also like he will. This is one of the most interesting things about Imortus and why I think we’ll definitely see a version of him. He often teams up with other Kangs.

 

Jason Concepcion Right

 

Rosie Knight Like he is the he is the one who teams up with other Kangs. He also is the one who tried to marry Scarlet Witch because he knew that she was the Nexus being. So I would love to see some kind of situation there. And he also is deeply connected to the timekeepers and the TVA because.

 

Jason Concepcion He’s kind of the he’s kind of like the spiritual manager, kind of.

 

Rosie Knight Because he kind of wants to, like, use them to escape his destiny and control his destiny. It’s very he’s a very interesting, complex character. But again, the most interesting thing about Kang is like he doesn’t really have superpowers, apart from being like, really smart.

 

Jason Concepcion He’s like, so if if the He Who Remains in Loki is kind of like the Kang who defeated all the other Kings and waited them out and now is very, very tired. That is a pretty strong parallel to Imortus who is like Kang, who just gets tired of it, is just like tired of all that stuff. And he’s done everything and there’s nothing else to do anymore. And he’s bored. He’s just tired. Shall we talk about M.O.D.O.K.?

 

Rosie Knight Yes. Okay. I just want to, first of all, just so you all go and Google it.

 

Jason Concepcion Yeah.

 

Rosie Knight I just want to mention the Scarlet Centurion who is a not a very famous Kang variant, but he does have a very sexy costume and it’s like one of those outrageous like, you look at it and you’re like, Wow, men never get cool, sexy costumes like that. So. So shout out to him. But yes, there’s lots of Kang variants when we see them. I don’t know. But we’ll probably see them in the future of of the MCU. So keep an eye out and I think Imortus and Rama Tut, those to me alongside Kang the Conqueror. Seem like the ones we’re going to see fast.

 

Jason Concepcion Let’s talk about our our big Humpty-Dumpty friend in the big chair with the big head, Mr. M.O.D.O.K.. Originally a machine, a mobile organism designed only for computing, later changed to be a mobile organism designed only for killing.

 

Rosie Knight Love that guy.

 

Jason Concepcion Big change there.

 

Rosie Knight I know.

 

Jason Concepcion If you ask me.

 

Rosie Knight I’m like, it feels like computing was a better option. But, you know, he overcame the the agents of A.I.M. and became the Yeah,, mobile mechanized and mental.

 

Jason Concepcion Well I’m kind of sad that he is not a product of A.I.M. and like I would imagine since.

 

Rosie Knight Yeah.

 

Jason Concepcion Spoiler alert he is a character who fell into the quantum realm that he is a product of the quantum realm and not some kind of, you know, deranged experiment by A.I.M., those crazy scientist at A.I.M..

 

Rosie Knight I wonder if that I wish I want A.I.M. to come in. We thought they were going to come in during WandaVision and they didn’t like. I want to see. We’ve seen versions of A.I.M in the MCU, but they’re like very minor, like militarized kind of people who just have the same name. I want to see the yellow suit wearing A.I.M who are going to make M.O.D.O.K. and do like terrible science, I think. I mean, maybe it could be that Kang was the one who helped him because Kang is a genius. But maybe Kang kind of did the A.I.M style evil science that drove him crazy. Or it could just be his vengeance against Scott, who put him in this situation and made him have a giant head and float around.

 

Jason Concepcion Yeah. I think he got sucked into the quantum realm and his.

 

Rosie Knight Sucked into the quantum real and his head stayed big.

 

Jason Concepcion Head stayed big and his limbs swollen. It’s all worked out.

 

This is actually like a very interesting quote from Peyton Reed where it’s like monarch has been waiting in the wings for a while. We hit on an idea of as we were going to bring the family into the quantum realm and into contact with Kang, How could Kang know about the Ant family? And then it occurred to me, you know what happens to Yellowjacket and the first Ant-Man? So that’s obviously it’s a it’s a narrative reason that he has become M.O.D.O.K..

 

Jason Concepcion Imagine your fucking Darren a.k.a Yellowjacket. You’ve been banished to the quantum realm where you now have a fucking.

 

Rosie Knight Giant head.

 

Jason Concepcion And little limbs and you’ve just spent untold. Like there’s literally no way to measure the amount of time you’ve spent.

 

Rosie Knight More than a million years.

 

Jason Concepcion Complaining about Hank and Hope and Scott Lang, and then they fucking show up.

 

Rosie Knight Oh, terrible.

 

Jason Concepcion Let me tell you some M.O.D.O.K. is going to be pissed.

 

Rosie Knight P I S S ED. Pissed . Yeah. I mean, this is such an iconic Marvel character and, like.

 

Jason Concepcion It really is one of the weirdest they’ve ever done.

 

Rosie Knight I feel like I wrote this big explainer which you can read at IGN, Which is like a full comic book history. I read so many great comics, but the most interesting thing to me is I think he’s almost a character like another favor of mine, Shuma-Gorath. M.O.D.O.K. I think a lot of the love for him actually it’s he’s been in so many video games, like he has such a wide reach. Such a massive, unexpected audience that will already know who he is. I’m very interested to see where they go because to me, M.O.D.O.K. show he’s not like a Thanos or Kang level villain, but he’s definitely a villain. You could have for like a trilogy. Like he is like a villain that you could really do some interesting stuff with. It’s going to be very cool and telling what they decide to do with him and whether he is just a one and done villain. But like good for Cory Shulte.  Get that check. Come back. Yeah, have your head CG’d onto that giant chair I was feeling. I was very happy to see that they did have the big head. And it wasn’t just the battle armor that we’d kind of seen from from train.

 

Jason Concepcion I want to see that. I want to see that big head.

 

Rosie Knight I want to see that big giant head.

 

Jason Concepcion We can’t wait to see the movie. We’re basically going out from this recording session to go watch the movie. So, you know, that’s it for our little primer on Ant-Man, the history of Ant-Man and related characters. Up next, Nerd Out.

 

Rosie Knight In today’s Nerd Out where you tell us what you love and why or a theory you’re excited to share. Scott is going to pitch us on the cult classic TV show by David Lynch, Twin Peaks.

 

Scott In April of 1990, ABC debuted Twin Peaks and the country was never the same. Broadcast television was definitely never the same. I was never the same. I was 11. It was too mature for me. But I was intoxicated. The show was dark and scary and sexy and weird, and it forever shaped my view of what television could be and what my personal esthetic would be for the kind of content that I would expect and enjoy. But it wasn’t just me. The whole country wanted to know who killed Laura Palmer. They were also charmed by Kyle MacLachlan playing Special Agent Dale Cooper. There was a established cast of older actors like Ray Wise and Piper Laurie, and there was a young cast like Lara Flynn, Boyle, Sherilyn Fenn and Madge Nemec. They ended up on the cover of Rolling Stone that summer because the first season was only seven episodes. It was short. It grabbed the country by the throat and everyone could not wait for season two. Now the network demanded they reveal the killer and resolve the murder. And once that happened, the show had trouble finding its path. The ratings dropped. They moved it around the schedule, and by the end of the season, it was canceled. But they ended season two, famously with a magnificently dark and scary cliffhanger. And that was it canceled. We got a prequel movie, Fire Walk with Me soon after from David Lynch, but it didn’t resolve the cliffhanger. And then we in the fandom had to wait. We bought the box sets. We spread the word. We shared the show with friends, and we never knew if we would get anything else. We shared the lingo. We shared the music. The score by Angelo Bad Lament. We dressed up in costumes. We visited Washington State and took turns getting wrapped in plastic to play act, that being Laura Palmer, dead on a rocky beach. And then 26 years after the show ended. We got Twin Peaks, the return on Showtime. Different but brilliant. And with most of the surviving cast now, David Lynch, Mark Frost and Kyle McLaughlin, among others, have said they would come back, they would do more. So Twin Peaks may live on, but you need to watch it whether it does or doesn’t, because you will quickly find out. You already know Twin Peaks because it has seeped into cultural consciousness and shows like Psych and Riverdale and Gravity Falls have directly referenced it since. So join us in the Red Room and enjoy Twin Peaks.

 

Rosie Knight Thanks, Scott. If you have theories and passions that you want to share. Hit us up at xray@crooked.com and instructions are in the show notes, as always.

 

Jason Concepcion Well, that’s it for us. Rosie, you mentioned that you’ve got a bunch of stuff up related to Ant-Man and the WASP Quantumania. Plug it. Yeah, just the plugs.

 

Rosie Knight You can read my work at IGN, Primetimer, Nerdist, Polygon, Den of Geek. It’s going to be all kinds of stuff. My big Den of Geek cover story was just released. It is with the lead cast of Shazam, including Helen Mirren and Lucy Liu and Rachel Zegler, who played The Goddesses who is so incredible. So that is going to be out now. You can sign up or you can pick up a real print magazine in the old comic book shop. You can also find me @Rosie Marx at Letterbox’d or Instagram. Our Discord has been catching many jokes off of my terrible Letterbox’d choices, including the 1978 Doctor Strange movie, which I cannot recommend enough. It is so

 

Jason Concepcion Oh my gosh.

 

Rosie Knight So weird.

 

Jason Concepcion It’s depraived.

 

Rosie Knight I was literally like, It is so horny and weird and people in our Discord were like why are you horny for Doctor Strange? And I was like, No, no, go and watch the movie. It’s just about an old, pervy magician who like meets loads of hot Morgan Le Fay, like women of various ages is wonderful. So yeah, that’s my other plot go watch those weird old pre MCU Marvel movies.

 

Jason Concepcion Catch the next episode on Friday, February 17th on Ant-Man and the WASP Quantumania. And remember, that’s our second episode of the week. Two new in two episodes a week. Two, two, two, two, two. Wednesdays and Fridays in your podcast Feed two episodes a week.

 

Rosie Knight Yep. And if you want to see us with your eyeballs as well as listen with your ears, you can subscribe on YouTube where you can now have full episodes of the show. Sometimes we’re in person, sometimes you’re on Zoom. They’re equally as cool. Please. If you want to see us on Twitter our tweets, see the things that we retweet. Yes, You go to the XRVpod. And you check out the Discord, too. The Discord is where we meet up and hang out with tons of amazing fans and listeners. Me and Jason are always in there. We try and watch shows with you guys. We’ve been doing cool, lots of us ones. We share my terrible Letterbox’d and rag on me and we generally just have like a lovely time. It’s moderated by the wonderful Heidi who we always shout out because it’s just a really cool, inclusive, fun, nerdy space. So can’t recommended it enough.

 

Jason Concepcion Five star ratings. Five star. Reviews. We need them. We gotta have them. We love them. Here’s one from Mucho Uno. Great. Thank you. Mucho Uno.

 

Rosie Knight I love it.

 

Jason Concepcion We love it, baby. X-ray vision is a Crooked Media production. The show is produced by Chris Lord and Saul Rubin. The show is executive produced by myself and Sandy Girard. Our editing and sound design is by Vasilis Fotopoulos. Delon Villanueva and Matt DeGroot provide video production support. Alex Reliford handles social media. Thank you Brian Vasquez for our theme music. See you next time.