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Seen Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness? Have questions? Send them to xray@crooked.com, Crooked’s Uncultured twitter & instagram, or to any of our hosts and we’ll answer in next week’s episode!

 

On this episode of X-Ray Vision, Jason Concepcion and Rosie Knight put on their sling-rings! First in Previously On (3:52), Jason and Rosie discuss Ms. Marvel getting a theatrical release in Pakistan, the new Obi-Wan Kenobi trailer, and recap and analyze the finale of Moon Knight. In the Airlock, Jason and Rosie start with a SPOILER FREE conversation (46:05) with their initial thoughts on Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness before beginning the recap with FULL SPOILERS (48:22) and diving deep (deeeep) into the the film’s very Sam Raimi-energy, the theories we got right (and wrong), and the ways Doctor Strange will reverberate throughout the MCU. Finally, in Nerd Out (2:02:32) a listener pitches us on the author Heather Schaefer, whose work has been published as Craig Schaefer before she came out as Trans on this year’s Trans Day of Visibility.

 

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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?

 

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TRANSCRIPT

 

 

Jason Concepcion: [AD].

 

Jason Concepcion: Warning. This podcast contains huge spoilers. Literally a recap of the entire plot for the movie Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, as well as the finale for Moon Knight. So. Here’s what you should do if you have seen Moon Knight, but not Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, go ahead and listen up to the point where we start talking about Doctor Strange, the multiverse of madness, which we will clearly announce to you when the spoilers start. If you seen both of those, go ahead. Listen, the whole thing. If you see none of those, go watch one of them and then come back and listen to this. You have been warned. Hello, my name is Jason Concepcion and welcome to X-ray Vision, the Crooked podcast where we’re diving deep into your favorite shows, movies, comics and pop culture. Oh, it’s a packed episode, an action packed episode. We almost need different alternate versions of ourselves to create this episode that’s how much content is going to be packed into it. On the Previously On segment, we will be discussing various news, including the new Obi-Wan Kenobi trailer, which hit me right in my heart and looks so good and is very exciting. Plus recap of the Moon Knight finale. The exciting and I thought really action packed and fun Moon Knight finale in the airlock we will be diving deep into Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, the movie which we saw earlier this week. We will have a spoiler free segment of the conversation and then we will have the spoiler version of the conversation. So, you know, we got to keep everything separate and we’re going to do that for you in a way that you can understand. Check the show notes to see where that is. If you haven’t seen the movie yet. In our Nerd Out segment, listener Michael will talk to us about the works of Heather Schaefer, who wrote under the name Craig Schaefer before recently coming out as trans. And if you want to jump around, check out the timestamps once again in the show notes. Joining me now. So number one, the greatest, the best, the best ever do it. The writer of a soon to be released Godzilla comic and a walking archive of comics history knowledge. It’s Rosie Knight, Rosie. How are you?

 

Rosie Knight: I’m good. I’m good. It’s… What a what a week. What a week.

 

Jason Concepcion: Wow. What a week.

 

Rosie Knight: To be together. Talking about this truly crazy.

 

Jason Concepcion: A truly a nuts week. Let’s get all to it. Let’s go to the Previously On recap. First up, Ms. Marvel upcoming show on Disney Plus. It will highlight the Muslim-American character who captured the hearts of Marvel Comics fans since her debut several years back. The show version will get a full theatrical release in Pakistan, director Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy shared on Instagram this news, as well as the release structure. It will be two episodes released together every two weeks. This is great for fans in Pakistan and in the main because Disney Plus is not available in Pakistan. So this will allow Pakistani audiences to see the first Pakistani-American Marvel superhero, and I’m delighted for them. Any thoughts, Rosie?

 

Rosie Knight: Yeah, I think it’s really cool. I love the idea of giving Kamala even a bigger space, a bigger stage, a bigger screen, figuratively and literally. And I think this hints at something that I know we’re going to talk about soon, which is kind of like where the Marvel Disney Plus stuff stands. But I think the fact that this is going into theaters, it gives you a little hint. Of how important Kamala Khan and other Disney Plus characters are going to be.

 

Jason Concepcion: It’s going to be increasingly important. I think you’re right about that. Next up, it is we’re recording this on May 4th. May the fourth be with you. It is Star Wars Day, International Star Wars Day. And of course, Lucas and Disney released the latest Obi-Wan Kenobi trailer, which looks really great. No bullshit. It looks great. I thought it looked great.

 

Rosie Knight: They were like…

 

Jason Concepcion: I got chills.

 

Rosie Knight: You like Star Wars? Here’s a Star Wars. This is like you worried we were making things that were different. This is Star Wars. This is going to make you feel like a little kid.

 

Jason Concepcion: And as a fan of rebels, right? This is right in that. This is right in that. That era of galactic history when, you know, all our heroes were on the run, the empire is triumphant. And this, in actuality will give us a lot of kind of unknown. We’ll tell the heretofore unknown story of Luke’s early days in hiding on tattooing and what Obi-Wan did to watch over him. Super excited. The premiere is Friday, May 27th. We get two premieres. This looks really great.

 

Rosie Knight: I was just going to say, I think something that we’re really excited about that this trailer confirms is like if you like rebels, if you like the Star Wars comic, if you want to see that stuff on the screen in live action in a way that feels more central to canon, that is what they’re giving us with this trailer. And I think that’s very exciting.

 

Jason Concepcion: And then, of course, shouts to Kumail Nanjiani, who got some face time in this trailer and is that must be super, super exciting. And now, folks, let’s go to the Moon Knight Episode Six recap the finale titled Gods and Monsters that I thought. I don’t know about you, Rosie. I thought it was the best episode of the series.

 

Rosie Knight: I really liked how much they committed to the kind of cosmic, adventurous Indiana Jones kind of. That element works a lot better to me than the last episode, which was like trying to go for the more dramatic. This was full superhero stuff and it. Yeah, we’ll get into it. But there was a character arc that I was very excited about that we get. Yeah. So I’m feeling good. I enjoyed it. The ending. I have a lot of questions about that because I think we’re going to do with you.

 

Jason Concepcion: So let’s go to that. So we we open on Ammitt’s tomb. Arthur Harrow has Marc’s/ Steven’s body pulled out of a pool of water, and they rifle through his pockets and they find Ammitt’s Ushabti, which, of course, Harrow really needed it. Layla watches from nearby as Harrow’s followers kneel before him. And then Harrow says rhetorically, Who wants to heal the world? He’s not looking for a debate. This is not like a conversation that Arthur Harrow is looking to have at this particular time. He’s asking the question to ask it and then the top of his cane, turns into a crocodile head, the true form of Ammit. They leave. Layla steals over to Marc’s body, and he’s dead, folks. 100%. He’s gone. Layla weeps, takes the scarab. Great. Foreshadowing here. Takes the scarab, which Harrow threw down onto Marc’s dead body and lets Marc slip back into the water. As Harrow and his followers then hit the open road. Layla follows. Unbeknownst to them, she’s in disguise. Harrow’s followers come up to like an Egyptian army security checkpoint. Maybe the eternal a police. I’m not. I’m not up to date on the internal security structure of Egypt, but it’s some sort of Egyptian armed forces that they meet. And Harrow is like, Guess what, guys? I’m going to measure your souls right now. And then he does his little thing with the cane. Everybody there, their souls get get weighed. Those found wanting. Guess what? They die. They’re gone. Little flashes of purple light. Bye-bye. And then, like one guy, it turns out he’s fine. His soul has been weighed. His heart is full. He’s okay. He can now go on and continue living. And he becomes Arthur Harrow’s newest follower. Layla, of course, is following, and her whole plan is like, whatever it takes, I’m going to kill this guy. And obviously that would cost her life. Harrow is surrounded by his henchmen, his hench people, and as she’s about to pounce on Harrow, a corpse comes to life and starts speaking her with the voice of Taweret. And Taweret is like, don’t, don’t do this, don’t do this. You’re you need help. You can’t do this alone. Here’s what you need to do. You need to find Khonshu’s Ushabti. You need to break it so that Khonshu is freed from the figurine. Then when Marc comes back to life into his own body, which is riddled with bullets, Khonshu can put the Moon Knight suit on him and it will kill him. And then, you know, you can be my avatar if you want.

 

Rosie Knight: And then if you feel like you feel like it. No big deal. No big deal. No pressure. No pressure.

 

Jason Concepcion: Yeah, I know. I know. From what you’ve seen, it seems like maybe it’s not a great deal to be the avatar of an Egyptian diety. Just think about it, you know, again, just raising it if you want to think about it and and so on. Harrow and crew enter Ammit’s tomb inside the Great Pyramid. Layla follows. Inside the gods’ avatars. The various avatars of the various Egyptian gods are just terrified. They don’t know what to do. They try to fight it briefly, but Harrow just wipes the floor with them. But that fight gives Layla the opening to snatch Khonshu’s ushabti, which she does. Meanwhile, Harrow frees Ammit, who we now see is like a 30 foot tall crocodile. Although it looks really cool. Ammit looked super light like.

 

Rosie Knight: They saved the budget for Ammit. That’s my feeling. Like I saw them and I was like, you armor.

 

Jason Concepcion: This looks good. I was going to say we, like, backed into a Kaiju fight here. We got like in secret a secret Kaiju fight. So Ammit’s 30 foot tall crocodile and also just like a very toxic person. Yeah. Ammit is, is very negative towards Arthur Harrow who, to be fair to him, is a mass murderer but did it all for Ammit. And Ammit’s like, you know what? Soul still unbalanced Arthur. Arthur’s like, first of all, incredible acting by Ethan Hawke, who is like… Just magnetic, like all the emotion was in his eyes. His eyes were, like, wet as he’s dealing with Ammit’s seeming rejection, just like incredible performance from him. So Ammit is like, Listen. Yeah. Your soul still found wanting and Harrow’s like great. You know, I tried my best. I’m very upset about this. But if it’s my time to die, like, whatever you want to do, you do it. You’re. You’re Ammit. You do it. Ammit says no, not for what you’ve done, which is i.e., kill, like, maybe up to hundreds of people. Maybe. Hello. Thousands? Not sure about the actual number, but it’s for what you have yet to do. Therefore you are Arthur Harrow will remain alive because you’re going to be in my service, going to be my avatar. Which again. I understand it’s kind of a bad deal, but just think about it, but don’t think about it too long because you got to make a decision right now. And Ammit further on, further says, listen, I know that you’re not a perfectly balanced avatar, but I had one of those balanced avatars. And what happened? I ended up trapped in the fucking ushabti for 2000 years. Bad, bad time, which was bad time. So, you know, I’m outside the box. Maybe somebody a little bit unbalanced is the way to go here. What do you say in here?  And Harrow was like Yes, of course. Let’s do it. Layla, meanwhile, elsewhere in the temple stomps on Khonshu’s ushabti.  Now Khonshu is freed and he immediately can feel like Marc is… Marc is dead. And then these gods are just very, very grimy. It must be said. He then tries to manipulate Layla into becoming his new avatar so they can defeat Ammit together. And Layla is like, you know, no.

 

Rosie Knight: She’s not. He’s not one. She’s like…I think not.

 

Jason Concepcion: Yeah its like no. Like, no, it seemed like a bad deal for Marc. And also he like talks shit about it. Also, Steven said it was a really bad time. I don’t think I’m going to do it. And then Khonshu’s  like, Fine, I will go do it alone. I will fight Ammit god to god. Over in the field of reeds, in the land of the dead, people who make it all the way to heaven, Egyptian Version Tawweret tells Marc that, Hey, you’re cleansed. That’s why you’re here in the field of the reeds, your heart is full. Everything’s great. Congrats, Marc then asks. Okay, well, what about Steven? Where is he and Taweret’s like he’s gone, you know. You got purged. He’s over. He fell off the boat. He’s trapped in the sands of Duat. And that’s kind of it for Steven. But you’re great. You’re doing good. How about that? And Marc’s like,  Steven, actually is the person who saved me from some of the most traumatic moments in my life. And so I have to return the favor. I have to go back and get up. So. And Taweret’s like, well, if you leave, you can’t come back. And Marc’s like I’m out. They go out there, Marc goes out there to the sands of the Duat and reunites with Steven. The personalities merge into one and Marc and Steven return to the body. And back in the real world, Khonshu feels immediately that Marc’s body has come back to life and which is just in time because it looks a lot like Ammit was about to murk Big K, Khonshu man, was about to like wipe the wipe them out with Khonshu. Khonshu makes Marc the same old deal hey life or death that’s. Is that a tough one? Is that a tough decision to make, life or death? Will you protect the travelers? In the night as my avatar. And it’s a yes. And then the wraps Marc in the armor. The bullets pop out of his chest and the Moon Knight is back. Marc and Steven now a balance now like a like a folk music duo like Simon and Garfunkel that you like perfectly blended when the lines like, you know, one, one sings one line and the other comes and sings the other line. And they’re just like this package deal. And Steven’s words, now they go out to meet Khonshu on the desert sands, the sun setting majestically in the background. Steven pops out and is like, Hold on. So I got some questions about this arrangement we have and Khonshu’s like what we have to fight Ammit …Like what if the Ammit thing? And Steven very wisely notes that, hey, you need us to fight Ammit meaning we have leverage now, meaning I would like to strike our deal, whatever that may be right now. And so Khonshu’s, like, fine, okay, fuck it. Like, I’ll let you guys go. You guys will be released once Ammit is vanquished. And it’s a deal. Back in the tomb, Layla is trying to save one of the wounded avatars of one of the deities. I forget which. And the the Avatar tells Layla that to stop Ammit you’re going to have to trap them in a human form. And then he says, unfortunately, there’s not a lot of avatars left to do that. Then he goes, Oh, and then he dies. And then Layla is at that point, she doesn’t know what to do and she realizes, Oh, well, you know, the Taweret at her offer, it’s looking a little better right now. And so I’ll do it. And so she accepts. Taweret is super excited. Is like, hey, great. I’ve been thinking about some costumes for you, some, you know, for the Scarlet Scarab and your dad is going to be so pleased. And she’s like, Well, yeah, your dad, I took him to the field of reeds. Now this suggests, as we have talked about before, Rosie, that. Layla’s father was once the Scarlet Scarab.

 

Rosie Knight: Yeah.

 

Jason Concepcion: I.e. an avatar of Taweret who then died in the gods service and was taken to the field of reeds. I think that that’s heavily suggested here.

 

Rosie Knight: I think so too, because the whole notion throughout the series, Arthur Harrow and I think Marc have mentioned that like her dad believed in the idea that gods walked on the earth in the form of Avatar. So it would make sense that even if it was only momentarily or to extend his life or to help Taweret in some way, she seems to know him. And in the comics, Scarlet Scarab is a father-son mantle that’s passed down. So it would make sense that here it’s the dad. And then to Layla and this is just so cool because this seemed like a really deep cut, like, is it isn’t it going to happen? So for them to go like full on and then like out Wonder Woman 84, Wonder Woman, 1984. I thought that was very impressive.

 

Jason Concepcion: It was super, super cool. And the costume design is is really rad, as we will talk about soon. Atop the Great Pyramid of Giza, Harrow casts its judgment spell. And, of course, nearby, everywhere in the surrounding area, including the legendary, iconic and internationally notable city of Cairo, people are just starting to fucking die. Drop dead as they’re dramatic. Souls are found wanting and they, you know, and their souls are ripped from their bodies. And these flashes of light and then Moon Knight and Khonshu arrive to put a stop to this. And the fight is on. It’s Moon Knight versus Harrow. And then our Kaiju action baby, which is Khonshu versus Ammit, which is happening in the background. It’s so cool and it initially goes pretty poorly for our heroes, it must be said, until Scarlet Scarab flies into action on her seemingly indestructible golden underarm wings. Again, super cool costume design. I thought, This is really rad. And Marc and Steven are like, Oh shit, this is where you get this. This is really awesome. And then we get to a really cool fight with Arthur Harrow’s and his henchmen and of course, Ammit and Khonshu battling out in the background and the fight synergy is really cool between Moon Knight, Mr. Knight and the Scarlet Scarab all taking on Harrow and the henchies is we get to see Steven as Mr. Knight like fight nightwing style with the two sticks for the first time. I thought that was really great. And it’s, it’s a really fun fight. But unfortunately it ends up with Marc/ Steven on the receiving end of almost death Harrow has Steven slash Marc. He’s about to kill them and then bang we get another blackout and when Marc comes to Harrow’s unconscious in his arms, all the henchies are seemingly dead. Steven emerges. He’s like, I don’t know what happened. We’ve seen this before, of course. And Layla is over there like, wait, wait. What just happened? Just then they see in the distance that Ammit has beaten, Khonshu and is dragging Khonshu off somewhere. So they have to cast this trapping spell. Leyla and Marc will do that, they cast a spell and it works. Khonshu tells Marc okay, you have Ammit trapped in Harrow’s body. Kill him and the threat forever. You have to do that. Layla is like, No, it’s how many more people have to kill. Stop killing people. Like, maybe you should stop doing that. And Khonshu’s like, okay, but like, you know, Ammit, you heard Ammit like literally as she was being trapped in, in Harrow’s body, like she would never stop trying to do this stuff. So she’s going to come back again and try to commit mass murder. And so the Marc makes the very obvious, but I think very important realization of wait, hold on a sec you want to if you want Ammit dead, so why don’t you just do it, Khonshu? Why don’t you do it? AndKhonshu’s like ugh. Time. I’m not going to do it. You’re free. Go ahead. You’re gone. And the suit is stripped away and Khonshu disappears. Steven wakes up in the mental hospital in Harrow’s office once again. Harrow says Khonshu wasn’t real, limps away, trailing blood. And he’s confused by this. He doesn’t understand what this means. Marc and Steven then say, you know what? I don’t want to stay here at this. We don’t want to stay here at this mental hospital anymore. We’re going to go back and save the real world. Bang! Marc wakes up in Steven’s bed as in London, as if nothing at all had happened. His his leg chained to the pillar, just like in the first episode. And we would assume now that Marc/Steven are part of our Marvel universe as as something. They don’t quite…Well, let’s talk about the stinger before we talk about what that would mean. We get the stinger. Arthur Harrow wakes up in a mental hospital. Is it the same exact mental hospitals? A different one? Whatever the case, he wakes up in a mental hospital is drug to the gills. More great acting by Ethan Hawke. A Spanish speaking man wearing black gloves comes inside and wheels Arthur out to a waiting limo. And who’s inside the limo? But Khonshu. Harrow says haha Khonshu guess what? We’re done. You can’t hurt me anymore. Like Ammit has been vanquished. We’re done with this. And of course, if this is the real world and we’ll unpack this. Ammit is inside Harrow right now. And. And we know that, Khonshu when last he was around Harrow,  wanted to put an end to the threat of Ammit. Khonshu’s  like listen, I have a secret thing to tell you. Yes, I made a deal with Marc and Steven to release them as my avatars. Right. And I honored that. But. But. But, but. But. But. As anybody who’s been watching this series closely knows, there is a third identity lurking somewhere in those blackout moments. And guess who it is? It’s the personality that didn’t make a deal with it’s Jake Lockley, my new avatar by Spanish speaking limo driver, who is also like a straight up murdering dude who does not have a limit or have has no limits on the violence he’s willing to meet out in in my service. And he knocks on a little divider where the driver is. It wheels down. There is Jake Lockley. Jake Lockley then shoots Arthur Harrow, killing him and they drive off in a white limousine with a Spector license plate into I guess, the wider Marvel Universe. You have a lot of questions, Rosie. I have a lot of questions. Rosie. Rosie, what are your questions?

 

Rosie Knight: Okay. So if we’re talking about this stinger. So I think it’s really interesting, obviously a very classical narrative, classical narrative twist to see Arthur end up where he had seemingly been trapping Marc/Steven’s psyche. But what I find really interesting is the implication of him being the Doctor and not know, knowing where he is and then ending up in there and being able to commune with Steven and Marc and then ending up in the mental institute as a patient. Did Harrow also have the idea, like is Khonshu specifically targeting people? Also I don’t know if they I don’t think they ever said the idea in the show still.

 

Jason Concepcion: So I don’t think they did say it yet.

 

Rosie Knight: And I understand why, because this yes, this final episode especially takes like a lot of leeway with the notion of how something like that would work. But the big questions here obviously are, Jake Lockley, why is he a murderer? Justice for Taxi Driver, working like working class, blue collar comic book, Jake Lockley. He’s a nice guy in the comics. He just that just a chill dude.

 

Jason Concepcion: He is the nice guy in the cab.

 

Rosie Knight: A cab making some friends. As we’ve talked about before, he’s the persona who can be in a diner and hear what’s going on, who can overhear what’s going on in the taxicab. And here he’s like a stone cold killer. I mean, a Disney show that ends with just shooting someone like in the face. That’s a pretty, pretty hard time for Disney. But the big question I have is he is driving in a white limousine and on the license plate it says Spector. So the implication there is that this isn’t a Spector core. But Marc Spector, as we know him, is just like a bum assassin who, like, couldn’t even keep his wife. So where’s the where are these billion dollar kindness situations coming from? It is a very intriguing stinger. And I think for people like us who follow the comics and who had been like, oh, is it Jake? Is it Jake? Yeah, I think it’s like, wow, you got so many questions. And I just I wonder if people who, like, don’t really read the comics. We just like, what does it mean? What is the white? What does the Spector mean? I mean.

 

Jason Concepcion: In a.

 

Rosie Knight: Very doing.

 

Jason Concepcion: Weirdly stinger and the very, very end aside, I thought that this I thought Moon Knight the series was like a lot easier to figure out what was going on than a lot of recent Moon Knight comics where I’m 100% of the time, I’m like, Wait, is this real? Is I don’t understand what’s happening. Here is my theory on what I think’s happened. Okay. So Steven, Marc are stripped of Khonshu’s blessing, right. And they go back to that kind of junction place between life and death where you can kind of decide to go to the field of reeds or wherever. But the whatever it was, you know, Ammit, I guess that was holding Steven and Marc there has been damaged because of, you know, the victory they had in the real world and they’re able to realize what the place is. And they made a choice together to go back to the real world. Okay. I think that’s. Fairly straightforward.

 

Rosie Knight: Yeah that’s a great read.

 

Jason Concepcion: That… The Arthur Harrow thing. Here’s what I think happened. And I think it’s just like. This is what I think happened. So they don’t kill him. They leave him in the pyramid, I guess. Right. And then Khonshu, of course, kill them either. Which Khonshu is fucking coward and can’t do anything for himself, I think. I guess hand-to-hand combat with Ammit. But to be fair to Khonshu, but like everything else, Khonshu won’t do. And so the police come. They find Arthur Harrow’s body. He’s babbling about Egyptian gods and this and that. And he seems like an ill person. So they take him to a mental hospital. Where Khonshu in conjunction with Jake Lockley, his avatar, finds him and then kills him without Marc and Steven  knowing. I think it’s just like literally that straightforward.

 

Rosie Knight: Yeah, I think something else that you just made me realize when you touched on it is. In the so in the version of the the kind of over-void like limbo space, Taweret said to them, you know, you’re just imagining it this way because that’s all your human, feeble human minds can deal with. So it would make sense that Arthur too, when he was suddenly in a mental institution, a lot of drugs would also visualize that space that way. So they did. That was a good little bit of narrative stitching together that I think they wove in there. So yeah, I’m very sorry I won’t be seeing Ethan Hawke, but also understand that he’s a he’s a very famous man with a lot of limited series. Okay, so something I think is really cool. I think we could see happen when Ethan Hawke was cast. Yeah. And he had the cane and a lot of people were thinking like, oh, could that be some kind of idea of like an evil Moon Knight, of like a character who is going to play up against him. But I wonder, with the emergence of Jake Lockley, if we’ll see something kind of like in the comics where there was an evil Moon Knight called Shadow Night, who was Randall Spector, who in the MCU we know died. But I think there’s something there about Jake kind of taking on an evil Moon Knight persona, something that could be really cool. This is quite out of there. But I believe they went they went quite out with this. What if he was the antagonist and Steven and Marc were trying to hunt him down? So I think that would be really cool.

 

Jason Concepcion: I think that would be really cool, too. And which raises the question. Okay, so. Steven, Marc, Jake, right… Jake is will continue to be Khonshu’s avatar so Moon Knight is still going in the form of under the under the control of the personality of Jake Lockley. Steven and Marc, we will assume, have no idea that this is going on. So a season two hasn’t been confirmed, but I think that there have been enough hints that we think that it might happen, including some social media posts where the wording was changed from series finale to season finale, that what we’ll probably get is just what you said, Moon Knight as like the bad Moon Knight running around, super brutal, doing Khonshu’s bidding in a way that is not heroic. And Marc and Steven. Fighting to emerge from whatever barrier Khonshu has has placed down. Because the other thing is like I thought that what was cool to me about the Moon Knight series is essential, essentially like a long origin story for a character and a interestingly structured origin story too. It was like a it was like basically like Wolverine’s origin, you know, like you introduce a mysterious character who doesn’t know who he is, has a bunch of fractured memories that he can’t quite fit together, has been in action for a long time, but doesn’t remember any of it, and then manages to get all their memories together at the very end. But aha, there’s important pieces still missing and I think that’s what we saw here. And so I think that you’re you’re on to something and that we will see if there is a season two. We’ll get Marc and Steven trying to break free of the influence of Jake Lockley slash, Khonshu.

 

Rosie Knight: Yeah and I also wonder if something that well, something I thought was really interesting that you kind of touch on there that I thought was really cool was in the finale, we basically got the proper Moon Knight origin because in this version, when we saw him originally in Egypt, he was going to kill himself. He was wounded by also feel like it was meant to be like guilt over what happened to Layla’s dad and stuff. So in this version, we really see the moment where him and Steven make this conscious decision to be with Khonshu to be saved. And then I thought that was really cool that they kind of built in an origin to the finale. Also in the comics, there’s a lot of precedent for Marc disconnecting himself from Khonshu and then being able to regain powers through the priest of Khonshu through different routines. So I think there’s something there. Also we had suspected-slash-wondered if at some point Jake would be revealed to be a part of what happened to Layla’s dad. And I think if there’s a second series now, we have Layla as the Scarlet Scarab. That could also add an interesting conflict if it was Jake who was involved in that side of things rather than Marc and Steven.

 

Jason Concepcion: Another thing that I don’t know if you caught, but there was a moment where I think that Jake voice came out. It was there in the fight with Harrow. And Harrow is is like, you know, villainous, li monologuing. And then you get this, you get the Steven voice for sure, which is super recognizable, and then you get like kind of a more. It may just be, Marc, in a way that was like not consistent with past Marcs, but it felt like they did that. Did the Lockley voice trap there?

 

Rosie Knight: I think so. I think they’ve been sneaking. I just I think they’ve been sneaking it in more. And I think on a rewatch you will really be able to tell because that was the first time we really caught it was in the office. But I reckon if you go back, it’s probably been there a couple of other times where Marc seems, I think you’re right, agitated or aggressive, I think we could have been seeing Jake kind of sneak out.

 

Jason Concepcion: Now regarding the the white limousine with the Spector, we should talk about that because I think you’re right. Where is this money coming from? Where is the cash for the limo coming from? Okay. Jake Lockley is the more we’re just meeting Jake Lockley in this episode, although there were hints about him all throughout the series and clearly Jake Lockley is seemingly is based on the comics version of Jake Lockley, which is the more blue collar, the lower class guy who has connections to the streets and can hear things and understand things in a different kind of context because of where he is and the social class structure. But there’s also in the comics, the grant persona was turned into like this super billionaire, sometimes businessman, oftentimes like media mogul slash movie producer and flashy white limo like that. I wonder if there isn’t another either another personality or something that Steven or Marc maybe don’t remember, which is them being this business media mogul hotshot, a Hollywood celebrity producer, something.

 

Rosie Knight: So if it was if it was me, this is this is my theory. And I think what happens if season two happens? I think think about it. Two things in media, movies, comics, whatever we like. There are two things that whenever they exist, they are very rich. Vampires and assassins. So if, if hypothetically, Jake Lockley is this third persona who’s been going around just casually happy to kill everyone, very efficient at it from what we’ve seen. He had a silencer on that gun. You know, he killed all those people in Egypt and maybe Marc and Steven are the the personas who have been trying to live a normal life, protect things from the family and all of that. But perhaps Jake has been there as a persona who has been building up this cash flow, these connections to the criminal world, like he may have actually created Spector core in Marc’s name. Because they needed something for that. Like, I think there’s something there where it’s like, Jake might be the puppet master. Like Khonshu thinks he’s playing Jake, but Jake may have been doing all these other things to protect them because we thought Spector core up was going to come into it. And then they kind of teased that at the end. So I think it could be cool to see if that was maybe something Jake has been doing and he’s kind of using these different because Steven in the comics is is the producer, like you said, the media mogul, maybe that’s something Jake’s taken on. Like I would be really interesting to see where they go with that.

 

Jason Concepcion: I would, too. And I final thing, do you think we see Layla as the Scarlet Scarab in the wider MCU? I think that would be really cool.

 

Rosie Knight: Yes, I think my feeling is that the end game. Of who was meant to come out of this show is May as Layla and the Scarlet Scarab, right?

 

Jason Concepcion: I think that’s right.

 

Rosie Knight: Egyptian hero in the MCU. Brilliant. Badass. Essentially immortal. Also incredibly smart. Also kind of got an anti-heroine, roguish tendency because she’s got these, you know, for a long time, all anybody wanted was an Indiana Jones movie where Oscar Isaac played Indiana Jones and returned things that people had stolen through, like colonization and and, you know, the general theft of the British Empire. So Layla could definitely, she has that kind of she said, I’m just putting things back where they came from, you know. I think there’s a lot to that character. People like the costume design is really cool. It looks like they spend a lot of time on that. The Scarlet Scarab, the characters have been in all of, you know, three issues. So I think it gives them a open space to yeah. To really introduce character. And today they had an interview with her on Marvel dot com introducing her as Scarlet Scarab. So to me I think that’s like I think we could see Oscar as Moon Knight, obviously, and I hope they keep bringing back his brother because that’s who he was playing against as his double. And I think that really added a lot of the emotional heft, like you knew when he’s playing against Marc or Steven that someone he loves. That’s how we can bring that. And I wonder if maybe they do something where like Oscar is very busy. So I think you could do a lot of Moon Knight with predominantly CG or costuming and have ADR kind of like Mandalorian.

 

Jason Concepcion: Yeah. Same thing with, you know, the way that Robert Downey Junior did like a lot, especially a lot of the MCU material, which is just like him in a closet with a really good microphone.

 

Rosie Knight: And yeah guess what?

 

Jason Concepcion: And him going like, *Grunting sounds*.

 

Rosie Knight: People, He broke people’s heart and then he became like the most dramatic character.

 

Jason Concepcion: In the satellite TV show like that in a closet. *Banter*

 

Rosie Knight: He’s like, in his house. His wife’s like. *Laughing* Knight

 

Jason Concepcion: What was that?

 

Rosie Knight: I think if that is the case, then you need the the human face, the character who’s going to. Be there and be feeling and be a part of these stories. And, you know, I think, like, think about this just hypothetically. Moon Knight and the Scarlet Scarab. That just sounds like a movie you’d want to see or a TV show you’d want to watch, right? I think I think that is the so. Okay. I have one question that’s been on my mind. Yes. I watched this for you. As somebody who is very invested as we all are. But I know this is something you talk about a lot and you have really good thoughts about it in how things connect. How did you feel about that with Moon Knight? Because it seemed like there were lots of threads where it could connect to other things and and they and they ended up going streamlined and kind of almost standalone, not fully standalone, but almost. How did you feel by the end of the episode?

 

Jason Concepcion: I like it. There were obviously a lot of questions and I think whenever you know, it’s the same thing, it’s same feeling you get reading kind of times, which is like, Where are The Avengers? Why doesn’t Thor just call The Avengers? Why doesn’t Daredevil just call Spider-Man? Why doesn’t like what? Any number of things happened in that sense. It felt very comic book in that it was standalone, it was a own thing. I liked it and I liked and I think the thing that I appreciated about it in the context of this conversation in the wider MCU is that it gave us a lot of new information. We’ve, you know, in terms of like of MCU gods of Marvel gods. We’ve had Asgardian lore, we’ve seen that, and we know we’re going to get more of it with Thor, Love and Thunder. But this kind of laid the groundwork for, hey, any of the kind of ancient gods from different cultures. All of that could come in, which I think is. Really cool like I am. It was a very on the nose and sincere moment. But like the moment when Layla saves the car load of civilians in Cairo and the one woman says, Wait, are you? And the first Egyptian superhero or, you know, Egyptian superhero? And she’s like, Yep, yeah, that got me. And I think like the the the the possibilities that that opens.

 

Rosie Knight: Mm hmm.

 

Jason Concepcion: Not just for, like, representation in casting, but for, like, storytelling. Yeah. Cool characters. For widening the kind of, like, the the the the lure of the MCU, I think is really cool. That part of it I thought was really cool. And also, you know, there’s not an Avengers team right now. So I guess like when, when shit’s going down in Cairo and it seems like people are just like their souls are being vaporized. Yeah, there would be like a wait. Who wears Thor? He’s not on the planet. Fuck. Okay, Captain America. He’s like 98. Shit. Nick Fury. He’s gone, dammit. Nobody remembers Spider-Man, so you can’t call him, you know? So, like, it makes sense. It actually does make sense.

 

Rosie Knight: No, I think you’re totally right. I really I think that the biggest thing here is Layla, Scarlet Scarab, and also this notion of gods, whether or not we see Taweret or we see any other god isn’t the point. The point is these gods exist as living deities with powers who can influence our world. And we’re about to go into Thor, Love and Thunder. And I love what you said about Layla, because something about comics that hasn’t, that the MCU is really just getting into in phase four, comics have always had fans all over the world. And one of our favorite comics, one of the things we talked about the first time we ever met… Giant Size X-Men, that is a comic…

 

Jason Concepcion: Greatest of all time.

 

Rosie Knight: Where the team came in and they said,” We are going to make an international team.” I think that team have some flaws, sure. But but that was the notion and that reinvigorated the X-Men, introduced some of our absolute favorite characters and it changed the way that we saw comics and we saw that team. And I really like your idea that these shows and this specifically this show can be the launchpad for those kind of ideas of of of introducing different kinds of heroes from different kinds of places and widening the scope of what an MCU hero could be. I think that’s really lovely.

 

Jason Concepcion: Yeah, I am excited to see what happens next with Moon Knight, whether we get a season two, whether we don’t who who, and what comes out of the series and reaches the wider MCU. And with that, guess what? When we come back, we’ll be talking. Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.

 

Jason Concepcion: <AD>

 

Jason Concepcion: Okay, folks, we’re stepping out of this lingering portal and onto the beautiful steps of the mystical city of Kamar-Taj to discuss Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness now in theaters, we’re going to start with a spoiler free conversation, just our kind of gut level reactions to the movie. And we will start with that. Now, Rosie, what do you think of the movie in a non spoiler fashion for the people who may have not seen it yet?

 

Rosie Knight: If you haven’t seen it, I will not spoil it. I will say you should go and see it. I really had so much fun with this movie. I think it’s one of the fun, most fun MCU movies. I think it’s a great Sam Raimi movie. I think it made me feel like I was flipping through a comic book issue, like I’d say picked up a random issue of comics. And I was flipping through and I was like, whoa, I’m here, I’m there. The paneling, the kind of the splash page like. And it had this heavy metal goth rock zero’s energy. I feel like Sam Raimi bought his best Spider-Man movies, kind of esthetic to it. I Yeah, I had a ton of fun and I’m really excited to see how it lands for people because for me, I was just like I was in, I was all in. How about you?

 

Jason Concepcion: Same. Do you do you like do you like Sam Raimi’s horror oof? Including Evil Dead One and Two and Armies of Darkness and darkman do you do you enjoy the original Spider-Man trilogy, most notably Spider-Man One and Two, you know, great classics by the great Sam Raimi. Do you enjoy Sam cam? Do you enjoy comic action? Do you enjoy Marvel Magic? Who, by the way, let me just say Marvel-MCU-Magic fans, a different breed of MCU fan. And I love them. Yes. Do you like? Do you like really wild set pieces that you like legitimately have not been seen before in the context of a Marvel comics movie. You’ll like this. I really enjoyed I had a great time. Super, super fun movie. And with that..Go see… Just go see it before you listen to the rest, because we’re going to start the rest right now. Spoilers, spoilers, spoilers. About to start. Are you ready, Rosie?

 

Rosie Knight: Spoilers. Yes.

 

Jason Concepcion: Here we go. This is the recap of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, directed by Sam Raimi, written by Michael Waldron, starring, you know, Benedict Cumberbatch, Elizabeth Olsen, Xochitl Gomez, Benedict Wong, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Rachel McAdams and the rest. And a whole lot of cameos which we’ll get into. Here it goes, we open in an alternate universe. Defender variant Doctor Strange… Would you say that that’s fair? Defender variant?

 

Rosie Knight: I would say that’s fair. I also think we can have a very interesting conversation about the fact they never use the word variant in this film. So is Defender Strange? Who is, as far as we know, a Doctor Strange variant in a world where he assumingly led the defenders?

 

Jason Concepcion: That’s correct. One of the kind of like underrated, underrated superhero teams. Like if you were going to say obviously Avengers and X-Men, that’s like your your major leagues, that’s your big league team. And then you have like West Coast Avengers. It’s kind of like an A minus, like a B-level team. Your defenders are like, I’m not saying they’re like like when the Avengers went local and you had the Great Lake Avengers, obviously, like The Defenders are above the Great Lake Avengers. They are. But there’s still like like a C-level but fun team that once had Hulk, Doctor, Strange, Iceman and others. Anyway, Defender Steven Strange, who can speak Spanish and America Chavez, who would you call her a mutant?

 

Rosie Knight: Would I personally call her a mutant? Absolutely. Does this movie call her a mutant? Not quite. But I believe.

 

Jason Concepcion: We’re going to call her a mutant.  America Chavez, a human mutant from an alternate dimension,  running away from a demon. Where are they? They’re in a place called The Junction, which we will explain what that is later. As as our characters learn what that is, they’re trying to reach some kind of glowing book on these like floating platforms, and the demon is chasing them. We will later learn that this book is the Book of the Vishanti, a powerful white magic book that is the the polar opposite of the Darkholds, the book that Wanda has been studying since the end of WandaVision. America has the power to open doorways through dimensions, but much like many young mutants, does not have the ability to control her power. It only emerges in moments of extreme stress, danger and motion, which is very mutant like.

 

Rosie Knight: That is how most mutant powers first emerge.

 

Jason Concepcion: Anyway, Defender Strange seeing that the game is about to be lost comes up with the last gasp strategy, which is to take America’s power so the demon can’t steal it. What if the demon steals it from you, Strange? Seems like I don’t know if this is a great strategy, but that’s what he does. In the end, the demon kills Strange and Chavez, with her life in danger, unconsciously engages her power, opens a portal to Earth 616. Strange wakes from a terrible dream here on our our regular MCU 616 Earth. He he was dreaming about a young woman and him. They were in some weird dimension. They are running from a demon. They are trying to get a glowing book. And he’s like, Oh, whatever. That was weird. Maybe just some bad taco I ate last night. He puts on his beautiful Yeager LeCoultre master, ultra thin, a gift from Christine, which has a $23,300 manufacturer retail price. Christine! Steven, how did you fumble the bag with this woman? This woman loved you.

 

Rosie Knight: She was working in a hospital.

 

Jason Concepcion: She bought you a $23,000 fucking watch. And you, you blew it, buddy. How much did Steven blew it? Well, first of all, this crystal is completely cracked. And this beautiful watch that Christine got him, and he’s putting on the watch and getting dressed in a really nice suit because he’s got to go to Christine’s wedding. Yes, he blew it to that level. He goes he goes over to the church. Christine’s getting wed to a man who apparently is an Avengers fan. Awkward moment. Strange, then apologizes for basically him fumbling the bag with their relationship. And it’s like, I hope you’re happy. She’s like, I hope you’re happy, too. And Steven’s like, Am I am I happy? I don’t know. I have weird dreams, and I broke a $23,000 watch face. There’s a commotion outside, out in the street. Something invisible is wrecking cars and busses and just generally fucking up the street. Steven. Listen, there’s no better, like, feeling probably in this moment for Steven than to flex in front of his… The the love that he lost and be like, yeah, this is what you this is what you lost, babe. Dr. Steven Strange, Avenger. And it suits up in his costume, and he floats down there, and everybody’s like, Oh, holy shit. Using some magic, he reveals the monster. And it is our friend Shuma-Gorath slash Gargantos. Who is officially Gargantos.

 

Rosie Knight: You know what? Yes, I’m to say I’m okay with it. Now, to me, he’s Gargantos, because you know what? Shuma-Gorath, that’s a smart guy. He he will be like, he’s taunting Steven and talking. This guy, he’s just like, Wow, yeah, he moves like a beast. So I’m like, mindless. It’s Gargantos. It’s Shuma-Gorath like stupider cousin. I’m okay with it.

 

Jason Concepcion: Shuma-Gorath is legitimately like an evil genius. Yeah, exactly. So Strange swings in action. He cuts off one of Gargantos’s tentacles, drawing the creatures anger. Strange then quickly gets knocked out. But good thing his his friends, the cloak of levitation and Wong, the Sorcerer Supreme himself show up and they swing into action and they’re fighting Gargantos. Eventually all of our heroes take down Gargantos and they, over pizza, Strange and Wong start asking America Chavez like what’s the deal? Where are you from? What are you doing here? What did you where? Why was that thing trying to eat you? She tells them she’s from an alternate dimension and that she’s known lots of. Dr. Steven Strange, as in fact she was recently with one who was killed by a demon that was trying to steal her power, which she can’t yet control. And as proof, she takes them to the body of Defender Steven Strange, who is 100% dead and really fucked up. Steven then, in a complete, Steven could do anything. He can make the body disappear. Put it into another dimension.

 

Rosie Knight: He could burn it.

 

Jason Concepcion: Instead, he could burn it. Instead, he takes the dead body, a corpse, a legitimately dead human being’s carcass. And he like buries it under paving stones on the rooftop of an apartment building where it’s like it’s like a, you know, a roof deck. Like, people go up there.

 

Rosie Knight: He’s like, I’ve buried worse. I’m like, Steven, what’s wrong with you?

 

Jason Concepcion: Steven, this is like someone’s home.

 

Rosie Knight: You know what? It was a great choice because in the future, he might need that corpse.

 

Jason Concepcion: That’s right. We’ll get to that in a bit. Very, very important. Steven then says, okay, Wong you take America to Kamar-Taj where she will be 100% safe, surrounded by hundreds of the most powerful sorcerers in the world. And I will go get some backup. My friend Wanda Maximoff. There are runes involved in this whole affair. They were on Gargantos’ tentacles and runes can only mean one thing. It means witches. As we saw at the end of WandaVision, Wanda is living on an impossibly idyllic farm, surrounded by groves of fruit trees that are flowering. And she’s trimming the little branches off the trees. And there’s this beautiful white sheep that look like these, like beautiful little cotton candy clouds, and they’re, like, prancing around. Everything’s so fucking perfect. Looks great. And Doctor Strange smells one of the branches like this all seems legit. This doesn’t seem like the pro, like the product of chaos magic at all. I think this is all great. I think you’re doing great, Wanda.

 

Rosie Knight: Well done.

 

Jason Concepcion: Right. Now let me make my pitch to you. Demons are chasing this young lady, trying to steal her power. It’s a threat to the multiverse. Can you help? And Wanda is like, Oh, yeah, I’d love to help. Where is America? And then Strange is like, Oh, I never mentioned her name. And Wanda realizes that aha, she is caught. And guess what? She drops her her illusion spell that has been making the landscape look great. Now we see like a nightmare vision of this, like, ruined landscape of dead trees. Everything is like a glowing red. It looks really, really, really scary. And Wanda is like, here’s what’s going on… you’re going to give me America, you’re going to hand it over to me because I need her, because I need to access a dimension in which my children, Billy and Tommy, actually exist. They exist in every single dimension except this one. And that’s bullshit. And by the way, Doctor Strange, what about what about misogyny? What about the fact that you break the rules all the fucking time, right? And everybody’s like, Oh, Doctor Strange, an Avenger. Holy shit. Well, you signed my will you sign my T-shirt? And then I, like, lose control a little bit and turn an entire region of New Jersey into a 1950s like village. And people are scared of me and hunting me now. And I don’t think that’s fair. And to be fair to her, she kind of has a point.

 

Rosie Knight: Yeah. And she she really brings it home in a way I didn’t really realize because she’s like, didn’t you break the rules when you gave Thanos the time gem, which is, you know, the one that allowed this vision to truly die even after Wanda’s sacrifice? I thought that was really clever writing. I was like, Oh, you really both badly behaved. But this is this…This is a good theme.

 

Jason Concepcion: It’s a good point. It’s a good point. And it’s one that that came up earlier in the church when when Strange’s old colleague was like, Yeah, you know, I disappeared. Wasn’t there anything else you could do? Like you had to give him the stone? Which is interesting because so much of that felt like obviously like the fight on Titan didn’t even happen on world like that happened outside of like there’s a huge part of that war against Thanos. It took place out of everybody’s view. So it’s it’s interesting. It would be interesting to find out or to learn more about, like what people just know about the fight against Thanos.

 

Rosie Knight: This really, it ties back to that really funny thing in Hawkeye, which was like one of my favorite theories that I came up with and is absolutely wrong. That was like The Avengers musical. It includes loads of stuff that nobody would ever know, like him being a part of the team. He actually was there in the post and game Infinity War like timeline, but who knows that? So I love the idea that maybe there’s like who’s doing these PR blasts telling people about how the world was saved? I love I’d love to dig more into that.

 

Jason Concepcion: I would love to dig into it, too. Here is my pitch on what I think happened. I think because this is such like an important world historical event, now you have superheroes, some of them living on Earth. Obviously, you have asgardians living on Earth people, the emergence of metahumans, of magic, of all this stuff. And I think, too, like. In a world in which you would imagine regular people would be like, That’s all. That’s great. You saved us from Thanos, brought our loved ones back, but also, like all scared of yall, you’re a little too powerful. I could see a world in which the heroes just kind of, like, testify before Congress or something like that.

 

Rosie Knight: Yeah, yeah, yeah and that would fit into a Civil War-esque Sokovia Accords kind of world.

 

Jason Concepcion: Yeah. And just we’re like, okay, here is everything that happened from our perspective. I will tell you, I will testify in a public setting about everything that happened and some stuff I would assume is classified, but that generally they would make that knowledge available to the people of the world, since it is of such a pressing importance to the entire population of the world. Okay, so back to our story. Strange goes to Kamar-Taj to say, hey, some some slightly bad news. I actually told the bad guy the entire plan and that we are protecting America. You, and that you are here in Kamar-Taj. So we got to lock this entire city down. So the all the sorcerers, you know, they fly into action, building up the defenses of Kamar-Taj. But of then of course and we meet Rintrah, the minotaur, which is great the kind of minor character from the Marvel Comics but super super super cool that we meet Rintrah.

 

Rosie Knight: Really interestingly like well we’ll get to where this movie ends up but Rintrah is really cool because they’re one of the people who’s held the Amulet of Agamotto and we kind of see the eye in the Eye of Agamotto and the general lore of it becomes a lot more text. So I thought that was really clever, cool inclusion. And he looked great, looking great, looked really cool.

 

Jason Concepcion: Like, Yeah, cool, looked super, super cool. But then Wanda arrives in this black storm cloud and the sorcerers of Kamar-Taj put up a really, really great fight. But Wanda is way, way too powerful. She kills a lot of people. Strange, then traps Wanda in the mirror dimension. But as a as a indication of just how powerful she has become, she breaks out managing to like, use reflections in the real world as portals to escape the mirror dimension in a what is an entirely Sam Raimi it sequence.

 

Rosie Knight: That’s moment where I was like, okay, he got to do it like this. This is scary. He got, he’s got really clever, scary technique. I almost haven’t really even seen it done in the comics that way. Like, it’s slightly Matrix-y, but it’s more horror-ish. It’s slightly Oculus. Like, there’s touches of it, but it’s pure Raimi. And when she breaks out, they do a full ring homage. She pours out. Oh yeah.Like sand and her body’s all broken. And it’s just like I was like, Oh, it’s a horror movie, baby.

 

Jason Concepcion: It’s so the end to say about that one thing. It’s like, listen, we know some of our listeners might have kids. The kids might love the MCU. My friend Jason was his son, is a huge MCU fan. And I was like, okay, listen, small note, this is the scariest MCU movie, like legitimately dark and scary at times. So if you’re bringing your kids, just be warned about that. There will be moments that I think are a little scary.

 

Rosie Knight: This is to me, this is like parents watch it fast because I feel like our age group, when we were growing up, we watched like everything because of the VHS so

 

Jason Concepcion: I watched everything with that I should not have watched.

 

Rosie Knight: This is kind of  like this is like that scariness of like a dark crystal or a legend. It’s just got a little bit more blood. Good and a little bit more. But so there’s some it’s like Batman. The Batman, I kind of just said to people, your kids are probably not going to like it. It’s like it’s very real life scary. This is more of that fantastical scary. But it has some and this is the first time I think we can say this in MCU scope, it has some brutal deaths.

 

Jason Concepcion: We will get to that. We will get to that real soon. It is yeah. Like some people got get got like in vicious fashion.

 

Rosie Knight: Yeah. So watch it twice, once by yourself, second, maybe with your kids or by yourself again if it’s too scary.

 

Jason Concepcion: So Wanda, as Rosie noted, crawls ring-like out of the mirror dimension is about to take America’s power from her. America is like struggling but again another portal opens just because of her instinct. And then Strange tackles her and through the portal and America and Strange escape from Wanda. But now they are lost in the multiverse. They are just going from dimension to dimension to dimension, which is a super…

 

Rosie Knight: So cool.

 

Jason Concepcion: Super mesmerizing, like visual feast going from dimension to dimension.

 

Rosie Knight: It’s one of those times when you get the, the mixture of the mastery of being able to make a $200 million movie. It’s beautiful. Anyone can enjoy that sequence. But if you’re a person who wants to see an Easter egg, there are things in there. You got Savage Land.

 

Jason Concepcion: Savage Land was definitely there.

 

Rosie Knight: Spider-Man noir world. There’s a different kind of really hyper real cartooning-world, which I thought was really cool, kind of almost like a Scanner Darkly rotoscoping world. Yeah, that also was a hell, which does exist in the Marvel Universe and probably most of all from Star Wars, which we know is in more air. So I wouldn’t put it past Disney to sneak in, and I thought that was really cool because that moment when they inevitably put it on YouTube is just a really gorgeous filmmaking.

 

Jason Concepcion: I know it’s so cool.

 

Rosie Knight: But it also has that extra layer of like, if you wondering, these places exist.

 

Jason Concepcion: I’m very, very excited for those places to to eventually emerge. So where do they end up? They end up in a version of Earth that is seemingly a utopia. It’s at peace. It is quite technologically advanced. Also, green traffic lights mean stop and red light, red ones being go. And also the other real notable difference other than like a lot of foliage in New York City and like beautiful flowering trees is that pizza comes in the shape of a ball, unlike our universe.

 

Rosie Knight: Yes. And it is sold by Bruce Campbell.

 

Jason Concepcion: Right? Right by Sam Raimi, veteran actor Bruce Campbell. With no way back to their dimension and Strange and America go to this world’s version of the Sanctum. On the way, they get some pizza balls. And notably, we learned that in almost every other dimension, food is viewed as a basic human right, meaning it is provided free of charge. If people can’t pay, that is every other universe except apparently 616. Love that. This one that they are in right now. And you love that for the multiverse. And I guess they find the Sanctum out front. They find a statue of that world’s Doctor Strange. The dedication says that he fell in the battle against Thanos and the door is open and out comes Baron Mordo. And he’s like, Oh, my brother, you made it from some other dimension is awesome. They embrace Steven is a little put off he’s like this a little weird but, but good. Certainly a warmer welcome than I was expecting from Baron Mordo. They go upstairs, they have a little tea. Steven and America explain the whole problem. And then Steven’s like, Oh, I feel weird. And Mordo is like, here’s, here’s my retort to everything you said. Actually, our problem most of the time is not Wanda’s. It’s alternate dimension Steven Strange. So we’re worried about you.  And Steven’s like  what? And then he passes out. It’s the classic drug, tea bet. Folks, if you ever go to the home of a magician, don’t drink the tea.

 

Rosie Knight: Especially if he was in your past, your enemy. Like, I too want to have tea, which you would tell Ejiodor, obviously….

 

Jason Concepcion: I do.

 

Rosie Knight: And Baron Mordo, being so loving. But like. Yes, Steven just. Just Steven. I know Steven has done the drug tea-bet at least once himself, so he should have known better.

 

Jason Concepcion: Classic drug, Tea bet by your enemy, the guy you’ve been fighting for 60 years in the comics and six years now in the MCU, so you should have known better. Then Steven and America wake up in these glass holding cells. This universe is Christine Palmer is studying them, taking readings and such. And she, like everyone else, is very, very wary of Strange. It’s clear people in this universe who are in the know, superhero people, people that work with superheroes, are very, very concerned about the appearance of a Doctor Strange. She is like, listen, I’m studying you guys, obviously, because you’re from another universe. I’m studying you because I’m a top researcher here at the Baxter Foundation.

 

Rosie Knight: Dun, dun, dun… The crowd goes wild in the same.

 

Jason Concepcion: People go oh my god. The theater went crazy. The guy in front of me was just like rocking back and forth across and he’s like “yeah”. The Baxter Foundation, of course, is the is the Public Private Science Research Foundation that is run by the Fantastic Four, has roots that’s said, go back beyond the Fantastic Four, but is run by the Fantastic Four. Okay, so Strange is then escorted by a squad of Ultron bots to see the Illuminati and we meet the Illuminati. The roster is Baron Mordo, okay, Black Bolt, King of the Inhumans. Whoa!

 

Rosie Knight: Incredible.

 

Jason Concepcion: Incredible.

 

Rosie Knight: And they said his full name.

 

Jason Concepcion: They say they said his full name, Blackagar Boltagon. Which which Doctor Strange makes fun of which I think is not that’s you can’t make fun of a he’s from a different society, Steven.

 

Rosie Knight: Yeah, very rude.

 

Jason Concepcion: Yeah. Also he can’t speak because if he talked to you, you would melt anyway. Maria Rambeau a.k.a. Captain Marvel and Miss Universe. Peggy Carter. Captain Carter, a.k.a. Captain Britain. And then hello folks. The smartest man in the universe is Reed Richards, in a wonderful bit of stunt casting played by John Krasinski, most notably of The Office, the fucking theater went absolutely apeshit.

 

Rosie Knight: Yeah, it’s stunt casting on multiple levels, because that was for a long time the biggest rumor and the biggest fan casting was John Krasinski, Emily Blunt as Reed and Sue. And to see him here was like, people are just going bonkers. And also they were going nuts. It was reassuring to me because I’m not a fan of the idea of John Krasinski in The Fantastic Four. So inevitably, as the movie ended, I was like, I’m safe, but we will get to that.

 

Jason Concepcion: And we will get to do it. And then, of course, Professor Charles Xavier. Now they all come out in staggered fashion. And the reason it doesn’t make sense narratively that Charles rolls up after everybody has introduce themselves. And there’s been a conversation going for like a minute, Charles, I guess, was in the restroom or something, but it makes sense in the theater because they needed time for the applause for Reed Richards to die down. Right.

 

Rosie Knight: They needed to be quiet.

 

Jason Concepcion: For you to realize that Charles Xavier is coming.

 

Rosie Knight: They wanted you to see the yellow wheelchair animated series style and they wanted you to do do do do do do do do do, do, do, which we all knew was happening. And and therehe is. Some of the best casting in any movie ever and almost certainly one of the best superior costumes of all time. It’s Patrick Stewart, as Professor.

 

Jason Concepcion: It’s Patrick Stewart is Charles Xavier. He said he’d never do it and here he is doing it and it was great to see him. Crowd went crazy again. I went crazy. I love my X-Men. Fantastic. They, the Illuminati, tell Strange how they’re Strange in this dimension. Start fucking around with the Darkhold because they were looking for ways to defeat Thanos, needed power to defeat Thanos.  Strange is like let me look into this Darkhold. But of course eventually Strange became obsessed with the book and became corrupted by it, and then somehow accidentally because things just got out of hand. Strange of that dimension triggered an incursion, which is a collision of two universes, resulting in the destruction of one or both.

 

Rosie Knight: And we will definitely be talking about that after the recap, because that is going to be really important going forward.

 

Jason Concepcion: You’ve heard us talk about it before. We’re going to talk about it again. It’s a good thing that they mentioned right here because now that’s on our radar. So in their experience, the Illuminati says the Stranges, are our biggest threat. We had to we had to kill our Strange after we defeated the Thanos. And also in this conversation we get the first canonical mention of the numbering system used in Marvel Comics for the various worlds. So of course main the main earth one that our main heroes are from is Earth 616. And this earth that they are currently on the Illuminati Earth is what did we say it was?

 

Rosie Knight: 838 though we will say producer sole things, it might be 938, which would be cool because that’s the universe where…

 

Jason Concepcion: 938. Which one is the Santa one?

 

Rosie Knight: Santa is… 838 is Jolnir and then which is the Santa one and 938 is the one where Doom is in power of some kind because that would be cool because I love Doom . But yeah. So anyway so.

 

Jason Concepcion: 838 is going to Santa has me on the air.

 

Rosie Knight: Yeah. Right you are. Yeah. And it’s important to know that the way that we learn this is Christine Palmer is the one who’s been designating the universe and Steven even sasses her and is like, who would do that? Who would designate all the universe. So thanks to Marvel for that one because it’s it is fans,baby, but this is a really big deal. You have been calling …

 

Jason Concepcion: It’s a huge deal.

 

Rosie Knight: This the 616 for a long time. I actually have a piece talking about this because how does it work? Can you have a 616 that’s on screen? That’s awesome. Also, the MCU did already have a fan designation, which was like 199999, I think. So it’s very interesting, but it’s really exciting. Also got a very big cheer in my theater and I was really, really proud.

 

Jason Concepcion: That was a really cool moment for that. To get a cheer. That’s how you knew there is some real some real nerd heads in the in the audience. Okay. So that the Illuminati are like, hey, in our experience, it’s Stranges that are the problem. So this is what we’re going to do. We’re going to investigate whether your story is legit, your story about your version of Wanda in possession of the Darkhold, threatening the multiverse, trying to trying to extract America’s power so she could, you know, live with her kids, but basically potentially could lead to the destruction of the multiverse. We’re going to look into that. So you just sit tight until we figure that out. And by the way, if you’re lying, you’re dead. Just like our other Strange. Back in 616, Wanda is sitting in the ruins of Kamar-Taj. Wong is her prisoner. Sarah, a sorcerer, managed to seize the Darkhold from Wanda, and she stabs it and destroys it. And it kills her in the process. Wanda, if you were wondering, as I was in this moment, like, is Wanda 100% bad? Here’s your answer. She then tortures various other sorcerers, including our good friend Rintra, to get Wong to get her information about the Darkhold. She’s like, you know, about the you’re an X, you’re the sorcerer supreme. You know, all the top secret, classified shit that’s in the Darkhold, or at least some of it. You’re going to tell me what that is now? And then Wong instead gives up an actually a much bigger secret. Well, that Darkhold is a copy. There’s another one, the real one, and that one is at a secret place called. What is it, Rosie?

 

Rosie Knight: Mount Wundergore.

 

Jason Concepcion: Huge cheer from the audience.

 

Rosie Knight: Well, you want to know the really funny thing in my theater, which is very reactive. That was one cheer. It was more like a scream. Was like someone in a slasher movie. And it was me and.

 

Jason Concepcion: You been talking about it for weeks.

 

Rosie Knight: I got multiple I got multiple messages being like, was it you scream when they said Mount Wundergore? And I was like, Absolutely. I will, I was watching, I’m like, I love Charles Xavier. Like, Yeah, I like it. But when they said I, that was my one theory that I did not think they would commit to. I absolutely love it. And it was so good and they did the way they did it was really cool. So in this version, Mount Wundagore, Cawthon didn’t just make the doc called the book in Mount Wundagore. He essentially, like carved the spells of the Darkhold into the mountain. And then every book is a copy of those spells. Really cool.

 

Jason Concepcion: Really, really cool. No bova spoiler. But like that’s. But that’s why maybe we get her later maybe there’s like a cave or a labratory, you know, somewhere underneath it.

 

Rosie Knight: It you know Saul pointed out that that we’ve already had Rintra, so the minotaur CGI exists the human natural hybrid maybe in this was very much like a primal brew talkathon dark magic version of Wundagore so we don’t know what the situation of the high evolutionary or the more comic focused version is, but just to hear that name and then to learn, it.

 

Jason Concepcion: It was really cool.

 

Rosie Knight: That we were going to get to go there, that that was unbelievable.

 

Jason Concepcion: So just for our our fans and our listeners who are a do not know who the high evolutionary is. The high evolutionary is like a human being who got super into genetic engineering and became like incredibly good at it. Like way before that technology was available like the dawn of the 20th century, late 19th century, and through this work created Bova and a bunch of other human animal hybrids and a bunch of other creatures, and then ended up setting up shop in on Mount Wundagore having their secret laboratory there and getting up to a bunch of, like, secret shenanigans all throughout the decades.

 

Rosie Knight: Yeah. And this I learn only just from how excited I was about it. And I kind of wanted to know, like, what could this mean? Where does it go? And we can talk a little bit more, but this actual introduction could be really, really important, you know, coming soon kind of movies in the MCU. So it’s very exciting.

 

Jason Concepcion: Back to our movie, Wanda takes Wong to Mount Wundagore, which, by the way, is if it’s anything like the comics, it’s somewhere like in Eastern Europe. In the comics, it’s in a fictional Eastern European nation called Transia in the mountains there. And Wundagore, it turns out, is the throne of the legendary Scarlet Witch. It’s not. The Tomb of the Scarlet Witch is where the Scarlet Witch comes to rule. So Wanda is home, the magical guardians of the place. These kind of like giant, hulking creatures. They kneel before her and using her new Darkhold, Wanda, as she’s been doing all along dream walk. So dream walking is the ability to send your consciousness through other dimensions, using other versions of yourself as the conduit. She sends her personality back into the 938 or 838 version of herself where the Illuminati are.

 

Rosie Knight: And I think this is really interesting because we didn’t touch on this because it’s so fleeting. But me and one of my colleagues, Mikey Walsh, we’ve been talking about this a lot today. The reveal in this to do with Dream Walking, which another thing that we sort of got right is definitely kind of adapted from Sleepwalker, who we thought may play a part in this. We saw the toilet.

 

Jason Concepcion: So there was a moment when she first said, Dream walking where I’m like, Oh my God, we’re right. We was like, their theory was right.

 

Rosie Knight: You know what? They adapted it and she doesn’t have to be asleep, but it still connects to it. But something very interesting that they reveal in this film that seems to be canon that we never knew before. You can connect to your multiversal versions of yourself through dreams. Essentially, if you dream of yourself in the MCU, you are likely seeing another multiversal version. Yep. And this is actually really smart plotting because after much talking today in the not as slack. We couldn’t really think of a film where there were actual nighttime dreams rather than like visions like in, you know, in Age of Ultron. So this is very smart. And I think it could really. Dream walking was obviously very dangerous. We see how dangerous it is for Wanda, but I think that notion of what a dream means in the MCU and it being a space to connect to different multiverses, that feels like a really cool, tiny story. Not that could become a much bigger thing.

 

Jason Concepcion: I completely agree with you. Okay. So back on Earth, 938/838 where the Illuminati live and where Doctor Strange and America are. Wanda has taken control of the version of herself self that lives there and she flies over to the Baxter building. I’m going to call the Baxter Building. We don’t know.

 

Rosie Knight: Exactly, it’s like the Illuminati headquarters slash Baxter building slash British Museum, living out.

 

Jason Concepcion: Something like that. And long story short, folks, it’s ripped the Illuminati.

 

Rosie Knight: Rest in peace.

 

Jason Concepcion: Rest in peace. We get some of the most brutal deaths in MCU history here, including.

 

Rosie Knight: Okay, so this is where Sam, like, this is where Sam’s like, by the way, guys.

 

Jason Concepcion: Remember me.

 

Rosie Knight: I’m going. You remember working? You thought you thought the mirror was bad. So the first death that we get what you really understand, what’s about to happen to the Illuminati. This is not a this is not even like a Moon Knight style shooting. This is like you’re going to see some people die in a horrific way that is absolutely connected to their powers, which is so clever. The first one is Black Bolt. He thinks he can kill Wanda because, you know, he was the one who killed Strange. He has this powerful voice. She, matrix style, closes his mouth and he’s so surprised that he ends up making a noise and essentially, like, shoots himself in the head with his own mouth.

 

Jason Concepcion: Absolutely diabolical.

 

Rosie Knight: And he dies. Reed Richards gets turned into like a thousand string cheese slash hot dogs he is incredible.

 

Jason Concepcion: He gets turned into glizzies and dies.

 

Rosie Knight: He is he’s gone. He is gone. It’s not happening. Venom anymore. Goodbye, sir. It is very brutal.

 

Jason Concepcion: Captain. Captain Carter gets bisected by her own shields.

 

Rosie Knight: And the blood dripping off it. That is so iconic. It’s terrifying, but it’s so good. And then you have more of the. Well, I will say that kind of the questionables, you know, so. So. Oh, no. Well, we have to talk about Charles.

 

Jason Concepcion: Well, first, let me ask you, Captain Marvel dies by dropping a statue on her. Who is the statue?

 

Rosie Knight: I don’t know. This is something that I’ve really been trying to work out.

 

Jason Concepcion: Yeah, I could not figure out who it was.

 

Rosie Knight: There is was generic and illuminati themed, but it seems but the statue seems prominent and purposeful. Maybe it will be something that we are taught about. It will be like retroactively important. Kind of like how in Thor they they put the infinity gauntlet in the background and then they had to say, Oh, that was a fake one. But I wonder if it will be something we get introduced to the importance of it to the MCU.

 

Jason Concepcion: It is like the garb. It seems to be a woman and it looked like if anybody’s played the video game, Horizon Zero Dawn, it looks like kind of like very like tribal style, kind of like garb, not armor, but more like skins and not like fully costume. It’s hard to really tell what it was, but I couldn’t work out.

 

Rosie Knight: I wonder if they want to if it’s going to be something to do with like Hera or like another God, like a female God who’s going to be relevant, but who could have also been like a warrior at some point in a version of The Avengers? Also, that death is really interesting because everyone else’s deaths are incredibly final. We see Charles die in a really incredible moving moment, which is very Jean Grey-esque  Which makes absolute sense.

 

Jason Concepcion: Extremely, extremely.

 

Rosie Knight: You know, he enters Wanda’s mind and and as he finds the real Wanda who is trapped in there, the Scarlet Witch, the essence of the Scarlet Witch, a.k.a the Phoenix Force. Like in in the redness, it comes. And then she sneaks out the back with a demon face and snaps his neck like that is brutal and scary. Maria Rambeau, though she’s immortal, alien like Kree warrior, can fly into space, survive, doesn’t need to breathe and a statue falls on her. That, to me, is the that’s the questionable death.

 

Jason Concepcion: I agree. I think she could have I think she could have powered through that also. Okay. So the fight, R.I.P. the Illuminati again. They beat Thanos head up, apparently. No, but.

 

Rosie Knight: Sore is looked look it was.

 

Jason Concepcion: Like on Titan. Like without the big battle, without the backup from the Asgardians and the and the sorcerers of Kamar-Taj and all the rest. It was legitimately just them soloing Thanos on Titan and then Scarlet Witch just erases them so tough, tough moment for them. Steven links back up, he beats Mordo in a straight up fist fight.

 

Rosie Knight: Yeah, Mordo survives, baby.

 

Jason Concepcion: Mordo survives. So he links back up with America and Christine. Christine, they go running. They flee into a tunnel that runs under a river. They end up back at the entrance to the Gap Junction, the place where the Book of Vishanti lives, that we saw the beginning of the movie. And of course, the only way to get in there is some puzzle that involves Steven’s watch. So they get in there. But long story short, the book is destroyed and our friends get separated. Wanda takes America back to 616 Mt. Wundagore and then Steven and Christine end up in a world that has been partially destroyed by an incursion. Steven and Christine encounter that world’s Doctor Strange, and he’s an absolutely fucked up dude. You can tell straight away this guy’s…You can tell it’s not. You can tell it’s not on with this guy. Whatever is going.

 

Rosie Knight: Don’t go in the house. I don’t know why he went in there.

 

Jason Concepcion: You know how, like, a cable installer will have, like, that, that, like, huge tablet that looks like the size of a Bible that, like, hangs from their belt. That’s how this version of Dr. Steven Strange uses has the Darkhold clipped to his belt like a cable guy. So you know it’s not on. Strange, 616 Strange defeats evil Strange in a like an actually really cool music note battle.

 

Rosie Knight: Unbelievable. You haven’t seen anything like that in and you have not seen it was not just in the MCU like this is straight out the pages of a comic book or video game, it had a Kingdom Hearts vibe. It’s like was amazing. Amazing. And the way that they use music, I have to say I can’t believe it to me this long to mention him because he’s an old fave of mine when I was a kid, he can he can go through ebbs and flows. But the score of this movie is by Danny Elfman and oh, my days. Does he deliver? Like you couldn’t believe that things that he does in this movie. There is a scene that we’re already past. When when WandaVision, when Wanda is using the Darkhold. And she’s kind of like visualizing what’s going to happen and trying to dream walk and and Sam edits it like it’s the year 2000, and Elfman scores it like it’s the Elektra movie that Fox made. And it is fantastic. It is like the most goth shit I’ve ever seen. And I was just like, When this movie comes out, that will be the scene that and the music note scene are going to be Thor picking up the hammer for me from endgame it’s.

 

Jason Concepcion: It’s really.

 

Rosie Knight: I will be going back. It is so good.

 

Jason Concepcion: The music note fight it reminded me it’s like the most original fight since the Ant-Man suitcase fight against Yellowjacket, which I was just like, this is so cool. I’ve never seen anything like this. The music note fight is just. It’s awesome. Eventually, with Christine’s help, Strange defeats evil Strange, grabs the Darkhold is like, Okay, here’s the plan. I’m going to dream walk into the corpse of myself that I buried on the rooftop. Good thing I did that, folks. Corpse Strange arrives in the vicinity of Mount Wundagore and is immediately waylaid by the souls of the damned. Who are the souls of the damned, you ask? They are just damned souls that that kind of like walk the dimensional fields and are just like very, very angry. And they hate everything and they especially hate like dead bodies that are kind of alive.

 

Rosie Knight: They’re being necromanced and the cooestl.

 

Jason Concepcion: Yeah they don’t like necromanced.

 

Rosie Knight: They don’t like necromancy and the coolest thing is like he’s those things are going to kill him, right? And then Christine has this moment that is so great and well-written where she can see he’s going to die and she says, you’re a master of the mystic arts. Use their spirits. And lo and behold.

 

Jason Concepcion: He Gundam suits them. They did. They turn into, like wings or tentacles or appendages and flies. Whatever he needs. And he flies over to one Mount Wundagore. Now we get the big fight. And Wong, who we once thought dead, thrown off the cliff. Of course he wasn’t. We knew he wasn’t dead.

 

Rosie Knight: That’s the Sorceror Supreme that.

 

Jason Concepcion: You can’t kill Sorcerer Supreme, baby. He gets into the action. Eventually, America punches Wanda through a portal which takes her to Earth 838/938. We haven’t decided yet. And she comes face to face with the mom version of herself that she had hijacked. And they fight. Billy and Tommy are truly horrified by 616 Scarlet Witch and realizing that she has what she’s become. Wanda chooses to leave the kids with Mom Wanda and destroys the Wundagore thrown in the tower, drops on top of Wanda, who is dead, but it’s left very, very, very vague.

 

Rosie Knight: This is a this is a very accurate representation of Wanda in the comics and the way Wanda is treated in the comics. And if we go by that, then she’s probably going to not be dead forever. And really interesting.

 

Jason Concepcion: Wanda has died many, many times in the comics, let me put it that way.

 

Rosie Knight: So she, we earlier saw in the movie that when somebody destroyed the Darkhold, they died, right. And Wanda destroys the Darkhold by pulling Mount Wundagore on top of her so no one else can use it. She’s taking responsibility for her actions. But very interestingly, Steven then learns that the Darkhold has been destroyed in every universe.

 

Jason Concepcion: Dun dun dun. Wanda is power. Okay. So America opens a portal and brings Strange back from the evil incursion world sends Christine back  to 838/938. America Stays at Kamar-Taj trains in Magic. Shades of Strange Academy. Strange’s first student. I think we’re going to get it right. Whether as a Disney plus show or whatever.

 

Rosie Knight: I think it’s going to be Strange Academy. But I think what they’re going for here is like Wong and America together. Wong as the mentor, Wong as the leader of the Strange Academy. And then. We will get to that moment. That’s probably going to lead to what we see for Steven.

 

Jason Concepcion: Very excited. So Strange fixes the watch that Christine gave him. The $23,000 plus watch goes to take a walk outside strolling and a wonderful day out in New York, and then he collapses because a third eye opened on his forehead, much like the third eye that had opened on the Evil Doctor Strange that the one that had been using the Darkhold for a unknown amount of time back on the incursion destroyed earth. So now Steven, we know has been corrupted to some level. What the amount? We don’t know. But he has been corrupted a little bit by the Darkhold.

 

Rosie Knight: Yes, the Darkhold is taking its toll.

 

Jason Concepcion: And then we get to his credit.

 

Rosie Knight: It’s taken it’s toll.

 

Jason Concepcion: It has taken it’s toll.

 

Rosie Knight: And the eye opens on his head. And then Danny Elfman goes Well, and then it cuts to the credits. Incredible.

 

Jason Concepcion: Now, first stinger, Doctor Strange time has passed. He is obviously very comfortable. He’s chill. He’s comfortable with his third eye. That’s that’s just there on his head. Not that I don’t think anybody can see it. Probably just him or we don’t know. But see, he’s comfortable with it. It’s true. He’s just walking around New York City when what should happen. But a portal opens from some strange dimension. Who should come out? It’s his comics girlfriend, Clea, played by the great Charlize Theron and wearing like the eighties, nineties, Clea costume, pure class.

 

Rosie Knight: A purple leather shoulder pads. She’s got this iconically striking papilloma that’s totally over the top, and she’s like, You cause an incursion, babe, we going.

 

Jason Concepcion: We got to go fix it. What do you need to know more? And he’s like, Not really.

 

Rosie Knight: Let’s go in. A little eye opens, boom. And then they and they walk into the dark dimension from what we see Doctor Strange before where he fought Dormammu. And in the comics, Clea is the niece of Dormammu and is the sorcerer supreme of the Dark Dimension. So they walk through there and it’s like, Cool. Steve and I will say. Something this movie set up that we did not include in the recap because it was like very in the weeds, emotional moments. The whole movie sets up Steven and basically learning that in every single universe he will never be with Christine. That’s not happening.

 

Rosie Knight: He’s a wise man. She doesn’t want nothing to do with him. She’s marrying someone else. Every America, America is always like, Are you with Christine? No, never mind. Christine and the lost Christine who he seems to have this connection with, the Illuminati Universe Christine. She says, you got to allow, you got to give yourself open to love, you got to fall in love. And then, lo and behold, his eight whole age appropriate cosmic comic book wife.

 

Jason Concepcion: Finally.

 

Rosie Knight: Turns up and he’s like, I’m doing it, baby. I’m going to the dark dimension.

 

Jason Concepcion: I got to say again, it is shocking to me if your girlfriend gives you a $23,000 fucking watch and you guys break up. You fucked up somehow, Steven. But yeah, but it’s great to have Clea around. I love Clea.

 

Rosie Knight: She doesn’t look like she’s going to give him any presents or let him break up with her. And he needs the energy in his life. No presents.

 

Jason Concepcion: That is what he needs. We go to the second stinger. Now back on Earth, 838/938, but when Steven and America had encountered the pizza ball man played by Bruce Campbell, America was telling Steven, you don’t have to pay for anything in any universe except 616. 616 is the only universe where they make you pay for food in every other universe. It’s a basic human right. And Bruce Campbell’s like, No, actually, you got to pay for this. What the fuck are you talking about? So, Steven Strange cast a spell that cost Bruce Campbell the punch himself in the face for, like, what was it? Three days, or something like that.

 

Rosie Knight: Three weeks, three weeks. And so. So the final stinger, we see Bruce Campbell, famous for being Ash from the Walk, the Evil Dead, and he’s punching himself in the face with the left hand, which is a big evil dead bit. And then he’s like, it finally stops and he looks to the camera.

 

Jason Concepcion: And it’s over. Just like Evil Dead. It is a wonderful nod to the Sam Raimi oeuvre. And with that, let us talk about this movie. What did we think about it, Rosie? I really had a great time, I think. I think, you know, some people have criticized you know, I think that there are certainly the emotional stakes are different because there’s no will. They won’t it? With Christine it’s always a want, you know, from the jump they in getting together. So where does the other emotional stakes come in? And it’s mostly from his relationship with like his own mortal code and his burgeoning relationship with America. And also Wong just being a badass. Yeah, but like, listen, I’m a I’m in the tank for Sam Raimi. I’m in the tank for Marvel Magic. I really had a great time.

 

Rosie Knight: I thought it was super fun. I thought it was brilliant. You know, something that we talk about a lot because it’s the way we look at this stuff, right? You can have these movies for like everyone. And that’s not just in a scope of representation or characters that you like or don’t like. I think we live in a world where there should be a comic book movie and there can be a comic book movie when there’s five of them coming out a year or whatever, you know, that just feels like you’re picking up a comic book. To me, this is like me and you, wandered down to like secret headquarters. And we both kicked out at 25 cent like Corbin issue because that’s what I wish still happened in every comic shop. But you pick out that back issue and you read it, maybe, you know, we know all these characters because this is this is our thing. But like, even if you didn’t, I love the way that like this felt like that felt like you were on an adventure that felt like an old for you cereal. It felt like you could just jump in and out. I thought something really cool was the way that America was introduced as a wholly rounded character. You knew her and she had a back story. She had a power. She existed in her own world, and she came into us. And something else I thought was really cool. And you know, we’ve talked about Joe Casey and how he didn’t get paid and he did this creative collaborator. And that really sucks. And I hate that. And and it makes me so bummed out when I think about this stuff. But like something I thought they did that was really cool with America was when they showed her, they briefly show her back story. And she’s from, you know, the utopian parallel as we know it, a dimension where she had gay moms and they show that and they’re in love and they really focus on it. And they actually did a lot more than I thought they would. But what’s really cool is the first time she opens a portal, she sends her parents through it, and she’s lived with this grief her whole life. Now, in the comics, it’s much more of a kill your gays situation. Yes. America’s home planet was destroyed. Her gay parents were dead. Boo. In this, I love the notion that they seed in the Steven’s seeds that even though America didn’t always know how to control her powers, the intention behind each one always took people to the right place. And I love the aspect here that potentially America will get to meet her parents again. And really, in that moment, her mutant powers manifested in a way that helped them, that helped her, that put her on the right path. There were little bits of storytelling there that I actually think were like quite layered. But they, you know, I understand how also it’s like this bombastic music fight horror movie. So but yeah, no, I mean, I loved it. That’s like that’s really high up there in my MCU ranking. I just thought it was. That’s like to me is like that’s up there with like Thor Ragnarok on like a reimagining and restructuring of the tone of a character in a sequel. I just thought it was so great.

 

Jason Concepcion: I completely agree. Here’s a thing that I think could happen. You know, we love to theorize here at X-Ray Vision.

 

Rosie Knight: The most fun.

 

Jason Concepcion: First arc of the young Avengers involves the parents, the families of a lot of the characters there and very, very, very notably America Chavez. And I think in a, say a future Disney plus young Avengers show or something like that, the way we can get the team together would be America. She’s testing out her powers. She’s looking for the dimension where her parents are and what does she find. Instead, she finds like a kid version of Loki. She finds like all of her friends in this in this mission to, like, find her, her her parents. And then she, I don’t want to spoil the first arc of Young Avengers, but maybe she finds them and they’re not quite what she thinks. But I think that obviously going to play a role, a very propulsive role in America Chavez’s arc going forward into the MCU and the Disney Plus.

 

Rosie Knight: I think you’re 100% right, because also like the first issue of that, the Jamie McKelvie, Karen Gillan, that Wilson stuff.

 

Jason Concepcion: Excellent. So fun.

 

Rosie Knight: It’s so brilliant. And it has a really big tie to Wanda and a really big title role as a mother and her role as a parent. And we have now been introduced in these shows. Everyone has a tragic parent origin. Kate Bishop.

 

Jason Concepcion: Yeah.

 

Rosie Knight: Eli from Falcon and the Winter Soldier, he lives with his grandad who was, you know, destroyed the first real Captain America. And he was ignored. He was imprisoned by the government. Everyone has a tragic parent back story that I think could be a very smart way of tying into to a young Avengers show. I think that’s really clever.

 

Jason Concepcion: I mean, as we learn in this movie, this is the only dimension. It’s 616 the only dimension where Billy and Tommy, Wiccan and Speed don’t. They don’t exist. We know they exist in that 838938. And we know they’ve been traumatized by watching their mom duke it out with an evil version of herself. And like, you got to figure, if they’re going to assemble the young Avengers, they have to get them from somewhere. And I would imagine they’ll get them from there where they have that that perfect kind of like bad mom back story. But of course, it’s not really their mom.

 

Rosie Knight: I think that’s really smart as well because like, let’s talk about the other big, big elephant in the in the where do they come back from room? Which is Wanda. I thought this arc for Wanda was actually brilliant. And I think it’s really very much equivalent to what happens in the comics where she gets this sort of deep character arcs that make you really care about her and she has this human moments and then by editorial edict, or creator choice that’s all blown up. And she’s evil. She’s very much Magneto’s daughter in that way. She goes from good to bad, and her powers become incredibly powerful or not more powerful. And she’s a mother living in the suburbs, and she’s a universe creating woman. And to me, this felt very much in that vein. And I, I didn’t necessarily feel the moral quandary of her wanting to kill America being that much different than what she did in Westview. But I know that some Wanda lovers were not a huge fan of this arc.

 

Jason Concepcion: Oh, I would imagine. Yeah.

 

Rosie Knight: You know, it’s really hard to watch your favorite character who’s very emotionally relatable, become a villain, a true villain. So she drops them out. Wanda go on herself, destroys these Darkholds. What do you do you think we get, I kind of Wanda reincarnation? Do you think she’s in some kind of Eldritch Orchard, or do you think we get 838938 mum Wanda as a superhero?

 

Jason Concepcion: I think what we get with the destruction of the of the all the Darkholds theoretically burning out. The corruption that that Wanda had had.

 

Rosie Knight: I like that.

 

Jason Concepcion: By studying it, right? I think. We’re going to get some version of like. Like a permanent dream walking like. So we’ve introduced and we’ve talked about the possibility that there are that there are these nexus individuals who are whose existence is like vital to the way the multiverse works, that they all they exist in every single dimension. We saw Wanda in 938/838. What if by this dream walking process, Wanda, of course, is responsible for the things she did, but the goodness of the other versions of Wanda like she’s able to interact, engage with that somehow that kind of nexus being kind of like thing where listen, I don’t think she’s dead 100%. If you don’t see the body, she dies and she’s dying again. Can’t say it enough. She’s died so many times in the comics and disappeared. Turned into a puff of smoke, disappears for like five legitimate real world years, and then comes back living in like Milan or something where she falls in love with Hawkeye, weirdly. Like stuff like that happens all the time.

 

Rosie Knight: And I want to say as well, like we’ve talked a lot about this and you will really want who brought it up and I think it’s so legit like and after watching this movie it really made me think about it. But the, you know, the trial of Magneto arc that they recently did.

 

Jason Concepcion: I thought about that so much.

 

Rosie Knight: This really feels like an an encompassing space where in that book how different versions of her life and the different parts of her past come together to give her a certain amount of peace and a certain amount of clarity and a certain amount of happiness and and, you know, closure. And I feel like people have long wanted a Scarlet Witch movie, and I would love to see a movie or WandaVision style show, which is Wanda going through those visions and finding that peace and finding that acceptance and that happiness, which she takes one step close to at the end of this movie by allowing Mom Wanda to raise the kids and getting that reassurance from her that, you know, the kids will be okay, they will be loved.

 

Jason Concepcion: And for those Wanda stans out there, I count myself among them. Absolutely. Take solace in the fact that the Darkhold absolutely took its toll on Wanda. Like it does she do villainous shit in this? Yes, absolutely. She should take responsibility for that. She should acknowledge that whenever whenever she comes back into our lives as a member of the MCU, but also realize that like the influence of the Darkhold was very, very strong as we saw what it did to Strange in the corrupted dimension. Like it’s like she did bad stuff, but the Darkhold was also influencing her to do that bad stuff.

 

Rosie Knight: I think that’s a really good point and I think that the dream walking aspect, even though it didn’t, you know, we got a lot of things right, we got some things wrong.

 

Jason Concepcion: We will get to that. We will do the stark, we will do the score card.

 

Rosie Knight: We also don’t want to we never want to be right every time because then it’s not fun, right? It’s not fun. But like one of the things that we were really thinking about was this notion of nightmare. And I still believe even though nightmare may have not shown up in the movie, the notion of that being a dream world or a passage between realities via dreams is very nightmarish. Wanda could have not just been under the control of the Darkhold, but also something greater. A puppet master. She has been manipulated before by Mephisto. I know that he has a name, but he was the one doing it. He was the one using the kids against her. So I don’t think we’ve seen the end of this story or Wanda’s accountability that she’s going to hold ourself to for it.

 

Jason Concepcion: And whenever Wanda comes back. In the comics. What usually happens is she just is living like as a normal person somewhere without a lot of memories, I think. I think when she comes back, that’s what’s going to happen. She’s going to be just living as a person somewhere, maybe aware of what she’s done in the past and feeling very guilty about it. Maybe she’s created like a completely new persona and memories about herself, but I think she’ll come back and she’s going to be underground for a little while.

 

Rosie Knight: Yeah. You know, maybe she’s going to be living with her new husband, Simon Williams, or something like that. You know, the man who may be Wonder Man, I think there’s lots of interesting spaces.

 

Jason Concepcion: Let us go to what we got right and what we got wrong in terms of our theorizing. It’s going to be fun. First, the significance of WandaVision the show, including the Darkhold and Billy and Tommy.

 

Rosie Knight: Crazy .

 

Jason Concepcion: Ding. We got it right. Nothing to do with no way Holmes’ multiverse issues. This was your big one.

 

Rosie Knight: I had a feeling in my gut that it wasn’t going to happen and nobody believed me. But we were right.

 

Jason Concepcion: Ding. That the Illuminati would only make a brief, albeit crucial, appearance. This is less of a prediction. It’s 50% prediction and 50% this is how movies work.

 

Rosie Knight: This is like gut check. If you watch a lot of movies and you talk about movies with your friend, you can watch a trailer and be like, This is probably going to happen so.

 

Jason Concepcion: Wanda’s Chaos magic connection to Gargantos. And we just didn’t guess the part where she created Gargantos to send after America, but we understood the connection.

 

Rosie Knight: Very inventive. Michael Waldron, who, by the way, I have to shout because that script is funny as fuck.

 

Jason Concepcion: It was really, really funny.

 

Rosie Knight: Fun stuff.

 

Jason Concepcion: That we’d see Captain Carter. Now we confirmed the trailer, but we pretty good that way before that part of the trailer and appearance of Mount Wundagore. Take a victory lap, Rosie Knight.

 

Rosie Knight: I will say that at any time. I’m like it’s Mount Wundagore and if Wanda’s there a cow. What did you know that’s where Wanda and Pietro I oh it first was in Thor one day for, Mount Wundagore, but this time I was right. So, you know, if you mention enough times, the theory will come true. And I was so happy about it.

 

Jason Concepcion: A House of M style payoff for Wanda. More than a payoff like the entire setup is basically a house of man with some other different things sprinkled in there. But the, you know, Wanda being too dangerous, emotionally unhinged and affecting the safety of various realities. That is House of M basically.

 

Rosie Knight: Yes and you know what else that we that they took from House of M that we kind of didn’t even really consider that they would do the notion that Charles Xavier is involved in the idea that Wanda has to be killed, which is like a betrayal of everything that sparks off. So that especially was very House of M.

 

Jason Concepcion: Maria Rambeau, played by Lashana Lynch as Captain Marvel, as a Captain Marvel, you got that. The other with the other possibility was Superior Iron Man, which a lot of people liked. We always thought it was Maria Rambeau and that incursions who the the very important incursions from the time runs out arc that plays out over Illuminati and New Avengers.

 

Rosie Knight: Yeah. I want to give Zeke a big shout out because he picked he was like even talking about that as one of his picks, like, and this was the, the Hickman New Avengers stuff where they basically introduced the idea of the incursions, which is like it’s essentially like a contraction or a contradiction or a glitch in the timeline. But this is almost certainly going to lead in to us getting that Secret Wars show that we’ve longed or TV movie, whatever that we’ve long thought about because the incursions in the idea of galaxies colliding, universes colliding and exploding, it’s all very much seeded in that 2015 Secret Wars by Hickman and Esad Ribic.

 

Jason Concepcion: Here of the ones that we didn’t get right. So Nightmare appearance as the villain although again there were moments where it seemed like it was headed that way. And as you noted that the dream walking, the idea of dreams as this kind of thread through dimensions, this kind of like inter-dimensional pathway, is very much a Nightmare mechanic. That’s how Nightmare gets his power. So but we’re going to count it as wrong because we’re magnanimous. Didn’t lean into Wanda as a nexus being used dream walking between multiverses. Instead I will make a further prediction of that. Even though we got this one wrong, I will say that now, with the Darkholds all destroyed throughout multiverses, now we may see the MCU lean into Wanda as a nexus being.

 

Rosie Knight: I think so too. Also as well. Where did the power of the Darkhold go? We just saw it go out into the universe. We know in superhero stuff. If a lot of power light that goes out the universe, it can have an effect. Nexus beings, they’re coming, I believe. Jason.

 

Jason Concepcion: What If did not play a prominent role? No Supreme Strange. There’s a zombie but not real.

 

Rosie Knight: It’s necromancy, it’s necromancy. It was set dressing. They did a really good job making people who watched What If  feel like it was important and it was like it opened people’s eyes to the notion of some things, but it was not a key part.

 

Jason Concepcion: And then finally, no Deadpool, no other mutants and no king. Which I found, the last one is the one I found particularly interesting that we’ve got no hint of Kang yet. But you would have to assume if Charles Xavier existed in a variant universe of the MCU, that the school that he runs and the team that he also covertly runs must exist as well. And that is terribly exciting.

 

Rosie Knight: Okay, so look, no Kang, right? You didn’t say Kang’s name, but I will say in this movie, Reed Richards tells Wanda that he has children and a wife, Sue Storm, and he doesn’t name but Franklin and Valeria. Yeah. So that leads to the notion that in this universe, Kang would essentially at some point exist because he is a descendant of Reed and Reed had children. So it’s really interesting and I think my gut says because we love Kang, we talk about him a lot. Love that. Jonathan Majors casting. My gut says with the recent move of moving Ant-Man and Quantumania before Marvel’s, I think The Fantastic Four is a big focus, and I think they’re essentially saving whatever they’re doing with Kang, wherever plan it is, whether we meet him as an ally to Ant-Man and the WASP, or whether he is an antagonist, whether he is Reed and Do Man Kang and he’s all these promotions, I feel that is going to be the thrust of Ant-Man Quantumania And I’ll be really surprised if that’s not the case, especially after he wasn’t in this movie. That would have been so easy to reintroduce him.

 

Jason Concepcion: Rosie, let’s talk about the the untimely rest in peace, death of the Illuminati. R.I.P. And what specifically that might mean for whether or not we see any of these actors play these characters in the MCU going forward. John Krasinski, obviously a huge fan casting. My sense, my sense is, other than Captain Britain, Captain Carter. We probably won’t. This was probably a good bye. This felt like a goodbye to all these people. Like you’re not going to see John Krasinski as Reed Richards. Yeah. Anson Mount. You gave it a go with bad wigs, but we’re not going to see you as Black Bolt going forward. Patrick Stewart has been very outspoken about his desire to not be in the MCU, and he did it for the bag and he was great.

 

Rosie Knight: Good for him.

 

Jason Concepcion: And but he is an older gentleman and I would imagine he’s not terribly keen to sign up for like a 15 movie deal this season that would include cameos like various properties. So it’s somewhat like a goodbye. What do you think?

 

Rosie Knight: No, I totally agree with you. I think that the big potential is Peggy Carter. If we saw if we were going to see someone again, I think that with the Marvels coming up, I think there’s a version where we get a quick cameo from Maria in a dark in a moment where Monica feels like she can’t be Captain Marvel or Pulsar or Photon or whoever they are or spectrum, you know, whichever name they give her. I feel like there’s a maybe a way that we could see her and realizing of discovering that in a universe her mom was Captain Marvel. That seems very knowing. I also think it’s a really good it’s a good course correct. Because in the Captain Marvel movie, the way that the Brie Larson, Captain Carol Danvers, Captain Marvel gets her powers is the origin of Monica Rambeau. So it’s a good course, correct, to be like here is a world where it was Maria. And so that one feels like that’s like a 10% you could get a cameo to me. Peggy, I think is quite likely. Everyone else, they’re gone. This is this is Phigy being incredibly magnanimous and saying, look this.

 

Jason Concepcion: You guys wanted it, right? You wanted it.

 

Rosie Knight: You wanted Charles Xavier. But that’s not going to work. Like, we, the question of how to introduce the X-Men is the most important and profitable question probably in Disney’s history, because if they fumble the bag, they will lose no joke, billions of dollars and they could decimate them. So it’s it’s so important. And that’s not going to include Patrick Stewart. But they gave him a great moment here. They also cleared the way for Jean Grey by getting rid of Wanda for a little bit. And to me, I think the Krasinski thing is a really cool bit of stunt casting that recognizes fans who wanted it. And I am a I’m a Fantastic Four truther. You can ask people who used to work in a comic shop. My poor friend Mikey, who used to hate hearing about I’d be there and I’d be like, Oh, the X-Men. You know, I thought the Fox deal said that they could never make an X-Men TV show, but now they’re making Legion, so maybe they made a deal with Marvel so Marvel could get the rights back. I have fan casted that a million times. I have fan casted Keanu Reeves as Reed Richards. I have fan casted Adam Driver as Doctor Doom. I have a whole different fan casting with a for a fan fiction that me and my friend wrote like I care so much about that and to me, the John Krasinski, Emily Blunt one, if that had been ten years ago, MCU, that seems like the kind of casting they would have done, but now it seems a little bit safe. So I think this was a really cool nod to say, Hey, here he is in that suit. Looking a certain way. Now, don’t be crying when it’s Ral Cooley, who plays Reed or Jonathan Majors playing every character, you know. And so I think that’s a, to me, that’s it. That’s a really cool bit of fan service that’s really thoughtful and was also done in a really funny way. And I think like Krasinski, I just give him so much props.

 

Jason Concepcion: He was great.

 

Rosie Knight: For being like, Yeah, I’ll come and be Reed Richards and then get turned into spaghetti. Like, I think that you got to have like a lot you got to be really willing to have a lot of fun with that. So I think the Illuminati is the, the R.I.P. Illuminati.

 

Jason Concepcion: The caveat I will give is… The sense I came away from this movie, kind of feeling, more so than before that oh, the recent news that that Fygy announced that they’re going to be going into the to a retreat to plan the next two years of Marvel.

 

Rosie Knight: I didn’t even realize they’re in it.

 

Jason Concepcion: That is actually vital because the sense I got coming away from this movie is that they kind of don’t know how they’re going to bring in the MCU in the X-Men and the MCU and the Fantastic Four. And obviously, as you said, those are going to be big deals like those are going to be the things that extend the life of the MCU for a decade plus.

 

Rosie Knight: Exactly.

 

Jason Concepcion: X x x fans, Fantastic Four fans have been waiting for this.

 

Rosie Knight: That’s when it’s going to all start being. My, my guess is instead of phase is when the X-Men come in, we’ll start having ages.

 

Jason Concepcion: And my and my sense is also that obviously they could bring them in through alternate dimensions. But I think, you know, with the Fantastic Four, you need that origin. You have to understand where they come from as a family. I feel like you would need to see them get their powers. You would need to boot it up again. And then similar with the X-Men, we need to lay the groundwork of a world in which people are scared of people with powers and by extension, mutants when they appear. That they are fearful of them and they want them controlled, pushed away, pushed to the margins, killed maybe, you know, like that they’d be okay with it. But there’s a level of of general bias and even hatred in the world for powered people. And I think that will take some setup. So. I came away from this feeling that while the multiverse is an incredible tool, I actually feel like it’s not the best one to bring in The Fantastic Four or the X-Men.

 

Rosie Knight: I think it’s going to be more of a case of the multiverse is going to be about this kind of battle world, Secret Wars-esque implosion of a cosmic scale, you know, Clea and Dr. Strange jumping around the multiverse, like doing cool cosmic stuff. But I think you’re right. Fantastic Four is narratively easy because it is one accident. Yeah. And I think that very straightforward. Yeah. From the recent news of the director departing because he wanted a bit of a break, I think that and the moving of Ant-Man forward, I think that the Fantastic Four will likely be the first one because I think it is easier to establish in the MCU as we know it. Whereas like you said, there’s going to be some there’s going to have to be some groundbreaking kind of shifts in the politics and the landscape of the MCU to make mutants as an oppressed class feel authentic.

 

Jason Concepcion: Well, it was a super exciting, fun time at the theater. Man, I had a great time.

 

Rosie Knight: It was so fun.

 

Jason Concepcion: It was super, super fun.

 

Rosie Knight: You went to the premiere. What was it like when people like losing it and going off?

 

Jason Concepcion: Okay, so the people were going off. It was really cool, actually. So one thing I will say, I would put the masquerade at about 10%. I wasn’t. And that’s okay, wasn’t it? I didn’t love that. But I was in a mask and others were too. But not a lot. But who was around me? I saw a Tony Revolori.

 

Rosie Knight: Tony Revolori.

 

Jason Concepcion: Tony Revolori. Tony Revolori, a.k.a. Flash Thompson was sitting in my section.

 

Rosie Knight: Great casting.

 

Jason Concepcion: Liam McHugh, who plays Sprite in the Eternals movie, was was quite close. Oh, Tara Strong. Who

 

Rosie Knight: Oh, voice actress icon.

 

Jason Concepcion: Miss minutes. A voice acting icon in many, many, many things, including many, many video games and of course, Miss Minutes from the Loki television program on Disney Plus. And then Frankie Grills Frankie Grillo and his son, a.k.a. Crossbones, a.k.a. Crossbones, one of the best looking 54 year old men we’ve ever seen. He was also in my section, and that was that was it. And a lot of like very like Internet-y people. There was like a comedian that I follow on TikToc which, who I couldn’t figure out like why they were there. But it was really cool. It was and weird to see them in person and, and I had a suit on, so I did that right. And it was a vibe like it was.

 

Rosie Knight: Did it get the big reactions?

 

Jason Concepcion: We got the big reactions because they had, I think, very wisely for vibes had invited like a lot of hardcore Marvel fans and specifically like cosplay people like they were doing, you know, on, on the red carpet interviews with the stars, but also just like fans. And they had talked to some Wanda cosplayers who had come back from Germany and Switzerland and different places. So they were like a lot of wow, a real like like real big fans and figures in the fan community. So like there was a vibe and there wasn’t like when, when 616 was mentioned, people cheered. When the Baxter, people screamed. When Reed showed up, people went crazy. So there was people knew. And when Mount Wundagore was mentioned, like people cheered. So there was there were people, like, who knew Marvel Comics. And that was really, really fun. It was a great vibe, very enjoyable. It’s super weird to be in that environment, but I enjoyed it. I had a great time and I can’t wait for everybody to see it. And yeah, hopefully listen to this podcast and and talk about it with us whenever they whenever they see it. Up next, we will go to Nerd Out. In today’s Nerd Out where you tell us what you love and why. Michael pitches us in the novels of Heather Schaefer, who before recently coming out as Trans, wrote under the name Craig Schaefer.

 

Michael Hello, Jason, Rosie and the listeners of X-ray Vision. My name is Michael and I want to introduce you to the collected works of Craig Schaefer. Honestly, I first stumbled onto this author when the Amazon algorithm told me, You might also like this author when I was looking for the latest Jim Butcher, Harry Dresden novel. And boy, am I glad I decided to jump in. The premise of the first Craig Schaefer book I read, The Daniel Files Novel, The Long Way Down could best be boiled down to what would it be like if Harry Dresden wasn’t a very nice person? Or, frankly, what if Harry Dresden was kind of an asshole? After that first book, I was hooked. Daniel is a magician slash mobster with a succubus for a girlfriend that is working his way up the mob food chain in Vegas while battling the Demon Courts of Hell alongside some other shady characters that include his girlfriend, a bloody magician and arms dealer and a voodoo priestess. Daniel Faust led me to Harmony Black or other series that features an FBI agent that also happens to be a witch. And her partner is the daughter of the Wolf God. I know it sounds a little batshit crazy, and it is, but only in the best way. What I love about the author is their ability to tie all of her characters and story arcs together, including bringing a coven of witches from an earth next door from her Revenge Cycle series, a renaissance inspired fantasy tale to modern day New York to interact with all her other characters in the Wisdom’s Graves trilogy. All the books are great, and I haven’t even gotten into Where Charlie McCabe series. That is just a straight up crime thriller. She’s getting ready to release the 10th book of the Faust series soon and is working on the seventh book in our Harmony Black Series. But her latest work is a standalone novel called Any Minor World, which she surprised dropped last week. It’s a noir thriller about an ex-cop helping a comic book author fight and overcome her characters that are coming to life and trying to kill her. Yep, you heard that, right? And yes, I have been saying her all this time on this year’s Trans Day of Visibility. She came out as trans. Her name is Heather and her books are awesome.

 

Jason Concepcion: Thanks, Michael, for submitting. If you want to be featured, send your Nerd Out pitch to X-ray at Crooked.com. Instructions are in the show notes. We can’t wait to hear from you. A big thank you to Rosie Knight for joining us on X- Ray Vision. Rosie, this is the time where you tell people where they can find your stuff. What do you have to plug? Where? Where is it all? Tell us about Godzilla one more time.

 

Rosie Knight: You can pre-order Godzilla now. Go to my Instagram page, which is Rosie Marx or you Google my name, I have a website and you can pre-order the comic. You can go to your local comic shop and you can start a pull list to support your local comic shop with this book on it. You can also see articles that I have written. By the time this podcast is out, those articles will be live. If you’ve got questions about Clea or Wundagore or you know, the 616 and the history of who created it, it’s a big it’s a big conscientious question. People think it’s Alan Moore, but somebody else gets the credit. It’s Dave Thorpe. I’m not going to clickbait you. But but yeah, there’s there’s lots of cool stuff like that. You can hear me here. Of course I have a letterbox, which I’m actually updating. I’ve done some pretty funny reviews recently where I’m not allowed to say anything, so I just like posted funny YouTube videos and yeah, that’s, that’s all the good stuff. And I’m just so happy. I got to talk to you about this movie because it was so much fun.

 

Jason Concepcion: Super fun.

 

Jason Concepcion: Folks. You can check out our videos on the uncultured YouTube channel and the show notes for the Listener’s Guide to X-ray Vision, where we provide more details on all the stuff that we talk about in the episodes. Our next episode will be out May 13th and we’ll be doing a Doctor Strange Mailbag. So if you have  any questions after seeing the movie, tweet at us. Email us at xray@crooked.com. Let us know what your questions are so we can have your answers for them and for you on the air. And don’t forget, great interviews. We want those five stars. We need those five stars. We got to have the five stars. Leave those five stars for us, please. If you like the podcast, we love it. 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 Fotopoulis, Delon Villanueva and Matt DeGroot provide video production support and Alex Relerford handles social media. Thank you Brian Vasquez for our theme music. See you next time. Bye