Doomsday, VisionQuest & The MCU’s X-Men Future

Welcome to Marvel Maniac, an MCU after show. This is your host, Eric Cicada, aka Mr. Honest, lost out there somewhere in this vast multiverse, hoping I could find you. I think I have finally. Anyway, we're just gonna go over some of the announcements, big announcements, big trailers, big things of the D23 Disney Expo that took place over August 14th, 15th, and 16th. There's obviously been a lot of announcements. There's been sequels galore. There's been sequels to sequels on sequels, but this is mostly going to be about Avengers Doomsday's newest trailer, the new trailer for Vision Quest, and we're going to touch on the new X-Men cast. So strap in, get ready, let's get talking about Avengers Doomsday. I want to break down these trailers, so we're going to go through moment to moment and kind of discuss a little bit about what they mean. But just know this isn't our last Doomsday video by far. We got a lot more months to go, and this is just going to kind of be a bit of a review slash subtle theories on what we're seeing so we can look through it together. So the trailer opens with this amazing shot of Doctor Doom sitting on his throne. At the foot of his throne, beneath the steps, are green flames, which likely have to do with the kind of magic Doom is producing to gain this much power. We know very little about him. They, they really give us little drop But we get to see a better— way better look at him in this trailer. So we have Sue Storm in this trailer kind of explaining what— who Victor is, Victor Von Doom, similar to how Gamora was kind of like an overhead voice in the Avengers Infinity War trailer, talk— telling everyone about Thanos. So Sue begins to say Victor was always the smartest guy in every room as we ominously get a like slow zoom in towards Doom on his throne. She says he used to be different, and we get the beautiful Marvel Studios logo, and it looks great with all that green behind it. Close-up shot of Sue Storm. He's saying he used to be kind, he used to be caring. Then this quick shot of Magneto kind of like reacting to this. Whether that's actually from this moment in the movie, I don't know, but I gotta say Ian McKellen is so amazing, and I'm so happy he's here for this. He looks badass, and the way he's reacting to these lines is as it Seems these lines, it's powerful. And then we get a good shot of Channing Tatum as Gambit kind of reacting to it as well. I've seen some controversy online over Gambit. I think I think Channing Tatum deserves this role. They're definitely gonna put a new Gambit out there in the new X-Men, I'm sure. However, this is just Channing Tatum's time to shine. Quick shot of Steve Rogers looking concerned, and then Sue continues. While Doctor Doom puts his hand upon this giant mural that we've seen in the poster for Doomsday, there's a— looks like a— what is a woman and her son above a world. And that's, in my opinion, his wife and his son who maybe died somehow because of incursions or one thing or another to send him on this dark path. The next 2 lines is, and then everything he loved was taken from him. Close-up on top of the giant mural of the son and his mother. Definitely Doom's family. Beat by beat, she says, "I knew he was lost." We get to see Shang-Chi, Churi, M'Baku. I think that we see Namor in the background there. I think there's a little tiny glimpse of John Walker on the left side. We get Thor. You know, everyone's kind of reacting what's to what Sue Storm is saying. Personally, I'd like to believe that this is a moment in the movie where all the Avengers from all the universe, the X. Men, the New Avengers, the modern Avengers— everyone is together on a front to confront Doom. And ideally, I think even all of those people together is probably going to get wrecked by Doom. However, let's move on. I knew he was lost, but I did not realize he was broken. And just ominous close-ups to Doom, uh, kind of facing away from us, or just overhead shots of him with this really scary music that sets the tone, really. I think Doom has multiple masks, and I do think he comes in as a good guy at first and probably turns on everybody under their, you know, behind their back or right in front of them. Because the, the mask I saw a glimpse of in this first kind of close-up shot to him, it looked like the mask was smiling. And I've definitely seen— I, I— it might be in this trailer itself or, um, previous trailers— it looks like the mask is actually frowning. And so I think he definitely has multiple faces that he wears for this mask for different moods, which is kind of interesting. Then we get this devastating shot of what is undeniably to me New York City, because there's Central Park and all the buildings are burnt and destroyed. The city is leveled. I haven't seen anything like this in any Marvel movie. We don't know which universe is this, whose universe this is. Could be the X-Men's. We don't know. All we know is there is massive destructions. A passionate line delivered from Reed Richards, did you do this? And also a passionate opening of his eyes from Doom, seemingly looking right back at Reed Richards in the eye. His eyes are as green as his outfit. We get kind of a little montage of some of the characters holding their sons and daughters. We get Scott Lang holding Cassie. We get Johnny Flame holding Franklin Richards. So slowly being said by Doom over shots of Xavier and Magneto, all of you— then the line goes to have lived stolen lives. All of you have lived stolen lives. The exact shots that we see during that line delivery is Steve Rogers holding his child and Thor with his technically adopted daughter, um, looking her in the eye. Maybe it looks like trying to reassure her or something. Quick shot of Loki. I'm so interested in his part in this. I hope it's a big part. Um, I think it has to be, you know, considering what happened in the Loki show. And I'm interested in how they're going to get the audience up to date if they haven't seen that show, similar to the scene in Infinity War where Wong holds the Infinity Stones and kind of gives you a rundown just in case you have not seen any of this. This is what the Infinity Stones are, here's what they're capable of. So we definitely need a Loki explanation of how he becomes the threshold guardian of the entire multiverse. So all of you have lived stolen lives, but now you must give them back. Shuri looking devastated. Scott Summers, aka Cyclops, looking devastated. This epic shot of Doom flying out of a window. He looks like he is just I don't know, pure magic, pure, pure agility. You could see a lot of his strength just in this one shot of him jumping from a faraway window, landing on his feet. And it looks like it's the moment maybe where he's about to face Thor. Reed Richards screaming at Doom, answer me, Victor, did you do this? I mean, I've never seen him so angry in that character. Pedro Pascal, I think in retrospect, was a great casting choice for Reed Richards. I actually have great nostalgia for the movie already. I haven't seen it You know, good while. I might watch that again. I mean, who's who am I kidding? There's a lot of stuff I'm gonna watch again before the Doomsday movie releases, and I think you guys probably most likely will watch a thing or two as well. Loki being one of them for me, but of course the Fantastic Four with the huge role that they're gonna play in this in this movie. I swear you will beg for hell long before I grant it. Coming from Thor, from the iconic shot from that. Trailer we got about 4 weeks ago, and he starts to do what we know he does. He charges up his hand, his axe, and he goes for Doctor Doom, and Doctor Doom uses 2 fingers to hold him off and throws him at a rock, which I kind of like because it doesn't seem like he's killing him. But I don't want Thor to die, you know what I mean? Thor's still got to have that moment with Deadpool, you know, why is Thor crying? That's, uh, that's going to be a hard moment for them to find, in my opinion. I hope they figured that out by now. Uh, but it's good to see that Thor doesn't get killed in this interaction. I don't know, I just don't want Thor to die, even though it's very still a very big possibility. And in reply to Thor's line about Hell, Doctor Doom goes, Hell answers to me. Oh my God. By the way, when he throws Thor against the wall, he simultaneously throws Stormbreaker in another direction. Hell answers to me, for I am Doom. Epic shot of Doctor Doom, the biggest close-up we've really seen of him raising his arms, mirroring Tony Stark in the first Iron Man when he raises his arms and the Jericho Bomb goes off behind him. Also, I am Iron Man, I am Doom. There are parallels. There is no mistake here. There are freaking parallels. And I see on his outfit or his chest, he's got these runes or symbols. One looks like it literally Mjolnir, and another one looks kind of like, I don't know, kind of like an exploding flower. I don't know what the heck that one is, but maybe all of this has to do with the magic he's able to conjure to take on the Avengers and everyone else who stands in his way. He lifts up 4 giant downed Sentinels and brings them to life. Sentinels being huge in the X-Men universe, something that we didn't really get to in many of those movies. So I'm— ideally we'll see a lot more of that in the future X-Men films. And I mean, I don't know, Hell answers to me is maybe one of the coolest lines I've heard so far from this movie. And then we get our big Avengers: Doomsday title card and Dang, I just love hearing the Avengers music kind of sound a little more devastating. Great, great music choice, and it really like hammers in that these heroes are going to get messed up. There's no doubt about it. We're about to get leveled by Doctor Doom. So for them to set those stakes up now, I can't even imagine what the movie is actually going to do because they are not showing everything. They're definitely showing us bits and pieces. They know people are coming to this movie, so the hype is real. They don't need to throw a bunch of stuff in the trailer. Um, you know, from the main battles and the main parts, they have shown us a lot, I'd say, at this point. But I feel like that we barely grazed the amount of epicness we're gonna see. Is epicness a word? That we're gonna see in the movie itself. Avengers: Doomsday, 12/18/26, is Doomsday! Oh my God, I'm so excited! I'm like shaking over here in excitement. I can't freaking wait for this movie. We've been waiting so long, guys. We've been waiting so long for this movie. It is insane, and it's finally on the horizon. We're finally getting a little piece of what's gonna happen. I think that this is one of the greatest times in the history of Marvel to be an MCU fan because there is so much buildup to this movie. People say there's no buildup, guys. Thanos was acknowledged as a character in the Infinity Saga. We saw him a total of 2 or 3 times, once in Guardians of the Galaxy 2 in post-credits scenes. We don't know a lot about Thanos until the movie comes. Infinity War, he does a fine job of telling us Thanos's motivations and who he is and introducing him as a character. So I'm not really so worried when people say, well, this doesn't have the same type of buildup that Thanos did. I full-on disagree because half of the buildup is learning about incursions and the multiverse, and we've dealt with that in many movies. And part of it is just learning who this character is. Well, we got probably a near 3-hour movie to discover that. This is probably his movie, like Infinity War was Thanos's movie. And I don't mean to keep making those comparisons, but if you're gonna go with the formula that works, the Russo brothers will be wise to make a movie not exactly the same as Infinity War, but to make a movie that follows the same rules and structure. And kind of making the bad guy the antagonist so we can get to see his full point of view before the following movie where we get to see us take him down, or even something bigger than that, because he could be somewhat of an anti-hero because he's not causing the incursions. And if he is, well, that would be even more terrifying. A timer at the end of these trailers, it's just ticking away. We're 4 months away. So that's a lot to chew on. I think we got a little bit of Time to think about this one. Let this trailer set in. We'll come back and talk about this, and especially anything else they release between now and whenever we want to talk more Doomsday, which is pretty much going to keep growing and growing because we're getting closer to it every day. However, now I'd like to transition into over something a little bit lighter, so it seems. Vision Quest. This trailer fully acknowledges that this is the third. Series in a trilogy— WandaVision, Agatha All Along, and now Vision Quest. Very interesting to call it a trilogy. Personally, I, I wouldn't mind sticking with that. I just don't think you have the full story unless you watch Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness between WandaVision and Agatha. So it's a trilogy of series, but I'd say for a full circle watch without having seen any of Vision Quest except from this trailer, I would definitely go ahead and say it's a trilogy. But you'd want to— you'd want to include in the watching of these series Doctor Strange. So we start off the trailer where we get to see Paul Bettany as Vision. Seems like he's gained the ability again to look like a regular man, and unless this is a place in his mind, which is a place that we go in this series it seems, but we see the bartender saying, you always used to come in here with this redhead. And then it shows this little sketched out heart in one of the tables. W plus V. Vision clearly misses Wanda. And now we finally get to see his side of things ever since we lost him all that time ago in Infinity War. Despite when we found him in WandaVision, where that story is just crazy, and the version of Vision that we have didn't really go through the events of WandaVision like the WandaVision Vision. If you've seen the show, you know. If you know, you know. Vision says, "I was a different person back then." Just goes to show all the off-screen time Wanda and Vision had together between Civil War and Infinity War, which probably was about a good two years. I'm I'm guessing in the cinematic timeline. It looks like Vision is maybe working a job at this place that he used to visit with Wanda because he closed closes a curtain and. Turns the open sign to close. The bartender asks Vision, anyone waiting for you tonight? And we get kind of this slow answer from Vision as he's shutting the shop down. Uh, home is just me, he kind of says over like a stretch period. But then we see White Vision sort of entering his own mind, and in that mind is this very tall house with many windows and a perfect blue sky. And it's clear that some of this series is going to take place in the mind of Vision, which is very interesting. It's a very interesting place to be, him having started as Jarvis, going through all he went through, dying multiple times. Now he's resurrected again, and we get to see where his head is literally at. It really does look like he's just arriving at home from work once he's gone into his own head, which is such a WandaVision type thing, you know. It's self-constructed reality. Which I think is very romantic in this way, that that's what Wanda did to cope with losing Vision, and this is what Vision does to cope with losing Wanda. And they both kind of miss each other in this journey. And I think if Vision was around and was still there for Wanda, I don't think she would have had any of the events. She would have mourned her children, sure, from WandaVision, but I, I mean, in, in the end She might not even have had WandaVision happen if Vision was still around. They could grieve together, and unfortunately that's just not the way things went down. We are at the Vision's house, and on the door it says The Vision. I always forget the the. I just call him Vision. I'm on like a first name basis with him. Vision goes, who am I? I was an Avenger. Watching a clip from Age of Ultron. But I'm not a hero anymore. As we see Vision take the hammer and punch an Ultron— or like, you know, knock an Ultron drone with it. Epic moment. But Vision is clearly looking back at the glory days here. It seems he has photographic memory, which doesn't surprise me. Basically says that he's not the same Vision as he was. All he had— all he really has is his name. To a group of people saying, welcome home, Vision. Who are these people, you know? This house is getting crowded, Vision. James Spader undeniably is Ultron. We even see him as the bot of Ultron. Um, what is going on? Is he housing former AI? Did he keep Ultron as a part of him deep inside his circuitry and his memories? He's been living with him this whole time. I mean, that's crazy. And it's a great shot of Ultron. They don't hold back on the CGI, but they clearly are going to do what they're about to do which is turn James Spader into James Spader, because only human forms get out of that form, Vision tells him. Human avatars only, to be precise. And then we get this great shot of James Spader with this giant beard, and it's the manifestation, the human version of Ultron himself. And it is so good to have him back. I love Ultron as a villain. I think they could have made him a little bit darker But I think the movie works in retrospect, and it's a nostalgic film, Age of Ultron, at this point being 11 years old. That's how long it's been since we've even seen this actor portray this role. And I think the way that he's going to operate in this show personally is an antagonist, but a, uh, it's gonna seem like I think he's turned good, but he's gonna eventually probably try and take over the body of Vision is my biggest guess. Since this is all happening in Vision's mind, like, who's in control here? Well, if Ultron is in there, he's— he might be capable of corrupting what Vision has made within this world he has in his mind. Sir, I cannot overstate the dangers in keeping him around. One of Vision's friends— I think in the description of the show that these might be all the former AI of Tony living in Vision's mind. For me, that's more of a theory at this point because I'm not sure if that's actually been confirmed because I watch way too much ScreenCrush and New Rockstars. I haven't watched any of their breakdowns for these trailers though. I wanted to keep my perspective fresh, at least for this. Vision starts to agree and say yes, but— and then he says he is— and Ultron cuts off. Dad, Peepaw. Like, he is technically the founder of Vision because he created that body for himself. And Vision got a hold of it via, well, Tony and the Avengers, being born into a hero instead of Ultron's perfect form. Vision saying, I'm a danger to myself, and then thinking that family wasn't real, watching an old tape of what looked like— well, of what are moments from WandaVision. So I am confused on how he'd have those memories. But I almost forgot that in WandaVision the main Vision kind of looks him in the eye and I think gives him the memories. So maybe he does carry WandaVision memories. In real time, I'm learning this. And Vision also says, I'm a stranger to myself and that family wasn't real. And then Ultron goes, are you sure about that? Then we see a kid, a teenager on the screen, which is likely Tommy from WandaVision, a little bit grown up. We learn a little bit about how this is possible in Agatha All Along. If you haven't seen that, I 100% Watch it. It's a phenomenal show, and apparently he's he has a father named Vision, and he was a robot. So his kid is out there. He's learning that that piece of him that he thought was nonexistent that represented the bigger relationship between him and Wanda exists. Ultron saying mazel tov, it's a boy, and kissing Vision on the cheek. Very funny, but immediately pointing out do not trust Ultron. And undercover antagonist here. It's almost like, how could you trust the villain from the second Avengers movie? Maybe he is completely harmless where he is in Vision's mind. However, I don't know. I think that's going to be the antagonist for sure. Vision asked, how is this possible? Lots of interesting shots, like a silhouette of a man approaching the house, Vision being upheld in red light, kind of like he's getting like an exorcism done or something like that. Ultron on the phone. Free your soul and save your son. I don't know. I want to believe Ultron's a good guy. I mean, that would be very cool. Experience the final vision comes up in words over the trailer with this epic music playing behind it of the groundbreaking trilogy. As I said, Vision saying, "I wish to understand my purpose," over this montage of epic clips. And I think it's Tommy. I don't know who it is, but he says with a. Genocidal maniac inside your head. You get a quick, quick shot of Vision in his true red and green form, which I love. And then we see a very quick moment of robot Ultron like attacking Vision from behind. So we never know how these things are going to play out. We don't know if that's like the ending or if it's just some misdirection because we— they don't want to tell us the full story. I think they are, you know, revealing a little bit more in this trailer than obviously Doomsday, because this is a show they're trying to get people to watch opposed to a movie that's inevitably selling out seats as we speak. Vision doing a cool superhero landing. Nothing binds a family together quite like Mortal Jeopardy, Ultron is saying on the phone in human form. Antagonist. I know I keep coming back to this. It's good that the trailer kind of makes you wonder. That's— that means we got a really good trailer here. I don't need to see any more trailers. I mean, I think this is is all I need to see. I'm sold on the show. I'm, I'm completely sold. We're covering it week to week. So streaming October 14th, that's not too far on the horizon, but, uh, it's, it's a bit away is away. And I'm excited for this show. I think it's got a lot of promise. Paul Bettany as Vision is probably one of my favorite superheroes in the entire MCU. To see him get some sort of redemption finally, all the way since Thanos ripped that stone out of his head and Died twice. How many times are we gonna have to watch this robot die? I'm not gonna accept another Vision death in this story. And there we have it. That's Vision Quest. I am so stoked. I think Marvel is really cooking this year. And man, I hope the fans like— I, you know, more than me, I hope the fans like what they're giving us because it's the fan base that really matters. I am like such an optimist Sometimes I'm liking things because I'm over-fanning out, or I just want things to work better than they might actually be working. I'm not super critical of what Marvel's doing. You know, I can agree with that Secret Invasion was not a very good show. I can agree that Thor Love and Thunder could have used a little less comedy, but I still like to see the good in all of it, except for Secret Invasion. That should have been an Avengers movie. I hope they right that wrong in the future. As I've said before, to no fault of Samuel Jackson whatsoever, he put his heart out. There. Kevin Feige announces, you know, hey, if you've finally seen Spider-Man, let's bring out Sadie Sink. You can finally talk about her being— If you haven't seen Spider-Man yet, this is a spoiler warning. End the episode now. We're going to be talking about spoilers from that movie. If you haven't seen Spider-Man yet, alert, alert, this is your final warning. Okay, Sadie Sink comes out on stage. I love Sadie Sink as an actress. She did great, a great job in Stranger Things, but what the performances she brought forward in Spider-Man: Brand New Day showed the acting chops that she is capable of. She is our new Jean Grey, and I cannot wait to see her fly as this character. Literally, if they ever do the Phoenix storyline again, I just know they're going to get it right with this actress because what that they're doing is growing her story even before we get the X-Men movie, which is so cool. Uh, goes to say that, you know, she's glad she doesn't really have to deal with all the speculation on who she's playing anymore. And Kevin Feige says, we're not here to talk about Spider-Man, actually. And Sadie Sink delivers, we are here to talk about the X-Men! And the crowd goes wild, as do we. Our first look at the perfect X-Men logo. I mean, this is just so special. Jay Trott will be directing. I'm not going to say much else about the other actors they bring up on stage. We're gonna have plenty of time to theorize and talk about X-Men. I think the fact that they brought out the cast and they just met backstage for the first time says how early we are in the stage of X-Men. But you know what makes me happy? It's that there's a glimmering, shining light Beyond the horizon of Secret Wars, where a place that we never really got to see and only theorize that it would be the X-Men saga or something like that. There is something planned and it's very big in May of 2028, following 2027 in December Secret Wars. It's something to look forward to after that, and it's a big deal. It's the X-Men and the MCU finally. Building their own version of it. This is a huge deal for us as fans. It's a big deal for the MCU. There's a lot of pressure to make it good. And we get Adam Driver. He's not there; he's in a video, and he's like on this. The bit is that he's like on the set, ready to film, even though the movie doesn't come out for two years. So the part that he is playing is not Magneto, which everyone thought at first, and he even jokingly said. It's the part of Mr. Sinister, a villain from the X-Men, obviously comics, but I knew him from the animated show. I know that he has a pretty big part, I think, this recent season that I haven't gotten to catch yet, but I think Adam Driver is a great actor to add to the MCU, and Mr. Sinister is like a big X-Men villain. So it's kind of cool that we're getting a different angle from the— for the X-Men for their first first outing, and it's just not going to be like a retelling of the same story we already know. Think about it, 2 years is not that long. I mean, like, Secret Wars is going to leave us buzzing, and then May is not that far from December. The X-Men are going to come really quick. There's not going to be that giant gap like there was between 2019 and 2021, was it, for WandaVision? Because we're moving right into the X-Men right afterwards. Maybe they will even be born at the end of Secret Wars. Speculation can happen all day, but this is something that I'm majorly excited for, and I hope you are too. And as a host of a podcast that covers Marvel stuff, it's just good to have even more on the horizon to talk about, theorize, plan, cover. Uh, the Doomsday trailer, the Vision Quest trailer, and now this announcement about the X-Men— I'd say that's a giant home run. Run for their D23 reveal. Still holding out on that May 2027 secret Doctor Strange movie. Probably not happening at this point. They might have announced it already. However, there's stuff to look forward to, and that's the whole point. Thank you for listening. Thank you for joining me. I know you all are out there. Give the show a like, thumbs up, and a rating if you can. We want to build the audience and share all this excitement together. Join our Discord. Community. The link is in the notes for this show. We want to gather a big audience, and we want to rally together for these movies. So I know you're out there listening. Don't be shy. Share your theories. Marvel Maniac Pod at gmail.com if you'd like to send something there. And yeah, we are on our way to Doomsday. Clearly, the road is paved ahead of us, and there's nothing to do but to get excited and theorize and theorize and. Theorize. And until next time, Avengers disassemble.