Everybody has their consideration on Avengers: Doomsday, the film that can give us Robert Downey Jr. as Physician Doom, pit two groups of Avengers towards each other (and possibly the X-Males?), and can restore the MCU to its place of cultural dominance. However earlier than worlds stay and worlds die and the MCU won’t ever be the identical, we’ve a smaller Marvel journey to get pleasure from.
This December sees the discharge of Surprise Man, starring Yahya Abdul-Mateen II as Simon Williams. Surprise Man is one among Marvel’s stranger B-listers, a personality first launched as a muscular thug who will get duped into preventing the Avengers, and who dies in his first look in 1964’s Avengers #9 (by Stan Lee, Don Heck, and Jack Kirby). A number of years later, Surprise Man appeared once more, generally as an precise brother to the villain the Grim Reaper, generally as a kind of brother to the Imaginative and prescient, generally as an ionic being, and generally as a good-looking Hollywood star.
It’s that final incarnation that appears to be the main target of the upcoming MCU present, as teased by a latest publish from Abdul-Mateen. On his Instagram, Abdul-Mateen II shared an image of a blue ball cap with the phrases “Surprise Man” written in yellow. Surrounding the phrases are corny icons of Hollywood kitsch, together with a field of popcorn and a phrase balloon declaring “I like LA.”
Themed ballcaps are an extended MCU custom, as franchise boss Kevin Feige has one made for every manufacturing. However with regards to a personality as diversified as Surprise Man, the hat confirms the tone and path of the upcoming present. Surprise Man will doubtless draw inspiration from the character’s solo sequence from the Nineteen Nineties, written by Gerard Jones (don’t google him) and Jeff Johnson. That sequence noticed Surprise Man attempt his hand at working as a stuntman within the film enterprise, the place he confronted off with villains straight from Hollyweird: a bladed baddie referred to as Splice or a would-be starlet whose magnificence routine makes her right into a Hulk-like monster.
