- Could Spider-Man Homecoming have a secret Avenger
hiding in plain sight?
The wall crawler's first solo outing in the MCU
hits theaters tonight,
and so far the reviews have been,
for lack of a better word,
amazing.
Sorry Andrew Garfield,
but not sorry, but sorry,
but not sorry.
By all accounts, Homecoming is not just
the best Spider-Man movie since dark Peter Parker
came down with Saturday night fever,
but it's also one of the best coming-of-age comedies
in a long time owing as much to the work
of John Hughes as Stan Lee.
And now, we're discovering Hughes isn't the only 80s icon
to make a mark on the film.
The AI in Stark Tech Spider-suit is voiced
by everyone's favorite labyrinth traversing teen,
Jennifer Connelly.
Oh, I love her!
In fact, you've probably already heard Connelly's
voice in the trailers telling Peter he has
78 possible web-shooter combinations.
- [AI] You have 78 web-shooter combinations.
And then again, in another trailer telling him
he has 576 possible web-shooter combinations.
- [AI] You have 576 possible web-shooter combinations.
After he hacked into the suit,
and unlocked its higher functions.
Which is what happens, and we totally called it!
And go ahead and leave those hater comments below,
but just know we were right.
I love being right.
Anyways, in a recent interview with Slash Film,
Marvel's studio chief, Kevin Feige, explained that
Connelly was cast as the AI Peter Parker nicknames Karen,
because she's a great actress, and she inhabits
some of the classic 80s films that helped
to inspire us behind the scenes.
But also mentioned a third slightly more meta reason,
Connelly already has a ton of experience hanging
with Stark Tech AI,
she's married to Tony's right-hand robot, Paul Bettany,
aka Javis, aka Vision.
So, that's pretty cool.
The two big on-screen, MCU, AI characters actually
share a behind-the-scenes romance,
but could that real world love story actually
manifest itself on screen.
Sure, it sounds like a bit of a stretch,
but not according to Homecoming director,
Jon Watts, who said in a recent interview,
"It is pretty neat that Karen is married
"to Jarvis in real life.
"Maybe we're setting up a Vision spinoff."
Now, that could just be Watts having fun,
which is what I personally think,
but the idea of Vision in a relationship
does have some precedence in the comics.
He was married to Scarlet Witch at one point,
and later created an entire family for himself
by breaking off pieces of his own consciousness.
Because dude was lonely.
He also attracted the attention of another AI named Jocasta.
On the page, Jocasta was the creation of Ultron.
Basically, his bride of Frankenstein, a female
that the evil AI created to serve as his perfect mate.
Unfortunately for Ultron, she decided to run her
Lemonade program on him, and say bye, bot, bye.
Now, eventually she became an Avenger,
where she set her sights on Vision.
Sadly, this is when Vision was already married
to Scarlet Witch, so Jocasta and him never became a thing,
but we could definitely see that changing for the MCU.
In the MCU, both Ultron and Vision had their origins
altered so they were creations of Tony Stark,
and in Age of Ultron when we see Tony digging through
a pile of old AI programs,
he comes across one labeled Jocasta.
So, the way that we see it,
it's entirely possible that Stark upgraded an old
AI program for use in the new Spidey-suit,
and even though she isn't given a proper name
by Stark in Homecoming,
there's no reason to think it couldn't be Jocasta.
And if at this point, two Stark Tech AIs
have developed freewill, we say why not a third.
The Spidey-suit AI could eventually come to life
and enter into a relationship with Vision.
After all, Connelly and Bettany should already
have the chemistry to make it work.
But what do you folks think?
Do you wanna see a little more AI lovin' in the MCU,
or were you hoping to see Scarlet Witch and Vision
finally hook up?
Let's discuss.
(electronic music)