Kevin Feige Rejected a Wild Avengers: Endgame Retcon From MCU Writer
Ms. Marvel is a celebration of all things Marvel as it introduces audiences to Kamala Khan, a Muslim teen who is just as much of an Avengers super-fan as the rest of us. The Disney+ premiere took Iman Vellani's young hero to AvengerCon and delivered references to 28 MCU heroes and villains while also including an oddly specific description of Avengers: Endgame's final battle.
As the Avengers' battle for Earth against Thanos took place outside the public eye, the writers were always going to have a tough job explaining how the world was so aware of what happened. The same questions were previously asked in WandaVision when Jimmy Woo referenced Captain Marvel taking down Thanos' fleet.
Fortunately, Ms. Marvel explained that this knowledge came from Big Me Little Me: A Scott Lang Interview - an appearance by Paul Rudd's hero on an in-universe podcast. But as it now turns out, the creators of the series originally had a different idea to explain how the world knows so much.
Ms. Marvel Producer Reveals Scrapped Avengers Retcon
During a recent interview with The Wrap, Ms. Marvel executive producer Bisha K. Ali revealed her original plan for how Kamala Khan was aware of the events of Avengers: Endgame's final battle.
The premiere confirmed that Ant-Man's Scott Lang appeared on a podcast that included a description of the events of the fight. But Ali had originally pitched to Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige for there to have been "drones and a live stream of the battle of Endgame," an idea he quickly rejected:
“At one point, like early days before we kind of expanded the creative team out, I was like, ‘Kevin, what if there was like, drones and a live stream of the battle of ‘Endgame?” And he was like, ‘Bisha, no.' I’m like, there wasn’t one Twitch streamer around for the final battle of ‘Endgame?' Are we kidding? I think I lost my mind at that point, try to solve this riddle. So it was really a big iterative journey. And it was something that kind of changed and moved all the way through. And I think it must have been a Sana [Amanat, co-creator of the 'Ms. Marvel' [comics] pitch by the end. Or it might even — I actually have no idea where that idea came from. But when we kind of integrated it into the script, I think it was perfect. It was characterful.”
The executive producer went on to share how the team went through "a million rounds" of trying to figure out how Kamala and the rest of the world is aware of these events:
“I’m gonna be honest, I never take credit where it’s not due, that wasn’t my idea. That was something that we went through a million rounds of this, of like, how does [Kamala] know about things? Is it because everyone’s posting things on social media?”
Scott Lang: Viral Internet Sensation
The concept of Avengers: Endgame's final battle being live-streamed to the world sounds like a somewhat nonsensical one for a number of reasons.
At the time of the battle, billions of people had just returned to life and the planet was in chaos, it's hard to imagine anyone having time to prepare the drones and equipment for a live stream. Thanos' attack on the Avengers compound was also a surprise to everyone, and one would imagine the location of the team's high-tech base to be a closely kept secret too.
The explanation offered in Ms. Marvel for how the world is in the know about the specific events of the Battle of Earth is a far more logical and funny one. Ant-Man's Scott Lang is among the funniest and most ordinary heroes in the MCU, so it's easy to imagine him wanting to brag about his heroic adventures to the world on a podcast.
Hopefully, Big Me Little Me: A Scott Lang Interview can play into Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania in some capacity, as many fans have grown eager to see it become a reality. An improvised in-character interview with Paul Rudd could make for a hilarious Disney+ special to promote the threequel before it releases next year.
Situations like this demonstrate why Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige's role in the MCU is so important. His involvement and supervision of every project are why every MCU project is able to be as connected as it is. The thought of drones circling the Avengers as they fought for the planet and Tony Stark took his final breaths somewhat brings a little too much light to what was an incredibly tense sequence.
Ms. Marvel will no doubt deliver plenty more references to Avengers: Endgame and the rest of the MCU when it premieres its second installment on Wednesday, June 15, exclusively on Disney+.
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