We absolutely loved The Marvels. Whatever people are saying about its box office woes, it’s one of the freshest and most enjoyable MCU movies in years. So we can’t help but breathe a sigh of relief that one potential connection with the Guardians of the Galaxy never made it to the big screen. Marvel’s cameo addiction needs some limits.
Nia DaCosta makes a triumphant MCU debut in The Marvels, but she has revealed that one of her earliest pitches brought in the character of Adam Warlock, along with the idea of time travel. We expect to see Warlock in more upcoming Marvel movies after his debut as part of the Guardians of the Galaxy cast, but we certainly didn’t expect to hear more about him so soon.
DaCosta told Jake’s Takes that “one of the first things I pitched with way back when” was a time travel storyline involving Warlock. Like many Marvel characters, he was first introduced in a post-credits scene and we had to wait six years before Will Poulter finally brought him to life.
“My big plan, which is part of what’s amazing about doing something in such a big universe, so many films, was like: ‘Well, if we introduce Adam Warlock here, we bring him into the present and then in another movie we understand where he was coming from sort of thing’, so it was into our contemporary for the movie,” said DaCosta.
In the end, other plans for Marvel’s Phase 5 meant that DaCosta would have to shelve her ideas for Warlock. She said: “Adam was going to be in Guardians 3, and I think they have enough time travel on Loki, so we didn’t do that, but we have some fun stuff in that realm in the movie anyway.”
We have to admit that we’re glad none of this came to pass. We wrote in our The Marvels review that the film “proves that superhero fatigue hasn’t won just yet”, which is largely because it takes a step back from the tangled web we’ve all become confused about. Trust us, we have to keep a Marvel movies in order guide up to date.
We can’t help but worry that bringing Adam in would have over-complicated the movie, which already has an added wrinkle with the three heroes switching places every time they use their powers. With the exception of a brief appearance from one of the stars of the Thor cast, The Marvels is thankfully free of crowd-pleasing MCU cameos, and we liked it that way.
Time travel, of course, only muddies the waters even further. This is a movie that deals with tangled powers and alternative dimensions, so the last thing it needed is a further layer of mind-melting sci-fi trickery. We just about kept up with the Loki season 2 finale, so the thought of even more time chaos makes our head hurt just thinking about it.
Saying all of that, though, Poulter’s portrayal of Warlock would’ve been a nice tonal fit for the lightness of The Marvels. Especially when it comes to Marvel villains, there’s a silliness to Warlock that would’ve made him a more enjoyable fit than Dar-Benn, whose super-serious vibe means she’s often relegated to the sidelines. Zawe Ashton never gets the chance to show how terrific she can be.
Overall, the fact Warlock never got past the ideas stage for The Marvels is definitely a good thing. The Guardians’ farewell was one of the best movies in the recent MCU – check out our Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3 review for more – and The Marvels is right up there with it. We didn’t need them to feed into each other at all.
But we do love connections, so let’s talk about the new movies and Marvel series on the way, starting with Deadpool 3. That’s the next cab off the Marvel rank, bringing together Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman.
Beyond that, we’ll soon be into Marvel Phase 6 and we got an exciting update on that front with the report that Pedro Pascal will be Reed Richards in Fantastic Four. We’ve also looked into whether the death of the MCU would sink the superhero genre for good.