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I want to tell you my secret now.

I see dead people.

Silent brain is evil.

Need my sister and my daughter.

Rosberg.

What's in the box? Hi, I'm Dana Stevens, and this is a Slate Spoiler Special podcast for Avengers Endgame, the final movie in the 22 movie cycle that's been going on for the last 11 years, is that right, from the Marvel Cinematic Universe?

Yes, I believe it all started with the original Iron Man movie in 2008. And I hope that we'll get a little bit into the entire franchise and what it means that this is the concluding one. Obviously, it's not going to be our last Marvel movie ever, but it does represent an ending of some kind and a culmination, and we will get into that. joining me in thisate Studio, and we're all here together in Brooklyn, which is very nice,

is Forrest Wickman Slate's Culture Editor. Hey, Forrest. Hey, Dana. And special guest coming up from D.C. is the New York Times, formerly of Slate columnist, Jamel Bowie. Hello. So nice to have you here. Yeah, I feel like we have like the Phase 1 podcast, Slate Podcasts, Back Together.

This is like, I'm the Nick Fury here, like getting the gang back together. This really is kind of a dream team for this particular movie because I wanted to get someone like you, Jamel, who's a big comics person and has a background in the source material of these movies. And just Forrest, I feel like you're the scarecrow who comes in on every single Marvel movie to talk about it. Yeah, I mean, I'm not really a big fan of the, I mean, I just didn't really read the comics growing up, but I've become a fan of the movies and I've seen all of them and I feel like I'm somewhere in between you two guys in terms of my level of Marvel affection. Yeah, I guess my, actually, our level of affection would be an interesting place to start. I mean, starting with this movie, as always, I kind of want to go around to just see if you're a pro or con on this movie. But I would kind of like to get into all the different things that this franchise is meant for the culture and for consumers and for the market, you know, and for us individually and personally in the 11 years it's existed, right? Because it's hard to feel just one way about something this, that takes up this much space in the culture over this long a period of time.

So, okay, I'll start with you, Jamel.

This movie, yes or no, and like a brief thumbnail history of you with the MCU.

So yes to this movie, a provisional yes. Yeah, we'll talk

about it later. Provisional yes to this movie. And so I saw Iron Man like opening weekend.

And I remember when that movie came out because it came out the same year as the Dark Night. And so I knew Batman was coming out, I think, later in the summer.

And this was a time when I wasn't paying much attention to movie news or industry news.

And I don't think – I mean, there simply wasn't the kind of like infrastructure built up to sort of hype up something like this.

So I remember it's showing up in the paper, which is strange. Like I got the newspaper and looked at the movies were playing that weekend. And it was like, oh, Iron Man. Nice period of detail. Already you see how much time is. Right, yeah, 2008, which is still like, I mean, it's not like it's Internet as well-established in OA, but it's well established in O.A, but it's still the case, or there are little things like that.

There are no smartphones yet in O. Right. Right. Didn't have a smartphone or anything. Saw Iron Man opening weekend with my friends, was totally blown away. It was like, cannot believe they made a movie out of the sea list superhero, but it was great. Our DJ is great. And since then, these movies have kind of just

been this almost like, you know, twice a year event thing for me and my like friends and such.

Like they'll come out. We all get together to see them, talk about them. And then that's it.

Not any particular kind of obsession or like close interest but kind of

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