WandaVisionis on its way to Disney+, and its overall sense of weirdness seems to have triggered a trippy vibe throughout the MCU. Phase 4, whichWandaVisionofficially kicks off, looks to be the franchise’s experimenting-with-drugs-during-freshman-year phase.Doctor Strangeis headed into amultiverseofmadness. Shang-Chi is going to take on themystical Ten Rings. TheEternalsare coming, Christian Bale is going tothrow a God Bombat Thor, and at some point, Ant-Man must tangle with somethingcalled Quantumania. Unclear what that is, but seems bad.
But, it’s fun to remember that the MCU has always enjoyed pockets of true weirdness here or there. The franchise has spent thirteen years getting comfortable taking swings, one small step at a time; a character switcheroo here, a Jackson Pollock jizz joke there. So, below, we look back on the 15 weirdest moments to happen in the MCU, and, in doing so, chart a franchise learning to loosen up.
The Entirety of Mickey Rourke’s Screentime - ‘Iron Man 2’
Hot off a career resurgence and an Oscar nod forThe Wrestler,Mickey Rourkejoined the early-days MCU as Ivan Vanko—a.k.a. the villainous Whiplash—and the result felt a lot like dropping a nuke on a sandcastle. Rourke’s performance is mostly remembered as “bad”, when in fact it’s actually weird because it’s too…well, not good, but it’s acommittedswingof a performance in a time when Marvel suddenly recognized its massive franchise potential and started reigned in its risks. So you’ve got Jon Favreau and Co. setting up Avengers timelines and introducing new characters likeScarlett Johanssen’s Black Widow while Rourke dives balls deep into an accent—Rourkehad himself jailedin Russiato research the role—and repeatedly asking Justin Hammer (Sam Rockwell) for his pet bird. Rourke has been very vocal about how the Marvel brass tamped down efforts by him and writerJustin Therouxto fill in Vanko’s layers, so I guess the compromise was “this insane Russian man also has a bird.”
Thespian Icon, Trevor Slattery - ‘Iron Man 3’
Most comic book trailers try to obscure plot details and keep things relatively spoiler-free, but I’m not sure any Marvel movie has ever straight-up bamboozled audiences the wayShane Black’sIron Man 3did. This was, to use a techincal term, a complete flim-flam, as the mid-point of the movie revealed that “The Mandarin”—a long-time Iron Man foe portrayed in the trailers with Oscar-level ominousness by Ben Kingsley—was, in fact, struggling British actor Trevor Slattery, hired by Aldrich Killian (Guy Pearce) to give the world a boogeyman to target. It is the most hilariously anti-epic thing to ever happen in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and history will remember Trevor Slattery as a high point, not a failure. His Lear was, after all, the toast of Croydon.
Honorable Mention: Alrich Killian eventually declares himself “The Mandarin,” and then Aldrich Killian breathes fire like a dragon.
Peter Quill Defeats Galactic Evil Through the Power of Dance - ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’
Guardians of the Galaxyreally nudged the floodgates open for the MCU in terms of getting just a little bit weirder, seeing as how it’s a blockbuster about five intergalactic characters the general audience knew nothing about. One of them is a talking raccoon. The other is a literal tree. So, together withJames Gunn’s out-there sensibilities, it made perfect sense in-context that heroic dunce Peter Quill (Chris Pratt) would distract Ronan the Accuser (Lee Pace) not with his fists, but with a combination of hip gyrations and Five Stairsteps' “O-o-h Child.” It’s funny, yeah, but at the time it also feltfreshfollowing the “sometimes jokey, but always, always cool” mantra of Tony Stark, Thor, and Captain America.
Howard THE Duck - ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ (Credits Scene)
The fact that chainsmoking alien waterfowl detective Howard Duckson is just confirmed to be alive and ostensibly having his own little adventures somewhere in the MCU is one of the most wonderfully unhinged things to happen to movies since they actually made aHoward the Duckmovie and decided it was cool if he almost bangedLea Thompson. The fact that he appeared again during the climax of Avengers: Endgame is simply chef’s kiss for suggesting Thanos' world-conquering army couldn’t put down a literal duck in a child’s sport jacket.
Genocidal A.I. Ultron Covers ‘Pinocchio’ - ‘Avengers: Age of Ultron’
Marvel basically letJames Spaderre-do hisThe Officecharacter Robert California in the body of a genocidal A.I. and honestly, it rules. Say what you will about Avengers: Age of Ultron, but Spader is out here making choices. (Six years later and I still can’t decide if his delivery of “Thor. You are bothering me” late in the movie is lazy or the most brilliant thing in the world.) But Ultron’s oddest quirk is actually tacked on byJoss Whedon’s script: His decision to taunt the Avengers by singing “I’ve Got No Strings” from beloved children’s classic,Pinocchio. It’s creepy, but more than that it’s actually out of left field. Beofre Ultron, the MCU didn’t have a single villain that operated above angry badassery, and that includesTom Hiddleston’s Loki, who only got better with each passing appearance.
Scott Lang Gets Tiny for the First Time - ‘Ant-Man’
The MCU’s twoAnt-Manmovies have never quite reached the potential of how strange a movie about a man who gets very, very small could be, but they’ve gotten close, and never as playfully as the scene that sees Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) gives that shrinking suit a try for the first time. (The whole thing hasEdgar Wright’s fingerprints all over it, but we’ll never really know for sure.) Scott struggles to get out of a bathtub that’s suddenly the size of the Grand Canyon, gets absolutely nailed in the nards by a turntable needle, traverses a high heel-filled dance-floor, before finally avoiding a mouse in the style of Dr. Ian Malcolm fleeing a T-Rex. It’s such a dang delight of a sequence and perfectly encapsulates what an Ant-Man movie should look like in just three minutes.
Benedict Cumberbatch Is Repeatedly Murdered by an Inter-Dimensional Being - ‘Doctor Strange’
I mean, it’s right there in the title, butDoctor Strangereally felt like the first MCU movie where the studio actually got behind the idea of getting a little trippy. Scott Derrickson and co-writers Jon Spaihts and C. Robert Cargill really leaned into the unimaginable Lovecraftian cosmic-ness of it all by having Benedict Cumberbatch’s Sorcerer Supreme take on inter-dimensional monstrosity Dormammu by…getting repeatedly murdered in increasingly horrendous ways. Strange turns the Time Stone back again and again, Dormammu just absolutely bodying him for a comically long time, until the lord of the Dark Dimension is just like “Jesus okay, fine.”
A Talking Raccoon Weeps at the Sight of a Space Funeral - ‘Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2’
You might think I’m being mean here, but I genuinely cannot stress enough how much this entry is a testament to what James Gunn accomplished with theseGuardians of the Galaxymovies. Because the final image ofGuardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, the big concluding emotional climax before a cut to credits, is, without hyperbole, a talking raccoon openly weeping at the outer space fireworks funeral for a criminal with blue skin and a shark fin on his head. And it’s really sad! It’s genuinely moving! Through pure character work, Gunn stripped away the objectively weird details and made you care about the core underneath.
Bruce Banner Hits an Orgy Button Shaped Like a Butthole - ‘Thor: Ragnarok’
I unfortunately had to set a firm Waititi Limit™ on this piece, because whatever delightful Kiwi magic that man holds over Marvel Studios allowed him to make Thor: Ragnarok, the most uniquely strange movie in the MCU. Arguably the weirdest thing the MCU has ever done is just…the entirety of this film.Matt Damonshowing up alongsideSam Neill. That a comically long shot ofKarl Urbanusing a Shake Weight. Just…everything involving Korg. But if you really had to narrow it down to one, weird moment, I’d argue it’d be Bruce Banner punching a button shaped like a butthole while aboard an orgy ship careening toward a wormhole called The Devil’s Anus. That is, as they say, pretty hard to top.
The Incredible Hulk’s Entire Ass - ‘Thor: Ragnarok’
Okay,Thor: Ragnarokalso showed the Incredible Hulk’s entire ass. No notes.
