A couple of minutes into his video speculating1 about a new-to-the-MCU appearance by a guest character in this week's episode of The Falcon And The Winter Soldier, , which storyline the Power Broker first showed up in Jack Kirby's comic adaptation/expansion of 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Mind BLOWN!
Comics are, as MovieBob says, Weird…
I'm still sceptical that the Power Broker's identity will be shown this season. Unless Disney have an unannounced appearance for the character in one of the next phase of feature film projects, they'll get more mileage from dropping the name in a TV series like this then leaving a portion of the fan base to speculate - feverishly, as is their way - about the Power Broker being at least a supporting character up in every future MCU storyline set on Earth-616. Disney's executives must be delighted at how much bang for the buck they got from encouraging viewers of their recent TV tie-ins/spin-offs to create publicity for the franchise by picking up on the tiniest hints. Until they reach a point where the blizzard of speculation about what might be to come creates so much hype that the actual films are seen as a disappointment (and, to be fair, there's no sign of that) they can use the fannish anticipation to keep audiences hyped for what might be to come for a while yet.2
- Wrongly, or at any rate prematurely as it turns out, that the identity of the as-yet-unrevealed Power Broker character would turn out to be Sharon Carter. ↩
- Not because a significant portion of the population cares about the Power Broker. More because the sheer volume of chatter about these shows adds to the impression that these are interesting, so media need to devote attention to them. For goodness' sake, I've spent some of this morning listening to a Vanity Fair podcast which includes a section speculating about the identity of the Power Broker and what's next for the character of Sharon Carter after she's apparently reacted to being dropped by S.H.I.E.L.D. in the wake of the Civil War storyline. Condé Nast think this is worth putting a podcast out over, and the actress gets to spend time pretending that there are things she's not allowed to tell us about this plot! How much would Disney have to spend to get these column inches/screen time by other means? ↩