Fridge is for post-viewing discussion and is thus Spoilers Off. Beware of unmarked spoilers.
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Fridge Brilliance
- The treatment of the Guardians of the Galaxy at AvengerCon makes sense. With the exception of Rocket, who presumably kept out of interacting with humans outside of the Avengers, they were only on Earth for a brief amount of time during Avengers: Infinity War, with Groot in Wakanda and the rest of the team in the climax of Avengers: Endgame, so they presumably got inaccurate names due to those making the merchandise not being as knowledgeable about them. And according
to James Gunn, Peter had no desire to spend more time on Earth, so it's natural that any knowledge of the Guardians would be inaccurate and scattershot. - Having the first AvengerCon take place at Camp Lehigh is brilliant, considering that it is the birthplace of the First Avenger.
- There's also some (unintentional?) symbolism, considering how Kamala's parents are concerned about her living an Americanized lifestyle and growing away from her cultural roots—it thus becomes especially significant that her act of rebellion involves going to the place where an icon of American patriotism was created.
- Most of the crowd not reacting in alarm to Kamala using her powers makes sense because they would assume that anyone doing this on stage, at AvengerCon, during a cosplay contest, would have planned it ahead of time and therefore, they would not be in any real danger even after they realize that the blasts aren't just holograms.
- It's more Fridge Heartwarming, but one of the cosplayers is dressed as Loki. With the events of The Avengers in mind, you’d think this would be the equivalent of dressing up as Adolf Hitler. But then, Loki's development from Thor: Ragnarok comes into mind. Earth knows that Loki changed for the better, likely through Thor, Hulk and the Asgardians, and he's now regarded as a redeemed villain who took a stand against Thanos.
- Kamala's retelling of the Battle of Earth is biased in favor of Carol while downplaying other Avengers, especially Wanda Maximoff, who actually came closest to killing Thanos alongside Carol. Part of that is likely her fangirling over Carol, but Wanda taking over Westview probably means she has very few fans left in New Jersey.
- Alternatively (as it's unclear if the public knows the details about Westview or Wanda's role in the event), it's because after the events of Captain America: Civil War, Wanda was an international fugitive likely best known as the person who blew up a building in Lagos. She wouldn't have been in the public eye after Civil War (except as a criminal) before participating in the Battle of Wakanda, then vanishing in the Snap soon after until the Battle of Earth. As such, it's likely that Wanda's public profile has been low or negative for quite some time, even before Westview. Not to mention her rampage in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness most likely has now left her permanently hated, by the Masters of the Mystic Arts at least.
- Ant-Man appearing in Rogers: The Musical in Hawkeye makes more sense with the reveal that he has a podcast. Since the Avengers in general don't seem to be big on public relations, his podcast is likely one of the only firsthand sources of information people have of Avenger exploits, which obviously means he must have been with them during those pivotal moments...
- The ClanDestine connection seems to come out of left field given that they have no connection to the Inhumans or to Kamala. While it is a deep cut, it makes complete sense. With the Inhumans tie being cut, she needs to have some kind of lineage, and who better than the people who are in-universe descended from the djinn?
- It's even more brilliant because the ClanDestine have actually had encounters with the Inhumans in their own comics, which means that in a roundabout way, Kamala does still have a connection to the Inhumans.
- Kamran says his mother likes the actor Kingo "Senior", while Kamala says her Mother prefers his son, Kingo "Junior". Their different preferences make a lot of sense considering Kamran's mother is actually a lot older than Kamala's, so they grew up with those respective "generations" of Kingo.
- MCU Kamala's powers are different from Comics Kamala's powers, and of course they are. The two Kamalas are from different universes. MCU Kamala is from the Sacred Timeline/Earth-199999 ("Earth-616") while Comics Kamala is from the original (basically) Earth-616. So they have different histories. In the MCU, Kamala found her great-grandmother's Noor bangle instead of being exposed to Terrigen mist.
- Najma being so impatient with Kamala and leading the attack when she thought there was the slightest chance Kamala didn't want to help her is explained when we see that Kamala's ancestor, Aisha, who Najma personally knew, gave a very similar line to Najma only to end up backing out and leaving her behind, so she wasn't going to let it happen again.
- The Reveal of Kamala being a Mutant was foreshadowed the moment Agent Deever was introduced. Deever is a bigot who wanted to hunt down this new "enhanced" individual; "enhanced" was initially the stand-in term for "Mutant" in the MCU, and Deever's bigotry reflects the Fantastic Racism against Mutants in the comics.
- The confirmation of Mutants in the MCU being revealed in this show makes a lot of sense considering that Kamala's idol, Carol Danvers, in the original comics, was a supporting character of the X-Men in the past in her Ms. Marvel identity.
- Nakia and Kamala laugh at Bruno when he claims Kamran let him take his car since he's gone. They (and possibly the audience) assume he's just making this up, but it would be very in-character for Kamran to give his car as compensation for having Bruno's apartment blown up (even if wasn't really his fault).
- Why is it that the letter that Bruno puts in presumably Kamala's locker not acknowledged in the last scene they share together? Seeing as Bruno comes off as a very Cannot Spit It Out guy, he put the letter in Kamala's locker at the end of the school day and waited for her to find it the next day when he would already be at Caltech.
Fridge Horror
- While the second and third episodes paint a bad picture of Damage Control when they are being focused on like in Spider-Man: No Way Home, the end of Episode 5 shows them at their worst. In episode 2, they are shown with the E.D.I.T.H. drones they took from Peter at the start of that movie, but they are seemingly only being used to monitor potential threats. The end of this episode has shown that the drones still have the same attack capabilities they did in Spider-Man: Far From Home, which has two scary implications: 1. The drones could have totally attacked Kamala at the end of Episode 2, with her still being very inexperienced, and 2. this government agency is using extremely dangerous technology that was used in a massive terrorist attack and which could simply accidentally destroy large amounts of personal property.
- Damage Control also straddles the line of being horrifying while ultimately useless. They're willing to harshly interrogate teenagers, racially profile people, invade mosques, beat Kamran (who is a teenager) while he was chained up, and fire a missile into a public apartment with little provocation, while a non-enhanced person was in the room. And despite all their technology and resources, the Clandestines (a handful of people with relatively minor super strength and physical weapons) break out of their secure facility almost immediately and a couple of teenagers almost outplay them with Home Alone tactics. How many other enhanced people have they captured? How many can easily break out? How many deserve to be there? How many other Circle Qs have happened?
- She-Hulk: Attorney at Law adds to this, showing that Emil Blonsky/Abomination is being kept at a Damage Control facility. While it's clear that they take their security very seriously, it becomes a plot point in episode 2 that he regularly escapes to participate in a fight club (albeit under supervision of Wong, who can prevent any rampages). Not a great track record considering the growing amount of enhanced individuals.
- And with Mutants explicitly becoming a thing in the continuity now, Damage Control is likely going to end up refactored or even at the forefront as-is of attempted government control, because such a massive scope of now-enhanced individuals on a global level effectively falls entirely in their job description at this point.
