Marvel Rising: Battle of the Bands is a 2019 animated special. It is part of the cross-platform Marvel Rising franchise, following Marvel Rising: Heart of Iron.
Ghost-Spider/Gwen Stacy is having difficulties juggling her civilian life with her superhero life. Her band has a Battle of the Bands coming up, but her plans are thrown awry when a series of mysterious attacks start hitting around the city.
The special debuted at D23 Expo 2019 and was released on the Marvel HQ YouTube channel the next week, on August 28, 2019. It can be viewed here
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It is followed by Marvel Rising: Operation Shuri.
Contains examples of:
- Attack Reflector: After deducing the nature of Mimi's powers, Ironheart rigs one of her gauntlets to absorb Mimi's sonic blast and send it back at her, overloading the sonic amplifier on her choker.
- Battle of the Bands: The titular show. Gwen's band is performing against the Thunderbolts.
- Catapult to Glory: The team flings Ghost-Spider at Mimi using Ms. Marvel as a slingshot.
- Character Focus: Gwen again, this time about her efforts to juggle superhero and civilian life.
- Clothes Make the Superman: Mimi's choker is responsible for her powers.
- Deus Exit Machina: Quake's absence from the plot turns Mimi into a powerful threat, since Quake's vibration powers would counteract Mimi's solid sound.
- Dick Dastardly Stops to Cheat: Mimi goes to great lengths to sabotage every route leading to the venue where the Battle of the Bands is taking place, leaving no one to challenge her. Eventually, Gwen figures out the pattern and intercepts her, forcing Mimi to battle the Secret Warriors and causing her to miss the performance herself.
- "Eureka!" Moment: Gwen realizes the pattern behind the attacks when her bandmate calls and mentions that she's had to swap buses several times to get around the accidents.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: Mimi is defeated by Ghost-Spider wielding Ironheart's gauntlet, which is rigged to reflect Mimi's sonic scream back at her and overload the choker her powers come from.
- Internal Reveal: Gwen tells her bandmates that she's Ghost-Spider, because she feels she owes it to them not to lie about why she's been so flaky.
- Insert Song:
- "Team" plays while the Secret Warriors are handling the falling crane at the beginning.
- "Side by Side" plays as the team splits up to help around the city.
- "Natural Disaster" plays as the team fights Mimi.
- Gwen's band performs the Marvel Rising theme "Born Ready" at the show.
- Mythology Gag: Screaming Mimi and the Thunderbolts, and her bandmates are lookalikes for Atlas, Jolt and Meteorite.
- Over-the-Shoulder Carry: After knocking her out, Ghost-Spider binds Screaming Mimi's hands with her webs and then proceeds to load her onto her shoulder carrying her off like that.
- Ship Tease:
- Kamala is excited to go to the concert with Dante and gets shy and awkward as she tells him she'd love to go with him.
- Doreen tugs Rayshaun into joining everyone in dancing at the concert. He grins awkwardly as they dance next to each other.
- The Unmasking: Gwen reveals her Ghost-Spider identity to her bandmates.
- Written-In Absence: Quake is absent from this episode, the explanation given at the beginning being that she's away with Lockjaw on a mission for S.H.I.E.L.D.
