For many years, we’ve all been under the illusion that Kevin Feige was the man running Marvel Studios. But, according to the season finale of “She-Hulk: Attorney at Law,” Kevin Feige is actually Kevin, an artificial intelligence bot. However, the show wasn’t always planned to end this way.
In the episode, now streaming on Disney+, we find Jennifer Walters back at Emil Blonsky’s retreat, hoping to escape the havoc that Intelligenia wreaked on her life. As it turns out, Intelligencia has its own retreat at the lodge, with abominations as a guest speaker. Naturally, all hell breaks loose when Jane stumbles upon their meeting, interrupting Todd on stage – because, as many had guessed, he was the Hulking – and he is informed that He stole his blood to give himself Hulk powers.
But before things get too crazy, Jane herself stops the action by breaking down the fourth wall — literally. In an homage to the Jack Byrne run of the comics, where She-Hulk tries to rip through the pages as he is furious about the story, this time Jane breaks through to Disney+, sending it straight to Kevin. Travels to Marvel Studios to take her along. Only, in this universe, is Kevin really Kevin – or the Knowledge Enhanced Visual Interconnectivity Nexus. But according to lead writer Jessica Gao, she and her team considered making Kevin a real person, just in an equally absurd way.
“Initially, my first pitch was that, when she finally got to Kevin’s office, we’d cast her alongside a handsome, debonair actor like George Clooney,” Gao told TheWrap. “And he would be in a tuxedo like a glass of Scotch, and he would be Kevin. And we were like, He is Kevin Feige. He is really the real Kevin.”
It was Gao’s second pitch that, though sticking, made Kevin a robot. Sadly, it was unlikely that Feige would ever reveal herself as her.
“Kevin Feige” never Request to join the Marvel project,” Gao said with a laugh.
That said, the real Feige had a big hand in the episode’s trajectory. Gao explained that she went through “so many iterations” about what could be the finale. “I mean, really, like, in the double digits of what it could be,” she said. She said she struggled quite a bit with the story because she felt that “this is the point in which I have to start working miracles,” and follow the specific formula.
“And I guess that’s why nothing was working. You know, like, dozens of versions of the finale, it just — nothing felt right. And that was for a reason,” Gao said. “And it was human Kevin who said, ‘Why? There’s no reason to do that.’ Like, ‘This isn’t a Marvel movie, this is a show that’s going to be completely different from what we’ve said from the beginning. And it’s going to be completely new territory. And it’s exciting. And it’s fun. So why stop here? There’s no reason for you to just perform specific miracles.’ And it was so wonderful and liberating for him to say that.”
For what it’s worth though, that receptionist signed the NDA to She-Hulk? He was a real receptionist. His name was Matt Wilkie, and he was the one who actually had to get Gao to sign his NDA when he first started meeting Marvel.
Gao said, “I had a dream to watch a show, watch it and then have a meeting at Marvel, and then they go into the same lobby and see the same guy tell them the same thing.” “But Matt Wilkie Has Been Since Then” [been] Very well promoted. But I’ll hold it against him forever because…he ruined the joke of a long time!”
All nine episodes of “She-Hulk: Attorney at Law” are streaming now on Disney+.