Snark Industries

Got a theory, thought, or just want to say some Marvelous? Drop a voicemail! You may just hear it on a future episode!

A Snarklet trip back to 1966 for the Captain America chapter of The Marvel Super Heroes, three loosely connected segments watched and reacted to in real time. The hosts talk through the whole disjointed run as it plays. From a serum sequence they can only describe as borderline phallic, to a teenage Bucky suiting up after months of training, to a bright yellow raft of TNT that a battleship somehow never spots, to a hypnotist act where things explode whenever Omar looks at them, to a Red Skull so goofy he has to be seen to be believed. Once the credits roll they turn to how it fits the larger picture, landing on a cheerful "it doesn't," and reflect on watching the Xeroxed comic pages animated straight onto the screen. Both hosts come away delighted, with a shared affection for old comic book narration that explains everything out loud, gratitude that the MCU reworked Bucky's origin, and a verdict of not good but great precisely because of how absurd it all is.

Dive in further at https://www.snarkindustriespod.com/post/the-marvel-super-heroes-season-1-ep-01-captain-america-wreckers-among-us-enter-the-red-skull

Join the conversation at https://discord.gg/mJBCuxffF5

Got a theory, thought, or just want to say some Marvelous? Drop a voicemail! You may just hear it on a future episode!

Snark Industries digs into the What If...? series opener, the story that pivots the First Avenger arc on a single choice: Peggy stays on the lab floor. Because of this; Kruger strikes early, Steve is shot before he can enter the chamber, and Peggy takes the serum instead. The full plot gets walked through, from the Hydra Stomper armor Howard Stark builds once the Tesseract is recovered early, to the train trap that presumably kills Steve, to the Red Skull summoning an Eldritch horror that eats him the moment it arrives, to Carter's own ultimate sacrifice and her arrival seventy years later in the SHIELD basement alongside the first appearance of Hawkeye in the watch order. The hosts weigh how much of the story is deliberate Captain America parallel versus genuine deviation, and spend real time on the feminism threading through it, the relentless "dame" dialogue, and a super soldier who clears thirty-foot walls in a way that stretches the "peak of human capacity" premise. Personal thoughts land warm on both sides, with shared praise for the animation, the fight choreography, and Hayley Atwell's Captain Carter, tempered by agreement that the Eldritch god was a swerve into the fantastic the story did not need. The breakdown also debuts the podcast's brand new official rating segment, born live on the mic.

Dive in further at https://www.snarkindustriespod.com/post/1943-6-22-ce-what-if-season-1-episode-1-captain-carter-were-the-first-avenger

Join the conversation at https://discord.gg/mJBCuxffF5

Got a theory, thought, or just want to say some Marvelous? Drop a voicemail! You may just hear it on a future episode!

World War II, an alternate track. Everything begins the way Steve Rogers' story did, right up to the procedure, but here Peggy Carter stays down on the lab floor. When Kruger launches his attack early, killing Erskine and wrecking the machinery, Peggy guns him down but Steve is shot in the chaos and cannot take the serum. Rather than lose the project entirely, Peggy steps into the chamber herself and emerges as Captain Carter. The SSR still has little interest in putting her to use, but she pushes into the war effort anyway, recovering the Tesseract from Arnim Zola before the Red Skull can exploit it. With the cube in hand, Howard Stark builds the Hydra Stomper armor for a serum-less Steve, and together with the Howling Commandos they free the 107th and tear through Hydra. The train mission turns out to be a trap that presumably kills Steve, and the Skull uses the Tesseract not for weapons but to open a portal, summoning a giant tentacled Eldritch monster that promptly (and hilariously) crushes him. Carter and the Commandos find Steve alive, and in the final push Captain Carter shoves the creature back through the portal, sacrificing herself to close it. The portal reopens decades later in the SHIELD research basement, where a one-eyed Fury and Hawkeye watch Peggy tumble out, and she learns seventy years have passed and the war is long over.

Dive in further at https://www.snarkindustriespod.com/post/1943-6-22-ce-what-if-season-1-episode-1-captain-carter-were-the-first-avenger

Join the conversation at https://discord.gg/mJBCuxffF5

Got a theory, thought, or just want to say some Marvelous? Drop a voicemail! You may just hear it on a future episode!

The first Snarklet, Snark Industries' format for shorter, harder-to-find Marvel media that rolls the watch party and deep dive into a single episode. This time it's the Marvel One-Shot: Agent Carter, following Peggy a year after Steve's crash as she's sidelined with busy work by a dismissive SSR office and then takes on a solo mission she was told needs three to five agents. The hosts talk through the action in real time, from the Zodiac assignment to Peggy dispatching a room of thugs on her own, before turning to their reactions and the short's place as a proving ground for the Agent Carter series that follows. The conversation lands on a shared read: a fun, low-stakes dip into the pool, carried entirely by how good a character Peggy is and how well Hayley Atwell plays her, but thin next to the show that would soon cover the same ground with more room to breathe. A nice little tie also gets flagged, with Peggy's condescending boss Agent Flynn turning out to be a face the hosts had puzzled over in a What If episode.

Dive in further at https://www.snarkindustriespod.com/post/1946-07-ce-marvel-one-shot-agent-carter

Join the conversation at https://discord.gg/mJBCuxffF5

Got a theory, thought, or just want to say some Marvelous? Drop a voicemail! You may just hear it on a future episode!

Snark Industries hits its first feature film with Captain America: The First Avenger, and both hosts come in adoring it. The full plot gets walked through, from the plane in the ice to scrawny Steve's rejected enlistments, Erskine's serum, the Hydra assassin, the bond-tour detour, the rescue of the 107th, and the crash that puts Steve on ice until a not-quite-right baseball game gives the present away. The comic roots get their due, with the origin drawn from Captain America number one, this version of Steve and a grown-up Bucky pulled from Ed Brubaker's 2005 run rather than the Golden Age sidekick, the recovery from the ice lifted from Avengers number four, and the Howling Commandos tracing back to their own 1963 series. Easter eggs round it out, including the shield shape, Zola's fish-eye framing, the first Stan Lee cameo as a general, and the Rocketeer DNA that director Joe Johnston carries into the film. Personal thoughts land as unqualified love on both sides, with a shared appreciation for Steve's non-secret identity, a grown Bucky who has no business being a child on the front line, and only the Hydra salute drawing any complaint at all.

Dive in further at https://www.snarkindustriespod.com/post/1943-6-22-ce-captain-america-the-first-avenger

Join the conversation at https://discord.gg/mJBCuxffF5

Got a theory, thought, or just want to say some Marvelous? Drop a voicemail! You may just hear it on a future episode!

The 1940s. A downed plane is found frozen in the ice with a familiar shield inside, and the story jumps back to wartime to explain how it got there. Steve Rogers, small and sickly, keeps trying to enlist and keeps getting turned away, while his friend Bucky ships out to the 107th and Howard Stark shows off his latest tech at a grand exposition. Dr. Erskine overhears Steve explain that he does not want to kill anyone, he just does not like bullies, and selects him for the Strategic Scientific Reserve. Steve takes the serum, is transformed, and immediately loses Erskine to an undercover Hydra assassin who takes his own life before he can be questioned. Sidelined as a bond-selling mascot, Steve heads to the front, learns the 107th has been captured, and with a push from Agent Carter mounts a solo rescue that frees Bucky and the others and puts him face to face with the Red Skull and Arnim Zola. As Cap and the Howling Commandos dismantle Hydra base by base, Bucky falls from a train to his apparent death, and Zola gives up the plan. In a final confrontation aboard a bomber loaded to level American cities, the Red Skull grabs the Tesseract and vanishes, the cube falls into the sea, and Steve chooses to put the plane down in the ice to save everyone, sharing a last moment with Carter as he goes under. He wakes in the present, sees a changed New York, meets Nick Fury, and is handed the mission that leads to the Avengers.

Dive in further at https://www.snarkindustriespod.com/post/1943-6-22-ce-captain-america-the-first-avenger

Join the conversation at https://discord.gg/mJBCuxffF5

Got a theory, thought, or just want to say some Marvelous? Drop a voicemail! You may just hear it on a future episode!

The first Nexus Chat, a new format where the timeline pauses ahead of a major turning point to take stock of everything that came before. With Captain America's super soldier serum on the horizon as the very first Nexus event, the hosts look back across eighteen episodes: four of Eyes of Wakanda, four of What If, two of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., and all eight of Spider-Noir. The conversation digs into how well those pieces actually fit together, with only a third of what has been watched belonging to the main timeline, and works through the two time travel entries, The Last Panther and the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. two-parter, landing on a workable reading where the events were always part of history rather than changes to it. Along the way there are peeks behind the curtain at the recording and watch order, a look at how Spider-Noir dropped into the timeline mid-project, and a genuine thank you to everyone following along, plus a walkthrough of the companion website and where it is headed.

Dive in further at https://www.snarkindustriespod.com/

Join the conversation at https://discord.gg/mJBCuxffF5

Got a theory, thought, or just want to say some Marvelous? Drop a voicemail! You may just hear it on a future episode!

Snark Industries closes out Spider-Noir's first season with a finale that resolves the war and sets a very deliberate table for season two. The full plot gets walked through, from Ben and Robbie's plan to take down Silvermane to a climactic clash that finally sees Ben fully embrace the spider once more. The hosts dig into the season's overall arc, the deliberate slow build of Ben back toward heroism, and the way the finale pays off threads planted across the run. Personal thoughts land firmly positive on the season as a whole, with both hosts naming the show a pleasant surprise and reflecting on where it lands among the Spider-Man adaptations they've seen. Talk turns to what a second season might hold and which dangling threads they most want picked up, capping off the podcast's first extended run through a single series.

Dive in further at https://www.snarkindustriespod.com/post/1933-10-22-ce-spider-noir-season-1-episode-8-the-man-in-the-mask

Join the conversation at https://discord.gg/mJBCuxffF5

Got a theory, thought, or just want to say some Marvelous? Drop a voicemail! You may just hear it on a future episode!

New York, 1933. With both sides of the war closing in on Ben Reilly, the finale brings the season's conflict to a head. Ben and Robbie move against Silvermane as the crime boss's grip on the city tightens, and long-simmering betrayals and allegiances finally come due. The confrontation forces Ben to stop hiding from what he is, fully donning the spider once again to face down Silvermane's powered enforcers and the man orchestrating events from the shadows. When the dust settles, the immediate threat is resolved, but the finale leaves deliberate loose ends, hinting at new dangers on the horizon and a version of Ben Reilly ready to be a hero again. The season ends with the spider firmly back in action and the promise of more to come.

Dive in further at https://www.snarkindustriespod.com/post/1933-10-22-ce-spider-noir-season-1-episode-8-the-man-in-the-mask

Join the conversation at https://discord.gg/mJBCuxffF5

Got a theory, thought, or just want to say some Marvelous? Drop a voicemail! You may just hear it on a future episode!

Snark Industries reaches the penultimate moment of Spider-Noir, with the board being set for the season finale. The full plot gets walked through, from Ben drinking away his sorrows and beating a bar full of hecklers, to a confrontation that ends with Robbie curing Lonnie of his Tombstone powers, to both Silvermane and the mayor independently deciding they need to find Ben Reilly. The hosts spend real time on Ben's increasingly morally ambiguous behavior and whether the show is deliberately building him toward a more recognizable version of Spider-Man, while also praising Robbie as the clear moral center of the series. Lonnie's redemption and hoped-for happy ending get warm approval, even as both hosts wish his back-and-forth allegiances had been given more room to breathe. Personal thoughts remain positive, with particular admiration for a comic-panel-style filmmaking flourish late in the episode, and both hosts are eager to see how the oncoming war resolves in the finale.

Dive in further at https://www.snarkindustriespod.com/post/1932-10-22-ce-spider-noir-season-1-episode-7-nobodys-hero

Join the conversation at https://discord.gg/mJBCuxffF5