What's up, what's up enthusiasts? Welcome to the Nerd O Dome, bitch. You're listening to I Am A Nerd. Where we celebrate nerdy things, old and new, with our like minded peers. And that means you. I'm your host, Direct Addition. And we are continuing our countdown to Captain America Brave New World. We're about two weeks out from its release, when this episode drops.
And we're gonna talk a little bit about Sidewinder. I have here with me Zero Cool. What's up, Zero? What's up, what's up, what's up? So, Sidewinder. [00:02:00] Who the hell is he? And believe me, before we started talking about doing this, uh, this episode, I had no idea who Sidewinder was until I found out, you know, a little about who's going to play him in the movie, which that really got me excited.
So that made me want to go look up a couple of things about Sidewinder. So he's been around for a while. And this is his MCU debut. Really the only thing I knew about Sidewinder was he was part of the Serpent Society. That was, that was pretty much it. Like what the Serpent Society was and the members of the Serpent Society.
I really couldn't tell you. Sidewinder was pretty much the only one I knew. Probably Sidewinder, Anaconda. I knew they were all named after snakes. Yep. And I think he had a relationship with Black Mamba. I didn't even know that. So that's about all I knew about it. And like I said, I had to go out and actually do a little digging [00:03:00] to find out exactly who he was and when you and me, you know, his first appearance was back in June of 1980.
So we're looking at 44 years that this character has been around that he's been around off and on and we don't know a whole lot about him, but he's getting an MCU debut. Yeah. So look at that. And I don't think it's just him. I think this may be our introduction into the Serpent Society. So we may be starting to see more and more of them show up.
And I know you mentioned that playing Sightwander is, Giancarlo Esposito. Love that guy. Phenomenal actor. Oh, the things that he did in, in Breaking Bad, and I'm not a huge drama TV kind of guy. I like my sci fi. I like my, you know. Geek stuff, but I did watch a few episodes and he is just an amazing actor.
And then I saw him in the Mandalorian and he couldn't have played a better, bad guy. And that seems to be his niche. [00:04:00] He, he is the guy. If you want somebody to intellectually menace you, you need to call this guy, put him in your film, get him in your story. Because I, right now, I'm having a tough time thinking of anybody better.
It wasn't just, the Mandalorian that he was in because it, that seems to be his niche. Like you said, playing bad guys, he showed up in the boys, he showed up in not quite as big a role in that one as some of the other things, but he did show up. Yeah. But still that intellectual villain.
Oh yeah, absolutely. And I know there was, I'm, I'm missing it. And, you know what, it's not a movie, it's the video game I was thinking of. He played the villain in the video game as well. Oh, um,
wasn't GTA, it was, uh,
Boy, you had to say that, and I can see him right on the, Right on the cover. Right on the cover, right now. And I know everybody listening is screaming the name of the video game. Oh, they're absolutely. [00:05:00] Far Cry, Far Cry 6. Far Cry, yes, absolutely. Which I haven't played, but again, Giancarlo Esposito. But look at him.
He's going from TV to movies to video games. I mean, this guy is so talented and he is such a good actor and he does it. He makes me scared. I'm on the other side of the damn screen. I wouldn't mess with this dude. I'd rather have Derrick Henry from the Ravens run me over than mess with this dude. Telling you.
And most actors are afraid of being typecast, I would say. I think he, I think he just, he takes it and he is rolling with it. He has found it. Yeah. He found his niche and he's leaping into it like all the way left and doing a phenomenal job with it. Absolutely. I'm not even going to lie, you know, Captain America has never been one of my, characters that I've been really like, ooh, crazy behind.
Right. Loved, I loved Chris Evans as Captain America in the MCU. I love that he's passed on the shield [00:06:00] just like they did in the comics. But seeing this character played by this actor has gotten me really excited for the movie. I, more than, I gotta say even maybe more than some of the other characters which we'll get to in a little bit, but this one right here has gotten me excited.
Giancarlo, he is He's, of course he's playing Sidewinder, but I think they gave him a more grounded look than what he has as far as comic wise. Now you look at his costume in the comics, boy, that, you can tell that was written 44 years ago, that that was drawn 44 years ago. Oh yeah. You can see this get up now, boy.
I think he had like a, the red scaly skin, and I think there was a point where. Yeah, he had a, a cape with the, with the kind of fins on the back, fins around the back of the neck. Like Dr. Strange kind of has it too, but his more look reptilian. Mm-hmm . At the Fins are reminded me of [00:07:00] that dinosaur that spit stuff at, the, at Newman Jurassic Park,
Really the, the only thing that Cape did was teleport and it wasn't even his. He actually, actually correction. He was given the ability and he was given it to the ability by the rocks on oil company. So his actual superpower, his ability was to be able to teleport, which is going to be interesting to see in the actual brave new world movie.
If they go that route. But he was able to recruit members into the Serpent Society because he said, Hey, you know what? You go to jail. You ain't gonna be there long. I'm gonna get you out. Right. And he was able to form a criminal syndicate based on You ain't ever gonna get caught. I got your back. Right. It was more like a, uh, a union.
An evil workers union. Pretty much, yeah. We got your back if you get arrested. You do the crime, you ain't doing the time, we need you out of there. [00:08:00] I mean, his biggest ability is that he's a very intelligent person. He was an actual economics professor. Okay. And he couldn't get tenure at the university he was teaching at, so then he went to work for Roxxon Oil.
And that's when they mutated him and gave him the power to teleport. What was he left to do? I'm saying he couldn't get tenure. You gotta find the next best thing. You gotta make your money. Which really comes out later on because he does eventually give up the criminal life. But he has to make some side deals here and there because his daughter ends up having cancer.
Uh. And he's gotta have some money to take care of the daughter. And we all know healthcare in America. That's costly. Now that makes more sense of why they chose Giancarlo for the, that role then. Now, we don't know if we're going to actually get to that in the movie, but that's a little bit of side comics piece of, history there that kind of shows a little bit of a motivation later on.
Now, I know in the first few trailers, they beefed up, Sidewinder's appearance. The first one, it was [00:09:00] Sidewinder this, and then at the end, you saw Red Hulk. How much do you think Sidewinder is actually going to be in Brave New World because I kind of feel like it's going to be the the Batroc the Leaper scene where he fights Cap in the beginning and then He was just like a lead in mm hmm because from from what I've seen and what I've researched There's gonna be at least three major villains for Falcon Cap To go up against in Brave New World.
Yep. One of them will be a sidewinder Second one being Ross and last one being the leader. This movie has the shortest runtime of all the Captain America. I saw that earlier this week and it was like the shortest runtime and they've got a lot to pack into this one. So it's going to be interesting how they they get the direction to get all of that in three villains.
One of the things I think is [00:10:00] why they have the shortest run time is, you had Falcon and Winter Soldier for as a set up and which leads directly into Cap. So you don't have to take more movie time to explain Cap, Sam Wilson, transition, Sam Wilson. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. And I'm hoping it's going to be more focused on the action and story and jumping right into it.
And cut off, like, the fat. You know, like we say, how many times do we need to see Uncle Ben die? How many times do we need to see Bruce and Martha Wayne die? You know, we already got that origin. So we can hit the ground running. Absolutely. But, I don't know, I was trying to figure out as far as how much of that is going to be Sidewinder.
That's a good question. Is Sidewinder's piece in this movie, is it going to be a major piece? Right. Is he going to have the headline as the main villain? Which I sincerely doubt. Yeah. Because we have Thaddeus Ross [00:11:00] playing the President, which we all know is going to be Red Hulk. Red Hulk. And we'll talk about him in a little bit.
But, uh, It'll be interesting to see how Sidewinder plays into the interwoven story of three villains. Yeah. Because we've all been thinking about the leader since we saw him back in Incredible Hulk. Right. You know what I'm saying? We all kind of forgot about him a little bit, but then once we figured out, hey, he's going to be back on the screen, we all started thinking, where is he going to play into this?
And then having the Red Hulk, obviously. And I think that's where people Really want to see is that new hope who's this new hope? Mm hmm. How does he measure up? Yeah That's why I said I think this is kind of gonna be an introduction to the Serpent Society Because they took a similar approach with Batrock the leaper when he was in Civil War in the beginning.
Yep [00:12:00] Played by George st. Pierre And then we didn't see him again until Falcon and Winter Soldier. Yeah. I'm okay with that. I really don't want them to bring in. Esposito, and then this is a one time appearance and they just let the character go. Yeah, and especially you don't want to waste the talent like that.
You may, you know, tease us a little bit with this one, but I hope that, you know, if that's the way this plays out, we get more of that later on. And like you said, this could be just an introduction to the Serpent Society, and they could play a much bigger role down the line. That's what, that's what I'm hoping for.
Because I don't want to see Esposito's character get swept under the rug because of Red Hulk, because of the leader. I want to see him do his thing. When it was announced that Esposito was going to be in Cap 4, Captain America, Brave New World, the speculation was he was going to be playing Professor X. Or Doctor Doom. And honestly, [00:13:00] Honestly, unpopular opinion, I would much rather have seen him play Dr. Doom. I'm in the boat rowing with you because, I'll be honest with you, I gotta say, I love Robert Downey Jr. and his Iron Man was spot on, and it, he was born to play that part, but his role was over.
He died. He's done his time. Let him go. Yeah. Yeah. I'd rather see anybody. Hell, you could play Dr. Doom before him, okay? I don't know if I could do that. I don't know. We might have to start a GoFundMe, a campaign, you know, something. Maybe, maybe we can, maybe we can get this sorted out before it comes out.
But, once again, RDJ, great Iron Man. Once again, he was born to play that part. But his story's over. He did his thing. His story's over. And if the MCU is having to pull on his star power to put, for lack of a better term, asses in seats [00:14:00] to make that money, the MCU may be in trouble. It may be in more trouble than we thought it would.
Absolutely. Also with Sidewinder, I was reading in the cast list. There's supposed to be another member of the Servant Society in there too, Diamondback. She's going to be played by Rosa Salazar?
Let me pull it up and I'll tell you. And I think it was, she was going to be played by Rosa Salazar. It kind of begged the question will we see any other members of the Servant Society in there?
Because I know with Sidewinder initially, I don't remember the original members, but I know there was, we named Anaconda, Cobra, Python Princess, or Princess Python, and you said Black Mamba. And then now we have Diamondback that's gonna show up.
Okay, so you said, Salazar was going to play Diamondback? Yeah. Okay, sounds good because I, there for a second, and you heard me not spouting off, I got her confused with the actress, uh, Shira Haas, who's going to be playing Ruth Bat Surf, who is actually [00:15:00] Sabra. Yeah. Sabra was already a mutant then.
No, she wasn't a mutant, she was Technically, I guess, uh, I remember her showing up in X Men. That's why I was saying that Sabra was a mutant. And, you know, I don't think she was a mutant, but let's say, sure, why not? But, she's an Israeli. Right. And she worked for the Mossad. And, if you remember, her costume was God awfully offensive.
I don't know if you remember back in the day and that costume and they've, they've done some crazy shit, but you know the times are a changing. The unfortunate part is there's been a lot of controversy over her character, since it was announced that she was going to be in the movie based on what's going on currently in, in the world and, and what's happening in the West Bank and, and things of that nature.
Okay. Um, which are both, Both very legitimate causes for [00:16:00] complaint. So what they've done is they have kind of toned her down. So she's not quite as prolific in her nationality as she was previously going to be. Uh, she's going to be playing a assistant to Harrison Ford's Thaddeus Ross as president.
But yeah, I, I got those two complaints. confused there for a second. So apologize on that. So hopefully more of the Serpent Society show up, because we already got confirmed that Sidewinder, of course, and then a Diamondback is going to be in there., how did, Serpent Society get its start though?
So basically Serpent Society was really a, Sidewinder conception. He pretty much brought it. Into fruition, after he gained his power, and let's go back on that because you initially said that, the cloak was part of the power. And you're absolutely right. Cause after a little bit more rocks on actually developed the cloak.
Um, but they mutated [00:17:00] him to be able to use the cloak. Oh, okay. So it contains, uh, nth projector technology, some electronic circuitry that enables the wearer to open an aperture in another dimension and Sidewinder is able to slide through that dimension, allowing him to teleport in one jump up to about 50 miles.
Oh, okay. So he has the cybernetic control chip implanted in his brain that helps him control. The accuracy and activate pre program coordinates in that if, let's say he gets wounded or is, you know, incapacitated. So you were absolutely right about the cloak. But they had to do some, some surgeries to kind of mutate him to be able to control it and you be able to fully use the cloak.
And I was just thinking, it's like, damn, that's not. Too far fetched to be it is outside of the mutation part. But we saw Giancarlo with the, or Sidewinder as far as the MCU debut version. We saw him with the [00:18:00] cloak and whatever he was doing in the beginning.
And it's not too far fetched for that cloak to mimic what they have in the comics. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely, uh, but as far as the Serpent Society goes, you know, he was a henchman alongside Anaconda, Death Adder, and the Black Mamba, who were working for Roxxon, but then, you know, as we all know, if we read, uh, he actually kind of broke off from Roxxon and started the Serpent Society, and he kind of brought those other ones along with him.
Do you remember where you've heard Roxxon in the air quotes MCU, uh, continuity? Spider Man? No, I was thinking about another one. And it was a very good show that did not get its due and did not get picked up.
Are you talking about MCU wise or comic wise? No, this is TV wise. Dang, I ain't know any trivia questions, so it's like [00:19:00] Well, see, I don't get to trip you up very often, okay? So, but if you remember the TV show Cloak Dagger I've skipped Cloak Dagger. Okay, pretty good show. It wasn't really comic accurate, but it was actually a pretty good show, and I can't say enough about the soundtracks that went along with that show.
Great soundtracks with You know the modern themes and things like that, but Roxxon was the ultimate bad entity in that Television show as well. I think they share the similar comic fate as far as Cloak Dagger goes as well Yeah, but I didn't watch Cloak Dagger the TV series, but I did watch Runaways. Oh, that was a good Cloak Dagger Ended up doing a crossover in that one.
Mm hmm. So and after I seen him I had a mental note to go and watch Cloak Dagger, but It's in the long list of Yeah, it was nowhere near as good, in my opinion, as maybe Daredevil or Luke Cage, [00:20:00] but it was a pretty solid show in and of itself. Okay. Alright. So, Roxxon had its TV debut. We don't know if that's still going to tie in to MCU, but as far as their origin goes, they were doing, I guess, what does it seem like, more like corporate espionage, or For the most part, you know.
I can see that translating to the movie as well. I mean, you know, big business. They always got their hands in something and ain't none of them, you know, totally legit. So, right. And the latest iteration I read up on that was the serpent society is that they had rebranded, so to speak, calling themselves serpent, solutions, serpent solutions.
I saw, a part where they also at one time called themselves, uh, in the third incarnation of the serpent squad as well. And the Serpent Solution one, that's where they were offering their services to big corporations to do the corporation's dirty work. And they would use [00:21:00] legal loopholes to absolve themselves or get out of trouble if they were ever caught.
And I think this was a version I think we may see this version, that version of the Serpent Society. surface solutions or whatever the name is going to be in the movie as far as it goes so that they will reach out and hire them Corporations you you a bad guy. Yeah, you collect other bad guys.
How you want to keep other bad guys in your stable? money right money money money Makes the world go round, right? So you got off your services somebody and of course the big business big Corporations are going to have the money to pay you to do the dirty work for them and keep their hands clean.
With that, I think MCU seems to be more or less pulling stories from like within the last 10 years. Or at least using the last 10 years of comic book reference [00:22:00] to translate into the cinematic universe. Which is it's kind of smart, kind of understandable because let's be honest, society in the real world has advanced.
We're not quite there yet, like I've said before, but things have been better in the last 10 years than they were 40 years ago, 50 years ago. I mean, some of the material that you can pull out of those types of storylines may be a little questionable and we want to be able to. reach as many people as possible with these stories and these characters.
So, being able to pull that information and that type of story from the last 10 years only really makes sense. Now, some people might say, you know, woke or, Inclusivity or you know that garbage, but you know what the We all share in the same world. So why are we not including everybody in the same [00:23:00] world?
Just kind of makes sense to me Agree, and I agree with you one thing to note About Sidewinder is there's actually been two Sidewinders. Oh in comics so the the version we're going to get In Brave New World was the original Seth Volker. Right. I remember reading up on him. Okay. But at one time, there was another guy that was named Gregory Brine who took up the mantle of the Sidewinder.
So it's like, which version are we going to get? And so, no, we're getting Seth because he was actually named in the production and everything as Seth Volker. G. I. Conov, Esposito's character listed as Seth Volker. So we're getting the original. Okay. But just as a little side note, we did have another Sidewinder.
And of course, we have another corporation. And the Brand Corporation, in this particular iteration, gave Gregory Bryan the power to do [00:24:00] what Sidewinder could do. Definitely looking forward to see Sidewinder and where this takes him. Like we said, we don't want to see that talent wasted. With Giancarlo Esposito. Absolutely. So, but before we close it out, anything else you want to bring up? Anything we didn't touch on? I think we covered about everything that we want to get into about Sidewinder until we see what the, what the movie is going to bring out. We talked about maybe this possibly just being a setup for Serpent Society.
We'll see how that all works out. I'm pretty damn excited because of Sidewinder to see this, brave new world. Alright. Well, with that we're going to go ahead and slither out of here, and we'll catch you guys back here next week. And remember, live your best geek life, play games, read comics, watch anime, geek responsibly. Peace.[00:25:00]
