When the latest trailer for Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings dropped last week, Marvel fans were freaking out over the final moments where a character who looked a heck of a lot like Abomination was battling it out in a cage match. Besides the addition of gills to match his comic book look, it was quite clearly Tim Roth’s version of the villain from 2008’s The Incredible Hulk, but given the prevalence of bizarre characters in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, there was always a chance that the creature could be someone else. Not anymore.
In a surprising bit of transparency, Marvel Studios head Kevin Feige has confirmed that, yes, the character in the trailer is Abomination. On top of that, fans were speculating that his opponent in the ring is yet another key MCU character, and Feige went ahead and confirmed that one, too. Via Rotten Tomatoes:
“Yes, we just recently released the final trailer for Shang-Chi,” said Feige. “Some fans said, ‘This looks like a character they hadn’t seen in many years named The Abomination, fighting a character that looks like Wong. And I can say that the reason it looks like that is because that is Abomination fighting Wong.”
Considering Shang-Chi officially kicks off the events of Marvel Phase 4, we’re already seeing several MCU properties flow through the film just in the trailer. The cage fight takes place in Madripoor, which was a pivotal location in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Abomination is there ahead of his upcoming appearance in the She-Hulk series, and now, we have confirmation that Wong is indulging in some recreational cage-fighting before the events of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. All that’s missing is White Vision floating around in the background, and we probably wouldn’t rule that out at this point.
(Via Rotten Tomatoes)