When the initial Shang Chi trailer dropped, many were surprised to see some Marvel characters make cameos that we didn’t expect to see. Of the most prominent was of course the Abomination, which we haven’t seen since the Incredible Hulk in 2008. While it makes a lot of sense to bring his character back since they are going to be exploring more with the Hulk family, it began to raise questions about where this slimy lizard was hiding all of this time. For our full predictions, you can check out the podcast episode below.

https://anchor.fm/ltmft/embed/episodes/Episode-9-Shang-Chi—Where-Have-They-Been-e15hbfq

Now to address Abomination a little more, we have to first look at the fact that he has been gone for about 15 years. In that time, the Hulk of course went on to become an Avenger and save the world from Thanos. And speaking of Thanos, we have to bring up the possibility that Abomination may have also been snapped for the past five years as well. But he is big, and gross looking, so he definitely hasn’t just been living his best life in the world of people. As mentioned in the podcast, his comic book story has him taken and not even on Earth for a long period of time. This means it is completely possible that they may make this his story as well in the MCU. At the end of the day, I wouldn’t be surprised if we get a quick one liner to try and explain his whereabouts and that’s it, as he isn’t the most important character in the movie.

However, another interesting character we see cameo while fighting Abomination is Wong. What the heck is Wong doing? We do know he isn’t snapped, so it is intriguing to see him in a battle using his magic. It is possible he is out on an assignment, maybe to stop Abomination or the Ten Rings organization. They have a magical element to them, so it wouldn’t surprise me that they have popped up on Dr. Strange’s radar. I don’t exactly know how they did and Wanda didn’t, but I don’t write the MCU shows or movies. I highly doubt that Wong has gone haywire and is now just using his powers to fight in a fighting ring. He was clearly still loyal to Dr. Strange when the Blip took place, which means I can’t think he has jumped ship randomly.

Lastly, the Ten Rings organization is something that a majority of the first and third Iron Man, and a little bit of the second, focused itself around. Of course we’ve seen it before, but where has it been this whole time? As we did mention in the podcast, the Avengers began to take on the bigger level threats, so a terrorist organization may not have been on their radar. They have popped up in some discreet locations throughout films, but are really only noticed by those with eagle eyes. This being said, what have they have been up to all this time is also a great question to ask. Their leader clearly has mystical power, so they have an advantage compared to regular terrorist groups. If Shang Chi doesn’t take down the group, I have a feeling it may play a bigger role in the next phase than just this movie. It already has played a pretty large role before, essentially being the reason Iron Man was created and therefore the entire Marvel universe that we know. It also makes me think that maybe this will mean Shang Chi will be a bigger part to our new group of heroes than previously believed as well.

If you want a little more of an in depth conversation about these characters/groups that have been slightly MIA, make sure to listen to the podcast! And don’t forget, Shang Chi will be hitting theaters early September so tickets should be going on sale soon for that as well. One final thing to remind everyone is that the premiere of What If? is this week and it looks very exciting. As always, keep up with all the Marvel content, because Marvel just blew your mind, so let’s talk about it.

Image: “Abomination vs Wong”, Matt Singer, Screen Crush