The She-Hulk finale has come and gone and now fans are left reeling from one of the most bizarre and creative episodes of Marvel television ever. The final installment of She-Hulk Season 1 saw the titular character break the rules of MCU reality. Jennifer Walters came crashing into the real world and came face-to-face with the AI in charge of the Marvel franchise called K.E.V.I.N., which was another hilarious subversion of expectations when fans wanted the real-life Kevin Feige to appear.
The all-knowing robot was a big risk for the creators of the series, but with the project being "so self-aware" the team knew they had to defy "the Marvel expectation of what the show had to be."
But some eagle-eyed fans have noticed one small thing. It turns out Marvel spoiled this K.E.V.I.N. being a robot moment mere minutes before the machine appeared on-screen.
K.E.V.I.N. Spoiled by She-Hulk Subtitles
In the days since She-Hulk's finale, fans noticed the reveal of K.E.V.I.N. being an AI was spoiled by the show's subtitles minutes before he appears on-screen.
Reddit user Genecalmer noted that She-Hulk's subtitles in the writers' room scene used "K.E.V.I.N" in place of "Kevin" before it’s revealed to the audience that the character is a robot and not a human. The subtitles have since been changed, but the spoilers were there for at least a few days.
Genecalmer said that "the second (they) saw K.E.V.I.N." instead of Kevin Feige "(they) thought 'ah it's an AI'" thus "(ruining) the joke:"
"Yeah it kinda sucked. Because of the nature of the show and the character in general there was speculation that that person might make an appearance in some way but the second I saw K.E.V.I.N. I thought ’ah it's an AI,’ it ruined the joke. It's not a huge deal. It doesn't change my overall feelings on the show. But I would've preferred they just wrote Kevin."
The initial post spawned plenty of commentors making the same complaint. Powerbomb1411 shared a similar sentiment saying "it was painfully obvious something was off when it started saying K.E.V.I.N."
Dswartze was disappointed by this spoiler as the recent MCU project "Werewolf By Night did a decent job with the same issue" so it is tough to have Marvel "doing it the right way less than a week ago only to mess it up [now]:"
"It was especially disappointing after Werewolf By Night did a decent job with the same issue when the subtitles updated the name they used for the one character as the audience learned more. We got an example of them doing it the right way less than a week ago only to mess it up in this show this week."
Lumpawarrump13 made an interesting note in the thread claiming that "this isn't about 'spoilers'" but rather "about maintaining suspense and experience:"
"I agree, this isn't about ’spoilers,’ it's about maintaining suspense and experience. For deaf/hard of hearing subtitle users, if it isn't done this way, I feel like it leads to expositionary text later to say ’this was the mysterious voice from before’ or something. I'm sure there are definitely ways in which the director/producers could work harder to preserve the experience for Subtitle users, but I don't know what they are. It's unfortunate, but I doubt their best experience would be for subtitles to become exposition dumps."
This wasn't a totally one-sided argument. Scatterbrain-d defended the decision, writing that "it added to the suspense" because "You knew something was up, but didn't know where it was going to go:"
"I thought it added to the suspense. You knew something was up, but didn't know where it was going to go. While not intentional, I could totally see someone involved noticing it and deciding to keep it that way. Because it was fine.
I mean was it really going to be an amazing, shocking joke if you figured it out 15 seconds later? Should the writers have also acted more normal to intensify your twistperience? What kind of revelation are you imagining you could have had and would it have honestly been that much better?
I mean you say it's not a big deal - and you're right - but you still felt like you had to post about it so it seems like it kind of was to you."
This is not the first time something like this has happened on the service, as Cobb Vanth's appearance in The Mandalorian Season 2 premiere was spoiled by way of subtitles.
Marvel Spoiling Its Own Fun
Yes, it's a bummer that this small subtitle mishap ruined one of the most fun reveals in recent MCU memory, but there isn't anyone to place blame. This was likely not intentional and has since been cleaned up, but that doesn't make it any less disappointing.
As it wasn't the first time something like this happened, it will likely not be the last. With the sheer amount of content that hits Disney+ in a week, surely there will be hiccups like this every once in a while. After all, going through each and every subtitle in any number of languages to watch out for bumps in the road such as this is quite the tall order.
However, maybe there should be someone combing through the written words of Disney+. This ultimately ended up being a harmless fun cameo appearance of a gag AI robot. Sure, this early reveal may have taken away a giggle or two from a few audience members, but it would be much worse if something like this were to happen in a big character reveal in a movie like Spider-Man: No Way Home.
Marvel Studios should get a small mistake like this out now, because if this was connected to an even bigger MCU secret there would surely be a much bigger uproar from the fanbase.
She-Hulk: Attorney at Law is available to stream now on Disney+.
