The first full-length trailer for Marvel Studios' Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings has been released, and one of the most interesting reveals to come out of it was the return of the Abomination, the villain of 2008's The Incredible Hulk.
In the trailer, Abomination is shown fighting a sorcerer who appears to be Doctor Strange's sidekick, Wong, in a cage match. His return is a definite surprise and if Marvel Studios is willing to revisit Abomination, a villain who hasn't been seen in over a decade, there's no telling which other villains could be returning in Phase Four of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
In 2014, Marvel Studios released a One-Shot short entitled "All Hail the King" that detailed what happened to Iron Man 3's fake Mandarin, Trevor Slattery, after the events of the film. In the short, Trevor is interviewed by a reporter at Seagate Prison, where Iron Man 2's villain Justin Hammer also happens to be incarcerated. The reporter is revealed to be an agent of the Ten Rings, and he breaks Slattery out of prison to bring him to the real Mandarin, who is set to be the main villain in Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings.
Abomination's appearance in the Shang-Chi trailer seems to suggest some sort of connection with the Ten Rings. The last time movie audiences heard of Emil Blonsky, he had been locked up in an unspecified prison at the end of The Incredible Hulk. There is a distinct possibility that he was incarcerated at Seagate, and could have easily been broken out during the Ten Rings' attack. It also stands to reason that if they were freeing Abomination, the Ten Rings might also want to free Justin Hammer, who had proven to be a dangerous weapons designer and mutual foe of Tony Stark.
But Seagate isn't the only significant prison that has been shown in the MCU. Captain America: Civil War introduced audiences to the underwater prison, The Raft, and the finale of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier showed Baron Helmut Zemo incarcerated within its walls. If the Ten Rings really were freeing villains from prison, Zemo's proven success rate and well-connected status makes him an ideal candidate for an early release.
In addition to those imprisoned baddies, there are a number of other villains in prime positions to return to the MCU. Ant-Man's Yellowjacket has been teased to return and Ant-Man and the Wasp's Ghost is on the run, while Captain Marvel's Yon-Rogg and Supreme Intelligence are likely to be back on the Kree home world of Hala. Additionally, all signs point to Marvel Studios and Sony setting up the Sinister Six to appear in Spider-Man: No Way Home.
During the early phases of the MCU, Marvel had a reputation for killing off its villains before they were able to make a real impact and never bringing them back. However, the return of the Abomination in the trailer for Shang-Chi could open the door for a number of the MCU's past villains to return, with it being distinctly possible that the Ten Rings have been recruiting criminals by breaking them out of prison. It seems that Marvel Studios is ready to challenge the notion that their villains never come back, and in doing so, they have created an ideal opportunity to resurrect some seemingly forgotten antagonists.
Directed by Destin Daniel Cretton and written by Daniel Callaham, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings stars Simu Liu as Shang-Chi, Tony Leung as Wenwu/The Mandarin, Awkwafina as Katy, Michelle Yeoh as Jiang Nan, Meng'er Zhang as Xialing, Ronny Chieng as Jon Jon, Fala Chen as Jiang Li and Florian Munteanu as Razor Fist. The film arrives in theaters Sept. 3.
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