After 13 years, the Marvel Cinematic Universe finally has supervillains thanks to WHiH Newsfront YouTube channel and Twitter , promoting the movie with in-universe news stories.
Sony followed the same kind of approach with supervillain events on Spider-Man. The gag is an amusing one, riffing on the relationship between Spider-Man and Jameson in the comics, and building on Jameson's hostility towards Peter Parker in Spider-Man: Far From Home's post-credits scene. But it's also important for another reason.
Surprisingly, the Daily Bugle TikTok marks the first moment the word "supervillain" has been used in in-universe MCU content. "We've been experiencing some wildly unseasonable weather in the Big Apple lately," Betty reports, "and there has to be more to this. I've experienced some intense thunderstorms in NYC before, but crazy lightning wasn't on this week's weather report. Last time I checked, the nearest desert wasn't close enough to cause a sandstorm in Midtown. Does this mean supervillains are back?"
The word "superhero" has been an established part of the MCU since 2008's Daily Bugle TikTok is run by Sony, meaning technically the mainstream MCU still hasn't introduced the term. Still, the TikTok is in-universe, so it counts. Sony has officially introduced the word "supervillain" into the MCU dictionary.
It's not hard to see why Marvel avoided the term. When Marvel launched the MCU, they were initially unsure how well viewers would respond to comic book tropes played straight on the big screen — that's why even the word "superhero" was used ironically in Iron Man's press conference. Marvel has become increasingly confident over the last 13 years, but their attention has shifted to characters who really wouldn't call themselves supervillains — gods and monsters, alien invaders and sorcerers. But it makes sense that, in a world where the public considered superheroes to be a real thing, the public would also start using the word "supervillain" to describe the bad guys. Betty's wording — "Does this mean supervillains are back?" — suggests it's been an established part of the MCU's vocabulary for some time, just never used in a story before. It's just ironic that Spider-Man's supervillains are indeed back — back on the big screen, even though they're technically making their debut in the main MCU timeline.
