Every Easter Egg in ‘Ms. Marvel’ Episode 1

The MCU is known for stuffing its content full of Easter eggs, and Ms. Marvel, which is now streaming on Disney Plus, is no exception. Plus, Ms. Marvel is all about a fangirl obsessed with the Avengers, so the Easter eggs practically plant themselves. Here are all the major Easter eggs in Episode 1: “Generation Why!”

Before we start, let me just say that finding Easter eggs in a show about fandom is surprisingly tricky. What does the concept of Easter eggs even mean in a series that’s an infinitely recursive love letter to itself? To talk about Easter eggs in a series that has a whole convention dedicated to its own world starts to feel like looking at the reflection of a mirror inside another mirror. It’s like looking for Easter eggs in a hen house where all the hens are laying painted eggs. Not that I didn’t love every minute of this episode—I assure you I did—but it just makes it challenging to separate the true Easter eggs from the story itself.

With that said, though, here are the big ones!

Kamala’s Endgame Recap

The opening animation serves mainly to catch audiences up on what Captain Marvel did during the events of Endgame, and to establish that most people on Earth don’t know where she is or if she’ll ever come back. That means that the sequence is full of Easter eggs, including adorable animated versions of the Avengers. Look closely and you’ll also see characters like Valkyrie and Okoye in the mix.

Captain Marvel Artwork

Kamala’s bedroom is full of posters and artwork featuring callbacks to the Captain Marvel comics. Listing it all would take up an entire article on its own, but suffice it to say that Captain Marvel fans are pretty happy right now.

Thor is Secretly a Gamer

At the end of her video, Kamala says that her next video will explain her theory that “Thor is secretly a gamer.” This is a reference to the scene in Endgame in which Thor is playing Fortnite with Korg and Miek. It’s surprising that Thor’s gaming is a secret, though, since Thor spends a good chunk of that scene telling off some random teenager in the game.

Sloth Baby Productions

Winged sloths are a recurring feature of the Ms. Marvel comics, and the series has stayed true to Wilson and Alphona’s original slothy vision. Kamala calls her YouTube channel “Sloth Baby Productions,” and she has a stuffed winged sloth on her bed.

The Plaque at Kamala’s School

When Kamala gets to school after her disastrous driving test, we see a plaque saying Coles Academic High School. Underneath the school’s name, we see two columns of names. These names are actually the writers and artists who have worked on Ms. Marvel in Marvel comics over the years. Look closely and you’ll see G. Willow Wilson, Adrian Alphona, James McKelvie, and other Marvel luminaries.

Marvel Zombies

As Kamala and Bruno are walking along, bouncing cosplay ideas off each other, Kamala mentions the idea of a Zombie Captain Marvel. All the other ideas she mentions are based on people who exist in Earth-616 (Doctor Strange, Valkyrie, etc.), but the zombie idea is a reference to the zombie episode of What If…? There’s no way Kamala could know about the zombie invasion, since it happens in another reality, so this reference is a pure Easter egg for fans.

The Inventor

When Kamala and Bruno sit on the roof, there’s a sign behind them that says “Edison Electric.” This, and possibly the drawing of a cockatiel in Kamala’s opening video, is a reference to the Inventor, a half-bird clone of Thomas Edison who was Kamala’s very first supervillain.

Camp Lehigh

AvengerCon takes place at Camp Lehigh in New Jersey, which is the military base where Steve Rogers trained and eventually received the super serum that turned him into Captain America. After that, Camp Lehigh was converted into the S.H.I.E.L.D. facility that housed the Tesseract and secretly contained Arnim Zola’s disembodied mind, and after that, it was taken over by HYDRA. The facility was destroyed in Captain America: The Winter Soldier, and now it’s being used to host AvengerCon.

The Star-Spangled Man with a Plan

Once Kamala and Bruno are in AvengerCon, they’re surrounded by too many Easter eggs and references to count, so from here on out I’ll just highlight some of the best ones. As they enter the hangar hosting the event, you can hear a song playing about “the star-spangled man with a plan.” This song is, of course, the song that they play in Captain America: The First Avenger when Steve goes on tour to help sell war bonds.

A Pride Flag at AvengerCon

If you look closely at one booth, you see a pride flag draped over some Avengers memorabilia at a booth. Happy Pride Month!

Avenger Tours: New Asgard

I’m a Thor fan, so this was one of the most exciting Easter eggs in the episode for me. There’s a booth set up at the con with brochures for “Avenger Tours” to New Asgard. New Asgard is the settlement in Tønsberg, Norway that the Asgardians created after their home world was destroyed in Ragnarok. In the trailer for Thor: Love and Thunder, we see several cruise ships and references to New Asgard tours, so the booth at AvengerCon is almost certainly advertising New Asgard’s burgeoning tourism industry. It’s interesting that it seems to be tied into a larger “Avenger Tours” program.

Ant-Man in San Francisco Bay

At the end of Ant-Man and the Wasp, Scott falls into the water outside of San Francisco and then grows to the size of a giant, plucking Hank Pym’s lab out of Sonny Burch’s hands on an Alcatraz tour boat. At AvengerCon, Kamala and Bruno take a picture in front of a recreation of that iconic event.

America’s Ass

As part of the montage of all the cool stuff at AvengerCon, we see a greeting card with a cartoon of Steve Rogers sticking his butt out and saying, “You’re Welcome, America.” This is a reference to Scott Lang’s comment in Endgame that Steve has “America’s ass.”

Captain Marvel’s Theme

The montage ends with Kamala and Bruno approaching a sculpture of Captain Marvel. The theme from Captain Marvel plays as Kamala gazes lovingly at her idol.

Ms. Marvel in the Credits

As the credits roll, we see shots of Jersey City with art and animation superimposed on the buildings. During this sequence, you can see some of the most iconic artwork from the original Ms. Marvel comics. Unless I’m mistaken, this might be the most direct reference the MCU has ever made to the comics that inspired the film and TV adaptations. It just demonstrates how important Ms. Marvel is to comics readers, and what incredible talent Marvel brought in to bring her to life on the page.

Agent Cleary

In the mid-credit scene, we see two detectives looking at a video someone took at AvengerCon of Kamala’s powers. They decide to investigate her. One of them is Agent Cleary (Arian Moayed), who interrogated Peter Parker in Spider-Man: No Way Home. This guy just can’t stay out of superhero business, apparently.

What was your favorite Easter Egg in “Generation Why?” Anything major that I missed? Let us know in the comments!

(image: Marvel)