Getting your kids to be interested in your work isn't always easy, even if you are the president of Marvel Studios and Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) overlord Kevin Feige.
Speaking with TheWrap, Feige shared that his son wasn't really interested in his work with Marvel characters until the arrival of Marvel Rivals, a free-to-play title from NetEase Games that first launched back in December 2024.
“Suddenly, he was asking me to tell him more about Hela. Tell him more about The Punisher and these other characters. And then he started seeking them out in the shows,” Feige said, with TheWrap noting that Feige also gave a shout-out to Jeff the Land Shark.
Jeff is particularly interesting for Feige to mention, as he's not yet been seen in the MCU.
While Marvel Rivals exists in its own convoluted continuity — there is a complicated ongoing story with various versions of characters pulled in from different points in the Marvel timeline, such as Marvel 2099 — the game's design has undoubtedly been influenced by the MCU in ways both small and great.
One example is in how Loki and Hela are adoptive brother and sister, just like in the 2017 film Thor: Ragnarok, instead of father-daughter as in Norse mythology and the original Marvel comics.
