Put the Kool-Aid Man in the MCU, You Cowards

This week, we’re getting a brand new Marvel movie, Thunderbolts*, which features a lineup of badass superheroes including Bucky Barnes, Taskmaster, Red Guardian, whomever Florence Pugh plays and “Ghost.” 

Sure, Marvel has a Fantastic Four movie coming out later this year, and presumably they’ll reboot X-Men at some point, but the studio does seem to be running out of characters that general audiences are already familiar with. If only there was a Marvel comics character with mass appeal that has yet to join the Marvel Cinematic Universe. 

Oh wait, there is. This guy:

Yes, the Kool-Aid Man was once the star of his very own comic book, which was published by Marvel back in the 1980s, presumably thanks to that heady combo of late-stage capitalism and round-the-clock cocaine consumption.

The Kool-Aid Man has been on a lot of people’s minds lately thanks to Seth Rogen’s series The Studio. In the first episode of the Hollywood satire, Rogen’s studio exec character is tasked with creating a big budget feature film based on the Kool-Aid brand. Unfortunately, his efforts to combine this soulless project with a Martin Scorsese pitch about the Jonestown massacre fall flat. 

But there was no reason for Continental Studios’ Matt Remick to struggle with this concept. The Kool-Aid man is already a fully-formed superhero, with a rich mythology, who’s just waiting to be incorporated into the MCU. The ball’s in your court, Kevin Feige.

The central premise of The Adventures of Kool-Aid Man, which was part of a mail-in Kool-Aid promotion, is that he’s locked in an eternal battle with the “Thirsties,” jagged yellow monsters with Gene Simmons-sized green tongues. In the first issue, they ensure that a Little League team remains parched by sabotaging the water fountain and kidnapping the local snack bar vendor.  

The Kool-Aid Man frees the poor guy, and then takes the kids for a spin in his helicopter. And if you thought it was weird that the Kool-Aid Man has a helicopter, then you’re probably not ready to learn about the Kool-Aid pitcher-shaped retro-futurist mansion that he calls home.

Later in the same issue, The Kool-Aid Man ends up journeying to outer space. Of course, bringing the one guy who can’t enter a room without bursting through the wall onto a pressurized spacecraft may not have been the best idea. 

And The Kool-Aid Man’s rivalry with the Thirsties gets even stranger. Time travel is introduced to the world of the Kool-Aid Man in just the second issue. He immediately travels to the past and meets Benjamin Franklin, who seems weirdly chill about interacting with a giant dead-eyed sentient glass jug.

While the series only lasted for three issues (before being picked up by Archie Comics), it arguably proved that The Kool-Aid Man has what it takes to be in the MCU. He has super-strength, toyetic accessories and a killer catchphrase. What more could Disney possibly want?

Is it too late to write him into Avengers: Doomsday? It’s not like The Kool-Aid Man’s presence would be any goofier than the return of Kelsey Grammer’s Beast.