Marvel Merch That Confirmed Major Plot Points

There are two things, scientifically speaking, that all major fans of the Marvel Cinematic Universe love more than anything else: not having the upcoming movies spoiled for them, and desperately searching for information on the upcoming movies in order to spoil them. Fortunately/unfortunately for them, Marvel runs a tight operation, adhering to the "loose lips sink ships" adage more closely than most World War II-era experimental weapons facilities.

But even the most close-knit international multibillion-dollar entertainment corporations occasionally let a clue through the cracks. In Marvel's case, this usually comes in the form of pre-release movie merch info being spotted by eagle-eyed fans with the passion and steely resolve necessary to pull an entire film's plot out of a Lego set like Jack Bauer car-battery-electrocuting the bomb codes out of a terrorist. Then again, other times they just sort of give the game away by accidentally advertising the wrong action figure.

Here are a few of the times Marvel merch spoiled a movie. And, if it wasn't already pretty clear, yes, there will be spoilers.

Marvel heroes can seem perpetually stuck in a "two steps forward, one step back" holding pattern. It's part of what gives them their all-too-human charm. They win some, they lose some, and friend, Thor has spent the last couple of years losing some more than any other Avenger.

While the Captain was outgrowing America and Tony was realizing that the real arc reactor was inside him all along, Thor was getting his Asgard royally handed to him by Hela, the militant secret sister he never knew he had. One of the biggest hits the God of Thunder took from a merchandising perspective came when he lost Mjolnir, the phonetically untenable hammer that he wore like a Renaissance fair security blanket. Lucky for him, a pep talk from his dead father at the end of Ragnarok reminded him that he never needed a hammer to be the best Thor he could be.

Fortunately for cosplay enthusiasts who appreciate the importance of accessorizing, the Odinson wouldn't go without a sick new hammer for long, and fans got a glimpse of his fresh armament early when pictures of the Stormbreaker replica toy leaked online ahead of Infinity War. The more detail-oriented onlookers even noticed that its handle looked suspiciously Groot-related.

It was coming in hot and turning a lot of heads: After 11 years of movies, Marvel was finally going to bust the glass ceiling when they released Captain Marvel, the first MCU tentpole property to star an adorable little kitty cat.

The cultural zeitgeist of enthusiasm that followed the introduction of Goose in the trailers for Captain Marvel was a little peculiar, but not half as much as the big reveal about Goose's true nature during the movie itself. Goose the Cat was, as it turned out, neither goose nor cat, but a flerken. You know, a flerken? Think nature's perfect marriage of an H.P. Lovecraft anxiety nightmare and a Meow Mix commercial. It was a heck of a twist for casual fans, and an even bigger one for those Kree soldiers who'd thought they were such hotshots moments earlier.

The only folks who weren't surprised were toy aisle enthusiasts, who noticed a difficult-to-ignore mass of hypercolor tentacles emanating from the mouth of the official Goose the Cat doll. Those things are going to mentally scar a lot of unsuspecting 9-year-old garage sale shoppers in about 20 years.

Nothing gets Marvel fans going like the mysterious casting of a Hollywood star to an unspecified role. When Captain Marvel rolled around, the part of "enigmatic supporting character" went to Jude Law. Plenty of fan speculation circulated the internet. About half the crowd seemed to think he was playing Mar-Vell, the OG Captain Marvel (as long as you don't count Shazam). Most of the rest of the debaters thought he'd portray Yon-Rogg, an obscure Kree bad guy from back in the day. A few outliers probably thought he was going to be Fin Fang Foom or MODOK, but that had less to do with the evidence presented and more to do with the internet being a weird place.

Then along came Funko Pop to ruin everybody's party.

It turned out that Team Yon-Rogg was on to something, and all it took was a series of bobble-headed collector's items to prove it. Funko bluntly released promo photos of their Captain Marvel run of figures, and boom. There it was. Jude Law was Yon-Rogg, and any hope of not seeing his turn to villainy was just a passing familiarity with the comics away.

There's a chance that Funko Pop just plain doesn't want us to have nice things. There's a chance that they think that if they take all the nice moments from us, we'll be compelled to fill that emotional hole with more Funko Pops. For example, Captain America: Civil War, aka It's Avengers 3 But Don't Tell Anybody, brought together most of your favorite characters from the last 75 Marvel movies and, in time-honored comic book tradition, made them punch each other a bunch. In the movie's stand-out fight scene, Team Iron Man and Team Cap face off on the tarmac of the Leipzig/Halle airport in a CGI battle royale for the ages. The showstopper comes when Paul Rudd's Ant-Man, assuring himself that he's the boss, the boss, the boss, turns into Giant-Man, one of his many comic book alter egos with the ability to grow instead of shrink and, presumably, talk to giants. This was the big-screen debut of Scott Lang's new power set, never advertised in the trailers.

And it was all spoiled by Funko with a single Pop. Yeah, all it took was one Giant-Man figure to give away a severely awesome scene. Thanks a lot, adorable cartoon representations of our favorite characters.