I had first been introduced to Jeff the Land Shark crashing around the board in Marvel Snap, but now he was a surprising part of the starting roster for Marvel Rivals. And it may soon be headed to the MCU.
Marvel head of television Brad Winderbaum was asked about Jeff coming to the MCU and confirmed that yeshappens, at some point, with plans in motion:
“You know it’s coming. I can’t say when, I can’t say where, but we’re all Jeff fans here.”
The Marvel Rivals player base is kind Jeff fans, if by “fans” they mean they hate the character with a passion of a thousand suns as he swims down the map avoiding damage, then eats your entire team and spits them out of the map with his Ultimate. But he’s definitely popular, that’s for sure.
How did a four-legged tiny shark end up here in the first place? He is a very new character in MCU history, first appearing in West Coast Avengers in 2019. Jeff and other Land Sharks were created by MODOK and after Kate Bishop and the West Coast Avengers defeated him, Gwen Poole adopted a baby Land Shark named Jeff after a kitten he had previously abandoned. Jeff then went on to live with Kate Bishop and has managed to pull all kinds of antics, including stealing Captain America’s shield to go sledding and, briefly, bonding with a symbiote. Jeff is so eccentric.
And so, Jeff’s popularity grew. Jeff was introduced in Marvel Snap as a 2 cost 3 power card that you can move to any location once with literally nothing stopping him, whether a lane is locked or not. He could be…very annoying, and that annoying behavior continued in Marvel’s Rivals.
As for where Jeff might appear in the MCU, it’s easy to guess that he’d probably work better in animation, rather than a live-action CGI version of the character. Although since the Marvel MCU cartoons focus almost exclusively on What If…? I say, I don’t know, give him his own series? Or I wonder if she could show up in some way in the upcoming Young Avengers project, whatever that is, since Kate Bishop will be leading this, as she led the West Coast Avengers in the comic where this story took place. We’ll find out more at a… later date, and we’ll see if Jeff gets pissed off at Marvel Rivals any time soon.
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