Superhero Bits: Loki Almost Died Permanently In 'Thor: The Dark World', Engineer Built Real-Life Web Shooters & More

(Superhero Bits is a collection of stories, updates, and videos about anything and everything inspired by the comics of Marvel, DC, and more. For comic book movies, TV shows, merchandise, events, and whatever catches our eye, this is the place to find anything that falls through the cracks.)

In this edition of Superhero Bits:

Here's a new tease for Black Panther: War for Wakanda, the new expansion for Marvel's Avengers. This one focuses on the legacy of fathers and sons, not just for Black Panther, but for the villain Klaue, who is also motivated by what his father started so many years ago.

Black Panther: War for Wakanda is available now as DLC for Marvel's Avengers.

The first season of Superman & Lois has come to an end, and showrunner Todd Helbing sat down with Comic Book Resources to talk about the season finale and what's in store for the upcoming second season. Without diving into spoilers, here's what Helbing said after wrapping up the show's first season on The CW:

"Honestly, I just hope that we entertain [the fans] and made them fall in love with Superman and Lois again. I mean, I am really proud of the show. I think the writers, the cast, the crew, all our visual effects post department — it's hard making television in a pandemic. We have this thing that we would say all the time on these Zoom meetings, like, "Hey, it's Superman!" It's just meant everybody brings their A-game and goes the extra mile, and everybody did across the board. I'm really grateful and honored to be a part of this team."

Superman & Lois will return for a second season on The CW sometime in early 2022.

Nerdist called our attention to South African YouTuber and engineer Built IRL, who also goes by JT, and his creation of real-life web shooters inspired by Spider-Man. Created for an electromechanical engineering thesis project, the shooters are made of a series of metal cylinders that harness a fuel-powered burst of energy that can propel a "hooky chain" 100 feet, allowing him to swing from one overhead beam to another. Get a look at the shooters in action in the video above.

Owen Wilson recently spoke to Esquire and revealed that a seemingly unimportant detail that he mentioned about his character Mobius in the lead-up to the release of Loki resulted in him getting an ominous text message. Wilson explained:

"I let it slip I had a moustache for Mobius, I got an ominous text saying 'Strike 1'. I don't know who that was, we think it might have been Kevin Feige using a burner phone but that wasn't confirmed."

You know, actors who are recruited for Marvel Studios projects like to joke about watchful eyes and even snipers paying close attention to everything they say, but based on this information, it sounds like there might be more truth to this than we think.

"What If...T'Challa Became Star-Lord?" has arrived as the second episode of Marvel's What If...? animated series. ScreenCrush didn't waste any time getting a video together with a bunch of Easter eggs, callbacks, and comic book references from the fresh spin on the Guardians of the Galaxy and Black Panther. See what you missed by watching the full video above.

The Hollywood Reporter recently spoke with director Alan Taylor, who was at the helm of Thor: The Dark World, and he revealed that Loki was originally going to die and stay dead instead of it being a trick by the God of Mischief. Taylor explained how the original version of the sequel was much different:

"The version I had started off with had more childlike wonder; there was this imagery of children, which started the whole thing...There was a slightly more magical quality. There was weird stuff going on back on Earth because of the convergence that allowed for some of these magical realism things. And there were major plot differences that were inverted in the cutting room and with additional photography — people [such as Loki] who had died were not dead, people who had broken up were back together again. I think I would like my version."

It's a good thing that change happened behind the scenes, or else we might not have gotten that pivotal death scene for Loki in Avengers: Infinity War.

Tom Holland may soon be seen slinging webs alongside Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield in Spider-Man: No Way Home. But until we actually see it happen, we'll have to settle for this DeepFake from Stryder HD, which puts Holland in place of Garfield in The Amazing Spider-Man. However, we don't ever see the DeepFake applied to any scenes where Garfield is suited up as Spidey with his mask off. Seems like a missed opportunity.

Meet Sersi, who has a soft spot for humans. @gemma_chan and @TheEternals cast assemble, introducing Marvel's family of immortals to protect mankind from their oldest enemy. https://t.co/2FEew28l1D Story by @devancoggan pic.twitter.com/JjnZdSe6CA

— Entertainment Weekly (@EW) August 18, 2021

Marvel's Eternals is the Entertainment Weekly cover story, and with it comes a series of motion covers on social media introducing us to each member of the cosmic superhero ensemble coming to theaters on November.

Finally, as we get closer to the release of Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, a new poster has arrived, showcasing the film's main characters and touting the Dolby Cinema release.