Superhero Bits: Spider-Man: No Way Home Cast Auditions, Marvel's Wild 2004 Movie Slate & 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:

• The "Spider-Man: No Way Home" cast reacts to their audition tapes.

• "Shazam! Fury of the Gods" may feature a huge DC cameo.

• Benedict Cumberbatch says Doctor Strange is not an Avenger.

• Brie Larson welcomes Ms. Marvel to the MCU.

• All that and more!

DC Comics is celebrating Pride Month this June with its "DC Pride 2022" anthology, but that's just the start of the publisher's plans to honor the LGBTQ community this year. As the above tweet states, several new books centered on LGBTQ characters will be published throughout the rest of the year, including a new "Poison Ivy" comic, "Nubia: Queen of the Amazons," "Multiversity: Teen Justice," and "DC Pride: Tim Drake Special." Full details on all of these books can be found by clicking here.

Sony's long-delayed "Morbius" is finally hitting theaters in just a couple of weeks, and that means we will get to see what Jared Leto brings to the Marvel universe as the so-called "Living Vampire." But is he going to cross paths with Spider-Man at any point? Well, in a recent interview with Entertainment Tonight, the Oscar-winning actor expressed his desire to see that happen.

"Well, I tell you that I would love to get in the ring with Spider-Man and I think Tom Holland is amazing. We'd make quite a dynamic duo, I guess."

This probably depends on a lot of things — primarily, whether or not "Morbius" is a hit. Then we have to figure out if Sony is going to find a way to fit Holland's Spidey into the universe occupied by movies like "Venom" and "Morbius." The multiverse is complicated, and Sony's long-term plans remain somewhat shrouded in mystery.

Yesterday brought the first trailer for "Ms. Marvel," which is set to arrive on Disney+ in June, featuring the arrival of Iman Vellani's Kamala Kahn to the MCU. Now, Khan's co-star in Marvel's upcoming movie "The Marvels," AKA the sequel to 2019's "Captain Marvel," has welcomed her to the MCU with the above tweet. It's nice to see the social media chemistry, but it will be far more interesting to see the chemistry play out between them on screen next year.

We recently got the news that "Shazam! Fury of the Gods" is going to be arriving much sooner, going up directly against "Avatar 2" this December. Now, star Rachel Zegler has made an interesting comment regarding a possibly huge DC cameo taking place in the sequel. Speaking to Empire Magazine (via Fandom), Zegler hinted that her "Snow White" co-star Gal Gadot may well suit back up as Wonder Woman sooner rather than later.

"I'm not going to say much, but [filming Snow White] wasn't our first meeting."

Zegler is not at all being subtle with that, now is she? We'll see what comes of it, but this could add some serious star power to the "Shazam!" sequel, that much is certain.

Marvel's latest show "Moon Knight" is just around the corner, with Oscar Isaac's MCU debut set for March 30 on Disney+. As such, the streaming service has kicked off the official two-week countdown by releasing the above motion poster that ultimately transforms into the show's official poster that we saw previously. It may not be the most exciting bit of marketing on its own, but the show is close and that is the important thing to take away here.

Even though Doctor Strange had a gigantic role to play in both "Avengers: Infinity War" and "Avengers: Endgame," Benedict Cumberbatch has thrown an interesting wrinkle into the MCU by saying that his character is not an Avenger. Though his logic does follow. Here's what he had to say about it in a recent interview with KCRW:

"People say 'You were in the Avengers, but you're not an Avenger, are you?' I'm like, 'No, I'm not at Stark Tower. I'm not [chowing down] with Nick Fury.' No, he's sort of outside of that realm, but I don't think that's necessarily a character trait. I think that is just a job title. He's there to protect the reality of the Avengers in a different way to what they have been fighting up until the point that everything collides in the last two Avengers movies, so he holds his position as an adult on the periphery of that, but I think only for so long. There's always a moment where he has to work with people and team up. And you know, we might see that in the next film; you have to wait and see."

So yes, while Strange did help The Avengers when duty called, his primary concern was not just for Earth, but all of existence across the realms. The Sorcerer Supreme has bigger fish to fry. (Though that is technically Wong now in a post-"Endgame" world.)

So much has changed in the years since 2008 when "Iron Man" hit theaters and the Marvel Cinematic Universe was officially born. The rights to Marvel characters were previously spread out all over Hollywood and things were far less controlled than they are now. To that end, this proposed Marvel movie slate from 2004 recently started making the rounds online and it is something to behold (assuming it's genuine). We can see that proposed films such as "Fury," "Deathlok," "Namor," and "Man-Thing" never came to be. Not to mention that "Ant-Man" was being talked about all the way back then, even before Edgar Wright came on board, and long before he departed the project only for Peyton Reed to step in. This is, if nothing else, a miraculous little time capsule of would-be superhero movie history.

Lastly, Sony has released a brand new video that sees Tom Holland, Zendaya, and Jacob Batalon watching one another's audition tapes that landed them the roles of Peter Parker, MJ, and Ned Leeds, respectively. The whole thing is very charming beyond seeing the earliest possible versions of these characters as all three of the actors clearly have a great deal of love for one another, and their reactions to the tapes indicate as much. The video was released as a bit of marketing for the home video release of "Spider-Man: No Way Home," which is available digitally now and will be arriving on Blu-ray soon. Be sure to check out the video for yourself above.