Abomination is back!

I think the point was to set up that Shang-Chi knows who Wong is later. But considering we haven't seen Blonsky/Abomination for 13 years, it would've been nice to get a better sense of what's going on with him.

All we really know is that he appears to be on a first-name basis with Wong. Not only that, he's at least calmed down enough that he's willing to work with Wong to fix fights on a highly illegal underground fighting circuit I imagine so they can collect the prize money. Seems a far cry from the guy who craved to have the Hulk's power and was willing to wreck Harlem and any innocents in his way.

Did he go to Kamar Taj to learn from Wong and maybe find his zen?

 

To be honest, if I didn’t know beforehand that Abomination was going to show up, I wouldn’t have guessed that it was him in the scene. Not only have I not thought about the character since 2008, but the character design in this movie is different from The Incredible Hulk. I feel like they did a poor job with that scene, at least for the general audience that doesn’t keep up with latest MCU spoilers/news. That scene was really for the hardcore fans, IMO.

 

I just see it as a reminder that he's still there and will show up later on, and they have some options to go with as we're deliberately left with some questions. A cameo doesn't have to have much point to it, and they generally don't. Stan Lee's cameos are certainly of no importance at all.

 

Yeah, cameos are often just for fun and in the past sometimes just for source material (ie comics) fans. With this type of MCU cameo though you’d expect the GA to appreciate it too.

 

Spoiler

I wasn't expecting him to be Wong's comedic pet in training.

 

I just don’t think it was very clear to the general audience that Wong was fighting Abomination (and that he was the same character from TIH though I’m not sure the GA would even care)

 

I suspect that the GA mainly enjoyed seeing Wong and the fact that he made a big monster dude punch himself, could've been a brand new monster and it would've had the same effect. I doubt more than 10% of a given theater would remember Abomination even if he had his original design.

 

It looks both like a fluid transformation and completely different imo.

The lighting in the cage match is basically designed to distract you from the fact that he's a shade of green now rather than tan. But other than that, the ears are the only thing that seem different. No idea where they came from but its still the same blonsky.

 

He looked really good!

...... but the cameo was half-baked and lacked any connective tissue whatsoever. They really dropped the ball there, which is weird considering they force a lot of the other connective stuff.

 

They'll connect him back to Bruce in She Hulk.

 

I get that.

However, you can't just drop a character who's been MIA from the MCU for 13 years into this movie and then not expand on him just a little bit. The conversation between he and Wong should've given us a morsel of that - instead of was just some blurb about the total con that was their fight.

 

Eh, it didn't read to me as a con. It was just, ultimately, a sporting match, not a battle to the death. My impression was that Wong is training Abomination.