On basic principle, Monday’s are tough. Weekend is over. Start of the workweek. The self-hate from eating alllll those Taco Bell tacos. Work clothes. The list goes on and on. No one wakes up and goes, “Yes! It’s Monday” unless you’re a serial killer or have a pet you named Monday which in turn is a strange pet name. Like, why?! Not to mention, this particular Monday was made even more difficult with it being the first Monday after the NFL season started, and depending on how well your team played probably impacted any possible hangover or residual anger you may have because your quarterback is still fumbling the ball when there’s a strong breeze. For the kids, it’s the first full week of school which sucks pretty hard for them. Mostly, there’s this overall feeling in the air that summer, summer is over.

Total bummer that just feels like a bag of suck.

Enter Marvel to make our Monday suck just a little bit less. We’ve been getting an abundance of Marvel content in 2021 to the point where not only have we made up for the pandemic year but we might now be setting the bar ridiculously high for upcoming years. If you were a high jumper and you saw how high Marvel has set the bar, you wouldn’t even attempt to jump over it. You’d run by and just go, “nah, I’m not a gazelle”.

(This former high school track and field star thanks you for reading his small track and field joke.)

While most of us are still recovering from the Spider-Man: No Way Home trailer, Marvel thought it would remind us that there’s at least one more Disney+ show coming to us this year and this particular show has a lot of bows and arrows action.

That’s right, we are a little more than two months away from Hawkeye dropping on Disney+ and I am beyond excited. I was beyond excited even before the trailer. Say what you will about Hawkeye but I’m a big fan. Most of this, of course, has to do with Matt Fraction and David Aja’s incredible comic run on the character. A comic book so damn good that I would put it in my Top Ten favorite comic series ever and pretty high on the list at that. I was also a fan of Jeff Lemire’s run and most recently Matthew Rosenberg’s Hawkeye: Freefall. What can I say, I love this character and knowing that the show was going to be leaning heavily into Fraction’s story, I couldn’t help but feel excited for the more casual fan to get to know Hawkeye like I do. The oftentimes very funny, down on his luck, self-doubting, punching bag of the Marvel Universe. But even amidst all that he’s a character willing to go that extra mile to bring hope to others despite what it costs him in the long run. I wanted MCU fans to know that Hawkeye. The “island is flying” moment in Age of Ultron is a favorite MCU moment and I feel ole’ Clint Barton deserves more of those.

Throw in the fact that Kate Bishop, played by Hailee Steinfeld, was going to be making her MCU debut and I was all in. Kate Bishop is the best. I love this character. What a gem. Again, check out Matt Fraction’s Hawkeye to find out why she’s such a charming badass and then read Kelly Thompson’s Hawkeye run to fall even further in love with the character. The relationship between Clint and her is gold and so… so wonderful. And funny. And slightly disturbing. But mostly wonderful.

With those two pieces of information Hawkeye was really shaping up to one of the most highly anticipated MCU projects in the I Am Geek household. Throw in that post-credit scene in Black Widow and I couldn’t be anymore in if I tried. I’m so in, I’m out… is something I would say if I could make sense of what it means. Just know excitement levels are high, folks. Super high.

With this trailer there is a ton to make anyone want to grab their bow and arrow start-up kit and sign up immediately for their first archery class. We get our classic beat up version of Hawkeye, we get Kate Bishop being sassy, we see Lucky aka Pizza Dog in all his Pizza Dog glory (yes, you’re already in love with him and that’s more than okay), not to mention the Tracksuit Draculas (Russian mob) all but confirming the ties to Fraction’s comic, and glimpses of Echo (!!), and Kate’s mom, Elanor Bishop played by Vera Farmiga who is on the cusp of playing some iconicaly shitty parents, see the upcoming Sopranos movie, The Many Saints of Newark where she plays Livia Soprano. All set to a Christmas background making your wonder if Shane Black is somehow involved with this production.

Not only that, but this first trailer to Hawkeye gave us something we didn’t even know we wanted until we saw it. Something so glorious and spectacular words cannot describe. But maybe song can? I’m talking about that something that more than slightly overshadowed the titular characters of this show and set the internet on fire yesterday.

Yes, let’s talk about the Broadway Steve Rogers musical.

Listen, we live in a world where we got two seconds of Zemo dancing in the club during Falcon and the Winter Soldier. We were informed that there was a longer take and the internet demanded we saw it and thus, The Zemo Cut was born and all rejoiced. With that being said, if we don’t get a Rogers: The Musical Cut then what are we even doing here?! What?!

Let’s start with the questions. What eras of Steve’s life will this musical span? It’s clear by all the people on stage dressed as Avengers (Hulk, Thor, Widow) as well as the Loki and his army of Chitauri actors, giving me tons of Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark flashbacks, that the musical will take us to the events of the first Avengers movie. Is that just Act I? Does Act II cover Winter Soldier and Age of Ultron?! Do we get a song centered on Cap’s fantastic Ultron speech? You get hurt, hurt ‘em back. You get killed…walk it off. What does that song even sound like and how can I live in a world where I listen to it every morning to motivate myself to go to work?

What about Civil War? Is that a separate musical? It seems like in Broadway’s two-act structure that Civil War wouldn’t be given the justice it deserves. Unlessssss, we do some time hoping. Maybe Rogers: The Musical will show us how Captain America ended up on the moon?

What about songs? Clearly a version of “Ice, Ice Baby” needs to come into play here with Cap’s stint as an ice cube. Song titles like “I Can Sing This All Day”, “On Your Left”, “Bucky Barnes (Til the End of the Line)” seem like no brainers but what style of music are we aiming for here? Is this more of a traditional Broadway-like vibe, is this more of a Hamilton tone, is it like Rock of Ages, and all these songs are set to the tunes of classic ‘80s songs?! Follow up question, if we do the Rock of Ages theme, will there be people walking the aisles selling Jell-O shots?

How many Tony’s does Rogers: The Musical win? Got to figure it cleans up. Who plays Steve though? Is it Broadway newcomers or do we have someone like Neil Patrick Harris or Jonathan Groff killing it on a nightly basis.

What are ticket prices in a post Blip world? Got to figure that a ticket for Rogers: The Musical is going to have back orders that would make the Book of Mormon jealous.

Also, was Hawkeye and his family comped a ticket or did he have to buy them? You would think being an Avenger would get you some free Broadway tickets, no? Is this the first time him and the family have seen this show or are they going weekly? What does he think about the person cast to play Hawkeye? Does Hawkeye have any solos? Maybe a duet with Nat singing about being the only normal people in the Avengers? Or maybe about his bow and arrow?

If this is like the Zemo Cut then one has to believe that there’s enough Rogers: The Musical footage out there to post a Marvel One-Shot on Disney+ or just release on Twitter so the people can have their joy. Did they actually record a song because if so, going to need to stream that on the regular. Rogers: The Musical has changed the game and we literally only glimpsed two seconds of it. There has to be more. Has to be;

Hawkeye is an MCU Christmas show that might have given us the best possible gift. Release the Rogers: The Musical Cut… please and thank you.