Michael B. Jordan’s time in the Marvel Cinematic Universe is probably over, barring some flashback scenes in the Black Panther sequel or a weird side effect of the snap heard ’round existence at the end of Avengers: Infinity War. But his raw and powerful performance as Erik Killmonger (a.k.a N’Jadaka) earned him lots of critical acclaim, as well as an edge over all the other big-screen villains at the 2018 MTV Movie & TV Awards.
So Killmonger remains a part of the MCU discussion, even after Thanos (Josh Brolin) pulled off one of the greatest upsets in the movie franchise. Fans of the character have even suggested on Twitter that the former black-ops soldier could hold his own against the Mad Titan. But what does Jordan think of his odds against a world ender? The A.V. Club asked the actor—who was in LA promoting his MBJAM event in support of Lupus LA, where he helped raise over $250,000—for his thoughts on this battle between the two stand-out Marvel villains.
“[laughs] This is the first I’m hearing of it. I think the one thing about Killmonger is he really plans his attacks, and they’re well thought out. So if he ever stepped in a situation with Thanos, he would feel confident that he had the upper hand—at the very least, he would know he had a shot. So I mean, we already know that Erik’s willing to sacrifice himself for a greater good, so I don’t think he’s ever fearful of losing his life. So I think if he ever stepped in front of Thanos, he’d already have a plan for taking him down.”
Thanos really seemed to dot all his i’s and cross his t’s, too, but we’ll let Jordan have that one. The actor is more evenly matched against Florian Munteanu, who plays the son of Drago in Creed 2. You might recall that Jordan took some serious knocks on the first film (his second with Ryan Coogler), including one punch that led to a real knockout. Has anything like that happened on the set of the sequel? According to Jordan, he didn’t quite eat mat, but “there was definitely a lot of real moments where we got hit. When you do a boxing film, you can’t fake everything, so to achieve the angles and the shots that we really wanted—to make it as real as possible—I had to take some real punches. And Florian did, too. But that’s part of the job, you know? It’s what we signed up for.”
Jordan has lined up a project that’s decidedly less physical—voicing a pilot named Julian Chase on the Rooster Teeth anime series, gen:Lock. It was announced at the Television Critics Association summer press tour that David Tennant was joining the voice cast of the show which is—wait for it—set in a dystopian future Earth, with giant robots that sound not unlike those in the Pacific Rim movies. Asked about that show, Jordan says he can’t divulge much, but “it’s action-packed and very futuristic. Like all the projects I like to get involved with, it’s got a lot of heart and character.” We do know the first season is eight episodes long.