Saturday, May 10, 2014

Marvel goes Budapest

I am starting a collection of Hungary-references in Marvel, mostly because they are so few and far between, and most of them are hilarious. When you live in a small and not well-known country, you are fine tuned to pick out the few mentions your homeland gets in Western media. Sadly, we don't have a Hungarian superhero yet (not even a Hungarian-American one), but we have not given up hope.
Here are some of the highlights so far:

"You and I remember Budapest very differently."

Yep, that's from The Avengers movie. Apparently Black Widow and Hawkeye went on a mission to Budapest and got up to some shenanigans that were better for her than for him. Go figure. The fun part? Marvel did not stop there (in retrospect, they should have). They went and did an entire mini-run to explain what, exactly, happened in Budapest. And because they took the throwaway quote very literally, they actually messed with Hawkeye's memories. They also introduced "Andras Bertesy," a Hungarian villain who deals in arms, drugs, women, and dark magic. Also, sells to Al Qaeda. That is how far East we are of the West, people.
Fun fact: Thugs do speak Hungarian in one of the panels. Courtesy of Google Translate, judging from the grammar.
If you want the whole story, read Secret Avengers #1 (no, not the current #1. The #1 from last year. Because Marvel.) If you want to see the incredible fandom theories the quote spawned on the Interwebs, Google "Marvel Budapest." At your own risk.

"They are speaking Hungarian!"

Oh no, they better don't! Remember that scene from Iron Man 1? Apparently Yinsen, while fluent in all kinds of Central Asian languages, was baffled when the terrorists started yelling through the door in Hungarian. Maybe because Hungarian is not a Central Asian language? Go figure. After a while he did yell back "Egy perec!" which was meant as "One minute!" but really came out as "One pretzel!" Sadly, the hilarity did not carry over into the Hungarian dub of the movie. Our terrorists spoke French, if I remember correctly.

Adopt a mutant from Budapest!

Guess who adopted a baby from Budapest? Angelina Jolie? No! Jubilee did, in the latest reboot of the X-men comics (X-men #1, 2013). Shogo, the mysterious Asian baby and future armored badass was picked up by our favorite X-vampire and officially adopted, paperwork and everything. We don't know yet what the deal is with him, but Jubilee seems to be really happy. And, according to Storm, the Hungarian "rendőrség" did not mind the adoption at all. Also, nice of them to spell their Hungarian words correctly for once. They also accidentally leveled a Hungarian high-tech cybernetics hospital, the Szent Margit Institute, in the process. Well, at least we had one.

At least we are good at turning out villains?...
So guess who popped up when I searched for Hungary in the Marvel universe? Probably the biggest Marvel villain no one knows is originally Hungarian. Yep, that's Madame Hydra (also known as Viper). You have seen her in the latest Wolverine movie. She doesn't have close ties to Hungary apart from being born and orphaned there, but there it is. Hail Hydra?...

We really need a Hungarian Marvel hero.


  1. Wow. Google translated foreign languages are always easy to spot (if you speak the language). You'd think they could take a few extra minutes to figure out how it would actually be said.

    Great info. I am now inclined to see what theories the fandom cooked up concerning Budapest...

    LittleCely's Blog

  2. One pretzel?? hahah :)

    Google translate is awesome. We get the strangest translations into Malay here as well...