Kid Cosmic has a lot of obvious similarities to the MCU, but there’s a brief interaction between Kid and an alien that points out a huge problem with aliens in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. In Kid Cosmic, a new Netflix cartoon from Powerpuff Girls creator Chuck McCracken, Kid discovers five gemstones that grant supernatural abilities. Kid turns the stones into rings using large bolts and some glue, then over the course of the show, he gathers a team of superpowered friends to save the universe – not unlike The Avengers.
In the first episode of Kid Cosmic, Kid meets the alien who crash-landed in the New Mexico desert with the stones. The alien attacks Kid and his friend, Jo, who wields the purple ring of power to create portals. Jo creates a portal that traps the alien in the floor of Kid’s trailer, earning him the nickname Stuck Chuck.
Stuck Chuck shouts something at Jo and Kid, but since he’s an alien from a distant planet, Jo and Kid don’t understand what he’s saying. After a moment, Stuck Chuck (Tom Kenny) realizes that Jo and Kid speak a different language, so he cycles through various Earth languages on his universal translator until he’s speaking English. In the MCU, language barriers between humans and aliens have been referenced in passing, but the problem is mostly brushed aside, allowing extraterrestrial beings like Ronan, Thanos, Thor, Drax, and Mantis to communicate with each other and humans – and for them to speak whatever Earth language the movie is in, rather than speaking an alien language that’s translated with subtitles.
There are some confirmed explanations that exist within the MCU, but they’re easy to miss. Carol Danvers references universal translators in Captain Marvel and a brief glimpse at a computer screen in Guardians of the Galaxy reveals that Peter Quill has a translator implant, so the problem hasn’t gone fully ignored – it’s just not important enough to emphasize, otherwise the MCU might have its own version of Arrival featuring the Kree, Chitauri, or Skrulls. Even if they did, it’s understandable that the MCU would not re-hash minor plot points like universal translators or Asgardian AllSpeak in every film.
Some sci-fi and fantasy series create conlangs (constructed languages) with their own grammar and syntax, others opt for universal translators, and some ignore the aspect of language entirely. It’s just a matter of what story that the series wants to tell. In reality, an alien language could take years (if not decades) to translate in real life, but neither the MCU nor Kid Cosmic wants to be realistic, so it makes sense that the problem is solved quickly and addressed only briefly – even if Kid Cosmic does a slightly better job at drawing attention to the solution.
