Let’s just take a moment to acknowledge that Kiss was so big in 1977 that they were turned into comic book characters. Notoriously, they mixed some of their own blood into the ink, so the first ever Kiss comic book had a “printed in real Kiss blood” on the cover. Never mind that most of Gene Simmons’ blood was stage blood. Back then, that seemed like a pretty cool marketing gimmick I guess, but now it just seems really, really gross. I guess we could close Kiss from the DNA-infused ink if we ever needed to?
Anyhow, Kiss appeared in Howard the Duck and then got their own one shot comic book special. In that special, they defeated Dr. Doom. No seriously. So they are TOTALLY canon. Their origin story is suitably absurd – Dr. Doom’s mom had this teacher who was ultimately known as Dizzy the Hun. She was going to give her sweet boy Victor a magic artifact called…. the Box of Khyscz. When Mama Doom died, Dizzy absconded with the box, deeming it too powerful for Doom.
And then he gave the box to four “worthy” teenagers who were transformed into Kiss, but with magic powers and the ability to play middling but super catchy rock and roll. This is key to my amazing Kiss superhero movie.
But why would we want to add Kiss to the MCU? Isn’t there already too much Kiss in the real world?
First of all, no, there is never too much Kiss. If you haven’t listened to “Detroit Rock City” at least twice this week, you are not receiving enough Vitamin Gene Simmons and will develop rock and roll scurvy.
As to why we’d want to add them to the MCU, the answer is, obviously, Deadpool. You see it, right? The story practically writes itself.
Picture this.
It’s been 45 years since Kiss defeated the Phantom of the Park. Deadpool is sitting around hosting a viewing party. He’s invited some people who are SUPER ANNOYED to be there again, because he does this every year. Really, this could be any set of Deadpool adjacent characters, but Cable is definitely included because he REALLY hates Kiss. More of a Sade sort of guy. He’s listening to “Smooth Operator” on his internal sound system as he arrives.
An argument breaks out because Deadpool insists the movie is based on a true story. Cable balks and Deadpool goads him into taking them back to 1977. They watch from a distance, but sure enough, it’s all real. While they do their best to not interfere with the timeline, Deadpool bumps into one of Abner Devereaux machines and we see a pair of eye light up in the background.
Anyhow, they meet Kiss and learn that their powers don’t come from the trinkets they use in the film, but from the Box of Khyscz, given to them by their roadie, Dizzie the Hun. Cable recognizes Dizzie the Hun as somebody he knows from the future.
Deadpool and Cable depart the timeline – Deadpool wearing every conceivable piece of Kiss swag from their 70’s peak. The two have a conversation discussing what Kiss has been doing since 1977, since Cable has never heard of them. Deadpool mentions that, according to their Wikipedia entry, they still play small clubs, but they kind of dropped off the map after 1977.
He decides he has to see Kiss now, so he grabs Cable and heads to a small bar in Hoboken, NJ. There’s like five people in the bar. Kiss takes the stage and they look exactly the same as they did in 1977… and they’re not good. Like they’re really awful.
Deadpool drags Cable out back to confront the band, who are getting into their tour van. They are stopped by the band’s manager, Bree Vere Xanadu, who says Kiss meets with nobody. Cable realizes that she – and the members of Kiss in the van – are robots. Epic battle, but Cable and Deadpool are no magic for this robots. Bree hisses something like “only Kiss can destroy Kiss” and the broken down van suddenly launches into the air and flies off.
The robot tech is all misassembled future robotics stuff so between that fact – and the fact that he got attacked – Cable is now invested in all this. Deadpool wonders what happened to the human members of Kiss, but there’s no records. He decides he’s going to need to get really lucky to find them, so of course he enlists Domino.
She insists that this is not how her powers work, but humors him. He also brings along along Peter from X-Force and starts calling this an X-Force mission. Peter mostly sits in the back of the car.
Somehow (luck?) they find human Gene Simmons working as a metal shop teacher in some school or other. He has no recollection of ever being a member of Kiss, but as they’re interviewing him, robot Kiss attacks! While they manage to save Gene, he is grievously wounded. They take him back to Deadpool HQ, where he’s left in the care of Blind Al (later, it is implied that she and Gene have hooked up).
The trauma of the attack causes Gene to remember everything. We see in the flashback to 1977, that Bree Vere Xanadu was the robot that Deadpool awakened. She overheard Kiss telling Deadpool and Cable about their real origin and the Box of Khyscz. To avenge her creator, she created a new set of Kiss robots to destroy Kiss’ reputation and lives! And she chose a name that was an anagram of her creator’s name.
She and her bots defeated Kiss and wiped their memories. They then proceeded to play dreadful concerts and alienate all of Kiss’s fans. Dizzy the Hun managed to get the Box of Khyscz back, but he decided it was too dangerous and vanished with it.
In the present, Deadpool vows to make things right and pledges X-Force to the task. Domino points out that this isn’t exactly a world ending threat, but Deadpool keeps shouting that this is “X-Force’s Infinity War.”
First step, get back the Box of Khyscz.
Cable remembers Dizzy from the future as some sort of self-help guru and they use that knowledge to track down present day Dizzy, who is a kind of hippy preacher in a big glass church. He won’t tell them where the Box is because it’s way too dangerous for those powers – and that level of rock and roll – to be free in the world.
Fortunately, Domino stumbles upon a room beneath the church filled with dozen of mystic artifacts – all of which are somehow tied to a different 70’s or 80’s rock band – she picks up The Belt of Ahnt and momentarily turns into Adam Ant. She finds the Box of Khyscz, but just as she does, Robot Kiss attacks and there’s a huge X-Force vs Robot Kiss battle in the glass church.
As members of X-Force grab different artifacts, they temporarily turn into different 70’s rockers with appropriately themed powers. They manage to drive Robot Kiss off, but Bree Vere Xanadu manages to abscond with the Box of Khyscz.
Dizzy secures the rest of the artifacts (Deadpool might sneak out one or two for use during the end credits) and tasks X-Force with recovering the Box of Khyscz. They debate over how to find where Robot Kiss is located, but Peter points out the band has a gig in Des Moines that night.
Long story short, the Box doesn’t work on robots, so when Bree tries to empower her Kiss with the power of Kiss, she passes the Kiss power onto X-Force instead. Cable gets the Star Child powers, Domino gets Gene Simmons powers, Peter gets the Cat power set and Deadpool gets Space Ace’s power set (and he’s kind of disappointed about this). X-Kiss defeats Kiss and destroys the Bree Robot.
To set things right, Deadpool offers to give the powers back to Gene Simmons and the original members of Kiss. Gene agrees, but asks if they can maybe not give the powers back to Ace Frehley and Peter Criss. The movie ends with an enormous Kiss concert featuring Paul Stanley, Gene Simmons, Peter of X-Force on drums and Deadpool as Space Ace playing blazing guitar solos. Cable and Domino (and the movie party group from the start) are watching from a VIP zone in the crowd having a great time – except for Negasonic Teenage Warhead who just roles her eyes.
TELL ME YOU DON’T WANT TO SEE THIS MOVIE.
Ryan Reynolds, you know you’d like to do this.