Sacha Baron Cohen is not only devilishly good in Ironheart, he is the devil.
**Spoiler alert: Major details ahead for Ironheart‘s Season 1 finale**
In Episode 6 of the Disney+ series starring Dominique Thorne and Anthony Ramos, the Borat star finally made his long-awaited debut in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, playing Mephisto, Marvel’s own version of Lucifer himself.
The reveal was first teased in Episode 5, “Karma’s a Glitch,” as Parker (Ramos) searched for a way out while running from the police following an attempted robbery. During the chase, the character was presented with a magical solution brought to him by Mephisto, who presented a door to the pizza shop that would eventually become the HQ for the operation run by Parker.
It wasn’t until Episode 6, “The Past Is the Past,” however, that Parker came face to face with Mephisto in his human form, offering him a way out and a solution to all his problems. It would, of course, come with a catch. Later in the episode, Cohen’s character would offer a similar deal to Riri (Thorne), which she would shockingly accept in order to bring her best friend, Natalie (Lyric Ross), back from the dead.
As Riri was negotiating with Cohen’s unnamed character, it was his true form — a red devil-like look — that appeared in the reflection of his spoon, which finally confirmed his role in the series. The confirmation comes some two years after rumors began swirling that he had been cast in the franchise. Now, Cohen is officially taking his place in the MCU villain hall of fame as none other than Marvel’s Beelzebub.
Prior to his entrance via Ironheart, fans have been speculating wildly for years that the character would be arriving in the MCU since the WandaVision days. In that series, Agatha Harkness (Kathryn Hahn) made a throwaway comment about the devil in the details, which fans believed would lead to a Mephisto reveal in the final episodes, given the connection between Wanda’s (Elizabeth Olsen) twin sons and Mephisto in the comics. Just after that, fans spotted Mephisto in a stained-glass window in Loki Season 1, which led many to believe he would show up there.
Similarly, hype picked up in the fall as Agatha All Along debuted on the streaming platform and saw one of the first mentions of Mephisto by name in the MCU. In Episode 3, “Through Many Miles of Tricks and Trials,” Jennifer Kale (Sasheer Zamata) tells Teen (Joe Locke) — later identified as Billy Kaplan, one of Wanda’s twin sons — that Agatha Harkness is rumored to have done unspeakable things in her pursuit of power, including giving up her son for the Darkhold.
“Did you know she traded her own child for the book of the damned?” Jennifer asks Billy, who refuses to believe it. “But that is what people say. They say no one really knows what happened to him. They say he might be dead. Others say he might be a demon or an agent of Mephisto.”
In later episodes of that series, it was revealed that Agatha’s son, Nicky, died as a child after Death (Aubrey Plaza) nearly came for him as a newborn, but gave him more time out of her love for Agatha. So while Mephisto had nothing to do with Nicky’s lore — or at least that they confirmed at the time — we do now know that he has been a little busy making deals elsewhere.
As far as what is next for Mephisto in the MCU, plans are unclear, but it’s safe to assume this is not the last we will be seeing of Cohen and his villainous character. Especially as Marvel gets deeper into the weeds of the magic vs. machine mythology.
All six episodes of Ironheart Season 1 are now streaming on Disney+.
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