My Hero Academia‘s first movie, My Hero Academia: Two Heroes has fans wondering about how the events of the film sync with the canonized events of the anime and manga, and those questions extend to the role of the villains in the story.
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Trailers have already revealed that Two Heroes will introduce a new villain character named Wolfram, whose quirk power makes him something similar to My Hero Academia’s version of Magneto. However, there’s been some lingering speculation that the series main antagonists, The League of Villains, could also be involved. Now that My Hero Academia: Two Heroes is out in theaters, we know that this theory is more than just that.
Warning – Spoilers for My Hero Academia: Two Heroes follow!
The main storyline in Two Heroes sees Wolfram attack “I Island,” in order to steal a quirk-enhancing weapon developed by All Might’s old friend, David Shield. In one of the film’s biggest twists, we learn that it was David who originally hired Wolfram to stage a heist of the weapon, so that David could pass it on to All Might as a cure for his deteriorating condition, with the governing powers of the Pro Hero world getting in the way. However, in a bigger twist, it is revealed that after Wolfram accepted David’s job offer, he was approached by none other than League of Villains leader, All For One! All Might’s Nemesis convinced Wolfram to double-cross David and actually steal the quirk-enhancing device, due to the fact that doing so would hurt All Might in any number of ways.
This reveal in Two Heroes helps the film sync up to the subsequent events of My Hero Academia season 3 and the series’ Vigilantes spinoff, in much tighter fashion. Season 3’s “Hideout Raid Arc” saw the long-awaited (and final?) showdown between All Might and All For One. That fight wasn’t just a physical test of wills and quirks: All For One used the occasion to launch a psychological attack against his nemesis, goading him into expending the last of his One For All quirk, and exposing his true form as Toshinori Yagi to the world. Even though All For One was defeated, All Might was effectively retired because of the battle.
Taking the events of the “Hideout Raid Arc” in conjunction with the events of Two Heroes, it becomes clear that All For One’s plan to take apart All Might was a much longer and more intricate chess game than anyone ever suspected. Not only did the archvillain manipulate Tomura Shigaraki into turning against his own heritage to create the Vanguard Action Squad, he also stoked the fires of social outrage against U.A. and its faculty, and created the conditions that gave rise to Hero Killer Stain. All of these little moves effectively chipped away at U.A.’s reputation, which is resulted in the new world order that’s still being established by the anime’s current “Hero License Exam Arc.”
…And now that we know just how nefarious a schemer All For One is, you probably bet that his incarceration, and the unfolding events of the Hero License Exam aren’t exactly what they seem.
My Hero Academia was created by Kohei Horikoshi and has been running in Shueisha’s Weekly Shonen Jump since July 2014. The story follows Izuku Midoriya, who lives in a world where everyone has super powers but he was born without them. Dreaming to become a superhero anyway, he’s eventually scouted by the world’s best hero All Might and enrolls in a school for professional heroes. The series has been collected into 15 volumes so far, and has been licensed by Viz Media for an English language release since 2015.
