Shea Couleé joins the Marvel Cinematic Universe. (Getty)
Drag Race royalty Shea Couleé is joining the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) in an unnamed role – and fans think they know who she’s going to play.
Couleé confirmed the news on Twitter on Wednesday (3 August) saying: “BEYOND excited to be strutting out of the Werkroom right into the Marvel Cinematic Universe.”
She will star in the new Disney+ series Ironheart. Dominique Thorne will play the titular hero Riri Williams, a genius inventor.
There’s been no official announcement on who Shea will be playing, but fans say all the evidence is pointing to one character.
idk who they’ll have shea play but i always thought darkveil was a cool character (ps i need more darkveil on krakoa) https://t.co/oAy4EW3lZ6 pic.twitter.com/H1Rfbz0aVw
— Mofongo de Lechonk (@croaghunk) August 3, 2022
In 2019, Marvel comics writer Sina Grace and Nathan Stockman unveiled the first ever drag queen mutant superhero: Shade, more recently known as Darkveil.
Darkveil has the power to teleport by thworp-ing her fan (really), shows up to mutant pride parades and is all around fabulous.
Grace has said she was inspired by a number of drag queens in creating Darkveil, including one Shea Couleé.
In an interview with World of WOnder, she said: “Darkveil (formerly Shade) was inspired by so many drag queens, but I’ve kinda been officially quoted as saying that Shea Coulee, Dax Exclamation Point, The Vixen, and Monet X Change were my main go-tos.”
Shea Couleé has previously said she’d “love to be cast as Darkveil in a Marvel film”,
“The first drag queen to make an appearance in the Marvel Universe,” she told Fast Company, “and she was based off of me.”
A mutant drag queen inspired by Couleé herself – seems like the perfect fit to us.
As one person wrote: “Shea confirmed that she’s going to be in the new Ironheart [series] and if that means that we’re getting Shea Coulee as Darnell Wade aka Shade aka Darkveil I will lose my f***ing s**t”