[Dormamu]

Didn't Vernage however tell them specifically that Evolt's primary purpose is to find worlds with intellgence and destroy them completely? That just makes him either no better than a virus and no worse than Unicron.

Genius Form is definitely what Hyper Muteki Gamer was supposed to be. A solution to the virus/dna issue that is creating the problem. But Hyper Muteki was used in very limited forms, probably because either they needed to stretch out the story, or because it's so OP it would literally end the story right then. Genius also has the same issue. Evolt knows this which is why the pacing of their first meeting was so well done. He says "I'm not ready to fight you just yet". And so now we have the thread of the Lost Bottles being a thing.

Is it cheating? Totally. Is it bad writing? Nah. Because the Lost Bottles are going to give the final piece of the Build equation. We know why Evolt is there. We know why Vernage ended up in Misora. We even know how Banjo and the rest ended up where they are. And it's confirmed that anyone exposed the day that Japan was divided by the Sky Wall was also mentally affected.

Those death flags though for Grease....I'm in the 'should have done him in' camp. But only because it would have been a prime trope to throw into the mix.