To her credit, Jennifer Lawrence is always honest. However, when she sat down for a relatively tense chitchat with Vanity Fair, she was forced to be more truthful than usual, as the magazine hooked her up to an actual lie detector test in order to probe her mind for some uncomfortable and thought provoking questions… and to confirm just how dedicated to X-Men mythology the Mystique actress really is. (Hint: It’s not a deep love).

In the below video, Lawrence is grilled as to whether she knows the real life alias of her shapeshifting anti-heroine Mystique, whom she has played in X-Men: First Class, Days of Future Past, Apocalypse, and the forthcoming X-Men: Dark Phoenix. And Lawrence didn’t even sweat the details and throws out “Raven Darkholme” like a witness with an airtight alibi.

But things get interesting when she is asked if she can name five X-Men characters (which shouldn’t be too difficult since she has appeared in four films with dozens of other mutants, many of them officially X-Men heroes). And without even going through the trouble of trying to painfully list a few off, she immediately gives in with a lowered head of (possible?) shame. “No, I can’t,” she sheepishly laughs.

It is one of the more amusing revelations in the below nine-minute interrogation that reveals other interesting facts about the Oscar winning movie star including that she believes there probably isn’t an afterlife—although she does think aliens almost certainly exist—that there are “red carpet looks” she regrets; love at first sight doesn’t exist; and from time to time, she thinks about pushing other commuters in front of subway trains while waiting on platforms. Not that she wants to, mind you.

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You can also see Lawrence in Red Sparrow, which is out today. We reviewed that film right here.

Much ado has been made about the fact that, while the Joker will be introduced in Season 4 of Gotham, he will not be Jerome, the very Joker-like character who has been delightfully played by Cameron Monaghan since Season 1. However, as a recent interview from Bustle points out, just because Jerome is not the Joker doesn't mean Monaghan won't be playing Gotham's titular villain. According to the article, Gotham star Morena Baccarin let slip that Monaghan will be playing multiple characters this season.

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"[Cameron]'s got some incredible scenes," teased Baccarin. Though Bustle didn't share the specific quote that had Baccarin mentioning Monaghan's multiple characters, Baccarin implied that the other character would be a member of Jerome's family. This is actually helpful evidence. Otherwise, I might have thought doppelganger, as Jerome did spend some time in Indian Hill under Hugo Strange's, for lack of a better word, care. Strange made a doppelganger of Bruce, so why not Jerome?

If the other Monaghan character isn't a doppelganger, could he be a twin? We know a bit about Jerome's past, as we met him while he was still living with Haly's Circus, where he grew up with his mother, Lyla the snake-dancer, before he murdered her back in Season 1. Given that Jerome spent the beginning of his life thinking his father was a deceased sea captain called Sven rather than fortune teller Paul Cicero, it's not so hard to believe that Jerome might have a brother or even a twin that he didn't know about.

Either way, it's exciting to consider that Monaghan may still get to play the Joker. His performance as Jerome has been one of the standouts of Gotham, and he already has the Joker routine down. It would be fascinating to see how Monaghan would approach assuming the Joker persona in a slightly different way, as a new character. Hopefully, we won't have to wait long to find out if this Monaghan as Joker theory is true...

“Sometimes you need to scorch everything to the ground, and start over,” Celeste Ng wrote in her best-selling novel Little Fires Everywhere. Other times you just move on to a new role. Reese Witherspoon, who stars with Nicole Kidman on the HBO series Big Little Lies, will team with Kerry Washington, whose term on ABC’s Scandal is set to end, in a limited series based on Ng’s book, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The show will be written, run and produced by Liz Tigelaar, who ran the Hulu series Casual. The series is sparking a bidding war among premium cable and streaming companies.

Little Fires Everywhere is set in Shaker Heights, the upscale community in Ohio where Ng grew up, in the 1990s.  A single mother and her teenage daughter rent a home nearby and are embroiled in a custody battle over a Chinese-American baby.

Witherspoon and Washington will both executive produce Little Fires Everywhere. The project is being put together by Witherspoon’s Hello Sunshine, Washington’s Simpson Street and ABC Signature Studios. Simpson Street recently landed a pilot order at ABC for the comedy Man of the House, which will star Alyson Hannigan.

The novel was Reese’s Book Club x Hello Sunshine’s September 2017 book pick. Witherspoon is currently working on three TV series, including Big Little Lies season 2, and an untitled Apple series that will co-star Jennifer Aniston.

There are only a few episodes left in Scandal's seventh and final season. Washington was the first African-American nominated for best drama actress Emmy in 18 years in 2013. She starred and executive produced HBO's Confirmation, earning the nod her role as Anita Hill. Washington also executive produced the pilot for the ABC comedy Man of the House and the Facebook Watch show Five Points. Scandal’s Bellamy Young and Scott Foley will get leads in ABC’s pilots for False Profits and Whiskey Cavalier.

Tigelaar is also working on the Hulu dramedy LA Woman, which is based on Eve Babitz’s memoirs. She created the CW series Life Unexpected.

ABC Studios will produce Little Fires Everywhere.

One thing that Marvel is great at is positioning some of its obscure comics characters in reader-friendly ways before they make their debut on the big screen. They notably pulled this off with Guardians of the Galaxy several years before that movie hit, for example. And while Carol Danvers' Captain Marvel has been a huge fan favorite for the last five years, there hasn't been much cause to really do a deep dive on her origin story, which is so heavily steeped in obscure Marvel history that it could be a little daunting for new fans.

So with the Captain Marvel movie scheduled for March 2019, it's time to give Carol Danvers something of a fresh start on the page. Not a reboot, just an easily digestible origin story. And that's exactly what we're going to get in July with The Life of Captain Marvel, a five issue limited series from Margaret Stohl and Carlos Pacheco.

Here's the official synopsis:

"Carol Danvers was just a girl from the Boston suburbs who loved science and the Red Sox until a chance encounter with a Kree hero gave her incredible super powers. Now, she's a leader in the Avengers and the commander of Alpha Flight. But what if there was more to the story? When crippling anxiety attacks put her on the sidelines in the middle of a fight, Carol finds herself reliving memories of a life she thought was far behind her. You can't outrun where you're from - and sometimes, you HAVE to go home again. But there are skeletons in Captain Marvel's closet - and what she discovers will change her entire world. Written by bestselling author Margaret Stohl and drawn by fan-favorite comics veteran Carlos Pacheco, this is the true origin of Captain Marvel."

“The Life of Captain Marvel presents the origins of Carol Danvers and Captain Marvel in one place, and in a way we haven’t seen before,” said SVP and Executive Editor Tom Brevoort in a statement. “Margie’s pulled together all of the strands of Carol’s backstory to craft a tale that will no doubt become a seminal story about the character, and set her in place for her role in Avengers and elsewhere throughout the Marvel Universe.”

“It's nothing you'll expect and nothing you've seen happen but there will be parts of her life that change the context of what you've seen before, so it's telling the other side of the story, of how she came to be,” Stohl said of Carol’s new story.

“We’re excited to welcome comics veteran Carlos Pacheco to Captain Marvel’s legacy,” added series editor Sarah Brunstad. “Carlos draws powerful, expressive figures with incredible depth—he’s going to show us a different Carol Danvers, one who has to grapple with the choices that have brought her to this new point.”

The Life of Captain Marvel #1 hits on July 4, 2018.

The Vision was one of the strangest, most eerie comics I've ever read. It was a quiet, desperate, weird look at superhero home life and how much one synthezoid could long to be normal. Ever since Tom King took over Batman, DC's flagship title, readers have been waiting to see some of that creep into the book. There's certainly been structural similarities, and much like TheVision, Batman has been incredible. But it hasn't been really odd yet.

Until now.

Batman #41 saw Poison Ivy take over the world, except for Bruce and Catwoman. At the end of the issue, Ivy leaves them free to try and inflict psychological torture on them. In this exclusive first look at Batman #42, Catwoman seems pretty tortured. Kidding, she's talking a TON of smack.

Here's what DC has to say about the issue:

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BATMAN #42 Written by TOM KING • Art and cover by MIKEL JANIN • Variant cover by OLIVIER COIPEL“Everyone Loves Ivy” part two! Poison Ivy has taken control of every man, woman and child on the planet, and only Batman and Catwoman have escaped her influence. But will the pair of them be enough to nip this in the bud?

Mikel Janin is back with King on art duty, and boy howdy this guy can draw. His Batmobile is excellent, Ivy is terrifying, Superman is ripped and huge, and Batman is giant and lithe at the same time.

And for those of you keeping track, this issue brings us back to BatBurger, where the Bat-family food puns are *kisses fingers like a chef*. This book is DC's flagship for a reason, and that reason is Killer Croque Monsieurs.  

Check out the preview pages here:

Image 1 of 7

By my count, there have been two major wedding issues of X-Men comics. The first was Cyclops and Jean Grey back in 1994's X-Men #30. The second was Northstar and Kyle in Astonishing X-Men #51 in 2012. No, I don't count Black Panther and Storm because it happened in his book, not an X-Men comic. Yes, I suppose we could count Meggan and Captain Britain in Excalibur #125. No, Quicksilver and Crystal were married in the pages of Avengers ...you know what, why are you arguing with me? Yes I know we're all X-Men fans and that's what we do. Let me finish this, please.

ANYWAY we're about to have big X-Men wedding number three four this June, as Marc Guggenheim pays off the story he's been working on since the launch of X-Men: Gold with the wedding of Shadowcat and Colossus in issue 30, and to help tell the story, Marvel brought in some big guns. David Marquez, aka the only reason to look at Civil War 2, joins Guggenheim on art for the wedding issue.

The story runs for five issues starting in April's #26. Diego Bernard, Michele Bandini and Gerardo Borges handle art on the lead ups, while Phil Noto contributes covers to each. “After nearly 40 years, I’m extremely excited — and anxious — about telling the next chapter in Kitty and Peter’s epic love story,” said Guggenheim. “The wedding is the capstone on a story that is classic X-Men, with Kitty risking it all to save the man she loves.”

The two have been a star-crossed pairing almost since Kitty was introduced to the X-Men during the Dark Phoenix saga, in Uncanny X-Men #129. They were a pretty serious couple right up until they were forced apart during Secret Wars, and have been rotating deaths as a means to keep them apart ever since - first Colossus died to cure the Legacy Virus, then Kitty more or less died to stop a giant bullet from destroying Breakworld in Astonishing X-Men, then Magneto brought her back but Colossus got all hopped up on Phoenix Force and had to use Domino as a rebound. But now they're good! Kitty is leading the Gold team, and Peter is being her gentle rock, and they're gonna get married this June, because that's when everybody gets married. 

For more on the wedding of Shadowcat and Colossus, or for creative ideas on how to politely decline an invitation to their wedding ("Nimrod!""Excuse me?""OH NO NIMROD IS ATTACKING."), stick with Den of Geek!

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Hiding in Time may not immediately spring to mind when it comes to things from the archives of Image Comics that should be adapted in live-action form. However, MGM Television has enough interest, and it just optioned the rights to the seemingly forgotten comic book miniseries, with plans to adapt it for the small screen.

MGM is moving forward with the development of a Hiding in Time television series, according to Deadline. The studio has tapped screenwriter Richard Smith to write the series, based on the three-issue miniseries written by Christopher E. Long, which featured artwork by Ryan Winn. Image published Hiding in Time in 2007 under the Shadowline label, which was started by company co-founder Jim Valentino.

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Hiding in Time showcases a near-future setting in which the Witness Relocation Program utilize time travel to hide those under its charge. However, that all changes when the list of witnesses (and their chronological location,) is released, which essentially ushers in an open season on those formerly hidden by time. Consequently, a former technician, named Nathan Crew, rises up to combat this catastrophe by travelling back in time to warn the targets and fix the anachronisms caused by their deaths. The endeavor to save one notable witness, Abraham Smith, sends Crew to 1770s Colonial America, where he battles future-sent assassins, and meets Benjamin Franklin.

This is the first major multimedia movement on the Hiding in Time property in about a decade. In 2008, not long after the comic miniseries was released, Warner Bros. had optioned the property with prospects to adapt it as a feature film; prospects that obviously never came to fruition.

The Hiding in Time series will see the involvement of comic author Christopher E. Long as a co-executive producer, joined in that capacity by Whalerock Industries’ Lloyd Braun and MGM Television’s Andrew Mittman. Archetype’s Ray Miller and David Server are also onboard as producers.

There’s still a lot to hammer down for Hiding in Time, with details like its showrunner, cast and even a network or streaming platform still up in the air. Contextually, MGM Television currently produces wide variety of shows, most notably with Hulu’s celebrated The Handmaid’s Tale, along with History’s Vikings, Epix’s Get Shorty and the recently launched web series Stargate Origins.

After a decade writing Spider-Man, Dan Slott is moving on to one of Marvel's other flagship characters. Slott will team with artist Valerio Schiti to launch a new Iron Man series from Marvel this June, called Tony Stark: Iron Man. The launch comes as part of Marvel's "Fresh Start" initiative, which reboots the entire line with new creative teams and new first issues. 

Slott, who has a knack for witty dialogue is a natural fit for Iron Man, a character who Marvel retroactively turned into a Robert Downey Jr-esque smartass on the page in the wake of the success of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. He told plenty of risky stories with Spider-Man, but also had a talent for reinventing classic Marvel villains and using them in clever ways. If he sticks around on Tony Stark for even half as long as he did with Spidey, we might be in for a character redefining run.

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Here's the (admittedly vague) official synopsis: 

From the cusp of tomorrow's dreams to the forefront of imagination, one man always soars on the cutting edge of adventure!

You know his name.

Tony Stark is Iron Man.

And Iron Man... is an idea.

Always changing. Always evolving. An idea without limit!

“As a futurist, Tony Stark thought he had all the answers. But since coming back from the dead, he now sees the Marvel Universe in a whole new light!” teased editor-in-chief C.B. Cebulski in a statement. “How does Iron Man continually evolve and stay relevant in a world where technology advances on a daily basis? Well, Dan Slott, Valerio Schiti, and Edgar Delgado are here to answer those questions as they take our Armored Avenger on adventures that push the boundaries comic storytelling and visuals! And Dan writes Tony with such heart...pun intended...we had to put his name in the title.”

Check out the cover and some preview pages!

Tony Stark: Iron Man #1 arrives on June 20.

We know you miss the squid. We know. Just hear us out for a moment.

Zack Snyder’s Watchmen certainly has its flaws. It follows the comic book a little too faithfully, resulting in a movie that feels like more of a traditional comic book adaptation rather than a fascinating study of how superheroes would operate in the real world.

It has its strengths, however. In addition to a brilliant opening credits sequence, Watchmen the film also improves on the ending of the comic book.

Watch the video below, or keep reading for more!

In the comic book, Adrian Veidt’s a.k.a. Ozymandias’ grand plan involves kidnapping some artists and having them design an intergalactic giant squid. Then he uses his massive amounts of money and technology to create that squid in the flesh and has it terrorize New York, therefore creating the illusion of a common cosmic enemy for all of humanity rally against.

The movie wisely omits the artist angle entirely as it would take up too much time. Instead of a giant space squid, Ozymandias instead uses some of the power he’s collected from Doctor Manhattan to essentially nuke Manhattan (the city, not the guy). This creates the impression that Doctor Manhattan has turned on humanity.

Making Earth’s common enemy the innocent Doctor Manhattan adds a new level of tragedy and sacrifice to the story that the original ending didn't have. Whenever possible it’s best for a story to make use of the existing characters that we care about rather than some Macguffin. And despite all Watchmen the comic’s brilliance, that’s all the squid really is - a Macguffin.

In the Watchmen movie ending, Doctor Manhattan takes on a more active role in Ozymandias’ grand plan even if its without his knowledge or consent. Once Ozymandias’ plan is revealed, however, Doctor Manhattan can’t help but seemed a little impressed. This is logical after all. Kill millions to save billions. It’s the exact kind of plan both the smartest man in the world and a budding deity would both get behind.

By using the specter of Doctor Manhattan as the enemy, the Watchmen movie’s ending is not only more poignant but also helps hammer home one of the big themes of the novel: the many shades of gray to humanity’s conception of morality. The smartest and most godlike of the characters (Ozymadias, Doctor Manhattan) seem OK with this warped version of utilitarianism while the most extremely “human” of characters (Rorshach) will accept no crime in the pursuit of the greater good whatsoever. Then there are the normal Janes and Joes who just want this to be over so they can go home (Nite Owl and Silk Spectre).

Snyder rightfully catches some barbs for missing the ultimate point of Watchmen here and there but his depiction of the ending and the improvements he makes upon it show that he fully understands at least one important aspect from the novel: heroism is hard.

Doctor Strange and Pink Floyd both got their start during the 1960s, a decade known for mind-expansion, psychedelic experimentation, and the pushing of cultural and artistic boundaries. Neither were exactly in step with the rest of their genre.

Doctor Strange, unlike his spandex clad and heavily muscled contemporaries, used occult practices like black magic and astral projection to defeat his foes instead of brute force. Pink Floyd were never really the kind of post-Beatles psychedelic pop group that were still common in the late '60s, nor were they ever the kind of blues-based hard rock or technically-oriented progressive rock band that dominated the 1970s. Unsurprisingly, Doctor Strange comics were popular on college campuses as the counterculture revolution of the 1960s began to take hold and it's easy to see stoners disappearing into Steve Ditko's surreal artwork while early Floyd records played or why psychedelic rockers were more drawn to these than traditional superhero fare.

Doctor Strange director Scott Derrickson dropped a number of Pink Floyd references on Twitter during the production of the Doctor Strange film (not to mention Bob Dylan, The Talking Heads, T.Rex, and other bands), so I was waiting to see if a Pink Floyd song would actually make its way into a Marvel movie. 

I wasn't disappointed. 

Pink Floyd's "Interstellar Overdrive" plays during a key early sequence in the movie. It comes from first Pink Floyd album, The Piper At The Gates of Dawn, which abandoned the melodic but skewed psychedelic pop of their early singles, "Arnold Layne" and "See Emily Play" for a collection of songs that were more metaphysical, sinister, and occasionally (like in the case of "Interstellar Overdrive") freeform explorations of sound and feedback. The album version clocks in at nearly 10 minutes, but live versions could run longer, as long as the band wanted, really, and were accompanied by a psychedelic light show and oil projections that were conducive to mind-expansion. Those visuals wouldn't have looked out of place in the Doctor Strange comics of the era, either.

Pink Floyd's guitar player, singer, and driving creative force in 1967 was Syd Barrett, who left the group the following year due to worsening mental illness that was likely accelerated by his voracious appetite for mind-altering chemicals like LSD. Marvel's Doctor Strange movie certainly leans heavily on imagery consistent with the visuals associated with LSD, psilocybin, and mescaline trips (Strange even accuses the Ancient One of spiking his tea with psilocybin), which is fitting, even if it isn't a direct connection to Pink Floyd.

Listen to Pink Floyd The Piper at The Gates of Dawn on Amazon Prime

Barrett was still present on a few tracks on the band's second album, 1968's A Saucerful of Secrets, which has a semi-hidden image of Doctor Strange on the cover. The collage effect is not only reminiscent of the band's light shows and a representation of the psychedelic experience, but the placement of Strange himself makes it look as if the whole album cover is a spell being cast by the Master of the Mystic Arts. 

The Strange elements come from a story in 1967's Strange Tales #158, with art by Marie Severin (Doctor Strange co-creator Steve Ditko had left Marvel almost a year earlier).

Here's the page: 

(and thanks to Richie who pointed out the specific issue in the comments of our article about all of the easter eggs in the Doctor Strange movie)

The title track, "A Saucerful of Secrets" is kind of like the sequel to "Interstellar Overdrive" as it's another extended instrumental that places more emphasis on experimental sound than it does on anything resembling a traditional rock song structure. In other words, it's the perfect accompaniment to your reading of weird-ass Doctor Strange comics from the era.

Listen to Pink Floyd A Saucerful of Secrets on Amazon Prime

What I somehow never realized until this NightFlight article pointed it out to me is that you can also spot Marvel cosmic entity The Living Tribunal in the upper left-hand corner of the album cover, too...

Doctor Strange was still on the band's radar enough that they included him in the lyrics of "Cymbaline" from their third album, 1969's soundtrack to the Barbet Schroeder film, More. "Suddenly it strikes you, that they're moving into range,"Syd Barrett's replacement David Gilmour intones solemnly, "and Doctor Strange is always changing size."

Funny enough, "Cymbaline" was known as "Nightmare" when it was performed as part of The Man and The Journey suite of songs, meaning it shared a name with the first villain Strange ever fought in the comics. Soon the band's lyrical focus drifted away from metaphysical concerns and into more earthly ones, and while they continued to produce extended musical compositions, the atonal sounds of "Interstellar Overdrive" and "A Saucerful of Secrets" gave way to the more melodic "Echoes" and "Shine On You Crazy Diamond."

But if Doctor Strange was an influence on the band in their early days, you can perhaps see hints of Pink Floyd in the 1978 Dr. Strange TV movie, which has a synth-heavy, at times funky, electronic soundtrack and an astral trip visual sequence that looks like some of the light show projections the band were known for. The final song on Michael Giacchino's Doctor Strangescore, "Master of the Mystic Arts" subtly evokes some of the band's 1970s work, too.

But one final piece of Doctor Strange/Pink Floyd synchronicity popped up in 2016. Doctor Strange star Benedict Cumberbatch joined former Pink Floyd guitarist David Gilmour on stage to sing "Comfortably Numb," a song which started life as a demo called, funny enough, "The Doctor." Whether this is coincidence, or simply the universe bringing the Pink Floyd/Doctor Strange connections full circle is entirely up to you to decide, of course. Maybe Doctor Strange 2can find room for more Pink Floyd music when exploring the Dark Dimension or somewhere similar.

Cast spells, or at least talk psychedelic rock and comics, with Mike Cecchini on Twitter.

Thor: Ragnarok isn't just the best Thor movie. It's the most cosmic Marvel movie this side of the Guardians of the Galaxy series. And without any pesky, annoying Earthlings (ahem, Midgardians) hanging around to clog up the proceedings it's got more Marvel references and easter eggs per frame than any of its predecessors. It's now available to own on Blu-ray and DVD, too.

Thor: Ragnarok is a feast for Marvel fans, and it will probably take me a second viewing to catch everything in it, simply because in nearly every scene there's a design, a piece of architecture, or a background character who positively must have come from the comics page. So with the full understanding that I definitely missed something (or a few something), it's up to you, dear readers, to help me out. Spot something I didn't? Shout it out in the comments, or give me a holler on Twitter. If it checks out, I'll update this!

What is Ragnarok?

- Ragnarok, of course, is the Norse "twilight of the gods." Key points of the mythological Ragnarok that are explored here include the death of Odin and Thor losing an eye (although he usually has to do that to himself in order to gain knowledge, but we'll take the badass fight instead for cinematic purposes).

Marvel has touched on Ragnarok more than once in the comics, most notably in stories by Walt Simonson (whose influence is all over this movie) and more recently by Michael Avon Oeming and Andrea Di Vitto. It was in the latter that we see a couple of small elements in this movie, notably the shattering of Thor's hammer, the death of the Warriors Three, and Surtur's prominence.

The Villains

Surtur

The first villain we meet in the movie is Surtur, and fans of Walt Simonson's take on Thor will be excited. While the character has been around since the Lee/Kirby days, it's really the Simonson stuff that made the character pop on the comics page, and the visual we get here is more in line with his vision.

- Surtur ends up kind of manifesting a giant snake, and I wonder if this is supposed to represent the Midgard Serpent, disturbance of which is another harbinger of the mythological Ragnarok.

Hela

Hela first appeared in Journey into Mystery #102 (1964) by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. That crazy headdress has always been part of the party...

Hela’s origin is different from both her comic and mythological versions. It's way too much to get into here, but we have a whole article about her comic origins for you.

- Her cinematic origins have a lot less in common with her comics counterpart than they do with Angela. Angela is...hoo boy...she's the lost daughter of Odin and Frigga killed in a secret war with the later hidden tenth realm, "heven." She was raised by the angels in the tenth realm after it was sealed off by Odin as punishment for their rebellion. She first appeared in the comics version of Age of Ultron and was revealed as Thor and Loki's sister in Original Sin. She's currently living out her best life, having conquered Hel to free the trapped soul of her girlfriend, then abdicating the throne.

(Her real life origin is somehow more convoluted: she was created by Neil Gaiman and Todd MacFarlane for Spawn before she got caught up in a decades-spanning lawsuit about the rights to Miracleman and got traded to Marvel when the rights to the latter settled there. It's seriously wild.)

It's nice to see Fenris hanging around, not just because he's a giant, pointy-eared doggie, but because Fenris played a reasonable role in the aforementioned Michael Avon Oeming/Andrea Di Vitto Ragnarok comic.

Skurge

- Skurge "The Executioner" appeared way the hell back in Journey Into Mystery #103 in 1964, and like so many characters in the Thor movies was created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. He didn't really come into his own until the Walt Simonson days, and the bit in the movie with him having a change of heart and using that pair of M16s to hold a bridge is straight out of Thor #362 by Mr. Simonson.

The Grandmaster

- One cool thing you might want to know is that the Grandmaster is the brother of the Collector from Guardians of the Galaxy. We wrote much more about his bonkers history right here if you're interested.

- In the Planet Hulk comics, Grandmaster wasn't a factor, and the arena battles Hulk fought in weren't referred to as "The Contest of Champions." There was, however a Contest of Champions comic book series, where Grandmaster was very much the primary antagonist. That's his thing, pitting folks against each other, and he's quite good at it.

Valkyrie

- Valkyrie has an extraordinarily complicated comic book history. Fortunately, we detailed it in easily digestible form for you right here.

- Valkyrie is referred to as "Scrapper 142" which might be a reference to The Incredible Hulk #142. While that isn't her first comic book appearance, but it's the first appearance of one of the versions of the character...trust me, her comic book backstory is a total headache. Just read the article I recommended and see if you can make sense of it, otherwise we'll be here all day.

- The cranky lady who hangs out with Grandmaster and Valkyrie is called "Topaz" in the credits, but she's definitely not the same Topaz as the comics. Comics-Topaz is a sorceress originally from Werewolf by Night and not a bloodthirsty space badass.

- She may not resemble the comic book version of the character all that much, but that final blue and white armor she wears is definitely a nod to her comic book color scheme.

Thor: Ragnarok - The Planet Hulk Connection

- So, Sakaar is, literally the "Planet Hulk" of the comics. Not that it's a planet full of Hulks or anything, but that is indeed where it all takes place. In the comics, though, Hulk didn't accidentally end up hurtling off into space, he was actually sent their by Tony Stark and Reed Richards because he's such a menace. It...it didn't end well for anyone involved.

But Hulk did indeed end up as a Gladiator on Sakaar (it had nothing to do with the Grandmaster). However, he didn't fight Thor in the arena...he fought the Silver Surfer! But since the Surfer is sadly unavailable for Marvel Studios (which is a damn shame...can you imagine what they could do with this character?) they swapped him out for Thor. This fight ALMOST happened in the animated adaptation of Planet Hulk, except there it was the Beta Ray Bill version of Thor in the arena with Hulk.

Beta Ray Bill may not actually be here, but he is in spirit. You can see his face as one of the sculptures on the tower that Hulk resides in (more on this down below, because it'a s LOT!)

- Korg, believe it or not, is a character who has been here since Thor's very first appearance in 1962. You know the cover of Journey Into Mystery #83 with Thor taking out a bunch of alien rock dudes? Well, it turns out, one of 'em is Korg.

Korg returned for the Planet Hulk storyline (and he's far less of a goofball there) and along with Miek, was one of Hulk's "Warbound" crew of rebels/revolutionaries. I kind of wish the revolution element of this movie was a little more pronounced, but whatever, they had bigger fish to fry.

Speaking of Miek...

Miek, the weird little insectoid creature is actually a native of Sakaar in the comics. I don't think that's the case here, otherwise there would be more of him.

- Hulk is introduced to the arena as "The Incredible Hulk" which is, of course the name of his comic and the famed TV series. But he is also referred to in casual conversation as "astonishingly savage." The Savage Hulk has been the title of more than one Hulk series throughout Marvel history. After Hulk's first solo comic fizzled out in the early 1960s he spent time co-headlining Tales to Astonish, which eventually just became The Incredible Hulk series.

- When Hulk says “No Banner only Hulk” that's a sentiment he's uttered at various points in his comic book history. But there have been some notable times when Hulk has remained in Hulk form for extended periods, sometimes maintaining more of Banner's intelligence, too. Planet Hulk was one of them (although he was far from a full-on Banner style genius), although he definitely was smarter during his years with The Pantheon. We detailed a couple of "no Banner only Hulk" type stories here.

- Hulk's cool looking bed doesn't appear to be a design lifted straight out of the comics, although it bears a slight resemblance to the canopied bed he has in the Future Imperfect story. Maybe not enough for me to mention it here, but I'm mentioning it anyway.

Miscellaneous Cool Stuff

So it looks like we've finally identified everyone on Hulk's tower here...

The first face (the one with the elephantine nose) is Man-Thing. Yes, Man-Thing, infamous for appearing in a comic known as, I shit you not, Giant-Sized Man-Thing.

Down and to the right is Marvel's Ares. Perhaps not coincidentally, Michael Avon Oeming, who wrote the comic book story that inspired much of this movie, also wrote a killer Ares comic. (thanks to @ItsEvoTF on Twitter for setting me straight on this one)

To the left is none other than Beta Ray Bill! I desperately need to see him in a Marvel movie soon.

Well, it might not be Bill, it could be a member of his race, but based on that connection to the animated version of Planet Hulk, I could see him being an earlier Champion here.

Down and to the right is the rarely seen these days Hulk baddie, the Bi-Beast (he's the guy with two faces). Thanks to Pat for spotting that, because that's a really cool catch.

Gary M. Miller believes that the bottom two faces are actually little-known Hulk villain Dark-Crawler...

...and legendary Kirby dragon Fin Fang Foom!

- Loki references “that time I turned you into a frog” to Thor. This is a wonderful, wonderful reference to one of Walt Simonson's wackier Thor ideas...Throg. No, I swear to god.

Now, to be fair, Throg isn't our Thor, and Loki had nothing to do with it, but it's a real thing because Walt Simonson is a genius.

Thor's short-haired look has been a thing recently in The Unworthy Thor comics.

It goes along with his new weapons, too...

Thor's "club" looks looks like the mace that Marvel's version of Hercules wields. Which reminds me, they really need to introduce Hercules into the MCU.

- As we show up at Doctor Strange's Sanctum Sanctorum at 177a Bleecker Street you can hear the strains of a harpsichord, which is more than a little reminiscent of Michael Giacchino's score for that movie.

And while that movie was very much an origin story, here we get a more fully-formed Doctor Strange, and that's exactly what I wanted from the movie version of the character in the first place. He should be mysterious and powerful, and when other heroes come to him for help it should be because they have absolutely no idea what the hell else to do with themselves. 

Also, the addition of Doctor Strange to a movie that also includes Valkyrie and Hulk can't be an accident. All three of them were founding members of the comic book version of The Defenders, a team which bears almost no resemblance to the ones on Netflix.

- While on Earth, we get a nod to old comics continuity. Thor's umbrella is his Mjolnir stand in, and in Norway, he bangs the umbrella on the ground to change from cool streetwear Thor to Asgardian-battle-ready Thor. In the old comics, Dr. Don Blake used to bang his walking stick on the ground to change from human doctor to Norse thunder god.

But don't start thinking that Thor is supposed to be Don Blake in these scenes! For one thing, we already had a Don Blake joke in the first Thormovie. For another, his more working-class attire and the fact that he's still pretty clearly, um, Thor, puts him more in line with his Walt Simonson-era alter ego, Sigurd Jarlson.

- Did you catch all the cameos in the play scene? That was Matt Damon as Loki, Sam Neill as Odin, and Chris's brother Luke Hemsworth as Thor.

- We finally get an explanation for how Odin can have an Infinity Gauntlet hanging around in his trophy room: it's a fake.

- While we've seen the visual cue plenty of times in the movies, this is the first explicit explanation of how Thor flies around: by throwing his hammer and catching it at the last second so it can pull him through the air. I've always loved this, as weird and implausible as it seems.

- “Wrath of the Mighty Thor” sounds like it could be a comic book title. And indeed, many Thor comics have been called The Mighty Thor.

Like we've seen in both Guardians of the Galaxy movies, so many of the spaceships look kinda like some of the crazy ships that were designed by Chris Foss for Alejandro Jodorowsky's lost Dune movie.

Here's one for comparison:

You can see more here if you don't believe me.

And for real, if you haven't seen the Jodorowsky's Dune documentary, I can't possibly recommend it enough.

- When our heroes are returning to Asgard and they pass out in the wormhole, I can't help but be reminded of a similar sequence in Mike Hodges' brilliant Flash Gordon movie from 1980. Both movies are incredibly colorful and bonkers space operas.

Not only is there a strong Jack Kirby influence visible in virtually every character and costume design you can see here, even in the shape of that crazy doorway, but there appears to be literal Jack Kirby artwork on the walls there.

What you're seeing is a detail from a page from Fantastic Four #64.

Throughout so much of the rest of the movie, you can see that kind of crazy Kirby-inspired circuitry and technology. Nearly everything has "Kirby tech" markings that remind me of details from a piece of non-comics related Kirby art called "Dream Machine."

This article contains spoilers for The Flash season 2.

Jay Garrick's arrival on The Flash was a foregone conclusion since the very first episode of season one. The minute that newspaper headline from the future was revealed, letting fans know that there's a "Crisis on Infinite Earths" of some kind in the not-too-distant future of this show, then it was only natural that we'd meet the first, most important of those infinite worlds, Earth-2.

And there's no more iconic symbol of Earth-2 than Jay Garrick, the original Flash. And it's only fitting that he's played by TV's original Flash, John Wesley Shipp.

Flash Comics #1 first hit newsstands in late 1939 (don't be fooled by the 1940 date on the cover), and it's handily one of the most important single issues ever published by DC Comics (long before the company went by that name). Superman had arrived in early 1938 in Action Comics #1, bringing forth a slew of caped imitators, not the least of whom being Batman, who made his pointy-eared bow in Detective Comics #27 in mid 1939. The superhero arms race was on, and most of 'em had capes.

Watch The Flash on Amazon

But Flash Comics #1 put someone a little different on the cover. Here we had a mercury helmeted speedster in a capeless, but no less snazzy costume, catching a bullet in mid-flight. Boasting just as much primary color appeal as Superman, Jay Garrick took one of those most elemental superpowers, the ability to run really frakkin' fast, and melded it with the still nascent superhero genre.

But Jay's origin story was also one of the more well-rounded ones of the era. In the space of 15 pages, Gardner Fox and Harry Lampert introduced us to Jay Garrick, college football benchwarmer and mediocre science student, his girlfriend (and future wife) Joan, Joan's scientist dad, and a crew of evildoers with the modest name of the Faultless Four. Jay gets his super speed not by anything remotely as sexy as a lightning bolt or particle accelerator, but from the fumes of "hard water" which he accidentally inhales after knocking over vial while relaxing with a cigarette. 

Special note that has nothing to do with anything else! I don't think any Golden Age superhero comic features as much cigarette smoking as early Flash stories. Holy moley, all these people do is light up. Anyway...back to the important stuff.

Jay recovers from a coma, discovers his speed, puts on a costume, and rescues Joan's pop in remarkably economic fashion, all in a story slightly better drawn than many of the other Superman and/or Flash Gordon knockoffs. In fact, aside from the "Flash" name, like most superhero costumes, Jay's owes quite a bit to Alex Raymond's Flash Gordon (for that matter, so does virtually every other superhero of the era, but that's a story for another time), who routinely wore striking outfits like a red shirt, and blue pants, emblazoned with yellow lightning bolts. But it's Jay's winged helmet and boots, tributes to the Greek god Hermes, known for his swiftness, that set him apart from his peers.

Special note #2. You know who else first appeared in Flash Comics #1? Hawkman and Hawkgirl, two characters that we also spent a lot of time with on the first seasn of Legends of Tomorrow

Jay proved popular enough to start making appearances in All-Star Comics, where he was a founding member and chairman of the first superhero team, the Justice Society of America, who he would be associated with for the rest of his career. He was one of the few superheroes (alongside Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Captain Marvel, and Captain America) to break free of the anthology format prevalent at the time, and was granted his own title, appropriately known as All-Flash.

But interest in superhero comics dropped dramatically in the years following World War II, and by 1951, Jay and most of the rest of the Justice Society had faded away, presumably never to be heard from again.

Well, almost.

Jay next appeared in none other than Showcase#4 in 1956, in the same story that introduced Barry Allen to the world. But here, we only see him on the cover of a comic book that Barry's reading, and it's Barry's love of this superhero from a bygone era that ultimately inspires him to put on a costume and adopt the Flash name. But make no mistake, in Barry's world, Jay Garrick was just a fictional character.

Well, at least he was...until The Flash #123 in 1961. "Flash of Two Worlds" revealed that Jay Garrick was actually a Flash from another dimension (affectionately known as Earth-2, despite the fact that it came first), and when Flashcomic book writer Gardner Fox didn't write his adventures, he was unkowingly channeling "real" events from Jay's dimension. It was a wild concept, and one that stuck. Jay and Barry team-ups became yearly occurrences in The Flash, and soon the tradition spread to the Justice Society and the Justice League, in stories that often had titles like "Crisis on Earth-3." 

This ultimately led to a proliferation of alternate worlds, and DC had to do a massive housecleaning, known as Crisis on Infinite Earths, which (among countless other things) merged the histories of Earth-1 and Earth-2, meaning that Jay operated as the Flash of decades past, before Barry picked up the legacy, and so on down the line. There's way too much about Flash's connection to Crisis(and its potential impact on the future of DC movies and TV) to get into here, but I wrote a whole article about it a while back. See for yourself. 

During this period, the JSA re-formed, and thanks to some funny business involving how the Golden Age heroes had aged (don't ask), Jay was able to serve as a mentor to other young speedsters in the DC Universe. During most of his time on "our" Earth in DC's present, Jay helped Wally West out during his extended run as the "main" Flash, and served as the backbone of a new JSA that also consisted of newer "legacy" heroes in the DC Universe.

There was a version of Jay introduced during DC's New 52 period, who rocked a snazzy new costume but was pretty different from his original interpretation. The classic Mercury-helmeted version has so far been absent from DC's current line of rebirth comics. He's bound to be reintroduced, though, along with the rest of the Justice Society, it's just a matter of time.

After a season 2 fake-out which saw Teddy Sears introduced as the Jay Garrick of Earth-2 only to be revealed as the villain of the season, Zoom, we met the real Jay, the Flash of Earth-3, played by none other than original TV Flash, John Wesley Shipp. This version of the character has taken on the traditional role as Barry's occasional mentor, and he's as fully heroic as his comic book counterpart. Seeing John Wesley shipp in a smartly updated costume and that iconic helmet actually brought some happy tears to my eyes.

A version of this article first appeared in October of 2015. It has been updated with new information. You can try and keep up with me on Twitter!

It’s a pretty critical time for Deadpool these days. On the more mainstream side of things, he has a big movie sequel coming out in May. That’s a pretty big deal.

In the land of comics, we have another big deal. Gerry Duggan is ending his lengthy run on Deadpool, which has not only been wonderful, but it’s easily – in my opinion – the best run on the character ever. Ever.

That raises a question. If Deadpool is still doing it for Marvel and they’re doing yet another relaunch/rebranding and there needs to be some Deadpool out on the market to capitalize on all that Ryan Reynolds goodness...then who is the new creative team?

Coming out on June 6, Skottie Young and Nic Klein will be giving us Deadpool #1. This is a very welcome opportunity as Young has the right mind for the character, if his Rocket Raccoon series is anything to go by. It even featured fairly obscure Deadpool rival Macho Gomez, so the guy knows his deep cuts. Otherwise, Young did take part in an issue of Deadpool Team-Up featuring Galactus.

Young won’t be taking on art duties, which is probably for the best, as Klein’s style seems like a better fit for the character. Young’s art is great for comedy, but a little too distracting when it’s time for pathos to happen. If pathos happens. I hope it happens. That's like 40% of the character.

Duggan left some huge shoes to fill, considering in the past few years, Deadpool’s found a wife, a daughter, horrific secrets from his past, a major spot on the Avengers, a complicated relationship with Captain America, and two teams of mercenaries to lead. Young will be starting it off easy by having Deadpool focus on his status as one of the top hired guns in Marvel.

Here’s hoping that wave of good Wade Wilson stories continues with this run.

Deadpool #1 arrives on June 6.

Gavin Jasper can’t help but think of the time Deadpool hallucinated that he was Dorothy in one of Young’s Wizard of Oz books. Follow Gavin on Twitter!

Since it was first announced, Syfy’s upcoming series Krypton has had an uphill climb. The latest in a line of place-specific, high-concept superhero prequels like Smallville or Gotham, Krypton is perhaps the hardest sell. While Smallville was the story of a pre-Superman Clark Kent with “no tights, no flights,” and Gotham is simply the story of the city and its colorful cops and robbers in the days before Bruce Wayne put on a pair of pointy ears, Krypton takes a starkly different approach by going 200 years into the past to tell the story of Superman’s grandfather.

But visiting the sets of Krypton, and listening to the cast and executive producer Cameron Welsh expound on the quest to make the world of Krypton live—and not just as a DC Universe show, but as a piece of science fiction that could stand on its own—convinced me that this show could work. Think of Krypton less as a Superman prequel and more of a science fiction TV show that gives audiences the opportunity to discover a strange and alien world. And make no mistake, the series is exploring elements of Kryptonian society in more detail than we’ve ever seen on screen or page.

Welsh is acutely aware of the pressure on his series, and the need for it to tell its own compelling story. “Maybe I'm biased but I think there's plenty of interest in the world of Krypton without Superman,” he says. “We haven't really seen much of this world before, and it's just this open book [that] allows us to tell a story that hasn't been told.”

***

Even after 40 years, the dominant impression of Krypton in pop culture is the icy sterility of Richard Donner’s Superman: The Movie. To be sure, there are some echoes of that (and, for that matter, 2013’s Man of Steel as well as other comics and cartoons) in TV’s Krypton. But this isn’t a pristine, frozen, or sterile world. It’s dirty, lived in, imperfect, and politically complex.

”We're just peeling back a lot more layers than what we've seen before,” Welsh says. “Part of what is exciting about doing this is that we get to get really specific and really detailed and really into this world.”

And they certainly do. To the smallest detail, the planet Krypton lives on its soundstages in Belfast, Northern Ireland. The streets of the show’s key city, Kandor, have alleys and market squares for characters (and journalists) to wander through, all designed with an attention to detail that demonstrates a real love of sci-fi and fantasy. Whether it’s the remnants of posters torn and hanging in a bar (a source of debate, as Welsh points out, since “we don’t use paper anywhere else in the show”), the Kryptonian graffiti on the walls (“I trust the art department haven’t written anything offensive,” he jokes),  the weird rodent/insect hybrids (“full of protein”) cooked over blue crystals (“you'll see steam and smoke, but instead of naked flame, they use these blue crystals”) in the street market, or Kryptonian lettering that spells out “take two drops a day, seven days a week” on vials of medicine, Krypton feels more concerned with building its world than blowing it up.

Kryptonian citizens are divided into different guilds. There are guilds for technicians, lawmakers, scientists, the military, artisans, scientists, and clergy. The lower classes are known as the “rankless.” They belong to no guild and live in relative squalor in the literal underside of Kandor. The rankless denizens prowl crowded and darkened streets, forever in the shadow of Kandor’s skyscrapers. As your social status increases, the higher you literally rise in Kandor. The lawmakers and clergy occupy living quarters that are closer to the light of Krypton’s sun god, Rao.

These lower streets of Kandor are known as the “rankless” district, indicative of one of the key sources of conflict on the show: a class struggle that is reflected in virtually every element of Krypton’s design. A recurring feature is a porous, mesh-like metal that makes up everything from chairs and tables to bars and dividing walls. This is apparently the cheapest, most durable material available, and it’s far more common in the rankless areas than it is in the upper echelons of society.

Appropriately, even up above, it never really seems to be midday on Krypton. There’s always the muted warmth of late afternoon, indicative of the diminished light of a giant red sun. But it’s down in that rankless district that we first meet Seg-El, Superman’s grandfather, an angry young man paying for his grandfather’s “crime,” his rank and family station stripped away by Krypton’s ruling class.

Seg-El is played by Cameron Cuffe, and they couldn’t have found a more appropriate or enthusiastic actor for the part. Whenever someone is cast for a superhero or comic book adjacent role, they’re always quick to pay lip service to the source material, the expectations of fans, and the responsibilities that come with the role. But Cuffe is more than a casual fan; he’s fluent in DC Comics mythology in general and Superman in particular (unsurprisingly, he cites the influential Superman work of Geoff Johns and Gary Frank among his favorites, along with Kurt Busiek and Alex Ross’ Kingdom Come), and it’s clear that he’s utterly sincere about the importance of playing Seg-El.

“The interesting thing about Seg as a hero is that he's not fully formed,” Cuffe says. “He doesn't always know right from wrong. The only thing he really has in his life are people he loves. And so when he is finally motivated to come out of that shell, and to prove that he has to be a hero, it's a role that he doesn't really know he can fill. He doesn't think he's the guy. But he does it anyway, and that ultimately is what being a hero is.”

While fans know that Seg-El’s eventual son, Jor-El, becomes one of the most revered scientists in Kryptonian history, when we meet Seg, there’s little to indicate the family destiny is anything so lofty. “One of Superman's greatest powers is that he knows right from wrong, and Seg doesn't,” Cuffe says. “He doesn't know the way forward. Most of the time he has no idea what he's doing. He's just buckling down and holding onto it, and believing in whatever he can believe in, in that moment. And he waivers. He questions himself all the time. But ultimately he stays the course.”

Welsh, on the other hand, sees Seg-El as a potential revolutionary, someone who could “usher in a new golden age” for Krypton. “Part of what we explore in the show is what makes these people special,” Welsh says. “And a lot of that is the House of El and the legacy of the House of El. And when we start our show, we see that Seg is kind of detached from that, having been sort of cast out into the rankless. He's disconnected from his past and from his legacy and that's a bit of a journey for him to discover: What that legacy is, what it means to be an El, what the Els have always stood for, and what he'll learn.”

Seg-El’s resentment of Krypton’s upper class comes with good reason. The House of El is a victim of irrational laws imposed by Kandor’s rulers. Kandor is a theocracy, something incongruous with broader Superman mythology, which has always portrayed Krypton as a planet dominated by science and reason. But here, Kandor’s head of state, who serves above all members of the Lawmaker’s Guild, is the Voice of Rao. The Voice is an eerie, robed figure wearing a multi-faced gold mask which represents Rao’s victory over Krypton’s previous, polytheistic gods and goddesses.

“I think, in the world that we live in, when we look at the roles of religion in society, these can be kind of hot issues that can sort of divide people in a lot of ways,” Welsh says. “We're sensitive to that, but we sort of want to look at those things. That's part of the role of science fiction, to help hold up a bit of a mirror to contemporary society but also be entertaining at the same time. It's like, you don't wanna know that you're eating your vegetables.”

Thanks to theocratic rule, this technologically advanced society has not only shut down its space program, but interstellar exploration is banned by Kryptonian law. We all know how that turns out for them 200 years later. “This is a world where… nobody believes in the existence of aliens,” Welsh says. “In this theocracy, the Voice of Rao has basically stated that the god Rao created all life, and Krypton is the totality of his creation… there is nothing else beyond it. So to speak of life outside of Krypton is heresy.”

Symbolically, the “Watchtower,” an enormous platform protruding from one of the tallest structures in Kandor (the Lawmaker’s Guild’s “tower of justice”), was once a space docking station. Now it is used to execute those who dare suggest that Kryptonians can or should explore the stars. One of those heretics is Val-El (played by Game of Thrones’ Ser Barristan Selmy himself, Ian McElhinney), Superman’s great-great grandfather, who is sent to his doom at the edge of the Watchtower in the opening moments of the first episode for defying the will of Rao, bringing about the downfall of the House of El.

That Watchtower is one of Krypton’s nearly full scale sets, and while it isn’t located hundreds of feet in the air, it’s still an enormous, almost intimidating piece of work, even surrounded by green screens, the ultimate signifier of TV and movie magic. You could park a spaceship there, although during my visit, a nearly life-sized “skimmer” (a Kryptonian high speed aircraft) was nearby, likely to make use of the aforementioned green screens.

But in fantasy and science fiction, you’re only as good as the little details, and Raoism, with all the attendant religious trappings therein, has been carefully considered, right down to its holidays. “One of the things we'll see is what we call the Nova Cycle celebration,” Welsh says. “The Nova Cycle is all about rebirth and it's almost like a festival of light or something, and it kind of goes on for weeks and weeks. There are different stages to it and different ceremonies involved, and people were asked to give offerings and things like that at different stages. Prisoners are always pardoned by Rao's grace, things like that.”

Of course nothing could challenge Rao’s central philosophy more than actual alien contact, and that’s exactly what happens when an Earthman named Adam Strange (played by Shaun Sipos) shows up to inform Seg-El that he’s traveled through space and time to deliver a warning: A far more dangerous alien is also approaching, and it’s called “Brainiac.” Brainiac is a powerful artificial intelligence/cybernetic organism who roams the stars collecting data on civilizations… before destroying them. His preferred method of collection is to remove an entire city from the surface of a world, shrink it, “bottle” it, and store it and its collected knowledge in his ship.

Blake Ritson, who plays Brainiac, certainly did his homework. In the course of a conversation with reporters, he namechecks Koko, the space monkey from Brainiac’s earliest comic book adventures; the character’s unfortunate early “pink spandex” costume; and quotes chapter-and-verse dialogue from Geoff Johns and Gary Frank’s excellent Brainiac story from 2007. Ritson has given Brainiac considerable thought and promises that there's no "mustache-twirling" in his version of the character.

"I've played a number of villains over the years," he says. "Generally, in life, you consider yourself to be the hero of your own narrative. I think you need to find a way into the perspective of a character, where what they're doing is essentially noble at some level."

How noble can he be if he plans to destroy an entire planet in order to prevent the existence of our world's greatest hero?

While still 200 years from its final cataclysm, there are indicators that Krypton is already dying. Some kind of cataclysm took place in the even more distant past, which has rendered vast swaths of the planet frozen, virtually uninhabitable wastelands. Krypton’s nine city-states, of which Kandor is one, live under domes that protect them from the elements. The outer regions, known as the Outlands, are labyrinthine sets covered in “snow” and the remains of unrecognizable (but somewhat familiar) beasts. But it’s in these frozen outlands that another familiar piece of the Superman legend lives: this show’s version of the Fortress of Solitude.

This Fortress was Val-El’s hidden refuge, where he could conduct his illegal scientific experimentations about the nature of the universe, undisturbed by Kryptonian theocrats. That’s a fun twist on the Fortress concept, and seeing the set itself was breathtaking for this Superman fan.

The Fortress is a full-scale set, semi-circular, with a 40-foot ceiling dominated by two 30-foot tall statues representing the first of the line of the House of El. The Fortress’ open, uncluttered design, bathed in blue-ish light, is both a contrast with the claustrophobic feel of the rankless district and a choice that helps it feel even bigger than it already is. The set may appear somewhat minimalist in its decor at first, but a closer look reveals little details from cosmic DC lore scattered throughout, including a Black Mercy from Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ classic Superman story, “For the Man Who Has Everything.” The enormous, nearly floor-to-ceiling oval windows, when illuminated, are decorated in Kryptonian lettering. If you can translate Kryptonese, each window tells the story of a different member of the House of El throughout history, like a Kryptonian Stations of the Cross.

“[Seg] will learn that the Els have, for many, many generations, been woven into the fabric of Krypton and they're part of what makes Krypton special, and he'll start to learn that he's part of that lineage,” Welsh says. “It's part of what helps ignite him and push him into his hero's journey… as he sort of discovers who he is and what he wants to do.”

Of course there are always those who are going to point out that we know how Krypton’s story ends (with a bang). But with the show set in the planet’s distant past, even a successful multi-season run is unlikely to ever reach that point. But there’s another wrinkle to the story: time travel. When a familiar DC character from the present arrives on the Krypton of the past, bearing warnings of the future, things get complicated. “The show very quickly goes from being about this look into the past into a show that has stakes in the present day,” Welsh explains. “It's been a bit of an odd duck in that way. It is still in the past but it affects [the] present day and present day Earth. It's really fun to write that.”

For fans of Superman and science fiction, it might be just as fun to watch.

Krypton premieres on March 22 on Syfy. We'll have much more from our set visit in the coming weeks.

Follow Mike Cecchini on Twitter. After all, how many people do you get to talk to who have actually been to Krypton?

Hey, remember the Sentry? If you don’t, give it a second for the spell to wear off.

Originally created in a 2000 miniseries by Paul Jenkins and Jae Lee, Sentry was introduced as Marvel’s forgotten Superman mixed with the narrator from Fight Club. A superhero who is also the very supervillain he tries to save the world from. He became a major part of Brian Michael Bendis’ Avengersrun, being built up as increasingly powerful and unhinged until culminating in him becoming the big final boss villain and being killed. Then Rick Remender’s Uncanny Avengers had him resurrected as a Horseman where he was blue and tore his face open and it was weird.

More recently, Sentry appeared in the pages of Doctor Strange, where it turns out Bob Reynolds was purposely induced into a coma to keep him out of everyone’s hair, only to be awakened to help Strange deal with Loki. Although his darker half, the Void, is locked away by magic, Sentry ended the story disgusted with Strange’s actions and flew off to be alone.

Now he’s coming back this June with a new series by Jeff Lemire and Kim Jacinto. Heh. And Lemire just did Moon Knight. Fitting that he’d go from Marvel’s insane Batman to Marvel’s insane Superman.

This will be the first real ongoing for the Sentry, oddly enough. Sure, Jenkins did two miniseries for him and there was an interesting Age of Sentry book at one point, but this is the first time Marvel’s heavy hitter gets something open-ended. This will also be the first time we’ll get to see him as a protagonist after the horrible loss of his wife Lindy at the hands of Bullseye and Norman Osborn. It’ll be interesting to see how that manifests.

Sentry #1 will be released June 27. In the meantime, enjoy this cover by Bryan Hitch.

Gavin Jasper enjoyed the Sentry the most in the MCU classic Incredible Hulk 3: Follow the Leader. Follow Gavin on Twitter!

This article contains nothing but Jessica Jones Season 2 spoilers. 

At this point, do I even need to explain these articles anymore? I do? OK, fine. I love superhero comics, perhaps a little too much, as you can probably tell based on what I do for a living. As a result, it's not enough for me to just watch and enjoy a Marvel Netflix show like Jessica Jones Season 2. Nooooo...I must study every frame in the hopes of unlocking some piece of Marvel wisdom that would otherwise be lost to the ages or some such nonsense.

So here's how this works. I am trying to catch all the Marvel references on Jessica Jones Season 2. I probably am going to miss a bunch of them. I need your help. I hate asking for help, but we're all friends here, so it's cool, right? If you spot a cool Marvel Easter Egg or something important that I missed, you can drop it in the comments (beware of spoilers, comments-readers!) or you can just holler at me on Twitter. If it checks out, I'll update this guide, and we can all make this far better than it would have been if it was just me doing it.

Oh, and here's a cool tip...if the title is in blue, that means there's a full review waiting for you there if you click it!

Jessica Jones Season 2 Episode 1: AKA Start at the Beginning

"While Jessica deals with a rival PI and a would-be client, Trish digs up a medical file that could unlock the mystery of Jessica's powers."

This isn't an easter egg, but wow, Jessica almost seems like she has her shit together at the start of this, doesn't she? Anyway...Pryce Cheng isn't a character from the comics, unless that's an alias (obligatory reminder that Alias was the name of Jessica's first comic book), but really, I don't think it is. Jessica's cute new neighbor downstairs doesn't appear to be from the comics, either. Jessica Jones has always worked best kind of one step removed from the rest of the Marvel Universe, and it looks like this season continues that trend.

- You know who absolutely IS from the pages of Marvel Comics, though? The (ahem) Whizzer, who no joke has been around almost as long as Captain America, first appearing in USA Comics #1 in 1941.

Of course, the Whizzer of the comics isn't the poor schmuck we see here, but he was definitely a speedster, and he did indeed have a fondness for yellow and blue, just like our fella here. I know you don't believe that I'm not making this up, so here's a pic...

In the comics, his name is "Robert Frank" whereas here it seems to be Robert Coleman. His fondness for a pet mongoose is a nod to the comic character's origin story, which involved a transfusion of mongoose blood to save him from the poisonous bite of a cobra. The doctor who gave him the blood transfusion was named Emil. TV's Whizzer has a pet mongoose named Emil. Stop looking at me that way, I didn't write the story, I'm just here to report it to you.

- Trish Walker dressed up in her old costume and singing the "It's Patsy" theme song is:

a) hilarious

b) a subtle homage to an early scene in Ghostbusters II 

c) all of the above.

There are no wrong answers but there is only one truly correct one.

- Jeri Hogarth is back! And her firm's connection to Rand Industries here is a nod to the fact that the comic book Jeri got his (yes, his) start in Iron Fist comics. I know, it's only the first episode and I've said those two words that no Marvel Netflix fan wants to hear, but you want this to be complete, right? Of course you do. Don't judge me.

- Can anyone tell me what the movie is that Jessica and Trish are watching on the roof? I bet Den of Geek's movies editor David Crow knows, but I am too proud to ask him, and he doesn't read my stuff anyway.

- They totally drop a Maynard Tiboldt reference, and he's the Ringmaster from the Circus of Crime. But we DID get a Ringmaster in (sigh, I know) Iron Fist, as the snazzily dressed referee in the (cool) scenes where Colleen Wing is doing her whole illegal fight club thing. Anyway, that is NOT this guy, because this one is a doctor. I'm trying to figure out how the whole Ringmaster/Circus of Crime angle is going to fit here...if at all.

- Jessica has a tradition of throwing people through glass doors in the first episode of a new season, it seems.

- This season appears to be tweaking Jessica's comics origin, which is totally fine. In the comics, it was implied that whatever truck that was involved in her car accident was carrying chemicals that granted her abilities. Here, it would seem that it was whatever happened to her after the fact in the hospital that did it.

Jessica Jones Season 2 Episode 2: AKA Freak Accident

"Jessica sets out to find Dr. Kozlov and makes a startling discovery. Trish recruits Malcolm for backup as she visits a figure from her past."

- We visit Josie's early on this season, and I am completely on board with this just becoming Jessica's official watering hole. Josie's started life as pretty much a Daredevil-comics-only bar, but I like that it's becoming more all purpose for these shows. It's nice that it has a Game of Thrones pinball machine, too. On the other hand, the "are you drinking to remember or forget" line is some hack-ass dialogue, and this show can and should do better.

- There's a Patsy Walker poster visible at one point, and the Patsy logo is 100% the logo from the old Patsy Walker comics, back from when she was an Archie-style teen/romance/humor comic.

- Jessica's "mother goddamn shit" exclamation is just...so perfect. It's so perfectly in tune with how in the comics Jessica routinely decides that ordinary profanity isn't enough, so she just invents new ways to express her frustration.

It's like how Charlie Brown says "auuugh" but far less family-friendly.

- The whole "my balls are tingling" and Jessica's crack about his "scrotey sense" is:

a) hilarious

b) the closest we're probably ever going to get to having Spider-Man formally acknowledged on these shows, no matter what the movies are doing

c) all of the above.

Choose wisely.

- Poor Will Simpson is back with his Nuke inhaler! Well, it beats having him popping pills, I guess.

Jessica Jones Season 2 Episode 3: AKA Soul Survivor

"As her visions intensify, Jessica visits an abandoned clinic, where she stumbles on a new lead. Jeri faces an ultimatum after her secret gets out."

- Rudy's on 9th and 45th is 100% a real Hell's Kitchen dive bar (one of the last ones in the rich people playground that neighborhood has become). Josie's, however, is not (but if you want to visit the bar that "plays" Josie's on TV, you wanna hit The Turkey's Nest, but that's in Williamsburg, not Hell's Kitchen).

- Jessica sure doesn't have a great track record with shrinks, does she?

- Foggy is back! I'm all about Foggy getting talked down to by Jessica more often.

- OK, so this is a stretch, but stick with me. The kid downstairs is all excited because he fashioned a new shield for his Captain America action figure, which kinda foreshadows what's up in Avengers: Infinity War. But more importantly, he uses a magnet to do it. This may or may not be intentional, but in the 1960s, Cap used a magnet device on his glove to help control his shield.

- None of the names mentioned in this episode, inlcluding Dr. Leslie Hansen, seem to line up with anyone in Marvel Comics. Help me out if I'm wrong, please!

Jessica Jones Season 2 Episode 4: AKA God Help the Hobo

"Between anger management classes and tabloid scandals, Jessica and Trish track down a third patient linked to IGH. Oscar extends an olive branch."

- I'm drawing blanks on both Kelly Scott and Inez Greene (although I have my suspicions about Inez...I am saving them for later). Help me out in the comments or on Twitter if I'm wrong!

- Like the first season, this one keeps coming back to lines like "we prefer gifted" and drawing a kind of parallel between how powered folks in the MCU are perceived with some suspicion at street level. While it makes a certain amount of sense, I feel like they're leaning into this a little too hard, because, well, that's the X-Men's territory, and that whole discrimination metaphor just plays better over there.

I promise, this isn't me being a whiny Marvel purist, honest.

Jessica Jones Season 2 Episode 5: AKA The Octopus

"Backed into a corner, Jessica's forced to share her intel on the killer. A groggy Trish tries to pull herself together before an important meeting."

- I am pretty sure that's a David Mack painting in the apartment there.

- Again, the names in this episode aren't turning up anything in my Marvel brain, so...what to do?

- Do we see the first twinge of maternal instincts in Jessica in this episode? She settles into parenting nicely in the comics, without losing her edge. Could she reconnect with Luke on TV?

- This isn't specific to this episode, but it took me until this episode to notice it...why does John Byrne get a "special thanks" in the credits? As far as I can tell, Byrne never had anything to do with any of these character...unless someone we've been introduced to already isn't what they seem.

I'll keep updating this as I get through more episodes! Hit me up on Twitter if you have any suggestions!

DC's continued its practice of rolling out new, themed imprints with the announcement of DC Black Label, a space for superstar creators to tell standalone, out of continuity stories with DC's biggest icons. They paired that announcement with a rollout of some of the books in the line.

Bringing together some previously announced blockbusters with some interesting surprises, the initial launch of Black Label seems to be living up to its aspirations.

The previously announced books that have been folded into the line include The Other History of the DC Universe,John Ridley's Marvels-but-from-a-marginalized-point-of-view project; and Superman: Year One,a Superman origin story from Frank Miller and John Romita, Jr. (just in time for the 25th anniversary of Daredevil: The Man Without Fear!).

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Joining them are Batman: Last Knight on Earth from Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo. That pair most recently teamed on Dark Knights: Metal, DC's first post-Rebirth crossover where Snyder spins a yarn about the zany hijinks Capullo got into on his way to a Priest concert. This new book is being billed as "the last Batman story," setting Batman up in a dark future where his sidekick is the Joker's head in a jar.

Brian Azzarello and Lee Bermejo are re-teaming for Batman: Damned. Azzarello and Bermejo previously worked together on Jokerand Luthor, and the new book pairs Batman and John Constantine for a supernatural run through Gotham's weird side. Weird...er? side? We'll find out.

Bitch Planetand Captain Marvel's Kelly Sue DeConnick takes on her most high-profile DC work: the history of Hippolyta's rise to power on Themiscyra in Wonder Woman Historia: The Amazons.Her art partner on the book is legendary Wonder Woman (and, to be fair, legendary everything else artist) Phil Jimenez, so this is a pretty big deal.

“Creating DC Black Label doubles down on our commitment to working with all-star talent and trusting them to tell epic, moving stories that only they can tell with the highest levels of creative freedom," said DC publisher and I-can't-believe-he's-not-in-this-lineup artist Jim Lee. He cited Miller's quintessential Dark Knight Returns as their publishing touchstone for this imprint, saying the creative freedom given to Miller to make that book, including taking away the shackles of continuity, were the reason for its success.

For more on Black Label, or for a detailed breakdown on why Green Label is actually the Johnny Walker that gives you the best bang for your buck, stick with Den of Geek!

Believe it or not, the hapless potential client in Jessica Jones season 2 is a Marvel Comics character who has been around almost as long as Captain America. The (ahem) Whizzer first appeared way the hell back in USA Comics #1 in 1941 by artist Al Avison.

Of course, the Whizzer of the comics isn't the poor schmuck we see on the show, but he was definitely a speedster, and he did indeed have a fondness for yellow and blue, just like our fella here.

I know you don't believe that I'm not making this up, so here's a pic of the Whizzer in all his costumed glory (minus the backpack), straight from Marvel's official site.

Of course, they did change a few things for the show. Here, the unfortunately named Whizzer goes by the name of Robert Coleman (played by Jay Klaitz). But in the comics, The Whizzer's real name is "Robert Frank." Maybe the TV Whizzer's middle name is Frank or something. Anyway, Mr. Coleman's fondness for a pet mongoose is a nod to the comic character's origin story, which involved a transfusion of mongoose blood to save him from the poisonous bite of a cobra. The doctor who gave him the blood transfusion was named Emil. TV's Whizzer has a pet mongoose named Emil. Stop looking at me that way, I didn't write the story, I'm just here to report it to you.

The character was a member of such World War II Marvel hero teams as the All-Winners Squad and the Liberty Legion, but he was never exactly Avengers material. He did have some modern Marvel appearances as well, but he's always been something of a joke.

Poor guy.

Because no superhero franchise stone can go unturned in Hollywood, and because nostalgia rules above all, we're getting another shared cinematic universe. This time it's based on Rob Liefeld's Extreme studios creations. Mr. Liefeld (perhaps best known in Hollywood circles these days as the co-creator of Deadpool) will bring the characters to life with the help of Netflix. Akiva Goldsman, Brooklyn Weaver, and Liefeld will produce.

Netflix reportedly paid seven figures for the rights to the Extreme characters, and Goldsman "will set up and oversee a high-end writers’ room" to develop multiple feature films. In other words, Netflix is getting its very own shared superhero universe.

It's worth noting that Youngblood, the Rob Liefeld superhero team book that helped launch Image Comics and became the hallmark of his post-Marvel style, isn't considered part of the Extreme Universe, so isn't part of this deal. Instead, expect to see characters from teams Brigade and Bloodstrike and characters like Cybrid, Lethal, Re-Gex, Bloodwulf, Battlestone, Baboom, and Nitro-Gen on the big screen. 

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“Rob Liefeld’s Extreme Universe features gritty stories and distinctive characters,” Netflix feature film chief Scott Stuber said in a statement (via Deadline). “Akiva’s creative voice has been behind some of the largest movie franchises, making him uniquely capable of halping bring these superheroes from the Extreme Universe to life for Netflix.”

"Rob is a unique and innovative talent who knows how to combine hard-edged comic book action with real emotionality," added Goldsman. "Netflix has the ambition, reach, and dedication to bring his universe to life."

“Netflix has become a part of every day existence for me and my children," said Liefeld. "Their programming is the most dynamic and diverse I have seen. I am beyond thrilled and inspired to be bringing my Extreme catalogue to life with the creative wizards at Netflix. What Akiva Goldsman has achieved with his craft and storytelling across all mediums in our industray is of absolute benefit for my Extreme characters. He is an absolute comic book fanatic and working with him on adapting Extreme Universe has been electric. His stellar work on Star Trek Discovery has wowed the fandom and trust me when I say that the Teen Titans show he is producing is going to blow fans away. I cannot wait to show the world what we have in store.”

True to the "extreme" moniker, expect these movies to have a similar, hyper-violent approach that the Deadpoolmovie took. Mr. Liefeld is quite active on social media, particularly on Twitter, and while comic book creators often aren't thrilled with how their characters are portrayed on the big screen, he was a huge booster of the Deadpoolmovie, even while it was stuck in development hell. Considering the runaway success of that particular R-rated superhero flick, they'll likely look to push the envelope even more with the Extreme Universe characters.