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Syfy George R.R. Martin Series Nightflyers Gets New Showrunner

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Syfy is adapting George R.R. Martin’s novella and 1987 movie, Nightflyers, as a TV series.

NewsJoseph Baxter
Mar 19, 2018

Nightflyers stands as one of George R.R. Martin’s more intriguing pre-Game of Thrones space science-fiction offerings, starting as a 1980 novella, eventually inspiring a schlocky limited-release 1987 film adaptation. However, it appears that the Literary God of Death’s old property is about to be reincarnated as a television series over at Syfy. 

Last year, the genre-aimed NBCU cable outlet ordered a pilot for Nightflyers, which has since expanded into a series pickup (Netflix has first run rights outside the U.S.). Additionally, Nightflyers recently received a bountiful boon of €850,000 ($1.1 million,) from the Irish Film Board and will soon begin filming at Limerick’s Troy Studios.

Nightflyers News

Nightflyers has named a new occupant to the proverbial Iron Throne of the George R.R. Martin adaptation series. That’s because its appointed showrunner, Daniel Cerone, has dropped out of the series, reportedly over creative differences, says THR.

Jeff Buhler, will step in as showrunner, likely signaling a smooth transition, since he’s been with the project since the very beginning as its writer and executive producer. Buhler wrote the 2008 Bradley Cooper-starring horror film The Midnight Meat Train, with movie projects in the pipeline such as Descendant, Black River and horror thriller remake film Jacob’s Ladder, as well as a revival of horror film franchise The Grudge.

Moreover, to ensure said smooth series transition, Syfy is reportedly bringing onboard (as a consultant,) Terry Matalas, writer and co-creator of the cable channel’s imminently-ending series, 12 Monkeys, who also brings experience from his time on Nikita, Terra Nova, Star Trek: Enterprise and Star Trek: Voyager.

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Nightflyers Cast

Phillip Rhys is the latest addition to the Nightflyers cast, reports Deadline. Rhys will recur on the series as Murphy, who is described as “a top systems tech engineer” who become inconsolably disturbed upon learning that “an L-1 telepath” is amongst the Nightflyer’s complement.

Rhys, an English actor, appeared in the 2015 Doctor Who Christmas special as Ramone, one of the episode’s titular “Husbands of River Song.” He’s also fielded TV runs on 24, Nip/Tuck and Survivors, along with guest spots on Rosewood, Glee, CSI, Bones and Warehouse 13.

With Syfy's early-January announcement of Nightflyers’ full series order came the reveal of the show’s cast.

Gretchen Mol will headline the series, playing Dr. Agatha Matheson.

Mol, who burst on the scene as a late-1990s it-girl from roles in Donnie Brasco, Rounders and The Thirteenth Floor, and steamed up the small screen in the 2005 HBO biopic, The Notorious Bettie Page, has made her presence known with recent television runs on Chance, Mozart in the Jungle and Boardwalk Empire. She notably appeared in last year’s Oscars-accruing drama, Manchester by the Sea. She's also booked to appear in the upcoming USA drama series Yellowstone.

And here’s the supporting cast:

Eoin Macken (The Night Shift) as Karl D’Branin

David Ajala (Fast & Furious 6) as Roy Eris

Sam Strike (EastEnders) as Thale

Maya Eshet (Teen Wolf) as Lommie

Angus Sampson (Fargo) as Rowan

Jodie Turner-Smith (The Last Ship) as Melantha Jhirl

Brían F. O'Byrne (Million Dollar Baby) as Auggie

Nightflyers Details

Jeff Buhler, of The Midnight Meat Train and the upcoming horror thriller remake Jacob’s Ladder is the showrunner; a position to which he was promoted, after Daniel Cerone (The Blacklist, The Mentalist) dropped out.

Mike Cahill (I Origin) will direct the pilot.

Onboard as executive producers are Gene Klein, David Bartis and Edge of Tomorrow and The Bourne Identity franchise blockbuster director Doug Liman, all of whom are representing production company Hypnotic, which Liman co-owns with Bartis. Alison Rosenzweig and Michael Gaeta of Gaeta Rosenzweig Films along with Lloyd Ivan Miller and Alice P. Neuhauser of Lloyd Ivan Miller Productions are also onboard. 

Netflix is also a co-producer on the Syfy project; a privilege that will yield the streaming giant first-run rights outside the U.S.

Additionally, George R.R. Martin himself will be a credited executive producer on the series.

“We are looking forward to diving deeper into George R. R. Martin’s chilling world of Nightflyers,” Bill McGoldrick, executive vice president of scripted development for NBCUniversal Cable Entertainment, said in a July statement. “The script that Jeff delivered encapsulates this classic sci-fi horror story and adapts it to a platform where we can truly explore the depths of madness.”

Robert Jaffe, who wrote the screenplay for the 1987 Nightflyers film, is onboard the series as a producer. It doesn't look like Martin will be involved with the series, at least for now.

The story of the George R.R. Martin-conceived supernatural space thriller is set on the eve of Earth’s destruction, depicting the travails of the crew of the most advanced ship in the galaxy in the titular spacecraft the Nightflyer. Adrift in space without a planet to call home, the goal of the surviving humans is to intercept a mysterious alien ship which is believed to hold the key for their survival. However, as the ship closes in on its destination, it becomes apparent that the Nightflyer’s onboard AI and its elusive captain – with mysterious motivations – may be leading the crew on a primrose path ending in the hopeless, horrific darkness of deep space.

The genesis of Nightflyers occurred with George R.R. Martin’s original 1980 novella of the same name, for which he received Japan’s Seiun Award in 1983 for Best Foreign Language Short Story of the Year. The story was subsequently collected as the title entry in Martin’s 1985 Nightflyers collection. The 1987 film adaptation, directed by Robert Collector (Jungle Warriors), starred perennial 1980s movie love interest Catherine Mary Stewart and Dynasty’s Michael Praed, manifesting with a limited release that grossed a paltry $1.145 million dollars at the box office (and sent Martin back to television to write for Beauty and the Beast).

Nightflyers Release Date

Nightflyers has yet to set a release date. However, the series is currently in the midst of production in Ireland.


Justice League Relaunch Lineup Revealed

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The Justice League returns in June with a new creative team and a new lineup.

NewsMike Cecchini
Mar 19, 2018

There's a lot of cool stuff happening at DC right now that it's getting tough to keep track. It's hard to believe that we're coming up on two years since the publisher relaunched its line with the Rebirth initiative, and harder to believe just how far DC has come since then. It has been something like ten years since I last found myself anxiously awaiting DC's creative team announcements and monthly solicitations, but that's exactly what's happening now. 

DC recently unveiled the month-long weekly event Justice League: No Justice by Scott Snyder, James Tynion IV, Joshua Williamson, and Francis Manapul. That has been touted as the start of a new era for the League, and the first details of how that's going to work are now here. 

For starters, this is a very cool lineup. Superman, Batman, Flash, John Stewart, Aquaman, Hawkgirl, Martian Manhunter, and Cyborg. Other than the addition of Cyborg, that's the classic Justice Leagueanimated series team. Martian Manhunter hasn't been around nearly enough over the last two years, and it's good to see he'll start taking a more active role in the DCU. 

Snyder will write a brand new series, beginning with a new Justice League #1, with art by Jim Cheung and Jorge Jiménez. The pair will draw alternate issues. The one and only problem I've had with DC since Rebirth began is the devotion to double shipping most titles, and I was hoping that would stop with this round of relaunches. Then again, it's tough to complain with a creative team like this.

Cheung is quite a get for DC, as he's primarily been associated with Marvel throughout his career. His most recent work has been on the (excellent) stealth Fantastic Four relaunch, Marvel Two-In-One.

Here's the cover and official synopsis for Justice League #1 (by Snyder and Cheung):

The Justice League is launched into a mystery that will draw out their most terrible foes…in ways our heroes couldn’t possibly imagine! In this debut issue, Martian Manhunter struggles to protect the team from an incoming threat that will shatter the world as they know it, while a familiar face strikes out on a dark path…

And for Justice League #2 (by Snyder and Jiménez):

The League is faced with an impossible decision…and now they must face the consequences! While Martian Manhunter and Batman attempt to recruit an old ally back into the fold, The Flash and Hawkgirl are blindsided by new challenges that could rewrite their mythologies!

“Working on Justice League is probably the most exciting opportunity I've ever had in my career,” says Jorge Jiménez. “I feel more than ever that this is my moment! I have in my hands a script written by the incredible Scott Snyder starring most important DC characters–Superman, Wonder Woman, and Batman! Even better, I have the hyper-mega-talented Jim Cheung beside me! I can't ask for more!”

“Justice League has been the golden ring for me since I came to DC,” says Snyder. “The story I have planned is something I've been building towards through Dark Nights: Metal and I can't wait to tell it in the biggest way possible. And to have mega star Jim Cheung as one partner, and rising superstar Jorge Jiménez as my other partner, I'm just thrilled to get to work!”

“One last thing for my friends, family, and fans,” concludes Jiménez. “Quiero aprovechar para decir que el colorista Alejandro Sanchez es tan importante como el que más en este equipo LIGA DE LA JUSTICIA. ¡Tenemos entre manos a los mejores personajes del mundo del cómic! y prometo que daremos nuestro máximo esfuerzo para que luzcan lo más frescos, dinámicos y atractivos que podamos!”

Justice League #1 arrives on June 6, followed by the second issue on June 20.

Kitchen Mob Film Casts Elisabeth Moss and Tiffany Haddish

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Is crime a good line of work for women? Elisabeth Moss and Tiffany Haddish join Melissa McCarthy's mob in New Line’s The Kitchen.

NewsTony Sokol
Mar 19, 2018

“What gives men the right to think that they know what’s best for women more than women do,”asks one of the toughest Irish mafia enforcers in DC Entertainment's Vertigo comics series The Kitchen. “You really think that’s our fuckin’ choice to make?” Elisabeth Moss will join long-time standup comedian Tiffany Haddish and versatile comic actor Melissa McCarthy in New Line Cinema’s adaptation of the empowering crime series The Kitchen, Variety reported.

The Kitchen Comic

The Kitchen is being written and directed by Andrea Berloff, who wrote Straight Outta Compton. The Vertigo Comics series comic comes from Ollie Masters and Ming Doyle, and featured an all-female art team. Drawn by Ming Doyle and Jordie Bellaire with cover art Becky Cloonan, The Kitchen was published in 2014.

The Kitchen told the story of mob wives Raven, Kathy, and Angie who rule their husbands’ Hell’s Kitchen territory while their husbands are in jail. They get help from their mentor Tommy, an enforcer.  The women end up running the neighborhood more viciously than their husbands ever did. When their husbands get out of prison, women are not going back to the kitchen. The film is being described as gritty.

The Kitchen Casting

The Kitchen will star Melissa McCarthy, Elisabeth Moss and long-time standup comedian Tiffany Haddish. McCarthy will play a loving mother who can take any heat from any appliance in any kitchen. McCarthy, who took heat in the 2016 female comic actor remake of Ghosbusters, most recently starred in the comedy Life of the Party, which was co-written and directed by her husband Ben Falcone. She also stars in STXfilms’ upcoming comedy The Happytime Murders. She was featured on the Gilmore girls before breaking out in Paul Feig’s Bridesmaids. Haddish plays as ruthless a mug as any classic gangster, willing to whack anyone who might muck up works. Moss starts out traumatized and timid, after years of abuse from her husband. She finds joy and renewal in the violence of her new job.

McCarthy, who took heat in the 2016 female comic actor remake of Ghosbusters, most recently starred in the comedy Life of the Party, which was co-written and directed by her husband Ben Falcone. She also stars in STXfilms’ upcoming comedy The Happytime Murders. She was featured on the Gilmore girls before breaking out in Paul Feig’s Bridesmaids.

The Kitchen Release Date

The Kitchen is set to hit theaters Sept. 20, 2019.

The New Gods Movie Is Just What the DCEU Needs

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Ava Duvernay is directing a New Gods movie. Jack Kirby's great cosmic saga will set Warner Bros' superhero sagas apart.

FeatureMike Cecchini
Mar 20, 2018

It’s safe to say that Warner Bros. hasn’t quite perfected the formula for their DC superhero movies. Patty Jenkins’ Wonder Woman remains the only one to gain both critical and commercial success since they launched their superhero cinematic universe in earnest with 2013's Man of Steel. Their attempts to reverse-engineer the success of Marvel’s Avengers and the intricacies of the Marvel Cinematic Universe landed with a thud when Justice League failed to even gross as much at the box office as the franchise kickoff Man of Steel did four years earlier.

But the just-announced DCEU adaptation of Jack Kirby’s New Gods, helmed by A Wrinkle in Time director Ava DuVernay, will allow the studio to utilize plenty of DC characters without the same baggage and expectations that come with characters like Superman or Batman. New Gods is perhaps the riskiest project yet announced for Warner Bros’ slate of DC superhero movies. It also might be the smartest franchise gamble they’ve taken since the core Harry Potter series wrapped up.

To understand the ambition of New Gods, we have to go back to its inception. When Jack Kirby jumped ship from Marvel to DC in 1970, he brought a much needed injection of cosmic energy to the company. DC had long been the standard-bearer of superhero comics, and Superman was still a top-selling title. But DC lacked the edge of their chief competitors at Marvel, still a relatively upstart group, who were being devoured by the counterculture and on college campuses, fueled by the wild concepts and boundless creative energy of Kirby’s work. New Gods challenged what readers of the 1970s traditionally associated with superhero storytelling; the DCEU adaptation could and should represent the same kind of evolution for the superhero movie genre.


Who are the New Gods?

Jack Kirby was given complete creative freedom in his early days at DC, and he introduced a seemingly fully-formed mythology across four different books. He dropped the shadowy villain Darkseid in the pages of Superman’s Pal, Jimmy Olsen, teased the denizens of New Genesis in The Forever People, and introduced the heroic Mister Miracle in a solo book. But the core title of the cosmic epic was The New Gods. Together, they came to be known as Kirby’s Fourth World cycle.


Think of the Fourth World in general and New Gods in particular as the science fiction equivalent of classical mythology, taking the hi-tech divine space god concepts Kirby introduced in the pages of Marvel’s Thor in the previous years to their very limit. Told in suitably grandiose fashion, like a four-color Homer or Virgil, by arguably the single greatest auteur in the history of comics at the absolute peak of his artistic powers, the Fourth World was unlike anything DC had ever published, and expanded the possibilities of comic book storytelling even further than the boundary pushing work that Kirby had already done at Marvel.

It’s tough to sum up the core of the New Gods in a succinct way, but I’ll try to keep it focused on the key elements that could become the driving force of the movie. Let's just start with an excerpt of Kirby's words from 1971's New Gods #1...

"There came a time when the old gods died...an ancient era was passing in fiery holocaust!

The final moment came with the fatal release of indescribable power, which tore the home of the old gods asunder, split in great halves, and filled the universe with the blinding death-flash of its destruction!

In the end there were two giant molten bodies, spinning slow and barren - clean of all that had gone before - adrift in the fading sound of cosmic thunder..."

One of these new worlds, New Genesis, is a peaceful planet, under the benevolent rule of Highfather. The other, Apokolips, is a war-ravaged industrial wasteland, populated by slaves under the boot of the terrifying cosmic dictator Darkseid. To alleviate hostilities between the two planets, Highfather and Darkseid exchange their infant sons, with each to be raised by the other. Darkseid’s son, Orion, though troubled by the duality of his nature and heritage, becomes a champion of New Genesis. Darkseid, however, puts Highfather’s son, Scott Free, into the orphanages of Apokolips, where he rebels and becomes the superheroic escape artist known as Mister Miracle

If that sounds like a lot, it’s not even close. Darkseid is the most powerful villain in DC's library, and easily one of the greatest in comics history. He deserves to be done justice on film. And I haven’t even mentioned Lightray, Highfather’s biological son whose nature is the opposite of his troubled stepbrother, or Metron, a mysterious and nigh-omnipotent sage who travels the universe in his Mobius Chair, or Big Barda (Ms. DuVernay’s self-professed favorite superhero), an Apokoliptan warrior who becomes one of the most noble heroes in the entire saga.

How New Gods Fits Into the DCEU

As you can imagine, New Gods mythology is vast. Like any epic, it has a cast of hundreds, with several characters that could become the focus of a saga or get spun off into their own films. It’s not clear at this time what, if any, connection DuVernay’s New Gods movie will have to the already established DCEU. But one of the great things about this project is that it doesn’t need to be part of any other cinematic universe, as there’s enough material there to sustain several franchises of its own.

Of course, this is complicated slightly by the fact that elements of the Fourth World were already introduced to the DCEU in the Justice League movie, including key New Genesis technology like the Mother Box, the preferred method of transportation of Fourth World characters in the Boom Tube, not to mention the fact that the film's punching bag, Steppenwolf, is the uncle of chief New Gods villain, Darkseid. Nevertheless, Warner Bros. is unlikely to be too worried about the constraints of continuity on this film, especially with a movie that failed to make a sizeable impact at the box office.

The studio is currently exploring numerous “standalone” DC movies (like a Joker origin story that has nothing to do with the version of the character introduced in Suicide Squad), which wouldn’t be concerned with linking their stories to the larger DCEU. It’s possible that New Godsmay fall under that umbrella. On the one hand, there’s no reason to explicitly link this to the DCEU early on to establish its Star Wars meets Lord of the Rings scope. On the other hand, Kirby used Superman as a window to introduce characters like Darkseid and the Forever People to DC readers in 1970, and with the Man of Steel's cinematic future currently uncertain, taking him out of his comfort zone as a POV character for the wild concepts of the Fourth World might not be the worst idea.

As risky as New Gods might seem in some ways, studios do love familiarity, and there are elements of that here. It certainly can't be pigeonholed as a superhero movie, and done properly could give WB a sprawling cosmic saga with plenty of room for the kind of YA-flavored angst and social commentary that propelled the Hunger Games movies to success. It’s easy to see Warner Bros. betting that audiences might respond to the technological wonderland of New Genesis as they did to Wakanda in Black Panther. New Gods even offers an opportunity to diversify the casting in a way that few other DC properties do, which certainly wouldn’t hurt its box office chances. Keeping these characters as far away from Earth and the usual superhero concepts as possible gives Warner Bros. something better than a superhero franchise, it gives them their very own Star Wars (a film which was, coincidentally, influenced by New Gods). And putting a massive franchise like this in the hands of a filmmaker like Ava DuVernay, much like they did with Patty Jenkins and Wonder Woman, is yet another step in the right direction.

I'll let Ms. DuVernay and Mr. Kirby have the final word, though...


Legends of Tomorrow Season 3 Episode 15 Review: Necromancing The Stone

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Legends focuses inward and shoots out a solid episode.

This episode review of Legends of Tomorrow contains spoilers.

Legends of Tomorrow Season 3 Episode 15

The more I chewed on last week's episode, the more frustrated and worried about it I got, and coming into this week, I was worried that it would affect my enjoyment of the season moving forward. I didn't really need to worry: "Necromancing the Stone" wasn't a spectacular episode, but it was a solid one, with good jokes and some welcome character work on Sara. And new series regular John Constantine.

We're four episodes away from the end of the season, so at this point we're diving headlong into the season endgame. It's nice to see the show juggle character development and plot propulsion effectively - we kick off the episode with the newly captured Death Totem calling out to Sara, and use that as our point of entry to looking into how her past has shaped her (and how Nora Darhk's past shaped her); and we close out the episode with Mick wielding the Fire Totem.

Sara is having nightmares about old hits from when she was an assassin (while, it should be noted, in bed with her "girlfriend" Ava - her words), but she's also trying to deal with time fracturing around them, so she decides that they should split the team up, and sends groups to multiple anachronisms. While they're out, the calll of the Death Totem grows stronger, eventually presenting as her old Black Canary self for a bit before it convinces her to pick it up, thus turning her into a Mallus-possessed dark version of herself.

This gives her a sweet new outfit that's a cross between a late-period Scooby Doo ghost villain and someone who just finished watching The Craft for the first time, and also super powers that let her kick even more ass than she is accustomed to. This was a nice interlude. Not watching the heroes get their butts kicked, but seeing good action sequences. This show, when they really commit to it, has some wild fights, and I was so surprised when Sara flipped off the wall to kick Mick in the head that when I thought back on the last few episodes, I couldn't remember a really good action scene.

Sara's possession also gives us time inside her head - she's trapped in Mallus's realm with Nora Darhk, and they're going through regrets in Sara's past. We see her relive a misssion she had when she worked for Ra's al Ghul, where she killed a man only to have his elementary school-aged daughter walk in on his knife-riddled corpse. Eventually, Nora tries to entice Sara to joining their side with the Death Totem with the promise of a life free of regret, which, along with Ava's pleading, gets her to shake herself out of her totem reverie and return to the normal world.

Another area where this episode excelled was in its desire to place the camera on Matt Ryan's louche scumbag John Constantine and then let it sit there for a while. They succeeded in that goal, and the results were terrific. As John is the one who left instructions with Ray to kill Sara if she ever gets possessed by Mallus, naturally Ava goes to him for help when Light Goth Sara locks down the Waverider's comms. And since Sara spent some of their bedroom time with Ava talking about that time her and Constantine did it in the '60s, Ava decides to go to him for help. She finds him chasing a cock someone else's rooster around an apartment he won in a duel and complaining about the gig economy. This show speaks to me in a very real and tangible way.

Seriously, Constantine's impending tenure as series regular, besides opening up a whole new arena for the Legends to play in, bodes really well for the chemistry of the team. For someone whose tie is so loose it seems a little tryhard, there is a relaxed humor about him that meshes wonderfully with the rest of the team. After he uses Gary's D&D game to track down Sara and the Waverider floating somewhere in The Bleed, Ava jumps them onto the ship. DeathSara/Mallus tries to trick Constantine into giving up on Sara by using Astra's voice (a kid he failed to save in his own show), and when that doesn't work, he gets his butt handed to him for a bit by Sara.

She eventually walks off after sensing the activation of another totem: Amaya and Mick have got the newly working Fire Totem, and Mick uses it to blast Sara unconscious, where Ava talks her back to reality.

I only had two problems with the episode. The first is that it's getting a little too on-the-nose. I like the opportunity for growth for Mick, but we went from Amaya saying "Screw it, we'll get that totem and I'll whup Sara's ass" to "oh this is yours I shouldn't have presumed," and didn't even try a swerve on Mick getting the Fire Totem. And they basically do AlienLegends has never really tried to hide their references before (I mean, the Groundhog Day episode was great but they did use actual Groundhog Day as a plot point), but it's never really felt as aggressive as it did here.

Also, the Nostromo sequence should be "setting the Waverider to self destruct before figuring out at the last second that you made a mistake." Not "close all the bulkheads and trap everyone apart so the monster can keep picking you off one by one." That's like calling something where your team splits up and gets murdered one at a time "The Predator Gambit," knowing full well that a TRUE Predator Gambit involves you covering yourself in mud so you won't show up on thermal imaging.

The second problem is the setup for next week's episode. Having been possessed by Mallus for the entire episode and seriously injuring Ray and Amaya, Sara decides to break up with Ava before the end of this week's show. It makes sense, in a way. Sending a loved one away because a hero is afraid of them getting hurt is an EXTREMELY Arrow thing to do. In fact, it's the reason why I stopped watching that show, when they had Oliver do it three times in one season last year. So yeah, let's stop that. But, Legends being Legends, rather than dwell on this moment of character frustration, they are going to run headfirst through it: next week's episode has a planet full of Avas. I can't wait.

DC UNIVERSE TIME BUBBLES

-Even after John Constantine's Doctor Who joke, it's still REALLY hard to figure out the line of the night. Mick's "Who...dressed...me" growl after Wally went and grabbed him from his room (and dressed him) for staff meeting at the beginning is up there. Zari's "So the Mona Lisa was a self-potrait?" is up there too. But I think Constantine gets it.

-So apparently Gary runs the Time Bureau D&D game, and Constantine got in on it. Any guesses as to his class? I feel like depending on his mood, Constantine would go with rogue or bard.

-Good season for alternative hallucinogens. So far everyone who's tripped on this show has avoided acid or mushrooms and has gone straight to the weird tribal remedies. This week, Constantine was using Ayahuasca.

-Totem update: So there are six tribes in Zambesi. Five of them imprisoned Mallus, while one of them sided with Mallus. The Death Totem carriers were Mallus's people, while the elemental totems were opposed to him. This will be important.

-It's already important because I'm no longer sure that Mallus is Mordru. I have no idea who he is now.

-Bailey Tippen played Astra on Constantine and she reprises her role here as the voice of Astra coming out of Sara's body. That's a neat touch, glad they got that right.

-Next week: I, Ava translates Asimov's laws to the CW TV universe!

4.5/5
ReviewJim Dandy
Mar 20, 2018

Terry Pratchett's Discworld: Revisiting the Sky Adaptations

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By the third one, Sky's Discworld adaptations really started to work. With a new series in development, one fan revisits them...

FeatureAndrew Blair
Mar 20, 2018

This article comes from Den of Geek UK.

With the news that Terry Pratchett’s Discworld books are being developed into a CSI style TV show, it seems a slightly more topical time than usual to look back at The Mob’s three Pratchett adaptations for Sky One. So that’s what’s happening now. Never let it be said that we're not creatures of logic.

Starting with Hogfather in 2006 as part of the festive schedules, Vadim Jean and his team followed this with The Colour Of Magic (adapting the book of the same name and its follow up The Light Fantastic) in 2008, finishing with Going Postal in 2010. Plans were afoot for adaptations of Unseen Academicals and Sourcery but these never came to fruition.

Which is a shame, as by the time of Going Postal the Mob had really got the hang of adapting Terry Pratchett books. 

They had begun with the 20th Discworld novel, Hogfather, broadcast on Sky One over two episodes in December of 2006. Understandably, with a book that depicted the Discworld version of Santa, this was a big part of the Christmas line up and heavily promoted.

The first person cast was Ian Richardson as the voice of Death. Richardson passed away shortly after the broadcast, and was replaced by Christopher Lee for The Colour Of Magic (Lee had previously voiced Death for Cosgrove Hall’s animations for Soul Music and Wyrd Sisters). Richardson and Marnix van den Broeke (wearing the costume) bring Death right out of the books. Both were inspired casting.

Now, though, I’m about to get my curmudgeon on.

There’s a sense of strain and tiredness to the finished productions. They’re not unlike the Chris Columbus’ Harry Potter movies - introducing a broad and rich universe to an audience in a short and simple way.

They feel very safe.

You can understand why this might be reasonable for a Christmas broadcast, but both Hogfather and The Colour Of Magic feel like they’re focussed on whimsy at the expense of weight, character and darkness. Comedy is a key reason for Pratchett’s popularity, but it’s not the only colour he painted with.

In The Hogfather there’s a scene where several characters succumb to their greatest fears, but it’s realised in a very perfunctory way. Either no consideration was given to suspense and horror, or it was decided that wasn’t the tone they were looking for. For an 8pm broadcast slot, though, you feel like they could have gone there.

Despite visiting potentially awe-inspiring and visually splendid settings, there’s no great attempt to use this to make the most of the medium in The Hogfather. Why bother putting Discworld on telly if you’re not going to do this? Thus, we have the Tooth Fairy’s realm introduced in a fairly static wide shot, with the sheer scale of tall tower only deployed briefly later on. This same issue makes Marc Warren’s Mr Teatime less threatening than he might otherwise have been. There’s little dynamism, no build up and release.

The adaptations lack flair, which isn’t intrinsically a problem, but Hogfather also has a perfunctoriness to it. At the time there were similar criticisms of Oliver Parker’s St Trinians films, so it may just be that British crews were new to this size and scale of production. The editing and camera shots have a ‘Will this do?’ vibe to them, as if either done in a hurry or not considered important. Scenes are intercut in a way that stymies the flow and becomes distracting.

Jean addresses this, as Columbus did in his second Harry Potterfilm, with more confident camerawork and by engaging with the potential of the Discworld. The Wyrmberg reveal is done brilliantly, and The Colour Of Magic constantly strains against its budget in an attempt to do something visually impressive.

It’s a shame that, as books, The Colour Of Magic and The Light Fantastic aren’t as engaging as The Hogfather. The first two Discworld novels are parodies of fantasy genre conventions and novels, many of which are not suitable for family viewing even if that family has read every single Anne McCaffrey novel. They’d also stretch the budget further, so were understandably cut.

Much (well, some) has been made of David Jason’s casting as Rincewind. It’s less about the fact that he was in Hogfather (as Albert, a role he was well suited to) as many actors play different roles in both movies, but more about his suitability. Jason is a fan of the books, and was genuinely interested in the role, but was considered too old to play the middle aged wizard.

It’s true that Jason doesn’t make the Rincewind many readers envisaged, but the blame for that lies with the script more than the actor. If the lines themselves don’t reflect the character from the books there’s not a lot that can be done. You do not get a sense of Rincewind’s self-preservation, his extreme cowardice. Sean Astin’s Twoflower is another broad sketch of a character. Due to the compression of the novels into one TV episode it’s perhaps no great shock. Astin is very much cast in an attempt to calm executives who think they’re spending lots of money on fantasy and no one will watch it unless famous people are in it. Apparently there were no Asian men who fulfilled this criterion.

What The Colour Of Magic did have going for it was James Cosmo doing his ‘Stoic leader soon to be murdered’ thing, and Tim Curry playing the bad guy. Sure, he didn’t get to yell ‘SPACE’, or burst into song, but it’s still Tim Curry playing the bad guy. Casting wise, these adaptations did some good work. David Warner as Lord Downey, Charles Dance as the Patrician (pre Game Of Thrones, and whose take I favour over Jeremy Irons’), and David Suchet as Reacher Gilt were all cases of big names who fitted their roles well. Jean also cast Michelle Dockery, Laura Haddock and Claire Foy near the start of their television careers, before they went onto bigger things.

Where I think Going Postal has the edge is that it benefits from the enthusiasm and experience of the previous two adaptations, a great book to work with, and having more people come on board to tackle the script and directing job. All of a sudden, the characters seem more real, more rounded, and Suchet’s Reacher Gilt is a suitably nasty piece of work. There are tones other than ‘What larks’, some genuine pathos, and more lived-in feel to Ankh-Morpork.

Getting it right three stories in isn’t exactly unheard of in television, and if these three had been a series you could see it being renewed. However, the Mob’s adaptation of Unseen Academicals never happened, and went from being pencilled in for 2012 broadcast to never entering production.

So, here’s the thing: like any adaptation of hugely popular books, it is essentially the version in one person’s head (filtered through limitations of budget, time and several hundred other people’s headcanons) being broadcast towards a million or so other people who have their own versions in their heads. 

It’s a bit of a pain really. There’s always going to be someone you upset.

I may have a list of grievances regarding the distance between Vadim Jean’s headcanon and mine, but then; Terry Pratchett seemed terribly fond of them, so what do I know?

Batman and Catwoman Wedding Details Revealed

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Batman and Catwoman are getting married in July. Here's a guide to the issues you absolutely can't miss as the wedding approaches!

NewsJohn Saavedra
Mar 20, 2018

A 50th issue would be a milestone for any creative team, but writer Tom King is nothing if not one of the most ambitious storytellers currently working in comics. This summer, King delivers the union you never thought you'd see from DC Comics: Batman and Catwoman are getting hitched in July's Batman #50. 

If there's a defining moment in King's early run on Batman, it's the moment Bruce proposed to Selina on a rooftop in #24. Since then, the Bat and the Cat have been lighting up every panel (thanks to the masterful pencils by Mikel Janin, David Finch, Joelle Jones, Lee Weeks, Clay Mann et al) of the series with their adventures as a couple soon to be married.

The four-part "Superfriends" (issues #36-37, 39-40) is a particularly excellent arc that showcases the kind of romance storytelling King has introduced so successfully to the series. You just haven't lived until you've witnessed Batman and Superman on a double date at a carnival.

Bruce and Selina's engagement has already faced plenty of obstacles, such as Poison Ivy taking over the world and Damian Wayne's outrage over their union, but those are child's play when compared to the biggest challenge of all: planning the wedding!

King begins the wedding planning in earnest with #44, which is out on April 4 and drawn by Janin. Here's the solicitation for the issue:

“SOMETHING BLUE”! Follow Batman and Catwoman on two separate but parallel paths as their wedding planning kicks into high gear. Selina picks out her dress, and Bruce starts to make arrangements for their new life together—but this being Gotham City, and they being Batman and Catwoman, you can bet that nothing will go as expected! 

Then Batman and Catwoman are going on a timey wimey adventure with Booster Gold that promises to alter the reality of their relationship. That three-part story is called "The Travelers" and runs through issues 45-47. The story is drawn by Batman veteran Tony S. Daniel. 

In May, we get the return of the Clown Prince of Crime, who's pissed about not being invited to Batman's wedding! The first part of that story will run in DC Nation #0, a special being released on Free Comic Book Day (May 2). Here's the synopsis:

In a Batman story by Tom King and artist Clay Mann, The Joker gets word about the wedding between the Bat and the Cat, and he’s not happy. With the wedding story arc reaching its climax in Batman #50 on sale July 4, The Joker will be that one wedding guest most likely to speak now and not hold his peace at all.

The story will continue in Batman #48-49, with a two-parter aptly titled "The Best Man," which is drawn by Janin and out in June. Issue #48 is out on June 6:

“THE BEST MAN” part one! Batman and Catwoman decide it might be better to elope rather than go through some big, stodgy wedding ceremony, but no sooner do they put their marriage on the fast track than The Joker appears! And when The Joker kidnaps the Caped Crusader, will he give his old foe a piece of his mind or bash in his brains?

Issue #49 is out on June 20:

“THE BEST MAN” part two! Now it’s up to Catwoman to rescue her one true love. It’s the Cat vs. the Clown in one exciting showdown that sets the stage for our giant anniversary issue—and the biggest union in comics!

If you were wondering how big DC is going with the Wayne/Kyle wedding (I assume Selina won't be taking Bruce's last name), the company is also launching a whole series of one-shots featuring Batman's extended family, as they prepare for the big day. Here are all of the solicitations:

BATMAN: PRELUDE TO THE WEDDING — ROBIN VS. RA’S AL GHUL #1
Written by TIM SEELEY • Art by BRAD WALKER and DREW HENNESSY
Cover by RAFAEL ALBUQUERQUE
Ra’s al Ghul returns to have a heart-to-heart with his grandson, Damian. Once upon a time, Ra’s thought Bruce Wayne would be the heir apparent to his criminal empire, but now that Batman has turned his back on Talia for good, Ra’s wants to know if Damian Wayne will honor his mother by stepping into the family business at last.
ONE-SHOT • RETROSOLICITED • On sale MAY 30 • 32 pg, FC, $3.99 US

BATMAN: PRELUDE TO THE WEDDING — NIGHTWING VS. HUSH #1
Written by TIM SEELEY • Art by TRAVIS MOORE
Cover by RAFAEL ALBUQUERQUE
Dick Grayson has a lot of responsibility. Being the original partner to Batman, he’s the natural choice to be Bruce Wayne’s best man. So if anyone has to get to the wedding, it’s going to be him. Too bad Hush has other plans—and maybe Bruce Wayne does, too!
ONE-SHOT • On sale JUNE 6 • 32 pg, FC • $3.99 US • RATED T

BATMAN: PRELUDE TO THE WEDDING — BATGIRL VS. THE RIDDLER #1
Written by TIM SEELEY • Art by MINKYU JUNG
Cover by RAFAEL ALBUQUERQUE
On the eve of Batman’s wedding to Catwoman, two of Gotham City’s finest minds clash. In her role as Oracle, Barbara Gordon wired all of her allies together. But when The Riddler takes on Batgirl, will he tear everything asunder?
ONE-SHOT • On sale JUNE 13 • 32 pg, FC • $3.99 US • RATED T

BATMAN: PRELUDE TO THE WEDDING — RED HOOD VS. ANARKY #1
Written by TIM SEELEY • Art by JAVIER FERNANDEZ
Cover by RAFAEL ALBUQUERQUE
Red Hood has always been the one standing slightly apart from the rest of the Bat crew. Some see him as the Robin gone bad—which is exactly the kind of thing someone like Anarky can exploit. Now Red Hood is running security at Catwoman’s bachelorette party—and if Anarky can crash it, that could be the final straw for Jason Todd!
ONE-SHOT • On sale JUNE 20 • 32 pg, FC • $3.99 US • RATED T

BATMAN: PRELUDE TO THE WEDDING — HARLEY QUINN VS. THE JOKER #1
Written by TIM SEELEY • Art by SAMI BASRI • Cover by RAFAEL ALBUQUERQUE
Harley Quinn knows a thing or two about dysfunctional relationships. When she hears that her old flame is trying to get in the way of a happy new life for one of her best friends, the Maid of Mischief tracks The Joker down to give him a piece of her mind—and maybe a few blows from her hammer, too.
ONE-SHOT • On sale JUNE 27 • 32 pg, FC • $3.99 US • RATED T

The wedding is set for July 4 - an appropriate date for an inevitably eventful ceremony. As soon as we have the official solicitation for #50 - it should arrive in just a few short weeks - we'll update this article. For now, keep an eye out for your invitation. This is going to be the social event of the year.

Logan's X-23 Gets New Marvel Series

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Laura Kinney sheds the Wolverine name and goes back to her original identity of X-23 with a new series.

NewsGavin Jasper
Mar 20, 2018

Ah, the temporary replacement. One of comics’ big tropes. A major hero will die or retire or whatever and someone will take up the mantle. People will get bent out of shape for it even though it’s pretty obvious that the original hero is just on break and will be back sooner than later. If anything, it’s a way to see writers throw ideas against the wall and see what sticks in an industry where creating new characters out of the void isn’t always viable.

And for the record, Dick Grayson was the best Batman. Fight me.

One of the latest superhero vacations is Wolverine. He died a few years ago and all the Wolverine knockoffs came flying out of the woodwork. Old Man Logan, Daken, Sabretooth, and – of course – X-23. Laura Kinney took up the mantle of Wolverine and with it came a sweet, sweet series by Tom Taylor that introduced her sassy little girl clone Honey Badger, who is kinda sorta Marvel’s attempt to capitalize on Laura’s cinematic appearance.

Well, OG Wolverine is back and doing important mainstream Marvel stuff. That means Laura has several choices on her future path. She could be the “other” Wolverine. She could turn evil. She could get killed off. She could fade into obscurity and maybe join a superhero team that won’t last six issues. Being that she’s actually a popular creation, she’ll go with the other option of stepping down as Wolverine and picking up another name. Er, or going back to her original superhero name.

While Taylor’s All-New Wolverine is winding down, we prepare for X-23 #1 to come out this July. All-New Wolverine regular artist Juann Cabal will be returning, but the new writer will be Mariko Tamaki. There’s no word yet on what kind of direction Tamaki will be taking X-23, but apparently Honey Badger and her talking pet wolverine Jonathan will still be around.

As it is right now, Laura is working alongside a former terrorist organization called Orphans of X who exist to bring justice against the Weapon X beings used to kill their loved ones. The soon-to-be-former Wolverine is currently all about bringing closure both to the victims and to herself by bringing down those truly responsible for those tragedies.

We’ll see if that’s still a thing come July.

Gavin Jasper wants more Deadpool/Honey Badger team-ups. Follow Gavin on Twitter!


The Man of Steel: New Details on DC Superman Reboot Event

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A new era of Superman begins in June with The Man of Steel, and it looks like a big deal.

NewsMike Cecchini
Mar 20, 2018

Brian Michael Bendis is taking over writing duties on Superman this summer, and he's not exactly looking to make a quiet arrival. And why should he? One of the most celebrated comic book writers of the last 20 years jumping from Marvel to DC is a big deal. Making a splash on the most famous superhero of all during the character's 80th anniversary celebration isn't something you do if you don't like the spotlight. Bendis' first work on Superman will appear in the pages of the historic Action Comics #1000 in April. But then things get really crazy...

The Man of Steel is a six issue limited series that will run weekly from May 30 through July 4. And while this may not technically be a Superman reboot, it's still going to revisit (and perhaps revise) elements of Superman's origin, introduce an important new villain, and perhaps change Superman's (and Clark's) personal life in profound ways.

Each chapter is drawn by a different art team, and they've really assembled a perfect assortment for this, with Ivan Reis, Joe Prado, Evan "Doc" Shaner (a personal favorite of mine), Ryan Sook, Kevin Maguire, and Jason Fabok all taking a turn on a different element of the story.

The first official story details for The Man of Steel have now been revealed via DC's solicitations, and they're certainly going to raise a few eyebrows.

THE MAN OF STEEL #1

Written by BRIAN MICHAEL BENDIS • Art by IVAN REIS and JOE PRADO • Cover by IVAN REIS and JOE PRADO

Retailers: Includes a code for a free digital download of this issue.

A new era begins for Superman as a threat from his earliest origins reemerges to destroy the Last Son of Krypton. As Superman struggles to come to grips with what has happened to his wife and son, he must also face a new threat that’s determined to burn down Metropolis!

RETRO-SOLICITED • On sale MAY 30 • 32 pg, FC, 1 of 6, $3.99 US • RATED T

THE MAN OF STEEL #2

Written by BRIAN MICHAEL BENDIS • Art by EVAN “DOC” SHANER • Cover by IVAN REIS and JOE PRADO

With an arsonist loose in Metropolis, Superman’s powers are almost useless in finding the culprit. And back at the Daily Planet, everyone wants to know what’s going on with Lois Lane. How can Clark hold on to the secret of what happened to Lois and Jon much longer?

On sale JUNE 6 • 32 pg, FC, 2 of 6, $3.99 US • RATED T

THE MAN OF STEEL #3

Written by BRIAN MICHAEL BENDIS • Art by RYAN SOOK • Cover by IVAN REIS and JOE PRADO

The merciless killer and zealot calling himself Rogol Zaar has searched the cosmos for Superman—and when he reaches the Fortress of Solitude, his actions will cut Superman to the core.

On sale JUNE 13 • 32 pg, FC, 3 of 6, $3.99 US • RATED T

THE MAN OF STEEL #4

Written by BRIAN MICHAEL BENDIS • Art by KEVIN MAGUIRE • Cover by IVAN REIS and JOE PRADO

Rogol Zaar has committed a string of atrocities across the cosmos that have led him to the Fortress of Solitude—and now Superman and Supergirl plan to crush his schemes! But are even two Kryptonians enough to stop his sinister machinations?

On sale JUNE 20 • 32 pg, FC, 4 of 6, $3.99 US • RATED T

THE MAN OF STEEL #5

Written by BRIAN MICHAEL BENDIS • Art by ADAM HUGHES • Cover by IVAN REIS and JOE PRADO

Beaten by Rogol Zaar, his city burning at the hands of an unknown arsonist and the secret of what happened to Lois and Jon drawing closer to revelation—even Superman feels powerless against all that stands before him.

On sale JUNE 27 • 32 pg, FC, 5 of 6, $3.99 US • RATED T

THE MAN OF STEEL #6

Written by BRIAN MICHAEL BENDIS • Art by JASON FABOK • Cover by IVAN REIS and JOE PRADO

The fate of Lois Lane and Jon Kent is revealed! Metropolis’ survival hangs in the balance! And Superman must somehow put an end to Rogol Zaar’s rampage! It’s do-or-die time for the Man of Steel in the final chapter of this explosive miniseries!

ADVANCE SOLICITED • On sale JULY 4 • 32 pg, FC, 6 of 6 • $3.99 US • RATED T

So, nobody should jump to any conclusions here, as solicitation story info is always intended to be a hook. Still, these repeated and increasingly vague allusions to Jon Kent and Lois Lane might just start to worry fans who have become attached to seeing Supes as a family man. It's probably nothing to worry about, right?

Anyway, we'll find out soon enough! In the meantime, check out all the covers for The Man of Steel in our gallery up top. All covers have art by Ivan Reis and Joe Prado and they look great!

The first chapter of The Man of Steel arrives on May 30.

Rosemary's Baby Album Celebrates An Unblessed Event

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Ira Levin found fear in a fetus 50 years ago. Rosemary’s Baby Album brings the post-partum horror online.

NewsTony Sokol
Mar 20, 2018

Babies were never as scary as when imagined through the eyes of Ira Levin. His 1967 book Rosemary’s Baby hid the monster inside the mother, let the horror incubate for nine months, and changed the horror genre. After taking a chance to sit quietly, IraLevin.org released "Rosemary's Baby Album," which has everything about its genesis but the sonogram. 

Stephen King declared Levin "the Swiss watchmaker of the suspense novel."Rosemary's Baby turned 50 in 2017. Tithe new 28-page online feature traces the novel’s development through high-resolution scans of the author’s notes, drafts and “related ephemera from its writing, starting with the first known setting-down of its premise on a single notepad page, in 1960,” according to the press statement.

#RosemarysBabyAlbum provides readers an unprecedented opportunity to “peek over Levin's shoulder” as he “conceives and structures his iconic tale - considering, tweaking, or outright rejecting alternate titles, character names and plot trajectories.” It has drawings of the Castevets apartment, 7A, and reveals connections between real life, and the world of the novel.

One particular page of interest is on Levin’s short story “The Underground Gourmet,” which was published by Ladies Home Journal in 1954. It is about a woman who is so well known for her delicious devil's food cake the Devil himself wants a taste. The story was adapted for TV by G.E. Theater. Hosted by Ronald Reagan, it starred Sid Caesar as the devil who tricks actress Patricia Barry into baking exclusively for him while her husband is at work.

The movie Rosemary’s Baby was directed by Roman Polansky, and starred Mia Farrow as Rosemary Woodhouse, and John Cassavetes as her husband Guy.

IraLevin.org is the official Ira Levin website, created and maintained by his estate to serve as a comprehensive source of information about his works. “Rosemary’s Baby Album” was created by Nicholas Levin.

"Rosemary's Baby Album" can be viewed online now at IraLevin.org/album.

 

Dazzler Returns to the Spolight This June

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Marvel's musical mutant stages a comeback in a new one-shot

NewsChris Cummins
Mar 20, 2018

Easily the most rewarding thing about being a longtime geek is watching things that were once considered goofy or stupid get the critical re-evaluation they so deserved. The best example I can think of is Howard the Duck. A cinematic masterpiece it is not, but it's not the pearl-clutching disaster it was once dismissed as either. (Ask anyone who has been fortunate enough to catch a public screening in the past few years and they'll be quick to point out that the Duck knows how to please a crowd).

Like her pal Howard, Dazzler knows a thing or two about being trapped in a world she never made. The character was originally conceived as being a cross-platform disco diva, who would star in her own comic as well as on LPs from dancefloor hit makers Casablanca Records and a possible film. These things went nowhere (sadly) but the decision was made to soldier on ahead and give the character her own comic anyway -- it was the era of Xanaduand Marvel's own the Hypno-Hustler after all.

Sadly, Dazzler never really connected with audiences the way she could have, and her eponymous comic became a directionless, muddled affair. Recent years have seen the character utilized much better, although the team enviroments she has been in of late don't give her a chance to, er, shine like the bright light in the comics world she truly is.

Maybe this will all change when writer Magdalene Visaggio and artist Laura Braga return the character to the stage in the Dazzler: X-Song one-shot.

The press release offers some tantalizing clues as to what readers can expect when Alison Blaire (AKA Dazzler) heads to Brooklyn to start a new band:

It’s all glitter and glamour in the underground punk scene…until Dazzler stumbles upon a part of her world that’s dangerous and violent. Now, it’s up to Dazzler to protect her dedicated Inhuman fans, even if doing so means that she has to turn to her own past for clues and answers.

 “Dazzler has always been one of my favorite X-Men, and one of the most sadly underutilized,” said Visaggio. “She's been wandering for so long, and I'm so excited to help bring her back to her musical roots and the X-family. Anyone who knows my work knows how much I love to frontline women who quite literally rock, and I hope me and Laura can bring some of that same energy and positivity to Dazzler.”

While this means we are finally one step closer to reaching my lifelong dream of seeing a Dazzler/Jem and the Holograms crossover come to fruition, I still have many questions. Will Dazzler be able to get booked at Union Hall? Will she be forced to use her mutant powers to keep Brooklyn's ubiqutious double-wide strollers out of her way? Is going to Sunday Brunch actually worth it? Will her inevitable Netflix series deal with the smoky club she becomes a regular in falling victim to gentrification? At one point does she ultimately say fuck it, and move to Fishtown to become Philly's problem? And, oh yeah, will enough people actually read the one-shot so that Dazzler gets the return to solo stardom that she so deserves?

While you ponder these most pressing of questions (while watching this, ideally), take a look at some of Braga's fantastic art from the book and Elizabeth's Torque:


MUTANT DANCE PARTY Y'ALL!

With a stellar creative team on board giving Dazzler new life, maybe she will become the superstar fans know she truly is. Fingers crossed that she gets the comeback she deserves.

Chris Cummins isn't kidding about wanting that Jem/Dazzler crossover, follow him on Twitter @bionicbigfoot and visit his website, Hibernation Sickness.

Archie Meets Batman '66 Coming in July

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Bif! Kapow! Z-Zwap! The latest collaboration between Archie and DC is a fanboy's dream come true.

NewsChris Cummins
Mar 20, 2018

Since comics inspired by the 1960s Batman series first appeared in 2013, the Caped Crusader and the Boy Wonder have fought their usual rogue's gallery of villains, and teamed with likely and unlikely allies ranging from TV's Wonder Woman to the Bionic Woman. And now, they will be thrust into the most fan-pleasing adventure yet -- meeting the Archie Comics gang. (Well, at least for this particular writer it's the most fan-pleasing adventure yet).

Insert "holy crossover" joke here.

As regular Den of Geek readers are well aware, recent years have also seen the Archie characters interacting with Kiss, the Predator, and, most recently, The Monkees, Blondie, and Poison Ivy/Harley Quinn, so it's been proven time and time again that the Riverdale teens are adaptable to just about any situation you throw at them.

SyFy Wire initially broke the news yesterday, with veteran Archie artist Dan Parent discussing how the entertaining 1960s-set project -- in which then white hot musical act The Archies encounter Batman and Robin -- in the following video.

Hitting stores on July 18th, the first issue of Archie Meets Batman '66 -- interestingly enough, no information was given on how long the title will run -- will be written by Jeff Parker and Michael Moreci. Parent will provide the art, again teaming up with his Life with Kevin cohort J. Bone, who will be inking the book. (The great Kelly Fitzpatrick will be the colorist).

SyFy Wire also premiered the following covers, featuring art by an impressive array of comics greats:

Mike Allred

Derek Charm

Dan Parent

And 13th Dimension debuted these variants:

Sandy Jarrell

Francesco Francavilla

(Side note, it's worth remembering at this point that Francavilla has previously given us art for Batman '72, a blaxploitation-flavored dream project of his that still needs to come to fruition).

Another variant cover with work from Ty Templeton has yet to surface, but honestly, I am loving the sense of mystery surrounding this project and its storyline. The too-brief run of Batman '66 was constantly packed with the sort of laughs and surprises that made it the most faithful TV comic tie-in ever, and its companion digital version did the impossible by recreating the series'  feel, complete with goofy sound effects and kinetic visuals. While a digital version of Archie Meets Batman '66 may be too much to wish for, perhaps it's not totally out of the question. Because if there's one thing Archie Comics is these days, it is an embarrasment of riches.

Chris Cummins is a writer and Archie Comics historian who can be found at Twitter @bionicbigfoot, as well as his personal website, Hibernation Sickness.

Krypton: Bringing Superman's Home Planet to Life

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Syfy's Krypton is more than just a Superman prequel, it's a science fiction show with its own set of rules.

FeatureMike Cecchini
Mar 21, 2018

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 Mark Waid 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.

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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?

Deadpool: Assassin - New Marvel Series Features Weasel

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Cullen Bunn continues his habit of being the low-profile Deadpool scribe by putting together yet another mercenary miniseries.

NewsGavin Jasper
Mar 21, 2018

Deadpool has that whole movie sequel thing coming up and because of that, Marvel has to give him a little more emphasis. You know how it is. Adding to that, Gerry Duggan is finishing up his brilliant Deadpoolrun with Skottie Young taking over. It’s a critical time for the Merc with a Mouth, but one thing that remains the same is that Cullen Bunn is out writing B-side miniseries.

Seriously, that guy has to be in second place for most Deadpool comics written. For years, he’s been releasing an endless string of Deadpool stories from Deadpool Kills the Marvel Universe to Deadpool vs. Carnageto Deadpool’s Secret Secret Wars. Usually, they’re very high concept takes on the character, like “Deadpool in a world overrun by zombies” or “Deadpool spends a couple days wearing the Venom symbiote.” Now it looks like Bunn is going to be doing a more normal Deadpool story.

Bunn will be working with legendary artist Mark Bagley to bring us Deadpool: Assassin, a six-issue miniseries built around Deadpool’s friendship with his original sidekick Weasel. Unfortunately, there’s not much else to go on outside of it supposedly being action-packed.

Here are some pages in the meantime. Deadpool: Assassin #1will be released this June.

Gavin Jasper thinks they should just give Bunn a run at bringing back Agent X. Follow Gavin on Twitter!

Deathstroke vs Batman Details Revealed

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Get ready for a massive Deathstroke vs. Batman story!

NewsMike Cecchini
Mar 21, 2018

Spend any time at all perusing the comics coverage at Den of Geek and you're bound to stumble on something touting how Deathstroke is one of the best things DC Comics is publishing right now. The return and revival of the great Christopher Priest over the last few years has been a joy to behold, and Deathstroke has just been a consistently great, completely self-contained title for almost three years now.

But in April, they're going to give Slade Wilson a different kind of adversary, when he takes on Batman. The appropriately titled "Deathstroke vs. Batman" will be written by Priest with art by Carlos Pagulayan, and it's a six part story. So this should be quite a slugfest.

Interestingly enough, at one point Deathstroke was said to be the villain of the embattled solo The Batman movie starring Ben Affleck. The plan had been for Joe Manganiello to don Slade Wilson's eyepatch and bedevil the Dark Knight. It's not clear if that's still the case. However, we did get to meet Mr. Manganiello's Deathstroke in one of the Justice League movie's post-credits scenes, so that was pretty cool. Hopefully we get to see him face off against Affleck's Batman at some point. He's also due for a solo movie of his own (we have more details of that right here).

Until then, this comic story will have to do, and I suspect it will do the job nicely.

DC says that this story, which kicks off in April's Deathstroke #30, will be...

"the ultimate showdown between DC’s fiercest rivals! When Batman discovers a mysterious package containing DNA test results proving that he is not Damian Wayne’s biological father, the Dark Knight sets his sights on his son’s true father—Deathstroke! But Damian Wayne can’t really be Slade Wilson’s son—can he? And who sent the package—and why? The ultimate custody battle ensues as the World’s Greatest Detective and the World’s Deadliest Assassin clash in this instant classic!"

We're in.

And part two in May's Deathstroke #31...

The war between Deathstroke and Batman escalates when the Dark Knight foils one of Deathstroke’s assassination attempts! Meanwhile, a mysterious package brings Commissioner Gordon to Bruce Wayne’s doorstep, and Adeline Kane—Slade Wilson’s ex—sets her sights on Batman!  

Part three comes in Deathstroke #32 in June...

When a retired superhero gets caught in the crossfire between the World’s Greatest Detective and the DCU’s most deadly assassin, could an entire legacy be wiped out? Lines are crossed when Deathstroke and Batman’s feud takes its darkest turn yet—and there’s no going back!

And check out this awesome cover by Lee Weeks, one of the most underrated artists of his era.

The first part of "Deathstroke vs. Batman" hits on April 4.


Iron Man Villains Who Deserve to be in The Movies

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Even though Avengers: Infinity War is almost here, we might not ever see Iron Man 4. But if we do, here are some suggestions.

FeatureMarc Buxton
Mar 21, 2018

Whether or not we ever get to see Iron Man 4(it's unlikely), one thing is pretty certain. Audiences love Tony Stark, and if Marvel has its way, fans will thrill to the cinematic exploits of the Armored Avenger for a long time to come, whether it's serving as a mentor for a young hero in Spider-Man: Homecoming, or leading the charge in Avengers: Infinity War, we can't get enough of Robert Downey Jr. as Iron Man.

We've already seen drastically different versions of Iron Man villains like Whiplash and the Mandarin on the screen, so how might Marvel studios handle future adversaries? 

We've got some fun ideas...


23. Dreadknight

Real Name: Bram Velsing (wait, really?)

The Marvel brain trust might have a hard time reimagining this guy. Velsing was a scientist in the employ of Dr. Doom who was disgusted by his master. Learning of Velsing’s treachery, Doom fused a metallic helmet to Velsing’s head and exiled him from Latveria. Velsing was nursed back to life by Victoria Frankenstein (!) and after finding a cache of high tech medival weapons became the Dreadknight...until he was defeated by Iron Man and Frankenstein’s monster.

Umm, yeah, that might go over like a lead balloon on screen. Even the most talented filmmaker might have a hard time amalgamating Frankenstein into Stark’s world. Maybe the cinematic Dreadknight can be a Renfairer gone wrong?

Well, the character looks pretty awesome, and I’m sure Downey would find lots of comedic potential in the words “rocket lance.”


22. Firebrand

Real Name: Gary Gilbert

This early Iron Man badass has pretty cool looking armor...and flamethrowers! Flamethrowers always work on the big screen.

He also has a connection to Justin Hammer, a baddie that is ripe for a big screen reappearance. Early Marvel writers didn't get loads of backstory into Firebrand’s few brief appearances, but it was revealed that Firebrand murdered his own father. Perhaps Marvel can play off Stark’s own turbulent relationship with his father as he must combat a villain who gleefully committed patricide?


21. Arsenal

First appearance: Iron Man #114 (1978)

Speaking of Tony’s father. This little known robotic menace would actually be perfect for film exploration. In the waning days of World War II, a team of scientists led by Howard Stark created Arsenal to aid the allies. At war’s end, Arsenal was packed away while the Avengers were taking on the Unicorn (more on him later). Arsenal took on the Avengers and teamed with another villain named Mistress who was deluded into believing that the Allies lost the war.

Arsenal would provide a connection between Tony Stark and his past, a mine field of anxiety for the character. Tony proving his worth against his father’s inventiveness would be an awesome story to center a movie around.


20. The Blood Brothers

First appearance: Iron Man #55 

The Blood Brothers might be forgotten footnotes if not for one thing…they appeared in the same comic that first introduced Thanos. Unless you’ve been living in the Negative Zone, you know that Thanos will be prominently featured in Marvel films for years to come. Why not connect Iron Man with Thanos through the Blood Brothers, just like the comics once did?

The Brothers are certainly impressive visually, and they have pretty unique powers. They have super-human strength as long as they stand next to each other. And they drink blood. With Marvel’s alien worlds established in Guardians of the Galaxy, introducing an alien menace might be a unique place for Stark’s next adventure to go.


19. Living Laser

Real Name: Arthur Parks

The Living Laser combines a unique power, a classic look, and a borderline sociopath to create a deadly threat for Stark and company. In the comic, Parks was a scientist who was transformed into living energy and fought the Avengers. He soon became obsessed with the Wasp which adds a level of ick to the already dangerous villain. The Laser can create holograms as well which would bring a layer of subterfuge to any big screen battle.


18. Wong Chu

First Appearance: tales of Suspense #39 (1963)

The first foe Iron Man ever faced, Wong Chu was the villain who kidnapped Stark and placed him in the cave. Of course, in the films it was the members of the Ten Rings that did this, but perhaps Wong Chu can be introduced in another way, or he can be a path to the "real" Mandarin.

And while it was implied who the true leader of the Ten Rings was in Iron Man 3, it is never implicitly stated. Could Wong Chu have been the man responsible for Stark’s greatest foes all along? Being Iron Man’s first comic baddie has to carry some weight, right?


17. The Mauler

Real name: Aaron Soames, Turk Barrett, and Brendan Doyle

It would be pretty cool to see another Frank Miller creation on the big screen, huh? Three men have worn the Mauler armor. Soames was an elderly worker deprived of his pension through a computer error and donned the armor for vengeance. Imagine a villain whose life was ruined by corporate greed going after Stark, the symbol of corporate success? You can even have Soames’ armor stolen by someone, and have Stark deal with multiple Maulers (what a cool band name) with different motivations.


16. Ultimo

First Appearance: Tales of Suspense #76 (1966)

What’s cooler than a giant robot? What would be cooler than Downey’s Iron Man fighting a giant robot? Ultimo was the creation of the Mandarin, and while it would be hard to imagine that audiences would buy Ultimo as Aldrich Killain’s side project, there is a way to use Ultimo in a future film.

Stark has fought other armored foes, but he has never gone against something so mind numbingly huge. Ultimo can be seen as technology gone wrong, and what a visual this clash would make!


15. The Unicorn

Real Name: Milos Masaryk

This villain makes a denim jacket that much cooler. Really, despite his, ahem, oh so tough code name, The Unicorn (stop laughing) has posed a serious threat to Iron Man in the past.

The Unicorn’s power lies in his super helmet, the conical shaped tip sending out deadly blast of energy. Ok, fine, he sucks...but there is something about his past as a Russian defector that makes him a pretty unique threat. Oh, wait they did that with Ivan Vanko? C’mon, he’s a dude in a green helmet named the Unicorn; Kevin Feige has to have something for him.

Hello? Is this thing on?


14. Whirlwind

Real Name: David Cannon

Starting his career as the Human Top (don’t hold it against him), David Cannon was first an enemy of Giant–Man. Whirlwind’s power to spin at unbelievable speed and move super quick was soon made that much more menacing by attaching saw blades to his wrists. This would be a pretty badass visual in the film and Whirlwind’s motivations make him super creepy.

Whirlwind was once a pretty generic villain, but soon, like the Living Laser, he became obsessed with Janet Van Dyne aka the Wasp. He even served as her chauffeur for a time before revealing his identity and obsession. Whirlwind soon ran afoul of Iron Man and became one of Stark’s persistent adversaries. In a film, just change Wasp to Potts, use the same chauffeur plot twist and dangerous stalkerish tendencies and you have instant conflict.


13. Mallen

First appearance: Iron Man #1 (2005)

In the legendary "Extremis" story arc, it was Mallen, not Killian, who was enhanced by the Extremis process and went up against Stark. Mallen is a heartless white supremacist anarchist who served as a warning about what can happen if someone truly horrible got his hands on advanced technology.

Mallen was the anti-Stark, a man using future tech to drag the world back to a place of fear and hatred. Imagine a film where a man like Mallen used the now familiar Extremis tech to become Iron Man’s most hate filled cinematic foe. Characters like Mallen seem more at home in a Christopher Nolan flick, but Marvel can really amp up the stakes and the social relevancy by using such an ugly antagonist.


12. The Controller

Real Name: Basil Sandhurst

Firstly, villains named Basil? Always awesome.

The Controller might look like a slightly archaic Silver Age baddie, but a deep look into the character reveals some untapped potential. Ol' Basil was a control freak; his OCD need to control drove him into fits of rage. His brother tries to calm him one day and triggers a lab explosion. Guilt ridden, Basil’s brother builds him an exo-skeleton which grants him super-strength.

The Controller also used slave discs to control others, an extension of his need to control people and reality. Basil is clearly obsessive compulsive borderline personality case, which would make him a pretty unique modern villain. Stark, who suffers from anxiety and acute narcissism, can relate to mental illness, which would make the Controller a pretty effective foil for Stark.


11. The Crimson Dynamo

Real Name: Anton Vanko

Well who woulda thunk it? Vanko, who became Whiplash in the second film, was originally the Crimson Dynamo? So this villain was kinda already done, but the name and the look of the character is way too cool to pass up.

Yes, the "red menace" stuff is passé, but how about a relative of Vanko seeking vengeance on Stark and becoming the Crimson Dynamo? Or just flip flop identities and have Mark Scarlotti aka the comic book Whiplash become the movie Crimson Dynamo. Why not? If not Vanko, then how about one of the other three thousand different characters that became the Dynamo over the years?


10. The Blizzard

Real Name: Gregor Shapanka

Think of the potential partnership with Dairy Queen. Originally known as Jack Frost, this villain has been around since Stark's early days. It would be cool to see an ice villain in a movie not played by Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Blizzard would be another high tech villain to give Stark the cold shoulder. Sigh, now I’m doing it. Moving on…


9. The Ghost

First Appearance: Iron Man #219 (Jun 1987)

Warren Ellis brought us the modern Tony Stark that eventually found his way to the movies. Using Ellis’ version of the Ghost as seen in Thunderbolts turns this once c-lister into a major threat. His creepy appearance and corporate origins would make him a perfect foe for Stark.

The Ghost would be a very different type of villain after the beat sticks that were Iron Monger, Vanko, and Killian. His stealthy approach to deviltry and his stunningly visual power set would make the Ghost a tremendous cinematic villain. Imagine a villain that can literally be anywhere and anytime, a ghost in the machine to go one on one with the master of machines!


8. Count Nefaria

Real Name: Luchino Nefaria

The super powered crime lord. The first villain the new X-Men faced. The badass Mafioso would be a very different challenge for Tony Stark.  Instead of fighting a technological villain, Stark can face a murdered driven by power and greed. Plus, he has facial hair to match Stark’s signature goatee.

His daughter, Whitney Frost, was the big baddie on Agent Carter Season 2, so they might have to play with the chronology a little bit, but who cares?


7. The Melter

Real Name: Bruno Horgan

We saw one villain with melting powers in Iron Man 3, but it is a great visual, so why not again? Horgan was driven to evil when he was ruined by using faulty materials in his manufacturing. A careless industrialist seems to fit in with a foe Stark would despise.


6. Titanium Man

Real Name:  I: Boris Bulski II: Kondrati Topolov aka the Gremlin

I would go with the Gremlin version of the character. See, you take the awesome looking Titanium Man armor, with its contrasting green hue to Stark’s red and gold, you back up a Brinks truck to Peter Dinklage’s house, and you have yourself a movie. Yes, Tyrion Lannister vs. another man named Stark. It’s just a license to print money.

This has officially been the first time Titanium Man has been mentioned without mentioning the Wings song “Magneto & Titanium Man” written by Paul Mcartney and Wings! What? DAMMIT!


5. Temugin

First appearance: Iron Man (volume 3) #53 (2002)

How would they pull this off? Oh, the nerd rage. Temugin is a pretty cool character in his own right. How about there was a Mandarin in the Marvel Movie Universe, and Killian and Stark have now disgraced that name. Enter Temugin to avenge his father’s name.


4. The Scarecrow

Real name: Ebenezer Laughton

How about a horror themed villain for Tony Stark? How would a serial killing contortionist fit into Stark’s high tech world? It might be stepping on DC’s toes, but Iron Man’s Scarecrow has been menacing the Marvel Universe for decades and he would provide a unique test for Stark, forcing the Avenger to face real evil not motivated by greed or power...just chaos.


3. Fin Fang Foom

First Appearance: Strange Tales #89 (1961)

He’s a freakin’ dragon. No one, and I mean no one will keep their ticket money in their wallet with the prospects of Iron Man vs. a dragon. Thor has opened the Marvel Universe to myths and monsters, so why not one of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby’s earliest creations?

Forget Smaug, this is the dragon filmgoers want.


2. M.O.D.O.K.

Real Name: George Tarleton

The Mechanical Organism Designed Only for Killing needs to appear somewhere in the Marvel Movie Universe. A.I.M. has already been established, and without Killian, they need a leader. Why not ol' big head?

M.O.D.O.K. is total Marvel, equal parts scary and fun. And oh, the material that Downey can work with here. Pure comedy gold...is the world ready for a giant evil head?


1. The Mandarin

First appearance: Tales of Suspense #50 (1964)

We never really got him, did we? Imagine Loki coming down from Asgard, finding Ben Kingsley’s half-in-the-bag actor, and magically charging his rings while mind altering Kingsley into believing he IS the Mandarin. It could work, and fans will finally get the Mandarin/Stark duel they want. And more Loki. Fans always want more Loki.

This article first appeared in 2013. It has been lightly updated.

Teen Titans Relaunch Coming From DC

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No Justice resets the status quo for not just the Justice League, but the Teen Titans, as well.

NewsJim Dandy
Mar 21, 2018

Dark Knights: Metal is apparently a more sweeping, continuity-shattering event than we previously thought. The book is the first crossover since Rebirth, and it's the catalyst behind a reset to Justice League, and now one for the whole Titans family as well.

DC announced two new post-Metal, post-Justice League: No Justice one-shots that reset the status quo for Nightwing and Robin's respective Titans teams. Teen Titans Special #1, from writer Adam Glass and artist Robinson Rocha, sees Damian Wayne, Kid Flash and Red Arrow unhappy with the stewardship of baby boomers their mentors and finally pushing for gun safety laws and climate fixes for their own priorities. 

Here's the official synopsis for Teen Titans Special #1, which goes on sale on June 27:

Robin, Kid Flash, and Red Arrow are sick of the super-hero status quo, and if the adults won’t do anything about it, you’d better believe these teenagers will! Following the shocking events of No Justice, don’t miss this special oversized issue that sets the stage for a fearless new direction that will change the Teen Titans forever!

Meanwhile, Titans Special #1, from Dan Abnett, Paul Pelletier and cover artist Brandon Peterson, has Nightwing assembling a new Titans team to tackle metahuman emergences around the globe. Abnett and Pelletier are part of the regular creative team on the lapsing Titans book, so some continuity of membership is expected.

Check out the official info for this one, which hits on June 13:

It’s the dawn of a new age of Titans! The events of Metal and No Justicehave left the team in tatters, but a strange new threat has emerged to lead Nightwing to reassemble the Titans with a mix of old blood and new. A rash of metahuman power fluctuations are threatening people around the globe, and only the friends who grew up as superheroes can help those whose powers have grown out of control! It all starts here in this special issue kicking off a bold new direction!

The two books do seem to be a paradigm shift from their current incarnations, though. The current version of Titans is wrapped up in the mystery around Old 52 Wally West's appearance in the post-Rebirth DCU, while present Teen Titans is a a fairly straightforward high school team book. This new version of Titans sounds like something from just after Legends, with a new rash of metahumans popping up around the world, while the cover to Teen Titans Special has Robin, Kid Flash and Speedy ripping down monuments to their predecessors. Seems topical. 

For more on TitansTeen Titans, Middle Aged Titans, Geriatric Giants or Senior Citizen Supermen, stick with Den of Geek!

 

Jessica Jones Season 3: What's Next?

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What Marvel Universe stories could Jessica Jones Season 3 touch on? We take a look at the Alias comics for some clues...

FeatureMike Cecchini
Mar 21, 2018

This article (obviously) contains Jessica Jones spoilers.

Of the many things that Jessica Jones does right (and there are very many), the fact that it has never been too caught up in the workings of the rest of the Marvel Universe is key. When the other shows were putting pieces in place for The Defenders, the show instead focused on the most compelling and personal aspect of Jessica’s story: her traumatic past with Kilgrave. While Jessica was certainly a major player in The Defenders, she did what she had to do, and her seconds season hardly even makes reference to those events, instead focusing on another personal story.

The first season was adapted (albeit loosely) from a relatively brief story that closed out her original comic series, Alias, while season two forged its own path and departed from the comics considerably. But there's still a chance that other Alias stories could point the way towards Jessica Jones season 3.

Prior to the introduction of Kilgrave to Jessica’s backstory, the Alias comics were part hard-boiled PI story, part comic book procedural. She dealt with a number of missing persons cases (none that had anything to do with Kilgrave, IGH, or the mystery of her past), behaved in her charmingly direct manner, and solved mysteries with connections to the larger Marvel Universe without getting too involved in matters of continuity. The connections were there, but for the most part, even the most casual of comic book fans could read Alias and get everything they needed to out of it.

And that’s part of the charm of the Jessica Jones Netflix series, too. It’s clearly a part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but it’s not so connected that it can’t tell its own story. More importantly, someone who has never seen a single Marvel Studios film, or even read a comic, can jump right into the show without fear. There are some threads from either of the first two seasons that could certainly be picked up in Jessica Jones season 3, but at least as far as the source material goes, they all hinge a little more on the larger Marvel Universe.

So what could Jessica Jones Season 3 look like?

Change of Format?

This is, I admit, the least likely scenario. While Jessica Jones is perhaps the best of Marvel's Netflix efforts, there are some dangers going forward. For starters, the show already used the character's most compelling story in its first season. While delving into Jessica's backstory and bringing in her mother worked well enough in season two, it still lacked the horror movie drive and intensity that Kilgrave brought in season one. How do you top either of those? It will be tough.

But the most drastic thing Jessica Jones Season 3 could do would be to depart entirely from the Marvel Netflix obsession with serialization. If the show were to embrace an old-fashioned procedural format on the streaming giant it would feel downright revolutionary. Keep everything else the same, have a looming background threat or larger case that gets pieced together, but let a chunk of the season function as standalone episodes.

There's plenty of material already in place for a larger conflict that plays out during individual cases. The fact that Malcolm is now working for her #1 competitor. The fact that her (former) best friend now has powers of her own and something to prove. It would be fun, at least for a few episodes, to let this play out in a procedural format.

I doubt this will happen, of course. But were they to go that route, either of these stories from Jessica's early days could help serve that structure...

The Underneath

We learned in season two that there is an increasing culture of people (including Trish Walker) who want super powers at any cost, and there are shady doctors out there willing to fill that need however they can. This is something that can be explored further in Jessica Jones Season 3 and it's the most likely way they can keep developing the Trish Walker/Hellcat story.

In the comics, one of Jessica’s cases began with a disoriented young woman dressed in a Spider-Man costume displaying some minor super abilities. The trail quickly led to a bunch of unscrupulous nightclub douchebags running a Mutant Growth Hormone ring. While mutants are still off limits in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (for at least a little while longer) and its TV offshoots, that won't be what they call it. As we saw in season two, there are plenty of ways to bestow super powers on desperate individuals. But the basics, that someone is starting to flood the street with a drug that gives ordinary people super powers, would certainly fit with the show's aesthetic. Remember, public displays of powers are still in their relative infancy in this world, but as they become more prominent, certain unhealthy trends are sure to follow.

The seeds of public fascination with superheroes are already there with Trish's own obsession with becoming more than who she is. In that respect, a season arc dealing with the street level implications of that would fit nicely. If a bunch of skeevy assholes start exploiting people's addiction to a drug that gives them superpowers, that handily builds on the themes they've been exploring with Trish, and will help further contrast with the fact that Jessica doesn't particularly want her powers in the first place.

Rick Jones 

This one might be a lot of fun. Rick Jones (no relation) has been a massively important piece of the Hulk’s supporting cast in the comics, but little more than a passing reference in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Part of this is because The Incredible Hulk didn’t need a teenaged POV character, particularly since they weren’t telling an origin story in the first place.

In this story from Alias Volume 1, Jessica is contacted by a woman who claims to be married to Rick Jones, who has gone missing. Rick is something of a minor celebrity in the Marvel Comics universe. He followed the Hulk around for years, was briefly Bucky's replacement as Captain America’s partner, was the human vessel for Captain Mar-Vell (it’s a long story), and constantly found himself wrapped up in various cosmic adventures. He even wrote a memoir.

Jessica tries to track him down, and in the process, runs afoul of the beauracracy and bullshit of the superhero universe, mostly without ever actually speaking to the people she needs to. In the end, it turns out that the guy she’s looking for isn’t even the real Rick Jones, just a sad, charismatic wannabe. The comic story is a wonderful commentary on the strange nature of celebrity, particularly as it would be unique to the Marvel Universe.

This story could be a fine secondary case or an inciting force (the way that Hope was) for something a little deeper or more sinister. This could once again tie into Trish's journey and her desire to be something more than human. "Fake Rick" could be the kind of real world anchor that Malcolm provided in the first two seasons, providing perspective and a grounded mystery for Jessica to solve, while the sci-fi implications of actual powers can be dealt with in a larger story.

But again, just as the first two seasons weren't strict adaptations of the comics, any of this could be rendered virtually unrecognizable were it to get to the screen. Anyway, if you think too hard about this stuff, you risk ending up like this...

Jessica Jones Season 3 hasn't been confirmed by Netflix yet, but we're pretty sure it will be. We'll update this when we get more info.

Krypton: Who is Seg-El?

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Krypton tells the story of Superman's grandfather, Seg-El, and brings a new dimension to the Man of Steel legend in the process.

FeatureMike Cecchini
Mar 21, 2018

If you're looking to find the story of Seg-El in any Superman comics, you're going to have a tough time. Superman's grandfather has appeared in a handful of stories (where the name was spelled as Seyg-El), but never as a primary character, and certainly never as the potentially revolutionary force for change that he is on TV's Krypton. 

If anything, TV's Seg-El has more in common with Van-L, the great, great grandfather of Superman, a Kryptonian noble who lost everything when the planet was wracked by a horrific civil war. You can find Van-L's story, as well as the first appearance of Seg-El, in the pages of The World of Krypton by John Byrne and Mike Mignola. It's a hell of a read, and elements of it have certainly found their way into SyFy's Krypton, but it's still not really a window into the story of the Seg-El who is played by Cameron Cuffe on TV.

Krypton tells us how the House of El fell, and how Superman's grandfather fights his way through a deeply classist society, albeit one that is menaced by a time traveling alien foe and that we all know is doomed to extinction after another 200 years or so anyway. The series opens as the young Seg-El witnesses the public execution of his beloved grandfather, the scientist and explorer Val-El, guilty of believing there is other life in the universe. Val-El's "crime" strips the El family of their name, their crest (the famed "S" symbol), and their status. I have more details on the culture of Krypton and the making of the show right here. 

"When we find him in the story, a few years later, he's rankless and proud," Cameron Cuffe told us on the set of Krypton last year. "He's a bit of a hustler. He's a bit angry. He's willing to do dishonorable things to get by. But he's a bright kid with a good heart, who's quick with his wits and his fists."

In other words, Seg-El isn't a superhero. And Krypton is a show that tells a science fiction story on an alien world at street level. While you can see flashes of the heroic destiny of the El line in Seg's behavior and Cuffe's performance, there's still a long way to go.

"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. 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."

Detractors often (wrongly) point out that Superman is less interesting than other heroes, in part because he's too polite, too quick to do the right thing and make the right choice. That isn't going to be a problem with Seg-El.

"He's a bright kid. He has a good heart. And he's funny, and he's roguish, and he's charming, but he's really angry," Cuffe says. "He's got a lot of rage and he's really rash and he makes stupid, stupid decisions. But he's willing to throw it all away for the people he loves and willing to sacrifice everything. Over the course of not just the season, but the whole show, you're gonna see Seg learning from his mistakes, and paying the price for them."

"I kind of feel like I wanna see Seg reach his potential," showrunner and executive producer Cameron Welsh says. "We don't want Seg to start out as the finished package. He's meant to be unshaven and scruffy and when we first meet him he's drunk in a bar fight, and he's kind of a con artist, and we wanna see him grow into, you know, into somebody who's worthy of wearing that 'S' on their chest."

"One of Superman's greatest powers is that he knows right from wrong, and Seg doesn't," Cuffe says. "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."

One thing that is unique about Seg-El is that the actor who plays him is a genuine fan of the world he's inhabiting. Not in the way that most actors love their characters or those who undertake parts in massive franchises claim to understand the responsibility of it all. Cameron Cuffe really, really knows his Superman lore, and he uses that to bring a particular point of view to his portrayal of Seg-El.

"I think that was one of the reasons why I'm so fortunate that I know this character. That when I see lines like, there's always a choice. You know, that is Superman, down to his core. I got chills just saying that now. It's awesome. But that's the thing. I think that actually at their core, in their nature, they are very similar. They are very similar people. That there's this drive. And they will never, ever quit. And they always believe in the best in their friends. And they believe in a world that is fair, and just, and truthful."

"Clark Kent had the benefit of growing up in Smallville with Ma and Pa Kent who taught him that you have these incredible gifts, you have a responsibility to share them with the world," Cuffe says. "Seg grows up on the bottom rung of an authoritarian society that's leaning towards fascism and theocracy. Where it's step out of line even a tiny bit, is rebellion. So that informs who he is, and it makes him angrier and more rash. So there are definitely those moments of his nature that he's a deeply good person, who believes in those ideals of truth and justice, but they feel very far off in this world."

So the seeds of Superman's heroism are indeed present in the El family line, even 200 years in the past. But there's still a long way to go. Cameron Welsh has a vision for Seg as a revolutionary, who will "usher in a new golden age" for Krypton. "If we think about Krypton as being where Superman comes from, the ideals of this planet are sort of baked into his DNA," he says. "[but] if Superman was born right now and went to Earth, what's inside him probably wouldn't lead him to become the hero he is today. It's kind of like Seg's duty in some way to help shape a new Krypton that is more conducive of producing the greatest hero of all time."

The hero's journey of Seg-El begins with the 10 episode first season of Krypton, which kicks off on Wednesday, March 21 at 10 pm on SyFy.

Springsteen on Broadway Extends Run for Third Time

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Bruce Springsteen’s one-man show was born to run until December 15.

NewsTony Sokol
Mar 21, 2018

Highways are jammed with broken heroes on a last chance power drive and the traffic is backed up for miles to the tunnel. Bruce Springsteen added another 81 shows to his Broadway run and still hasn’t left a ticket for Chris Christie. Springsteen on Broadway, the Boss’s one-man show, has been extended until December 15.

According to Variety, the wording of the announcement makes it seem like Springsteen could take the show on the road. Pointing out that December 15th is be the “final show of Broadway run.”

When Springsteen on Broadway officially opened on Oct. 12, 2017, it was as hot a ticket as Hamilton. It was originally supposed to run for eight weeks at the Walter Kerr Theatre. This is the third time the show has been extended. By the time of the last performance, Springsteen will have performed 236 shows.

Springsteen went from South Jersey clubs to 70,000-seat stadiums. His shows were legendary marathons, sometimes going on for over four hours. The one-time future of rock and rolll puts his past upfront in Springsteen on Broadway, mixing songs and riffing on readings from his memoirs. He will reissue his 1995 Greatest Hits collection as a red vinyl double-LP to mark Record Store Day.

Tickets for the new Springsteen on Broadway dates at the Walter Kerr Theatre go on sale Wednesday.

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