For more than half a century, the vernacular around crime and cinema has changed. Many of the films and even television series that are responsible for this shift have a method to their madness. Whether it is the majestic gravity of the Corleone family or the shiny shoe slickness of Ray Liotta’s Henry Hill, these characters inhabit stories designed to reveal the seductive power of the criminal underworld that lures wayward souls to damnation. (Or, in some cases, the filmmakers just think Al Pacino looks really cool rocking a grenade launcher.) Yet in all these years of layering new dimensions…

This article appears in the new issue of DEN OF GEEK magazine. Find out how you can subscribe to get the full physical copy right here! With long-running manga and anime series, waves of merchandising, and an acclaimed live-action adaptation on Netflix, it’s safe to say that ONE PIECE remains a bona fide global phenomenon. Audiences will get to experience the beloved franchise like never before with the Netflix animated special LEGO ONE PIECE, poised to set sail on the streaming service on September 29. The two-part special boasts the main cast from the live-action Netflix series reprising their fan-favorite roles, with Tom Hyndman…

Square Enix is really going all out for Final Fantasy ahead of the franchise’s 30th anniversary next year and one of its big titles just in time to close out 2026 is Final Fantasy Resonance. An upgraded adaptation of the 2015 mobile game Final Fantasy Brave Exvius, the game returns to the series to a classic turn-based RPG adventure, complete with a vibrantly rendered pixelated presentation. Set to launch on virtually all major modern gaming platforms on October 22, we got a chance to play a preview build of the game at Tokyo Game Show 2026 provided directly by Square…

The most famous actors of Hollywood deserve the recognition they get. They do the hard work, and their journey transformed them into a brand more than a celebrity, gaining well deserved praise. There are other actors, however, that may not be as immediately recognizable, but they still deserve some praise for what they do. They don’t always get the big headlines or the major awards, and yet the movies we know and love wouldn’t be the same without them. These are the less celebrated actors that, at least for today, we’ve decided deserve a bit more time in the spotlight.…

This article contains spoilers for Avengers: Endgame Encore A couple of days before Avengers: Endgame Encore’s release, Marvel Comics editor Tom Brennan fired off a post on X that some described as a perfect response to the negativity over extra footage from the film leaking online. Endgame, which once wrapped up the Infinity Saga in a fairly neat bow and closed out Steve Rogers’ story, now just sets up another chapter of it in Avengers: Doomsday. While some loved the new ending, others were disheartened that Marvel changed a beloved MCU movie that set a high watermark for the franchise.…

This article contains spoilers for Lanterns season 1 episode 7. Fans of cosmic weirdness in Green Lantern stories, rejoice. The penultimate episode of Lanterns finally gets out of Nebraska, and gets off of Earth altogether to go… somewhere. We don’t yet know where John Stewart and the Hal-o-Gram went (my money’s on Qward, within the Anti-Matter Universe), but we do know one thing about it: it’s really, really yellow. And, yet, Hal’s ring keeps the Hal-o-Gram running. That observation means nothing to those only know Green Lantern mythos through Lanterns. Of course the Hal-o-Gram would still be around because we…

This article contains spoilers for Lanterns season 1 episode 7. When Martin Nodell set out to create Green Lantern with Bill Finger for 1940’s All-American Comics #16, he wasn’t thinking about space cops or test pilots. He was thinking about magic. The Golden Age Green Lantern Alan Scott formed his ring and lantern from a magic meteor that slammed into the Earth, destroying the train he was on but imbuing him with power. Dressed in a flowing red shirt and a purple cape, Scott—whom Nodell wanted to name Alan Ladd, to more openly riff on Aladdin—used his wishing ring to…

No matter how much Guy Gardner talks up the Justice Gang, there’s really only one team that matters in the DC Universe: the Justice League of America. Not only has the team traditionally included in its membership the seven most important heroes in the DC Universe, but they also have auxiliary teams that cover every part of the world, such as the magic-based Justice League Dark or the massive Justice League Unlimited. But as Guy Gardner also makes abundantly clear, the Justice League isn’t for everyone. Fortunately, the DCU actually has tons of other teams to bring in the stragglers.…

The minds behind acclaimed animated comic book Niko and the Sword of Light, Bobby Chiu and Jim Bryson, are working together again to bring a new interactive comic book, Magrid’s Magic Shoppe, to life. Before Niko and the Sword of Light was an Emmy award-winning series on Prime Video, it was #1 in the Apple App Store in its category as a unique animated medium for comic book lovers. Now with their new project Magrid’s Magic Shoppe, they are looking to bridge the gap between digital and physical media and are launching a month-long Kickstarter for the project to raise…

Some movie roles are memorable for more than just the performance, making you forget there is even an actor underneath all that makeup. Getting those transformations right can take hours before a single scene is filmed, with prosthetics, wigs, contact lenses, body makeup, and layers of carefully applied detail. For the actors, that often means arriving on set long before everyone else and spending a good part of the day sitting still while a team works around them, every day. The results can be almost unrecognizable, especially when the character looks nothing like the person playing them. Here are some…

There are more pop culture facts in existence than you could ever conceivably learn. Some are buried in old interviews, some come from strange moments during filming, and others are just those oddly specific details that stick with you forever. You might already know who played a famous character, but do you know who almost got the role, what was changed at the last minute, or which celebrity had a surprisingly random connection to something you love? These are the kinds of facts that make great conversation starters, settle pointless arguments, and make you sound like you know way more…

Many things that seem completely ordinary can be looked at quite differently once you learn why they existed in the first place. Everyday objects, customs, household products, and familiar traditions often have histories far stranger than their modern forms suggest. People had very different ideas about health and safety, and life was usually considerably harsher. It’s interesting to see how everything developed into the modern world. Wikipedia Alarm Clocks Early alarm clocks were often designed around factory schedules, waking workers before sunrise so they could begin exhausting shifts on time. An Historian About Town Black Mourning Clothes Wearing black after…

This article was first published on Dusty Wright’s TALES & RANTS, the Substack of writer, journalist, singer-songwriter, and content creator Mark “Dusty” Petracca. Click here to subscribe and read more. I was definitely—no maybes—moved by the new must-see documentary, Oasis: Don’t Look Back In Anger, which chronicles their jubilant world reunion stadium tour in 2025. Several times, I was nearly moved to tears. It not only focuses on the Gallaghers—brothers, guitarist/songwriter Noel Gallagher and charismatic, mercurial lead singer Liam Gallagher, who had not spoken to each other in years—but is most often seen through the lens of fans from all over the globe. It…

Throughout the final trailer for the DC horror movie Clayface, dialogue and images loop and repeat, creating dissonance that only sometimes comes together into a recognizable sentence. For example, we hear scientist Dr. Caitlin Corr (Naomi Ackie) utter “Matt Hagen” over and over, until she finally completes the sentence: “Matt Hagen can change his face.” Of course, any of us watching the trailer for Clayface know that Matt Hagen can change his face, because he’s the titular Clayface: a long-established Batman villain who can not only shape-shift, but often takes the form of a giant gloop monster who pummels the…

Some photos make perfect sense at first glance, while others seem to raise questions that probably have no useful answers. Whether it’s a person is standing somewhere they clearly should not be, an object being used in a way nobody expected, or an entire scene looks like the result of several unrelated decisions happening at once, the best part is that trying to understand these pictures can make them even funnier. There is often no context, no explanation, and no satisfying conclusion waiting at the end. Sometimes you just have to look at the image, accept that it happened, and…

History has a strange way of becoming more disturbing the deeper you dig. Some of the most unsettling facts are not obscure legends or exaggerated stories, but things that were once completely ordinary to the people living through them. We’re extraordinarily resilient beings, until Gen Z anyway. Sorry. Many old everyday customs, medical practices, punishments, disasters, or beliefs are remarkably difficult to imagine today. Even people who spend their free time reading about ancient civilizations and forgotten centuries can’t know how it really felt to feel living in those times. These are the kinds of historical facts that tend to…

After leaving IGN, a group of former staffers launched their own online media company Kinda Funny in 2015, primarily covering video games and powered by conversations between the 11-person team. Among Kinda Funny’s founders is Tim Gettys, who’s been a prominent voice in games media coverage for over 15 years and, in addition to being a co-host on the platform, is business operations lead for Kinda Funny. Since then, Kinda Funny has grown into a multimedia empire fueled by livestreams and posted videos from shows like Kinda Funny Gamescast and Kinda Funny Games Daily on platforms like Spotify and YouTube.…

This article is sponsored by Hachette Partworks. For me, Warhammer was a property that I really didn’t become fully introduced to until I was in college, ahem, 20 years ago. One of my roommates had quite the collection of miniatures and the layouts for tabletop battlefields that he managed to transport to campus, ready to share with his friends. Since then, my love of Warhammer has expanded to other tabletop experiences, video games, and the enduring dark fantasy franchise’s other iterations, including novels and comic books. With so much Warhammer around, including Warhammer 40,000 and Warhammer Fantasy, one of the…

Even for the uninitiated, it shouldn’t take too long into the first full trailer for Netflix animated feature Ray Gunn to realize that this is a Brad Bird joint. The acclaimed director of animated classics like The Incredibles, Ratatouille, and The Iron Giant (and the not-classic, but still pretty good live-action feature Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol) has some, let’s say, distinctive visual and conceptual tics. And they all come to bear in this bracing two-minute preview of Ray Gunn. Give it a look below to see what we mean. The trailer features, in no specific order, lush visual animation…

Just when fans thought the Turtles have seen it all: alien warlords, mutant rivals, an entire multiverse of alternate shells, IDW Publishing has found yet another tubular timeline worth exploring.  The publisher gave us exclusive information on its newest limited series, Tales of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Tear in Time, set in the world of Paramount+’s 2024 animated series Tales of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. And this time, the Heroes in a Half Shell aren’t just facing down a single villain, they’re up against the collapse of their own future. For anyone who’s somehow avoided this franchise since…