death

03 Jun

How Death Note Redeemed Itself In Its Final Episode

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This article contains major spoilers for both the manga and anime of Death Note. There’d never been a manga (and later anime) quite like Death Note. A psychological thriller mixed with the supernatural, the series followed high schooler Light Yagami, who’s given a notebook with the ability to kill anyone whose name is written in it. The premise alone is incredibly enticing but it was the way Death Note evolved that made it a beloved and still talked about series to this day. The funny yet dark interplay between Light and the Shinigami who gave him the notebook, Ryuk. The…

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19 Apr

Is Shang-Chi Villain Death Dealer Hiding a Secret?

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The Marvel Cinematic Universe is reclaiming its roots, as evident in the debut trailer for Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, which showcases a defining return by the shadowy syndicate that tangled with Tony Stark way back in 2008’s original Iron Man. Yet, while Shang-Chi (Simu Liu) is on a collision course with the long-awaited “real” Mandarin (Tony Leung), he will clearly have his hands full fighting a masked villain named Death Dealer, whose hitherto obscurity in the pages of Marvel Comics seems to belie the character’s importance in the film. Death Dealer, as depicted in the upcoming…

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15 Apr

Tom Hiddleston Knew About Loki’s Avengers: Infinity War Death for a Long Time

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Very few actors in the Marvel Cinematic Universe seem to have a true grasp of their future in the franchise – how many interview snippets have we seen where they admit they genuinely have no idea if they’ll return for another Marvel project or not? – but Tom Hiddleston was told that his God of Mischief was going to die at the start of Avengers: Infinity War by the film’s directors well ahead of time. For two years, he had to keep Loki’s demise a secret from the world, even before he began working on Thor: Ragnarok. “[Loki’s death] was…

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12 Apr

Fear the Walking Dead Season 6 Episode 8 Death Explained

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This Fear the Walking Dead article contains major spoilers. Few Fear the Walking Dead fans will have forgotten Nick Clark’s shocking death in season 4 but even that twist may pale in comparison to the season 6 midseason premiere’s most tragic moment. In fact, “The Door” may be the show’s darkest episode to date. John Dorie is at the end of his rope at the start of the episode. Unable to stop the execution of Janis, who was framed for Cameron’s murder by Virginia earlier in the season and then fed to a group of hungry walkers, and then forced…

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31 Mar

Mario Fans React to the Character’s “Death” With Memes and Luigi Praise

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Nintendo fans everywhere are in mourning today over what they believe to be the death of Mario. This is, after all, the day that Nintendo removes Mario 35 and Super Mario 3D All-Stars from digital stores and discontinues sales of the Mario Game & Watch set as well as support for the original Mario Maker‘s servers. No, Mario won’t actually die anytime soon (except for the many times that we’ve accidentally killed him in video games), but the fact that Nintendo has decided to discontinue their support of so many Mario projects on the same day is certainly a bizarre…

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19 Mar

Charlie Jane Anders’ Victories Greater Than Death Audiobook Gets Adventure Time Narrator

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A good audiobook narrator becomes a collaborator in the storytelling process, which is why which voice actor reads a novel can be so important. The stakes become even higher when it is a much-anticipated title, such as Victories Greater Than Death, the YA debut for Charlie Jane Anders, who is one of our favorite active writers of speculative fiction. (If you haven’t read her previous novels, All the Birds in the Sky or The City in the Middle of the Night, stop what you’re doing and check them out immediately… well, maybe wait until you finish reading this article.) Victories…

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06 Feb

WandaVision Represents the MCU’s Evolving Relationship with Death

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This article contains spoilers for WandaVision episode 5. The Marvel Cinematic Universe isn’t particularly well-known for its jump scares. Though the studio’s suite of 23 films have adeptly blended genres at times, at the end of the day these are all still PG-13 action movies…not horror. That all changed last week, however, when the studio’s first official television effort, WandaVision decided to spring a dead body on an unsuspecting audience. For one brief moment, Wanda Maximoff loses focus in maintaining her fabricated sitcom world. In that moment, the false image of her colorful android husband falls away and reveals the…

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26 Jan

The Masque of the Red Death: Roger Corman Talks Pandemics and Restoration

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During the 2020 lockdowns and ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, people at home sought isolated comfort. News reports continued to count the number of dead while people in charge downplayed its seriousness or offered dubious advice on dealing with the disease. It certainly didn’t interrupt many golf games. As workers were furloughed from jobs, they binged. One of the movies at the top of the playlist was The Masque of the Red Death, Roger Corman’s 1964 low budget masterpiece. It told the tale of a wealthy medieval prince in a country decimated by an epidemic. The satanic overlord, played by the legendary…

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21 Jan

Hitman 3 Death in the Family: Who Killed Zachary Carlisle?

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Hitman 3’s Death in the Family mission can be completed in a number of amusing ways, but the undisputed highlight of this assignment is the ability to pose as a private investigator and attempt to solve the murder of Zachary Carlisle.  You might suspect that a “Whodunnit?” case built into a Hitman game would be somewhat watered down, but the truth of the matter is that Death in the Family’s murder mystery is one of the better examples of this format in video game history (and my personal favorite since the best quest in The Elder Scrolls franchise). In fact,…

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21 Jan

When Paul McCartney Braved the Set of Roger Corman’s The Masque of the Red Death

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Jane Asher is as well-known for acting as she is for dating an ex-Beatle, and in 1964 she brought Swinging London to the canteen of Roger Corman’s The Masque of the Red Death. Based on the gothic short story “The Mask of the Red Death: A Fantasy,” the film remains the most ambitious installment in Corman’s Edgar Allen Poe cycle of movies, contrasting the bleak landscape of a dying village with the psychological torment of six rooms of color, and one with no color at all, just a deep black with a blood red crimson glow cast on it. Vincent…

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06 Jan

How to Play Flash Games After the “Death” of Adobe Flash

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Though the news was understandably downplayed during what proved to be a turbulent year, December 31, 2020, marked the end of Adobe’s official support of the Flash Player. The end of their official support cast serious doubt on our ability to easily access a legion of Flash games that have, in their own way, carved a piece of internet culture and history. As it turns out, the death of Flash was somewhat exaggerated. While it’s true that Adobe has ended their official support of the platform and that many websites are unable to run Flash Player and Flash-based programs as…

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06 Jan

How Dark Nights: Death Metal Reboots the DC Universe

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The end of Dark Nights: Death Metal #7 is the last stop of more than a decade of Scott Snyder driving the DC metaverse’s bus. The conclusion to the Dark Nights saga, which started in 2017 with Dark Nights: Metal and ran through an entire Justice League series before concluding here, closes off storylines Snyder and his creative partner Greg Capullo seeded as far back as their first issue of Batman when the New 52 launched. And with Infinite Frontier and Future State, DC’s next publishing initiatives, on deck, it’s worth taking a look at what Death Metal did so…

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19 Dec

The Mandalorian: Bib Fortuna’s Return and Death Explained

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This Star Wars: The Mandalorian article contains spoilers. Well, that was a very short-lived cameo, wasn’t it? In a surprise post-credits scene, Jabba the Hutt’s former majordomo Bib Fortuna returns to Star Wars live-action just long enough to get blasted off his dead boss’ throne. Played once again by veteran Star Wars engineer Matthew Wood, who also played Fortuna in an uncredited role in The Phantom Menace and later voiced General Grievous in Revenge of the Sith, the Twi’lek seems to be running things on Tatooine before Boba Fett shows up. In fact, Fortuna’s death happens so fast, he barely…

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09 Dec

The Godfather Coda: The Death of Michael Corleone Proves a Little Less is Infinitely More

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This Mario Puzo’s The Godfather, Coda: The Death of Michael Corleone analysis contains spoilers. The ending will be discussed at length. If you haven’t seen it, I’ll make you an offer you can’t refuse. Find the film, watch it with fresh eyes, then come back and celebrate The Death of Michael Corleone. “The power to absolve debt is greater than the power of forgiveness,” Michael Corleone observes in the revelatory new opening of Mario Puzo’s The Godfather, Coda: The Death of Michael Corleone. He may well be speaking for Francis Ford Coppola. The Godfather Part III concluded the family saga,…

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01 Dec

The Godfather Coda: The Death of Michael Corleone

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Celebrating the 30th Anniversary of The Godfather: Part III, director/screenwriter Francis Ford Coppola brings a definitive new edit and restoration of the final film in his epic Godfather trilogy—Mario Puzo’s The Godfather, Coda: The Death of Michael Corleone. Michael Corleone (Al Pacino), now in his 60s, seeks to free his family from crime and find a suitable successor to his empire. That successor could be fiery Vincent (Andy Garcia)... but he may also be the spark that turns Michael's hope of business legitimacy into an inferno of mob violence. The film’s meticulously restored picture and sound, under the supervision of…

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25 Nov

Legendary Painter Bob Ross Makes Flames, Death Relaxing with New Magic: The Gathering Cards

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The different colors in Magic: The Gathering represent different types of magic. Black mana, for example, is drawn from swamps, and is parasitic and destructive, leeching power from its victims before destroying them completely. Red mana, from mountains, is chaotic and explosive, dealing lots of direct damage to opponents. Wizards of the Coast would clearly want an artist to represent these themes in the art on the cards. Who better to represent the death and destruction of mountains and swamps than Bob Ross? Starting Cyber Monday (November 30th), Wizards of the Coast is releasing one of its periodic Secret Lair…

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18 Nov

The Godfather Coda: Will The Death of Michael Corleone Fix Part III?

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“Friends, our business together is done,” Al Pacino’s mob family patriarch says in the official trailer for Mario Puzo’s The Godfather, Coda: The Death of Michael Corleone. And  Francis Ford Coppola hopes the new conclusion to the mafia saga takes care of all family business. For the 30th anniversary of The Godfather: Part III, the director and screenwriter will release a new edit and restoration of the final film of The Godfather trilogy.   The Godfather: Part III was nominated for seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director. Goodfellas, released that same year, only got six nominations. Neither won…

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10 Nov

Why Happy Death Day 3 Hasn’t Happened Yet

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Back in 2017, Blumhouse scored a big hit with writer/director Christopher Landon’s Happy Death Day, a sci-fi/horror comedy in which an excellent Jessica Rothe played a college student who keeps waking up to relive the day on which a serial killer slaughters her. A sort of hybrid of Scream and Groundhog Day, Happy Death Day was acclaimed by critics, earned $125 million at the box office and was followed two years later by Happy Death Day 2U, which continued the story but emphasized a more sci-fi angle to the tale as Roth’s character found herself in an alternate dimension. Happy…

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02 Nov

Fear the Walking Dead: Janis Death Explained

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This Fear the Walking Dead article contains spoilers. Fear the Walking Dead season 6 has not been without its casualties. While it seemed at first that the season would start by confirming Morgan’s death after the shocking season 5 cliffhanger, it turned out he’d survived his ordeal with Virginia and the walker horde. Others haven’t been so lucky in the first four episodes of season 6. First, we said goodbye to Isaac, who helped Morgan find his way back to the world of the living in the premiere. Not long behind him was Emile, the ax-wielding bounty hunter who tried…

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10 Oct

Dark Nights: Death Metal Resurrects the Entire DC Universe

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Scott Snyder and James Tynion IV had a chance to chat up their big current projects as part of Metaverse, this year’s pandemic margarine to New York Comic Con’s butter, and there were some surprising reveals to be had. Most surprising? Snyder spoiled the ending of Dark Nights: Death Metal. Sort of. Death Metal is many things. It is primarily the capstone to Snyder’s decade driving the DC line, first as writer of New 52 Batman with Greg Capullo, then on All-Star Batman and the Dark Nights: Metal/Justice League/Death Metal Crisis triptych. It’s the culmination of his partnership with Capullo,…

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