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21 May

Link Tank: The Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Unique Problem

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Dave Bautista exiting the MCU reveals a unique flaw of the franchise: fans expecting it to be never ending. “Marvel is sending its most eccentric franchise back into intergalactic battle with the releases of next year’s Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special and 2023’s Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3. The latter project could be the last time all the Guardians appear on-screen together, with some characters rumored not to make it out of the threequel alive. One of the film’s stars doesn’t think fans should be surprised by that.” Read more at Inverse. Batgirl now has two male directors…
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20 May

How the Marvel Cinematic Universe Chooses Its Heroes

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The Marvel Cinematic Universe has become one of the most valuable storytelling properties in the world and it’s done so not always by betting on the most popular characters. This was certainly the case with Iron Man, the MCU’s first proper installment, which centered what was widely considered to be second-tier Marvel character at the time. In his book The Big Picture: The Fight for the Future of Movies (via ScreenRant), film historian Ben Fritz explains that Marvel originally intended to open the MCU with Captain American, but that plans changed when focus groups of children chose Iron Man as…
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17 May

How Thor Changed the Marvel Cinematic Universe

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Marvel’s Thor, the first theatrical live-action film to feature the comic book giant’s version of the Norse God of Thunder, opened in theaters a decade ago, on May 6, 2011. Directed by Kenneth Branagh and starring a then little-known Chris Hemsworth in the title role, Thor was the fourth film in the still-nascent Marvel Cinematic Universe. It was also — as we look back at it now — a pivotal one in the development of the MCU. “I’m very proud of my part of it,” Branagh told us a couple of years ago about his handling of Thor. “Which was…
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13 May

Masters of the Universe: Revelation Shows Kevin Smith’s Classic Inspiration

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Masters of the Universe will once again have the power, this time on the platform of Netflix, which has unveiled a new animated series shaped under the creative auspices of geek royalty in showrunner/executive producer Kevin Smith. Consequently, the latest iteration of the Mattel Toy property, which dominated pop culture during the 1980s, is carrying classic-inspired sensibilities, as the new show’s first images clearly prove. It’s a retro direction—in stark contrast to other revivals of the property—that Smith confirms was no accident. Two years after it was announced, Netflix animated revival Masters of the Universe: Revelation has officially revealed a…
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02 May

How the Star Wars Movie and TV Shared Universe Is Finally Taking Shape

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The future is bright for the Star Wars universe. Free from the Skywalker Saga films, the franchise can now forge a new path, with characters, storylines, and settings that don’t have to tie into Luke and his family drama. In fact, Disney seems to have already planted the seeds for a new type of Star Wars storytelling experience: era-specific shared universes on Disney+ that emulate the interconnectedness of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but inside smaller, more self-contained bubbles. We saw this start to happen in The Mandalorian season 2, which not only introduced beloved animated characters Ahsoka Tano and Bo-Katan…
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27 Apr

How Hubris Undid the Dark Universe Movies

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The Dark Universe, Universal’s would-be monster movie franchise, may have only fallen apart a scant four years ago with 2017’s The Mummy, but the mindset behind its conception now (amidst the post-pandemic, theater-averse dominance of streaming,) feels like a notion from a completely different age. That logic, of course, implied that lucrative, Marvel Cinematic Universe-like film franchises could be conjured from just about any intellectual property. Interestingly, one of the writers involved, Eric Heisserer, believes the Dark Universe imploded behind the scenes well before it did at the box office. Heisserer, who’s serving as showrunner for franchise-aspiring Netflix television adaptation…
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31 Mar

How The Bad Batch Ties into the Larger Star Wars Universe

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The Bad Batch is the next Star Wars animated series, a direct sequel to The Clone Wars that brings back the colorful characters of Clone Force 99. The series finds elite clone troopers Hunter, Echo, Tech, Wrecker, and Crosshair struggling to fit into the newly-established Empire in the days after the war. While the mutations that made them unique proved to be a boon for the Clone Army of the Republic, the Empire isn’t so welcoming. A new trailer for the show teases that the titular heroes, whose squad of clone misfits is literally referred to as “the Bad Batch,”…
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30 Mar

Rick and Morty Miss Out on a Blade Universe in Season 5 Trailer

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Pop culture doesn’t have nearly enough multiverse-recognized holidays. Sure, Wookiee Life Day is great but can Kashyyyk place it on the Gregorian calendar? (Disney would have you believe it’s on Nov. 17, for what it’s worth). Adult Swim has recognized this problem and is offering a solution. Rick and Morty season 5 is officially set to arrive on June 20, and the network has declared that now sacred date to be a multiverse holiday. Hopefully banks everywhere from Dimension C-132 to C-137 will be closed in observance! The main event on June 20 will be the premiere on Rick and…
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25 Mar

New Green Lantern Series Expands Cosmic DC Universe

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Geoffrey Thorne is very detail-oriented. That helps explain the density of Green Lantern #1, his new book bringing the Green Lantern Corps into the Infinite Frontier era.  “I apologized to Dexter [Soy, one of his creative partners on Green Lantern] and to Tom Raney [his art partner on Future State: Green Lantern],”  Thorne tells us in an interview about the new run, “because the first things they had to draw that I wrote had a cast of thousands.” But it works: the new book launches with Lanterns from several corps accompanied by a veritable who’s who of DC’s cosmic stable…
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23 Mar

Did The Dark Knight Really Influence the Marvel Cinematic Universe?

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In 2008, there were two seismic events in the superhero movie genre so close together that you’d be forgiven for thinking they signaled the same thing. Over the span of a few months, Marvel Studios launched the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) via Iron Man, and director Christopher Nolan changed the perception of how seriously to take these movies with The Dark Knight. Both are credited as watershed moments for how audiences and (more importantly) the industry approached such stories; and The Dark Knight is specifically singled out as the gold standard by which all other masked crimefighter films are measured.…
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19 Mar

Star Wars Toys Prove That the Legends Expanded Universe Isn’t Dead

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Disney’s 2012 acquisition of the Star Wars franchise obviously proved consequential, especially after it redefined the Skywalker Saga with a Sequel Trilogy, two standalone films, a successful live-action series, and an array of animated shows. Yet, one sore point (of many) for longtime fans has been the company’s erasure of decades’ worth of beloved Expanded Universe Star Wars novels, comic books, and video games, which were relegated to the non-canon label Legends. However, said erasure doesn’t mean the old canon is gone completely, as exemplified this week by Hasbro, which is dedicating a whole new wave of action figures to…
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12 Mar

How Star Wars Can Finally Have a Marvel-Like Shared Universe

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Last December, Disney announced seven new Star Wars film and TV projects, giving us a look at what the next few years in the galaxy far, far away will look like both on Disney+ and in theaters. While the Rogue Squadron movie directed by Patty Jenkins (Wonder Woman) was the absolute mic drop of the evening, equally impressive is Disney’s plan for the small screen: several new series that expand the stories of fan-favorite characters like Ahsoka Tano and Lando Calrissian. Most intriguing of all is that many of these shows are designed to connect and interact with each other.…
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04 Mar

Coming to America: The Secret Shared Cinematic Universe You Forgot About

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When one thinks about 1988’s Coming to America, a few things stand out: James Earl Jones and Madge Sinclair as the King and Queen of Zamunda speaking to their son Prince Akeem (Eddie Murphy) at a breakfast table with intercom radios; the opulence of Zamunda’s palace, which represented an idealized African nation to 1980s audiences the way Wakanda does today; and of course Murphy and Arsenio Hall’s Semmi fresh off the plane in Queens, New York with no idea what “common” means—or also Murphy and Hall under pounds of makeup as the argumentative old-timers at the nearby barbershop. The film…
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27 Feb

G.I. Joe Lady Jaye Series to Expand Hasbro Universe on Amazon

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G.I. Joe has been enduring a period of relative mainstream dormancy since the release of 2013 movie G.I. Joe: Retaliation. However, Hasbro’s popular toy property—specifically, the Cobra-combating “A Real American Hero” iteration launched in the early 1980s—has serious comeback plans that have just expanded, thanks to a live-action television series set for Amazon. The classic character on which it will focus is the franchise’s other main female character, Lady Jaye. While the pandemic derailed the intended 2020 release of reboot prequel Snake Eyes: G.I. Joe Origins, which is scheduled to hit theaters this October, that film now stands to be…
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18 Feb

Infinite Frontier and the Infinite Possibilities of the DC Universe

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Joshua Williamson has had his hands in just about every big DC story for the last five years. One of the longest-tenured Flash writers ever, Williamson has by necessity been in the middle of every time the DC multiverse tried to burst back into canon over the last five years. After all, you can’t have a Crisis without a Flash beat or three. But now, Williamson is getting the keys to the bus. Infinite Frontier #0 kicks off the post-Metal, post-Future State new status quo for the DC Universe in March. That status quo builds off of DC’s new multiversal…
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11 Feb

How The Next Batman Was Born and What’s Next for Tim Fox in the DC Universe

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John Ridley is no stranger to telling stories. The Oscar-winning writer has spent his life weaving yarns both on the page and the screen. He’s also a lifelong comics fan and an accomplished comic book writer. With The Other History of the DC Universe, he began reshaping one of the oldest and most seminal multiverses in the medium. As that series reaches its midpoint, he’s also just finished his first stint writing one of the most iconic heroes in the DC Comics trinity: Batman. But this isn’t your daddy’s Batman. In fact, Ridley, along with editor Ben Abernathy and artistic…
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28 Jan

Does Game of Thrones Really Need to Be a Shared Universe?

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From the harbor of Oldtown to the top of the Wall, it is known throughout Westeros that all men must die. That they must, yet the phrase may soon be amended to include, “and all geek properties must live on… forever.” It certainly appears to be the takeaway from the news that a Game of Thrones animated series for HBO Max is currently in development. The revelation came late Wednesday afternoon via THR when it was reported that HBO Max, the streaming arm of WarnerMedia, was meeting with writers to hear ideas for a potential animated drama in the same…
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24 Jan

WandaVision: What Wanda’s Kids Mean for the Future of the Marvel Cinematic Universe

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This article contains WANDAVISION Episode 3 spoilers, and potential spoilers for future episodes, the wider MCU, and Marvel Comics. I don’t think I’m overstepping when I say that WandaVision is a weird show. It’s intentionally cryptic and there’s a lot going on. It focuses on two characters who have been in several Marvel movies but never truly got the spotlight. Even their romantic relationship in those movies has come off as forced to viewers at times. For comic fans, it’s an easier pill to swallow because it’s something familiar from the comics. In the comics, the story of Vision and Scarlet Witch was that…
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19 Jan

How DC Universe Infinite Brings Welcome Changes to the Digital Comics Reading Experience

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Way back in September, DC’s second FanDome event dropped a huge announcement: DC Universe, the all-encompassing DC entertainment streaming app that featured comics, movies, and TV shows from the DC catalog, would narrow its focus to comics, becoming an app called DC Universe Infinite. The new app launches on Jan. 21 and brings with is a slew of changes, many of them for the better — at least if comics are what you’re looking for. Den of Geek got an early peek under the hood of the app and we have plenty of good news to share. How It Works…
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11 Jan

How the Marvel Cinematic Universe Got its Own Pandemic from the Blip

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The Marvel Cinematic Universe has been besieged by supervillains, bombarded by extraterrestrial invaders and—in a deed so dastardly it’s unlikely to be topped—saw half the population of its entire universe dusted away. However, one thing that the continuity will not have to endure is the COVID-19 pandemic. Yet, that is not to say that that the MCU won’t be defined by the aftermath of a worldwide-affected tragedy going into its Phase Four slate of films and television shows. Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige reveals to Variety that parallels to the pandemic are, coincidentally, planned to permeate throughout the MCU by…
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DVD Guide reviews current dvd releases of movies and TV shows. The reviews of these dvd releases are my thoughts and understandings of the movie, dvd releases or TV show and not be taken as fact.

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