TV
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Iron Fist and the Defenders: What we learned from the Marvel Netflix panel at NYCC

The cast and crew of Marvel’s Iron Fist may have only finished the final shoot of their show at 9 a.m. this morning, but it didn’t stop them from making an appearance a mere ten hours later at the Marvel/Netflix panel of New York Comic Con. With head of Marvel Television Jeph Loeb on hand to ring-lead a veritable circus of actors from Luke Cage, Iron Fist and Jessica Jones, the panel was a chance for a packed Main Stage theater full of fans to get a look at never-before seen clips from the upcoming show, as well as never-before-heard announcements and a trailer. The footage shown was clearly just as exciting to the folks who were featured in it. With every clip, Finn Jones (Danny Rand/Iron Fist), Jessica Henwick (Colleen Wing), Jessica Stroup (Joy Meachum), Tom Pelphrey (Ward...
Movies
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Blade creators declined an Underworld crossover because Marvel had other plans

Imagine the next Underworld movie and its universe of warring vampires and werewolves bringing in a Marvel character to spice things up a bit. It sounds like it was in discussion at one point. The team behind Underworld once reached out to the creators of Blade, the vampire-hunting, super-human star of his own comics and movie trilogy, to see if they would be interested in a crossover, Underworld franchise star Kate Beckinsale told an audience during a New York Comic Con panel today. “We had that idea," she said in response to a fan's question. "They said no. They're doing something else with Blade.” Beckinsale didn't elaborate on what that something else was. There have been three movies based on the Marvel comics, all starring Wesley Snipes as the titular character. In August 2014,...
Cover Story
Issue 22

September 13, 2016

The past, present and future of League of Legends studio Riot Games

Celebrate the company’s 10th anniversary with our look back and forward.

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Movies
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William Shatner to voice Two-Face in new animated Batman film

Batman: Return of the Caped Crusader is just a few days away from being released, and during a panel for DC’s upcoming animated feature at New York Comic Con, the studio announced that the film will be getting a sequel. Stars from the original Batman TV series, including Adam West, Burt Ward and Julie Newmar, were on stage to talk about Return of the Caped Crusader when an unexpected visitor interrupted them to break some news of his own. William Shatner, best known for playing Captain Kirk in the original Star Trek series, announced that he will be playing Two-Face in a sequel to Return of the Caped Crusader called Batman vs. Two-Face. Although Shatner didn’t provide any information on the movie, there’s a good chance that it won’t happen for a little while yet. The next film in DC’s...
Comics
4 Comments

The Walking Dead’s creator knows how the apocalypse started, but he’s not saying

The Walking Dead creator Robert Kirkman knows exactly how the zombie outbreak started, but he won't ever explain it, at least not in the comic, he said during a New York Comic Con panel today. "I'll never reveal what the source of the outbreak is in the comic," he said. "I'm never going to do that. I know what caused it." The issue, Kirkman said, was that having the cast of the comic find out just doesn't fit in with the story. "What am I going to do?" he asked. "Have a scientist walk up and say the president was working with NASA … "Any effort to have them become aware of the source would bring the comic into the realm of science fiction and I don’t think that would be necessary." If the comic ever ends, though, he said, "I'll publish a little book that explains it because I'll be...
Opinion
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Luke Cage is the black hero we've been waiting for

I started reading comics in 1972, the year Luke Cage, Hero for Hire came into existence. I am a black man who's watched media all my life waiting for a black hero who could represent me. Was it asking too much to have a hero I didn't have to be ashamed of because he didn't speak the Queen's English; a hero unburdened with negative stereotypes? Someone who wasn't crippled by the very event which gave him his superhuman abilities. A character who wasn't a pimp, pusher, or gang-banger with questionable moral qualities; a hero who wasn't just an oversized sexual appetite with a fetish for the largest firearms imaginable. A hero not inclined to use the N-Word every fifteen seconds. According to the roles presented to black actors over ten decades, the answer is unfortunately, yes. S...
Streaming
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Marvel’s Iron Fist has a release date and a teaser

With Daredevil, Jessica Jones and Luke Cage streaming on Netflix, there’s only one member of Marvel Television’s Defenders team left to make his debut. A thanks to a brief teaser posted on Marvel’s Facebook page this morning, we now know when: Breathe deep. #IronFist 由 Marvel 貼上了 2016年10月4日 Marvel’s Iron Fist will hit Netflix on March 17, 2017. Iron Fist, alias Danny Rand, is the orphaned son of billionaires who becomes a martial arts expert and fights in the name of justice in the inner city of a major metropolis. But, unlike Batman, he has a sweet tattoo and vaguely magic powers that he got from punching a dragon’s heart. He’s best friends with Luke Cage, is the longtime romantic partner of Misty Knight, and has already heard every fisting joke you’re about to tell. ...
Comics
8 Comments

The Teen Titans comics are taking cues from the hit cartoon — but is that good?

Of all the victims of DC Comics’ New 52 reboot, the Teen Titans were among the hardest hit: The series was largely a continuous disappointment with occasional bursts of decency. Perplexingly, it stuck around, perhaps only to make sure people were aware that Tim Drake hadn’t quietly been killed off. It was the kind of book where nonsense such as Superboy getting a Tron costume and Raven being turned into what’s scientifically known as a "sex chicken" were deemed acceptable. (Yes, both of these happened, and yes, they were as dumb as they sound.) Even when writer Scott Lobdell left the book, the writers, artists, and colorists after him couldn’t entirely undo the damage that he created, and the series never quite fully lived up to its potential. But Teen Titans is back as one of the new...
Top Games
All Games
TV
29 Comments
Always forward, forward always

Marvel's Luke Cage: Our impressions

And Marvel’s New York City has a brand new hero today, as Luke Cage hits Netflix and becomes the first show or film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe to feature a character of color as the lead. Polygon’s Entertainment writers, Julia Alexander and Susana Polo, have seen the first seven episodes of Luke Cage, and are here to tell you one thing: It’s good. The villains Susana: In the first half of its season, Luke Cage continues the Marvel/Netflix commitment to grounding its supernaturally abled characters in mundane detail. OK, it might be more accurate to say that it continues Jessica Jones’ commitment. We’re looking at you, army of immortal ninjas from Daredevil season two. But Cage presents its audience with what might be the most sympathetic and compelling villains yet —...
Comics
50 Comments

Wonder Woman is canonically queer, confirms writer Greg Rucka

In a long interview dense with discussion of creative intention and identity representation in media, past and current Wonder Woman writer Greg Rucka confirmed to Comicosity’s Matt Santori-Griffith that in his ongoing run, Diana of Themyscira is queer. After asking whether Wonder Woman, as Rucka and artist Nicola Scott have presented her in their Year One story arc was queer, Santori-Griffith clarified, "For the purposes of this conversation, I would define 'queer' as involving, although not necessarily exclusively, romantic and/or sexual interest toward persons of the same gender." "Then, yes," answered Rucka, simply. Wonder Woman: Year One is a long gestating passion project between Rucka and Scott, a retelling and recodification of the character’s origin story for the modern...
Movies
15 Comments
By the Crimson Bands of Cyttorak!

Doctor Strange, explained

Master of black magic! Doctor Strange is the creation of artist Steve Ditko, who co-created Spider-Man with Stan Lee. According to Lee, Ditko brought him the first Doctor Strange story already drawn, about a mysterious master of black magic who acted as help and consultant to people who encountered supernatural forces. Doctor Strange first appeared in Marvel’s anthology series Strange Tales #110 and became a regular feature. Nothing of his past is revealed in the debut story, only that he’s a master of "black magic," is armed with magical objects, and lives in his Sanctum Sanctorum, a Greenwich Village townhouse with a big funky window. But while the hero himself seemed a little generic at first, his world definitely wasn’t. Steve Ditko’s woodcut-esque...
Comics
9 Comments

DC Comics superheroes are suiting up for LGBT equality

DC Comics and IDW, two of the comics world’s biggest publishers, will team up this December under an important slogan: Love is Love, the name of their upcoming, charitable anthology book. The 144-page collection of short stories contains work by more than 100 creators, and all proceeds will go toward a fund established for survivors of June’s horrific shooting in Orlando. Names attached to Love is Love come from a diverse array of fields, like comedian Patton Oswalt, Lost co-creator Damon Lindelof, Batgirl writer Gail Simone and Phil Jimenez of Superwoman. Which superheroes will be featured has not been revealed, although Batwoman is featured on the book's cover. DC Comics has a sizable stable of gay, lesbian, trans and queer characters; Batwoman is the publisher’s most prominent, but...
Comics
79 Comments

The Hulk is no more — and She-Hulk will take over his comic series starting this December

In what’s beginning to become the usual twist (but not one this writer is complaining about) Marvel Comics has announced its latest title that will be turned over to the distaff counterpart of its original hero. The She-Hulk, Jennifer Walters, will be the main character of Hulk, starting in December of 2016. It hasn’t been a great few months for She-Hulk, the part-time hard partying lawyer and part-time giant green superhero. Jennifer was nearly killed in a battle between the Avengers and Thanos, and woke up from her subsequent coma to the news that her cousin Bruce — who had been managing his condition with nary a SMASH for months — had been killed by Hawkeye under dubious circumstances. Hawkeye maintained that he was only doing what Bruce himself had pleaded with him to do should it...
Movies
9 Comments

Harley Quinn spinoff film is in the works, Warner Bros. confirms

Despite Suicide Squad’s mixed reception, it’s looking like Harley Quinn will return to the big screen, and she’ll be bringing a bunch of other DC superheroines (and villains, we can assume) with her. The Hollywood Reporter has confirmed that Margot Robbie just signed a first look deal with Warner Bros. to develop and produce feature films through her production company, LuckyChap Entertainment. LuckyChap is already working on a number of projects, including neo-noir thriller Terminal, Tonya Harding biopic I, Tonya and an adaptation of the Matt Ruff novel, Bad Monkeys. Robbie brought on a writer to develop a script for the spinoff But LuckyChap’s confirmed projects with Warner Bros. have some real news for the DC Films universe. There are two, at the moment, and one is a Suicide Squad...
TV
28 Comments

Jessica Jones is now the first Marvel TV series to win an Emmy

No, you’re not confused: the Emmys aren’t until this coming weekend. But this past weekend, the Creative Arts Emmy Awards were held over two nights, on Sept. 10 and 11. That’s the occasion that Marvel Entertainment is celebrating today, as it wins its very first Emmy. Creative Arts Emmys are awarded to those who have achieved technical excellence in television over the past year. Awards include recognition for reality shows, animated programs and short films and technical jobs like cinematography, costume design and sound. And then there are not a few Creative Arts Emmys specific to specific quirks of the television medium, like guest actors, narrators and voice actors. Netflix’s Marvel’s Jessica Jones was nominated for two Creative Arts Emmys, Outstanding Main Title Design and...
Movies
10 Comments

Watch the mutant mall montage that didn’t make it into X-Men: Apocalypse

Ever since Chris Claremont’s New Mutants, there’s been one place that young mutants could go to chill out, hang out, and maybe get accidentally recruited into the X-Men: the mall. But the central role of malls to the X-Men wasn’t fully represented in Bryan Singer’s X-Men: Apocalypse until this weekend, when a deleted scene from the movie hit Tumblr. http://xmenladies.tumblr.com/post/150230197052/x-men-apocalypse-deleted-mall-scene Set to the Men Without Hats hit "Safety Dance," the montage shows Jean Grey, Cyclops and Jubilee taking Nightcrawler on his first trip to an American mall — and a load of ‘80s nostalgia.
Comics
21 Comments

Alan Moore is retiring from comics

Alan Moore, titan of the comics world, told the Guardian that he will be retiring from comics — after finishing up a few outstanding projects. "There are a couple of issues of an Avatar [Press] book that I am doing at the moment," Moore said in the interview, "part of the HP Lovecraft work I’ve been working on recently. Me and Kevin [O’Neill] will be finishing Cinema Purgatorio and we’ve got about one more book, a final book of League of Extraordinary Gentlemen to complete. After that, although I may do the odd little comics piece at some point in the future, I am pretty much done with comics." The reclusive and unabashedly counter-culture writer is the co-creative force behind many of the best-known English-language comics of the 1980s. Moore's work made huge contributions to a...
Comics
10 Comments

Suicide Squad to face off against the Justice League next year

DC Comics has revealed the first major event of the publisher’s post-Rebirth comic continuity: Justice League vs. Suicide Squad. Thanks to a blockbuster movie adaptation, the Suicide Squad is enjoying a notoriety that, it’s safe to say, they have never, ever had before. So it stands to reason that DC would want to tap into that attention with a major story arc featuring the characters. Here’s how the company’s press release describes the arc: The day that Amanda Waller has long dreaded has finally come to pass: the Justice League has discovered the existence of Task Force X! America’s paragons of truth and justice won’t take well to a government-sponsored team of black ops super-villains (with bombs implanted in their heads), but before the Justice League can shut down the Suicide...
TV
5 Comments

Report: Arrow, Flash executive producer working on Black Lightning series (update)

With The Flash, Arrow, Legends of Tomorrow and Supergirl already on the air and well underway, executive producer extraordinaire Greg Berlanti is reportedly already looking toward his next project. According to The Wrap, Berlanti is set to produce a Black Lightning series that’s being created by Mara Brock Akil and Salim Akil, best known for TV shows like The Game, Girlfriends and Being Mary Jane. Although the project is still in the early stages of development, Berlanti is reportedly already attached to the series and is helping the husband-wife duo try to land the project at a network. Based on comic book writer Tony Isabella’s famous hero, Black Lightning was one of DC’s first black superheroes and debuted in 1977. Isabella was asked to come up with a new character after DC’s first...
Movies
17 Comments

Ben Affleck teases video of new Justice League villain

Providing no context but the footage itself, Ben Affleck’s Twitter account shared the following video today, which appears to confirm the appearance of a new villain in Warner Bros. upcoming Justice League. https://t.co/0NsNzCtGip — Ben Affleck (@BenAffleck) August 29, 2016 The roughly 30-second video appears to depict Slade Wilson, alias Deathstroke the Terminator, one of the DC Universe’s most infamous assassins. The character was invented in 1980 as a foil to the Teen Titans — led, at the time, by Robin — in their original comic incarnation. But if this is indeed footage from Justice League (as seems likely), it won’t be Deathstroke’s first onscreen appearance. He’s featured as a recurring character on the CW’s Arrow, and as a major antagonist for Cartoon Network’s Teen...
Movies
23 Comments

Justice League Dark is back on, and it’s stolen the Gambit movie’s director

Doug Liman will direct Dark Universe, the film formerly known as Justice League Dark, based on the DC Comics superteam of the world’s biggest and sketchiest magic users, reports Variety. This means that Liman, director of Mr. and Mrs. Smith and The Bourne Identity, will not be directing 20th Century Fox’s Gambit adaptation, according to The Hollywood Reporter. If doomed ocean liners were superhero movies who’ve spent way too long in preproduction, and directors were deck chairs ... this metaphor still wouldn’t work, but the bottom line is we’ve got two big updates for two troubled productions here. Gambit is now with out a director for a second time, in a year in which it was originally scheduled to premiere and in fact hasn't even begun shooting. After the casting of Channing Tatum...
Comics
23 Comments

Marvel’s new black, female Iron Man will be known as Ironheart

Last month, Marvel revealed that it was introducing a new Iron Man to take over for Tony Stark — a 15-year-old, black woman named Riri Williams. Now, Marvel has confirmed that Williams will take on a new identity while donning the iconic suit, going by the name Ironheart instead of Iron Man. In an interview with Wired, writer Brian Michael Bendis said that the reason they didn’t want to give Williams the obvious "Iron Woman" name was because it felt antiquated. Bendis joked that they thought of going with Iron Maiden, an ode to the heavy metal band of the same name, but the legalities would have been very frustrating. When Marvel’s Editor-in-Chief Joe Quesada coined the name Ironheart, Bendis and the writing team ran with it. Williams’ Ironheart will officially debut...