One of the biggest surprises in an MCU trailer has to be the shot of Abomination fighting Wong in a cage match in one of the trailers of Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings. The appearance sent fans into a frenzy not just by the mere appearances and odd pairing of both characters but also the new comic faithful design of Emil Blonsky.
Producer Jonathan Schwartz gave us a simple answer when asked why they decided to redesign the character after more than 10 years of absence.
It felt time to update him a little bit and give him a refresh. We just like the new design better.
The MCU has slowly leaned towards more audacious comic accurate designs over the years for the better. It’s always odd to watch comic book films from more than a decade ago and see how embarrassed the makers were of the source material’s design and aesthetics. As the MCU tackles crazier comic concepts, their designs get better and better. As Banner would put it, this new Abomination look is an absolute win.
With so many rumors pointing to a Shuma Gorath appearance in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, it comes as no surprise that the tentacle creature that appeared in the Captain Carter episode of What If…? got fans hyped at a possible early tease. While do not know if that was actually Shuma Gorath, we at least know that the tentacle creature Doctor Strange summons in this latest episode is the same as the one Peggy fought.
We spoke to production designer Paul Lasaine, who told us those two creatures are one and the same.
We don’t actually say it is [the same one in this episode] but we’re pretty positive it is. In fact, even on a technical level, we used that creature as a template.
Regardless of whether it is Shuma Gorath or not, it is peculiar to see a recurring creature throughout the show. It would be weird if it wasn’t Shuma Gorath as we’re dealing with the very things that character is associated with i.e. the multiverse. That creature appearing in the latest episode does make us wonder if it’ll appear again later in the season. With an overarching story for the season, it would certainly make sense to have that consistency.
As we approach the midpoint of the first season of What If…?, a certain subset of fans have wondered what exactly is the endgame of the show, given the anthological nature of the show. Every episode seems to be its own thing with stories wrapping up as the credits roll (except for Captain Carter). But according to the show’s production designer Paul Lasaine, whom we got to chat with, there is an overarching plot that the show is sneakily setting up.
Obviously, with it being an anthology series, each episode is a standalone. But there is an overarching story which will become more.. [pause] ..without giving spoilers, you’ll see that there is a big storyline going on.
Now, this isn’t particularly new. If you’ve been paying close attention to all the details of this show, you know there’s something happening at the conclusion of the show. But if you haven’t and are worried that the show isn’t going to go anywhere cohesively, this should alleviate some of those concerns.
Based on the remaining episodes we haven’t seen, it looks like the creators of the show are upping the ante in giving us crazier scenarios like Marvel Zombies and Ultron taking over the world. This recent episode alone has started seeding somewhat of an arc for the Watcher. There’s still a lot of stories to build up so that’s something fans can all look forward to.
Once upon a time, Marvel Studios was looking at several obscure comic properties to bring to the big screen, in an attempt to kickstart some financial backing for the newly-founded studio. One of those properties was Shang-Chi, which comes out later this week in theaters, and Power Pack.
We spoke with Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings producer Jonathan Schwartz about Power Pack, a project he was coincidentally attached to produce at some point in the past decade, and its current status.
It’s one of those things we look at and talk about every once in a while. We’ll probably get there eventually but it’s not something super active at the moment.
For the uninitiated, Power Pack is a superhero team made up of pre-teen siblings with powerful cosmic abilities who’d go on crazy cosmic adventures together. The property has been in and out of development throughout the years, with the most recent iteration being the one Schwartz was attached to.
With so many unique things in development, it is pretty surprising to know that Power Pack is currently not in Marvel Studios’ sights at the moment. Power Pack feels like a property that would be served really well in animation, similar to What If…?. Let’s cross our fingers they finally do something with it because that is a bankable property.
One big question fans have as they anticipate the return of familiar Marvel TV characters like Daredevil and Kingpin is: “Will they be soft rebooted for the proper MCU?” Both characters have an elaborate backstory inclusive and exclusive of each other in the three seasons of Daredevil we got and a good amount of fans want those stories intact when we see them butt heads with movie characters.
While we won’t get a clear answer until we see these stories onscreen, Avengers producer Trinh Tran had some very interesting things to say about Hawkeye’s premise. In an excerpt from TV Guide, her quote reads:
The six episodes take place after the events of 2019’s Avengers: Endgame, when the five-year disappearance of half the population – including Clint’s wife and kids – was reversed. “The city has, in many ways, recuperated and continued thriving. But the same can’t be said for all its citizens.”
Let’s put things into perspective. That premise sounds uncannily the same as the first season of Daredevil, where the destruction from the first Avengers film left New York and Hell’s Kitchen in an unfortunate spot. All that damage to the economy and infrastructure essentially allowed people like Fisk to take over people’s lives.
Now, this isn’t a novel idea. Most transitional stories about a status quo change deal with some sort of fallout from that said change. Hawkeye dealing with the economic effects of the snap on a micro-level makes a ton of sense. But what makes thispremise really fascinating is the reported involvement of Kingpin in the show. Vincent D’Onofrio is said to make his proper MCU debut at some point in the first season, presumably the big bad pulling the strings. With that and Tran‘s premise in mind, it seems like Marvel Studios is doing a full retread of what the first season of Daredevil did, with the OG villain behind the scheme.
This feels like an indication of a soft reboot in some way in that it’s Marvel Studios cherry-picking the good ideas from the Netflix shows and spinning them in a new way that involves the larger universe. We know that Echo is going to be in Hawkeye and given her ties to Kingpin, the rumors regarding D’Onofrio’s inclusion in her upcoming Disney+ show make sense. It’s also sound to think that Daredevil may appear in that show as well, in addition to his rumored stint in She-Hulk. Looking at the big picture, there’s a through-line that links all these street-level stories that a soft reboot would serve perfectly.
“Kingpin’s gonna kingpin,” you might say. Just because Marvel Studios is redoing the Daredevil Season 1 premise doesn’t mean it’s a reboot. For all we know, Kingpin could just be redoing what he did all those years ago after the Battle of New York. While that’s certainly a possibility, the premise of him getting out of jail after his definite imprisonment in Season 3 and reattempting the thing that jailed him in Season 1 in a show where there are Avengers around to stop him sounds too reckless for a twice-convicted felon.
It shouldn’t come as a surprise that John Cena, a professionally trained sports entertainer, has what it takes to bring his chops outside the squared circle. This year alone saw his debut in blockbusters F9 and The Suicide Squad, where he garnered raves for his scene-stealing performances. He’s also starring in a new comedy called Vacation Friends, where he gets to play a character unlike that of Peacemaker and Jakob Toretto.
Honestly, when I read the script, it was like, “This is kinda where I am in my life right now. ” And the great thing about a movie called Vacation Friends, you know what you’re gonna get when you see the movie. Like, the two words describe what you’re gonna see, so you have expectations. And any great comedy takes relatable situations and completely makes them hysterically absurd.
Like most rowdy comedies, Vacation Friends is a movie about comfort zones and being in the moment. It’s the familiar tale of a crazy character clashing with an uptight character in fun ways but they eventually bring out the best in each other. Cena spoke to the press about his thoughts on what this movie tries to be and how it speaks to him as a person.
That’s what this movie does. It puts us in a situation… like, I’ll use Superbad, The Hangover, you could go on and on. You get it. Like, you get what the Hangover is about. But it’s so far that that’s where we can laugh at it, because these people go through these absurd situations. So you know what Vacation Friends is about. And what drew me to the script was, “Wow I’m really kinda focusing on trying to be present, trying to be more emotionally available, trying to really solidify my attachments in life.”
Vacations generally suck. They’re expensive. They’re a pain in the ass to plan especially when there are other people involved. The traveling is so draining that after you spend all that time relaxing, you’re back home tired from the trip. If you’re lucky or unlucky, you’ll meet people that will make the experience etched in memory, in good or bad ways. Hulu’s latest comedy, Vacation Friends, a rowdy comedy in the vein of classic nightmare vacation films with a touch of Meet the Parents, has it in both ways.
Lil Rel Howrey and Yvonne Orji play soon-to-be-engaged couple Marcus and Emily, who both live straight-laced upstanding lives. As part of his proposal plan, Marcus organizes a trip to Mexico with Emily in the guise of an unsuspecting getaway. Things don’t go well in true vacation movie fashion when Marcus and Emily cross paths with Ron and Kyla, a crazy couple with a knack for getting themselves into deep trouble. The two couples fall into all sorts of drunken craziness during their trip but eventually part ways when they return to the real world outside their vacation bubble. That is until the crazies get wind of Marcus and Emily’s very exclusive wedding date in the real world.
Hot off the heels of his acclaimed role as Peacemaker in The Suicide Squad, John Cena plays Ron, a jack-of-all-trades Green Beret/mountain ranger with a penchant for sniffing out mushrooms and bird shit. But despite those seemingly fun quirks, Cena is surprisingly dull as Ron. A big problem here is that Cena is constantly going for the bit whereas in Suicide Squad, Peacemaker’s astute subdued demeanor is the bit. When Cena reaches for that laugh – and he really reaches for it – the bit gets played out before it even ends. In contrast to his numerous scene-stealing one-liners in Suicide Squad, it’s almost baffling to see Cena fumble here.
This movie doesn’t have a great script nor focused story to start with so Cena’s chemistry with Lil Rel Howrey is this film’s strongest foundation. The movie knows that these two guys have something special going on so it spends a lot of time just honing on these two polar opposites at odds with each other. It’s the classic tandem of uptight straight man and wild card and it works for those two. Howrey plays Marcus’ grumpy uptight straight man persona to the T while Cena’s carefree lumbering take on Ron contrasts it nicely. It doesn’t reinvent the wheel but it’s a cog that makes the whole thing run smoothly. Without their chemistry, this movie would’ve been a total misfire.
And Vacation Friends falls close to being a misfire. The idea of mixing a nightmare vacation comedy with a Meet the Parents wedding movie may seem like a fun combo at first but this film makes neither of those ideas work beyond the surface. The vacation aspect of the film just isn’t crazy enough nor does its definition of “crazy” – basically getting drunk and doing drunk shit – make the Meet the Parents aspect an entertaining riot. Ron and Marcus getting high on shrooms just isn’t as wild as Greg Focker spray painting a stray cat’s tail to pass it off as his father-in-law’s lost cat. The outcome is a totally dull affair.
Even more frustrating is the inklings of good ideas they have. The movie makes you think that there is more than meets the eye to the crazy couple. Ron and Kyla constantly allude to their wildly dubious backgrounds throughout the film that it comes off as a setup to some crazy reveal. There’s even a bit early in the film that plays with the idea of something tonally sinister behind who these people are. Sadly, none of those entertaining ideas ever materialize at any point in the film which feels like a complete waste. Their characters are completely laid straight, devoid of any true whimsy that underpins why they are the way they are. Having some kind of spin to these characters would have at least made it a funner watch.
Vacation Friends drops the ball on a lot of things it tries hard to do that not even a fairly good cast can pick it back up. Robert Wisdom, who took The Wire to a whole new level as Bunny Colvin, is fully disserviced by a bad script. Yvonne Orji and Meredith Hagner, who have absolutely killed it in their own respective shows, aren’t really given the space to be funny the way they are in those shows.
A long-standing rumor has just been confirmed in today’s Gamescom’s presentation. Midnight Suns will be the newest game to brandish the Marvel brand and the first to be developed by Firaxis Games, the company responsible for the XCOM series. Check out the first trailer below!
When Hell awakens, only they can stop it. Rise up and join a darker order of heroes to defeat Lilith before the Darkhold is complete.#DarknessFalls when Marvel's Midnight Suns arrives March 2022. pic.twitter.com/XRflu6fyY1
As the rumor has long suggested, this game will be a tactics-RPG in the same vein as the XCOM games, which kind of isn’t surprising given the developers. The game is set to feature a bunch of characters that are commonly associated with Marvel’s iconic Midnight Sons team such as Ghost Rider, Blade, Doctor Strange and a bunch of other mystic characters we don’t usually see in Marvel games such as Magik and Nico from Runaways. The game, of course, features also the more famous characters like Wolverine and Iron Man.
Interestingly enough, the game will also feature an original character called The Hunter, whom you will see in the trailer is the character they summon from the tomb and the seemingly central key figure of the game. Gameplay footage is expected to debut in less than a week so stay tuned.
The folks in Cinemacon are a lucky bunch this week. In addition to getting to see Ghostbusters: Afterlife in its entirety the other night, Warner Bros.’s presentation last night gave a first look at the much-awaited fourth Matrix film, officially titled Matrix: Resurrections. Check out the trailer description below:
The new trailer opens in San Francisco, with Neo now going by the name of Thomas and seemingly unaware of who he is. Neil Patrick Harris plays his therapist and a brief scene of Neo as Thomas is shown in a therapy session. Neo says, “I’ve had dreams that don’t seem like dreams. Am I crazy?” before he has flashbacks to events of the original trilogy.
The trailer also expands on the initial footage of Trinity and Neo meeting, but this time, they don’t seem to know each other even though they think they do. Trinity asks Neo as Thomas, “Have we met?” The trailer then shifts into montage mode, with Neo observing day-to-day life in the Matrix’s version of San Francisco. Finally, Mateen shows up and he looks like a young Morpheus, saying, “Time to fly,” before offering Neo a red pill and a blue pill. Then, another young woman with blue hair takes Neo through a mirror, showing him the Matrix.
Another scene sees young Morpheus and Neo fighting before Neo breaks the dojo room with his powers. The trailer also shows that the machine pods are back, as are the Agents, and the franchise’s signature action. Trinity can be seen fighting police officers and Agents at one point before the clip ends with Neo pulling his signature move, stopping bullets with his mind, before he redirects an entire missile at a helicopter.
Matrix: Resurrections is still purportedly supposed to release later this December but given how the pandemic situation is erratic domestically and worldwide, there’s a good chance for this to get delayed. A possible release delay could easily mean we won’t see this trailer for a while which is disappointing because that footage description sounds incredible. If all goes well, this film could be a return to form for the Wachowskis.
Let The Right One In. Thirst. What We Do In The Shadows. The Castlevania series. Shadow of the Vampire. Legacy of Kain. Vampyr.
There’s really never been a shortage of amazing vampire media in the last 20 years. Yet by the 2010s, vampires had been run into the ground. Twilight, True Blood, and other vampire teen dramas had exhausted the idea of vampires in the mainstream and with it any semblance of cool. But in the world of comics, a truly great vampire story was gestating in the mind of writer Scott Snyder. Just as vampires were becoming passe, in came Snyder and artist Rafael Albuquerque with American Vampire, a neo-western horror saga spanning decades of lives and countless people.
At the center of this saga is Skinner Sweet, an outlaw from the Wild West who in a twist of fate ends up being the first in a line of American-bred vampires. Opposite Skinner Sweet is Pearl Jones, an aspiring actress in 1920’s Hollywood whose life forever changes after an unfortunate encounter with a vampire coven made of Hollywood’s most elite. Together, their intertwined fates put them at odds with the vampire race.
The modern anthology runs deep in American Vampire’s blood. Each arc deals with a different character’s perspective, often set in a totally different time period from the last, with lots of genre trappings. The first arc starts as your quintessential Hollywood fairy tale but then switches gears into a bloody horror movie. Some arcs go full Western when Snyder explores vampirism in the age of frontiersmen and cowboys. The book goes even bigger with two vampire WW2 stories: one set in the Pacific Theater of the war ala Band of Brothers and an Indiana Jones caper set in the Carpathian mountains of Nazi-occupied Europe. Hell, if you’re itching for something lower stakes (pun intended), there’s a coming-of-age story set in the 50s that taps into the delinquent cruising culture of the era.
That’s not even counting the standalone short stories written by the medium’s best writers and artists, including Stephen King, set in this world. Skinner and Pearl may serve as American Vampire’s linchpins but they aren’t the only stars in this joint as the comic explores the stories of other numerous characters in the saga, all the while connecting them in very meaningful ways.
And goodness does American Vampire boast an ensemble of characters that would give the most famous movie vampires a run for their money if this book is ever adapted for the live-action big leagues. You have Skinner Sweet, whose arc spans an entire century; he starts off robbing trains in the Wild West, becomes a soldier in WW2, a gangster running a brothel, a highway smuggler in the 60s, and by the end of the book, he’s an Evel Knievel death-defying stunt man in the 70s. Pearl Jones, who begins as a meek country girl seeking to make it big in Hollywood transforms into a battle-hardened crusader for her kind. Travis Kidd is a teenage vampire hunter in the 50s who poses as a womanizing delinquent in order to sniff out vampire families in the suburbs. His secret weapon is a pair of wooden fanged dentures he uses to bite vampires back.
Central to the story are the Vassals of the Morning Star, an organization dedicated to the eradication of vampires. Leading this organization are Linden Hobbes, a ruthless company man, and Felicia Book, a star agent with deep ties to Skinner Sweet. Calvin Poole is the resident genius and taxonomist, who himself gets caught in the hellish path carved out by Skinner Sweet. The Vassals also have an agent who moonlights as a traveling musician and relays information to other traveling Vassal agents via the color of the suit he wears on stage. This book is as nerdy as any Marvel or DC comic.
Scott Snyder and Rafael Albuquerque have created a world so immersive, lived-in, and intricate that they’ve even created their own elaborate vampire taxonomy. Usually, you think of vampires, you think of the most generic kind. In American Vampire, those are the Carpathians; standard, basic bitch vampires who have the most famous of weaknesses. This kind makes up most of the vampire status quo in America. Synder brilliantly establishes that a lot of Carpathians were included in the first settlers of the New World.
In addition to that, you have the Gaelic Prime; vampires that can transform into monstrous bat-creatures, the Canis Asiatic; this book’s version of werewolves, Iberian and Caspian breeds, mummified vampires from Ancient Egypt with corrosive fluids, mindless bloodsuckers in the Pacific, and of course, the Abominus Americana; the titular strain that sets the vampire world on fire. Unlike the usual vampires, the American vampire has a unique set of traits and weaknesses, which make them feared by most breeds. Snyder even goes as far as introducing ancient vampire gods within the lore of American Vampire.
With numerous characters, storylines, and minute details, it’s easy to get lost in a saga as complex as American Vampire but its emotional storytelling makes it a very welcoming read. Be it Pearl Jones’ decades-long romance with her mortal, everyman husband Hank Preston or Agent Cash McCogan’s desperate mission to rid his infant son’s disease at any cost, there’s always something human beneath the blood and fangs. Snyder and Albuquerque masterfully interweave all these elements together for most of the run.
American Vampire recently bid its final farewell with issue #10 of its 1976 run. That final run was frankly, disappointing. The finale was paced at a breakneck speed that disserviced a lot of the stories and character work that came before it. One of the best things about this book prior to the ending was how it took its time in exploring the world, showing perspectives of everyone, and letting us readers grow with them. The finale does none of that and plays out like those big Marvel/DC event miniseries where the 5 main issues make no sense if you don’t read the 100 tie-ins. Except here, there are no tie-ins that flesh out what’s happening in the main event. It’s all gracelessly shoved in together.
The finale goes big in a save-the-universe kind of way which takes away from a lot of the smaller personal conflicts that made most of American Vampire amazing. The scope feels ambitious but the ambition doesn’t pay off. It instead dilutes a lot of the magic of the comic. You’re invested in this book for the characters, their aspirations, their conflicts with one another, so when the story becomes about defeating the devil himself, it’s just not as exciting.
I can’t help but wonder what exactly happened to the story during its lengthy hiatus. The first run ceased production around 2013 and then resumed for a brief run that ran through 2015-2016. It was slated to resume the year after but never did. During that time, Vertigo was dissolved and was replaced by DC Black Label. Did the hiatus cause them to rethink how the story was getting told? Was Snyder just too busy working on his countless new projects that they decided to just rush through the ending? Were they only contracted to do 10 issues only?
Nonetheless, American Vampire will go down as one of the best reading experiences I’ve had as a comic reader. Even in the face of a rushed and unengaging finale, getting to know these characters was worth it. I was 22 and still in college when I first picked this book up. There are specific songs from that time period that was on heavy rotation when I was reading this book that I can never ever separate from certain panels. If I could discover the book’s emotional revelations and the surprising connections between each character for the first time, I would all over again.
Thanks, Scott and Rafael for creating my favorite kind of vampire.
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