Nearly a decade after setting up Michael Mando‘s Mac Gargan to suit up as Scorpion in a tag to 2017’s Spider-Man: Homecoming, it seems as though Marvel Studios is primed to make good on the promise.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Mando will reprise the role of Gargan in Spider-Man: Brand New Day.
Earlier this year, journalist Chris Higashi was in attendance at the Disney Blockbuster Consumer Products presentation and took to his account to share what he took in, including the identity of multiple villains set to appear in Spider-Man: Brand New Day: Scorpion, Tarantula, Boomerang and Tombstone. A recent peek behind the scenes of the film seemed to confirm Tarantula and Boomerang and now, with Mando‘s casting confirmed by the trades, it seems safe to say Higashi’s report, which also claimed Mark Ruffalo‘s Hulk would turn savage and find himself up against Spider-Man and The Punisher, was indeed legitimate.
James Gunn has made it clear that DC Studios was prioritizing an all-new, all-different Wonder Woman for the DCU. And while the Superman director and DC Studios co-chair stopped short of agreeing to the notion that a new Wonder Woman film was being fast-tracked, he did make it clear that the character was crucial to the success of the fledgling shared universe and that a script was in the works but failed to reveal who had been entrusted with the project.
According to Variety, Supergirl screenwriter Ana Nogueira has landed the gig.
When I took this job, Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow [the graphic novel that inspired 2026’s Supergirl] was, like, number one for me of the things I knew I wanted to do. Ana Nogueira just killed the script right away, and saw what I saw in how the comic could be adapted to film, where [Supergirl is] even rougher in the film than she is in the comic, I think.
-James Gunn
Gunn has roundly praised Nogueira for her work on the script for Supergirl, which is an adaptation of Tom King’s DC Comics series, Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow. In addition to Supergirl and now Wonder Woman, Nogueira has also been charged with developing a script for a live-action Teen Titans film, though it’s unclear how far along in development that project is or where it stands in the queue of DC Studios films.
Marvel Television’s Ironheart has had a bit of a journey to the small screen. Announced in 2020, the streaming series was originally intended to hit Disney Plus in Fall 2023, roughly one year after Riri Williams was introduced in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. However, a pair of Hollywood strikes and a change in leadership at Disney led to a major overhaul to Marvel Studios Multiverse Saga plans. And after taking in the first three episodes of Ironheart, it seems as though reshuffling its place on the streaming slate may have impacted the studio’s plans for one of its theatrical releases.
Episode 2, “Will the Real Natalie Please Stand Up?”, introduces Alden Ehrenreich‘s quirky and anxiety-riddled Joe McGillicuddy who is eventually revealed to be Ezekiel Stane, the son of the MCU’s first big bad, Jeff Bridges‘ Obidiah Stane. In the pages of Marvel Comics, Ezekiel “Zeke” Stane was created by Matt Fraction as a dark shadow of Tony Stark. A brilliant, genius-level intellect who specializes in advanced technology, particularly bioweaponry and cybernetic enhancements, Zeke focuses on upgrading his own biology ratelher than building suits.
No matter how high tech or evolved, even with Extremis, the Iron Man armor is still a guy in a suit, if you get between the man and the suit you can undo it. So Stane doesn’t need a suit. That’s the difference. That’s what we start to see, the future of Iron Man is that there’s no gap between Iron and Man. It’s one being and Stane is quite literally evolving himself and people who pay him as we see in the book’s opening.
-Matt Fraction
In Ironheart, Stane’s creative genius seems to be sparked by meeting Riri Williams. When he appears again in Episode 3, “We in Danger, Girl”, Zeke has been inspired to design biomechanical upgrades, some of which include nanotech muscle fibers, laser-enhnaced fingernails and, eventually, going so far as to “upgrade himself by establishing a working nuerolink between himself and a computer chip. He’s also created a bio-mesh skin that Riri wants to upgrade for her own purpose and in an example of the show’s occasional fault of laying it on thick, Stane acquiesces to her using it with the promise that it won’t “blow back on him.” But it indeed will.
Without spoiling what’s next for Stane in Ironheart, marketing material for the series have shown that he continues working on upgrading himself, eventually becoming a VERY comic-accurate representation of the character. And by connecting some pieces of available evidence, it seems as though the studio had some very comic accurate plans for Stane in the larger MCU prior to the major overhaul of its slate.
Zeke is a post-national business man and kind of an open source ideological terrorist, he has absolutely no loyalty to any sort of law, creed, or credo. He doesn’t want to beat Tony Stark, he wants to make him obsolete. Windows wants to be on every computer desktop in the world, but Linux and Stane want to destroy the desktop. He’s the open source to Stark’s closed source oppressiveness. He has no headquarters, no base, and no bank account. He’s a true ghost in the machine; completely off the grid, flexible, and mobile.
-Matt Fraction
In the comics, Zeke has been involved in illicit tech and weapons manufacturing for terrorists and supervillains, often operating behind the scenes, manipulating other villains. While there’s no direct evidence yet that he was headed in that direction in the MCU, a bit of deductive reasoning can lead to the conclusion that Stane was likely the genius behind the cybernetically enhanced Serpent Society that was originally intended to appear in Captain America: Brave New World.
Prior to the slate being reshuffled, Ironheart would have premiered several months before Captain America: Brave New World, which was originally intended to hit theaters on May 5, 2024. Earlier this year, concept art for four members of the Serpent Society (Cobra, Constrictor, Diamondback and Mamba) meant to appear in the film was found the internet. And it doesn’t take much to recognize that these are very much in line with the ideas Stane was describing to Riri.
— Into The Spider-Woman Verse (@GoldstoneRuby) March 1, 2025
Despite scenes featuring those characters being filmed–set photos of Rosa Salazar and Seth Rollins made their way online in early 2023–the enhanced version of Serpent Society was cut from the film and replaced with Giancarlo Esposito‘s very ordinary Seth Voelkers, aka Sidewinder, who was about as lame as it gets. Captain America: Brave New World director Julius Onah went on record saying that the original plans for the Serpent Society ended up “deviating probably a bit too much from the grounded tone that we wanted the movie to have,” which is why they were cut; however, it’s also obvious that with Ironheart releasing AFTER Brave New World, the characters being upgraded by Stane would not have fit in the MCU timeline.
It’s sadly ironic that after years of rarely accurately adapting villains taken from the comics, Marvel’s own struggles behind the scenes pulled the rug out from under Ehrenreich’s wonderfully comic-accurate Zeke Stane. While it’s possible there are plans for him to return to upgrade other baddies in the future, for the time being it seems as though the whole scenario resulted in a lost opportunity for the Ehrenreich, Stane and the MCU.
The excitement surrounding Marvel Studios’ decision to produce its streaming series on Disney+ was palpable. After the ABC-produced Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and Agent Carter and the Netflix-sponsored Defenders-verse series, Marvel Studios launched its own “it’s all connected” streaming series in 2021, beginning with WandaVision. Meant to introduce new characters that would eventually jump into the films and carry on the stories of existing characters between films, the studio’s D+ series certainly were more good than bad; however, as has become a constant complaint about Marvel Studios’ films, fans began to grow concerned that the studio’s streaming series were incredibly formulaic. With Marvel Television seeking to reduce budgets and move toward annual shows and special presentations that are slightly less connected, the studio’s original intentions for its D+ series have been phased out but it’s next series, Ironheart, is a holdover from before those decisions were made.
Announced during Disney’s 2020 Investor Day presentation, Ironheart has taken a long and winding journey to the small screen. Filmed in 2022 and originally intended to be released in 2023, the series, which will close out Marvel Studios Phase 5, represents the end of the first era of Marvel Studios’ streaming plans.
Coming soon to #DisneyPlus, Dominique Thorne is genius inventor Riri Williams in Ironheart, an Original Series about the creator of the most advanced suit of armor since Iron Man. pic.twitter.com/VB94VyPr9e
Like its titular character, Ironheart–developed by Ryan Coogler‘s Proximity Media–seeks to establish itself as iconic. And despite having its true opportunity to establish itself as such ripped away by the studio’s near-complete upheaval of its road map, Ironheart still manages to offer plenty to ponder and enjoy. Carried by powerful performances and a very nuanced look at the struggle to make a difference in the modern world, Ironheart finishes strong and is, ironically, exactly the type of show the studio should continue to develop moving forward.
Set some time after the events of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, Ironheart follows Dominique Thorne‘s Riri Williams as she abruptly returns to Chicago following her expulsion from MIT. Though deeply connected to the MCU, the series, written by Chinaka Hodge and produced by Ryan Coogler, often feels more like an FX original series despite its adherence to the Marvel Studios streaming structure. Functionally and fortunately, Ironheart works as a coming-of-age piece that feels thematically adjacent to the works of John Singleton. The result is an incredible excavation of the everyday life of an antagonist with flexible ethics, a look at the lasting impact of trauma and a diary of the mental and emotional toll of suppressing one’s true identity. Despite some heavy-handed writing at times, Ironheart‘s exploration of the dynamic and reciprocal relationship between humans and their environment cements the series as one of the old guard’s best efforts to date in creating content for its streaming network.
Despite its best efforts, the show also stands as an unfortunate example of how a well-structured and well-intended idea can land poorly to no fault of its own. At conception, Ironheart unquestionably had a bigger place in the MCU. And while the obvious connections to the original plans for Captain America: Brave New World, Strange Academy and, perhaps, Armor Wars, may never come to fruition, it remains clear that Thorne’s Riri was meant to have a major impact on the MCU. The same can be said for Alden Ehrenreich‘s “Joe” and Anthony Ramos‘ Parker Robbins and while critically it is important to judge Ironheart on what it is, as a fan it is incredibly difficult to ignore what it was meant to have been.
Even so, taken as it is, Ironheart builds momentum and delivers a strong and surprising finale with a twist that even the most inside of insiders were not able to spoil. It’s the Marvel way to wonder and worry about what comes next for every character but as the studio determines the path forward, Ironheart provides an opportunity to enjoy a series firmly entrenched in the franchise’s connected universe without really needing to know much of anything that could not be casually gleaned from a quick Google search. Though it falls short of its iconic intentions, Ironheart does provide a worthy character study and ends the first phase of Marvel’s streaming plans on an upswing.
When it was first announced to be in development, Daredevil: Born Again was intended to be an 18-episode story with no ties to the original Netflix series. As part of the creative overhaul on the D+ show, showrunner Dario Scardapane chose to not only connect the show to the original Daredevil series but also divide the episodes into two seasons, allowing more time to write the final batch of episodes.
Production on Season 2, which will consist of eight-episodes, has been underway for several months and plenty of videos and photos from the New York City sets have made their way online, less has emerged of late. However, a new behind the scenes video may reveal a relatively spoilery stroll through the streets of the Big Apple.
Nearly every set photo taken of Woll has seen her character incognito, attempting to hide from Fisk’s Anti-vigilante Task Force. Additionally, given that Fisk knows Matt Murdock and Daredevil are one in the same, it doesn’t seem it would be safe for him and Karen Page to be out and about in the daytime. Taking everything into consideration, it is possible that this video reveals that Daredevil and his “army” will emerge victorious and, perhaps, unscathed at the end of Season 2 of Daredevil: Born Again. Of course, there’s no telling what part of the series this is from and for all we know, Page may get shot on the street, meeting a fate similar to that of Foggy Nelson, right after this stroll!
Season 2 of Daredevil: Born Again will debut on Disney Plus in March 2026.
Marvel Television’s Ironheart will see Riri Williams get tangled up with Parker Robbins and, from what we can tell from the trailers for the series, will ultimately end up at odds with The Hood. However, Parker Robbins wouldn’t be The Hood without his magic cloak that, in the comics, tied him to the Dread Dormammu but it’s long been rumored that Ironheart would see a different dark entity take center stage. Now, fans believe that a recent social media post has confirmed the identity of The Hood’s dark benefactor.
In a post that confirmed that Ironheart will stream in two, three-episode pods, Marvel Studios seems to have hinted at Mephisto finally entering the MCU.
It’s long been rumored that Sacha Baron Cohen was set to portray Mephisto in Ironheart, however, some doubt about the identity of his character began to creep in after a concept art leak contained some mock ups that included Dormammu’s name. Social media believes that those rumors are confirmed by the red underline in the “M” in the Episode 5 title, “Karma’s a Glitch.”
Ahead of the release of Superman, the first film produced by James Gunn and Peter Safran‘s DC Studios, Gunn has announced that a Wonder Woman film is in development.
The absence of Wonder Woman from the initial reveal of DC Studios Gods and Monsters slate raised concerns even as the development of Paradise Lost, a streaming series focused on Wonder Woman’s home of Themyscira, was announced. And to be clear, the Wonder Woman movie is not replacing Paradise Lost, according to Gunn.
“Wonder Woman‘s a separate thing,” Gunn told EW. “[It’s]slow moving, but it’s moving,” Gunn said of the newly announced film, adding that “We’re working on Wonder Woman. Wonder Woman’s being written right now.“
After being introduced in 2022, Oscar Isaac‘s Moon Knight has yet to reemerge in the MCU’s Multiverse Saga. Though it wasn’t quite the critical darling as some of its streaming predecessors, Moon Knight landed with fans and was one of Marvel’s most watched series, beginning with a strong premiere on Disney+. Samba TV, which measures viewership in millions of households, indicated that the first episode’s viewership was comparable to The Falcon and the Winter Soldier and exceeded that of WandaVision and Hawkeye in the first five days of release. This suggests that Moon Knight garnered significant interest and viewership upon its debut which continued as it became the most in-demand series on the streaming service.
So I think Marvel Television has happened in waves, and I think Moon Knight happened in a wave of shows that were going to establish characters that would tie-in to the future.
-Brad Winderbaum
Despite the interest in the series and the further adventures of the character, Marvel Television boss Brad Winderbaum made it clear that while the studio has plans for the character, a second season of Moon Knight is not happening. But as fans wait to find out what those plans are, series writer Jeremy Slater has revealed that the original idea for the D+ show would have taken it in a significantly different direction.
The archenemy of Moon Knight, Bushman first appeared in Moon Knight #1and was created by Doug Moench and Bill Sienkiewicz. His history is deeply intertwined with Moon Knight’s alter ego, Marc Spector as the two were once fellow mercenaries and it was Bushman who shit and killed Spector, opening the door to him becoming the Fist of Khonshu. In one of the most graphic displays of vengeance in Marvel Comics history, Spector carved off Bushman’s face in Moon Knight, Volume 5, #2.
“The goal was if Marc Spector was the Avatar of Khonshu, we were going to take Bushman and make him the avatar of a different Egyptian god and let them duke it out,” Slater told Comic Book. However, the team ran into an unexpected roadblock. “The problem we kept running into was Black Panther had just come out and Michael B. Jordan was so damn good as Killmonger in that movie, that he casts such a big shadow…that everything we wrote wound up feeling a little derivative.”
As it turned out, the idea of having the Show’s villain also be an avatar was something that survived into the final draft, with Ethan Hawke‘s Arthur Harrow serve as the Earthly vessel of Ammit which lead to a crazy battle among the pyramids in Egypt. However, it sounds as though that choice wasn’t one made by Slater.
“Ultimately, [Marvel] went in a different direction and the director put together his own team of writers,” Slater explained. “You know when you are coming in to play in such a big sandbox that you are…borrowing someone else’s toys to play with for a short amount of time and, at the end of the day, they don’t belong to you. You know that going in, so it wasn’t a surprise at all.”
Hawke‘s Harrow certainly didn’t land on anyone’s “Best Marvel Baddie” list and Bushman would have absolutely been a fantastic antagonist had Slater and crew been able to crack the story. Unfortunately, without another season of Moon Knight in the cards, it’s hard to imagine the character will ever do battle against Marc Spector in the MCU.
Released in 1990, Predator 2 laid the groundwork for further exploration of the Yautja’s culture and history. The trophy room inside the ship of the Lost Tribe opened the doors to a fascinating yet entirely unknown history of the Hunters, as did the flintlock pistol handed to Danny Glover‘s Mike Harrigan. The seeds of a wide-ranging Yautja mythology were sown in the successful sequel…and it’s pretty likely those seeds took root in the mind of a young Dan Trachtenberg and grew into a lush and savage garden of possibilities that he continues to explore in the animated Predator: Killer of Killers.
2022’s Prey marked Trachtenberg‘s first foray into expanding the Predator franchise and, at the time, it would have been hard to imagine that anyone could have been more successful. Inspired, at least in part, by the idea that the flintlock pistol in Predator 2 had its own story, Trachtenberg took the franchise back in time to 1719 and delivered what’s arguably the best Predator film to date. Inspired, at least in part, by the success of Prey, Trachtenberg created what amounted to a surprise entry in the franchise in Predator: Killer of Killers, using the animated anthology to aggressively expand the Yautja’s role in the history of the universe while simultaneously reframing the existing canon in a moment of true genius. Taking advantage of the freedoms of animation and cleverly leveraging the possibilities of anthological storytelling, Trachtenberg has engineered another instant classic, cementing himself as a singular voice within the franchise and, hopefully, its continued curator.
Though the film’s structure calls to mind a classic joke set-up (a Viking shield maiden, a ninja, a samurai and a WW II pilot walk into a bar), Predator: Killer of Killers‘ punchline delivers a seismic gamechanger to the franchise. Ahead of the release of the next film in the franchise, Predator: Badlands, Trachtenberg fundamentally redefined what the audience experiences while watching a Predator film. No matter your level of Xenopedia expertise, you will leave your viewing of Predator: Killer of Killers differently than you entered it.
Steeped in savage and familiar action, Predator: Killer of Killers manages to take its audience to an unconventional resolution that promises further excavation of the IPs existing properties and, hopefully, inspires future filmmakers with this particular genre.
Now in production in the UK, Marvel Television’s untitled Vision series has been making quite a bit of news over the past week. Set largely in the lawless island nation of Madripoor, the show will follow the synthezoid Avenger ‘s efforts to discover who he is. With Todd Stashwick‘s Paladin tracking him down and a handful of Tony Stark’s AI creations–including the villainous Ultron–set to play key roles, it seems Paul Bettany‘s Vision will have a full plate. And now, according to a new report, Vizh’s plate may be too full.
According to insider Daniel Richtman, Scottish star Ruaridh Mollica, who joined the cast of the series last year, will portray a character named Tucker, who will ultimately be revealed to be the vessel for the soul of Tommy Maximoff.
As seen in Agatha All Along, the souls of Billy and Tommy Maximoff were removed from their bodies by Billy just as their bodies disappeared while Wanda Maximoff undid her Hex. Having felt that his brother moved into a body, Billy and Ghost Agatha set out to find Tommy.
In the comics, Tommy Shepherd was the reincarnated Tommy Maximoff and became a Young Avenger going by the name Speed. Like his uncle, Pietro Maximoff/Quicksilver, Tommy could move at supersonic speeds. Though it was never truly explored, Tommy was believed to possess powers beyond what he had previously displayed.
With Tommy set to appear, it looks as though the Vision series will indeed put a bow on the “Maximoff Trilogy” and set the stage for the comic book Young Avengers to assemble. It may also tee up another chapter in the story of Wanda Maximoff in which her sons seek to reunite with her in an adaptation of Avengers: The Children’s Crusade.
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