It looks like the Extraction director has found his next project. Hollywood Reporter has unveiled that Sam Hargrave is teaming up with Jake Gyllenhaal to adapt Rob Liefeld‘s comic Prophet. The period comic book adaptation is in development for Studio 8 with Gyllenhaal set to take the role of John Prophet. The adaptation will be written by Marc Guggenheim, who has worked on The CW’s Arrowverse projects. He’ll bring the story to life about a man, who volunteered to get experimented on by German scientists during World War 2. He gets buried for 20 years before waking up to a new world, KGB agents hunting him down and his daughter resenting him. Studio 8 CEO Jeff Robinov gave the following statement:
It’s been a goal of ours to work with Jake and Sam for quite some time, so we’re very excited to finally be collaborating with them on this unique, action-packed genre film. I’m looking forward to seeing what they envision for bringing this story to life — a story we’re sure will stand out in the comic book world as a powerful, emotionally charged, and visually distinctive film
Jeff Robinov
It’s quite an interesting choice to adapt, but it’s an interesting concept to explore. Of course, they’ll likely take quite a few liberties with this adaption. It’s not a well-known comic series, which gives them some freedom to tackle it in creative ways. We’ll see how far the project develops and if they lean into the more out-there concepts from the original comic series.
The weeklong Steam Next Fest, which presented a promising slate of indie games soon to be released, ended today. Being the indie game sleuth that I am, I took it upon myself to try out several demos to see which ones were worth looking out for. Here are the ones that stood from the pack.
CRYSTAL PROJECT
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It’s always a joy to see developers take a stab at classic gaming ideas and spin them into something different. Enter Crystal Project, which takes the fundamentals of an old-school Final Fantasy game and meshes it with the non-linear trappings of modern RPGs. In essence an open-world JRPG, Crystal Project gives players the freedom of exploration and without the cumbersome storytelling made famous by genre.
The current state of the game is incredibly polished and elaborate. It has all the bells and whistles of Final Fantasy classics such as a versatile job system and a turn counter for that modern QoL. Visually, the game is a treat. The combat animation is sublime and almost rivals the likes of the burgeoning 2.5D aesthetic pioneered by Octopath Traveler. The voxel Minecraft-backdrop takes traditional JRPG exploration to literally a new level by allowing players to move vertically on each 3D platform with a jump feature.
Fans looking for something traditional might be turned off by the game’s openness. According to developer Andrew Willman, the game’s story will be more of a world-building aspect than an actual plot.
Crystal Project is listed to come out on Q1 of 2022
ANNO: MUTATIONEM
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The release of Cyberpunk 2077 may have been a letdown for the cyberpunk genre but that isn’t stopping smaller devs from keeping it alive. In Anno: Mutationem, you play as Ann, a cyborg on a quest to find her missing brother that is seemingly involved in a big corporate conspiracy. In this incredible rendered 3D world, your 2D protagonist will fight waves of goons and all sorts of cybernetic creatures as you traverse through a hostile city.
While the demo doesn’t show us the full potential of what the game offers, it’s enough to pique anyone’s curiosity. The combat seems complex enough to allow players aerial combos. Exploring the unique 3D plane with a 2D character already makes the game a worthwhile experience.
No concrete release date is attached to this game though it has 2021 listed on Steam.
Steam describes Wytchwood as a story-rich, crafting RPG set in a gothic landscape filled with fables and folklore. None of those descriptions are ones that would usually draw a gamer like me in but a single glance at the game’s storybook artstyle did more than convince me to check out the product page.
Wytchwood will ooze charm and vivid nostalgia to kids who grew up reading books resembling it. Yet it somehow feels all unfamiliar and fresh. Given that you’re playing a witch and have your own Black Philip, there are obviously dark occult themes that rest beneath the cutesy design. The game mechanics are quaint and simple yet also seem deep enough to keep the casual gamer occupied. As far as indie games go, this is one of the most memorable ones I’ve seen in a while.
No concrete release date is attached to this game though it has 2021 listed on Steam.
HAIKU THE ROBOT
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I arrived late to the Metroidvania party. Ori and Will of the Wisps turned me on to it but Hollow Knight showed me the genre’s true potential. So to see an upcoming game like Haiku the Robot embrace genre sensibilities akin to Hollow Knight makes it a highly-anticipated Metroidvania in my book.
The game’s presentation is absolutely stunning. The graphics, sound design, and gameplay are all tightly crafted. The pixel art style is wonderfully reminiscent of the Game Boy Advance era of sidescrollers I grew up playing. The platforming and combat feel precise and hefty which is absolutely crucial to any good Metroidvania. The little progression system we get to see is also very promising.
The Young Souls demo had me in awe in the first 5 minutes of the game where it throws you in this suburban fantasy world where a small town is being taken over by goblins and odd monstrosities. A 2D beat-em-up game at its core with fun RPG elements as its flourishes, the player is given control of Tristan and Jenn, twins who find themselves in the middle of this crazy premise.
Hordes of goblins are sent your path as you alternate between each twin, hacking them away, parrying, dodging, and all that. Like most good beat-em-ups, the combat is surprisingly in-depth and should allow for all sorts of combos in a co-op setting. The RPG element works in harmony with the brawler elements as it opens up a new avenue of complexity in building your characters’ stats.
The only evident downside to this game is that you quickly get a sense of how subpar the writing and dialogue are. The game has a very Saturday morning cartoon aesthetic to it which is quickly undermined by characters forcibly cursing to seem edgy.
The game has Q4 2021 as its release so stay tuned as it may be real soon.
Larry Trainor, aka Negative Man, has been a constant member of the Doom Patrol since its inception – both in the comics and the series. The character has become quite the fan-favorite since his debut in Titans season 1, only growing more and more interesting as the series progressed. Things may never be the same for Negative Man, as the beginning of Season 3 saw Larry split off from The Negative Spirit, also known as Keeg Bovo, and begin to sprout an odd bump that’s got him baffled and quite worried.
Something is different this time around, ever since Season 1, it has been known that once the spirit and Larry separate, it renders Trainor immobile until Keeg bonds with him again. It feels almost as if something could’ve rooted the Negative Spirit out of Larry, possibly even taking its place.
However, this bump may not be much of a worry for Negative Man and could change his life forever. Fans of Gerard Way‘s run on Doom Patrol may know just what is going on with Larry this season, and how after three seasons, Negative Man may be no more. In Weight of The Worlds, Larry became much more accepting of his state and more comfortable with his new team, much like Doom Patrol‘s Negative Man has adapted and overcome throughout the past three seasons. In the comic, Larry sprouts some similar bumps revealed to be excessive positive energy within Larry’s body that had begun to build up and once supercharged by Lotion the Cat, pushes Keeg out, and turns Larry Trainor into the Positive Man.
It seems as though in the series, Keeg became aware of Larry’s new outlook on life and realized his time was up, with the positive energy beginning to take up much of Larry. In the comic, it was Larry’s dog, Hank, that provided him with all that positive energy, but I think here it could be the healing of his past trauma, realizing it wasn’t at fault with what happened with his family, and more importantly finding a new family that accepts him for who he is, especially Rita Farr.
Larry is probably one of the characters in Doom Patrol that really needs that push lately, and to see some significant development. With the new situation at Doom Manor and Larry really closing the chapter on much of his past, this new, much more positive path, seems adequate for him as one of the show’s most beloved team members.
The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina was a fun and relatively darker take on the character of Sabrina Spellman but ultimately met its end a bit too soon. The Netflix original ran for two seasons on the streamer, with each season split into two parts. After Part 2 of Season 2 hit, Netflix ultimately decided not to renew the series for a third season. Upon cancellation, however, it was revealed there were already plans in the works for the next chapter and even a possible Riverdale crossover.
And it looks as though those plans have are finally underway. Riverdale showrunner, Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa confirmed Shipka’s return to Entertainment Weekly and went into detail on the character’s return.
“We’ve been talking about having Sabrina visit Riverdale since season 1, so it’s thrilling that this is finally happening, as part of our ‘Riverdale’ special event. It’s also perfect that she shows up to help Cheryl Blossom during her hour of greatest need. Everyone lost their minds- I think fans will, too. It’s really fun and special.”
Perhaps the biggest and most baffling part of this news is the fact that Sabrina Spellman is dead. Sabrina dies to save everyone else from the void, a ritual that brought her to the brink of death and resulted in her being too far gone. So Kiernan Shipka’s return is a surprise, and a welcome one at that, but it’ll be interesting to see how they bring her back.
Shipka will make her Riverdale debut in the sixth season’s fourth episode “The Witching Hour(s).” Sabrina will arrive in town to help Cheryl, who is in the process of performing a very dangerous spell, one that could mean life or death.
Both seasons of The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina are streaming on Netflix now.
While spin-offs of any kind are quite common to see after extremely successful and popular original works, they often end there. However, it was reported that Hahn’s series deal is, in fact, part of a larger deal with Marvel Studios. The deal not only encompasses Hahn’s Harkness appearing in more Disney+ projects, it also sets the character up to appear in future films.
The broad deal means Agatha Harkness may be around the Marvel Cinematic Universe for some time. After all, the character has significant history not only Wanda Maximoff, but also the Fantastic Four. The Fantastic Four, of course, are gearing up to make their MCU debut in Phase Four. The versatility of a large Marvel deal might allow her to make appearances in several projects that touch on stories vastly different from WandaVision. In any event, it certainly means Agatha Harkness will probably be around to add the mystical side of the MCU in the near future.
Last month, paperwork was filed by Disney to create a new limited liability production entity titled “Oakhaven Productions LLC.” At the time of discovery, we at Murphy’s Multiverse were prettyy stumped about what potential production this might be but today’s announcement that Marvel Studios is developing an Agatha Harnkess-centric series around star KathrynHahn may not only have solved that problem, but also give some clues as to what the series might end up being about.
At the time of discovery, our Google searches for Oakhaven produced little with any relevance to Marvel Studios, but did turn up what we thought was a funny coincidence: a Scooby-Doo reference. In 1998’s Scooby-Doo and the Witch’s Ghost, Scooby and the gang end up in the fictional town of Oakhaven, Massachusetts where all sorts of witch-related madness ensues. Oakhaven essentially serves as an analogue for Salem as Puritan-founded city where witches are persecuted. The dots aren’t too hard to connect here as Agatha Harnkness is not only a witch but one who, in the comics, was persecuted by Puritans in Salem before moving West and settling in the hidden Colorado town of New Salem.
While the plot of the new Disney Plus series hasn’t been revealed at this point, we know that Agatha was persecuted by her own coven of witches in Salem in 1693. We don’t catch up with her again until 2023 (or so), meaning we have about 330 years of potential stories to be told about where Agatha has been since stripping the power from her coven in 1693 and showing up in Westview in 2023. We can glean from WandaVision that she’s been set up in New Jersey for a while, but it’s possible her own series could shed some light on other places she’s been, potentially opening up the door for New Salem, and its interesting residents, to make their way into the MCU.
Foremost among those interesting residents is Agatha’s comic book son, Nicholas Scratch. Scratch was referenced as somewhat of an Easter egg in WandaVision, with Harnkness’ pet bunny sharing the name, but in the comics he was a powerful warlock in his own right who had less than a loving relationship with his mother. Marvel Studios has proven to love their family dramas and a mother-son drama might just be next on the list! With 330 years of time to fill, writer Jac Schaeffer could have a ton of fun introducing New Salem, Nicholas Scratch and some of its other colorful inhabitants while expanding on Agatha’s story and the mystical side of the MCU.
According to Variety, Marvel Studios is developing a Kathryn Hahn-led Agatha Harkness series for Disney Plus. Hahn starred alongside Elizabeth Olsen and and Paul Bettany in Marvel Studios first streaming series, WandaVision, and did so to rave reviews.
According to the trade report, the series will be written by WandaVision head scribe JacSchaeffer, who signed a big deal with the studio earlier this year. Hahn’s character, Agnes, was revealed late in WandaVision’s season to be Agatha Harkness, an old witch who has thrived by stealing power from other witches. When we last saw her, she seemed to have her memory wiped by Wanda but there was definitely a promise of more stories to come.
Hahn received and Emmy nomination for her role in the series and the character has a loooooooong history in Marvel Comics, so it’s not at all surprising to see the studios continue working with the actress to further develop the character. Schaeffer, who will also serve as an executive producer on the series, could chose to explore the character’s rich history, expanding the mythology of witchcraft in the MCU and connect her character to the growing mystical/horror element in the MCU. Marvel Studios is known to have over a dozen projects in development at this point in time and now we know we can count this Agatha-centric series among them!
We’re nearing the end of Season 3 of Titans, which means the future is bright. Episode 11 makes sure to hold on to most if not all of the shortcomings the series has compiled this season and repeats many the same bad patterns that have pretty much been on a loop episode after episode. The remaining glimmer of hope is still Tim Drake, and his and Donna’s arc already greatly outshines everything else.
The main Gotham plot, if it can be found, is once more based on character choices that either come out of nowhere or have been visited unsuccessfully numerous times. The idea of Scarecrow going about drugging all of Gotham with an anti-fear chemical just to play a video that says the Titans are bad and Red Hood is good is disappointing to say the least. But now Jason’s aggressive interest in taking on Nightwing one-on-one to somehow prove that Red Hood is a hero is not only another situation where Jason has done a complete switch of character, but is so meaningless compared to everything else going on at this point. There is no need to worry about Jason being consistent, though, as by the end of the episode he has an internal crisis on being Red Hood.
Not to be outdone, Dick has gone all-in on being terrible. Not only have his terrible ideas gotten him and the Titans to the hiding places they currently reside in, the leader of this “family” stops at nothing to be able to fight Jason alone for absolutely no reason other than to just make it about himself. Shockingly, this gets him shot and then jumped by the dosed zombie-people of Gotham—not even Jason. Gar and Rachel, after needing a total of probably 45 minutes to learn about and then find a Lazarus Pit conveniently sitting open in a random abandoned building, pretty much hold up a neon sign that says, “Dick is going to die but we will put him in this pit and nothing matters.”
After letting Crane be the least threatening and most unnecessary villain around for the entire season, the show did put some type of effort into ramping up his crazy and violent side. The strange new complex about “the time for masks is over” somehow leads him to torturing the pizza guy and acting particularly manic. Why anyone cares whether this guy wears the Scarecrow mask or not is unknown at this time.
In another part of Gotham, Tim and Donna reunite in the world of the living. Tim’s character and Jay Lycurgo’s portrayal of him is what so much of Titans is unfortunately not—good. We get a better glimpse at Tim through his family, and the episode appears to be setting up a moment where the remaining “hold out” neighborhoods of Gotham revolt. It’s a much more compelling concept than the rest of the current plot, and the street-level and ordinary people aspect of it could be refreshing if it stays that way.
This episode seemed brilliantly self-aware that the series completely wrecks its most powerful characters for no reason. At least it can only be assumed it is aware considering it does it some more and somehow worse. For one thing, the best line of the episode is Conner telling Dick his is better than him in every way after kindly acting as Dick’s secretary. Because it would apparently be a shame for Superboy to be super, Dick promptly hits him and Krypto with some kryptonite so that the Titans can remain useless and he can get personal with Jason.
What they did to Starfire is almost unspeakable. Not only do we get some gnarly visions based on a random baby she saw in the street, but we learn that she was not born with the “fire”, her family used magic to give Blackfire’s fire to her, and now she unexplainably has new blue powers with no clear function or origin. It’s very difficult to understand why her new powers, which has “been with her all along”, are not even green–they won’t even let her be color-coordinated.Titans just won’t leave Starfire alone.
All in all, nothing much actually changed in the plot or in how the series tries to spin the plot. It is a rehash of the villains being all over the place with no real motivation or personality; Dick being a real hindrance to everything and everybody for no reason; and most good characters being reduced to nothing. Tim and Donna’s neighborhood war could be promising, but only if the rest of the Titans do not get involved.
Doom Patrol’s fifth episode is a well-earned lesson in giving up. From day one, our main characters have all been teetering on a 4-foot-high ledge, often actually falling off. But as “heroes” they generally get right back up again. This time, they are much more relatable.
The team bus is broken out again so that our heroes can pursue Laura DeMille’s plan to murder—but never mind, let’s just infiltrate—the Sisterhood of Dada. The whole crew ends up enveloped in a very dense fog, where they individually meet different Sisterhood members that serve mostly to mentally terrorize our already-fragile characters’ mental states. If the attempted infiltration of the Sisterhood does anything, it gives everyone a kick in the face that knocks them off the ledge into a faceplant—and the Sisterhood laughs while they do it.
While we get a shallow survey of the different members of the Sisterhood, the most prominent and interesting one is the aptly-named, “The Fog”, or Shelley Byron (you might remember her from the hidden film last episode). The Fog is genuinely intimidating between her masterful use of her powers to casually disarm and humiliate our team in addition to her general presence. While Season 3 seems to be setting a few too many villain-related pieces up with so far no real threat—Madame Rouge, the Sisterhood of Dada, and the Brotherhood of Evil—she is one that stands out as having a formidable enough stance to be one worth looking forward to.
Jane is starting to struggle to find herself in this post-“Miranda” landscape where Kay herself is now more active and actually growing. There’s conflict with Jane and the rest of the personalities regarding whether or not Jane is doing what is best for Kay. It isn’t entirely clear what Jane is actually doing “wrong” but The Fog absolutely gets further into Jane’s head and spotlights her insecurity over a domain she used to run so smoothly.
Cliff is on his own self-journey of becoming more problematic while trying to improve. Instead of more appropriately addressing his (likely) Parkinson’s, he opts to messily self-medicate with black market drugs to try and be a better functioning grandfather. It also leads him to be absolutely useless in the fog and generally out of his mind. Larry is also a defeated mess without the Negative Spirit—his “give up” moment comes as early as being told to stay with the bus.
Vic stays on track with his usual inner turmoil. He’s lost in his feelings for Roni, which impacts his feelings about himself, and ultimately everything comes back to “Who is Vic?” That in and of itself is hard for Vic, because Cyborg was early-on branded as this awesome superhero, but we have never actually seen him do much of that since abandoning Detroit for Cloverton. While his heroic complex is already on the fritz, Frenzy—another member of the Sisterhood—throws him for a loop to ask, “Why are you?” Long story short, Cyborg does not come out of that conversation a winner.
Rita’s building existential crisis this season certainly makes the biggest move by the end of the episode. Having convinced herself that she is a world-renowned time traveler—based on images of someone who appears to be her in old footage and her being the target of the Brotherhood of Evil—she is gutted when Laura drunkenly insults her for thinking this. Rather than reevaluating herself or identifying the areas in which she is confident in herself, Rita goes all-in to drunk drive the time machine with no plan to, in effect, give in to the blackhole that is her identity crisis.
At the end of the day, the characters all return to the bus and pretty much just say, “Ok that was hard, we’re quitting.” In other words, after they faceplanted above, they stayed there. For a gaggle of people that are simultaneously so relatable and unrelatable, they really stuck the landing on relatable this time. The fact that their defeats came at the hands of, generally, mere conversations, is the icing on the cake of them simply giving up.
With the characters in this state of mind at the end of the episode, it feels similar to many places we’ve been before. Doom Patrol often seems like it wants to be a journey, but it can sometimes move at the pace of a snail and feature constant, non-stop diversions. The diversions are a blast, but sometimes it is not particularly clear if the series has actually moved much or if it is all one big circular fever dream that never ends. If it is, the desire to give up makes the most sense, but it also means giving up is impossible—good luck to our characters are they keep going through the wringer.
Venom: Let There Be Carnage has already surpassed $100M at the domestic box off all but assuring that that film will continue to spawn as many potential sequels and spinoffs as there have been symbiotes in the franchise. While the film has done well at the box office, it’s the post-credit scene that has had everyone buzzing and, according to director AndySerkis, Sony plans to make good on the promise of the tease of the two separate movie universes colliding by bringing Spider-Man and Venom face-to-face. Serkis explained in an interview with ComicBook.com.
We wanted to leave the audience knowing that these universes are going to somehow collide and we wanted to do it in such a way that it still leaves so much open and we’re not timing anything. The portal is not being crossed fully. It’s opening up more questions, I suppose, rather than sort of firmly saying [anything]….It is a tease. It’s a tease, in the fullest sense of the word.
The tease saw Venom and Eddie Brock transported from their universe into the Marvel Cinematic Universe where a television broadcast by J. Jonah Jameson seemingly put Spider-Man in Venom’s sights as a potential bad guy. While Tom Holland‘s Spidey has, so far, only appeared in films that have taken place in the MCU, Sony holds the live-action rights to the character and the ability to use the character in whatever ways they see fit. And as Serkis said, while there’s no timeline that’s yet been revealed, the plans are in place to have Spidey and Venom share the screen for the first time since Sam Raimi’s 2007 Spider-Man 3.
With the big post-credit scene seemingly taking place in the MCU and Kevin Feige once pointing out that Holland’s Spider-Man was the only MCU character who could hop through universe, we’ll have to wait to see WHERE the Spidey/Venom showdown takes place. It’s also worth noting that while it wasn’t too long ago that the two studios had seemingly come to an impasse and were putting their collaborative days behind them, this level of crossover might indicate a new and deeper commitment to working together, something that if done correctly, could only serve to strengthen both franchise’s universe.
Venom: Let There Be Carnage is in theaters now and Spider-Man: No Way Home is set to swing into theaters on December 17th.
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