Over the last seven years, the Marvel Cinematic Universe has introduced a lot of unique heroes and villains. Throughout Phases One and Two, both people from the comics and original creations have left their marks during the hectic events, be it an alien invasion, a guy trying to take over the world, or just simple acts of greed. That said, there are a few people who have, we believe, run their course.

When Phase Three kicks off next year, moviegoers will meet a slew of new characters, and with that, there are also opportunities for established players to be phased out. We’re not at all saying this is because they’re bad characters, but looking to the future, there’s really not much they can contribute or add to these new stories in a meaningful way. These are the protagonists, antagonists, and supporting individuals we think should be taken off the board entirely.

Jeremy Renner is reprising Hawkeye in Captain America: Civil War, but it’s hard to imagine how important he’ll be after that particular adventure. This isn’t just because he’s the guy carrying the bow and arrow, though the jokes about that just keep coming. At the end of Avengers: Age of Ultron, Clint Barton hung up his bow so he could spend more time with his family, including his newborn son. We don’t know how he’s going to get drawn back into the fold next year, but at this point, it should probably be his last mission as an Avenger/superhero. The man has a family to take care of, and with more people with special abilities popping up around the world, he should leave the crimefighting to them. Besides, when Thanos comes calling on Earth in the Avengers: Infinity War movies, how useful is the guy who shoots trick arrows really going to be?

Spider-Man and his supporting cast haven’t appeared yet in the MCU, but there’s already one character we don’t want to see: Green Goblin. Willem Dafoe did an excellent job playing the cackling fiend in 2002’s Spider-Man, and Dane DeHaan’s turn with Harry Osborn playing the villain in 2014’s The Amazing Spider-Man 2…well, at least he was better than Electro. However, it’s at the point now where the whole Goblin thing has grown stale, and it’s hard to imagine how they can make the character any different. Plus, there are so many other great Spider-Man villains who haven’t gotten to appear in the movies yet, and the filmmakers will be better off giving screen time to them. What’s tricky is that Norman Osborn has proven how villainous he can be without being disguised as the Green Goblin, like when he was leading H.A.M.M.E.R. and the Dark Avengers. If they can incorporate him as a Lex Luthor-type figure in this universe, then great, but if not, it’s best that they leave him out entirely.

Pepper Potts is the most important person in Tony Stark’s life. That much is certain. She worked as his irreplaceable assistance for years, she was one of the few people he could completely trust, and now they’re in a committed relationship together. Tony even decided to quit the Avengers so he could spend more time with her. Of course, just like how giving up the superhero life didn’t stick following Iron Man 3, Tony’s going to be drawn back in next year, but there hasn’t been any report that we’ll see Pepper in Captain America: Civil War. She obviously has enough going on managing Stark Industries, and Tony’s antics as Iron Man aren’t ending anytime soon, given the Avengers: Infinity War movies coming up. We’re not sure whether she and Tony should break up, but it’s clear that Pepper’s time contributing to the grand MCU should finish. Let the woman dedicate her full attention to running a powerful company.

As one of the few original characters in the MCU, Erik Selvig’s main purpose is to be one of its top eggheads. Granted, most of his contributions have been through a mind-controlled (creating that portal device for Loki in The Avengers) or crazed (studying the Convergence in Thor: The Dark World) state, but his genius can’t be dismissed. Now he’s working at the New Avengers facility, and while he’s definitely one of their most valuable recruits, movie-wise there’s not much cause for him to directly contribute anymore. He should definitely stay at the facility as one of the top scientists, especially since Earth’s Mightiest Heroes can keep and eye on him if he flies off the handle again. For future Thor movies, however, Jane Foster can handle whatever astrophysics queries come up, and Selvig can not get worked up from all this excitement.

Okay, where to start with her? Look, we get it. Darcy (also an original character) was meant to serve both as Jane Foster’s best friend and as the main comic relief in the Thor movies. The problem is that her moments are more annoying than funny, and even worse, she barely has anything to contribute to these movies outside of unneeded quips. At this point, there’s really no reason to keep her on. The MCU keeps growing, and over in Thor’s corner of the franchise, it’s getting less necessary to go back to Earth. Since Darcy isn’t the key to stopping Ragnarok, why should she be involved with what’s happening in 2017? Let Darcy go on with her life, whether that means putting her political science degree to use or getting more involved with astrophysics like Jane Foster. Just keep her out of the world of superheroes

When Red Skull touched the Tesseract in Captain America: The First Avenger, his body seemingly disintegrated and was transported into a universal portal. Given that death is rarely permanent in superhero stories, many fans suspect that Red Skull isn’t really dead and will somehow return in the present day. Hugo Weaving doesn’t sound particularly excited to reprise the character, but the supervillain could always be played another actor, the reason being that he was given a new body. The thing is, Captain America: The Winter Soldier came and went with no sign of Red Skull, and Captain America: Civil War is coming next year with Baron Zemo as the main antagonist. With Steve Rogers’ upcoming troubles, including Thanos coming to Earth, bringing back Red Skull so many years later just to try to take over the world again seems dull, especially when his goals have lived on in HYDRA. Let the Red Skull rest in…well, not peace, but just don’t resurrect him.

Tony Stark’s bodyguard/friend has never been what one would call a “major character,” but he’s certainly important to Tony’s life. They’ve been together for almost 20 years, and even after Happy stopped protecting the sarcastic industrialist, they still kept in touch. The last time we saw Happy, in Iron Man 3, he had come out of his coma, and once he recovered from that, presumably he returned to his position as Stark Industries’ head of security. Although Happy Hogan was an key player in the early Iron Man comics, he hasn’t been nearly as important in the modern era, and there’s really no reason to keep developing him in the movies. We’re not saying he should be cut out of Tony’s life entirely, but as far as onscreen appearances go, keep their friendship one that occurs off-camera. Leave Happy to a life of stopping industrial sabotage and making sure everyone wears their ID badge.

Nick Fury

Nick Fury was essential in the MCU’s Phase One. Through him, moviegoers saw how these solo movies were connected to one another, and in-universe, he brought the heroes together to become The Avengers. Despite the fallout from Captain America: The Winter Soldier and S.H.I.E.L.D. being torn apart, Fury is still active, though in a reduced capacity. He returned in Avengers: Age of Ultron to give the heroes a pep talk and help with the rescue operation, but now it’s unclear what more they can do with him in this universe.

Samuel L. Jackson has said he’s not appearing in Captain America: Civil War, and although he technically has two movies left on his contract, there’s no guarantee he’ll appear in the Avengers: Infinity War movies. Phil Coulson has a good handle on the new S.H.I.E.L.D.’s clandestine missions on Agents of S.H.I.E.LD., and with the Avengers getting their act together (the Civil War aside), the man with the eyepatch has mostly fulfilled his purpose. The world is different than when Fury first began the Avengers Initiative, and now it’s probably best that he leave global protection to the new generation of heroes and spies.

8 Characters The Marvel Universe Shouldn’t Use Anymore

The separate phases of the Marvel Cinematic Universe have been well documented. The first phase saw the introduction of each of the Avengers, culminating in a massive team-up movie that shattered box office records left and right. Phase Two gave us further development of old characters, as well as the surprisingly amazing Guardians of the Galaxy. Finally, it closed out with Avengers: Age of Ultron and Ant-Man, leading us to Phase Three.

The third set of Marvel movies will feature a new cast of heroes in their own standalone movies for the first time. These will release alongside sequels for Captain America, Guardians of the Galaxy, and Thor, as well as the two-part Infinity Gauntlet storyline.

But who are the new heroes that we’re soon to be introduced to? They haven’t yet found their way into the Avengers movies and largely exist as secondary characters in the comics. But don’t let that underscore their importance to the Marvel Universe: These heroes are the real deal.

1. Doctor Strange (November 4, 2016)

Known as the “Sorcerer Supreme,” Doctor Strange is a character with a comic history dating all the way back to 1963. Benedict Cumberbatch is set to portray the world’s most powerful practitioner of magic, introducing a whole new side to a Marvel Cinematic Universe that up until now has largely been rooted in science more than the supernatural. In the Avengers mythos, he largely sat out the Civil War storyline that saw most Marvel heroes take sides, but was still critical of the Superhuman Registration Act spearheaded by Tony Stark.

Only a few rumors have escaped as to what the Doctor Strange movie will be about, but if you were listening closely in Captain America: Winter Soldier, you may have noticed his alter alias, Stephen Strange, name-dropped by one of Hydra’s covert SHIELD agents, Jasper Sitwell. Strange’s powers include a mastery of sorcery and all things magic, and a genius-level intellect, which could potentially make for a thinking man’s Marvel movie (or at least we hope). Rumors are floating around that we might see Doctor Strange make his first appearance in Netflix’s Iron Fist series later this year, but they’re mostly unconfirmed (at least for now).

2. Black Panther (July 6, 2018)

Yet another hero rooted in more supernatural elements, Black Panther will take us to another part of the globe entirely: to the fictional nation of Wakanda. The titular hero, known familiarly as T’Challa, is Wakanda’s chieftain, drawing his superhuman physical abilities from an unnamed panther god (although early iterations had it derive from the consumption of a special plant). In the comics, Black Panther’s home country is made out to be one of the wealthiest and most advanced in the world, with massive vibranium reserves (the fictional metal that composes Captain America’s shield).

For his part, we’re almost assuredly getting a chance to delve deep into Wakanda and the complex story of its chieftain. T’Challa has a long history of darting in and out of the Avengers, often finding himself torn between his home nation and the responsibilities of saving the world. We’ll get our first look at him in Captain America: Civil War, setting him up for his full feature-length the following year.

3. Captain Marvel (November 2, 2018)

There’s a long, confusing comic history following the seven separate characters that have taken up the mantle of “Captain Marvel.” The movie releasing in November 2018, though, will focus solely on Carol Danvers, also known popularly as Ms. Marvel. It’ll mark the first MCU movie featuring a woman in the title role (sorry Black Widow, no movie for you), something long overdo in the world of superheroes.

Danvers is known in the comics to be a human/Kree hybrid after having her genes fused, something that’s been set up nicely by the appearance of the powerful alien race in both Guardians of the Galaxy and Agents of SHIELD. The Captain Marvel movie will air a year after DC’s Wonder Woman, making for the beginnings of a much-needed focus on the pantheon of female superheroes over 2017-2018.

4. Inhumans (July 12, 2019)

Despite having the release date pushed back a year by Sony and Marvel’s Spider-Man deal, there’s been no shortage on Inhumans in the MCU (spoilers ahead). ABC’s Agents of SHIELD has them integrated heavily into the story now, with a small group existing together in the remote mountains of an undisclosed location. As the descendants of a race of early humans experimented on by the Kree, the Inhumans feature a vast array of powers, acting as a sort of alternative to the X-Men (currently owned by 20th Century Fox).

The Royal Family of the Inhumans that acts as the main group of characters in the comics likely won’t find its way onto Agents of SHIELD anytime soon, but audiences are already getting primed for a whole new group of heroes set to debut in 2019. We’ll have to settle for the tertiary members in the meantime on TV.

Your Guide to the New Heroes of Marvel’s Next Phase of Movies

With all the focus these last two weeks on the fate of Glenn on The Walking Dead, a more interesting and certainly more unique character development is potentially taking place right underneath our noses. It concerns Morgan Jones, and by placing his flashback episode in between a cliffhanger and its resolution, showrunner Scott Gimple may have accomplished exactly what it was Eastman taught Morgan to do last week: Redirect.

Specifically, by keeping our focus on Glenn, Gimple and co. have been able to lay the groundwork for a potential first on a major television drama.

Let me explain.

Shocking character deaths are old hat these days, thanks to shows like The Walking Dead and Game of Thrones. If we know and sympathize with the character enough, the death — shocking or not — can still sting. However, it seems like we’ve seen every iteration of evil overtaking good. The death of Ned Stark on Game of Thrones showed us that anyone — no matter how important they may seem to the story — can die, and The Walking Dead has proven that “no one is safe” time and time again.

However, when a beloved major character like Ned Stark, Hershel Greene, or potentially Glenn Rhee or Jon Snow dies, it’s usually at the hands of a force of evil, or a bogeyman. Ned was killed by Joffrey. Hershel was killed by The Governor. Rita was killed by the Trinity Killer. Will Gardner was killed by a crazed gunman. Glenn was (potentially) killed by a walker.

Here’s how the Morgan storyline could play out in a completely different and novel way.

Morgan Jones (Lennie James) is a fan favorite. He’s been around since the pilot, and by periodically sprinkling his appearances through the next five seasons of The Walking Dead, the folks behind the series have created in Morgan a mysterious, mythical figure whom we all love, and whose return we craved. Think back to all the times we practically applauded with glee at the sight of him at the beginning or end of an episode.

Last week’s flashback episode not only filled in the details about the wheres and whens of his past, but it told us more about his character. We understand him and his motivations. Morgan, in spite of a period of insanity, is a “good guy.” He lost his wife, and he lost his son, and we feel sympathy for him. He’s had a hard go of it, but thanks to Eastman (John Carroll Lynch), Morgan has been able to get back on his feet and find some purpose in life. The man also has an admirable ethos. He believes in the preciousness of life.

How can we think ill of anyone who values life as much as Morgan?

We shouldn’t, and yet we also understand that this is The Walking Dead, where the “preciousness of one life” has to be balanced against the preservation of the many. The Alexandrians believe that “no man should be left behind” and that’s dangerous in and of itself, because it means the weak can hold back the strong. By trying to save the weak, as Glenn attempted to do with Nicholas, he put his own life in danger.

Morgan’s ethos is even more dangerous to the community. Morgan is like a defective prison system: He believes in the speedy rehabilitation of murderers, no matter how evil they might be. Morgan may be quick to beat a bad guy up with his stick, but at the end of the day, he’s going to put them back out into the streets to kill again. That’s dangerous in a zombie apocalypse, because every time Morgan releases a Wolf, he’s putting the lives of Rick and Carol and Glenn and Maggie, etc. in danger. He’s already cost Alexandria several lives.

Morgan is a dangerous man, but he’s also a “good guy,” a likable, sympathetic character who viewers respect and admire. In the normal course of a television drama, a good guy with a wrongheaded but well-intentioned ethos typically has his own belief system come back around and bite him in the ass. He lets an evil guy go, and that evil guy comes back and kills him. We mourn the loss, but we saw it coming.

What’s more devastating and even more novel is to see a “good guy” like Morgan murdered by a another “good guy,” like, say, Carol (Melissa McBride). Have we ever seen a major “good guy” character kill another major “good guy” character? Have we seen a good guy murder another good guy because he’s too good?

I don’t want to read too much into the tea leaves here, but I believe that’s what’s being set up this season on The Walking Dead. I think we’re seeing a showdown between Carol and Morgan, two good people who want the same thing but are going about it in different ways. They both want to protect their friends, and they both want a strong community. Carol believes the way to accomplish that is to kill the bad people. Morgan believes the way to do that is to rehabilitate the evil people and transform them into good people.

Morgan is wrong. It’s a noble belief, and he has the best possible intentions, but in a post-apocalyptic world where the mortality rate is high, threats can’t be neutralized. They have to be snuffed out.

This sets up a unique character twist where a good person (Carol) kills a better person (Morgan) and we celebrate her for it. We’ve already seen hints of this in the past, when Carol killed Lizzie. However, Lizzie was a mentally troubled young girl with a sadistic streak. Morgan is a clear-headed pacifist, but it’s that very pacifism that’s turning Morgan from protagonist to antagonist. We love Morgan, but he’s become the season’s de facto villain by virtue of his peaceful ethos. Basically, he’s turning into Piggy in Lord of the Flies, and the rest of us may be in the position of rooting for Ralph to drop the boulder on him. Because in a land overrun by zombies, it takes someone with some savagery to lead.

In short, we may genuinely want one character we like (Carol) to kill another character we like (Morgan), because the latter believes in the sanctity of life. That’s unlike anything we’ve ever seen on a major television drama, and the fact that we may be put in a position to root for it proves just how much The Walking Dead has messed us up in the head.

‘The Walking Dead’ May Be Heading Toward An Unprecedented Character Twist

Suicide Squad is coming—that much is for sure. And, really, only that much, since the only other bits from the DC Comics villain team-up movie have been various set photos that have made their way onto the Internet. So while the whole cast in one photo made it seem plausible that Suicide Squad might actually work, there’s still plenty of reason to be afraid.

Deadshot’s Pimp Suit

So Deadshot’s movie costume looks awesome. His outfit when he’s out and about as his alter-ego Floyd Lawton? Not so much. The long red trench coat is a questionable fashion choice any day of the week. But adding a fedora (ugh), gold belt, shoe buckles, and fingerless gloves makes Deadshot seem less like an assassin and more like Huggybear Junior. It looks dumb with a capital D. Maybe it’s a nod to his original costume, which was a domino mask with a tuxedo and top hat. But probably not.

Daddy Deadshot?

Those same set photos seem to show Lawton out and about on a shopping trip with a kid—presumably his kid. That’s kind of a bummer considering that Deadshot’s comic book equivalent has little to no story ties with his kids. There’s no rule that says you can’t make a change from the source material, but it does seem like an odd choice considering this is going to be most viewers’ first exposure to the character.

Harley Quinn Looks Like A Juggalo

On that same note, Harley Quinn’s look is pretty questionable as well. Harley Quinn started out as a fun addition to the DC Universe by way of Bruce Timm’s work on Batman: The Animated Series. She had a simple costume and gimmick, dressed as a “harlequin,” and hopelessly in love with the Joker. Since then, she’s morphed into a shadow of her former self, and seems to have more in common with a fan of the Insane Clown Posse than her animated roots. Then again, if they’re going for someone who looks scary, you can hardly do worse than a fan of the Insane Clown Posse.

Never Forget About That Joker

Look, we will never get over how stupid this looks. Yes, knowing what the rest of the cast looks like helps justify this new Joker design…but, man, it is still really awful. Jared Leto’s going to have his work cut out for him to make this happen.

Midway City

Some more set photos seem to indicate that at least one portion of Suicide Squad will take place in Midway City. That’s not one of DC Comics’ more interesting fictional burgs, especially considering that the superhero it’s known for is Hawkman. That’s right: the dude who has wings…and that’s it. One has to wonder why the production team decided on Midway City, considering it’s such a nothing place in the DC Universe, especially since there are so many other interesting cities we’d rather see show up on-screen (Keystone or Opal come to mind). Sure, not everything can take place in Metropolis and Gotham, but Midway? Some say that it’s the DCU’s version of Chicago, but you know what would’ve been more interesting than setting a super villain movie in Midway City? Setting a super villain movie in Chicago. We know what and where Chicago is, and might care when something happens to it. Not so with Midway.

Cross Platform Confusion

Suicide Squad will feature the third live action incarnation of Amanda Waller in the last few years. She appeared once in the Green Lantern movie (which we guess we’re just pretending never happened) and in the Arrow TV show (which is in a separate continuity). Deadshot, meanwhile, has been running around Arrow for a while now. Essentially, Suicide Squad has the potential to just confuse the hell out of anyone who’s seen either of those two properties. Since there are going to be so many crazy, obscure characters vying for screen time, it seems awfully risky that the film won’t bother referencing when these characters might’ve shown up relatively recently.

Running Before Walking

Let’s also not forget that with a few very notable exceptions, very few members of Suicide Squad’s mainstream audience will know a single one of these super powered villains. It’s cool that we get to see some obscure characters in a Hollywood blockbuster, but it seems questionable that audiences are being asked to accept a world where Killer Croc and Captain Boomerang can hang out. Shouldn’t we take some time and establish all these villains in a more grounded world first? If they were recruited for Task Force X from jail, who put them there? As far as this movie universe is concerned, there are only two heroes: Batman and Superman. It seems like we’re putting the cart before the horse here.

We’re In The Snyderverse For Sure

This might be the biggest problem of all. Ben Affleck’s Batman and Jesse Eisenberg’s Lex Luthor are both confirmed on the movie’s cast list, which means that whatever happens in Zak Snyder’s new Man of Steel or Batman vs Superman movies will have some kind of impact on Suicide Squad—and vice versa. Building cinematic continuity on such an absurd foundation, one that’s more style than substance, seems like a recipe for disaster. While Joss Whedon’s Avengers sequel was ten pounds of crazy in a five pound bag, it still relied on the more grounded movies that came before it, starting with the practically realistic first Iron Man movie. By comparison, Suicide Squad might feel like being shot out of a cannon into the worst cosplay convention on earth.

Things That Could Totally Ruin ‘Suicide Squad’

J.J. Abrams’ hotly anticipated Star Wars: The Force Awakens is—predictably—chock full of easter eggs for longtime fans. You knew you’d have to watch out for them, and that you might have to pay extra-close attention. As it turns out, that wasn’t quite true. That’s because there are so many easter eggs in The Force Awakens, we’re not even sure we caught them all. Here are some of the hidden treasures that were, well not so hidden. And of course, beware: major spoilers ahead.

Gonk Droids, Because Why Not?

One of the crappier robots from the original Star Wars trilogy is the GNK power droid, known more colloquially as the “Gonk Droid.” Why? Because that’s what he says: “gonk.” It’s basically a little garbage can with legs, and it sucks. But despite its utter lameness, and the fact that the filmmakers are more than capable of improving on its terrible design, the Gonk Droid shows up a couple of times throughout The Force Awakens. The droid has no bearing on the narrative whatsoever, so it’s hard not to interpret its presence here as director J.J. Abrams’ way of telling fans that he gets what they love about Star Wars, gonks and all.

“This Is A Rescue”

When Finn takes Poe out of captivity early in the film, he takes off his helmet and tells the pilot, “This is a rescue!” That bit of dialogue is a clear reference to the very first time Luke meets Leia in the original Star Wars. You remember: he takes off the helmet of his Stormtrooper disguise and says, quite simply, “I’m Luke Skywalker, I’m here to rescue you!” Finn may not be the next Luke Skywalker (that seems to be Rey’s role) but he’s definitely on a similar path. Another great moment comes later when Han utters that oft-repeated line from the franchise, “I’ve got a bad feeling about this.” Still, no one says “delusions of grandeur,” but hopefully that’ll show up in Episode VIII.

The Wilhelm Scream

If you know what the “Wilhelm Scream” is, then congratulations: you are a true film nerd. For the rest of you, however, here’s a quick primer. First recorded in 1951, and made famous by a character named Private Wilhelm in the 1953 film The Charge at Feather River, the Wilhelm Scream has been inserted into every single Star Wars film, not to mention about 200 others. If you keep your ears sharp during Finn and Poe’s escape from the First Order hangar bay, an anonymous (and unlucky) Stormtrooper belts the scream out after being killed by a turbolaser.

More Fuzzy Parsec Math

One of the most infamous lines in the original Star Wars is Han Solo’s boasts that the Millennium Falcon “made the Kessel Run in less than 12 parsecs”…despite the fact that a parsec is a unit of distance, not time. It’s a gaffe that the nerdiest fans love and hate at the same time—and it the cast of The Force Awakens confront it head first. We hear Rey and Han talking about just how many parsecs it took to make the Kessel Run when the two meet on the Falcon…and neither of them seem to care much about what a parsec actually is.

Finn Finds Some Old Toys

While rifling through the Millennium Falcon’s stuff to care for Chewbacca’s wounds, Finn finds a pretty familiar looking sphere: the flying remote that Luke trained with on the Falcon way back in the first Star Wars film. He pulls it out of a drawer, looks at it, then tosses it aside as he keep searching for medical supplies. Later, he bumps into the holo-chess board that featured so prominently in the original movie, too.

Get Lost

These aren’t necessarily Star Wars easter eggs, but they’re definitely part and parcel with the involvement of J.J. Abrams. Two actors known for working with the Force Awakens director have relatively big cameos in the film. First there’s Greg Grunberg, who’s appeared in Abrams’ shows Alias and Lost, as the hilariously named X-Wing pilot Snap Wexley. Then there’s Lost‘s Ken Leung, who shows up here as Admiral Statura. We’re pretty sure we also spotted Lost‘s Henry Ian Cusick as another X-Wing pilot, but he doesn’t show up on IMDB, so we could be wrong on that one.

The Starkiller Base

This is by far one of the biggest easter eggs in all of The Force Awakens, and true fans spotted its significance right away. The film’s villains, the First Order, have taken a page from the playbook of the Empire, and built themselves a gigantic super-weapon capable of destroying entire systems, suns and all. It’s not the size of a moon—rather, it’s the size of an entire planet. But instead of calling it the Death Star, or the Death World, or the Super Space Gun (our choice), it’s called…the Starkiller Base. And what’s so important about the name “Starkiller”? It’s the original surname that George Lucas had intended to give his protagonist—before he decided on “Skywalker.” While replicating the Death Star, but bigger, isn’t necessarily the most inspired move in the galaxy, you gotta give props to Abrams and company for picking such a perfect name.

The Biggest Easter Eggs In The Force Awakens

The seventh big screen installment in the intergalactic moneymaker known as Star Wars has finally arrived, and it’s got the Internet buzzing with excitement, critiques, and tons of explanations. While you might’ve been too caught up in the spectacle to think about it, we should probably talk a bit about that ending. So, without further preamble, be aware: major spoilers ahead. Don’t say we didn’t warn you.

So This Is What Happens

After a solid 115 minutes of purely galactic awesome, we had five solid minutes of Rey silently walking up a bunch of stone steps on what looked like a Lord of the Rings set. Finally, when she reaches the top she meets a hooded figure who, surprise-surprise, turns out to be Luke Skywalker. Finally, she presents him with the blue lightsaber. Filled with overt metaphors and what may actually be clues, here’s our breakdown of what it all means.

Leia Says Goodbye To Rey

Moments before she takes off in the Millennium Falcon, Rey shares a touching moment with General Leia Organa. Though not the touching moment between mother and daughter that fans expected, this moment seems to set Rey up as a hero for the Resistance. General Leia treats Rey with the respect a leader would treat their number one hero, but not with the emotion a mother would express to her daughter. Rey was at least a child when left on the planet Jakku, so Leia certainly would have recognized her if Rey was her daughter. This is the final clue that tells us Rey is probably not Leia’s daughter. It also sets Rey up to be the hero of this trilogy.

Rey Takes Off In The Millennium Falcon

Somehow, Rey has inherited both Chewie and the Millennium Falcon from the late Han Solo. While pre-release fan theories regarding The Force Awakens would have taken this as a sign from the Jedi Gods that she is the daughter of Han and Leia, we’re pretty sure that she’s definitely not their child. Why does she take off in the Millennium Falcon with Chewie then, and not in a ship of her own? Fans probably wouldn’t have been able to deal with the loss of Han Solo as well as Chewbacca and the Millennium Falcon, the latter two are major characters in their own right. Director J.J. Abrams had to find a way to keep them in the trilogy, and this way allows for future directors to revive the fan theory that Rey is the daughter of Han and Leia should the franchise’s masterminds choose to journey down that path.

They Land In A Lord Of The Rings Set

Okay okay, so it’s not actually an LOTR set. It’s just another beautiful green planet that is severely different from the one Rey grew up on. Stone and grass fields are all the eye can see evoking images reminiscent of Stonehenge. The wisdom garnered from the scenery somehow reminds us of Gandalf, another wise “old wizard” like Obi-Wan. Luke has become the Obi-Wan of this trilogy, the essential wise old guy trope, making this planet perfect for his hideout or dare we say, lair.

Rey Has To Climb A Million Steps

For a solid two minutes Rey is climbing the longest stone staircase ever. This metaphor is seems to be screaming at us that Rey must earn her Jedi training. It’s almost reminiscent of the physical labor Yoda puts Luke through during his training in Empire Strikes Back, though we know this is just the beginning. Luke is the last Jedi, he holds all the remaining knowledge of the Force. Of course Rey has to climb a giant mountain to get to him.

At The Summit Rey Approaches A Hooded Figure

Having just fought off a dark, hooded figure, we’re impressed with Rey’s bravery to approach this new one. Though she believes she knows the figure is Luke Skywalker, he could have just as easily been a decoy. But he’s not, and when Luke is finally revealed to us (Mark Hamill has less than a minute of screen time and top billing…) he’s looking very Obi-Wan Kenobi. The beard and age complete the picture, adding to his wise appearance and world-weary demeanor. The bravery Rey shows throughout these final moments of The Force Awakens is representative of the bravery required of a Jedi Knight—the bravery to do the right thing.

Rey Presents Luke With The Original Lightsaber

In the final moment of Abrams’ film, Rey presents Luke Skywalker with his blue-bladed lightsaber, the one from the original Star Wars film. This seems to be both a sign of respect and a symbolic passing of the torch—from the dreaded prequel trilogy back to the guy who started it all, and the significance of his role. Moreover, the look on Luke’s face when he sees Rey clinches our theory that she’s actually…Luke’s daughter. She is the Jedi that rises out of the battle. She is the one who uses the original lightsaber to overcome Kylo Ren. And since this scene shows that Rey will be the one who goes through Jedi training in this trilogy, by Star Wars logic, that would also seem to make her of Skywalker descent. Is the end of The Force Awakens a reunion between father and daughter, teacher and pupil, or both? Our math comes up both…but we won’t really know until Episodes VIII and IX.

A Spoiler-Filled Explanation Of The Force Awakens Ending

 While The Force Awakens gives us a full complement of Star Wars characters we’ve loved since the 1970s, it also introduces us to a ton of new characters, and you can bet that every single one of them is going to get an action figure. In addition to being reintroduced to the main cast, we see brief moments with a ton of other minor characters. And while their screen time in The Force Awakens may be brief, that’s never stopped anyone in Star Wars from being really important. We’ll never forget that many Bothan spies died (offscreen) to get us those Death Star plans. Here are a few new characters who are probably more important than you realized. And be warned: spoilers ahead.

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Lor San Tekka

Max von Sydow is an award-winning actor, so it seems unlikely that he’d get a brief, throwaway role as the old man who happens to have a piece of the map to Luke Skywalker’s location. He’s had dealings with Kylo Ren and Leia Organa, and he’s very familiar with the ways of the Force, so while the current mythology tells us that Luke is the only living Jedi, could it be that Lor San Tekka has a bit more of the Force in him than we can see? How do you keep that map safe for a few decades without having some of that old Jedi twinkle in your eye? Whoever this guy is, he’s got a significant role in the Rebellion and the Resistance, so we hope to see more from him, and not just as a guy who has a fancy flash drive.

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Snap Wexley

When Snap Wexley appears on screen for the first time, nerds everywhere recognized him as “That Guy From Heroes,” while their girlfriends recognized him as “That Guy From Felicity.” Snap is obviously a pilot of some repute, has a history with the good guys, and seems to be this trilogy’s Wedge Antilles—or if you’re feeling sassy, Jek Porkins. So far, Snap has survived the first huge battle against the First Order’s superweapon, so he’s already got one up on poor ol’ Porky. The original trilogy hints at the importance of Wedge a few times, but never really gets into what he’s all about. It’s not as though we really need the full backstory on a lone lesser pilot, but at least it would make up for past wrongs against Wedge.

Maz Kanata

The diminutive Maz Kanata almost seems like a throwaway character, until it’s revealed that she somehow has Luke Skywalker’s lightsaber, knows about the Force, and can kinda see Rey’s destiny with her crazy optometrist goggles. Even though her ancient castle is destroyed by the First Order and Kylo Ren, she survives the assault, and seems to have the resilience to rebuild. She’s like an awesome cross between Jabba the Hutt and Yoda, and she seems to know a lot about the undercurrents of the universe, both moral and immoral, so it seems likely that she’ll be a point of reference in the future, if this new crew knows what’s good for them.

Captain Phasma

It can’t be stated enough that Captain Phasma has been a disappointment. You can’t dress a well-known actress up in really shiny armor and have her role be relegated to yelling at a guy who sucks at being a Stormtrooper and then killing millions of First Order soldiers because she doesn’t want to be shot. She obviously has some importance somewhere, but it isn’t in The Force Awakens. Once she drops the shields around the Starkiller Base, she’s never seen again, so whether or not she’s still alive is up for debate. But Phasma must have some greater meaning, because she can’t possibly be this meaningless.

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Unkar Plutt

Played by Simon Pegg in a nearly-unrecognizable cameo, the enormous junk dealer on Jakku seems to have been around for a while, and knows Rey pretty well, whether she likes it or not. If there’s someone who sees Rey being dropped off for the world’s worst babysitting service on the desert planet of Jakku, it’s Plutt, or at the very least, someone in his network of smugglers, slave drivers, and thieves. He could probably be convinced to talk for the price of a lowly BB-8 droid, if he survived the First Order’s assault on Jakku, but it doesn’t seem like he’d be able to run all that fast. RIP, probably, Plutt.

Bazine Netal

If you need any proof that the First Order is still employing the greasy tactics used by The Empire, you’ll find it in Bazine Netal. When Han Solo and his new group of pals enter Maz Kanata’s castle, spies from both the First Order and the Resistance take notice and report to their respective bosses. While the Resistance gets some kind of weird robot dude, the First Order is still using space-prostitutes and mercenaries to gather their information. Even though this new version of the Empire seems extraordinarily straight-laced, they’re not shy about scraping the floors of whatever cantina they can find to get what they want. This is a surely a sign of things to come.

Force Awakens Characters Who Mean More Than You Think

It’s safe to say that anyone who calls themselves movie fans – or just anyone who has been conscious for the past decade – knows a whole lot about Marvel. They’re the company that created our favorite heroes, the braintrust that made our favorite films, the corporation that we’ve given hundreds of dollars of our hard earned money to over the years. With the monumental leaps Marvel has taken in the comic book, TV, and film space over the past few years, it’s easy to forget that Marvel has actually been around in one form or another since 1939.

So while everyone knows something about Marvel, like any company that’s been around for eight decades, Marvel has a rich history filled with unique facts that aren’t widely known. In the interest of appeasing Marvel die-hards who want to know absolutely everything that’s occurred while their favorite heroes are off saving entire planets from destruction, we’re excited to present 10 Facts You Didn’t Know About Marvel.

10. They Own The Rights to What Words?

While Marvel was creating every character they could think of in the ’70s (including Dazzler, a disco inspired character) they were also apparently working on copyrighting words and trying to be the only ones who could use said words. Marvel must have thought there was big money in this idea, as from 1975-1996 Marvel actually owned the rights to the word “zombie.” While everyone at Marvel HQ must’ve been giddy about this fact as they roamed the halls in their bell-bottom jeans and perms, eventually they realized that it just wasn’t possible to enforce such a trademark.

While the idea of a Marvel-controlled Walking Dead or Zombieland is an interesting one, perhaps even more interesting is the word that Marvel still owns to this day; “superhero.” Yes, one of the most ubiquitous words in pop culture is actually trademarked by Marvel, along with DC. So while Batman and Superman can be called superheroes along with Spider-Man and Iron Man, indie publishers and other media – like NBC’s Heroes – actually can’t use the word. And if you think this is a trademark Marvel doesn’t care about, think again; in 2013 they sued indie publisher Cup O Java Studios for using the word. More like sue-perhero, right? No? Okay, but still, be careful when using the word superhero in case Marvel is right behind you.

Anyway, here are 10 Facts You Didn’t Know About Marvel.

9. Spider-Man or Spiderman?

How do you spell Spider-Man? Spiderman? SpiderMan? Man-Spider? Okay, well, certainly it’s not the last option, but despite the fact that Spiderman is many people’s go to spelling, the official spelling is actually Spider-Man; and there’s good reason for that.

When Stan Lee created Spider-Man, he wanted to differentiate him from a man who would soon be his biggest competitor; Superman. In order to make Spider-Man different when read in print, Stan Lee included the hyphen, thus making history as Spider-Man eventually went on to become Marvel’s flagship hero and eclipsed Superman as the hero of a generation; and every generation after that.

8. Marvel Could’ve Owned Who?

Imagine for a second a world where no one debates the merits of Marvel comics vs. DC comics. Imagine we couldn’t spend countless hours discussing what’s better; the grounded melancholy of the DC Universe, or the candy-colored fun of the Marvel Universe. Imagine that Batman inhabited a world with Iron Man, and the two billionaires worked side by side in the panels of Marvel Comics; because that’s exactly what could have happened.

We’re not talking about an alternate universe, but rather the very real fact that Marvel had the option to control publishing rights to the DC Universe at one time… Before turning them down. Back in 1984, comics were in the dumps and not many people were buying them, and certainly no one cared about seeing them on the big screen. Noting that Marvel was doing better commercially than DC at the time, Bill Sarnoff – head of Warner Communications’ publishing – approached Marvel editor-in-chief Jim Shooter about licensing the rights to the DC universe. Shooter declined, claiming that the DC characters wouldn’t sell because they just weren’t very good.

Flash forward to 2016, and we’ll see if Shooter’s assumption was correct when Marvel’s Captain America: Civil War faces off against DC’s Batman V Superman.

7. Spider-Man’s Black Suit Cost How Much?

Of all the superhero costumes in Marvel’s history, perhaps none are as recognizable and well-regarded as Spider-Man’s black suit. Representing a turning point for the wall-crawler towards a darker and more nuanced arc, Spider-Man’s black suit – caused by the alien symbiote that would go on to create Spider-Man’s most well-known villain Venom – was a huge success for Spider-Man and Marvel as a whole.

As it turns out, the great idea didn’t come from Stan Lee, any of the various writers or artists of Spider-Man over the years, or even anyone at Marvel; it came from a fan. While Marvel eventually latched onto the idea and offered the fan, Randy Schueller, $220 and a chance to write the story himself, Schueller’s version of the story didn’t quite work out, and Marvel ended up taking the black suit idea and running with their own version. With numerous appearances in the comics over the years and the spawning of multiple storylines and characters – including a big spot in 2007’s Spider-Man 3, it’s safe to say that the idea of the black suit was a good one; and certainly worth all $220 Marvel paid for it.

6. Michael Jackson’s Marvel In The Mirror?

It’s been said that Michael Jackson – yes, that Michael Jackson – lobbied hard to play Professor X in the first X-Men movie. But as strange as that may have been, Professor X wasn’t Jackson’s ultimate dream role. That dream would have only been fulfilled by playing Spider-Man, and it’s a dream that almost came true.

In the 1980s when Michael Jackson was the King of Pop and basically the king of the world, he wanted to buy everything he loved, and he basically did, spending $47 million on the Beatles catalog, and trying to buy Marvel Comics. While his intentions were clear – he wanted to make a Spider-Man movie and he wanted to play the title role – Jackson originally went to Stan Lee to obtain control of the company. While Lee agreed to help Jackson run the company and make the film, he wasn’t actually in control of Marvel, and Jackson and a team of lawyers had to go to Toy Biz (then the owners of Marvel) and CEO Ike Perlmutter to buy the company.

However, Perlmutter declined Michael Jackson’s offer and came back with an absurd $1 billion, far more than the company was worth at the time. This forced Michael Jackson to walk away from the deal and, as a result, his dreams of ever playing Spider-Man.

5. Marvel Was the Joke of the Movie World?

It may now look like Marvel Studios knows exactly what they’re doing in the movie world, with every film they release being a massive critical and commercial hit, but it wasn’t always like that. In the days before X-Men, Marvel – and the studios that owned the rights to their characters – had no idea how to make a great superhero movie, and were often scrambling to film anything just to retain those rights.

While Roger Corman’s unreleased 1994 version of The Fantastic Four may be the most well-known Marvel flub (although we’ll never know if the three Fantastic Four films that came after it were any better), it was far from their first. In 1944, Captain America was released as a serial film in 15 chapters; a cinematic fact that you’d be forgiven for not knowing considering how not one person mentions this film ever. Marvel followed Captain America up with 1986’s infamous Howard the Duck, a strange comedy film produced by George Lucas that is often cited as the biggest punchline in film history.

Not to be outdone by 1989’s The Punisher, a direct-to-video film that we didn’t even know existed until we looked it up just now, Marvel shouldn’t be looked at as the flawless movie experts they’re seen as now, but rather as a company that made massive mistakes, quit for a while, and eventually came back better than ever.

4. Marvel: Creator of Heroes… Filer of Bankruptcy?

Sure, Marvel is one of the most successful entertainment companies on the planet right now, but as early as two decades ago success was a more ridiculous concept than that of Paul Rudd playing a man who can shrink down to the size of an ant with the help of Gordon Gekko. In the early 1990s, Marvel was benefiting from a comic book golden age – brought upon by collectors who were starting to see riches materialize from their parents’ comic book collections from the 1960s and 70s. With sales of Spider-Man and X-Men soaring, many worried that the comic book bubble would burst; and that’s exactly what happened.

From 1993 to 1996 Marvel’s stock plummeted from over $35 a share to around $2. No one was buying comics anymore, and other revenue streams were drying up. Marvel’s solution was to file for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy, a prospect that left Marvel so strapped for cash that they resorted to selling their own filing cabinets for money. Eventually, Marvel merged with Toy Biz and pulled out of their money problems by turning their attention to movies; and the rest is history.

3. Human Torch’s Bitter Custody Battle?

1978’s The New Fantastic Four animated TV show wasn’t really the The Fantastic Four, but was more like The Fantastic Three thanks to a blunder that may explain why the show lasted only 13 episodes. Believe it or not, The Human Torch never appeared in the show, and was actually replaced with a robot named H.E.R.B.I.E. because, you know, the 70s.

The actual reason Johnny Storm wasn’t in the series is because Universal owned the TV rights to the series and was being a dick about it, supposedly adapting the character for his own pilot on NBC. While that show never materialized, this wasn’t the last time the rights to Marvel’s First Family were tied up in a vicious custody battle, as just last year Marvel stopped publishing all Fantastic Four comics just to spite Fox Studios and their ultimately doomed Fantastic Four film.

2. Captain Marvel, I guess?

While a Captain Marvel movie is coming in 2018, you could be forgiven if you’ve never seen or even heard of the character until then. Despite the character existing since 1967, Captain Marvel seems to exist more for the sake of existing rather than because it’s an interesting character that people care about.

Captain Marvel’s journey started when DC sued Fawcett Comics for breach of copyright, claiming that their character Captain Marvel was too similar to Superman. So, obtaining the rights to the character, DC started using him – their version being a guy with a cape – until Marvel eventually obtained the trademark, thus forcing DC to call their character Shazam.

The character’s journey then continued, all because if Marvel was to retain their trademark, they would have to continue publishing a Captain Marvel title every year or two in perpetuity. Thus, Captain Marvel was born, continuing in various iterations until the current one; a character named Carol Danvers who has assumed the title and is now getting her very own movie. While Danvers is popular in her own right among Marvel fans, it could hardly be argued that she’s as popular as Marvel’s biggest heavy-hitters.

And all because Marvel just kinda had to continue publishing stories featuring anyone – anyone at all – named Captain Marvel.

1. Marvel: Enemy of Its Creator?

When Stan Lee and Jack Kirby co-created the most recognizable superheroes in the world, no one had any idea just how big these characters would get. As a result, the two Kings of Comics invented Captain America, Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, Hulk, and X-Men while working as employees of Marvel Comics, and thus it was claimed that they had no rights to these characters. When the characters started taking off and eventually became worth untold billions of dollars, Lee and Kirby wanted their fair share; but Marvel didn’t want to pay.

The result was bitter legal battles lasting years between the creators and those in charge at Marvel. While at one point a new Marvel CEO screwed Stan Lee out of everything he had negotiated with Marvel over the years, eventually Lee worked something out and is now involved – in some capacity – with Marvel and the characters he created.

Kirby’s arrangement with Marvel, however, wasn’t resolved so easily. As Kirby died in 1994, his family and estate ended up fighting Marvel for years, going back and forth through various courts, unable to come to a resolution. As of just last year, their battle was set to go to the Supreme Court, until days before Marvel and Kirby’s family reached an undisclosed settlement, with Marvel releasing a statement acknowledging Kirby’s immense contribution to the history of Marvel and the characters he helped create.

10 Facts You Didn’t Know About Marvel

The screen rights to Taskmaster, Marvel’s mimic mercenary, might have reverted to the company that created him, which would allow the skull-faced villain with the photographic reflexes to join the Marvel Cinematic Universe as part of a film or television project.

The live-action “Taskmaster” options that 20th Century Fox once held are no longer at the studio’s disposal, according to Heroic Hollywood, who cite sources with knowledge of the agreements.

The report comes after Tim Miller, the director of Fox’s upcoming “Deadpool” movie, mentioned Taskmaster among those characters he would most like to see the Merc with a Mouth brawl with on film next, with phrasing that suggested the character was not a part of the “Fox family.”

“I’d love to see Deadpool fight Batman,” Miller told Empire while discussing the recent trailer for the upcoming Ryan Reynolds-vehicle. “That’s not even in the Marvel family! I’d love to see Deadpool go up against Taskmaster, who’s another Marvel total **** badass. But if I was to stay inside the Fox family, I would like to see him fight X-23, the female clone of Wolverine.”

It is possible that Miller merely meant that Fox is looking to stay in the X-Men business, but if reports that Fox is no longer the character’s rights-holder are accurate, Marvel would very likely be free to use the colorful comic villain on the large or small screen, upon the reversion of the license.

While Taskmaster has been a regular in “Deadpool” comics, the George Pérez-David Michelinie creation first appeared in the pages of “Avengers,” frequently cropped up in the pages of “Captain America” and “Spider-Man,” and would seem like a particularly appropriate inclusion to Netflix’s budding street-level corner of the MCU.

Reportedly Out at Fox, Is Taskmaster Ready for His Marvel Studios Close-Up?

Queenie Zee Ng sat back on her heels and stared eye-level at the hodgepodge of Legos scattered across the table.

“Why is this layer sticking out?” she asked, undoing a row of tiny yellow bricks. “This is really hard to build. Yuna, do you get it?”

Her daughter, Yuna Ng, 8, flashed a smile with deep dimples and slid the pieces into the right slots. They hugged, then started on the next layer. Zee Ng of Palo Alto and her daughter were building a piece of the human spinal cord for the Stanford University brain development department in an attempt to break two Guinness world records, one for longest spinal cord and another for most spinal cords. More than 1,200 people registered for Saturday’s event.

Learning how brain works

But the real emphasis was on STEM — or science, technology, engineering and math — education. There has been a decline in students pursuing careers in the field, and organizers hoped the day with Legos would help teach kids that building and learning about the body could be fun.

“The earlier we can get them excited about learning, the better,” organizer Amanda Martino said. “We want them to learn how the brain works, but it was easier to build a spine than a brain. This is just a fun way to engage kids with science.”

Each individual spinal cord consisted of 677 Lego pieces, which were used to build the five large, 12 medium and seven small sections that made up the backbone. The columns were strung on bright pieces of rope and hung from the ceiling. Each one boasted a different color scheme: Cotton-candy pink with purple; blue, orange and green; and a single all-white strand.

Building curiosity

Yuna pantomimed standing completely straight and tried to walk.

“The spine isn’t exactly straight,” the girl laughed. “If it was I wouldn’t be able to move. All the layers help me bend. And my back goes from big at the bottom to small at the top.”

At a nearby table, Claire Jittipun, 7, of Palo Alto stacked a rainbow of colored bricks onto her structure.

“What if my bones were actually this color?” she said to her mom, Jeanne Deleon. “I would want them all to be black and some green. Wait. I would want them to be all the colors of the rainbow.”

Deleon laughed and leaned over to pick up a stray brick on the floor.

“I want them to have this curiosity when they are older,” she said, referring to Claire and her other daughter, Caroline, 9. “It’s important that they have exposure to all kinds of learning. When they get older, they can find their passion and take off. At this age they should be soaking in everything they can.”

The event was a good opportunity to help kids learn about their brains and bodies, said Robert McLaren, an instructor at Playwell TEK-nologies, the group that helped put together the event.

“Most kids love Legos,” he said. “When they first got here, they wanted to build cars and weapons and houses. Having an easily accomplished goal helps guide them and coordinates the chaos. There’s a lot of laugher and a lot of learning going on here, for both parents and the kids.”

Some of the visitors were so hooked that not even the promise of lunch could distract them from their work. Mary Beth Leff of Menlo Park snapped photos of her 11-year-old twins, Sophia and Lucy, building, and then tried to coax them into leaving.

“They’ll give up lunch just to keep building these spinal cords,” she said. “I think it’s because it’s so real to them. It’s not a kit where you build a castle or a car. We are going to try and build them again on our own tonight.”

‘Learning so much’

Lucy looked up from a laminated instruction manual and placed another brick on her masterpiece, which sent another piece plummeting to the floor.

“That’s what you call a cracked vertebrae,” she said, grinning. “The hard part is connecting it all together. I love it. I’m learning so much today.”

Kids use Legos at Stanford project to learn about tech education

All of the Marvel DLC for LittleBigPlanet games is going away December 31, Sony has announced.

The DLC includes Marvel-themed level packs and costumes, including those for popular characters like Captain America, Iron Man, Spider-Man, and others.

As Polygon reports, there were four Marvel-themed costume DLC packs released for the original LittleBigPlanet, while two were made available for LittleBigPlanet 2. A level kit for LittleBigPlanet was also released, and the PlayStation Vita edition of LittleBigPlanet got an Arcade Pack themed around Marvel.

LittleBigPlanet and LittleBigPlanet 2 DLC is compatible with the PS3 and PS4 versions of LittleBigPlanet 3.

All of the content is on sale, with costume packs going for $3.29 each, while the level kit is offered for $2.74. The Marvel Arcade Pack for LittleBigPlanet PS Vita, meanwhile, is available for $2.74.

In addition, LittleBigPlanet 3 is on sale for $12/$8 as part of the third week of the PSN 2015 Holiday Sale.

Sony didn’t say why LittleBigPlanet’s Marvel DLC is going away, but the expiration of a licensing agreement might be the reason. After December 31, if you already bought any Marvel DLC for LittleBigPlanet, you’ll be able to redownload the content at a later time.

Marvel DLC for LittleBigPlanet Getting Pulled Soon

SAGINAW, Mich. (AP) — A Michigan man designs and builds a church out of Legos and displays it his own house of worship each year as part of a Christmas season tradition.

John Kraemer makes one church per year out of Legos and puts it up at Christ the Good Shepherd in Saginaw, The Saginaw News reported (http://bit.ly/22kwxAX ). This year’s creation, built from about 15,000 Lego bricks, is on display throughout the holiday season.

Kraemer said he builds for a number of reasons, including a connection to his faith. He calls the Lego churches a “snapshot of parish life.”

“I’ve always had a very deep passion for my Catholic faith,” Kraemer said. “For me, it’s really the core of who I am.”

And he’s noticed how others enjoy seeing his work.

“As I’ve gotten older, I’ve come to appreciate that, No. 1, people enjoy this,” Kraemer said.

In the 1990s, Kraemer started coming up with designs for Lego church buildings. His first display was a Mount Sinai Lutheran Church in Montrose. In 2003, he put one up at his own church, which then was known as St. Helen Catholic Church, and has done so since then.

Kraemer has a mild case of cerebral palsy that somewhat limits his mobility and has faced other health issues in recent years. He said the process of planning and building a Lego church each year is therapeutic.

“It allows me to overcome some of my own challenges. It allows me to do something I really love,” he said.

Man designs, builds church out of Legos for annual display

Did Santa bring your children Lego sets for Christmas? You might want to consider not letting them open them. Not only will you save yourself from invariably stepping on them, but you could save for your kid’s college education.

According to an analysis by the UK Telegraph, the building-block toys are a better investment than gold or the stock market.

The FTSE 100 (an index of 100 companies on the London Stock Exchange — similar to the S&P 500 on the New York Stock Exchange) has increased in value an average of 4.1 percent since February 2000, according to the Telegraph analysis. By comparison, Lego sets kept in perfect condition have increased in value 12 percent each year during the same period. If you invested in gold, you received a 9.6 percent annual increase in value, according to the Telegraph.

The secondary market for Lego sets, especially ones that are no longer in production, is the reason why Legos are better than gold. For instance, the value of the Cafe Corner Lego set, which originally sold for $139.99 in 2007, can fetch as much as $1,600 on sites such as BrickPicker.com, as long as the box is unopened. But where’s the fun in that?

Analysis: Lego sets are better than gold, stocks

From Weasley sweaters to Invisibility cloaks. From the Great Hall and its 12 towering Christmas trees to the cozy kitchens of Number 12 Grimmauld Place and the Burrow. There are many reasons and ways that make Christmas truly magical throughout the Harry Potter series.

Harry spent most of his Christmases at Hogwarts–playing wizards chess with Ron (and getting destroyed, literally) or dancing the night away with two left-feet at the Yule Ball during his fourth year, at the Twiwizard Tournament.

Christmas is also a time to gather with loved ones: friends and family. Harry became an adoptive son to the Weasleys, and he got his first real Christmas gifts from Mrs. Weasley (a yearly Christmas sweater–one with his first initial, one with a Hungarian Horntail on it, one with with a Gryffindor lion). Sirius made a grand entrance into his grandson’s life, by anonymously gifting Harry his Firebolt in his third year. Sirius was later abel to host Christmas in Harry’s 5th year, with all of Harry’s family: Lupin, Tonks, the Weasleys, and Hermione.

Pottermore is also celebrating Christmas, and its importance in real life and the Wizarding World. They have put together a beautiful hi-res hi-def Pottermore “Moments” 2016 calendar, available for Muggles and No-Maj alike to download here.

Christmas is a time for love and joy, a grand celebration with friends and family. Even with our/your Dursley-like relatives (though, we hope none of you are gifted a tooth pick or a single tissue). From all of us to all of you, we wish you and yours very happy, merry, and safe Christmas!

Merry Christmas!

Over the weekend, even as most of us were celebrating the fact that a new Star Wars movie did not in any way suck, some portions of the internet got sucked into a pointless, silly debate. Is Rey, the film’s hero, a “Mary Sue”? The answer is no. Next question?

Some spoilers for The Force Awakens ahead…

I wrote about this on my Tumblr, but wanted to get into it in a bit more depth. So here goes.

“Mary Sue” is one of those terms that had a useful meaning in fan culture at one point, long ago, and has now become both vague and toxic. Originally, a “Mary Sue” was an author surrogate, inserted into fan-fiction. The “fan fiction” thing is important, because part of the fantasy of the “Mary Sue” was the fan-fic author getting to live at Hogwarts or travel on board the U.S.S. Enterprise. And this thinly veiled copy of the story’s author is incredibly good at everything, to the point where all the established characters marvel at her (usually it’s “her”) wonderfulness.

The “Mary Sue” is a very specific wish-fulfillment fantasy, in other words. It’s about getting to hang out with Harry, Ron and Hermione, and having them admire you. There’s nothing wrong with that kind of fantasy—we’ve all had it, when we get especially invested in a particular universe—but the term acquired a pejorative meaning because people felt it made for bad stories. Fair enough.

Over time, the term “Mary Sue” has broadened until it means “any female character who is unrealistically talented or skilled.” Which is insane for a couple of reasons: It makes this “trope” so vague as to be meaningless, and this is also purely a way at tearing down female characters who are good at stuff.

So without getting into heavy spoilers, Rey has one element of the “Mary Sue” character locked down: She’s a newly added character in an existing universe. But she’s among a bunch of new characters in the first chapter of a new story, so it’s not like she was introduced halfway through Return of the Jedi and suddenly started out-Lukeing Luke.

Meanwhile, is Rey unrealistically competent? She’s good at fixing machines, having spent her entire life as a scavenger taking apart the crashes spaceships on Jakku. She’s a good pilot, and maybe figures out how to fly an unfamiliar spaceship rather quickly. And she’s strong in the Force, learning to use Force powers incredibly fast. Just as most of The Force Awakens is pretty explicitly patterned on A New Hope, Rey is basically this movie’s answer to Luke Skywalker. Luke touches a lightsaber for the first time about 45 minutes into A New Hope, and is using the Force pretty brilliantly by the end of the movie.

But still, Rey’s prowess in this film is pretty incredible, considering that she doesn’t have Obi-Wan to train her. There are lots of hints that she had some training when she was a child, but in any case, this seems to be one of those “just go with it” things.

(I’d also argue that—SPOILER ALERT!—Kylo Ren teaches Rey a lot about using the Force. Every time she gets better at using it in this film, it’s right after Kylo Ren has tried to use it against her. She sees what he’s doing, and copies it. I thought it was fairly explicit that Kylo Ren is Rey’s “teacher” in this movie.)

But in any case, this is a convention of these sorts of movies. Kingsman also has a protagonist who is useless at the start of the movie and is an invincible badass by the end of the film. Most superheroes have a freakishly steep learning curve, even if they don’t have any powers. (Especially if they don’t have any powers.) If you are worried about realism, go watch My Dinner With Andre.

The thing about Rey, and characters like her, is that she subverts the actual awful trope that is ruining everything: the female character who is badass until the final act of the movie. Most films, with a character like Rey, would have her be ridiculously competent and brilliant until the final 20 or 30 minutes of the film, at which point she suddenly becomes useless and Finn has to solve everything. This is a trope that I have seen in approximately seven billion movies: the super-awesome woman who becomes suddenly less awesome as the male hero takes control of his power.

So yes, Rey is a tad unrealistic. Not unlike everything else in this universe with a magic space elf and fantasy mind powers and spaceships that can jump across the galaxy at the push of a button. What she isn’t, is more unrealistic than most of the other characters.

What the “Mary Sue” thing shows—other than that people will find any craptastic excuse to tear down female characters—is that memes have a decay rate. After a while, they wear out and you gotta find new ones. Fan culture is good at putting its finger on that one thing that’s bugging us at this one specific moment, but then absolutely terrible at generalizing and extrapolating, until you reach the heat death of criticism: total loss of information. This is a failure mode of fan culture, and it’s something to watch out for.

Please Stop Spreading This Nonsense that Rey From Star Wars Is a “Mary Sue”

The 12 Days of Christmas are now most famous as a song about someone receiving lots of presents from their ‘true love’. However, to get to the song there had to be the days to start with!

The 12 Days of Christmas start on Christmas Day and last until the evening of the 5th January – also known as Twelfth Night. The 12 Days have been celebrated in Europe since before the middle ages and were a time of celebration.

The 12 Days each traditionally celebrate a feast day for a saint and/or have different celebrations:

• Day 1 (25th December): Christmas Day – celebrating the Birth of Jesus
• Day 2 (26th December also known as Boxing Day): St Stephen’s Day. He was the first Christian martyr (someone who dies for their faith). It’s also the day when the Christmas Carol ‘Good King Wenceslas‘ takes place.
• Day 3 (27th December): St John the Apostle (One of Jesus’s Disciples and friends)
• Day 4 (28th December): The Feast of the Holy Innocents – when people remember the baby boys which King Herod killed when he was trying to find and kill the Baby Jesus.
• Day 5 (29th December): St Thomas Becket. He was Archbishop of Canterbury in the 12th century and was murdered on 29th December 1170 for challenging the King’s authority over Church.
• Day 6 (30th December): St Egwin of Worcester.
• Day 7 (31st December): New Years Eve (known as Hogmanay in Scotland). Pope Sylvester I is traditionally celebrated on this day. He was one of the earliest popes (in the 4th Century). In many central and eastern European countries (including Austria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, Israel, Italy, Luxembourg, Poland, Slovakia, Switzerland and Slovenia) New Years Eve is still sometimes called ‘Silvester’. In the UK, New Years Eve was a traditional day for ‘games’ and sporting competitions. Archery was a very popular sport and during the middle ages it was the law that it had to be practised by all men between ages 17-60 on Sunday after Church! This was so the King had lots of very good archers ready in case he need to go to war!
• Day 8 (1st January): 1st January – Mary, the Mother of Jesus
• Day 9 (2nd January): St. Basil the Great and St. Gregory Nazianzen, two important 4th century Christians.
• Day 10 (3rd January): Feast of the Holy Name of Jesus. This remembers when Jesus was officially ‘named’ in the Jewish Temple. It’s celebrated by different churches on a wide number of different dates!
• Day 11 (4th January): St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, the first American saint, who lived in the 18th and 19th centuries. In the past it also celebrated the feast of Saint Simon Stylites (who lives on a small platform on the top of a pillar for 37 years!).
• Day 12 (5th January also known as Epiphany Eve): St. John Neumann who was the first Bishop in American. He lived in the 19th century.

Twelfth Night

Twelfth Night was a big time of celebration with people holding large parties. During these parties, often the roles in society were reversed with the servants being served by the rich people. This dated back to medieval and Tudor times when Twelfth Night marked the end of ‘winter’ which had started on 31st October with All Hallows Eve (Halloween).

At the start of Twelfth Night the Twelfth Night cake was eaten. This was a rich cake made with eggs and butter, fruit, nuts and spices. The modern Italian Panettone is the cake we currently have that’s most like the old Twelfth Night cake.

A dried pea or bean was cooked in the cake. Whoever found it was the Lord (or Lady) of Misrule for night. The Lord of Misrule led the celebrations and was dressed like a King (or Queen). This tradition goes back to the Roman celebrations of Saturnalia. In later times, from about the Georgian period onwards, to make the Twelfth Night ‘gentile’, two tokens were put in the cake (one for a man and one for a women) and whoever found them became the the ‘King’ and ‘Queen’ of the Twelfth Night party.

In English Cathedrals during the middle ages there was the custom of the ‘Boy Bishop’ where a boy from the Cathedral or monastery school was elected as a Bishop on 6th December (St Nicholas Day) and had the authority of a Bishop (except to perform Mass) until 28th December. King Henry VIII banned the practise in 1542 although it came back briefly under Mary I in 1552 but Elizabeth I finally stopped it during her reign.

During Twelfth Night it was traditional for different types of pipes to be played, especially bagpipes. Lots of games were played including ones with eggs. These included tossing an egg between two people moving further apart during each throw – drop it and you lose and passing an egg around on spoons. Another popular game was ‘snapdragon’ where you picked raisins or other dried fruit out of a tray of flaming brandy!

The first monday after Christmas feast has finished was known as ‘Plough Monday’ as this was when farming work would all begin again!

In many parts of the UK, people also went Wassailing on Twelfth Night.

Twelfth Night is also known as Epiphany Eve. In many countries it’s traditional to put the figures of the Wise Men/Three Kings into the Nativity Scene on Epiphany Eve ready to celebrate Epiphany on the 6th January.

It’s also traditional to take your Christmas decorations down following Twelfth Night.

Twelfth Night is also the name of a famous play written by William Shakespeare. It’s thought it was written in 1601/1602 and was first performed at Candlemas in 1602, although it wasn’t published until 1623.

The 12 Days of Christmas

Shelter Dog Has The Best Reaction When He Realizes He’s Been Adopted

Fans of the social game “Marvel: Avengers Alliance” would be happy to know that Disney Interactive and Marvel Entertainment has announced a sequel to the first game. Comicbook reports that the “Marvel: Avengers Alliance” will feature enhanced 3D visuals and will soon be up for beta testing in select countries. The sequel will still find gamers in a role-playing game in teams that have to battle against Ultron, Baron Strucker, and other villains.

According to the game’s official website, gamers will have to assemble a team with the Avengers, Daredevil, Guardians of the Galaxy, Spider-Man, and other Marvel superheroes to defeat the bad guys. Furthermore, the heroes have to face a “mysterious series of galactic collisions” known as “Incursions” that threaten the Earth, with the help of the “powerful energy of Iso-8” to prevent the destruction of the world.

“Marvel: Avengers Alliance” was released in March 2012 for Facebook, iOS, Android, and Windows 8. Meanwhile, the sequel will also feature the ability to connect with others via social media, in-app purchases, the option to accept push notifications about exciting news such as fresh content, some advertising for third parties, and advertising for The Walt Disney Family of Companies.

Gamers can already pre-register via the website,marvelavengersalliance2.com. Tech Times reports that those who pre-register will receive a redemption code for an exclusive Power Cell, which will allow the player to get a randomly-selected “Guardians of the Galaxy” hero to use in the game, including Star-Lord, Gamora, Rocket Raccoon, Drax or Groot.

The mission for gamers, if they choose to accept, is the following:

• Assemble the ultimate team to defeat notorious Super Villains
• Strategize and defeat evil forces in epic 3-on-3 combat
• Level up and customize Super Heroes
• Collect and equip unique abilities for each Super Hero
• Take on dozens of replayable missions
• Win bonus rewards for completing Daily Operations
• Get powerful rewards in PVP tournaments
• Team up with friends’ Super Heroes to conquer missions

“Marvel: Avengers Alliance 2” is created by Marvel and Disney Interactive, the digital entertainment part of The Walt Disney Company, whose other products include “Guardians of the Galaxy: The Universal Weapon”, “Star Wars™: Commander”, “Big Hero 6 Bot Fight”, “Star Wars Rebels: Recon Missions”, “Inside Out Thought Bubbles”, “Star Wars: Assault Team”, “Marvel: Avengers Alliance Tactics”, and more. Disney Interactive “produces interactive entertainment for the whole family including multi-platform video games, online short form video, mobile and social games and digital destinations across all current and emerging media platforms.”

Disney Interactive was founded in 2008 and is headquartered in Glendale California. Disney Interactive President Jimmy Pitaro claims, “Our mission is to create experiences with Disney at their hearts and interactive at their cores.”

For more information, log on to disneyinteractive.com.

‘Marvel: Avengers Alliance 2’ Release Date, Mobile Game, Download & Updates: Disney, Marvel Interactive Tease Official Trailer; Xbox 360, Beta Launch To Be Unveiled Soon? [RUMORS]

In the Marvel Cinematic Universe, it’s never fashionable for superheroes to keep wearing the same costumes in every movie. If they want to keep in style, they need to make adjustments, big or small, with each new adventure, and Captain America: Civil War won’t be any exception. Most of the participants in next year’s conflict will be rocking new or altered threads, including Hawkeye and Scarlet Witch, and thanks to a behind-the-scenes photo, we have a great look at what Jeremy Renner and Elizabeth Olsen are wearing for the 2016 blockbuster.