Kudus to Matt Moore at ComicBook.com, run by Marvel’s ex-PR guy with a Marvel alien race named after him, James Vascardi.
They have learned that Marvel has a new Space Knights series to be launched, featuring the cosmic gladiator types of Galador, that used to include Rom The Space Knight when they had the license.
Now with Hasbro, the odds are that at will end up at IDW. But Marvel still owes all the Space Knight stuff that Bill Mantlo and Sal Buscema created for them.
Now you can stage your own Westeros palace intrigue with HBO’s upcoming, intricately designed Game of Thrones toy line. HBO is partnering with McFarlane Toys (as in Spawn creator Todd McFarlane) on making realistic “construction sets” and character figurines based on the hit series.
The first release is the Iron Throne Room (more photos below), which is shown with characters for King Joffrey, Tyrion Lannister, members of the Kingsguard and Lannister guards. Upcoming playsets include a Mother of Dragons set and an Attack on The Wall set. Each includes some scene-specific characters and accessories and retails from $14.99 to $49.99 (the fully stocked spread below includes the Iron Throne Room’s starter kit plus additional characters that cost extra). The figurines ($3.99 each) have articulated body parts and include characters like Tyrion, Jon Snow, Daenerys Targaryen, Grey Worm, Ghost, Rhaegal, an Unsullied, a Crow, a Wildling and a Wight.
“[HBO is] a world-class network and Game of Thrones is one of the most visually compelling shows that I’ve ever seen,” McFarlane said. “We’re thrilled to have the opportunity to create high-quality collectible construction sets based on this fan-favorite property. Both collectors and fans of this epic series can build their favorite scenes with this new product line.”
Finally, you can have your Star Wars figures team with Daenerys and Tyrion to blow up the Death Star (or invent other, far more R-rated Thrones-ian scenerios).
The toys will be revealed at Comic-Con in San Diego next week and will be released to stores this fall. Here’s some more images of the Iron Throne Room:
In the first Avengers movie, Black Widow was the sole female member of the team. With Avengers: Age of Ultron, Marvel introduced a second female superhero to the big screen with Scarlet Witch.
However, The Wasp, who is one of Marvel’s most famous female superheroes and a founding member of the Avengers, has been noticeable absent from the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
At an Ant-Man press event on Saturday, Feige had some good news for fans of the Wasp. In regards to the Wasp, Feige said, “We have plans for her in the future, and we see that not-so-subtly in this film [Ant-Man].”
What are the future plans for the Wasp? Feige didn’t give any more details, but Captain America: Civil War is coming up next for Marvel. Could the Wasp make an appearance in that film?
Ant-Man is scheduled to be released in movie theaters on July 17, 2015.
Since the show started, ABC’s Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D.has been determined to make viewers like Chloe Bennet’s character, Skye. She was the audience surrogate at first, an (apparently) original character who was new to the world of super spies that was just naive enough to need her fellow agents to show her the ropes, but enough of an expert hacker that she could always help them out of a jam if the plot demanded it. Then, the show gave her super powers, revealed that her real name is Daisy Johnson, and suddenly she was a crucial member of the team—and, perhaps more importantly, an actual character from the comics.
Hopefully, Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. viewers are on board with Skye/Daisy’s importance to this little corner of the MCU, because it sounds like she’s going to become an even bigger part of the show when it comes back in September. According to a Variety report, season three of Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. is going to introduce the Secret Warriors, a covert team of super-people who—in the comics—are led by none other than Daisy Johnson. Season two of S.H.I.E.L.D. leaned pretty hard on super-people, and it gave us our first look at MCU Inhumans, so the idea here seems to be that Skye/Daisy will now be getting her own secret team that is tasked with tracking down and helping/fighting people with powers.
In the comics, the Secret Warriors were put together by Nick Fury during the Secret Invasion event to stop a certain race of shape-shifting aliens that Marvel can’t legally use in the MCU, but they eventually started fighting against Hydra—which, conveniently, the Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. were doing for most of last season on their show. Unless the show wants to blow its guest star budget on Samuel L. Jackson again, this version of the Secret Warriors will almost certainly be assembled by Clark Gregg’s Phil Coulson. Other than that, the rest of the Secret Warriors are pretty much all nobodies as far as mainstream Marvel fans are concerned, so it remains to be seen if the show will bother to adapt the comics very closely at all.
Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. will premiere on ABC on September 29th, and you can see a poster that tells you nothing about the premiere below.
This has been a big, weird, transitional year for Spider-Man movie fans. Last May, they were waiting for the sequel to The Amazing Spider-Man – directed by Marc Webb and starring Andrew Garfield – to hit theaters. Sony was expecting to launch its own shared universe, with Spider-Man spinoffs that included Sinister Six, Venom, and an untitled all-female superhero movie. Then, when ASM2 released to worse reviews/box office returns than any previous Spider-Man film, all those plans went off the rails. It didn’t help that Sony Pictures had a rough year generally, one that culminated in an unfortunate hacking scandal that aired all the company’s embarrassing business.
By the time 2015 started, Sony was looking to make bold moves with their company, and one of those moves included teaming up with Marvel to introduce an ALL-NEW Spider-Man to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, first in Captain America: Civil War and then in his own film. Now, some five months later, 19-year-old Tom Holland (Wolf Hall) has been cast in the role.
Here’s what we know about the standalone film so far: it won’t include an origin story (thank the lord) and it will feature a very young Peter Parker in high school. There are other rumors floating around about Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) appearing in the film to recruit Spider-Man for The Avengers, but nothing has been confirmed on that front. However, now that Kevin Feige is starting to do press for the soon-to-be-released Ant-Man, we can probably expect some new information to be revealed here and there.
Case in point: Devin Faraci of Birth.Movies.Death recently talked to Kevin Feige about whether or not we’d see the “soap opera aspect” of Spider-Man in the upcoming movie, to which Feige said:
It’s the soap opera in high school, and those supporting characters, that are interesting. Just as we hadn’t seen a heist movie in a long time, or a shrinking movie in a long time, we haven’t seen a John Hughes movie in a long time. Not that we can make a John Hughes movie – only John Hughes could – but we’re inspired by him, and merging that with the superhero genre in a way we haven’t done before excites us.
Faraci points this out, but it’s worth repeating – the “soap opera aspect” of Spider-Man was incredibly vital to the character and the comics as they were originally conceived. Even Bryan Bendis’ Ultimate reboot was, first and foremost, a soap opera. In fact, the soap opera stuff was such a big deal for Marvel Comics that they (rather clumsily) retconned Peter Parker’s marriage to Mary Jane out of existence just so he could return to life as a single man. And yet, it’s probably fair to say that none of the Spider-Man movies have felt much like a soap opera. I love Spider-Man 2, but even it is far more concerned with Spider-Man and Dr. Octopus than the personal drama between Peter Parker, his aunt, his friends, and his multiple love interests. But that’s the sort of thing that makes Spider-Man so interesting! It’s like how none of the Batman movies have depicted him as an actual detective, despite the fact that that’s his main thing – he’s the world’s greatest detective!
Hearing that Kevin Feige wants to turn to John Hughes for inspiration is music to my ears. That’s the kind of point of view that the last two movies were sorely missing. Does anyone care about the mysterious secret of Peter Parker’s parents? No, not a single person. Does anyone want Peter Parker’s origin to be changed so he has special spider DNA from the get-go? No, that pretty much ruins his everyman status. I’d even wager that people don’t care about big computer-generated super battles with multiple effects-heavy villains unless there’s enough personal drama to back all that up.
Spider-Man, in concept, has a lot in common with 1980s teen dramedies like the ones John Hughes was known for making. It’s about the social hierarchy of high school. It’s about coming of age and falling in love and friendship. It’s about bullies who aren’t black-and-white evil, but are a little more interesting and complicated. That’s what I want to see in a high school-set Spider-Man movie, and then, in between scenes of high schoolers being high schoolers, Spidey can punch as many animal-themed supervillains as he wants.
Will it be enough to put the box office over the top in a way that the last film didn’t? I think so. Then again, I think just seeing a Spider-Man movie trailer that says “from the studio that brought you The Avengers and Guardians of the Galaxy” will do that.
The final installment of CD Projekt Red’s role-playing franchise continues to see strong performance on the Playstation 4 as it has now been confirmed that The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is experiencing exceptional digital sales on Sony’s next-gen console. The official Playstation Blog revealed late last week that The Witcher 3 managed to beat out all other titles last month in order to become the Playstation Store’s top-selling title in May.
“The Witcher 3! The universally loved open world adventure from CD Projekt RED is garnering massive praise from players and critics everywhere, earning it the prestigious number one spot on our PlayStation Store PS4 top sellers chart.”
While The Witcher 3 took the top spot on the PS4, Mortal Kombat X came in second on the overall PS4 digital sales charts. The Witcher 3 actually dethroned the newest entry of the classic fighter as Mortal Kombat X held the No. 1 rank on the list in April.
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt
Since The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is only available on current-gen platforms, CD Projekt Red’s latest release wasn’t competition for opposing Playstation 3 games. Thanks to a recent PS Store sale, BioWare’s Mass Effect Trilogy dominated PS3 digital sales in May.
“Enough folks nabbed Mass Effect Trilogy when it was on sale (can’t argue with that $4.80 price tag) to send it rocketing to the top of the PS3 chart.”
Several games that have long held a position on the PSN sales charts are still holding their ground. Joining The Witcher 3 as high-selling PS4 games, Rockstar Games’ Grand Theft Auto V and Destiny also earned spots on the list. Meanwhile, GTA V barely managed to stay in the top 20 for the Playstation 3 and Destiny has completely fallen off the sales charts for Sony’s last-gen platform.
However, Bungie’s online shooter was still well represented last month since House of Wolves, the second expansion for Destiny, was the most-sold DLC in May for both the Playstation 4 and Playstaton 3. The title’s first expansion, was also still among the top 10 selling add-ons.
Minecraft: Console Editions
Creative survival games were also big sellers last month as both Minecraft and Terraria were seen in the top charts for the PS4, PS3, and PS Vita. The Playstation 4 edition of Don’t Starve also saw a surge of digital sales in May.
Gamers will likely continue to see The Witcher 3 claim its place in the Playstation sales charts in the coming months. With CD Projekt Red’s commitment to support the game over the next two years, gamers will have a reason to keep interested in The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt for quite some time. The developer also strives to improve the game through free title updates, the most recent of which was released over the weekend.
Did you pick up The Witcher 3 on the Playstation 4 last month?
Kudus to Matt Moore at ComicBook.com, run by Marvel’s ex-PR guy with a Marvel alien race named after him, James Vascardi.
