We’re back from break and gearing up for our NerdCorp New Years Eve Marathon Part 4 (I think?)   So come join us as we start on New Years Eve.  Start time to be determined and posted on Twitter come Friday.

 

Aquaman is a hit and haters won’t be able to ever deny it.  While you still have some who claim it’s not Marvel-y enough, the good publicity and strong performance shows that Jason Mamoa was the right pick for the hero and that the character will never be seen as a joke ever again.  Forbes is claiming the Warner Bros. film could net $1 billion at the global box office before it’s all said and done.  Even if Forbe’s estimations are short, that’s still around $750 million.  Which is a reason to celebrate.

In other DC News, it was announced all over social media that Wonder Woman 1984, the followup to the first film has wrapped up it’s principal shooting.  Now, reshoots are always going to happen but this should wrap up 95% of the film.  Fans are eagerly awaiting the film as Aquaman, Shazam and Wonder Woman’s sequel look to turn the tide for DC’s Extended Universe.

DC Universe, their streaming platform is also seeing a big shift.  After Titans ended their first season on a rather high note,  the next show Doom Patrol  (*coming in February), was already green-lit for a second season.  Weeks before the premiere of the first season, the show released a trailer showing Cyborg and Crazy Jane.  While it won’t be the same actor who played Cyborg in Dawn of Justice, fans are still anxiously awaiting his debut in the universe.

Finally DC Universe announced new arrivals of archived stuff coming in the first few months of 2019.  The animated team up films, Superman/Batman: Public Enemies and Apocalypse are both coming.  The former sees the titular heroes battle with the US Government to clear their names, while the indirect sequel sees them team up with Wonder Woman to protect Supergirl from Darkseid.  I prefer the Apocalypse film myself; Doomsday army and all that.

In other animated movies, All-Star Superman, Superman vs. The Elite, and Superman Unbound are all joining.  Animated shows will be making it’s way as well, as Batman the Animated Series and Batman: The New Animated Series will be added as well.

Finishing out the animated series and films are the new animated film Reign of the Supermen, and the latest season of Young Justice: Outsiders.

Several live action properties are coming as well.  Firstly and of course, Doom Patrol.  Next will be season one of SyFy’s Krypton.  While we’ll finally see an official release of the 2006 Aquaman pilot.  The pilot was not meant to serve as a Smallville spin-off , and it would of seen Justin Hartley play the titular hero, replacing Alan Ritchson who premiered as the character a year prior.  Hartley would get cast as Green Arrow in the series and become a series lead near the end of the show’s life.  This panned out well for Ritchson who got to play the character some more on the show, instead of being written out entirely to avoid confusion with the new show.    Ritchson is now playing Hawk on the hit DC Universe show, Titans.

While Hartley became the Green Arrow, and his involvement in Smallville lead to Stephen Amell getting cast in a Green Arrow spin off show, that didn’t feature any ties to Smallville.  The two shows helped raise the profile of the Green Arrow character once again and has lead to some great (and iffy) stories about the modern day Robin Hood.  News came out over the break that the current run for Green Arrow was coming to an end with issue #50.   In a departing Tweet on his account Jackson Lanzing wrote that DC had “wild plans” for the Emerald Archer and that he isn’t going away.  It’s not uncommon for DC to end a run on a mainstay book if dramatic changes are coming to the character.  Just about every character has had their title cancelled or rebooted at some time; save for Action and Detective Comics.

DC is also launching a title that should sure stir the pot on controversy.  THE BATMAN WHO LAUGHS: THE GRIM KNIGHT #1 will focus on a new Batman from another world. The Grim Knight sounds like a combination of Thomas Wayne’s Batman, Earth-1 Batman and Marvels’ The Punisher.  The book’s synopsis reads;

Ripped from Batman’s greatest nightmares, the Grim Knight is his world’s most dangerous vigilante, unafraid to use any weapon and go to any lengths to stop those whom he deems worthy of death. Trained with the finest arsenal Wayne money can buy, learn the secret origin of the second-deadliest Batman, hand selected by the Batman Who Laughs to bring his dark plans to fruition. This one-shot has a big 28-page story!

The book will feature Scott Snyder and Tames Tynion IV writing and Eduardo Risso illustrating.  The Cover for #1 is being handled by ‘JOCK’ (dumb name) with the variant cover by Gabriel Dell’otto.

 

In Star Wars news, John Boyega allegedly claimed that there would be a time jump between The Last Jedi and the 9th installment of the saga.  He claims he didn’t remember giving that interview via his Twitter, but it might just be him being tongue-in-cheek about the interview and spilling the beans.  Disney is very intense about their secrets.

In other Star wars news, Jon Favreau has confirmed that IG-88 will return to the universe in the upcoming Disney+ show, The Mandalorian.

 

And lastly, Fallout 76 is letting banned users come back if they, and I cannot make this up, write an essay.  A user posted about this on a forum on the Fallout sub-reddit and revealed they’d be reinstated if they wrote an essay on why the use of third-party cheat software is detrimental to an online game community.   I mean, why not, right?