The interview was over, but the conversation wasn’t. Because when you get Fantagraphics associate publisher Eric Reynolds talking about comics—not products, not IP, not “content,” but actual lines-on-paper comics—you don’t stop. You keep listening, you keep talking, and ask what keeps someone excited about this beautifully improbable medium after spending decades inside the machine that makes it.

Reynolds remains an evangelist for cartooning and a realist about the business built around it. Comics are still his happy place; corporate consolidation, algorithms, assembly-line publishing, and variant-cover excess are decidedly not. Somewhere between those two poles sits Fantagraphics, a proudly independent publisher that can release uncompromising contemporary work alongside Peanuts, Disney, and archival Marvel comics without pretending that artistic integrity requires financial self-destruction. As Reynolds puts it in four words sharp enough to become a company motto: “Integrity is not purity.”

So, after our official interview about Takumigraphics ended, we kept going—into the anthologies Reynolds constructs like mixtapes, the strange-but-not-really partnership between Fantagraphics and Marvel, and the great cartoonists he still wishes would return to the drawing board. This is a conversation about loving comics enough to remain excited by what they can be, cynical about what the business makes them, and stubborn enough to keep publishing the good stuff anyway.

Marvel Masterworks is coming back, and the people bringing it back know exactly what’s at stake. This isn’t simply another series of hardcover collections; since 1987, Marvel Masterworks has become a library within the House of Ideas that is Marvel, preserving decades of comics in painstaking detail and looking very handsome while doing it. So when Marvel’s long-running line appeared to be ending, fans weren’t just losing some books. They were losing an institution.

Enter Clover Press, which is taking on Marvel Masterworks (in partnership with Marvel, of course) to preserve the reproduction quality, physical format, archival extras, and shelf-to-shelf consistency collectors expect, while adding new editions and collectibles designed to invite more readers into the club. Popverse spoke with Hank Kanalz about how the deal happened, why Clover believes it can make Masterworks work, and the one question every longtime collector wants answered: Will these books still match the ones already bending our shelves?

If you haven't yet, check out Clover Press' Kickstarter for Modern Masterworks. Think of it less as crowdfunding and more as helping Clover figure out how many to make.

Being a teenage demigod can be tough, which is why it’s good to have friends along for the journey. However, Percy Jackson is missing one of his closest friends this season, and even the actor is feeling the sting. Percy Jackson and the Olympians season three will adapt the book The Titan’s Curse, where Annabeth is captured and separated from Percy for the bulk of the story. Filming the season felt surreal for Percy Jackson actor Walker Scobell, who was used to having Annabeth Chase actress Leah Sava Jeffries as his scene partner.

“I think one of my favorite things about Percy is every time there is some impossible thing, there’s just not a question in his mind, he’s going to do it,” Walker Scobell said during a Percy Jackson and the Olympians panel at D23 Expo 2026. “That’s so fun to play as an actor. Watching Annabeth go off the edge, it’s kind of like, okay, here we go, let’s do it. Going through this whole thing without Annabeth…Leah - I’ve done basically every single scene with Leah since we started the show, and this is the first time where she’s just gone for like six months. That was weird and it was kind of like getting used to being alone in the school trailer and then getting used to having Olive [Abercrombie] and Levi [Chrisopulos] in there.”

If you see Percy missing Annabeth this season, just know it’s not acting, the actor actually misses his bestie, and there’s something heartwarming about that. Even teenage demigods need their besties.

There’s more to the opening scene of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice than meets the eye. At first glance, it looks like we’re getting another replay of the ceremonial killing of Thomas and Martha Wayne, but director Zack Snyder was actually setting the seeds for another project. After all, you don’t cast Jeffrey Dean Morgan as Thomas Wayne unless you have bigger plans for him.

“I remember when [Zack Snyder] called me to do the role,” Jeffrey Dean Morgan told Josh Horowitz during an episode of the Happy Sad Confused podcast. Initially, Morgan felt the role didn’t have a lot of screentime, but Snyder told him he was playing the long game.  “I was like, ‘It’s really nothing.’ And he was like, ‘I’ve got bigger plans.’ And I was like, ‘Zack, what does that mean, man?’” Morgan recalled. “He’s like, ‘Can you just trust me?’ And I was like, ‘Of course. And I’m going to do it even without this incentive of there’s more.’”

From the moment Morgan was cast, there were rumors about him reprising his role for a Flashpoint movie. If you aren’t familiar with the comic book, Flashpoint is a storyline where the Flash’s time-traveling alters reality, resulting in a world where Thomas Wayne operates as a ruthless version of Batman.

Luke Castellan isn’t such a bad guy.

Except for when he poisoned Thalia’s tree. Or when he framed Percy for stealing the Master Bolt and Helm of Darkness. And I guess there was that time he led a siege of Camp Half-Blood.

I guess Luke is a bit of a jerk, but there’s more to him than meets the eye. In fact, Luke’s actor Charlie Bushnell believes the Percy Jackson and the Olympians streaming series has fleshed Luke out in a way the original Rick Riordan books haven’t.  

Lobo made his cinematic debut this year in Craig Gillespie’s Supergirl. Jason Momoa portrayed the morally corrupt bounty hunter, bringing the character to the big screen for the first time. However, if things had turned out differently, Lobo would’ve made his cinematic debut in the 2010s, and he would’ve been played by an entirely different actor. After the release of the 2010 film The Losers, Akiva Goldsman had his eyes on doing a Lobo movie with Jeffrey Dean Morgan.

“Akiva Goldsman, the producer who did Losers, had the rights to Lobo,” Jeffrey Dean Morgan told Josh Horowitz during an episode of Happy Sad Confused. “That was real talk. I wanted to do it. I had never heard of Lobo. I dove right in and I was like, oh yeah. It suited my humor and sarcasm, and all that. It didn’t suit my body. But I was like, ‘I’ve got time. I’ve got a year to get big.’ It just never came to be.”

It turns out that Morgan had a lot of time, because the movie never got off the ground. Guy Ritchie was set to direct the film, but he left the project when Warner Bros. fast-tracked his Sherlock Holmes sequel. Morgan also believes Warner Bros. was souring on DC films after the commercial failures of Losers and Watchmen.

The idea of the Absolute Universe is to reimagine DC’s most iconic characters as more violent and extreme. Batman kicks children, the Joker is a monster, Wonder Woman has a giant sword, and Green Arrow is a serial killer.

So, what would the Absolute version of Lobo be like? Mark Brooks, the artist responsible for some of Absolute Batman’s wildest covers, says the character is already as violent and extreme as he could get, making it hard to reimagine him for the Absolute Universe. “It’s really weird; I was thinking to myself, what would Absolute Lobo look like? How do you make him more extreme?” Mark Brooks says during a livestream with ComicsSketchArt.

However, Brooks has a creative way to flip the concept on its head.

The Fantastic Four are about to go through some things. Marvel’s First Family will be getting a makeover for Midnight Fantastic Four, a title launching this October as part of the publisher’s Midnight Marvel initiative. Midnight Fantastic Four, which is set in a new continuity away from the mainstream Marvel Universe, promises to be anything but business as usual. 

“I would be the wrong person to write the Fantastic Four, but I’m the perfect person to write Midnight Fantastic Four,” Midnight Fantastic Four writer Benjamin Percy says during an interview with Comicbook.com’s Chris Killian. “This is an origin story. It’s an origin story of these characters who are facing their own private horrors and come together collectively to face a larger horror. I’m taking a Lovecraftian approach to this, so there is cosmic horror and eldritch horrors that abound.”

Percy says he’s going to have a lot of fun with the team’s powers, playing with the body horror angle. “A lot of body horror. Their powers are in fact curses. What you’ve already seen on some of these covers, like the cover from Ryan Stegman, the cover from Ben Harvey. It’s just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the pain that’s going to be inflicted on these characters that are normally thought of as big-hearted. I’m poisoning the franchise happily.”

Absolute Batman has been a busy guy. He’s fought a monstrous version of the Joker, attacked his mother, and been framed for murder. And that’s just a small sampling of what we’ve seen in the first 23 issues. According to Scott Snyder, the writer of the best-selling series, we’re not even halfway through the book’s first big storyline.

“We have it planned through 50,” Scott Snyder says during a livestream with ComicsSketchArt. “And that’s not the end. It’s the end of the first big cycle that’s all about Batman becoming who he needs to be, fighting the Joker. So, it’s kind of like one giant first year in his life.”

Snyder has previously teased that things really pick up steam after issue 25, which means that as intense as things have been, we haven’t seen anything yet. If Absolute Batman’s current publication schedule remains consistent, we should be seeing issue 50 sometime around late 2028. Since these 50 issues are one big cycle, don’t be surprised if DC puts out a big omnibus afterwards. If they wanted to do something really wild, DC could give the omnibus detachable bat-ears.

Walker Scobell isn’t ready for his Percy Jackson journey to end. The young actor has been starring in the Disney+ streaming series Percy Jackson and the Olympians since 2023, and so far each season has adapted a different novel in Rick Riordan’s Percy Jackson and the Olympians book series. This means that unless the producers deviate from their plans, the series will end in two years after season five finishes adapting The Last Olympian.

However, if you’re familiar with the Percy Jackson books, then you know that Riordan continued to explore the world in another series titled Heroes of Olympus. Percy and his friends are still major players, but the novels focus on a new camp of Roman demigods. Walter Scobell is hoping that Disney+ will adapt that series once Percy Jackson and the Olympians has wrapped.

“If we’re lucky enough, and the stars align, and we get to do Heroes of Olympus, first we finish this, which is also awesome. I would totally get SPQR tattoo,” Walker Scobell said during a Percy Jackson and the Olympians panel at D23 Expo 2026.

Jeffrey Dean Morgan has been a part of some amazing projects. He was a family patriarch in Supernatural, a sociopathic superhero in Watchmen, and a murderous tyrant on The Walking Dead. However, Jeffrey Dean Morgan will never forget one project that slipped through his fingers. Morgan was given the opportunity to audition for Quentin Tarantino’s 1992 film Reservoir Dogs, and the actor was immediately impressed by the script.

“That was the coolest script anybody had ever read, at my age at that time. Everybody wanted it,” Jeffrey Dean Morgan told Josh Horowitz during an episode of Happy Sad Confused.

“I remember going in for [casting director] Ronnie Yeskel, and then they brought me back and Quentin was there, and we didn’t know who Quentin was, but he had written this brilliant fucking script and everybody in town was talking about it,” he continued. “I remember I did the scene and he was like very excited, leaning forward in his chair, doing this whole thing. I want to say that I read Mr. Orange sides.”

It’s hard to imagine anyone but Brandon Rogers voicing Blitzo Bucko. The chaotic imp assassin is one of the best parts of Helluva Boss, thanks in no small part to Rogers’s entertaining voice acting. However, when the actor and comedian was first cast on the adult animated series, he had an entirely different character in mind.

“I just got a phone call from my manager saying there’s this girl on YouTube who makes cartoons who wants to have coffee with you,” Blitzo voice actor Brandon Rogers recalled at a Helluva Boss spotlight panel at GalaxyCon Raleigh 2026. “I met up with her and got offered this. She showed me a picture of the characters and she said, ‘Why don’t you play this one?’ I said, ‘Yes.’ The whole thing was just yeses.”

The only thing that gave Rogers pause was his character. Before he knew everything about Blitzo, he was initially drawn to Moxxie, he said: “I wanted to be Moxxie. Just going off of looks. I thought he looked the coolest, and then I read who these characters are, and I’m so glad I’m not him. [Richard Steven Horvitz] can have that character. I love Blitzo. I love him so much. And I was a personality hire, not an experience hire, but I’m still proud that it fell in my lap nonetheless.”

When Negan made his first onscreen appearance in The Walking Dead season six finale it felt world-shattering. Jeffrey Dean Morgan was menacing, unpredictable, and had the right amount of charisma. However, Jeffrey Dean Morgan felt like this version of Negan got lost over time. By the time the character became the co-lead of the spinoff The Walking Dead: Dead City, Negan had lost his menace, become too sympathetic, and no longer had the commanding presence he once did.

“I felt like last year we really got bogged down in season two, Negan especially,” Jeffrey Dead Morgan told Josh Horowitz during an episode of Happy Sad Confused. “From my point of view, all I did was cry, and he had lost his charisma, and everything that made him Negan. And I called Dan McDermott, who runs AMC, from my trailer after the last day of filming season two, and I said I can’t do it like this anymore. It’s been awesome, and thank you, and I love you. And that started a whole other conversation. ‘Before you run off Jeff, is there a way we can shift this and make it a show that we all think it should be?’”

McDermott addressed Morgan’s concerns, and Negan returned to his roots in Dead City season three. According to Morgan, he wasn’t the only one who felt the character had lost his way.

Guillermo del Toro's name has been on some of the finest monster movies of the past century. He's directed a breathtaking spin on the grandfather of all creature features, Frankenstein, and he's also tackled completely original inventions such as the Reapers from Blade II. However, out of all the inhumans he's made human, a select few have gone down as the filmmaker's favorites. And you probably won't be surprised to learn that they were all played by frequent del Toro collaborator and monster actor Doug Jones.

The subject came up during a Reddit AMA del Toro did ahead of the 20th anniversary theatrical rerelease of his seminal fantasy film, Pan's Labyrinth. It was one Redditor going by the name of u/robotomato13 that brought the subject of favorites up to del Toro, and it was clear from his response that the filmmaker couldn't pick just one.

"There are a few of them," del Toro answered, "The Angel of Death in Hellboy II. I love the Pale Man. I love The Faun, the amphibian man in Shape of Water."

Jim Lee isn't afraid to say that he uses digital comics, nor is he afraid to point out where they fall short as a representation of the medium. The DC Comics president and COO recently spoke to how the digital end of comics is changing the medium at San Diego Comic Con 2026, where the longtime comics vet was hosting a fan Q&A regarding not just his career, but comics in general.

"I still use digital comics," said the Batman: Hush artist, "And I think there's a role for it, vertical comics especially. But nothing beats holding the book and having even the psychological subcue as the book gets towards the climax. I think that does impact how you take in the story, whereas if you read it digitally, you don't know if here's 1000 pages left or 12 pages left.

"The other thing that happens digitally," continued the X-Men staple, "Is you have a giant double page spread that gets shrunk down to the size of the screen, and small panels get blown up. The inverse of what the artist intended is what you're actually seeing in the digital comics. I have mixed feelings about that."

If you still think cartoons are for kids, then Helluva Boss will ruin that idea in minutes. The animated musical comedy gets raunchy, violent, crude, and very adult. It’s not the type of show you can watch with your kids, unless you want them to learn some new phrases that might get them in trouble at school. Helluva Boss regularly pushes the envelope, and it’s hardly the first cartoon to do so.

The voice actors behind the series were inspired by numerous other adult cartoons, but there’s one forgotten series that stood out from the rest. “Drawn Together is the one that comes to my mind,” Blitzo voice actor Brandon Rogers said at a Helluva Boss spotlight panel at GalaxyCon Raleigh 2026. “Everyone loves South Park, but Drawn Together is like the hidden gem. And the cast for that show is stacked. That one was brilliant.”

“I used to watch South Park and Drawn Together and stuff,” Loona voice actress Erica Lindbeck added.

When you’re in a post-apocalyptic wasteland, it’s good to have friends. Unfortunately, Maggie and Negan have one another instead. The two have a complicated history, mostly because Negan killed Maggie’s husband Glenn on The Walking Dead. If Maggie had her way, she would’ve killed Negan a long time ago, but the two have been forced to work together to survive on the spinoff The Walking Dead: Dead City.

Maggie would love nothing more than to be as far away from Negan as possible, and it turns out, she almost got her wish. When AMC was ending The Walking Dead, there were talks of putting Negan and Maggie in separate spinoffs, until the ideas were combined.

According to Negan actor Jeffrey Dean Morgan, the concept began during the final days of The Walking Dead, as Negan and Maggie (Lauren Cohen) were being positioned as the new leads. “Originally it was [Norman Reedus] was going to do his show, and then [Lauren Cohen] and I were called by [AMC programming president Dan McDermott] maybe, and [showrunner Scott Gimple], and they were like, we’re going to have you and Lauren take over the main franchise. You’ll be the heads of the new franchise and we weren’t splitting off,” Jeffrey Dean Morgan told Josh Horowitz during an episode of Happy Sad Confused.

Doc season 3 is coming to a screen near you very soon, and Popverse has everything you need to know about the medical drama right here. We'll answer your FAQs as delicately as possible, avoiding getting into specific plotlines, but keep in mind that some of these answers require spoilers. Consider this a spoiler warning for Doc seasons 1 & 2.

The Doc season 3 release date is September 22. 

Doc season 3 will stream on Hulu.

The Rookie season 9 is fast approaching, and Popverse has everything you need to know ahead of the next chapter of the popular cop drama. Airing on ABC and streaming on Hulu since 2018, The Rookie has amassed a giant fanbase, and we're here to guide all of those fans into the next Nathan Fillion-starring season.

The Rookie season 9 release date is confirmed for January 2027, however, a specific The Rookie season 9 release date has yet to be pinned down by ABC or Hulu.

The Rookie season 10 has not yet been confirmed by ABC or Hulu. However, The Rookie season 9 was confirmed in April of 2026 and The Rookie season 8 was confirmed in April of 2025, so it is possible that ABC will confirm The Rookie season 10 in April of 2027.

In 2023, DC Comics decided the way to make their biggest comics even bigger... was to shrink them. That's the year that DC Compact Comics was born, the line of full-color reprints that takes the publisher's biggest titles - like All-Star Superman and Kingdom Come - and worked them down into more traditional paperback book size. Following its launch, DC Compact was responsible for 4 out of the 10 best-selling graphic novels of 2024, and publishers like Marvel, Image, and Dark Horse all came up with their own versions of the idea. It's one of the biggest success stories in recent comics history...

And Jim Lee has a pretty good idea of the reasons why.

Lee said as much at his San Diego Comic Con 2026 spotlight panel, where the DC Comics president and COO was, unsurprisingly, happy to talk about all the recent successes of the superhero publisher. Specifically, he got onto the topic of the smaller reprints whe. a fan asked how the project had changed the industry.

The films of Guillermo del Toro have such distinct visuals that they are sometimes recognizable from just a single frame. And yet, not every visual element del Toro works into his films are 100% memorable... nor are they meant to be. In a recent fan Q&A, del Toro revealed that while working on the classic dark fantasy film Pan's Labyrinth, some of the director's visual choices spoke more to the viewer's subconscious than anything else. 

The topic came up during a Reddit AMA del Toro did ahead of the 20th anniversary rerelease of the 2006 dark fantasy. one fan, a Redditor going by u/Jurassic_Nature, asked del Toro whether there were any details of the film he was "particularly proud of," that haven't been noticed by fans over the past two decades. 

"I have had many fights with production design and makeup effects throughout my 30 years," began The Shape of Water  creator, "And the things that I fight for that are contrarian, a lot of people don't notice consciously, but they notice in the way the movie impacts."

The death of Peter Cullen was a shock to many people. His work on the Transformers series, where he famously played the heroic and noble Optimus Prime for decades, gave him an undeniable place in the history of animation. While he didn’t take on many roles in anime dubbing over the years, he was the voice of anime for a whole generation of fans. Not because of any specific role but because he narrated the promotional bumps for many of the classic anime on the Toonami block, including Dragon Ball Z, Yu Yu Hakusho, and, weirdly enough, Hamtaro.

These promos are never going to be what Peter Cullen is known for. He’ll always be Optimus Prime to many fans around the world; it is a role he played starting in the original The Transformers animated series in 1984 all the way through to the Michael Bay films. His final performance as the character was finally shown in cinemas around the world this week, more than 40 years after he first stepped into the booth as Optimus Prime. Even with that firmly being his legacy (and what a legacy it is), his impact on the anime fandom is surprisingly large considering he didn’t have a major anime acting role outside.

Ask the average horror fan what Guillermo del Toro project they'd like to see make it to the big screen, and odds are they'll wistfully tell you something about his At the Mountains of Madness. Del Toro's adaptation of the H.P. Lovecraft story of the same name has become something of a white whale for horror fans (and perhaps the director himself), perfect for the Oscar-winning talents but long stuck in development hell.

However, as del Toro recently revealed in a fan Q&A, At the Mountains of Madness isn't the only Lovecraft story he cold see himself doing.

The fan Q&A in question was a Reddit AMA del Toro recently did in advance of the 20th anniversary rerelease of Pan's Labyrinth. During the interview, a fan writing under the name u/Madarakita asked the longtime horror vet if there were any other Lovecraft adaptations besides At the Mountains of Madness he'd like to get his hands on. And while del Toro seemed to have some answers lined up, they did come with a caveat.

If you only know Laura Bailey from her characters out of the Critical Role universe, you might think of her roles as mostly heroic. Both her avatars in The Legend of Vox Machina and The Mighty Nein, after all, go about saving the realm of Exandria every day. But take a look at Bailey's video game work and you'll see a trend of far more morally grey characters - from ABby in The Last of Us Part II to her more recent turn as Invisigal in Dispatch. It's a vein that runs deep in Bailey's career, and recently, the beloved voice actor spoke to why.

Specifically, Bailey got into her love of complex characters at San Diego Comic Con 2026, where she was a guest at the hour-long Dispatch panel. The event's moderator, fellow Dispatch voice actor Erin Yvette (AKA Blonde Blazer) was the one who brought up Bailey's history of less-than-noble characters, asking "What is it about characters like Visi that you run toward them, when everybody else is running away?"

"I don't know what other characters you're referring to," Bailey responded, which of course got a laugh from the crowd. Those fans love their Invisigal, folks.

A whole new generation of fans is discovering the world of Ghost in the Shell now that the first faithful anime adaptation is airing. Now, there will be even more reason to dive into Masamune Shirow’s iconic world. This time, we’re exploring the iconic Ghost in the Shell setting from an American perspective as the FBI has its own encounter with the Puppeteer.

The announcement came earlier this month. The new series, Glitch Witch, will be set at the same time as Ghost in the Shell but on the other side of the world.

“As the FBI, AI researchers, and the military investigate, they witness an extraordinary battle between Project 2501, also known as ‘the Puppeteer,' which merges with protagonist Kusanagi at the end of The Ghost in the Shell, and a Solomon-class AI entrusted with the fate of humanity,” is the description given in the official announcement.

You may have seen that picture taken of a young Alan Moore speaking at the Eisner Awards while an elderly Jack Kirby looks on with a look of amusement on his face. As it turns out, Kirby met tons of other colorful figures over the years once he and his wife, Roz, moved to Thousand Oaks in Southern California. 

At San Diego Comic-Con's Annual Jack Kirby Tribute Panel, Kirby's granddaughter, Tracy Kirby, recalled some of the folks who came by Jack and Roz's home in Thousand Oaks. "Well, growing up, I was a little disappointed because I was too young, I was told, to babysit Mark Hamill's kids, and he used to come over to the pool... That was the one thing, people like Jack and Roz were so friendly with everybody," Tracy Kirby began. 

"Glenn Danzig, that was the strangest," she said, recalling the Misfits singer dropping by the Kirbys' home. "I came into their little kitchen, their little dining room... and Roz is making sandwiches, and Jack is sitting at the table. And then here was this guy dressed completely opposite of them... And he was the nicest guy." 

Charlie Cox has been playing Daredevil for a long time now. More than a decade, in fact. However, the character still hasn’t become second nature to him, and he still has to put a lot of effort into certain aspects of Daredevil. One thing Cox still hasn’t settled on is his American accent, which still slips up when he says certain things.

During an interview with Empire Magazine, Charlie Cox talked about not being able to be complacent with his Daredevil performance, even after he’d been in the role for several years and in multiple Netflix series. “Some of the technical stuff, it’s not got harder, but it just hasn’t got easier,” Cox admitted. “The blind acting is always a challenge. Maybe it’s because I overthink it a little bit and I worry about it not working, but that’s never got easier.”

The thing that Cox has never fully gotten the hang of is Daredevil’s accent. The actor was born in London and has to put on an American accent whenever he plays Daredevil. “I still have to do a lot of voice lessons for my accent, and work with a voice coach. I would have imagined that 12 years later, that would just be second nature, almost like my own voice. But it’s not.” He specifically cites one phrase that he simply couldn’t say with an American accent and had to be called in to rerecord his lines. He says he “had to ADR every single one [of his pronunciations of ‘caramel corn’] because I got them wrong… I had to go back and do all of them. That was a traumatic experience, the caramel corn.”

When Guillermo del Toro's Pan's Labyrinth came out in 2006, the goth kid world as we knew it completely changed. For two decades, weird kids the globe over have been connecting with the story of Ofelia and the Faun, have fallen in love with its moody fairy tale vibes and its memorable creature designs. However, there was one weirdo who wasn't enjoying it for much of that time:

Guillermo del Toro himself. 

The Frankenstein director revealed as much during a Reddit AMA that took place September 9. Part of the reason del Toro was there, we presume, was to help promote the Pan's Labyrinth 20th anniversary rerelease, coming just one month after the AMA went down. Ironically, though, a question posed by fan u/NarrowBill3292 sparked del Toro recounting that, in the years after the film originally debuted, he stayed away from viewing it.

The latest episode of Lanterns dropped a pretty major bombshell on fans, giving them confirmation about who is causing all the trouble in Rushville. However, Lanterns Episode 5 also hinted at a connection to another major DC superhero – Batman. While we can expect the remaining three episodes of Season 1 to clear up the Manhunter business, one Lanterns star warns that fans shouldn’t expect much more into the newly revealed Gotham City backstory.

When Hal Jordan showed up in Rushville, Nebraska, he was coldly greeted by local law enforcement, represented by Sheriff Kerry Kane. Lanterns Episode 5 revealed that Kerry originally hails from Gotham City, which is interesting because her surname is also the maiden name of Martha Wayne, Bruce Wayne/Batman’s mother. Bruce Wayne’s cousin, Kate Kane, would eventually become Batwoman in the comics. Naming a character Kane in Gotham City is hardly an accident, especially when so much attention is on the inevitable Batman casting announcement. It would be like a character named Anthony Kent being revealed to be from Smallville. The name has importance to fans. However, we shouldn’t expect anything to come from this storyline.

Kelly Macdonald, who plays Sheriff Kerry Kane, recently told The Hollywood Reporter that “[Lanterns] doesn’t go too much into that, to be honest.”

2025 saw one of the biggest events in recent comic book history - a long-awaited crossover between DC and Marvel Comics. That book was Deadpool/Batman, and it was the first joint effort by the Big Two since 2004. Very shortly after, the streams crossed again for a Spider-Man/Superman crossover, and fans have been thinking about what's next in the publishers' crossover futures ever since. Interestingly enough, DC's own president and COO has also been thinking about what's next...

But Jim Lee isn't sharing those thoughts just yet.

Lee touched on the future of Marvel/DC crossovers at San Diego Comic Con 2026, during a panel that spotlighted the legendary X-Men artist's career. An attending fan asked Lee which two characters from the respective publishers were "overdue" for crossover, and Lee was very careful not to give a definitive answer, lest it be taken out of context.

Sure, everybody knows Critical Role's Laura Bailey and Travis Willingham for the work in the fantasy space. But even if you weren't aware of their previous superhero work (such as Mary Jane Watson and Superman, respectively), 2025 almost certainly changed that with its release of the comic book satire Dispatch. As the characters of Invisigal and Phenomaman, Bailey and Willingham had some of the greatest moments in a game full of 'em, and at a recent appearance, they got into which ones stuck with them the most.

Both Bailey and Willingham were guests at San Diego Comic Con 2026, where the The Legend of Vox Machina voice actors attended an hour long Dispatch panel. Hosted by fellow Dispatch voice actor Erin Yvette (AKA Blonde Blazer), the panel had each attending cast member go over their favorite lines from recording the game.

"I liked in the early game tutorial," said Willingham, "Saying, 'Oh look, another subscribber.'"

Yes, he is undeniably the father of modern fantasy - but let us never forget that The Lord of the Rings author J.R.R. Tolkien is also a card-carrying wife guy. The relationship he had with Edith Tolkien (née Bratt) is one of the loveliest in literary history, and today, their graves are side by side and inscribed with the names Beren and Lúthien, referring to the romantic saga Tolkien built up as the greatest in all Middle-earth history. 

So you can understand why, when Jamie Campbell Bower was cast in The Rings of Power as a romantic character, he was pulling from the real romance of his character's creator.

Bower recently sat down with Empire Magazine for their summer issue, which came out in advance of Prime Video's season 3 of the Middle-earth adaptation. "I was thinking," the Stranger Things actor recounted, "'Where does my heart and my creative brain want to be? Where do I want to be?' I was like, 'It has to be love.'"

Magic: The Gathering's next set, Reality Fracture, will be released in early October. And now, Wizards of the Coast is alerting us ahead of time that it might be difficult to find play booster packs "in the weeks after the set's release" in North America. But if you're planning on getting a Reality Fracture prerelease kit from your local gaming shop, fear not: prerelease kits are unaffected by the Reality Fracture booster pack delays. Similarly, the set's pre-constructed commander deck, collector booster boxes, bundle, and draft night bundles are unaffected by any delays. 

This announcement was made on the official Magic: The Gathering website, along with more information for other global regions affected by delays. The site also notes that "Omega Collector Boosters (single Collector Boosters that are available at larger retailers) will also be delayed." The one region unaffected by product delays is Japan, in case you were wondering. 

So why are we expecting a delay in play booster packs after Reality Fracture releases? As it turns out, the cause of all of this isn't Jace Beleren's machinations spilling over into our world, but the discrete charm of the Panama Canal. According to another post on Magic's site, "there is a drought in a freshwater lake in Panama that feeds the [Panama] canal, and the lower water levels have created a bit of a traffic jam in the canal. One of the ships caught in that naval snarl is carrying a percentage of our Reality Fracture Play Boosters that are headed to North America, so supply will be tighter at launch than anticipated as those boosters make their way through the logjam."

Those of us who saw The Lord of the Rings in theaters when we were young were likely, justifiably, a little bit terrified of Galadriel. Not only could she go photo-negative at the drop of a hat - she had the uncanny ability to produce visions of terror arguably more frightening than anything that actually happened in the cinematic trilogy. These days, Galadriel's visions are on the small screen, but according to the actor playing her in The Rings of Power, her visions will be just as terrifying.

Terrifying, even, to Galadriel herself.

That actor is, of course, Morfydd Clark, who has been portraying one of Tolkien's most powerful elven icons since season one of Prime Video's Middle-earth adaptation. Speaking to Empire Magazine for their summer issue, Clark got into what was going on in her character's head for the upcoming third season of Rings of Power.

If you close your eyes and picture the X-Men, Batman, or the Justice League, there’s a very good chance you’re imagining something Jim Lee drew.

For more than 35 years, Lee has been one of the defining artists of superhero comics, transforming Marvel’s X-Men into a record-breaking phenomenon before co-founding Image Comics and creating WildC.A.T.s. He later moved to DC, where books like Batman: Hush, Superman: For Tomorrow, and Justice League helped shape how a new generation saw the publisher’s biggest heroes. Lee’s influence is everywhere: in superhero costumes, blockbuster action sequences, splash pages crammed with meticulous detail, and the belief that a single artist can make a comic feel like the biggest cultural event of the year.

But the best Jim Lee comics aren’t necessarily the ones that sold the most copies, introduced the most collectible covers, or produced the longest lines at the convention signing table. This ranking focuses on the comics themselves: Lee’s visual storytelling, his chemistry with each writer, inker, and colorist, the ambition of the work, and the mark it left on superhero comics. From Uncanny X-Men and Divine Right to Batman and the Justice League, these are the essential Jim Lee stories, and the comics that explain why his version of superheroes became the version so many of us carry around in our heads.

Christmas time is here, or so the song goes. And while you might be scurrying around to pick up holiday gifts for your loved ones, another problem arises: what movies should you watch this holiday season? But fear not: we've got you covered on what to watch for Christmas this year. 

Quick Picks

Best overall: Batman Returns

Yuri Lowenthal has spent years giving a voice to Peter Parker, and all the responsibility, loss, and perseverance that come with being Spider-Man. Now, the Marvel’s Spider-Man and Marvel Rivals actor is bringing some of his own experiences with grief and loss to a new comics project.

Lowenthal has written the foreword for Fanbase Press’ collected edition of Shrub, a middle-grade graphic medicine series about a sentient shrub accompanying a grieving brother and sister on a cross-country journey to Hollywood. Fanbase Press has launched a Kickstarter campaign to fund the expanded print collection. 

Yes, the hero at the center of the story is literally a shrub. But underneath that knowingly unusual premise is a story about the different ways grief can take root,  and how people might begin finding their way back to one another.

There are action figures inspired by the past, and then there are action figures that look like they might have fallen through a wormhole from the strangest toy aisle of 1977, stopping somewhere around 1984 to pick up a few storytelling lessons from Larry Hama and Snake Eyes.

Wandering Planet Toys is betting on the latter with Planetoid Raiders, a new line of 1:18-scale retro space figures headed to Kickstarter. The collection comes from company co-founders Gavin Hignight and Chris 'Doc' Wyatt, whose previous releases have turned cult-favorite pop culture into toys, including Kolchak: The Night Stalker, Nancy Drew, The Prisoner, Laurel and Hardy, and cartoonist Fletcher Hanks’ Headless Ones.

This time, however, they aren’t adapting an existing cast. They’re building a universe of their own; one populated by fearless pilots, deeply questionable decision-makers, slime-world saxophonists, and at least one robot whose acronym spells exactly what you think it does (C.R.A.P.).

Everyone seems to have a theory about who will be replacing Daniel Craig as James Bond, and that includes Hollywood insiders. Earlier this week, Slow Horses star Gary Oldman seemed to imply that his co-star Jack Lowden had nabbed the part of 007, but he recently walked back those comments and said that he merely hoped Lowden would be the next James Bond.

Last week, Gary Oldman appeared to have said that Jack Lowden would be the next James Bond. “It’s been rumored that [Lowden is] on the shortlist,” he said of his Slow Horses co-star while talking to Canada's The Morning Show. “They have made their choice, but they have not announced it yet. So my fingers are crossed for Jack.”

Lowden is indeed one of the names leading the 007 casting news, along with Jack Barton, Callum Turner, and Jack O’Connell, so Oldman’s words didn’t come as a huge shock to fans. However, the implication that Jack Lowden would be the next Bond was new, especially from someone as connected as Gary Oldman.

Don't let anyone ever tell you that Guillermo del Toro doesn't have an incredible sense of humor. Look no further than his recurring role as Pappy McPoyle, the freaky patriarch of an even freakier family that appear on the long-running comedy It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. That said, though del Toro's been doing a great job since he debuted the character in season 8, he's not looking to get into the comedy world in the long term.

We know as much thanks to a Reddit AMA del Toro did in the weeks leading up to the 20th anniversary rerelease of his seminal dark fantasy, Pan's Labyrinth. What reddit user u/MuptonBossman wanted to know about, though, was about a hypothetical movie that hasn't been made - that is, a del Toro-directed Always Sunny feature. If given the chance, asked the fan, would the Hellboy icon direct it?

"I would not even try," the Frankenstein director answered, "Because comedy is really hard, number one. I have toyed with that tone in the Hellboy movies and a little bit on Blade 2—even in Shape of Water, there's a little bit—but a full-on comedy is really hard."

This year has been a rough one for Doctor Who fans. At the end of the previous season, Ncuti Gatwa’s Fifteenth Doctor regenerated into Billie Piper. Since then, the 2026 Christmas special was cancelled, and the show has been put to tender, meaning that the BBC is looking for someone to help cover the rising costs of producing Doctor Who. Long-time Doctor Who producer Jane Tranter says that this period of inactivity could be exactly what the series needs to come back stronger.

Jane Tranter co-founded Bad Wolf alongside Russell T Davies and has been attached to the Doctor Who series in various ways since the New Who era began. While Bad Wolf seem to no longer be involved in the future of Doctor Who, she still has plenty of thoughts about where the series is going. “We started Doctor Who – Russell T Davies, Julie Gardner and myself – back in 2005 and we finished this current era off, and it felt like it was a kind of noble and good bookending,” she explained during a recent appearance on BBC Radio Wales. “And there will be a new era to come, and who knows what will happen and who knows who will be part of that?”

Tranter did offer a bit of a bright spot for fans, though, by saying that more Doctor Who is almost assuredly on the way. “Doctor Who will continue in some way, but every show needs a pause after it’s been going for that length of time, and Doctor Who will take its course and will regenerate in whatever form. And it will rise and be wonderful, and I am absolutely sure it will be Wales-Based.”

The talent of any TTRPG game master lies in how well they can adapt to their players, and Critical Role's Matt Mercer has that talent in spades. For all the incredible stories that the actual play has produced - stories like the one being adapted into Prime's The Mighty Nein series, for example - you might be tempted to think Mercer has every story beat and piece of worldbuilding laid out, but in fact, that isn't always the case. Take, for example, Mercer's recent return to the world of Age of Umbra.

In case you don't know, Age of Umbra and its sequel, Age of Umbra: Sallowlands, are set in a world devised for Critical Role's own TTRPG, Daggerheart. Mercer was not only the GM for the two Age of Umbra miniseries currently on Beacon, but was a lead designer in the Age of Umbra campaign setting, which makes it all the more impressive that Mercer could think on his feet when one of his players wanted to do something differently than he had planned.

To be fair, though, that player was the kind of person that's easy to accommodate: that is, Our Flag Means Death's own Vico Ortiz.

With the current rise of both manga and Webtoons, the comic book medium has never been more diverse. It isn’t just the variety of stories that are being shared or the different creators involved; it is also the contrasting styles. Manga remains a predominately black and white medium while Webtoons are typically published in full color. According to Webtoon hit Eleceed’s illustrator, there is a specific reason for this, and it has to do with how people are reading comics.

Zhena has been illustrating Eleceed since 2018, alongside writer Jeho Son. She recently visited Anime Expo 2026 and talked about the difference between Webtoons and manga on a more technical level than we’d considered before. She was asked why most manga are black and white while Webtoons are typically in full color.

One of the best parts about comic conventions is artist alley. Not only do you get a chance to meet your favorite creators, but you can pay them to sketch or ink a custom piece of art (for a price). For creators, it’s a great way to connect with fans and earn some extra income. For fans, it’s a way to own an exclusive piece of artwork from one of your favorite creators. However, there is something about the practice that bothers Spawn creator Todd McFarlane.

“A lot of artists go to the shows and for the most part sit in artist alley, and they do these sketches,” Todd McFarlane says during a conversation with ComicPop Returns. “The only frustrating part of that is you do this beautiful drawing, and then one person gets to see it. And if they don’t show people it on Instagram or TikTok or wherever, it is a beautiful piece that is hidden.”

“One guy I just saw the other day, I was like, that is cool and horrifying at the same time. It was a guy who was a big David Finch fan. And I guess he must have followed David over the years and got sketches from him. And he had an entire wall framed of these staggeringly beautiful images. I was counting them up on the wall, and I was like, that is almost two comic books. That could’ve been two more comic books. Or do the commission for the person and then take a scan of it before so that somebody can use it as a cover later.”

Critical Role's Matt Mercer is pretty darn used to players throwing a wrench in his plans. As the primary GM for the it TTRPG actual play series, Mercer says he was "forged in the fires" of chaos gremlins like Sam Riegel and Laura Bailey. These days, Mercer's on the other side of the table - but that doesn't mean he's not still rolling with the punches. In fact, Mercer had a long-standing Campaign 4 idea that was blown to smithereens not by another PC at all... but by GM Brennan Lee Mulligan.

Before we get into that though, let me warn you: Major spoilers are on their way (in case you missed the other warnings).

Still here? Alright, great; Mercer recently spoke about having his plans dashed by Mulligan in the July edition of Fireside Chat, the Critical Role Fan Q&A that streams on Beacon. The subject at hand came up when one eager Critter wrote in to ask The Legend of Vox Machina star if there was anything Mulligan has done in the ongoing campaign thus far that caught him off guard.

Dungeons and Dragons has been around for more than 50 years now, and in that time, fans have grown hungry for expansion books, merchandise, dice, maps, miniatures, and more. But that's not all; D&D fans have fallen even more in love with the Forgotten Realms setting in spinoff novels and comics, too. Because what's nerdier than playing tabletop roleplaying games than enjoying a novel that's set within the world of a tabletop roleplaying game? Without much further ado, I've amassed the very best gifts you can get for the D&D gamer and dungeon master in your life. 

Best overall: Norse Foundry Lapis Lazuli Boulder 30 mm D20 die

Best budget gift: Homeland by R.A. Salvatore (Book 1 in The Dark Elf Trilogy)

One of the coolest things about Spectacular Spider-Man is those stunning Marcos Martin splash pages at the beginning of the first three issues. The first three issues of the series, which just got promoted from limited to ongoing, begin with a character biography page, bringing you up to speed on the main cast. Issue one covers Spider-Man himself, issue two covers Mr. Negative, and issue three gives readers a primer for the Punisher.

Each one is beautifully drawn, but have you noticed anything familiar about them? If you did, that’s because Spectacular Spider-Man: Brand New Day writer Dan Slott asked Marcos Martin to use the 1980 Marvel Coca-Cola posters as inspiration. If you aren’t familiar, in 1980 Marvel Comics and Coca-Cola collaborated on three promotional posters, featuring the Hulk, the Fantastic Four, and Spider-Man.

The Spider-Man poster was illustrated by Alex Saviuk, the Fantastic Four poster was illustrated by John Byrne, and the Hulk poster was illustrated by Sal Buscema. Each poster gave a rundown on the character’s origin, powers, and general status quo. Dan Slott fondly remembered these posters, and told Martin to use them as an example for his Spectacular Spider-Man splash pages.

Our Smoking Behind the Supermarket with You release schedule gives you the latest on both the manga and anime release dates for the series. Like many people, we got introduced to the manga through the anime, so we’re excited to get caught up on the nicotine-laden adventures of Sasaki and Tayama. Like any romance manga, this one is a slow burn, so strap yourselves in for the long haul.

New chapters of Smoking Behind the Supermarket with You come out most months in Monthly Big Gangan. The magazine, which is published by Square Enix, is published on the 25th day of each month. That means that we have a pretty good idea of when new Smoking Behind the Supermarket with You chapters will be released.

Mark Millar is a long way from being done in comics. The longtime comic scribe, known for gritty projects like The Authority, has a great deal of creator-owned material currently on shelves at comic shops and bookstores worldwide, but his list of future projects goes far beyond that. And in a recent interview, Millar gave the comic book world an idea of just how long that list was.

Millar was a recent guest on the TASQ ART YouTube page, where the veteran comic writer spoke about his decades-long work in the comic book industry and, by extension, on the film and TV projects that his work has inspired. But toward the end of the discussion, the conversation turned toward Millar's future, a future that extends - if Millar is to be believed - into the 2040s.

"I've got roughly the next 16 years worked out," Millar said. "It sounds nuts, right? But you know, things will change and things will come forward, things will get pushed back."

Scott Snyder wasn’t always going to be the writer for Absolute Batman. Although the Absolute Universe was his idea, he saw himself as more of a godfather or showrunner, delegating titles to different creators. However, Snyder found it difficult to lock down a writer and artist for the series. He offered it to a few creators, including Daniel Warren Johnson.

“I didn’t know that I would be the one that wrote Absolute Batman,” Scott Snyder says during a conversation with YG Panel at Fan Expo Chicago. “I had it as an idea of like if we do the Absolute Universe, what Batman was like, the example of how you could do it. So, I was pitching to other people.”

“I asked Daniel Warren Johnson to do it himself. Like, do you want to write and draw it? And then he told me, ‘Actually, I have a new gig.’ And I was like, ‘What is it?’ He was like, ‘I’m on Transformers.’ I was like, ‘Dang. You should do that. It’s going to be awesome.’ Daniel, I asked to do it. A couple of other people before I knew I was going to do it.”

With the runaway success of DC’s Absolute Universe line, it was only a matter of time before Marvel Comics came up with their own version. Launching on October 7, Marvel Midnight is an imprint that reimagines some of Marvel’s most iconic characters through a horror-themed lens. The imprint will launch with Midnight Spider-Man, Midnight Fantastic Four, and Midnight X-Men, but if they’re successful, it’s likely more titles will follow.

Will Marvel Midnight give the publisher the same success DC had with their Absolute Universe? Marvel is certainly banking on it, which is why each of their launch titles has a multi-year plan. “We’re all pitching multi-year plans. I’ve got a 36, 48 [issue], and longer plan,” Midnight X-Men writer Jonathan Hickman says during an interview with Comicbook.com’s Chris Killian.

“I have at least 24 issues mapped out right now,” Midnight Fantastic Four writer Benjamin Percy adds.  “And obviously plans to go much longer,” Hickman says. “I don’t want to be dramatic or anything like that, but I’m perfectly happy doing this for a really long time.”

From spring 2025 through spring 2026, the Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles hosted a special exhibition called Jack Kirby: Heroes and Humanity that collected The King of Comics' original illustrations and other artifacts from his life and career in comics, World War II, and more. For comic book fans in the Los Angeles area, the Skirball's exhibit was a rare opportunity to see Kirby's work up close and reflect on his long and storied career. Fans from around the rest of the country, however, were probably feeling left out.

But we have good news for Jack Kirby fans in Chicago and New York. The Jack Kirby: Heroes and Humanity exhibit is coming to a museum in your city sometime soon! This announcement was made at San Diego Comic-Con's Annual Jack Kirby Tribute panel this year. 

"Jeremy [Kirby] and the family, we were involved from the beginning to see it come to fruition.  And I am happy to announce that this exhibit is going to be moving on to Chicago as well as New York City in the next couple of years," Tracy Kirby, Jack's granddaughter, said. 

Manga fans might not immediately recognize the name Shihei Lin, but they’re probably familiar with some of the series he’s worked on. The editor has helped Chainsaw Man, DanDaDan, and Spy x Family become the massive hits that they are, so when he established his own manga company earlier this year, we took notice. Now, he is accepting applications for an apartment complex specifically for mangaka, where they can write and draw without worry of anything else.

The announcement came last week on social media, where Shihei Lin explained that the VUY apartment complex was opening up for more residents. “VUY is an apartment designed to provide an environment where you can focus solely on creating manga. All costs related to moving in and daily living are fully supported, so there are basically no expenses associated with taking up residency. If you’re someone who can’t dedicate time to creative work due to your job or other commitments, or if you’re aiming to serialize your work and want to devote all your time to manga, we warmly invite you to apply.”

VUY was launched in May 2026, not long after it was announced that Shihei Lin was adding a manga department to his company, which would put him in direct competition with his former employers at Shueisha. On the apartment complex’s website, he is listed as Dormitory Head and Producer. This new batch of residents will be their third intake.

The Black Lagoon release schedule has always been pretty sporadic. Not quite as bad as something like Berserk, but it isn’t uncommon to go months between chapters. However, the series is always worth the wait, which is why we try to keep our Black Lagoon release schedule up to date: we don’t want anyone to miss a moment of the action.

There is no set schedule for when Black Lagoon chapters come out. In general, we usually expect two or three chapters a year, but that is not a set rule. When new Black Lagoon chapters are announced, it is always a cause for excitement.

The Street Fighter franchise has never been about deep, meaningful lore. A bunch of people get into a fighting tournament, a couple of cars get punched, and maybe the world is saved from a superpowered cult leader. However, the actors for Vega and Balrog in the 2026 Street Fighter remake have a personal connection to the characters they’re playing and reasons for wanting to do them justice.

“Everybody had a really deep, personal connection to the characters,” director Kitao Sakurai said in a recent interview with Empire magazine. “Orville Peck plays Vega, and he had a very touching story, where his sexual awakening as a gay man came about by playing Street Fighter. With Vega, he was like, ‘There’s something about this character that is speaking to me,’ and that was a huge part of his identity and how he discovered who he was. He cared about that character as a kid. The same goes for 50 Cent – Balrog was the first Black video game character he played as.”

We’re sure that something in Blanka spoke to Jason Momoa just as strongly, considering how intensely he wanted to play him, going as far as to simply cast himself in the role. This also explains why 50 Cent was so eager to announce that he was playing Balrog, even going so far as to announce he was in the movie before the studio got a chance to.

It's been 13 years since horror/fantasy icon Guillermo del Toro put his own spin on the kaiju genre, which as you might know if you're a fan of GDT's, is one of the director's most beloved. And it makes sense - the blockbuster Pacific Rim was made with enough love that it's still adored by kaiju fans today. All these years later, del Toro recently got candid about making the choice to direct Pacific Rim, a movie he was quick to sign on to...

So long as there was one major script revision.

Del Toro recounted his Pacific Rim experience during a Reddit AMA that went down September 9. During the Q&A, a fan going by the handle u/5ynistar wondered if the director would ever go back to "a kaiju or giant robot movie again," and del Toro's response sparked his memories of the original film. 

Fans have been waiting a very long time to see the final episodes of Bleach: Thousand-Year Blood War. However, they’ll have to wait a little longer for the grand finale, as the next two episodes of Bleach: Thousand-Year Blood War have been delayed by one month to help bring the animation quality up to the standard fans expect.

The announcement came the same day that Bleach: Thousand-Year Blood War Episode 48 aired. Citing a desire to “improve the quality as we approach the climax and deliver the series to everyone in the best possible way until the final episode,” the production committee has delayed Episodes 49 and 50 until midnight on October 20 and 27 in Japan. This also marks a change in timeslot, as previous episodes have aired on Saturdays rather than on Mondays.

While fans streaming Bleach: Thousand-Year Blood War will have to wait over a month for the next episode, Japanese fans watching them air on TV will get a selected group of episodes that serve as a recap of the action so far. The upcoming broadcast schedule for Bleach is:

Jim Lee is successful in just about every facet of the comic book industry. He's an accomplished artist on titles like Batman: Hush; he's an Image Comics cofounder; and for the past few years, he's overseen a wildly successful era of DC Comics as president and COO. His resume is so impressive that you might be forgiven for forgetting a different role over his decades in the industry - that is, family man. If you did forget, though, Lee recently shared his advice on balancing work and family to help you remember.

Specifically, Lee was dishing out counsel during his spotlight panel at San Diego Comic-Con. During the Q&A portion of the event, one fan wanted to know how about having kids and a comic career at the same time, and as a father of 9/grandfather or 2 (with #3 on the way!), Lee had plenty of guidance to share.

"Being a parent is hard," said the X-Men legend.

How often have you seen the Fantastic Four look terrified? And I'm not talking about a general sense of "this musty castle is spooky, Victor." I'm talking about panels where the FF look like they are at a haunted house. Well, this all comes to life on the page in The Infernal Hulk vs. Fantastic Four #1, which we have preview pages for below. 

Written by Phillip Kennedy Johnson, with art by Cian Tormey, colors by Romulo Fajardo Jr., letters by Cory Petit, and cover by Nic Klein, the issue continues the Infernal Hulk's efforts to assemble his own Infernal Avengers in the lead-up to next year's Hulk War event.

Already, the Infernal Hulk has gone up against Wolverine in Infernal Hulk vs. Wolverine #1, and he's on a crash course to fight Spider-Man and the Avengers in their own respective one-shots releasing through December. 

When we ended Critical Role Campaign 3, things were looking A-OK for old Chetney Pock O'Pea. The gnome rogue, played in the TTRPG actual-play saga by Travis Willingham, got a kind of sunset sendoff, having not only proved his worth as an Exandrian hero but also constructed a fine home for Laura Bailey's Imogen Temult and Marisha Ray's Laudna. And that's pretty much the last we hear of Chetney.

Or is it? At a recent fan event, Willingham himself postulated on Chetney's future, fast-forwarding up until his very last acts on the Exandrian side of the afterlife. Whether or not he was serious about his ideas, though...

Well, we'll ket you decide.

Maybe I'm making too large a generalization, but I would say that most people who've played D&D know what a kobold is. They're little dragon guys, usually on the bad side, kind of like a cross between a naughty goblin and a lizard. That said, the good folks at Critical Role have done their share of fleshing out these characters that could fall into the trap of being simple hero fodder, so much so that one of the cast has even considered making a kobold character.

And reader, do I even need to tell you that it's Sam Riegel?

Riegel explained as much at Anime Frontier 2025, where he was joined by OG Rolers Ashley Johnson, Laura Bailey, Travis Willingham, Liam O'Brien, and Taliesin Jaffe. The subject didn't come up unprompted, though - Riegel actually made his admission after being directly asked by an attending Critter if he'd ever thought about building a sunlight-averse dungeon dweller.

The proud convention tradition of buying so much stuff that your suitcase becomes a structural hazard is beginning early this year. This year, ahead of the four-day blitz on the Javits Center and my wallet that is New York Comic Con 2026, ReedPop and Popverse are setting up a way to pre-order select NYCC merch now to avoid the stress and uncertainty on if (and when) you'll get it. And for our Popverse Superfans and NYCC VIPs, we're giving you a 48-hour head start to make sure you buy what you want first thing.

The 48-hour early access to pre-order select official New York Comic Con merch for Popverse Superfans and NYCC VIPs will begin Monday, September 14 at 12:00 PM E.T. and go through Wednesday, September 16 at 12:00 PM E.T.. Whatever is left will open up for a general pre-order sale to all NYCC 2026 ticketholders after that. That gives Superfans and VIPs a full 48 hours to shop before everyone else arrives to begin clicking with the speed and determination usually reserved for the NYCC show floor... but doing it from your home or phone.

But remember, this is pre-ordering for on-site pickup. There's no shipping involved here, unless you're shipping a romance between the Crystal Palace T-Shirt and the Phone Lanyard.

Mark Millar's name has been on some of the most well-known comics in the past couple of decades. Big Two items like The Ultimates and The Authority come to mind, but then his creator-owned stuff like Kingsman and Kick-Ass has also sold pretty darn well in the comic market. However, Millar has apparently considered doing his comics in a different way - by publishing new titles under a pseudonym.

The veteran comics writer explained as much during a recent interview he did with TASQ ART YouTube page. At one point in the discussion, Millar was asked about his creator-owned publishing imprint Side Hustle Comics - specifically, he was asked, whether there was a time Millar considered publishing a Side Hustle project using a different name?

"Honestly," Millar began, "You spend your whole life building your reputation. It's a huge advantage if you've done Civil War and you've done big movies and things like that. It gives you a slight advantage - well, a huge advantage over just starting from scratch, you know."

You don't have to look far to find Jack Kirby's most famous works on the shelves at your local comic shop, but the iconic writer-artist still has plenty of work that hasn't been reprinted in recent times. But luckily, for fans of Kirby's more obscure work, the visionary's descendants are working hard to get new versions of titles like Captain Victory out in a comic shop near you. 

At San Diego Comic-Con 2026's Annual Jack Kirby panel, The King's grandson, Jeremy Kirby, shared an encouraging update about the creator's lesser-known works. 

"We're working on a bunch of new projects actually now. And hopefully, we'll be able to announce [them] fairly soon... My favorite character that I would like to bring out to people shortly would be Captain Victory - just an awesome, awesome character. If you haven't read the books, look them up. Hopefully we'll have a trade out there for you all soon on it. But just an amazing sci-fi series and I'm very excited to get back up and running," Jeremy Kirby said. 

If it feels like Japan has been ever-present in pop culture for the past decade, that isn’t an accident. Back in 2013, the Japanese government established the Cool Japan Fund with the aim of investing in projects that would push the country’s cultural influence in overseas markets. However, that time has ended as Japan has decided to withdraw funding from the Cool Japan Fund in the 2027 fiscal year.

While the success of the anime and manga industries in the US could be tied to the Cool Japan Fund, it ultimately wasn’t a good investment. Since its establishment in 2013, the Cool Japan Fund has accumulated around 54 billion yen ($351.5 million) in debt. That was the thing that ultimately sealed its fate; in August 2026, the Japanese government announced that they would abolish the fund rather than try to pull it out of debt.

One of the most notable projects that the Cool Japan Fund invested in was Kadokawa’s efforts to encourage manga and anime artists outside of Japan. However, even as they seemed to be succeeding in their aim, the fund itself wasn’t able to profit from these efforts.  Even as Japanese 'soft power' spread across the globe, the specific companies and initiatives that the Cool Japan Fund picked up routinely failed to return their investment.

Earlier this week, everyone was shocked by the news that PlayStation was breaking ties with Hideo Kojima. Despite being one of the most recognizable names in video games, Kojima says he had “unexpectedly received notice” that PlayStation was pulling funding from his upcoming game, Physint. Now, there are reports that it was the underperformance of the Death Stranding series that ultimately caused the split between Kojima and PlayStation.

It was a big shock to the gaming community when it was announced on September 9, 2026 that PlayStation would no longer be funding Kojima’s next game, Physint. They had been expected to fund and publish the title, which is still in early development and does not have a release window yet. Shortly after the announcement, Xbox said that they were picking up the project.

No official announcement was given for why PlayStation soured on working with Hideo Kojima, but Jason Schreier from Bloomberg reports that a major factor in the decision was that the two Death Stranding games “didn’t meet PlayStation’s revenue expectations.” Despite the massive hype behind the games at launch and the Hollywood cast, Death Stranding failed to deliver in the one area that Sony needed it to – in sales.

Even though Marvel Studios seems fully focused on Avengers: Doomsday and its follow-up, Avengers: Secret Wars, the foundation has been laid for 2028 and beyond for the MCU. One of the big titles that comes after the two Avengers films is Ghost Rider in 2028. Not content with just being the star, Ryan Gosling was apparently the driving force behind getting the MCU’s Ghost Rider movie off the ground, according to studio head Kevin Feige.

In a recent issue of Empire Magazine, Kevin Feige talked about how Ghost Rider has been shaped by Ryan Gosling from the very beginning. “It was Gosling who had the vision, it was Gosling who had the pitch that won over Shawn [Levy, director], that had them come and pitch us this idea… It is a great idea.”

Not that we want to accuse Kevin Feige of being biased or overhyping an MCU project, but we are very curious about what this “great idea” that Ryan Gosling had that brought both Deadpool & Wolverine director Shawn Levy and Marvel Studios on board for a Ghost Rider film. We’re hoping that it leans into the horror aspects of the character, but we’ll have to wait until 2028 before we see what Gosling is cooking up.

When Guillermo del Toro tackles a franchise movie, it usually goes down as a great example of what those films can be. Think of movies like Blade II or the Hellboy duology and you'll get what I mean. Even so, there are projects that the director still hasn't been able to get his hands on, despite the Oscar he now holds. And in a recent fan Q&A, del Toro revealed a surprising addition to that list.

The Q&A we're talking about is the September 9 Reddit AMA del Toro did in advance of the 20th anniversary rerelease of his dark fantasy classic, Pan's Labyrinth. On the subject of dark fantasy, actually, redditor u/Lizzard_Wizzzard wanted to know if there were any areas of fairy tale lore the Frankenstein director wanted to work with but hadn't gotten the chance to.

"I have a huge fairy tale anthropology library at home," began the filmmaker, "A lot of texts from the 19th century of classification of fairy lore in Great Britain. A lot of the taxonomy of fairies, and so forth. I would love to, I really would. [...] Many times, I proposed to The Jim Henson Company to headline a new version of Jim Henson's The Storyteller but it never came to fruition through the decades."

Sometimes actors are announced for a part and the collective world just nods its head and says, “Yeah, that makes sense.” Jason Momoa has had that happen twice recently. The first was when he was announced as Lobo in DC Studios’ Supergirl. Then we found out that he would be Blanka in the new Street Fighter movie. Turns out, he was so eager to play Blanka that he cast himself.

In the latest issue of Empire Magazine, director Kitao Sakurai talked about the casting process and confirmed that Jason Momoa just talked himself into the role. “I didn’t really even cast Jason Momoa – he was just like, “You’re doing Street Fighter, I’m playing Blanka.’ That level of enthusiasm was contagious.”

Weirdly, he would have been the first person we thought of if we were trying to cast Blanka in a new Street Fighter movie. His unique mixture of physicality and almost feral energy makes him the obvious choice for the character. No one flexes his muscles and growls on screen quite like Jason Momoa.

Alex Ross is a big fan of Kelly Thompson's Absolute Wonder Woman series with Hayden Sherman and others. You don't have to ask him; he'll tell you every chance he gets in conversation... twice even, while interviewing him recently about his new OGN Marvel Dimensions. Ross, who has penned the character on several occasions including Kingdom Come and Wonder Woman: Spirit of Truth, says it's the best thing he's seen in some time.

"[DC's Absolute line] becomes a good platform for talented people like Kelly Thompson to write the best Wonder Woman book I've read in years," Ross tells Popverse. "No shade against the writer of the regular Wonder Woman book... I buy that one. I regularly read Tom King's Wonder Woman, but I want to give special credit for the quality work she's doing."

Later on, when we asked what he was geeking out about, again he mentioned first of all getting "a big thrill out" of Absolute Wonder Woman. And it turns out, the feeling is mutual.

Though he’s been through some difficult personal and financial times, Masami Kurumada is still going ahead with his most popular series, Saint Seiya. More than 40 years after the first chapter of Saint Seiya was published, the next arc is coming later this year as Saint Seiya: The Heavens Arc Part 4 is getting published. It will be the first new chapter of the iconic manga since May 2026.

The announcement came just a few weeks after Masami Kurumada announced that one of his former employees, who served as both his manager and an executive at his manga studio, had embezzled nearly $30 million from the company over a ten-year period. On December 18, 2026, Saint Seiya: The Heavens Arc Part 4 will be published in Champion RED magazine.

The Saint Seiya: The Heavens Arc manga is the latest in a long line of sequels to the original Saint Seiya manga. It is a direct sequel to Saint Seiya: Next Dimension – The Myth of Hades, which was serialized from April 2006 to July 2024. Over the past 40 years, more than 35 million copies of Saint Seiya have been printed. The entire time, Masami Kurumada has been the artist and writer of the series.

It has been nearly 25 years since the Eat-Man manga ended, but it sounds like we’re finally getting the anime adaptation we’ve been waiting for. After two previous anime based on Akihito Yoshitomi’s classic sci-fi manga, this could be the first faithful adaptation of the Eat-Man manga we’ve ever had.

The original Eat-Man manga ran from 1996 to 2003. It was popular enough that it had two anime adaptations during its run. The first came in 1997 and the second came just a year later in 1998. Astute readers will note that both of these anime came very early in the manga’s run, meaning that they both couldn’t adapt the series’ ending. From 2014 to 2019, a sequel manga, Eat-Man: The Main Dish, was published.

This week, a new Eat-Man anime was announced with original mangaka Akihito Yoshitomi serving as scriptwriter. Eat-Man: The Over Order has the potential to be the first faithful adaptation of the Eat-Man manga.

The creator of Orb: On the Movements of the Earth and 100 Meters is back for another manga. The mangaka has work that spans the historical, psychological, horror, and sports genres, but he’s not done yet. After teasing us all yesterday, Uoto has confirmed that he has a new manga he is working on and that it should start serializing by the end of this year.

On September 10, 2026, Uoto posted a strange image of what appears to be a chemical symbol on his social media with the message that he would announce a new manga at 6 pm JST today. When that time came, the mangaka announced that his new series will be called Hallucination Meat. “The start date is TBD,” he wrote. “But I think it’ll be within this year.” The series will appear in Weekly Spirits magazine in Japan, which is published by embattled publisher Shogakukan.

That wasn’t the only announcement that Uoto has coming, though. At the same time, he posted a picture of a handgun and a pencil with the message that he’ll announce another new series tomorrow at the same time.

The Critical Role cast takes burnout seriously. You might recall Popverse previously reporting on how their usual GM, Matt Mercer, avoids it as a creator, but he's hardly the only OG Roler with thoughts on the subject. Take Travis Willingham, for example, who has his own advice for any creatives (or really, just anyone at all) feeling worn down by our constantly overstimulating and overwhelming world.

Willingham shared his advice at Anime Frontier 2025, where he appeared alongside co-stars Ashley Johnson, Laura Bailey, Liam O'Brien, Sam Riegel, and Taliesin Jaffe. Their panel took the form of a fan Q&A, and as it was winding down, an attending Critter asked the entire cast (who are quite busy themselves, mind you), how they staved off burnout.

"I think getting outside is key," said The Mighty Nein's Fjord Stone, "Getting in the sunshine is massive. Walking, like just feeling your body move. Figuring out how to get away from your phone is super important because there's a difference between, I think, social and geopolitical burnout and then creative burnout. They can sometimes overlap. So, if you have a big workload or if your bandwidth is maxed, the last thing you should be doing is looking at a news feed or checking out social media just to procrastinate or kill time. Put that thing away. Be with yourself and your thoughts. Go outside and hear the birds. Like, just reset."

The world of Dragon Ball is built on a series of rules, with the most important one being that sometimes Akira Toriyama just liked to mess with his readers. Over the course of the manga, he frequently established tropes only to subvert them at the first opportunity. In this way, Super Saiyan 3 was his masterpiece of turning the rules of Dragon Ball on their head.

It is often decried as a “useless” transformation among Dragon Ball fans because it doesn’t actually accomplish anything in the original manga. Super Saiyan 3 is introduced in the Buu Saga as Goku’s ultimate weapon in his attempt to stop Majin Buu from wreaking havoc on Earth. A sudden, unexpected transformation that was as surprising as it was ridiculous to look at, SSJ 3 was a shocking reveal in the manga before being swiftly cast aside in favor of fusion as the new way to achieve new power.

The trouble is that Goku shows up, unveils Super Saiyan 3, and then buggers off when he’s wasted just enough of Majin Buu’s time. In the course of the manga, it helps him defeat exactly no one; it is only ever used as a stalling tactic despite being technically more powerful than any other transformation at the time. Add in the fact that it was unlocked during a time skip and without any of the usual drama associated with Dragon Ball transformations, and you get something that feels underwhelming to fans years later.

As we draw to a close on another week of this business we call show, it’s time to look backwards, look forwards and take stock… of just how much good stuff is coming up in the next few months. (We actually have some lists to prove it.) Fall doesn’t officially arrive for another week or so — the first say is officially September 22 — but we all feel the change in the weather and it’s a fine time to curl up with a book, something warm to drink, and some fine entertainment playing in the background. We here at Popverse Playlist are happy to help make that happen for you.

This week: An all-time Apple TV classic returns, the comic book Marvel Universe gets a big new arrival, and a horror franchise is given a makeover by one of the hottest new directors around. Things may be cooling down in terms of overall temperature, but it’s heating up for pop culture vultures.

If you’ve yet to enjoy the particular appeal of Apple’s Slow Horses, then the arrival of the sixth season is a sign that, honestly, you’ve got a lot of fun viewing to catch up on. Simultaneously a well-done spy show and a skewering of spy tropes, the show revolves around Gary Oldman’s gloriously, deceptively shambolic Jackson Lamb, a spymaster who’s seen better days but is nowhere near as past it as he makes out, heading up Slough House: an outpost staffed by a number of British secret service agents who have each, in their own way, screwed up badly enough to be put out to pasture. Do they somehow manage to do good deeds despite that? Yes, they do. Is it all by design and smart planning? Rarely.

At this point, we all know who's going to be the lead in Zach Cregger's Resident Evil movie. I mean, we are only a couple days away from its premiere, but long before now, we knew that it was Weapons star Austin Abrams. There was a time, though, that the internet was pretty sure that Oscar-winner Mikey Madison would be leading the picture, and now, director Cregger himself is addressing that rumor.

Or rather, debunking it.

Cregger recently sat down with Deadline to discuss his latest project, the first movie to be under the Resident Evil umbrella (heh) since 2021. During the interview, the outlet asked Cregger directly if there was ever any truth to the idea of Madison, who already went down in horror history as part of the 2022 Scream reboot, was going to lead the film.

Slowly but surely, Marvel Studios has been assembling its lineup for the X-Men movie that will be out in 2028. As of this time of writing, Asa Germann is in "final talks" to play Angel (Warren Worthington III), so it looks like we'll be seeing a good portion of the Original Five X-Men (Jean Grey, Cyclops, Beast, Iceman, and Angel) alongside later-gen mutants like Storm and Rogue in the Jake Schreier film. 

The Hollywood Reporter broke the news of Asa Germann being in "final talks" for Angel, noting that the actor originally auditioned for Cyclops, but lost out on the role to Kit Connor. Marvel Studios liked Germann's performance so much, however, that he was offered Angel instead. 

So what does this all mean? You might recognize Asa Germann from his role as the troubled Sam Riordan on Prime Video's Gen V show. Out of all the young "supes" on Gen V, Sam was the most volatile, as he was subjected to medical experimentation and kept in a windowless cell. To make matters worse, Sam also had schizophrenia and an unstable relationship with his parents. Over the course of Gen V, Sam goes from being a traumatized kid constantly in fight-or-flight mode to a more rehabilitated state, thanks to support from his friends. Germann portrayed the character with a genuine sense of rage, distress, and vulnerability, and Sam's emotional journey is one of the highlights of the show. 

When The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power returns this fall, fans will be coming into a different Middle-Earth than the one they knew. Not just because of the disastrous events of season 2 (well, disastrous for the elves anyway - Sauron's doing pretty well for himself), but because there will be a five-year time jump between the end of this previous season and its successor. And recently, series co-showrunner Patrick McKay revealed that there's more to that time jump than storytelling.

McKay revealed as much during an interview published in the summer issue of Empire Magazine. Teasing what fans should expect in the upcoming chapter of The Rings of Power, McKay leaned into the idea that the time jump wasn't just a narrative device, but something that could potentially attract more viewers to the Prime Video adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien's Second Age of Middle Earth.

"It was a calculated decision to start with real momentum," said the producer, who co-showruns the series with J.D. Payne, "And hopefully bring a few more people onto the train."

WandaVision was the Disney+ hit that Marvel Television wasn't expecting to be the hit that it became. By the time the show began streaming on Disney+ in 2021, we had been keeping up with Wanda and Vision for 6 years in the MCU. While the two had become integral parts of the MCU's Avengers team, they hadn't yet taken center stage in a project. And WandaVision marked the beginning of a greater investment from MCU fans in stories about Wanda and Vis. Not to mention, the show also garnered immense critical acclaim, earning 23 Emmy nominations and 2 Golden Globe nominations. 

In a recent interview with Empire magazine, Vision himself, Paul Bettany, addressed how the success of WandaVision came as a surprise to him and his castmate, Elizabeth Olsen.

"When we made WandaVision we felt no pressure, because initially [The Falcon and The Winter Soldier] was going to come out before us so we thought we were like the weird cousin... It was just very niche, you know, [and it was] for the outsider kids like I was at school... Lizzie [Olsen] and I felt very much like we were making it for them. So for that to have landed so big was a real surprise," Bettany said. 

Long before Alex Ross created his own villainous version of Marvel’s Thor, Tim Curry showed him what the Devil should look like.

Ross was just 15 when Legend arrived in theaters, with Curry nearly unrecognizable beneath the enormous horns and crimson makeup of the film’s Lord of Darkness. Despite being the son of a Protestant minister ( or perhaps making the experience even more memorable because of it), Ross went to see the film, and Curry’s performance and imposing silhouette stayed with him.

“I’m a super Tim Curry fan, so that’s one of the biggest impacts of my 16-year-old life, or whatever age I was when that movie came out,” Ross told Popverse in an interview conducted before Curry’s death.

Jim Lee knows the Big Two in comic book publishing as very, very few people do. As a young artist, Lee worked with X-Men icon Chris Claremont to create one of the most celebrated Mutant runs of all time. And now, Lee is DC's own president and CCO. So as you might guess, the artist-turned-exec has a unique perspective on the ongoing competition between the two biggest names in superheroes. 

A perspective that he feels is best emulated on the baseball field.

Lee said this himself during his spotlight panel at this year's San Diego Comic-Con. As is the case with so many Jim Lee panels, the hour-long event featured a fan Q&A portion, during which one attendee asked about the ongoing competition between DC Comics and its Disney-owned rival, Marvel. As you might expect, the DC Comics president began by pointing out how the company was doing from a publishing perspective.

Kagurabachi has already been billed as one of the big hopes for the anime industry, which desperately needs a new major Weekly Shonen Jump hit in the pipeline, but the manga is hitting a small stumbling block over the next few weeks. Due to the health issues of the series’ creator Takeru Hokazono, the Kagurabachi manga is going on a short, one-week hiatus starting this weekend.

The announcement came overnight via social media. “The serialization of Kagurabachi that was scheduled to appear in Weekly Shonen Jump issue 42-43 combined (on sale September 14) will be on hiatus due to the author’s sudden illness.”

Thankfully, there is already a date when the Kagurabachi manga will be back with Chapter 132. “The author has already recovered and the continuation of the manga will be published in the next issue, Weekly Shonen Jump issue 44 (on sale September 28).”

One of the most memorable moments in Heated Rivalry Season 1 took place in a small, remote cottage. When the show was renewed for a second season, the owner of that cottage wasn’t immediately on board with letting the production team back. Despite the money on offer, he wasn’t sure if he wanted to let people into his own private retreat again.

The owner of that cottage wasn’t necessarily opposed to letting the Heated Rivalry production back, but it wasn’t an immediate yes from him. “I did a little bit of soul searching about allowing them to come back,” he said in a recent interview with HGTV. “I know they need it, and I realize I [could] be difficult and try to squeeze them, but I [couldn’t] bring myself to do that. When they called, they said, ‘How much do you want?’ First, I told them they scratched my table, then I named a very reasonable price. They were shocked and appreciative. I actually didn’t even get them to replace my table.”

Since the first season aired, the cottage owner has been bombarded with requests from Heated Rivalry fans to rent the cottage for short stays. He was initially hesitant, though he has relented because the money felt too good to pass up. “It’s still true: I’m a private guy. This is my retreat. I built this to get away from the world, so I don’t know how much longer I’ll continue to share it.”

Since Disney took the helm of the Star Wars franchise, few new entries have received the kind of universal acclaim that Andor has. While Andor Season 2 certainly felt like a finale to the story, it left the door open to a potential spin-off starring Bix Caleen. However, Adria Arjona insists that won’t happen unless series creator Tony Gilroy is on board.

During a recent interview, Adria Arjona was asked about the possibility of her returning to the Star Wars universe for another Andor story. While she seemed interested, there was one important stipulation that she had before she’d agree to an Andor spin-off. “Listen, I am the most loyal Gilroy there is,” she insisted. “If Tony Gilroy is in, I’m right there with him. I respect so much what he’s created, and I love him so dearly that I don’t want to put my fingerprints on it.”

So it is possible, but when could we get the Andor spin-off that was hinted at in the Season 2 finale? Not till a little more time has passed. “It might be too soon. I don’t want to say never, but I love the way he ended that show. I respect it, so I want to keep it like that for now.”

One of the biggest selling points of The Flash movie from 2023 was that Michael Keaton suited up for one last outing as Batman. But what followed when the movie hit theaters was a story where Keaton's Batman was more akin to Michael Caine's character in Children of Men, long white hair and beard included. Eventually, of course, our heroes convince Keaton's Batman (Beaton? Katman? Keatman? I'll stop) to get his act together and join them in their fight against Zod, and the elderly superhero promptly cuts his hair and beard off. 

If this story detour ever felt disjointed to you, it's because it's a remnant of a previous draft of The Flash script that was written by powerhouse duo John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein. Daley and Goldstein's script featured a grizzled and unkempt Bruce Wayne who had never become Batman. Daley revealed the full details to Mike DeAngelo from The Playlist. 

"An element of him and his slightly younger self embarking on the journey together [was what survived in the final version of the film]. Everything else was kind of different," Daley began.

One of the big surprises of DC Studios and HBO's Lanterns series has been that the story takes place between two different time periods - 2016 and 2026. In order to understand Hal Jordan's death in 2026, we must go back to the beginning of his and John Stewart's relationship in 2016. And even though most of the story has taken place in 2016 thus far, we have gone back even further to moments in John Stewart's childhood to get a gut-wrenching look at how he was raised to be without fear, even if it came at great personal cost. 

Now, Lanterns is co-created by Damon Lindelof, who is perhaps best known for his work on Lost and HBO's Watchmen series, both of which were highly effective in their use of flashbacks (I still don't think I've emotionally recovered from the Looking Glass episode of Watchmen, "Little Fear of Lightning," all these years later). Lindelof unpacked the decision to feature flashbacks in Lanterns in an interview with Brandon Davis. 

"Yeah, I think that it happened organically. I always start from a place of, 'let's not do flashbacks and nonlinear storytelling again.' But I think it's kind of seeped into the groundwater," Lindelof began.

Critical Role's Campaign 4 is very much still ongoing, but that hasn't kept the creators from some pie-in-the-sky imagining of what a possible adaptation might look like. Sam Riegel, for example, has an idea about what would happen if the very-much-unconfirmed adaptation bucked the animation trend that series like The Legend of Vox Machina and The Might Nein have followed.

Specifically, he's got his eyes on who would play his C4 character, Wicander Halovar.

Riegel said as much during an appearance at Anime Frontier 2025, where he joined OG Rolers Ashley Johnson, Laura Bailey, Travis Willingham, Liam O'Brien, and Taliesin Jaffe on stage for a panel mostly made up of fan Q&As. At one point in the discussion, a fan brought up the concept of a live-action Campaign 4 adaptation, and while certain cast members were opposed (cough Laura *cough*), Riegel was into the idea.

With The Rings of Power season 3 just a few months away, we Middle-earth fans might be focused on talking Balrogs and Swedish valleys. Next year, though, the one character that every lover of The Lord of the Rings is going to have on their minds is Gollum, as the Andy Serkis-directed The Hunt for Gollum comes to theaters for the holiday season. Ever since Serkis first put on the mocap suit to play one of Tolkien's most complex characters, he's been an absolute staple of pop culture - even the least nerdy among us surely understands a throaty cry for 'My precious.' However, as Serkis himself recently revealed, the cinematic Gollum we got and the cinematic Gollum that was originally planned were two very different characters.

Serkis was recently a guest on the Happy Sad Confused podcast, where the mocap pioneer and Planet of the Apes star was given a chance to talk about how his Lord of the Rings character was really two personas baked into one. "They're alters," said the actor. "It's a sort of dissociative disorder, and one is there to cope for the other."

But those "alters" didn't exist when the cameras first started rolling. At least, not in the way we know them now.

John Stewart has been many things in DC Comics: an architect, a Marine, a Green Lantern, and a member of the Justice League. Even so, for most of his publication history, there wasn't a neat origin that wrapped up his background as both an architect (which was originally in his first appearance in Dennis O'Neil and Neil Adams' Green Lantern #87 from 1971) and a Marine (which was added later in 2007 by Geoff Johns in Green Lantern #26). What's always been clear, though, is that John Stewart is a principled and capable Green Lantern, with a sharp mind and eye for creating intricate Lantern constructs as well as defending justice. 

In episode 3 of Lanterns, "OutKast," it's revealed that the Guardians originally offered the Green Lantern ring to John Stewart's father, asking him, "Are you afraid?" in the middle of the night, to which he understandably said, "Yes." Later on, a Guardian explains to John's mother, Bernadette, that while John Sr. may not have been a good fit for the ring, perhaps infant John might be. It's then that Bernadette and John Sr. decide to raise their son John to be without fear. Our hero goes on to become a Marine and then an art school student before getting contacted by the Guardians once again. 

In an interview with Inverse, Lanterns co-creator Tom King discussed why John Stewart's origin was reimagined for the show. "I was like, oh my God, that's the show: That the ring chose Hal and he's like, ‘Yeah, of course.’ He doesn't think of the privilege of that idea. But John's family's like, ‘No, you gotta chase it. You gotta get it. There's a difference between him and [you]. I know it's not fair. That's the way the world is.’ And a lot of parents have that conversation with their kids, and it's a hard conversation to have," King said. 

30 years ago, one of the most important superhero comics in modern history began: DC Comics' Kingdom Come by Alex Ross and Mark Waid. While a non-continuity tale at the time, this story of a superhero apocalypse was painted like scripture, showing a place where heroes could grow old like their readers, while also dealing with the inevitable tides of change and a new generation of heroes.  The 4-issue series madesuperstars out of both Ross and Waid that still lasts to this day, with Waid now writer on DC's main Justice League title and Ross the artist/writer of another story of superhero change in the Marvel Dimensions OGN. 

... but, with the 30th anniversary of Kingdom Come here, will there come a time for the two to return to this world? We recently spoke with Ross about Marvel Dimensions, and you better believe we snuck in a question about it.

"There's something that could happen with that, but I don't want to tease the idea that there's an actual sequel brewing. In a way, I'm giving away too much by even saying I'm sniffing at that world," Ross tells Popverse. "I did do a cover this year for the collected edition; it's coming out for the anniversary, and I also wrote some pieces; both Mark and I wrote some pieces for the book."

The usage of artificial intelligence tools by Baltimore Sun staffers to create editorial cartoons has drawn criticism, including from the world's largest organization of political cartoonists. The Association of American Editorial Cartoonists has published an open letter to the newspaper, condemning the action and calling for an immediate reversal on this AI comics initiative.

"On September 4, 2026, The Sun published what can only technically be called an 'illustration' intended its readers to accept as an editorial cartoon," writes AAEC president Marc Murphy. "Whatever the intent, the only message The Sun actually delivered was that it has finally and completely surrendered any remaining claim it may have had to journalistic legitimacy and its former place among the nation's important newspapers."

Looking back, it appears the Baltimore Sun began using unspecified AI tools to create editorial cartoons with its August 25 edition. It has done so again on August 31, September 1, the aforementioned September 4 edition, and its September 5 edition.  While this is a new initiative, the Baltimore Sun continues to also publish handmade editorial cartoons syndicated by its former owner, Tribune, from other affiliated newspapers.

Actor Terence Stamp, who starred in the 1994 film The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, unfortunately passed away last year. But before he passed away, Stamp filmed scenes for the sequel film that Guy Pearce has assured will begin filming next year. 

According to a report from World of Reel, Terence Stamp "spent the final months of his life reprising his memorable role as Bernadette for the sequel". After Stamp was able to complete filming before he passed away, director Stephan Elliott told World of Reel that he was "pretty devastated" in the aftermath of Stamp's death and "needed time to mourn before deciding how to proceed with the sequel." 

Now, Guy Pearce has confirmed to Good Morning America that the sequel to The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert will begin production soon. "We’ll probably shoot it ’27, it’ll come out ’28," said Pearce. 

The Fury of Firestorm is a fire that is hard to put out. In a good way.

DC has announced that it's adding six more issues to the Fury of Firestorm limited series by Jeff Lemire and Rafael de Latorre. It's the reimagining of Ronnie, Firehawk, and more, but the story behind the story is fascinating.

The Fury of Firestorm was announced in January 2026 as a six-issue series to debut in April 2026 as part of DC's 'Next Level' group of titles. Weeks ahead of the release, strong pre-orders from comic stores and internal happiness with what the creative team was doing led the publisher to quietly stretch it from six to eight issues. A few days after the first issue hit shelves, it sold out and went for a rush second printing, which led DC to make Firestorm a nine-issue series. 

I don't know about you, but one of the things I'm most excited about seeing in Avengers: Doomsday is what Doctor Doom's mask is going to look like. Doctor Doom is the definition of aura-farming in Marvel Comics, which is why he definitely wears shoulder pads under that magnificent cape. So obviously, if Marvel Studios wants to do right by this classic comic book character, they wouldn't make the same mistake that the 2015 Fantastic Four film did for Toby Kebbell's Doom mask, which was a CGI monstrosity. 

That said, in a recent interview with Empire magazine, director Joe Russo revealed that they are using CGI to bring Doom to life onscreen. "I think Downey had a lot of the same fun on this [as Josh Brolin's Thanos in Infinity War]... He was on set performing everything. Because of the way we're creating the character with a digital layer, we also get a second pass at him in terms of what we can do on a digital level. There was a lot of experimental performance. It's incredible, but also unexpected. What he brings to the table, you couldn't see coming," Russo said. 

As much as I am a fan of a well-crafted helmet or mask onscreen, thanks to the craftspeople at Wētā Workshop who made the Lord of the Rings trilogy an instant classic, I can also understand how having Robert Downey Jr.'s face smushed behind a layer of foam might not be ideal. Let's remember that Tom Hardy had to redub all of his dialogue in The Dark Knight Rises because the practical Bane mask he wore on set rendered his speech unintelligible. Doctor Doom, like Bane, is an extremely smart character who loves to wax poetic. And with a powerhouse actor like Robert Downey Jr. playing him, we're going to hang onto every word. 

Much has been made about the fact that Avengers: Doomsday went into production without a finished script. That is very much the antithesis of what James Gunn and DC Studios have mandated, but that hasn’t stopped the Russo Brothers from bringing actors into the latest MCU crossover film without anyone knowing exactly where the story is going. According to the directors, the Avengers: Doomsday script was a “living organism” that allowed the actors to bring something unexpected to their characters.

“We always view the script as a living organism,” explained Joe Russo in a recent interview. “We’re improvisation-based, rehearsal-based directors. We like to see what the actors bring to the characters, and sometimes you don’t get the actors until a few days or weeks before you shoot them. And a lot of the time, that’s when the magic happens.”

That’s a pretty big gamble, even for the directors of the last two Avengers films, which remain two of the highest-grossing films of all time. Clearly, they have a process, which includes giving actors the freedom to improvise their lines while on set, and it has worked for them in the past. However, things are slightly different with Avengers: Doomsday. Marvel Studios is clearly hoping to recapture the magic of the MCU’s heyday and is spending an impressive amount of money to do it. Maybe they’d like to know what those expensive actors they are bringing back for this film are actually going to say on the screen.

Green Lantern lore is having a moment right now thanks to the success of HBO and DC Studios's Lanterns show. Lanterns follows up on the mythos of the Green Lantern Corps that was referenced in James Gunn's 2025 Superman film, which introduced Nathan Fillion's ring-slinger, Guy Gardner. Of course, now that Lanterns is winning over folks who were once skeptical about whether or not a live-action Lantern project could appeal to an HBO audience, cinema's original live-action Green Lantern, Ryan Reynolds, has been asked what his feelings are about this moment in our zeitgeist. 

At the premiere for his new Apple TV+ film, Mayday, Ryan Reynolds was asked by ET whether he'd be up for making a cameo appearance on HBO's Lanterns. "I would totally do a cameo in that; I love it," Reynolds began. "I learned so much making that movie. And I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, 'Oh, learned what not to do,' in some part, yes. But also, any time you're making something that large, there are core lessons that come of it. And I owe my entire career to that movie," Reynolds said about the 2011 Green Lantern film. 

In case you've memory-holed the Green Lantern film, Ryan Reynolds starred alongside Taika Waititi (who played Tom Kalmaku, Hal Jordan's best friend in comics, who is Inuit. Hollywood casting is wild), Angela Bassett as Amanda Waller, Blake Lively as Carol Ferris, Geoffrey Rush as Tomar-Re, Mark Strong as Sinestro, and Temuera Morrison as Abin Sur. On one hand, it's cool that two Māori actors (Waititi and Morrison) were in a Green Lantern film. Morrison's fight scene as Abin Sur is one of the film's brighter moments. But also, it was a deeply 2011 Hollywood decision to sub in a Polynesian person like Waititi for an Inuit character like Tom Kalmaku. 

No one can replace Peter Cullen as Optimus Prime. His voice has become intrinsically linked to the gentle, kind warrior leader of the Autobots. This month, fans can see what is arguably his finest performance in more than 40 years as the character when The Transformers: The Movie hits cinemas again. The special re-release includes Peter Cullen’s final performance as Optimus Prime in the form of a short film to be shown alongside the 40th anniversary showing of The Transformers: The Movie.

Optimus Prime: Awakening is a 12-minute-long short film that Hasbro made to celebrate the landmark re-release of The Transformers: The Movie. It is Peter Cullen’s final performance as Optimus Prime, but it also includes his longtime co-star, Frank Welker, as Megatron and Soundwave. All parts were recorded before Peter Cullen’s death, which makes this release particularly poignant for Welker.

“Optimus Prime and Megatron were made for each other,” Welker said in a press release. “After all, one needs the perfect hero against the epitome of evil to create great drama. Peter’s portrayal of Prime was born of his own personal beliefs; honesty, loyalty, and always insisting on doing the right thing. This made it easy to be friends. Returning as Megatron and Soundwave for one final story opposite Peter’s Optimus in “Optimus Prime: Awakening” was a real gift. I will miss my friend, but that voice and his heart and values will always be part of Optimus Prime.”

The idea of a live-action Critical Role has been a hot topic of conversation in Critter circles even before its animated adaptations hit Prime Video. With Campaigns 1 and 2 already firmly in cartoon territory, though, those hypothetical questions are now focused on 3 and the currently-running Campaign 4. That said, when it comes to at least one CR cast member, the hope is to stick with animation if-and-when Aramán makes its screen debut.

And Laura Bailey isn't shy about saying why.

The subject came up at Anime Frontier 2025, where Bailey was joined by Campaign 4 costars (and OG Rolers) Ashley Johnson, Travis Willingham, Liam O'Brien, Sam Riegel, and Taliesin Jaffe. Part of the panel was dedicated to fan Q&As, which is when an attending Critter asked the whole cast whether they'd like to see Campaign 4 adapted to live-action or animation. It was Dispatch star Bailey who answered first.

Tokyopop is in the midst of an experiment to raise capital via crowdfunding to finance what it sees as a company transformation from being a manga publisher into a brand manager for Asian-based creations across manga, anime, and more. As part of this 'regulation crowdfunding' (Reg CF, for short), Tokyopop has made a sizeable bit of its financial reports public, including an independent review of those financials by an outside CPA firm. And what the CPA firm found set off alarms that seem similar to Tokyopop's previous downturn from 2008 to 2015 that led to it suspending manga publishing operations for years. 

"As discussed in Note 11 to the financial statements, the Company has incurred losses from operations 
and has experienced negative cash flows from operating activities," reads a statement from the CPA firm SetApart Accountancy Corp., which was hired by Tokyopop to do an independent review of the company in advance of its Reg-CF plans. "These conditions raise substantial doubt about the Company’s ability to continue as a going concern."

In SetApart's review of Tokyopop's books, it noted net losses of $997,646 and negative cash flow of $1,966,546 in that same period. For the fiscal year 2026, the CPA firm warns that the $1.5m cash (and cash equivalents) the company has available "may not be sufficient to fund operations for the next twelve months..." especially since that is around half what Tokyopop had available the year prior.