Leigh Bardugo's name is one of the most respected in the field of young adult fantasy these days, and so when we heard the Shadow and Bone author was going to be at BookCon 2026, we had to make sure we were there too. What's more, we wanted to make sure that you, loyal reader, also got the chance to see the Ninth House author do her thing in NYC, so we packed a camera for the trip. Now, you can watch Bardugo's exclusive, unmissable spotlight panel right here. 

This is one of the many Bookcon 2026 panels Popverse filmed at New York City's Javits on the Hudson. Consult our Bookcon 2026 panel hub for a list of all of the panels we have available, and what's left to be released.

Watch the Spotlight on Leigh Bardugo now:

For writers, there is something reassuring about being a subject-matter expert. It means less research and usually means you can get straight to work writing your novel. However, R.F. Kuang might wish she didn’t have that luxury; she didn’t have to spend much time researching her novel, Yellowface, because she had already seen how nasty people could be online.

During a panel at BookCon 2026, R.F. Kuang talked about her writing process, which varies from book to book. “Certainly for me, there is no template,” she explained. “There is no predictable outcome. There’s no process that’s been the same from book to book. It’s just me with this mess of a draft. And sometimes it comes together in a matter of months. The first draft of The Poppy War, I think, took three months to draft and then six months to something that I was sending out to literary agents. Babel took over a year because I was doing so much research, and I only spoke some of the languages involved, so I had to pull in a lot of other experts. Katabasis took like maybe a year total, but it was interrupted because I was taking my qualifying exams and also I got married, so I was like, ‘I don’t want to work that year.’”

However, sometimes the process can be even faster, particularly when Kuang knows the subject particularly well. “And Yellowface took like one month to get to that first draft because, I think, more than any of my other books, it plopped into my head fully formed, and I knew the ending, and I knew the character arcs. And I was a digital native, so I didn’t have to do that much extra research to figure out all the ways people can be nasty on Twitter.”

Last November, Heated Rivalry took the world by storm, building off of the momentum from the Game Changers books by Rachel Reid. The show, originally produced by Crave and then picked up for streaming by HBO Max, has enjoyed an unprecedented level of success in a relatively short amount of time. In the film and TV industry, book adaptations can take years from when their rights were originally optioned by a studio to actually make it onto the big or small screen, if they ever manage to get greenlit in the first place. And at BookCon 2026, the creator of the Heated Rivalry TV show, Jacob Tierney, highlighted how brisk the process was from when he first contacted author Rachel Reid about his desire to adapt her books to when the season 1 finale hit screens around the world. 

"Making this show has been very atypical to television because - when was that [initial Zoom call with Reid], three summers ago?" Tierney began, asking confirmation from Rachel Reid. "That as August of 2023," she replied. 

"So three summers ago. That's insane for a TV show to have been optioned, not exist at all, sold [for distribution], aired, in three years. That does not happen. Like, even at the fastest pace at which things move, it's like every step of the way with this show, instead of somebody slowing it down, they were like, 'Actually, are you ready tomorrow?' from everything from shooting to the release. The show was supposed to air in February of this year, and it got pulled up to late November of last year," Tierney said. 

In Veronica Roth's upcoming book series, the Burning Empire, a select percentage of the population can see into the future. And recently, Roth's many fans got their own taste of that superpower. Specifically, they received a prophecy in the form of Roth not only confirming that the second book in the series is upcoming, but that she's already finished writing it.

This parcel of prognostication came from BookCon 2026, where Roth was the subject of a jam-packed spotlight panel. As you might have guessed if you've been keeping up with Roth's career, a great deal of the panel was dedicated to Seek the Traitor's Son, the first entry into the Burning Empire series. In the far-flung dystopia at the heart of the saga, some of the world's population is infected by a fatal disease, which not only has the ability to resurrect its dead, but to bring them back with the gift of prophecy. 

At one point in the panel, Roth was asked if she would rather be gifted that ability or, like another population of the globe in her books, the ability to see perfectly into the past. 

Did you know we're just about halfway to Halloween? It's true - and we can't think of a better way to mark the annual milestone than by hearing from some of the horror genre's most popular prose writers. If you were at BookCon 2026, you'll know I'm talking about Chuck Tingle, Tananarive Due, Kylie Lee Baker, & Bethany C. Morrow, who were all guests at the eye-opening, spine-tingling panel, Horror as a Mirror, Horror as Escape: How Lived Experiences Shape Fictional Fears.

If you couldn't make their panel, though, have no fear (er, have fear of a different thing?). Popverse was onsite with our best ghost-hunting equipment (a camera) to capture all the ghoulish gaieties, and now, we're making our freaky footage available to you, creepy compadre.

This is one of the many Bookcon 2026 panels Popverse filmed at New York City's Javits on the Hudson. Consult our Bookcon 2026 panel hub for a list of all of the panels we have available, and what's left to be released.

Melissa de la Cruz, Meg Cabot, Ann M. Martin, Libba Bray, and Kami Garcia have the kind of experience any aspiring novelist would kill for, but if you were at BookCon 2026, there was a whole lot less illegal way to glean some of it. That was, by attending the Then/Now: The Evolution of Your Career Since That 1st Book panel, at which the authors of the Blue Bloods, Princess Diaries, Baby-Sitters Club, Gemma Doyle, and Beautiful Creatures series, respectively, were all special guests.

Even if you couldn't make that, though, you still don't have to resort to manslaughter to soak up these storied authors' wisdom. Popverse was in the room while this panel was going down, and not only did we film it - we're making it available to you right now. 

This is one of the many Bookcon 2026 panels Popverse filmed at New York City's Javits on the Hudson. Consult our Bookcon 2026 panel hub for a list of all of the panels we have available, and what's left to be released.

Having already shaken up the fantasy scene with her Poppy War trilogy, R.F. Kuang became one of its leading beacons with her novel of dark academia, Babel. At just 29, Kuang continues to stand out in the genre, with last year's Katabasis earning her incredible reviews and an enviable amount of copies sold. At BookCon 2026, Kuang addressed a teaming room of fans to discuss her successes, inspirations, and future.

Popverse was there, of course, and we went ahead and filmed the whole thing. That footage is available just for you now, whether or not you could make it to Kuang's panel or the convention itself.

This is one of the many Bookcon 2026 panels Popverse filmed at New York City's Javits on the Hudson. Consult our Bookcon 2026 panel hub for a list of all of the panels we have available, and what's left to be released.

Netflix has picked up the TV rights for Jodi Picoult's hit prose novel The Book of Two Ways. The streaming service isn't waiting around, as it's already got Outlander showrunner Matthew B. Roberts onboard to oversee the adaptation, as writer/executive producer/showrunner.

"It'll have two really hot men," Picoult tells Popverse's Ashley V. Robinson about the adaptation here at BookCon 2026. "There's no downside to this story."

The series is being produced by Sony Pictures Television, in a partnership with Netflix.

The only thing hotter than the romance at the heart of HBO's Heated Rivalry is the passion of its fanbase, and we have proof. That proof was at BookCon 2026, where Rachel Reid - the author of the Game Changers series upon which the show was based - and Jacob Tierney - the series creator and showrunner - took the stage in front of hundreds of fans for a panel spotlighting the show's incredible success.

If you're burning up because you couldn't make it, though, don't worry - you can consider Popverse a heat delivery system. We not only filmed the Game Changing TV panel from this year's literary hotspot, but we're making it available to you right now. 

This is one of the many Bookcon 2026 panels Popverse filmed at New York City's Javits on the Hudson. Consult our Bookcon 2026 panel hub for a list of all of the panels we have available, and what's left to be released.

Divergent is back, baby.

Not that the dystopia was ever completely gone. Veronica Roth's YA novels have been bestsellers ever since they first hit shelves in 2011. I guess a better way to say this is that Divergent is expanding, baby, with Roth herself announcing a brand new installment of the page-to-screen megahit. Prepare yourselves, loyal readers, for The Sixth Faction.

The Sixth Faction was announced at BookCon 2026, where Roth was the subject of a spotlight panel highlighting her history in the YA genre and, obviously, teasing out some of her future. Interestingly, this announcement arrives on the heels of another project that Roth recently revealed she had in the works - Seek the Traitor's Son, which will serve as the first in a series of dystopian romances entitled Burning Empire.

If you're reading this, we know you hate spoilers. But this one we think you'll enjoy: BookCon is coming back in 2027, and we can now tell you when and where.

As we write this, BookCon 2026 is minutes away from its fated return here at the Javits on the Hudson, and we will all be returning next year as BookCon 2027 will take place Saturday, April 10 and Sunday, April 11, here once again at the Javits.

Our BookCon 2026 Premium VIP ticket-holders will be getting first access to BookCon tickets, with details on when tickets will go on sale to be forthcoming later this year.... but we're getting ahead of ourselves!

I'm willing to bet that if you're a DC fan, you've probably dreamt of having Superman's powers at some point. Or maybe you're a Joker fan, I don't know! Either way, you can get your fix of having Kryptonian powers through a new attraction at the Warner Bros. Studios lot in Burbank, California, called the Superman Experience: Defenders Unite. 

According to a press release from Warner Bros. Discovery, the Superman Experience is a "brand-new walkthrough experience and live gameplay attraction" where guests can "unlock and hone their super powers, work as a team, and enjoy the illusion of flying alongside Superman through next-generation motion capture technology, active 3D glasses, and high-definition audio." 

The attraction is inspired by the 2025 Superman movie directed by James Gunn and features its own storyline created specifically for it. And as it turns out, the Superman Experience has big ties to the larger fabric of DC Comics: "Through immersive technology, guests will simulate taking to the skies alongside Superman and visit various locations – including a training session on the Kent Farm with Krypto the Superdog – before joining Superman in an epic battle against DC Super-Villain, Darkseid. Earth's fate hangs in balance and only you and your team of newly empowered superheroes can help Superman save humanity."

The already stacked cast of Avengers: Doomsday keeps expanding, if you can believe it. 

At CinemaCon 2026, Marvel Studios unveiled a trailer for Avengers: Doomsday, showing Robert Downey Jr.'s Doctor Doom in action against heroes like Chris Evans' Steve Rogers, Chris Hemsworth's Thor, and more. Beyond some surprising twists teased in the trailer, there was one casting curveball: the reveal that Kathryn Newton will be reprising her role as Cassie Lang in the film. Previously, Newton hadn't been announced as a part of the cast for the film, but it makes sense for her to appear alongside Paul Rudd's Ant-Man. (She's since released an Instagram reel officially announcing her role in the movie.)

Newton isn't the only newcomer to the Avengers: Doomsday cast. In a new statement from the Walt Disney Company outlining the studio's presentations at CinemaCon this week, a new name was listed as among the  Doomsday cast: Wesley Holloway. Previously, Holloway hasn't been in any MCU projects, and he is a child actor who appeared, curiously, in Terrifier 2. 

When it comes to the roll out of Avengers: Doomsday, there was one notable stumbling block for Disney and Marvel alike: the movie would not be showing on IMAX upon release. That’s because Warner Bros. is also releasing Dune: Part Three on the same date, and that movie has booked up IMAX months in advance. (You can even pre-book your tickets now.) So, what’s a studio to do when it can't put its biggest movie on the biggest screens?

Apparently, the answer is, “create its own IMAX-esque big-screen format.”

At CinemaCon 2026, the Walt Disney Company announced Infinity Vision, which it describes in its press release as “a new certification for premium large format (PLF) theaters [that] sets a new benchmark for theatrical presentation, certifying auditoriums that meet rigorous technical standards, including a focus on: The largest screens for maximum scale, Laser projection for superior brightness and clarity [and] Premium audio formats for fully immersive sound.”

After dropping a handful of short teasers setting up the return of heroes like the X-Men, Thor, and the Steve Rogers formerly known as Captain America, along with team-ups between the Fantastic Four, the Wakandans, and the Talokans, a full trailer for Avengers: Doomsday has finally been unveiled by Marvel Studios. The problem is that only attendees of CinemaCon 2026 have seen it. 

What we can extract from IGN's report of the trailer is that the Fantastic Four meet with the Avengers at Avengers Tower (both the official Avengers team and the New Avengers, formerly known as the Thunderbolts, seemingly). Shuri's Black Panther is there in addition to Namor, and the X-Men's Cyclops enters the room. 

The IGN article also noted a fight between Shang-Chi and Gambit in the X-Mansion, Mystique transforming into Yelena Belova before fighting her, and Kathryn Newton's Cassie Lang appearing alongside Paul Rudd's Ant-Man. 

What's worse than one Deathstroke? TWO Deathstrokes! Or maybe it isn't so bad if one of the Deathstrokes is trying to kill the other? 

This is what lies ahead for Deathstroke: The Terminator #5 by Tony Fleecs and Carmine Di Giandomenico, which teases a tantalizing new development in the DC Universe. Take a look at the main cover by Di Giandomenico and the variants by Jeff Spokes, Dike Ruan, and Carlo Pagulayan below. 

"As the timer runs out on his latest job, Slade Wilson comes face-to-face with his greatest nightmare…himself!" reads DC's description of the issue. "Another Deathstroke is on the loose in the DCU, and everyone’s a target. Will Slade get his kill, or is he about to be terminated?"

With the release of Star Wars: The Mandalorian & Grogu just weeks away at this point, Lucasfilm has released one final trailer for the movie that will relaunch Star Wars as a movie franchise — and writer/director Jon Favreau has talked about the challenge in creating something that audiences are going to follow from Disney+ to the multiplex.

Speaking at CinemaCon, Favreau talked about the fact that The Mandalorian & Grogu doesn’t just have to be good — it has to be good enough to get audiences to get out of the house and go to the theater to check out, as opposed to waiting a few months for it to appear on Disney+ like the other Mandarian stories.

“So here’s the trick: You gotta deliver something that the audience enjoys, regardless of the medium. And in this case, what could we do that we couldn’t do before?” Favreau told Matt Belloni, as shared by Puck. “We have to treat it like the first season and the first episode of The Mandalorian, which is: Don’t assume anybody’s seen anything, but also make it clear to the people who’ve been with Star Wars for 50 years that this is something that is for them. We can’t forget that Star Wars hasn’t been in theaters for almost seven years. There are audience members who were not old enough to know Star Wars in the theater. We have to invite those fans in.”

Now that the Absolute Robins have been introduced to us all in Absolute Batman, it's time that we get the full story on the origins of Absolute Harley Quinn. This July, with Absolute Batman #22, we'll be getting our look at where Absolute Harley Quinn comes from. 

And as a bonus, guest art from Something Is Killing The Children co-creator Werther Dell'Edera.

"As the Robins nest in Gotham’s backyard, and Batman faces ultimate defeat, Harley Quinn’s origin is revealed," reads DC's description of the issue. "How does Harley connect with Ark M, and how did the Robins fledge from hatchlings to birds of prey? The call of more than one predator will be answered in this issue."

I thought I would not live to see the day when Eric Andre would scream "STREET FIGHTER" in the guttural screech he pioneered on The Eric Andre Show, but here we are. And boy, does it feel good. 

The first trailer for Paramount and Legendary's upcoming Street Fighter movie has dropped, and in case you're wondering, it's directed by The Eric Andre Show's own Kitao Sakurai. Beyond the fact that Sakurai got Andre in the film to do his characteristic voice in this film, it looks like getting a comedy director to helm Street Fighter will help bring out the humorous and campy aspects of the video game series. Take a look at it below. 

Eric Andre will be joined for the festivities by Andrew Koji (Warrior) as Ryu, Noah Centineo (To All The Boys...) as Ken Masters, Callina Liang as Chun-Li, Cody Rhodes as Guile, 50 Cent as Balrog, Orville Peck as Vega, Olivier Richters (the tall guy from Reacher season 3) as Zangief, Vidyut Jammwal as Halsim, David Dastmalchian as M. Bison, and Jason Momoa as Blanka. 

It’s a classic good news/bad news for fans of CBS’s Ghosts. We’ll go with the bad news first: the show will not be returning for its sixth season this fall. The good news more than makes up for it, though: there will be a full 22-episode sixth season coming in 2027… and additional special episodes even before that, as well.

CBS has announced that Season 6 of the hit comedy will be held back until midseason in the next broadcast year, meaning that an early 2027 premiere is likely; the decision has been made to allow for the pairing for Georgie & Mandy’s First Marriage and new show Eternally Yours when the new season debuts in the fall. “We want to give our new shows the best launch pad possible. And we think this is going to be a really formidable pairing. And that was really where that decision came from,” CBS Entertainment president Amy Reisenbach said during the fall schedule presentation.

That doesn’t mean that new Ghosts will be entirely absent from fall 2026. It turns out that two hour-long special episodes are planned for the holidays — one to air around Halloween, and a second around the end of the year, tentatively titled a “Ghostmas” Special.

Supergirl and Krypto the Superdog are as thick as thieves. If you come for one of them, then you can expect that the other will come at you with everything they've got. And this is precisely what's at the center of the trailer for the upcoming Supergirl trailer from DC Studios, where we see Krem of the Yellow Hills shoot poor Krypto and send Kara on a journey across the cosmos for an antidote to cure the poison from Krem's shot. 

Supergirl's journey to find justice for Krypto calls to mind another impassioned dog owner seeking vengeance in pop culture: John Wick. In an interview with Fandango, director Craig Gillespie and actress Milly Alcock were asked if Supergirl would get her John Wick on in the film to avenge Krypto. 

"[Supergirl is going] more John Wick than John Wick," began Gillespie. "I kept saying, 'Do it like John Wick,'" the director said with a laugh. "'Do it like Keanu!'" Alcock chimed in. 

Amazon knows that the world is waiting for the next James Bond — but the company is in no rush to reveal who will take up the mantle of 007 anytime soon, it turns out.

There hasn’t been a James Bond movie since 2021’s No Time to Die, which saw the end of Daniel Craig’s time as Bond — and since then, Amazon has taken control of the character’s future after the retirement of longtime producer Barbara Broccoli. In the past few months, we’ve discovered that Dune director Denis Villeneuve would be handling the next Bond film, but as for the next Bond himself, that was a mystery… and seems destined to remain one for awhile yet, it seems.

“Now, I know you’re all wondering when we’re going to announce who’s playing James Bond,” Amazon MGM Studios chief Courtenay Valenti said at CinemaCon 2026, as reported by Deadline. “Please know that we’re taking the time to do this with care and deep respect. It is the dream of a lifetime for all of us to bring audiences this next chapter, and it’s a responsibility we don’t take lightly.”

DC is deep in its reimagining era. The Absolute line, spearheaded by Absolute Batman, continues to be a generational hit for the company, and James Gunn’s DC Studios is introducing new characters to a wider audience on both the big and small screens. So it isn’t surprising that DC Comics is taking the chance to do something new with one of Batman’s most tragic and iconic villains. Clayface: Celebrity Dirt digs deeper into the horror and tragedy of Clayface in a newly announced six-issue series.

Jude Ellison S. Doyle (MAW) is on writing duties while Fran Galán is the artist for Clayface: Celebrity Dirt. Patricio Delpeche is the colorist and Tom Napolitano is the letterer for the series, which is described as a “story that balances body horror, the studio spotlight, and Gotham City noir.”

Basil Karlo, aka Clayface, escapes from Arkham Towers and is set to stage his comeback on the big screen, only to find that someone has stolen both his name and his face. Worst of all, this imposter has achieved a level of fame that Karlo could only dream of, forcing the villain to confront both the new Basil and to dig into the dangerous history of the Clayface family. The six-issue series is set to combine an exploration of redemption and celebrity with the body horror imagery that a villain like Clayface is known for.

Be sure I mean it as a compliment when I say: Critical Role is for the Weird Kids. In fact, that's probably part of the reason why, when OG cast members Ashley Johnson and Taliesin Jaffe started a video podcast, they gave it exactly that name. And since those same freaks that the podcast was made of, by, and for show no signs of waning interest, Johnson and Jaffe are headed back to Weirdsville for more.

Popverse is thrilled to report that new episodes of Weird Kids are on their way.

Weeks after the cast hinted at more episodes of the podcast at ECCC '26, Critical Role officially announced 24 (!) new episodes of Johnson and Jaffe's podcast April 16. The first of that batch is set to debut this May 5 on the company's streaming home, Beacon, with new episodes every Tuesday. Check out the trailer for this upcoming season below.

The new Iron Man series has been off to a start, and where would Tony Stark be without his bestie, James Rhodes, also known as War Machine? 

Thus far, Rhodey hasn't been in the series, but upon looking at the solicit information for Iron Man #7, it looks like War Machine is set to return alongside a longtime Iron Man villain. Take a look at the covers by Ryan Stegman and Dave Rapoza below. 

"After the events of the first arc, Tony Stark has taken on a surprising new role in the Marvel Universe. His allies are wondering what this means for the Avengers…and what in the hell is he building in the Hulk's old gamma base?!" reads Marvel's description of Iron Man #7 by writer Joshua Williamson and artist Von Randal. "Tony’s old buddy James Rhodes, A.K.A. War Machine, pays Tony a visit to investigate! But while Tony and War Machine catch up…an old Iron Man rogue returns with a CRACK!"

Some of the best Marvel comics of the '70s were outside the comic book shelves and in magazines to avoid the Comics Code, but now they are returning in lush, archival form in a partnership between Marvel Entertainment and Dark Horse Comics. The Best of Marvel’s Vampire Tales Volume One is the first of several planned collections of adult-oriented horror stories from the Vampire Tales magazine overseen by comics icons Roy Thomas and Marv Wolfman.

The Best of Marvel's Vampire Tales Vol. 1 will collect from the title's first two years, including the first Blade solo comic, the introduction of Marvel's spinoff of the biblical villain Satan with Satanna, and even a early Morbius tale written by Steve Gerber.

The Best of Marvel's Vampire Tales Vol. 1 is being put together by comics historian John Lind and writer/editor Chris Ryall, working alongside designer Chris Shadoian. The trio are doing full-color reproductions of the covers, and high-quality versions of each of the comics that hasn't been seen since these were new on the shelf in 1973 and 1974. 

Just because Critical Role now boasts two wildly successful animated TV shows does not mean it's moving away from its TTRPG roots. If anything, those roots grow ever deeper with Daggerheart, the D&D competitor from CR's Darrington Press. Recently, we got a window into the d12-centric fantasy RPG from one of the minds behind both it and Critical Role in general - voice actor and founder Matt Mercer.

Our conversation with Mercer happened at Emerald City Comic Con 2026, where we sat down for an exclusive chat with him and fellow CR stars Travis Willingham and Sam Riegel. On the subject of Daggerheart specifically, we wanted to know about the upcoming romantasy-inspired campaign frame, With Love and Magic, which you'll probably recall Popverse reporting on during PAX Unplugged last year. Specifically, what we wanted to know amounted to one question:

Why is With Love and Magic getting a digital-first release, while other Daggerheart campaign frames are being published physically, in Daggerheart's first expansion book, Hope & Fear?

There are a few different kinds of people who have been keeping the Baldur’s Gate 3 fandom alive in the years since its initial release. There are the modders, the Honor Mode fanatics, and, of course, the folks who want to bang all the characters (sometimes to an unhealthy degree). The marketing team at Larian Studios knew exactly what they were doing when they released the infamous Bear Scene as part of the promotion for the game, but it apparently even caught the actor playing Halsin off guard.

For those of you who don’t know, let us remind you. If you choose to romance Halsin in Baldur’s Gate 3, there is a scene where you can become one with Nature. We don’t mean that just because Halsin is a druid and therefore has a connection with nature; we mean that because he turns into a bear right before you bang. The clip was doing the rounds even before the full release of Baldur’s Gate 3, and it immediately got everyone talking. Why? Because it is a scene in a mainstream video game where you have sex with a dude who changes into a bear. Obviously.

Recently, Dave Jones, who provided both Halsin’s voice and his motion capture for Baldur’s Gate 3, appeared on a podcast where he explained his first reaction to finding out about the bear scene. “When I first found out about The Bear Scene, I was on a train down to London to one of the sessions. We get the scripts a couple of days beforehand, and you can look through. I just burst out laughing. It was more the fact that, ‘Oh, we’re going there. We’re going there.’”

One of the pillars of modern Marvel Comics has been laid off as a part of broader cuts within the Disney empire. According to four sources familiar with the situation, Marvel Entertainment's senior VP of sales & marketing, David Gabriel, was let go this week after nearly 23 years with the company. 

Gabriel was one of the key power players inside Marvel Comics for the past 20 years as its senior VP of sales and marketing. As part of that, he managed not only the marketing and sales but also the company's publication schedule, its global licensing of comics, and had a hand in developing new lines outside of its core superhero universe. I've been told of a number of core Marvel publishing initiatives he's had a silent-but-steady hand in. Additionally, sources indicated that he had a strong voice inside Marvel when it came to greenlighting certain key projects.

Related: Marvel Comics is recruiting its next recruiter of top writers, artists, and more

With one of the biggest video game releases of all time coming up in just a few months, you’d think that Rockstar Games would want to focus on getting the game polished and ready to hit GTA 6’s release date in November 2026. However, the company has once again found itself hit by a cybersecurity attack and its personal data held hostage.

It was only a few years ago that Grand Theft Auto’s developers got hit by a massive security attack. In 2023, it was unfinished in-game assets that got dropped onto the internet and led to a substantial delay in GTA 6’s release. This time, the company seems far less concerned about the data breach. 

On April 13, a group of hackers known as ShinyHunters broke into the cloud storage used by Rockstar Games and stole undisclosed data, threatening the company that they would release it to the public if their demands weren’t met. It is a fairly common tactic of hackers today, especially when so much important data is stored remotely so that teams around the world can work on projects together.

Multiple Marvel employees have been laid off as part of wider cost-cutting moves by parent company Disney, with multiple reports citing that “most” departments of the company — Marvel Studios, Marvel Comics, and internal divisions including finance and legal — have been impacted.

The Walt Disney Company CEO Josh D’Amaro announced that around 1,000 positions inside the wider corporation would be eliminated Tuesday morning, via a memo distributed amongst employees. “Over the past several months, we have looked at ways in which we can streamline our operations in various parts of the company to ensure we deliver the world-class creativity and innovation our fans value and expect from Disney,” D'Amaro explained in the memo. “Given the fast-moving pace of our industries, this requires us to constantly assess how to foster a more agile and technologically-enabled workforce to meet tomorrow’s needs. As a result, we will be eliminating roles in some parts of the company and have begun notifying impacted employees.”

D’Amaro described the cuts as “difficult,” and added, “These decisions are not a reflection of [employee] contributions, or of the overall strength of the company. Rather, they reflect our continual evaluation of how to more effectively manage our resources and reinvest in our businesses.”

Absolute Batman writer Scott Snyder has been open about his appreciation for Frank Miller's writing in Batman: The Dark Knight Returns. And in the most recent issue of Absolute Batman, Snyder wears Miller's influence on his sleeve. 

If you've read The Dark Knight Returns, you might remember that the first issue opens with a middle-aged Bruce Wayne driving a racecar at full speed. Miller, Klaus Janson, and Lynn Varley's page features a tight close-up of Bruce's face in profile as he drives, while the story's narration illustrates just how narrow the protagonist's perspective is on his place within the world and his city. Bruce's inner monologue says, "I've got the home stretch all to myself when the readings stop making sense. I switch to manual," mapping Batman's feelings about getting old onto his car and the race itself. Because of Bruce's failure to see the broader picture, both literally and figuratively, he crashes his car on the racetrack. 

In Absolute Batman #19 by Scott Snyder, Nick Dragotta, Clayton Cowles,and Frank Martin, there is a sequence that feels like an homage to the beginning of The Dark Knight Returns, at least in my eyes. Absolute Batman enters the story in issue 19 by crashing through a billboard in a badass (bat-ass?) vehicle Alfred jokingly calls the Bat-Gyro. Over these panels, Alfred thinks, "In just the past couple weeks, the kid has shifted into an entirely new gear. I came back from MI6 to find him driven like never before. No friends, no distractions. Nothing but BATMAN." 

Ever since DC Comics unveiled the first look at Scott Snyder and Nick Dragotta's Absolute Batman, Batman fans have wondered what the Absolute Universe's version of Robin would look like. If Absolute Batman has such a distinct look, then what would Absolute Robin look like?

Well, ever since the full cover of Absolute Batman #20 was revealed, this question has been answered: the Absolute Robins are enormous mech suits. But now, since Absolute Batman #19 has hit stands, we finally know the story behind Absolute Robin. So let's get into it. 

The Absolute Robins are comprised of some familiar names: Dick Grayson, Jason Todd, Tim Drake, Stephanie Brown, and Duke Thomas. In the mainline DC Universe, Dick, Jason, Tim, and Stephanie have all been Robin to Batman, while Duke is a member of the Bat-Family who uses the vigilante name, The Signal (it's also worth noting that Duke was co-created by Absolute Batman writer Scott Snyder during his New 52 Batman run with artist Greg Capullo). But instead of being Batman's sidekicks, Dick, Jason, Tim, Stephanie, and Duke are all part of the "Robin Program" run by Slade Wilson (Deathstroke in the main DC Universe), and their legal guardian is Jack Grimm V, Absolute Joker. 

So, you've finished reading Absolute Batman #19. And what a firecracker of an issue it was from Scott Snyder, Nick Dragotta, Clayton Cowles, and Frank Martin. 

Ever since the marketing description for Absolute Batman #20 was released, we knew that one character would die in Absolute Batman #19. But when the moment came for Former Mayor Jim Gordon to hit the dust, I won't deny that it was incredibly shocking to see on the page. Let's unpack what the heck happened that led to Absolute Jim Gordon's death. 

Gordon calls Absolute Batman up and says he wants to meet with him. In typical Gotham fashion, Batman meets up with Gordon on a rooftop and finds Jim to be in a paranoid state. Gordon verbally debates telling Batman the reason why he called him there, revealing that he "[doesn't] know what the right thing is anymore" after unearthing some files called Project Batman.

The Spider-Man: Brand New Day trailer is practically a who's who of Spider-Man villains. But instead of highlighting bigger names like Hobgoblin, Chameleon, or the Rhino, we get glimpses of lesser-known spider-baddies like Boomerang (not to be confused with DC's villain, Captain Boomerang) and Tarantula (also not to be confused with the DC villain of the same name).

Of course, Brand New Day also features the return of the Scorpion, played by Michael Mando, who we last saw in 2017's Spider-Man: Homecoming. And we can't forget that ninjas from The Hand also make an appearance in the trailer, alongside The Punisher, who was first introduced in Marvel Comics as a Spider-Man villain. 

So, with that said, who the heck is the villain of Brand New Day? Or does there even need to be a singular villain for the movie? After all, No Way Home featured a mix of Spider-Man villains from previous Spidey movies.

Brainiac isn’t the only DC Comics villain debuting in 2027’s Man of Tomorrow movie — Andor star Adria Arjona will also be signing up for a tour of duty in the DCU, playing one-time Justice League member, and part-time Brainiac sidekick, Maxima according to reports.

The Hollywood Reporter is, well, reporting that Arjona has nabbed the role of the Warrior Queen of Almarac in the upcoming movie, beating out actors including Sydney Chandler and Grace Van Patten for the role in the follow-up to 2025’s Superman.

In comic book lore, Maxima doesn’t just have a complicated relationship with Superman — are they love interests? Enemies? Friends? It literally depends on what story she appears in — but also with Brainiac, the robotic alien threat that writer/director James Gunn has already confirmed with be the primary antagonist in Man of Tomorrow, played by Lars Eidinger. She’s been both an enforcer working on Brainiac’s side, and an active thorn in his side during her comic book career; it remains to be seen where she’ll fall on the big screen.

Hollywood, it has to be said, is having a serious moment with video game adaptations at the moment. With The Super Mario Galaxy Movie making huge waves at the box office, and both Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter are returning to the big screen later this year. However, the studio behind the Avatar films has just announced that they have acquired the film rights to one of the most popular games on the Roblox platform, and that is a sentence we never thought we’d have to type.

 For folks who don’t have young gamers in their house, Roblox is an online platform that allows fans to create their own games, which can be played by people around the world. Millions of people use the platform every day to play any number of the millions of games available. While the playerbase on Roblox skews young (perhaps worryingly so), there is no shortage of horror games to be played there. That includes 99 Nights in the Forest, a game that has been played by millions of people since it launched in March 2025.

The premise of the game is suitably horrific. Players must survive 99 nights in a haunted forest while avoiding dangerous animals and trying to find four lost children. 99 Nights in the Forest has proven popular enough to get the attention of 20th Century Studios, the studio behind James Cameron’s Avatar films, and they recently announced that they have purchased the film rights to the game from developers Grandma’s Favourite Games. 

For those of us not lucky enough to be in the audience for the debut of new (unfinished) footage from Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse at CinemaCon 2026, Sony Pictures Animation has offered a small make-good — preview images from the long-awaited follow-up to 2023’s Across the Spider-Verse.

The four images offer what appears to be a continuation of the aesthetic-first approach of the earlier two Spider-Verse movies, while reminding audiences what the movie is really about: Miles’ attempts to buck destiny and save his father, whose death may or may not be a pre-destined “canon event,” and seemingly unavoidable without all of reality collapsing if it doesn’t happen. (In addition to the touching father/son image, note the caption in the Spider-Punk image.)

The footage screened at CinemaCon was, according to reports, a conversation with Miles and his alternate-reality self introduced in the cliffhanger of Across the Spider-Verse in which they discuss their similarities and differences (including “the different ways they are pronouncing ‘Morales’ — with what degree of accent,” per the Hollywood Reporter). The scenes ends with Miles escaping his alternate self.

The Star Wars franchise has always been built upon the things that came before it. The Prequels were built upon the legacy of the original trilogy, and the sequels were built upon the nostalgia for both. In that way, The Mandalorian and Grogu is the perfect Star Wars film, because it is apparently a sequel not just to the Disney+ series but The Clone Wars animated series, thanks to the appearance of Rotta the Hutt. Or Stinky, as Ahsoka would call him.

During an interview with Empire Magazine, Dave Filoni, the new co-president of Lucasfilm who has been involved with Star Wars animation for many years, discussed the fact that he never thought he’d see the character of Rotta the Hutt again, let alone in a live-action film. “I never imagined, working at Lucasfilm, that 20 years later I would be working on a [live-action] film with Rotta in it.”

While most Star Wars fans probably only know the Hutts thanks to the slovenly and, frankly, creepy Jabba from The Return of the Jedi, there have been multiple instances of the race in various Star Wars comics and TV shows over the years. Still, the inclusion of Rotta is unusual simply because of his physique. Rotta the Hutt is absolutely jacked, to put it lightly, as seen in the trailer for The Mandalorian and Grogu. “He’s incredibly tough, incredibly capable,” explained The Mandalorian and Grogu director Jon Favreau. “It shows what the physical potential of a Hutt could be, if they take that lifestyle on.”

Daredevil: Born Again season 2 has felt very street-level. More than say, the first Avengers movie, Daredevil: Born Again's sophomore season captures the feel and spirit of New York City in the 21st century, even with a crazed maniac like Bullseye running around, throwing forks at his enemies. 

One of the things that fans of the Daredevil Netflix show loved most about the original show was the visceral, meticulously choreographed fight sequences. And thus far, Born Again season 2 hasn't disappointed, especially with the latest fight scene involving Bullseye, which you can watch below. 

On the official Daredevil: Born Again podcast, Bullseye actor Wilson Bethel revealed that the exhilarating sequence in season 2, episode 4 ("Gloves Off") was filmed all in one day. The scene involved "eighty" different camera setups, which, in case you're not familiar with film production, is a lot because of how time-consuming it is to set up a camera and adjust the lights to keep everything looking consistent from angle to angle. Again, this was shot all in one day!

20 years ago, the first chapter of Fairy Tail was published in the pages of Weekly Shonen Magazine. Since then, it has gone on to become one of the most popular and best-selling manga of all time, spawning both a prequel and a sequel manga as well as a hit anime adaptation and multiple films. Now it looks like Natsu, Lucy, Grey, and all their friends (and enemies) will be returning for brand new chapters starting later this year.

The announcement comes as part of the 20th anniversary celebrations for the original manga, which debuted in 2006 and ran through 2017. On the official website for all the Fairy Tail 20th anniversary announcements, Kodansha confirmed that Fairy Tail was returning to Weekly Shonen Magazine in August 2026 for a new story that it calls a “short-term, concentrated serialization.”

There aren’t any other details, and it isn’t clear exactly what the new serialization will be. Is this a new story or a very late epilogue? Fairy Tail: 100 Years Quest, which is a sequel manga, is still ongoing. Does this new story take place before 100 Years Quest? Or is it somewhere between the end of the original Fairy Tail manga and its follow-up?

Marvel's Beast is one of the founders of the X-Men. He's also a brilliant scientist, a Shakespeare aficionado, and a political activist. But if you haven't been reading X-Men comics lately, you might not know that he's also now an out-and-out villain - and later in 2026, attempting a comics supervillain level plot that would change the world. 

To help mutants and humans live together more peacefully, founding X-Men Henry 'Hank' McCoy has created a virus to make all humans into mutants... whether they like it or not. 

The Beast is Marvel's newest big bad (under a domineering new code name of 'The Chairman'), and it's coming to head in a five-issue event series this fall titled DNX. The event, named for a play on the initials DNA and the X-Gene that differentiates humans from mutants, will also see a crossover between Marvel Comics' X-Men line of comics and its Fantastic Four title, and you can bet Reed Richards has some thoughts about this.

Unless you are a Berserk fan, it is hard to explain how it feels to be waiting for new chapters as long as Hunter x Hunter fans have. Yoshihiro Togashi has battled through a slew of health issues over the years, which have resulted in numerous delays and even potential plans for if the celebrated mangaka doesn’t live to finish the story. However, with the help of his wife, Naoko Takeuchi, the legendary creator of Sailor Moon, it looks like the Hunter x Hunter manga is going to get an update very soon.

Posting on social media, Yoshihiro Togashi gave an update on the status of Hunter x Hunter that fans have been waiting for. “Chapter 430, character inking completed. Please wait for the announcement from the Jump editorial department regarding the publication timing for chapters 420 onward,” he said in a post from April 8, 2026. “I’m receiving tons of motivation to keep going from my wife.” His wife, as we mentioned before, is Naoko Takeuchi, the creator of Sailor Moon.

RELATED: How to watch Hunter x Hunter in order

Sometimes having a hit isn’t enough to save a studio, even as the industry itself is booming. The anime studio behind both Umamusume: Pretty Derby and Sentenced To Be A Hero adaptations, Studio Kai, announced its insolvency this week, putting multiple upcoming projects into question just weeks after Sentenced to be a Hero Season 2 was confirmed to be in production.

Studio Kai has apparently not been in a great financial position for a while now. At the end of 2025, they reported a 565 million yen ($3.54 million) loss, which seems to have been compounded by a widening deficit over the years. The result is that they are at risk of insolvency and potential closure if they can’t find a way toward more financially viable ground.

The news comes just as Sentenced To Be A Hero, the anime adaptation of Rocket Shokai’s light novels, finished its first season and confirmed that a second season is in the works. Studio Kai was the animation studio for season one. It is unclear what impact their potential insolvency will have on the upcoming season. Most likely, they will have to find a new studio to produce the anime going forward.

Good news for fans of the anime series BLEACH have been eagerly anticipating the final chapter of the Thousand-Year Blood War — it’s coming sooner than they might have thought, and bigger, as well: VIZ Media and Fathom Entertainment have reached a deal to bring the first chapters to movie theaters this summer.

Specifically, BLEACH: Thousand-Year Blood War will share the first three chapters of BLEACH: Thousand-Year Blood War - The Calamity as part of a limited theatrical run from June 25 through June 29, as part of the new deal, with the run being the official U.S. premiere of the episodes ahead of their streaming release. Episodes will be available in subtitled and dubbed versions, and the theatrical release will also include what VIZ Media describes as “an exclusive behind‑the‑scenes conversation with creator Tite Kubo and chief series director Tomohisa Taguchi and series director Hikaru Murata about the production.”

Before he was the award-winning showrunner of The Boys, Erik Kripke had another long-running hit on his hands with Supernatural. He already brought one Winchester boy into The Boys when he cast Jensen Ackles as Soldier Boy, and we’ve known for a while that the other brother, Jared Padalecki, was going to be joining the cast for The Boys Season 5. However, we didn’t know until just recently who Padalecki would be playing in the final season of The Boys… until this weekend.

During a panel at the FACTS Comic-Con convention in Belgium over the weekend, Jared Padalecki was asked about his role in The Boys Season 5. We’ve seen bits of it in trailers, but his character hasn’t appeared in any of the episodes that have been aired so far. He was initially hesitant to confirm the speculation that he was playing Mister Marathon, but he visibly relaxed when it was noted that there was enough information out there to confirm it.

“Oh, so we know that?” he said, laughing. “I can finally say it. We shot it a year ago. We shot in April of 2025, and I’ve been terrified of saying shit because I was like, ‘Jeff Bezos is going to send a SWAT team after me,’ or something. Okay. Yeah. I’m Mister Marathon.”

A horror classic is speeding back into North American theaters this summer — and it’s just a preview of more scares to come. Top-level Korean zombie movie Train to Busan will get a 10th anniversary re-release in the United States and Canada in August, just two weeks before the director’s latest horror movie is set to infect theaters.

Indie distributor Well Go USA Entertainment has announced that Yeon Sang-ho’s iconic 2016 movie will be released across North America in 4K for the first time on the big screen starting August 14, ahead of the August 28 release of Colony, the director’s next zombie movie.

For those unfamiliar with Train to Busan, the movie is set on a high speed train traveling from Seoul to Busan as a zombie outbreak takes hold of the country; as might be expected, there are zombies on the train as well, leading to all manner of exciting and terrifying moments. The movie was acclaimed around the world, and led to both an animated prequel and live-action spin-off, 2020’s Peninsula.

Much has been made about the manga influences in DC Comics' once-in-a-generation hit Absolute Batman, thanks to the linework of Nick Dragotta and the story of Scott Snyder... but that influence isn't just skin-deep, but it goes deeper inside the built-like-a-dumptruck Dark Knight and into his words and actions, as evoked by letterer Clayton Cowles.

"The first thing I noticed when I started Absolute Batman was the heavy manga influence in the artwork, so I got to work tailoring a lettering style to match using Adobe Illustrator,” Cowles says in Comics! The Magazine #1. “Most of the manga I read has the word balloons drawn into the artwork, so rather than using a ‘house’ style of world balloon (which are typically symmetrical ovals], I used a set of word balloons that looked asymmetrical and blobby (which I made myself)."

Cowles has been lettering for the past 17 years, on everything from long-running series like DC's Batman and Marvel's Daredevil, to creator-owned work such as Bitch Planet, Bitter Root, and Die. But in getting ready for Absolute Batman, Cowles broke with how Western superhero comics are traditionally done from head to tail, literally.

The producers of Stranger Things are pivoting for their next big Netflix project: we’ve seen how kids deal with the unexpected — now it’s time to see how retirees do it. At least, that seems to be the gimmick behind the upcoming series The Boroughs, judging by its first trailer.

The show — created by Jeffrey Addiss and Will Matthews, who’ve worked together on The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance, and produced by Upside Down Pictures, the company formed by Stranger Things creators the Duffer Brothers — isn’t afraid of trading on the goodwill of the hit Netflix series that predates it. The official description of the series makes that clear from the very first sentence: “The executive producers of Stranger Things invite you to a new community. Welcome to the Boroughs, starring Geena Davis, Alfred Molina, Alfre Woodard, Bill Pullman, Clarke Peters and Denis O’Hare. In a seemingly picturesque retirement community, a group of unlikely heroes must band together to stop an otherworldly threat from stealing the one thing they don’t have - time. Coming May 21st only on Netflix.”

Take a look at the trailer — which has very Steven Spielberg vibes, perhaps fittingly — below.

Marvel Comics takes its relationships with comic creators seriously, and for the past 20+ years has innovated with a dedicated team of editorial- and art-minded professionals focused strictly on finding new writers and artists to work on its comics, and then work to make sure those who work for Marvel can get their work in on time, and get paid on time. And now, Marvel's comic creator talent recruiters are recruiting for their team, as the company is hiring a new talent relations coordinator.

Whoever gets this new position of Marvel Comics' talent relations coordinator would be working directly under longtime DC/Marvel vet Rickey Purdin, who has been running the department since 2015. What the department excels at is providing a hands-on role to foster better relationships between Marvel's editorial and talent payment group departments and creators, with dedicated workflows around creator schedules, production timelines, and creator pay.

The Marvel Comics' talent relations coordinator is mostly based out of the company's NYC offices, but given conversations I've had with previous people in this role, I would expect a fair bit of travel to conventions and other places to recruit new talent and cultivate stronger relationships with creators already working at Marvel.

If TMZ (or things like it) is writing about you, chances are it may not be a good thing. For blogger-turned-celebrity-writer Mimi Green, it certainly isn't. After a paparazzi news outlet unearths decades-old blog posts fatshaming people, Green does what many celebrities do - goes into hiding, and looks for help (or a place to hide out, depending on who you ask). But when the mental health facility she checks into is more about punishment than a solution, Mimi Green is in for it.

That's the story of the new Dark Horse limited series Did You Hear About Mimi Green?, by artist Josh Cornillon (Young Men in Love) and lit-agent-turned-comics-podcaster-turned-writer Connor Goldsmith (Cerebro). Here is a trailer for the series, debuting here on Popverse:

"Working on this story, from its first early germination years ago, to the full-fledged surreal dream that it has become, has been an absolute pleasure, and the chance to build this world from the ground up with Connor has been one of the most creatively fulfilling experiences I’ve had in my career," Cornillion says.

Marvel Comics' big new bad of 2026 is emerging to be a symbiote-ish villain known as Torment. Torment is the driving force (and killing blow, in some respects) to the current 'Death Spiral' crossover event happening in Marvel Comics' Amazing Spider-Man and Venom ongoing series, but all this is happening when just who or what Torment is remains a mystery.

Torment debuted in February's Amazing Spider-Man/Venom: Death Spiral #1, revealed to be an as-yet-unnamed serial killer obsessed with the idea of spirals. His true identity and source of his powers remain unknown, leading to the central thrust of this one-shot coda to the 'Death Spiral' crossover event, subtitled Body Count.

 "THE ORIGIN OF TORMENT! The scariest new villain in the Marvel Universe finally gets his story told!" reads the description for Amazing Spider-Man: Death Spiral - Body Count #1. "He's hunted Peter Parker, Mary Jane Watson and Eddie Brock, killing his way to their throats and wrapping his razor whip around them. What forged the deadliest serial killer since Cletus Kasady? Find out in this one-shot that will define Torment's past and his future!"

Critical Role fans probably know Sam Riegel as Scanlan Shorthalt, Fresh Cut Grass, or Nott the Brave (AKA Ve... oops, sorry, spoilers). But if you're more into handheld console gaming than you are TTRPG actual plays, you may recognize him as voicing a very different iconic character - the titular Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney, who Riegel's been voicing since 2011 with Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3. We're pretty big fans of gaming's most endearing attorney ourselves, so when we got the chance to talk to Riegel about the character, we asked the question only someone who's been in his shoes could properly answer:

How would you make a Phoenix Wright movie?

"It would be a shot for shot remake of a Few Good Men," Rigel told us at Emerald City Comic Con 2026, during an exclusive interview with him,  Matt Mercer, and Travis Willingham, "Except with Phoenix Wright as Tom Cruise. And all in Japanese!"

Fancy hanging out with Spider-Man in Los Angeles? Sure, it’s not ol’ web-head’s usual stomping grounds — swinging grounds, maybe? — but it’s where the world premiere for this summer’s Spider-Man: Brand New Day is taking place, and that’s the very destination that Tom Holland is inviting two fans to right now. Yes, really.

As revealed on his Instagram, Holland’s family charity The Brothers Trust has opened a sweepstakes with a pretty amazing, spectacular, and sensational prize: two winners will receive all-expenses paid trips for themselves and one guest to LA to attend the premiere of the movie, as well as the chance to meet Tom Holland and, just in case that wasn’t enough, also receive $1,500 in spending money during the trip.

“We will fly you from anywhere around the world, we will put you up in a swanky hotel and give you some spending money in LA,” Holland said in the accompanying video to the announcement. “It’ll be super exciting.”

A Minecraft Movie, The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, and next month’s Mortal Kombat II have already proven that video games are the new superheroes when it comes to box office blockbusters, and now Sony Columbia Pictures is getting into the game with the news that Metal Gear Solid is coming to the big screen, courtesy of the filmmakers behind last year’s Final Destination: Bloodlines.

Per The Hollywood Reporter, filmmakers Zach Lipovsky and Adam B. Stein will direct the first big screen adaptation of the Hideo Kojima-created video game, which will be produced by former Marvel executive Avi Arad and his son, Ari. (The two have previously worked on a number of Marvel movies, including the first Iron Man.)

In a statement, Lipovsky and Stein said, “Metal Gear Solid was nothing short of a groundbreaking cinematic masterpiece that forever revolutionized video games. We are thrilled and honored to bring Hideo Kojima’s iconic characters and unforgettable world to life.”

In case the voice cast’s appearance at Emerald City Comic Con 2026 wasn’t enough of a clue that animated series The Amazing Digital Circus is having a moment right now, this might convince you: the show’s finale is going to be screened in theaters across the United States and beyond this June.

Announced April 10, a partnership between Amazing Digital Circus studio Glitch Productions and Fathom Entertainment means that The Amazing Digital Circus: The Last Act will arrive in theaters June 4, running through June 7. The Last Act — a 93-minute presentation — will combine the already-released eighth episode of the series with the premiere of the hour-long ninth, bringing the series to its conclusion.

The official synopsis of The Last Act runs as follows: “The viral internet sensation “The Amazing Digital Circus” comes to its long-awaited conclusion in a feature-length theatrical release! This “Last Act” combines episode eight with the all new, hour-long episode nine for fans to see before anyone else in the world. With Caine gone and the circus dark, the cast are left with only the mistakes and traumas of their pasts to keep them company. As the prospect of eternity closes in around them, they discover the truth about the Digital Circus and its history.  Will they come to terms with what they uncover, or will they make… the other choice? Also, presumably at some point someone says something funny, because this ending can’t be THAT depressing, can it?”

With The Boys Season 5 finally upon us, we’re already looking at what happens when the plot armor comes off: in the very first episode of the season, one major character was killed in a particularly gory fashion. We’re being obviously cagey with the who (for now), but, according to showrunner Eric Kripke, this death was seen as an important development for this character. It was even set up in the very first episode of The Boys.

Major spoilers for The Boys Season 5 Episode 1 follow.

Killing off a character early in the new season is just The Boys writers and producers showing that no one is truly safe anymore. Homelander starts this season as the most powerful being on the planet, both physically and politically, and he is using that position to exact revenge on anyone who wronged him. And no one was higher on that list than A-Train.

Having gone from a nerdy webseries to a media empire, it seemed like the only way TTRPG actual play show Critical Role hadn't been growing in the past couple years was in the size of its table (although if you count the EXU spinoffs, even that number was getting bigger). That changed, though, at the beginning of Campaign 4, when the number of seats at the full sessions went from eight to fourteen, and the size of the overall story split into three distinct parts. And according to series founder Matt Mercer, one of the reasons for that growth was clear:

A Critical Role future beyond its original 8 cast members.

That's what the veteran Critical Role GM told us at Emerald City Comic Con 2026, where Popverse got to sit down for an exclusive chat with Mercer, Sam Riegel, and Travis Willingham, all of whom have been with the show since its very first episode. It was in this chat that we got to talking about the choice to expand the tables for Campaign 4, and moreover, expand Critical Role as a brand beyond its original 8 players.

Now that both of Critical Role's animated adaptations - The Legend of Vox Machina and The Mighty Nein, of course - are streaming on Prime Video, we don't have to wonder what the differences between the shows will be. But there was a time when that was a hot topic amongst Critters all over, with fans (like Popverse) scouring the internet for clues. One of those clues came from San Diego Comic Con 2025, where OG cast member Travis Willingham said Mighty Nein would introduce viewers to events "in real time," "instead of using flashbacks."

Despite us having seen the first full season of The Might Nein, we were still curious as to why the Critical Role team would choose to set flashbacks aside for the show, especially in Willingham's case. His character, Fjord Stone, had a backstory largely explained via flashbacks in both The Mighty Nein's inspiration, Critical Role Campaign 2, and the Dark Horse Comics that delved into Fjord's origins.

So when we got the chance to talk with Willingham himself, we asked.

Who would win it a fight? That's a common question some superhero fans have, and for Marvel fans it generally comes down to either the Hulk (if you piss him off enough) or The-One-Above-All, a rarely-seen god-level character. But now, they have someone stronger.

In a promotion for July 8's Avengers: Armageddon #2, Marvel is promoting the debut of "a new hero with unrivaled power."

RELATED: Marvel's Avengers: Armageddon checklist

Scott Snyder made his name with his 'New 52' era run on Batman, and for artist Greg Capullo he made his name again on that same run. After a rocky start, the two became fast friends and have went on to do several subsequent DC projects, as well as a creator-owned series. But when Snyder returned to DC for Absolute Batman, their collaboration ended — but their friendship, and desire to work together again someday still remained.

The thing that's changed though, is how popular Absolute Batman has become (even outselling their 'New 52' Batman run), and Capullo also deciding to quietly retire from drawing comics anymore, instead focusing on covers, conventions, and taking time with his wife. Despite that, when it came time for Absolute Batman  to revamp the villains group Court of Owls which Snyder and Capullo originally created together over a decade ago, Snyder revealed recently that Capullo was his first call to draw that guest arc.

It came about when Snyder originally asked Capullo to do variant covers for Absolute Batman.

Timothy Zahn’s Thrawn Trilogy is one of the most beloved pieces of Star Wars media, but there’s one piece of lore from those books that Lucasfilm seems to wants to avoid - or is seemingly resistant to revisit, at least.

In 1991, Bantam Books published Heir to the Empire, the first installment of Timothy Zahn’s iconic Thrawn Trilogy. The novel not only revived the public’s interest in Star Wars, but it also introduced some new characters and concepts to the franchise, such as the villain Grand Admiral Thrawn and Mara Jade. Thrawn would go on to become one of the most celebrated villains in Star Wars, and Mara would eventually marry Luke Skywalker and give birth to a son named Ben.

When Disney bought Lucasfilm in 2014, the Star Wars franchise was given a continuity shakeup, and novels like Zahn’s Thrawn Trilogy were classified as non-canonical 'Legends.' However, certain characters like Thrawn have found a home in the new Star Wars canon, appearing in the Rebels animated series and the Disney+ series Ahsoka. With Thrawn back in continuity, could this mean Mara Jade is next? Don’t count on it.

Is a Critical Role live-action adaptation on the way? It's a hot topic of conversation among fans of the TTRPG liveplay series after the cast's appearance at Emerald City Comic Con 2026, where cast member Sam Riegel (very vaguely) teased out some film and TV projects that were on the way from Critical Role Productions. But was one of those projects a live-action adaptation of one of the fantasy adventures set in Exandria, the realm Critical Role has been roleplaying for over a decade now? 

We have your answer here - but if you're hoping it means you get to see a Hollywood A-Lister in Fjord Stone make-up, prepare for disappointment. 

Much of the discussion regarding a Critical Role live-action TV show comes from an interview we did with OG Rolers Riegel, Matt Mercer, and Travis Willingham. During our chat, we asked for updates on an animated TV project that Riegel had told Rolling Stone about in 2024. Was it still in production?

One of the biggest unmade superhero films in Hollywood history continues to be Drew Goddard's Sinister Six movie. The creator of the Netflix Daredevil show got to work on his own movie featuring Spider-Man villains before Sony Pictures pulled the plug on the production after the studio was hacked in 2014. 

On the Happy Sad Confused podcast, Goddard revealed that the script had been completed for the movie, and that they were in "deep prep" to begin production on it when the hack happened. "I had a whole art department... we had a whole operation there at the Sony lot. It was a very Drew approach to a Spider-Man movie, I would say in the sense of like, I was swinging for the fences." 

Goddard thought of the story he had put together for Sinister Six as "a summer annual." He explained, "I felt that comic books became very much about this serialized story, the movies became so much about like, 'Well this movie is just about somebody gets a jewel to get to the next thing to get to the next thing.' And it worked really well. But what I loved about summer annuals in the comic book world was that you had the serialized story, and every summer, there would be a giant-sized issue that had nothing to do with the serialized story, where the main character got yanked out of the normal life and thrown into an insane situation. And that's what I wanted to do with Spider-Man. I just thought that would be fun." 

It's always a bummer when rare comics are stolen from anywhere, but there is something deeply tragic about stealing thousands of vintage books from a university library. 

It was first reported in 2021 that 4,996 items went missing between mid-March 2020 to February 10, 2021 from the Robert M. Ervin Jr. Collection at Florida State University. Among the stolen books were issues of Captain America, The Amazing Spider-Man, Fantastic Four, Justice League of America, Silver Surfer, Journey into Mystery, Strange Tales, The Incredible Hulk, Teen Titans, The Flash, and more - including The Incredible Hulk #180 and #181, the first cameo and full appearance of Wolverine, respectively. Together, the collection was estimated to be valued at over $100,000. 

In 2022, local police charged the head of security at FSU's Strozier Library, a man named Todd Peak, with grand theft. As it turns out, the local comic book community near FSU played an important role in identifying Peak as a suspect. Before the collection was reported missing in local news, Peak went into a comic book shop with part of the collection in tow and mentioned that he worked at FSU. A county attorney and comic book collector, Adam Morrison, noticed that Peak had a huge haul of Silver Age comics with him and "thought it was a bit odd at the time."

I'm sure I'm not surprising you by saying that Heated Rivalry, the queer hockey romance that became one of 2025's biggest hist for HBO Max, is already on its way to a second season. Further, you probably won't be shocked to learn that, since the first season adapted the novel Heated Rivalry by Rachel Reid, the upcoming season will adapt its sequel, The Long Game. But what may shock even you, my unfazeable friend, is that season 2 won't be the only season to adapt Long Game - it appears likely the next novel will require two seasons to complete onscreen.

And even more surprising? The person helming its adaptation is actually adding material.

The creative in question is Jacob Tierney, the showrunner and creator of Heated Rivalry's TV series. In a recent interview with Deadline, Tierney hinted that the follow-up to Shane Hollander and Ilya Rosanov’s steamy relationship drama would take more than one TV season to adapt.

Comics should never be thought of as a writer-focused medium, and in recent years, it's getting harder and harder to make that mistake. Visually groundbreaking new works such as DC Comics' Absolute line have made artists like Nick Dragotta and Javier Rodríguez household names in the comic book world, and according to storied artist-turned-comics-titan Jim Lee, that's a very good thing for the medium.

Lee recently spoke to The Hollywood Reporter about comic fans making their favorite artists into celebrities, a trend he recognizes from his own time founding Image Comics.

"Certainly in the ‘90s, artists and Image artist ruled the land," says DC's current President, Publisher, and Chief Creative Officer, and while the interim 30 years (I know, I can feel the age too) inspired a rise in the fame of comics writers such as Tom King Scott Snyder, whose Artist Alley tables at Comic Cons would go on for blocks at a time, the fanbase is now "getting back to a balance where both artists and writers are driving sales, driving fans."

Here's an ice-cold take: Marvel's Thunderbolts* didn't get enough love. Despite what critics thought was an emotion-driven thriller with fleshed-out characters, the movie sputtered at the box office. One thing that did land, however, was its breakout star - Lewis Pullman's Rob Reynolds AKA The Sentry. After the movie came out, Marvel's Golden Guardian and his Eternally Dark alter ego went from niche Marvel character to household name, and now, one of his creators is going on record to explain why.

That creator is Paul Jenkins, the writer who, along with Jae Lee and Rich Veitch, originated the multi-personality hero/villain combo in September of 2000. A quarter century later, Jenkins is once again writing Sentry for his home medium, the ever expanding world of Marvel Comics, and has been chronicling the experience on his Substack, Flogging a Dead Horse. It's in these missives that Jenkins cued us Sentry fans into not just what works about the character, but what made him resonate in Thunderbolts*.

And fascinatingly, it doesn't come down to either his hero or villain persona.

Despite what you might have heard on comic book forums, Alan Moore does not hate comic books.

Read enough of the Watchmen and Saga of the Swamp Thing author's interviews and you'll learn as much, especially in a recent chat Moore had in advance of his next Long London novel, I Hear a New World. In this particular discussion, Moore laid out exactly what troubled him when it came to sequential art as a medium: that is, the industry that produces it.

The interview in question was with RetroFuturista, published April 5. Asked to imagine a world where superheroes did not dominate the comic book landscape, Moore laid out his troubles with the industry, starting with his own personal troubles therein.

DC Comics' Absolute Universe has not only been going strong - it's growing stronger with each issue of titles like Absolute Batman, Absolute Wonder Woman, Absolute Superman, and more. DC's ambitious, creator-driven alternate universe has been a hit ever since it debuted in the fall of 2024, with Absolute Batman by Scott Snyder and Nick Dragotta leading the pack. 

And now, The Hollywood Reporter has published a new article about Nick Dragotta's recent resurgence as one of the comic book industry's superstar artists. And in an interview with THR, Dragotta revealed the aspect of writer Scott Snyder's Absolute Batman vision that got him hooked. "The real hook was when he said, 'Bruce's parents will die in a school shooting.' And I was like, 'You really going there?' And he was like, 'Yeah,'" Dragotta recalled.  

Given that only Absolute Bruce's father dies in a mass shooting at a school field trip to the zoo in Absolute Batman #1, it's interesting that Snyder's original plans for the book were for both of Bruce's parents to die. As we see in the series's first issue, Absolute Bruce's mother is very much alive. But the experience of seeing his father usher him and his classmates to safety, away from the gunman at the zoo, before getting gunned down, is still immensely traumatizing for Absolute Bruce (and rendered viscerally on the page by Dragotta and colorist Frank Martin). 

If you thought that today, you'd wake up and read "Jon Hamm" and "Mister Sinister" in the same sentence, I don't know what to tell you, but here we are. 

So, remember that New Mutants movie that came out in 2020, three years after filming began for it? Where Anya Taylor-Joy played Magik and the villain was the Demon Bear? Well, now you remember. Originally, the villain of The New Mutants wasn't the Demon Bear, but a far bigger X-Men villain: Mister Sinister. And, as it turns out, Jon Hamm was in talks to play the role. 

On the Happy Sad Confused podcast, host Josh Horowitz asked Hamm to confirm if he was actually supposed to play Mister Sinister in The New Mutants. "Yeah, that was supposed to happen and didn't. I think there was some corporate craziness that went, and they sold the studio, and Disney bought the studio, it was a lot of stuff," Hamm said. 

Critical Role Campaign 2 is perhaps the most-beloved of the four core campaigns the D&D actual play series has put on, and I have to assume some of that comes from the list of delightful guest stars. A number of well-known names in the TTRPG and voice acting community lent their talents to what became the story of The Mighty Nein, so naturally, when the tale got its animated adaptation from Prime Video, fans were keen to know if any of those characters were going to make it into the screen.

Now, we have an answer to that question... just not a specific one.

The very vague answer we have comes from Critical Role's Fireside Chat, a talkback series hosted on Beacon where members of the Critical Role team take questions from fans. This past December, the show spotlighted  perhaps the most important players in the Mighty Nein animated adaptation - that is, Critical Role Production's CEO Sam Riegel and The Mighty Nein's showrunner Tasha Huo. At one point in the discussion, a fan wrote in to ask the following question:

Writer Alan Moore famously considers two of his most famous comic book works, Watchmen and V for Vendetta, as stories he has since "disowned" for a variety of reasons, namely that he believes they've been misunderstood by a significant part of their readership. Even so, Moore isn't a stranger to voicing his opinions on the state of Western comics. 

In a recent interview with RetroFuturista, Moore unpacked his feelings about nostalgia, the continued popularity of Watchmen and V for Vendetta, and the current state of comics. 

"[Nostalgia is] probably a reliable commercial tool, however, in that as the world becomes more complex and overwhelming, more and more people seem to be retreating from their responsibility to help create a tolerable present by seeking refuge in an imagined idyllic past or in their own childhoods, when they felt safe and happy and as if they understood things. Nostalgia is, and always has been since the word was first coined, an illness. It literally means ‘homesickness,’ but in effect refers to all of our yearnings for a world that, with our serial view of time, we feel we have inevitably and irrecoverably lost," Moore said. 

Look, it makes sense that people would believe Emerald Fennell would be rebooting Basic Instinct. In a cinematic landscape that's remarkably devoid of sex, her works like Saltburn and Wuthering Heights have brought erotic thrills back to... uh, erotic thrillers. But the rumors of a new Basic Instinct from Fennell are just that - rumors - despite the fact that they might've come from a fairly knowledgeable source.

Let's break this down.

Fennel's official denial to rumors of her involvement was first published in Variety on April 7. "There’s no truth in this," a representative for the director said, "She is not involved in any way." And if you think coming out an releasing an official statement is a bit of an overreaction to an internet rumor, well, you really should know where that rumor started - that is, with Basic Instinct's co-creator, Joe Eszterhas.

As someone genuinely rooting for The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power to succeed, it's hard to deny the times that it hasn't. The Prime Video adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien's Second Age of Middle-Earth has been repeatedly met with critical disappointment and has racked up a price tag higher than any other television project in history, so even Tolkien die-hards like myself could see a cause for its studio to back out after its already confirmed third season.

But according to a recent report, The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power is virtually guaranteed to complete its planned 5-season run, protected by none other than Jeff Bezos.

The report in question was an overview of the current state of Amazon's TV projects, as produced by Lesley Goldberg at The Ankler. According to the article, an unnamed source inside Prime Video explained to the outlet that The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power was "still under Bezos’ magical halo, [...]That’s protected for its run."

What would the greatest X-Men stories be without a little beef? Whether it's between Professor X and Magneto, Wolverine and his own son Akihiro, Jean Grey and her clone Madelyne Pryor, the nation of Krakoa and Orchis, Mister Sinister and anyone who isn't a snaggle-toothed eugenicist freak, beef is arguably the bedrock of any memorable X-Men story. And it is this exact flavor that Marvel Studios' upcoming X-Men movie is cooking up. 

As reported by Collider, X-Men director Jake Schreier revealed that the creator of Netflix's show, Beef, Lee Sung Jin has been brought on with Joanna Calo, the co-showrunner of The Bear, to work on another draft of the X-Men script. Schreier praised Lee's "ability to take small interpersonal dynamics and explode them into a much larger canvas," which feels particularly apt for an X-Men movie. 

Schreier continued, "When you go back and read X-Men [comics], there's ideology but also interpersonal drama, almost of a soap opera quality. Having writers who understand both how to drive ideology from personal stakes, if we get that right, that's what will feel most honest to what X-Men can be." 

Whatever criticism you can lay on James Cameron, you cannot say he gives up on a project halfway through. Despite taking 13 years to release the sequel to 2009’s Avatar, it is clear that he intends to see the Avatar franchise to its conclusion. Despite some reported budgetary issues that threatened to pause production on Avatar 4, one producer on the series wants to assure fans that the next two Avatar sequels are still going forward.

During an interview to celebrate Avatar: Fire & Ash coming to home video, producer Rae Sanchini said that Avatar 4 and 5 are both still going ahead, but have hit a delay as the team tries to incorporate new technology into the production process. “We’re really moving into a more generally accessible platform,” she said. The issue is that the technology that the first three Avatar films used was “very bespoke” and required “a lot of training for new hires.” The new system will apparently make it possible to train people more quickly, which will result in a tighter production time.

“Right now we’re figuring out the schedule,” Sanchini continues. “We’re working hard on it right now, budgeting, scheduling, planning, building out our new pipeline for them. As far as we’re concerned, we’re full speed ahead.”

We love a good cozy game. Something to unwind with after a busy day that doesn’t take a lot of brain power but maximizes our chance to relax after facing the horrors of the world is just the perfect tonic, we think. And while we don’t usually associate the Game of Thrones world with that sort of relaxation, that hasn’t stopped Warner Bros. Games from developing a new mobile game focused on raising dragons from hatchlings to coincide with the upcoming House of the Dragon Season 3.

Game of Thrones: Dragonfire does a lot of what it says in the title. It is set during the period covered in House of the Dragon, with fans playing as a Valyrian descendant in charge of hatching, raising, and flying dragons.

Now, officially Game of Thrones: Dragonfire is a strategy game with a focus on training dragons to become the instruments of war that we see in the series, and it will be about expanding your territory and conquering the Seven Kingdoms. However, that feels secondary to being able to raise and train our own dragons. Watching them soar through the air so majestically is going to be the big payoff for putting so much time and effort into raising them. The fact that they are being used as instruments of war is merely a side effect.

When Watchmen hit shelves in 1986, it marked a turning point in how comic books would be perceived by the mainstream public. The story was dark but accessible and, importantly, rooted in the widely held anxiety at the time about potential nuclear annihilation. However, as ahead of its time as Watchmen was, Alan Moore admits that he was “comically naïve” about the impact he could have on the comic book industry.

During a recent interview, Alan More was asked if there was something his younger self believed with absolute certainty that time has proven incredibly misguided. His answer was both insightful and incredibly depressing, which kind of sums up Moore’s writing in general. “Probably my belief that I could perhaps change the comic field for the better, or at least make it a place where I could bear to work, which I now find both comically naïve and a bit depressing, though not what I’d call tragic.”

It is an interesting way to reflect on his career, which has seen him write some of the most iconic stories about some of the most iconic characters in comics. However, his criticism doesn’t seem to be directed at comics themselves so much as the comic book industry, which doesn’t have a great history of valuing artists. Alan Moore clearly hoped that he could be a force for change within the industry itself as well as among other creatives and writers, and, sadly, hasn’t seen that pan out. Which is a shame because he is clearly deeply passionate about the art form, even if he disagrees with the way it is treated by capitalism.

We all have burning questions for Mark Hamill. What does blue milk taste like? How sweaty was it inside Yoda’s hut? How many pieces of the Millennium Falcon Lego set are unique? Well, that last one is one you can potentially get the iconic Star Wars actor’s thoughts on, as Lego has opened up a phone line today to allow fans to call Luke Skywalker himself in his new role of Junior Executive Director of Information.
That makes him a Lego J.E.D.I., in case you missed the acronym there.

On April 8, between 12 pm and 8 pm ET, fans can dial 1-877-80-ASK-MARK to hear Mark Hamill recite some facts about the new Lego Star Wars sets that have been released. A small number of callers will be invited to join a live video chat with Hamill, which will presumably be focused on the Lego sets rather than simply pressing him with your most obscure Star Wars trivia. However, if you’re one of those lucky few to talk to Mark Hamill today, just know that we’re deeply jealous of you for it.

Even though he seems to have left the role of Luke Skywalker behind in live action, Mark Hamill continues to voice the character occasionally. Most recently, he played Luke in Lego Star Wars: Rebuild the Galaxy, so there is still plenty to quiz the actor on. Or you can just get him to do his famous Joker laugh for you for however long the phone call is. The choice is yours, really.

There are plenty of standout characters in One Piece Season 2. You’ve got the adorable monstrosity Tony Tony Chopper, the undercover princess Vivi, and, of course, the hard-drinking Dr. Kureha from the iconic Drum Island arc. While Katey Sagal wasn’t familiar with the character before she got cast, the Futurama and Married… with Children actor was drawn to Kureha as a badass older woman with her shit together.

During a recent interview, Katey Sagal explained that she joined the cast of One Piece Season 2 without having to audition, saying, “You get jobs where you’re just like, ‘Oh my God.’ It came pretty much after I’d watched [the first season]. It was a wonderful call to get. I was out of my mind. Then they started sending me the images and who the character is.”

Once she got involved in the production and found out a bit more about Dr. Kureha, Sagal fell in love with the multiple layers of the character. “She was such a badass, but also heartwarming and a little bit squishy on the inside. I found her young in spirit, even though she’s supposed to be 140. And what does time mean, really? I loved that she was an older woman who just kept her shit together and wasn’t afraid to wear tight t-shirts.”

Those of you who saw The Super Mario Galaxy Movie opening weekend will know that the film is a flurry of references and cameos not just from Mario lore but from some other iconic Nintendo properties. You already know that we’ll get Fox McCloud of Star Fox fame setting off across the stars, but the other cameos are pretty tough to ignore. However, Shigeru Miyamoto warns fans not to read too much into them. There is no Avengers-style Smash Bros. crossover film coming from Nintendo anytime soon.

Star Fox is certainly the biggest cameo from outside of Mario games in The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, but he is far from the only one. We get appearances from Pikmin, R.O.B., and Mr. Game and Watch at various points in the movie, all of which have been playable characters in the Super Smash Bros. games over the years. However, neither Nintendo nor Illumination is planning to bring various universes together for something like an Avengers crossover.

In an interview, Mario creator and Nintendo icon Shigeru Miyamoto was rather blunt in his dismissal of the idea. “I don’t think you’ll have a situation [where] all Nintendo characters would be joining [together in one film].”

Berserk fans are used to waiting a long time for new stories and chapters to come out, but there is one chapter that is even harder to come by than most. Berserk Chapter 83, which comes at the end of the iconic Golden Age arc, isn’t included in most collections of the manga because Kentaro Miura felt that chapter’s depiction of God locked the story into a direction he wasn’t ready to go into just yet.

Back in 2009, the members of Skullknight.net, an online forum (remember those?) dedicated to Berserk, sent a letter to Kentaro Miura with a series of questions about Berserk. Against the odds, Miura responded with the help of an assistant and a translator. One of the questions that they asked was why Chapter 83 was left out of Berserk Volume 13 when it was published. The answer is that Miura thought that the chapter’s exposition pushed the story in a certain direction too early, so he pulled it from subsequent publications.

For reference, Berserk Chapter 83 comes near the end of the Golden Age arc and sees Griffith brought before the Idea of Evil, a mysterious entity from The Void. This Idea of Evil was created by mankind’s subconscious evil thoughts, making it both the ego and God of the Berserk world. The whole chapter is a bit of a lore dump, which is why Miura decided not to include it in future collections of Berserk. 

The end of Chainsaw Man is another sign of the end of the current shonen manga era, but it doesn’t mean that Chapter 232 is the last time we’ll ever see Denji in action. Aside from the upcoming Season 2 of the anime, we’re likely to see Chainsaw Man referenced in manga in the coming months and years. In fact, a rumored bonus chapter in the upcoming DanDaDan volume shows Denji and his shark sidekick, Beam, not only exist in the DanDaDan universe but were involved in one of the manga’s most bizarre fights.

The chapter in question comes at the end of DanDaDan volume 23, which hit Japanese shelves last week (but, importantly, not on April Fool’s Day). As often happens, it includes a bonus chapter, which is usually considered a non-canon bit of fun from Yukinobu Tatsu, the mangaka behind DanDaDan.

The bonus chapter here shows Denji riding atop Beam, his Shark Fiend companion, during the events that took place between Chapters 190-200 of DanDaDan. For manga readers, this includes the infamous Sharknado scene, so it probably isn’t surprising that Denji and Beam are involved. Interestingly, Denji seems uninterested in saving the people on the plane (which includes the main DanDaDan cast) until he spots Vamola, the cute alien girl introduced in the final episode of DanDaDan Season 2 through an airplane window. 

I never thought I would be talking about Marvel Television and dinosaurs, in the figurative sense, in the same sentence. But this is 2026, and all bets are off. And so recently, while discussing the announcement that the Disney+ show would be renewed for a second season, Brad Winderbaum characterized the studio as akin to some characters from Jurassic Park. Yes, really. 

In an interview with The Escape Pod, Marvel Studios producer Brad Winderbaum invoked Jurassic Park while discussing Wonder Man season 2's renewal. “It got a green light because we loved it, and because people loved it. If you look at the history of television, there’s a lot of shows that got greenlit for second and third seasons because the fanbase believed in it, and the people behind the scenes believed in it. It definitely did well, and we’re, you know, we’re getting smarter as we make these things hopefully. We’re learning, we’re like velociraptors. We can open doors now.”

In case you haven't rewatched Jurassic Park in a while, the "learning" line refers to a scene where the gamekeeper Robert Muldoon reveals to the cast how the park's velociraptors have systematically been testing the security systems of their enclosure at each meal time. The velociraptors never attack the same place twice, leading Muldoon to say, "They're learning" with a particular dramatic flair. Later on in the film, we see that the velociraptors in the park have learned how to open doors. 

There is still no official word on whether Mike Colter's Luke Cage is set to rejoin the MCU (although he has popped up in some recent set leaks from Daredevil: Born Again season 3), but we do have Marvel's firm confirmation that Jessica Jones is a mother to a daughter in Daredevil: Born Again. 

Krysten Ritter's character drops the bombshell in a new trailer for Daredevil: Born Again season 2 that's been released by Marvel Studios. I know, you might be wondering, "Wait, hasn't the season already begun streaming, though? Why are they dropping a new trailer?" I don't make the YouTube uploading decisions! Check it out below. 

In Marvel comics, Jessica Jones and Luke Cage are one of the publisher's foremost superhero couples. And together, they have an adorable young daughter named Dani. Luke and Jessica's trajectories in comics have forever been changed since becoming parents, much like in our world, so it makes sense for the MCU's Jessica Jones counterpart to also be a mother.

"To a certain extent," says Tom Brevoort, "For all that it's driving us absolutely crazy, I like the reaction to Paul."

In case you don't understand which Paul Marvel's longest-serving editor is talking about - and thus aren't staring open-mouthed at this comment from behind your laptop - Brevoort is talking about Paul Rabin, largely considered one of the least popular (or most hated?) new Marvel Comics characters in recent memory. First introduced in The Amazing Spider-Man #1 from 2022, Paul was Mary Jane Watson's new husband who became involved with her during a stretch of time when Peter Parker had gone missing. The character's introduction was met with a staggering amount of vitriol by both old and new fans of Marvel's wall-crawler.

But according to Brevoort, that's better than the alternative. 

It's one of the rules of the slasher genre: every horror icon has one last scare in them before they go. On screen, that usually translates to an Act III jumpscare that buttons up the survivor vs. killer arc with a bang, but there's a way that rule makes it out into the real world as well. That's in the case of Scream co-creator Kevin Williamson, who recently spoke out about a wish he had as he approaches his own Act III  - that is, to make at least one more seminal horror franchise.

Williamson brought up the subject in an interview with The Ankler, published March 26. In case you don't already know, writer/producer/director Williamson not only was the originator of the story that would become the Scream franchise, but also sparked the still-running I Know What You Did Last Summer films and is the mind behind 1998 cult classic The Faculty. But in his chat with The Ankler, Williamson's killer eye was on the future.

"What I’d love to do before I die is to create another horror franchise," said the horror icon and frequent Wes Craven collaborator, "But that all starts with just one movie… You have to make one great movie and see what happens."

Ask every comic book reader what the state of comics is right now, and you're likely to get varying answers. While sales are certainly up and there has been a swell in critical appreciation for certain books, one thing that most fans of the medium will agree upon is that there are problems with the industry. For one self-professed lover of the medium, those problems are pretty clear, and it might behoove those of us who have more trouble pinpointing them to listen to them.

He is, after all, Alan Moore.

The man behind such milestone entries into the medium's history such as V for Vendetta or Watchmen recently sat down with the cultural connoisseurs over at RetroFuturista, a discussion which eventually got onto the topic of what was wrong with comics today. Before that, though, Moore too the time to clarify that, at one point, the comics industry was very much on the right path.

When it came out in 1988, Batman: The Killing Joke left an indelible imprint on the history of not just Batman or DC Comics, but the comic book industry in general. And now, a specialty comics publisher is marking the Alan Moore-written, Brian Bolland-drawn icon with an all-new and tricked-out edition of the story, but don't expect to see this one lining shelves at your local comic book store.

For this new publication, only 47 copies will ever exist.

Argent Comics has announced Batman: The Killing Joke's Avant Garde edition, which the publisher touts as "the world’s first giclée-printed comic book." Giclée printing, as we recently learned from redditor u/urirahimi, is done using a specialty, high-quality inkjet developed for the purpose of printing fine art. Notably, the giclée printing of The Killing Joke will feature not just the original colors of the comic's first run, but also the recoloring published for its 20-year anniversary.

Ever since Absolute Dick Grayson was teased early on in Scott Snyder, Nick Dragotta, and Frank Martin's Absolute Batman, DC fans have been anticipating the debut of Absolute Robin. Well, the wait is officially over, because we've got the full, unredacted cover for Absolute Batman #20. 

"As the dust settles in the city of Gotham after the loss of [redacted]," DC's description of the issue reads, referring to something happening in the events of April 15's #19, "Robins enter the scene ready to hunt and more than one secret will be revealed in this seminal issue."

Yeah, that's a freaking mech with a huge freaking gun. Someone call Green Lantern Kyle Rayner, because he now has some stiff competition over who has the best mech in DC Comics (Kyle has a habit of creating mech constructs with his power ring). If you've ever thought to blast the Pacific Rim score by Ramin Djawadi while reading Absolute Batman and find someone you're Drift-compatible with, now's your chance. 

When people these days say that things "feel like the 60s again," it's usually a bad thing. But in the past two weeks, it seems an old dream of that decade has been awoken, both in our movie theaters and on our streaming newsfeeds. For just a moment, civil unrest and political scandal has given way to the dream of the Space Age, and that dream is having people look skyward in some very large numbers.

You probably don't need us to tell you that Project Hail Mary is, despite its underdog name, the top Hollywood movie of this year. As of this writing, the film has achieved a whopping $420M at the global box office, making it the second-best earning non-franchise film of this decade. But Ryan Gosling and his practically-produced alien sidekick aren't the only spacefarers to draw in record numbers of viewers recently - just look at what the real-life Artemis II spaceflight is pulling in. According to The Hollywood Reporter, a staggering 18.1 million people watched Artemis launch on April 1, more than double the number of the NASA x SpaceX rocket launch in 2020. 

So what does this mean? In a tangible sense, it has us here at Popverse predicting a huge opening for the upcoming venture into the extraterrestrial, Disclosure Day. Directed by E.T. and Close Encounters of the Third Kind creator Steven Spielberg, the film is already generating a wild amount of buzz, which we think can only be assisted by all the amateur cosmologists that Project Hail Mary and the Artemis II are inspiring right now.

We know that Netflix is keen to give us more One Piece. Season 3 is currently in production even as Season 2 continues to be a hit for the streamer. Fans have barely had time to process the start of the Alabasta Arc in live action. Still, Netflix is already driving the hype for the second half by revealing the official title of One Piece Season 3, and it tells fans exactly what to expect when the series returns in 2027.

Season 2 was given the title “One Piece: Into the Grand Line” to signify that the main crux of these episodes was to showcase just how weird things get in this legendary stretch of sea. We had giants, a man who shoots exploding boogers, and an adorable talking reindeer. One Piece Season 3 is getting a similar title from Netflix that brings the upcoming plot into focus. One Piece: The Battle of Alabasta will be the title of Season 3.

That isn’t really a surprise for fans of the manga, who know that there is a civil war brewing in Princess Vivi’s homeland, stirred up by the leader of Baroque Works. Sir Crocodile, known as Mr. 0, is the mastermind behind everything that happened in One Piece Season 2, so it is only natural that the Straw Hats are on a collision course with him.

If you’ve been waiting for Lucasfilm to make more Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic content, then you aren’t alone. It turns out that some Star Wars writers and editors have also been pushing for more KOTOR, but Lucasfilm hasn’t pulled the trigger yet.

If you aren’t familiar, Knights of the Old Republic (or KOTOR to its fans) is a series of stories set centuries before the films. It began as a popular RPG video game in 2003 before expanding with comics and novels. A new video game partially inspired by KOTOR is currently in development, but as of this writing there are no plans for more comics or novels. However, that isn’t for lack of trying.

“I mean, for me, I’m like, when are you going to start writing KOTOR novels,” Star Wars: Bloodline author Claudia Gray told fans during a panel at MegaCon 2026. “I want to do a bunch of those. I already explained that if there is a book that is the backstory of [core KOTOR characters] Mission and Zaalbar, and I didn’t write it, there will be blood.”

Did you think that Marvel and DC's crossovers would end with Spider-Man/Superman #1? Think again, because the king of Atlantis and the cutest little shark in the sea (and on land) are teaming up for It's Jeff!/Aquaman, an Infinity Comic on Marvel Unlimited. 

It's Jeff!/Aquaman is written by the iconic Kelly Thompson and drawn by Andres Genolet, and its story is as follows: "In IT’S JEFF/AQUAMAN, it’s no day at the beach when Ken the Kaiju terrorizes Coney Island! It’ll take the aquatic alliance you’ve only dared dream of to turn the tide, as everyone’s favorite Land Shark, Jeff, and the legendary Aquaman unite to save the day!" Check out the cover below by Genolet. 

The story will be accessible on Marvel Unlimited, Marvel's digital comic book library streaming service. A press release for the comic notes that "for a limited time, all fans can redeem a digital copy of this brand-new crossover story by using code CROSSOVER26 at Marvel.com/redeem. 

Both Supergirl and Blade have upcoming movies, but before they can reach movie theaters (and our eyeballs!), they have a live-action TV series in the offing... but they might get off'ed in the making of the series, thanks to Mojo.

In many ways, the X-Men villain Mojo is the perfect villain for the current spate of DC & Marvel crossover comics; a deliciously meta TV show tycoon who rules an entire dimension thanks to his saavy (and more than a bit of slavery). In the surprise one-shot Supergirl/Blade releasing tomorrow (that's April 8!) on the DC Go! webcomics platform in the DC Universe Infinite app, Mojo has kidnapped both Supergirl and Blade to star in an "over-the-top vampire romance series." I'd watch that, until I learned the stars were kidnapped to do that... oh yeah, and also real vampires trying to kill them.

"... the Girl of Steel and the Daywalker find themselves trapped on a soundstage where the cameras never stop rolling and the stakes are very real," reads the description for the Supergirl/Blade one-shot. "Forced to battle bloodsucking foes, melodramatic tropes, and Mojo himself, the unlikely duo must team up and fight their way to freedom before the show’s final twist becomes their last."

What would the Superman mythos be like without Lois Lane? We can take that question a step further and ask what pop culture would be like without Lois Lane. The intrepid reporter has been a part of our cultural DNA for so long that it’s hard to imagine what it would be like if she had never been introduced in Action Comics #1.

Bitsie Tulloch, who played Lois Lane on Superman and Lois, reminds us that it’s important to remember her introduction in the context of the time period. “I really love the way they wrote Lois because she really stood her own ground and if there’s one takeaway it is that you don’t need powers to be empowered. That is a choice and you can be brave and just one foot in front of the other,” Bitsie Tulloch told the crowd during the Superman & Lois panel at C2E2 2026.

She continued, “The qualities of Lois Lane that have existed since 1938, which was a moment in time where women weren’t necessarily portrayed in television or movies or comic books or books as being badasses in the workplace, and she was. That had to have inspired a lot of women in the 30s, and onward, and still do. I’ve met people at cons who are like, ‘I’m a journalism major right now because of Lois Lane.’ But I think a lot of it for me was the realization that you can make that choice to be courageous and to stand up for truth and to stand up for justice. I try to do that in my daily life.”

I’ve watched Jurassic Park so many times that I know it by heart. As a kid, it was one of my favorite films, and it still holds up well today. However, despite having the movie burned into my brain, I recently discovered something that I had missed. According to Tim Murphy actor Joseph Mazzello, there was a problem with the T-Rex in the Ford Explorer attack scene, and director Steven Spielberg wasn’t able to fix it.

“With the T-Rex, there was a malfunction on set,” Joseph Mazzello revealed during a Jurassic Park spotlight panel at C2E2 2026. “When that scene happens where the plexiglass from the top of the jeep, when the T-Rex comes down on us, and it’s supposed to kind of like push the plexiglass down on top of us and we’re kind of holding the plexiglass and we’re in between us and the dinosaur. Eventually something went wrong.”

The actor continued, “I was told by a fan actually that the reason it happened is because the T-Rex got waterlogged, and that sounds maybe right, because one take, it came down further than it was supposed to, and faster than it was supposed to, and instead of just pushing the plexiglass, it snapped it in half. And the T-Rex’s tooth fell out. Steven spent a half hour trying to get this tooth back in, and eventually got frustrated and said forget it, we’re just going to keep going. So, if you go back and watch the movie, there is one shot of the T-Rex where her front tooth is missing. And so, if you have Blu-ray or the digital copy, pause it on that scene, and you will see it.”

No, you're not imagining things. Andy Serkis is directing an animated adaptation of George Orwell's satirical masterpiece, Animal Farm. But don't expect all the darkness from Orwell's novella to make it to the screen. 

A new trailer has dropped for the upcoming Animal Farm movie, directed by Andy Serkis, and it looks, dare I say... cute? This isn't Serkis's first time directing, either. He's also directed Netflix's Mowgli: Legend of the Jungle and... Venom: Let There Be Carnage. And you know what? Let the man have fun. 

Animal Farm will be released on May 1, which seems awfully soon. And just for a refresher, Serkis is still directing, producing, and starring in the upcoming film, The Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum, which is expected to hit theaters in 2027. Not much is known about The Hunt for Gollum besides Serkis's involvement, plus Elijah Wood and Ian McKellen boarding the film. 

If you've been following Popverse's coverage of Critical Role's The Mighty Nein, you've almost certainly heard talk about how the hour-long episodes have allowed the creators to include more story. Indeed, the animated adaptation of Critical Role's Campaign 2 seems primed to work in much more than its predecessor, The Legend of Vox Machina, got to do with season 1. Still, with 550+ hours of D&D actual play becoming an animated TV series, there's bound to be a lot left on the cutting room floor - and in a recent discussion between the show's creators, we learned of one particular moment that didn't make it.

The discussion in question took place on Critical Role's Beacon streaming service, during their regular Fireside Chat talk series. And the creators in question were none other than Mighty Nein showrunner Tasha Huo and head of animated adaptations/OG cast member Sam Riegel. As with every episode of Fireside Chat, the Rolers took questions from subscribing Critters, and in this episode, one of those questions amounted to - what did you have to cut from The Mighty Nein?

"Do you remember," Huo began, addressing Riegel, "There was Gnoll fight pretty early, and then you guys went into a cave and you killed a manticore and its baby?"