Movie-wise, this weekend belongs to Emerald Fennell and her take on Wuthering Heights. But did you know, or maybe just forget, that she was this close to writing a Zatanna solo movie?
That was all the way back in 2021, a gig she landed not long after she’d delivered Promising Young Woman. That’s no longer moving forward, and as she told Josh Horowitz on the “Happy Sad Confused” podcast, the script she wrote back then came about because she was “probably going through it at the time.”
As she tells it, Fennell had just finished up Promising when J.J. Abrams offered her the chance to write Zatanna. The experience was “[a] huge thing in this world I never operated in.” To connect emotionally with the character, she planned to make it about “a woman in the middle of a nervous breakdown,” which would’ve come across in the script, an idea she thinks wouldn’t have flown for Abrams or Warner Bros. for being “too dark” and not fitting in with the genre—she vaguely teased some scenes she wrote are things no other filmmaker would’ve thought up.
By Fennell’s own admission, she hasn’t gone back and read her old script in years. While she thinks she’d be kinder to it now, she still wishes she could’ve given Abrams and Warner Bros. “the thing they wanted [and] deliver something amazing for them.” (And when asked about doing any DC work in general, she said she’s more interested in doing her own works.) Once that movie was canned, there’s been no official motion on bringing Zatanna to live-action with another movie or even a show. For now, fans of the character can look forward to her new solo comic from Jamal Campbell coming in April.
Warner Bros. was once famed for their animation department. While originally devoted to theatrical shorts, the animators began devoting more time to television and film productions. These included superhero movies set in the DC Universe. Today, many of these films are available for streaming on HBO Max.
What are the best animated superhero movies on HBO Max?
Unfortunately, the full library of animated superhero movies made by Warner Bros. Animation is not freely available on HBO Max. In recent years, the streaming service has become infamous for cutting costs by not hosting the full Warner Archive. Despite this, there are still some great animated DC Comics movies available.
Batman: Mask of the Phantasm (1993)
There is considerable debate among superhero fans as to which of the many Batman movies is the best. Whenever these discussions happen, there is one dark horse candidate that some argue against purely because it is animated. That movie is Batman: Mask of the Phantasm.
Ten years after beginning his war on crime, Batman encounters a new vigilante who doesn’t share his code against killing. This Phantasm begins targeting the gangsters of Gotham City, leading the Dark Knight to seek a common link. The trail leads to businessman Carl Beaumont, who is recently returned to Gotham City after a decade abroad. It also leads Bruce Wayne to reconnect with Beaumont’s daughter, Andrea, who almost got him to give up the superhero life before breaking their engagement without explanation.
Produced by the same creative team behind Batman: The Animated Series, Mask of the Phantasm plays out like an extended episode of the show. The same moody orchestral music is on-hand, along with the series’ trademark Art Deco backgrounds painted on black paper. It is the script and the voice acting, however, that truly make the movie a classic.
Kevin Conroy delivered many classic performances as the Dark Knight, but Mask of the Phantasm was his first truly great one. The scene in which Bruce Wayne pleads at his parents’ grave during a thunderstorm was truly groundbreaking for the time. Both in terms of portrayals of Batman and superhero animation aimed at adults.
Dana Delaney also earned accolades for her performance as Andrea Beaumont. Many believe her work here led to her being cast as Lois Lane in Superman: The Animated Series. And unsurprisingly, Mark Hamill delivers a perfect performance as The Joker.
Green Lantern: Emerald Knights (2011)
For ages untold, the Green Lantern Corps has protected the universe. Now, the sun of their home base on the planet Oa is under attack by forces from the Anti-Matter universe. As the Corps prepare for the greatest battle in their history, a new recruit named Arisia questions her worthiness to be a Green Lantern. However, her spirits are boosted by veteran Lanterns Hal Jordan and Sinestro, who tell her tales of the challenges faced by other members of the Corps.
There have been quite a few animated movies based upon the Green Lantern comics. However, Green Lantern: Emerald Knights is easily the best. Part of this is due to the anthology format, which allows it to tell several stories within the frame of the larger conflict.
The best of these is adapted from a comic by Watchmen creators Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons. It concerns an evil warrior known as Bolphunga the Unrelenting, who hunts the mightiest warriors in the universe. He seeks out a legendary Green Lantern called Mogo, and ultimately learns just why Mogo is respected and feared in equal measure.
Green Lantern: Emerald Knights also boasts one of the most impressive voice casts of any animated superhero movie. Elisabeth Moss of The Handmaid’s Tale plays Arisia, while Jason Isaacs lends his voice to Sinestro. Henry Rollins plays the Green Lantern drill sergeant Killowog, while Bolphunga the Unrelenting is voiced by wrestling legend and They Live star Roddy Piper. It is Nathan Fillion’s performance as Hal Jordan, however, which anchors the film. It also led to Fillion recreating the role of Hal Jordan for the DC Animated Movie Universe, from 2013 to 2020.
Justice League: Doom (2012)
The immortal Vandal Savage has schemed to take over the world for millennia. His latest plan involves two elements. First, a Legion of Doom made up of the greatest enemies of the Justice League. Secondly, an attack from within using plans designed by Batman to stop his superhero allies should they ever get out of control.
The villains divide and conquer, putting their archenemies in dire straits. The only thing that might save them is the efforts of Cyborg, the new recruit who was overlooked in Savage’s plans. But even if the superheroes save the day, will the Justice League recover from the revelation that it was Batman’s plans that almost killed them?
Justice League: Doom is not set in the DC Animated Universe. This is made clear by the presence of Nathan Fillion as Green Lantern Hal Jordan and the absence of Hawkgirl. It also features a dramatically different animation style.
However, the film was scripted by Justice League Unlimited producer Dwayne McDuffie and adapted from the classic Justice League storyline ‘Tower of Babel.’ The movie also featured many voice actors from the DC Animated Universe, including Kevin Conroy as Batman and Tim Daly as Superman. This gives Justice League: Doom a familiar feeling, despite the darker tone and art direction. It also features some intense action scenes, such as The Flash reenacting the movie Speed on-foot, after being tagged with a velocity-sensitive bomb.
The Lego Batman Movie (2017)
The Lego Movie was a surprise smash when it was released in 2014. However, the film’s version of Batman, voiced by Will Arnett, was far and way the film’s breakout character. Three years later, he reprised the role in The Lego Batman Movie.
The film finds Batman in a panic, as new Police Commissioner Barbara Gordon plans to restructure the GCPD so they don’t need Batman. This leads him to go over the edge to prove his worth and accidentally enable Joker’s jail-break from the Phantom Zone. However, with the help of his new adopted son, Robin, a new Batgirl, and his butler Alfred, Batman may learn the value of family and that he doesn’t need to do everything on his own.
The Lego Batman Movie contains more of the same jokes about Lego figures from The Lego Movie. However, it also features a number of Easter eggs involving the DCU and DC Comics. Throw in a great ensemble including Michael Cera as Robin and Zach Galifianakis as Joker, and you have a movie that is as touching as it is funny.
Justice League Dark: Apokolips War (2020)
Knowing the threat Darkseid poses to Earth, the Justice League and Teen Titans join forces to stop him once and for all. They fail. Most of the superheroes are killed in the battle or enslaved by the armies of Apokolips.
Two years later, a depowered Superman tries to rebuild what was lost and save the Earth. With the aid of Lois Lane, Raven, Robin, and John Constantine, he will build a new superhero team. They will even draw upon the Suicide Squad in Earth’s darkest hour. However, it may be too late to save their universe, much less the Earth.
Justice League Dark: Apokolips War was a coda for the first chapter of the DC Animated Movie Universe. It was also proof that WB Animation could produce adult superhero anime and do it well. Again, the movie featured a stunning script and a talented voice ensemble. The stand-out, however was Matt Ryan, recreating the role of John Constantine after playing him in live-action in the Arrowverse.
How we picked the best animated superhero movies on HBO Max in 2026
Beyond the question of whether it was available on HBO Max or not, three criteria informed this list. First, is the movie well-regarded and historically important? Second, is it adapted from a notable comic book story? Finally, does it feature great voice acting?
Right now, DC Comics characters have spent weeks punching each other in the face on account of the DC K.O.event. Plenty of heroes and villains have been eliminated and it’s nearing the last leg of its story—but not without having some last-minute fighters entering the fray.
Earlier this week, the publisher announced a one-shot called Boss Battle that brings in some guest fighters from other universes. Included in this new lineup are Vampirella, Red Sonja, The Boys’ Homelander, and The Conjuring headliner Annabelle. (No, really.) Preview images for the book, written by Jeremy Adams and drawn by artists such as Hi-Fi and Carmine Di Giandomenico, highlight face-offs like Superman vs. Homelander (obviously), Wonder Woman crossing swords with Sonja, and Black Lightning and Plastic Man fighting the Mortal Kombat 1versions of Shang Tsung and Sub-Zero.
The narrative justification for this is the remaining fighters need more Omega Energy to continue the tournament and so one of them can go fight Darkseid, so they decide to use these characters from other universes as a means to grind. It’s a silly reason to get Lex Luthor in position to get attacked by bear woman Samantha Strong or for Batwoman to get seduced by Vampirella but hey, it sounds like DC K.O. is just that kind of event.
For those into that sort of “who would win??” thing, the one-shot will help fuel your agenda for or against a particular character you don’t like, such as, say, Homelander or the Kombat characters. Read the fists flying and see who comes out on top when DC K.O.: Boss Battle hits shelves on February 4.
In 2024, DC Comics launched the Absolute Universe, which offered interesting new spins on A-listers like Batman, Wonder Woman, Superman, and Flash. The entire line just completed its first full year, and the publisher used the opportunity to brag about how good it’s doing. And spoiler: it’s doing really good.
Per the Hollywood Reporter, the entire line has sold 8.2 million copies up, as of November 2025. The big earner is Absolute Batman, Scott Snyder and Nick Dragotta’s very viral ongoing that sees a blue collar (and pretty big) Bruce Wayne fight crime and reinvented versions of his classic enemies in Gotham. That book accounts for 35% of the Absolute book’s success—so around 3 million copies overall—and its first issue is now on its 10th printing. Its five-bestselling books of 2025 include the recent Absolute Batman #15, Jeph Loeb and Jim Lee’s Batman #158, Matt Fraction and Jorge Jimenez’s Batman #1, the publisher’s Batman/Deadpool crossover, and Snyder and Javier Fernandez’s DC K.O. #1.
Anne DePies, DC’s general manager, credited the decision to keep the universe in its own continuity as a big win, ditto its “fresh look that inverted the fundamentals of our characters, and it’s an update that surprised our fans. It’s not so overwhelming that we are changing everything at once. That made a big difference. We knew it was going to do well, but we didn’t know it would do this well.”
Even beyond Batman, the majority of Absolute books are reportedly doing better than 2011’s New 52 and 2016’s Rebirth relaunches. Those five specific books weren’t listed by THR, which is the only outlet to see those retail numbers, but it did note that Absolute Martian Manunter from Deniz Camp and Javier Rodriguez has gotten orders in the six figures, something remarkable considering Manhunter’s not high-tier like his fellow headliners.
That book will be ending soon, but the Absolute books will continue for apparently as long as its various creative teams want, so if a particular book’s caught your eye, go ahead and jump in.
Who would have thought the person who bought a comic for $6 million was getting a bargain? That happened last year when an 8.5 out of 10 graded copy of Superman’s 1938 first appearance in Action Comics #1sold for a then-record price. Thursday, though, a 9 out of 10 graded copy of Superman’s first solo title, 1939’s Superman #1, sold for more than that. Much more. It sold for $9.12 million.
Before that, another copy of Superman #1 held the record at $5.3 million, and, before that, a copy of Spider-Man’s first appearance in Amazing Fantasy #15 sold for $3.6 million, which are all pretty significant jumps.
Why is this Superman #1 now the king of all comics? Well, mostly, the condition. Finding any comic from almost 100 years ago is rare. Finding it in good condition is even rarer. And for it to be this comic, in as amazing a condition as this comic is in, is damned near impossible. It happened because the comic’s owners found it neatly tucked between some very old newspapers in the home of their deceased mother. That story also adds to the value, since it’s basically the dream of anyone exploring old relics. Here it is, in all its $9.12 million glory.
Now, though, you have to wonder, is there a $10 million comic book out there? It would have to be one of the ones we mentioned, especially now with this specific issue taking on such a prominent role. Most comic fans would assume Action Comics #1 is the granddaddy of them all, but it seems maybe that’s no longer the case. Unless, of course, the person who bought that 8.5-graded Action Comics #1 for $6 million decides to sell it, or someone finds an even better version in an attic somewhere.
If you were filthy rich, what comic would you go after as your white whale? Would it be Superman #1? Let us know below.
This past August, we passed the three-year anniversary of Warner Bros. Discovery cancelling Batgirl as a tax write-off. Since then, there’s been no motion on reviving the film, but its directors and stars haven’t lost hope luck will come their way.
While doing press for his latest film Maintenance Required, actor Jacob Scipio—who was to play Gotham mob boss Antony Bressi—told The Direct he thought the chances of Batgirl’s return have slightly gone up in the wake of Coyote vs. Acme’s similar cancellation and big screen revival for August 2026. “I got the chance to watch it, and it was a phenomenal film,” he said. “It was great that they saved [Coyote]…there’s always hope. Hollywood’s a funny place, and I think if enough people want it, it can happen.”
At the time, Batgirl’s cancellation garnered a lot of bad press for WB from fans, press, and even led to several United States lawmakers contacting the Department of Justice asking it to reconsider its approval of the WBD merger. There’ve been plenty of high-profile cancellations since then, which further tarnished the studio’s reputation with audiences and filmmakers up until fairly recently with hits like Sinners and Weapons.
Could Batgirl make a comeback, despite being apparently so “unreleasable” it would’ve damaged the DC brand? That’s…a little tricky; the biggest roadblock is Batman: Michael Keaton would’ve played an older version of the character, similar to what he did for 2023’s The Flash, which WB seriously bet the farm on back then. Between the new DC Films universe and Matt Reeves’ own cinematic world, he’s a big question mark other adjacent movies are currently working around, which may not be possible here. Even so, it deserves a chance: like Scipio said, Coyote’s getting a fair shake, so why not this?
In 2019, DC’s creator-owned label Vertigo was officially killed as part of the publisher’s restructuring efforts. We learned last year the imprint would come back, and at this year’s New York Comic Con, DC finally unveiled what that’ll look like. Come 2026, Vertigo will have new comics from some of the industry’s biggest western creators hitting shelves, such as…
Bleeding Hearts(Deniz Camp, Stipan Morian, and Matt Hollingsworth): A zombie named Poke who realizes his heart’s started beating again.
End of Life (Kyle Starks, Steve Pugh, and Chris O’Halloran): A renowned hitman returns to his hometown in the Midwest to take care of his dying father.
Black Tower: The Raven Conspiracy (Ram V and Mike Perkins): Wizard spies in the UK battle over sorcery in a “global cold war.”
The Peril of the Brutal Dark: An Ezra Cain Mystery (Chris Condon and Jacob Phillips): “Magic, fascism, and a stolen artifact of unimaginable power” meet a noir detective story.
100 Bullets: The US of Anger (Brian Azzarello and Eduardo Risso): The 100 Bullets series has been a DC Vertigo staple, and this new story sees Lono make a violent return back to America.
Fanatic (Grace Ellis and Hannah Templer): A woman obsessed with a comic book turns her fixation onto its creator.
A Walking Shadow (Simon Spurrier and Aaron Campbell): Eight strangers wake up chained to a boat in the middle of the woods with no memory of how or why they’re there.
The Crying Doll (Mariko Tamaki and Rosemary Valero-O’Connell): A “Jekyll-Hyde thriller” about a young woman protecting her best friend, who may be killing people.
Necretaceous (Tom Taylor and Darick Robertson): To stop a zombie virus, scientists time travel to 66 million years in the past, when dinosaurs roamed the earth.
Bleeding Hears will kick off this new run of DC Vertigo titles on February 11, followed by End of Life (February 18) and Brutal Dark (February 25). The other books listed will release throughout the remainder of 2026, and you can see the covers for all of them below.
September 20 is Batman Day, and what better way to celebrate the occasion than with a new video for his next big game?
WB and Traveler’s Tales released a behind-the-scenes video devoted entirely to the making of Lego Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight. Revealed during Gamescom in August, the title takes players on the character’s journey into the superhero we all know, blending together different elements of his live-action and comics incarnations into a new spin on his origin and evolution.
The video doesn’t reveal anything new or insightful about TT’s approach to Batman—it’s made a lot of Lego games over the years, and Legacy of the Dark Knight is its fourth Bat-specific one—but it’s a solid eight minutes of the team swearing they’re doing their homework. The Batman and Dark Knight trilogy are both cited as key reference points alongside Batman: The Animated Series and a lot of comics.
Interestingly, the game starts with a young Bruce Wayne the evening before his parents are killed, then transitions over to his time training in the League of Shadows—something previous games like Arkham Origins and Arkham City have touched on through nightmare sequences or DLC.
If there’s one thing the video makes clearer than ever, it’s that the Arkham games really do cast a long shadow over Batman. Combat, using the Batmobile, and even grappling around Gotham all look very similar to how they were in Rocksteady’s franchise. That may end up working in the game’s favor, since as James Gunn notes, Lego is all about creativity regardless of age and skill level. What excites him most about Legacy is its potential to help players who’ve “never experienced Batman in a personal way get to play this game and have their own connection to him and the DC universe.”
Taking the gameplay and material from films and comics, then putting them in an all-ages gloss may be the smartest play for a character DC hopes to eventually reinvigorate on the big screen while still playing to his dark and gritty strengths. We’ll see how that fares when Lego Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight comes to PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and Nintendo Switch in 2026.
Earlier this week, DC Comics abruptly cancelled its new Red Hood comic from trans writer Gretchen Felker-Martin and artist Jeff Spokes. The decision came after Felker-Martin posted comments and jokes on social media about the assassination of prominent right-wing activist Charlie Kirk, which occurred on the same day—September 10—as the comic’s launch. DC Comics said in a statement that social media posts “that can be viewed as promoting hostility or violence are inconsistent with [our] standards of conduct.”
Now, in a new interview with the Comics Journal, Felker-Martin opened up about her posts and DC’s decision. She argued that DC had had no issue with her outspoken and sometimes incendiary social media presence when it approached her about doing a comic in 2024.
She recalled how she told the publisher at the time that it would “get between five and a hundred of the craziest people you’ve ever met in your life, screaming for my head and yours.” She went on to say that initially DC had given her “no terms or limitations” on her social media; a DC spokesperson reiterated to io9 the company’s previous stance on not abiding by posts that “promote hostility or violence.”
In the weeks leading up to Red Hood’s launch, past social media posts made by Felker-Martin on charged political topics, including the Israel-Gaza war, resurfaced. Felker-Martin told the Comics Journal that it was at this point that she received pushback on her social media activities; a spokesperson for DC confirmed this to the Comics Journal, saying the company requested Felker-Martin be more mindful of her online statements. Felker-Martin claimed she generally abided by that request until the day of Kirk’s murder.
The author said she stood by her comments about Kirk while expressing sympathy for her Red Hood co-creators, which include Spokens, cover artist Taurin Clarke and editors Arianna Turturro and Rob Levin. “I can only put it down to really just a moment of poor impulse control,” she told the Comics Journal. “Had I thought for another second, of course I would’ve known [that it would be a problem for DC], and naturally, as soon as I had said it, I did know.”
Felker-Martin also stressed that she did not want to work with DC Comics in the future: “I have no desire to be part of any organization that wants to pretend that people like Charlie Kirk are decent human beings who deserve respect.”
io9 has also reached out to Felker-Martin and will update this post if and when we hear back.
Nearly 10 years ago, NetherRealm released Injustice 2, the second game in its DC superhero fighting series. (And it’s the third superhero fighting game, beginning with 2008’s Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe.) After continuing and rebooting the story of Mortal Kombat, it seems NetherRealm is going back to superheroic punch-ups, as Green Lantern and Aquaman voice actor Phil LaMaar reportedly told a fan at a recent convention a third game is happening.
This will come as little surprise to anyone paying attention to NetherRealm. The studio ended its support for Mortal Kombat 1 earlier this year after two sets of DLC fighters and a story expansion and said it would pivot onto its next project. Before MK1’s reveal, Injustice 3 seemed a sure thing since the studio was alternating between the two franchises, but NetherRealm likely had to do two consecutive Kombat games since it was up for potential sale by WB back in 2020. It was never a question of if the developer would go back to Injustice, but “when”; the second was well-liked and had a healthy lifecycle and ended in such a way that more games were inevitable.
What’s less certain is what Injustice 3 will be in terms of tone. When the first two games were released in 2013 and 2017, they came at a time when DC was fine with positioning Superman as, if not a villain, then an apparent antagonist opposite Batman. This was most evident in Batman v Superman and Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League (which was revealed back in 2020), and it wouldn’t be until fairly recently that DC and WB began moving away from that framing. The comics have made an active effort to position him as a hopeful hero and family man, and while Joss Whedon’s version of the Justice League teased a more audience-friendly take on Superman, which never manifested, that came with James Gunn’s recent Superman movie, which spends its runtime getting the hero and audiences’ perception of him back on the right track.
To NetherRealm’s credit, it has an out in that Injustice is in its own universe where a totalitarian Superman can keep trying to reassert his dominance as many times as he likes while also working with Batman and the other Justice Leaguers—or at least, the ones he didn’t personally kill—while dealing with a greater threat. As one of the most prominent examples of the “Evil Superman” trend that’s also led to the popularity of Homelander and Omni-Man, it wouldn’t be entirely wrong for Injustice to keep making Clark more evil, especially since it already pulled the “Good Superman beats the Evil one” trigger back with the first game in 2013. But if the developer stays the course, can it handle being an outlier at a time when an altruistic, heroic take on the character is so popular and beloved?
We’ll find out how NetherRealm approaches this dilemma and what the game’s launch roster will look like in the coming years.
Big events like New York Comic-Con give publishers a good reason to tee up some upcoming comics and big events to come throughout the next year. Marvel already revealed their 2025 lineup will include Doctor Doom ruling the planet and an all-new Ultimate Wolverine, but what’s going on with DC? We broke down five of the biggest announcement to come from the publisher, which includes fresh new stories and several returning fan-favorites.
Peacemaker is dipping into comics
Mitch Gerads/DC
Max’s Peacemaker is currently expected to come back for season two sometime next year. To tide you over until then, DC is releasing the show’s first-ever comic book spinoff, Peacemaker Presents: The Vigilante/Eagly Double Feature!. Tim Seely (Money Shot) and Mitch Gerads (Mister Miracle) will tackle the Vigilante stories, while Rex Ogle and Matteo Lolli handle Eagly’s tales. Set between the show’s two seasons, the Vigilante stories will see the goofy antihero tear his way through the criminal community based on the assumption that something bad’s happened to Peacemaker and Eagly when they’re not home. In Eagly’s story, we find out he and Peacemaker are on a “bromantic” trip to Alaska they forgot to tell Vigilante about, but things take a turn for the worse when their flight is hijacked by supervillains looking to hunt them and the other passengers for sport.
The five-issue Vigilante/Eagly Double Feature! kicks off sometime next year.
The Justice League will fight Godzilla fighting King Kong again
DC/Legendary/Toho
It was only last year that DC’s mightiest heroes were caught in the middle of a clash between Godzilla and King Kong. Come 2025, they’ll be back to do the kaiju dance again in Justice League vs. Godzilla vs. Kong 2. Once again by Brian Buccellato and Christian Duce, the sequel sees the League hop over to the MonsterVerse when they learn some of their villains (Lex, Cheetah, and Harley, to name a few) have decided to try and weaponize Titans like Ghidorah and Rodan. You can guess how that’ll go, but hey, Wonder Woman or Batman riding on Mothra sure will be a sight to behold when the book lands in 2025.
Last week, DC’s new Absolute line of comics kicked off with Scott Snyder and Nick Dragotta’s Absolute Batman. Kelly Thompson and Hayden Sherman’s Absolute Wonder Womanlaunches later this week, and Jason Aaron and Rafa Sandoval’s Absolute Superman arrives in November, but there’s more stories on the horizon: wave two of the line will feature Absolute Flash from Jeff Lemire and Nick Robles, Absolute Green Lantern by Al Ewing and Jahnoy Lindsay, and the newly announced Absolute Martian Manhunter from Deniz Camp and Javier Rodriguez.
Camp, writer of 20th Century Men and The Ultimates, described Manhunter as “the most radical Absolute reinvention so far.” The book centers on FBI agent John Jones, who has his mind repeatedly invaded by an alien consciousness that just uses “Martian” as a shorthand to describe himself. This is a psychological horror story, and John will “slowly go insane, but in a really fun kind of way. The book is about a complete outsider’s perspective on the world combined with a complete insider’s view of the world.”
As for Absolute Flash and Green Lantern, DC revealed some art from their respective books. The former stars a teen Wally West going up against classic Rogues like Captains Cold and Boomerang, while the latter is an ensemble piece featuring Jo Mullein, John Stewart, and Hal Jordan. All three Absolute books will release in 2025. Also on the docket for 2025 is some kind of crossover between the Absolute and prime DC universes: at the con, Snyder teased a “big, fun event” next fall that “brings a lot of this stuff together.”
Al Ewing said This will be an ensemble book featuring Jo,Hal,John and Guy Gardner! But Hal and Jo Mullein are the main ones in the book! pic.twitter.com/IGGXYnX0n1
At the “Jim Lee and Friends” panel, the artist revealed he and writer Jeph Loeb were reteaming on a sequel to Batman: Hush, which introduced Bruce’s childhood friend Tommy Elliot turned evil lookalike (and bandaged serial killer) Hush. A 20th anniversary re-release in 2022 featured a brand new epilogue, and Hush was recently adapted into one of DC’s animated movies, so a sequel felt almost inevitable. The duo will begin their sequel in March 2025 with Batman #158, seemingly confirming recent rumors that Chip Zdarsky and Jorge Jimenez’s current run would be wrapping early next year so the two could take over the main Bat-comic. But before that point, there’ll be a prelude story in November’s Justice League Unlimited #1 to help set the stage for Batman’s next saga.
Hush ain’t the only one making a comeback. The fan-favorite Vertigo imprint is being revived after being retired in 2019, with an emphasis on creator-owned projects. (DC Black Label, which effectively existed as its replacement, will seemingly stick to handling mature takes of the brand’s existing characters.) The first “new” Vertigo book will be a reprint of James Tynion IV and Álvaro Martinez Bueno’s The Nice House on the Lake, with upcoming issues of its current sequel series The Nice House by the Sea to be published under the imprint going forward. At the moment, this is the only book confirmed for the resurrected Vertigo, and executive editor Chris Conroy said more would be revealed in the coming months, along with some “surprises from the archives.”
It’s only been a whole week since Joker: Folie à Deux hit theaters, but the reactions and takes couldn’t be more divisive. Folks who saw it (or just read the synopsis online) have a lot of thoughts on various parts of the movie, mainly its ending. Director Todd Phillips and star Joaquin Phoenix have already talked about it (and how they came up with it), so now it’s time for the film’s secret key player to share their thoughts on the matter.
After being fully rejected by Lee (Lady Gaga) and placed back in Arkham Asylum, Arthur (Joaquin Phoenix) gets approached by a fellow inmate played by Connor Storrie, who’s been watching him in secret throughout the film. The inmate tells Arthur a joke, and then stabs him to death before carving that classic Glasgow smile onto his own face. Just like that, he’s taken the Joker mantle for himself.
Speaking to TMZ, Storrie said that he’s not really surprised the end’s got fans feeling some type of way. Like many, he was admittedly thrown by the news that this would be a musical, considering how “raw and grimy” the first Joker was. But as far as he’s concerned, the polarizing opinions were inevitable, and might be justified in some respects. “I’d rather things be polarizing than things be boring or squeaky clean,” he said. “You don’t make such a big swing like that without knowing it gives people the opportunity to not get behind your choices.”
While Storrie commends Phillips for “having the balls to make such a bold swing,” he said he never considered Folie à Deux as a secret origin story. (It seems he didn’t even know what else would happen in the movie beyond him killing Arthur.) He knows how big a deal Joker is, obviously, but he stressed to not “considering what that [ending] could mean or where it could go. It felt very clear that this is Joaquin’s movie, [and] this is my place in that. […] It is a part of Arthur’s story more than it is becoming anything else after that.”
Joker: Folie à Deux may have been a surprise damp squib at the box office this weekend, but its ending has gotten people talking regardless if they went out to see the sequel or not. And as controversial a conclusion as it is, apparently we almost got something similar in the original film’s climax… if not for a purported refusal from Christopher Nolan himself.
Folie à Deux climaxes with an imprisoned Arthur Fleck (Joaquin Phoenix), his trial concluded and awaiting the death sentence, being stabbed to death by a fellow inmate. As Arthur bleeds out, in the obscured background we see the inmate begin to cackle in a Joker-ish manner, before taking the knife to their own face and seemingly carving a smiling scar along their mouth, akin to the appearance of Heath Ledger’s Joker in The Dark Knight. As one Joker falls, another metaphorically rises. But a new report suggests that a version of that controversial moment almost came to pass in Todd Phillips’ original Joker movie.
As part of a new report at the Hollywood Reporter discussing the fallout of Folie à Deux‘s box office flop, the trade cites a source that alleged that the original script for the first Joker concluded with Arthur, standing before his gathered supporters, scarring himself in that familiar smile pattern. However, the idea was scrapped—not at Phillips’ behest, or even Warner Bros.’, but one of the studio’s other premier directors at the time, Christopher Nolan, who purportedly believed that only the late Heath Ledger’s incarnation of the Joker should be distinguished by the smile scar.
At the time of the first Joker, Nolan and Warner Bros. had an incredibly tight relationship—a relationship that would then distinctly sour in the wake of the 2020 covid-19 pandemic, when the director balked at Warner Bros.’ plans to put its 2021 theatrical slate on streaming day and date through the studio’s platform Max (then known by its full name, HBO Max). Already frustrated by the theatrical rollout of his time-bending film Tenet through Warner in 2020, Nolan was one of the most vociferous and notable directors who publicly lambasted the decision. Breaking his traditional distribution relationship with Warner Bros., he took his critically acclaimed smash hit Oppenheimer to Universal last year.
All that means that by the time that Folie à Deux was rolling around, Nolan wasn’t exactly in at Warner Bros. with the sway to nix at least someone getting scarred in the movie’s climax. Would the moment have been more controversial if it was Arthur’s Joker scarring himself, or is the wild ending twist more about how it sharply takes him out of the picture? We’ll never know now, but one thing’s for certain—don’t ask Chris Nolan how he feels about it, he almost definitely won’t tell you.
Image: Square Enix, 505 Games, Capcom, Ryu Ga Gotoku Studios / Sega, Blizzard, Sega, Blizzard, Kojima Productions, Screenshot: Capcom
It’s the start of a new month, which means there’s a host of hot, new games coming your way. It can get overwhelming, scanning through the various game marketplaces to decide what you should spend your hard-earned money on, so we’ve gathered 34 games coming out this month that we’re stoked for. We’ve also spotted some great sales you may want to take advantage of, like Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes, the original Resident Evil trilogy, Diablo 4 ahead of its huge expansion, and a bunch of turn-based RPGs at a steal.
We also beg you to check out Yakuza 0 before watching the upcoming Amazon Prime series, let you in on the things we wish we knew before playing the Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster, and highlight everything Hideo Kojima is working on. Click through for all the helpful hints of the week. You’re welcome.
The big promise of Todd Phillips’ Jokerwas stripping out the titular character’s comic book elements and showing what would happen if a regular guy in 1980s Gotham decided to put on clown makeup. (Turns out, things didn’t go well, mainly for everyone else around him.) A young Bruce Wayne is in the original movie, and you may be wondering what would happen if an adult Batman met this version of his nemesis. According to director/writer Todd Phillips, he thinks Arthur Fleck would just think Batman’s neat. (You’re shocked, I’m sure.)
In a recent IGN interview, Phillips explained how Arthur would “be in awe of the alpha male that is Batman. I think [he’d] look up and appreciate it.” In his read, Arthur is “fascinated by men at ease,” such as his own coworkers and Robert De Niro’s talk show host Murray Franklin from the first movie. Those men are everything he’s not, and why wouldn’t that extend to Batman? Presumably, this Batman knows Arthur’s responsible for his parents’ murder, but maybe they can move past that.
The original Joker ended with Arthur eventually losing his cool so bad he shot Murray in the face on live TV, so that fascination clearly has a limit. Still, Phillips’ comments get at something, namely how Arthur has been very quick to fall in love, either romantically or platonically. But Warner Bros. is probably not interested in making the decades of subtext between Bats and Jokes into actual text, or at least no more than what Lego Batman already did back in 2017. Considering Arthur’s luck with people he crushes on, anything between this Clown Prince and a Dark Knight old enough to punch his face in would likely end in a bad romance.
There’ve been plenty of Batman TV shows over the years, both animated and live-action. But Fox’s Gothamis probably one of the more out there series: a prequel focused on Jim Gordon (Ben McKenzie) investigating the Waynes’ murder while Bruce himself (David Mazouz) is just a kid? And his future Rogues Gallery is either around his age or young adults?
Despite that odd premise, things paid off. Gotham had a solid five-year run spanning 100 episodes, a prequel series in Pennyworth: The Origin of Batman’s Butler, and a passionate fanbase that still has affection for it. Ahead of the show’s 10-year anniversary on September 22, IGN published a lengthy retrospective on the series featuring interviews with the core cast, creator Bruno Heller, and executive producer (and recurring director/writer) Danny Cannon. As Heller explains it, the show came about after Warner Bros. and CBS passed on his legal drama The Advocates (which also starred McKenzie), and he was considering what to pitch next. He’d settled on a Batman series because the character was so TV-ready, but he said his son Felix (an avid comics reader) helped him realize the show should focus on Gordon rather than Batman himself.
“From that, a young detective investigating the Wayne murders was a natural concentration of ideas,” said Heller. “As soon as that notion hit, that he was the cop that investigates the death of the Waynes…The whole series is right there. It’s Batman as a boy, the origin stories of all those characters like the Joker and the Riddler and the Penguin, but as young people.”
Cannon said Heller had two firm ideas for the first season: Gordon trying to keep his promise to Bruce to investigate the Wayne murders, and the story of Penguin’s (Robin Lord Taylor) rise to power. “You had one kid’s journey losing his parents, and you had this other kid who had nothing,” he told IGN. “One was going to build his life up with his butler and with Jim Gordon, and look into his parents’ death and become inquisitive. […] And this other one, the only way he could become a man and become the person he wanted to be was by treading on the skulls of the dead, and making it happen for himself in a nefarious way.”
Making anything Batman-related comes with a lot of baggage, and there was understandable secrecy around the show starting out. Most of the cast admitted they didn’t initially realize they were even trying out for a Batman show to begin with. While McKenzie was told by Heller that Gordon was written with him in mind, Sean Pertwee (Alfred) learned in a conversation with Heller and Cannon just before the audition; and it fully clicked for Camren Bicondova (Selina Kyle) the moment she was told she got the part. “I think they said, ‘You’re Catwoman,’ but the first thing they said was ‘meow.’ And I was like, ‘What? I don’t understand,’” she recalled.
Like McKenzie, Mazouz knew he was auditioning for Bruce, even as he admitted to not remembering how he learned that information. Heller claims he was at the top of their list “pretty early on,” and Cannon considered it lucky that Mazouz was a lead on Fox’s two-season series Touch, whose creators recommended him to Cannon and Heller. Mazouz landed the part in early 2014, and he recalled being his Bar Mitzvah and seeing his friends with Batman on their clothes. That moment, he said, marked the first time it really landed for him that he was going to be Batman, regardless of whether or not he’d don the suit.
Looking back on Gotham, its cast and crew have fond memories of working on the series. Pertwee said he does his best to keep in contact with his former costars, and many consider it a show that just couldn’t be made these days. Taylor noted a 22-episode, big budget superhero show “doesn’t sound like a thing coming back anytime soon” on network TV, to say nothing of the freedom it had to play around with the Batman mythos on a weekly basis. “We showed we were able to play with canon and to play with these classic storylines in a way that was brave in many ways and also unexpected by many fans. Ultimately, [it’ll] prove to be just an endlessly refreshing take on these stories that have been around for 80 years.”
Bicondova said the show “brought an edge to comic book stories” you couldn’t find in other shows back then, or even now. Pertwee echoed that sentiment and believed people would find elements of the show that were “correct” and “humanized the craziness” of the Batman corner of the DC universe. Speaking to those characters, he added the show’s backstories on Batman and his rogues would reverberate through other incarnations across media.
McKenzie paid respect to other DC shows in the years since, but believed Gotham was “quite different from a lot of the others that existed then and now. Without Gotham, I don’t know that they would be making a show about the Penguin,” said McKenzie. “[It’s] a testament to both Robin’s portrayal, but also to showing that you can make what’s essentially, at least PG-13, if not R-rated show on network television by not dumbing it down to the audience, by keeping the plot lines intricate, the characters three dimensional. I’d like to think that we pushed the ball forward there.”
“The legacy of a show is, did people enjoy doing it, and did they walk away feeling like they were treated well and they had a good time, and that they’ve made friends with people and they feel proud?” said Heller. “[Gotham] is a tiny part of a massive Batman mythology.” Likening Batman to a saint of pop culture, he said he “hope we did justice [and] took it seriously enough to honor that, and took it with enough lightness to make it work as a TV show.”
You can read the full tell-all on Gotham here, which covers the show’s production design, embracing the more superhero side of Batman, and more. While you’re here, look back on Gotham and its whole Gotham-ness in the comments below.
At the beginning of the year, Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealthlaunched a hell of an opening salvo. The latest installment in the long-running Like a Dragon/Yakuza series is comically full of things to do. On one hand, it’s a turn-based RPG epic, splitting its narrative between two larger-than-life protagonists in entirely different settings complete with their own villains, party members, and side stories. On the other hand, it is more game than anybody could possibly need, housing several side activities, minigames, and at least two-full sized games within itself. If you’re a person whose chief concern about a game is getting the absolute most bang for your buck, there has rarely been a better game to pick up than Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth, which is now discounted at $42 on both PlayStation and Steam. – Moises Taveras Read More
It’s been a while since we’ve gotten some comic adventures featuring the Justice League. Granted, after they died and got revived in Dark Crisis a while back, they shelved the team and done smaller teamups when needed. But you can’t keep a superhero team down for long, and that means it’s time for the League to make another grand return to the forefront.
During yesterday’s panel for the future of DC, the publisher offered a short look at Mark Waid and Dan Mora’s Justice League Unlimited. The monthly series will see the League come together again in the aftermath of Aboslute Power and build out its ranks. Along with the main heavy hitters, the book’s new stars include Captain Atom, Star Sapphire, the Atom, and Black Lightning. The team’s first order of business? Tangling with Darkseid, who’ll operate as the book’s big bad and do something that result in the creation of the upcoming Absolute comics.
Hello folks! I posted the wrong color version of my wrap around cover for Justice League Unlimited! This is the correct one, my apologies! pic.twitter.com/jWzJ5xuJVc
The book’s name carries some weight behind it: the Justice League Unlimited cartoon was a big deal back in the day, and part of why the DCAU was held up for so long. Waid and Mora appear to be borrowing more than just the name: the book will feature a rotating cast just like in the show, and the League will be operating out of the Watchtower space station. It’ll be interesting to see how much of the show informs this upcoming comic, particularly since it’ll also probably lead to some kind of crossover with the Absolute universe once that world’s characters have gotten their acts together.
Justice League Unlimited kicks off on November 27. Funnily enough, the JLU show turns 20 years old at the end of July, and all three seasons are available over on Max.
A new Entertainment Weekly feature looks back at Halle Berry’s infamousCatwoman on its 20th anniversary, shedding light on the project’s troubled production history while also celebrating its unlikely critical reappraisal. The article is highly recommended reading, as it’s full of stellar quotes from director Pitof, producer Denise Di Novi, screenwriter John Brancato, and Halle Berry, herself.
No matter how you may feel about the movie, Berry gushed about her experience working on it, stating it permanently altered her into real-life cat person. “I became a cat lover because of it. I just rescued four kitties I found in my yard three weeks ago,” she said. “I’m a Catwoman through and through because of that experience and those relationships. That experience changed me.”
Berry revealed Warner Bros. gifted her with a cat for inspiration before filming. “They gave me a cat early on because I didn’t have one,” she said. “His name was Playdough. I watched, studied, and learned how cats think. I didn’t have the responsibility of children and family; I was just a woman alone with a lot of idle time to focus on this. I was full-on cat, all the time. I’d crawl around my house, trying to jump on my counters, thinking, If I were a cat, how would I get up there? I was in it 24/7.”
While the image of Berry leaping from her own countertops is amusing, Gotham‘s two Catwoman actresses Lili Simmons and Camren Bocondova believe it payed off. “Halle’s performance is iconic,” Simmons said. “When you think of Catwoman, you think of her; her fluidity in movement while nailing every scene; effortlessly sexy, powerful, and grounded.”
Bicondovca echoed her sentiment, adding, “Halle inspired me as an actress throughout those five years [on Gotham] and still does! Halle is a powerhouse with crazy athleticism, versatility, and depth. Her work is reflective of her consistent effort to be curious and knowledgeable about her characters. She showed that in her rendition of Catwoman and is still doing it 20 years later.”
Praise for Catwoman performances tends not to include Berry’s turn—the go-to names are usually Julie Newmar, Michelle Pfieffer, and Eartha Kitt—so their enthusiasm is contagious. That Berry made sure to emphasize Catwoman’s feline aspects comes in stark contrast to some of the character’s more recent portrayals from Anne Hathaway and Zoe Kravitz (the former is never seen with a cat; the latter is obviously uncomfortable holding one).
If that wasn’t enough, the article also contains some interesting notes about the studio, who were positive about the film’s bizarre, overarching threat—a skin-dissolving face cream cultivated from bubonic plague cultures—as long as the finished film contained no plague-carrying rats. As Brancato notes, “At the time, Botox was relatively new, so the idea of a cosmetic based on the bubonic plague seemed like a funny idea … the power that controlled the movie was studio executives. Everything came from them—specifically Jeff Robinov, who was [the motion picture head at] Warner Bros. After we’d done a draft, he put everything on index cards, called us to his office, and on a giant whiteboard, rearranged the script. ‘Move this here, get rid of this idea of rats—we don’t like rats—get rid of her internal process of becoming a cat.’ He tossed everything I thought was good in our earlier work. We had an oddly cobbled-together version of the script.”
The article additionally confirms Brancato and co-writer Michael Ferris were fired from the project “twice,” prompting extensive re-writes from Bill & Ted co-creator Ed Solomon. According to Brancato, “They’d been through so many writers and versions. There was exhaustion at the studio. You get punch-drunk. We’d come up with ideas, and they’d say, ‘No, we tried that in drafts 7 and 11.’ Well, what can we do? It was an odd process. Trying to make something that had some integrity that made sense finally seemed impossible, given the realities of what this became. It was a strange, out-of-control machine.”
As the piece continues, Di Novi goes on to discuss Berry’s controversial Catwoman costume, suggesting most of the film’s backlash came from its… minimalist design. “A a catsuit, by definition, everything is covered up,” she said. “We thought it’d be cool to be more rock n’ roll and bare. Halle was famous for wearing a bikini in her Bond movie, and we were like, why not?” Berry confirms she was also positive about the costume, adding, “It was something different, but in our minds, why keep remaking Catwoman if you’re not going to take risks and bring something different to it?”
Why indeed? Is it time Catwoman finally got its due, or do you believe it was truly deserving of its damning Razzie award win, which as the article details, was accepted by Berry in person? Not matter your belief on the matter, Berry concluded, “You can never take away my Oscar, no matter how bad you bash me! If you say I earned it, I’ll take this, too.” They do say cats always land on their feet.
Last month, WB revealed a sequel to its 2018 movie Batman Ninja was in the works. With the intriguing title of Batman Ninja vs. the Yakuza League, you had to wonder what the Dark Knight would be up to next–and the answer is, fight the Justice League.
Yep, our premise this time is that Batman and Robin (his son Damian) are going up against period-specific villainous counterparts of his superpowered friends. Interestingly, it looks like the Dynamic Duo are in an alternate version of present day Japan rather than feudal Japan in the original film, and the characters’ designs reflect that. Aquaman is a fisherman, Wonder Woman a formidable warrior, Flash appears to be a ronin, and Green Lantern Jessica Cruz wielding an actual lantern to channel her power. Why have they gone evil? That’s a big question mark, but it’ll fall to Batman and Robin to take them down and possibly revert them back to their old selves.
Also notably missing from the lineup here is Superman. Other stories of Batman fighting the League make sure to have the Man of Steel somewhere in the mix, typically as the big bad of the whole affair. Maybe WB is keeping him out of marketing to avoid him overshadowing the other Yakuza members and this being boiled down to yet another “Batman vs. Superman” story. This looks pretty promising regardless; that first movie had its fans for being pretty ridiculous, and bringing in Bruce’s coworkers looks like a fun elevation from that. Hopefully we see more of Batman Ninja vs. Yakuza League sometime soon, and that its release on digital and physical formats isn’t too far behind.
