2023 is already at a close, and it’s time to look back on this momentous year for comic books. This year, fan-favorite heroes were killed off, horror comics continued to thrive, and DSTLRY launched a new approach to creator-owned comics. Without further ado, here are the very best comics that came out this year. 

MARVEL

The Incredible Hulk

The Hulk has been around since 1962, and it’s about time he starred in his own Southern Gothic body horror story. This year, The Incredible Hulk quite literally exploded his way to becoming one of Marvel’s strongest books. Writer Phillip Kennedy Johnson and artist Nic Klein delivered a haunting and lyrical tale of Bruce Banner and a spunky teenager named Charlie traveling through the American South. There’s creepy church songs, creatures exploding out of bodies, abandoned mining towns, and a brand new Ghost Rider – what more could you want? Horror comics are popular right now, but The Incredible Hulk has its own corner of the market because of its Southern Gothic specificity. Johnson and Klein are one of the finest creative teams at Marvel today, so don’t miss out. 

Immortal Thor

One of the most powerful things that can happen while reading a superhero book is being reminded of why you love, or loved, a character so much. Immortal Thor by Al Ewing and Martín Cóccolo presents this type of awakening. Al Ewing has stated that his favorite kind of Thor is a smiling Thor. And seeing the god of thunder smile in Immortal Thor #1 breaks down any sense of separation we might feel from this arguably unrelatable character. Thor is at his best when you can feel chummy with him, even if you don’t quite understand the life he lives. Under Ewing and Cóccolo’s stewardship, Thor feels like your best friend who also happens to be a god. He sparks enough joy to pass the Marie Kondo test. How lucky we are to have him. 

Star Wars: Dark Droids

If you are anything of a Star Wars fan yourself, run – don’t walk – to Marvel’s Star Wars comics. The ongoing Dark Droids event highlights the strength of the Star Wars line in its entirety, between the title series by Charles Soule and Madibek Musabekov, Bounty Hunters by Ethan Sacks and Davide Tinto, Doctor Aphra by Alyssa Wong and Mingkyu Jung, and Darth Vader by Greg Pak and Raffaele Ienco. Dark Droids poses the simple question of what would happen if all of the droids and cyborgs in the galaxy were corrupted by an evil virus. Considering how widespread droids are, it’s a genius question. Not even Vader is safe. 

The X-Cellent

As algorithms continue to sway the course of popular culture, the X-Statix have never felt more relevant. The X-Statix are an X-Men team created by Peter Milligan, Michael Allred, and Laura Allred. Unlike other X-Men teams, the X-Statix have always had a strong satirical bent, as they are reality stars more than honest superheroes. The X-Cellent by Milligan and the Allreds is their latest adventure, where Mr. Sensitive’s team battles their vomiting foe, Zeitgeist, once again (yes, you read that right). The X-Statix are just about the most dysfunctional superhero team around, and The X-Cellent highlights everything that makes them so refreshing.  

She-Hulk/The Sensational She-Hulk

The world is a better place when She-Hulk has an ongoing series. The Sensational She-Hulk is a continuation of Rainbow Rowell and Andrés Genolet’s She-Hulk series that wrapped up earlier this year. Rowell and Genolet’s love for the character shines through with their work, as it has more of a slice-of-life feel than most superhero stories. In a genre overcrowded by insanely high, universe-shattering stakes, The Sensational She-Hulk provides the rare opportunity to sit down on a comfortable couch and listen to characters have conversations with each other. She-Hulk is such a wonderful character that she makes every issue a gift. 

DC

Green Lantern

Jeremy Adams and Xermánico’s Green Lantern is the Top Gun: Maverick of Hal Jordan stories. It’s effortless, impeccably executed, heavy on “hang-out” time with the characters, and there’s a motorcycle or two. This isn’t your typical Hal Jordan story, as he’s living out of a trailer and his old flame, Carol Ferris, has moved on. Regardless of what your feelings about Hal Jordan are, Green Lantern will give you a reason to root for this guy. Additionally, Xermánico continues to prove that he is one of the most versatile artists working in comics today. He nails soft, bright, emotional scenes alongside pulse-pounding, gritty action sequences. The sky is the limit in Green Lantern.

Fire & Ice: Welcome to Smallville

Fire & Ice: Welcome to Smallville is the female-led buddy comedy we’ve always needed. For those who aren’t familiar, Fire and Ice were on the Justice League back in the late 1980s and 1990s. Despite being one of DC’s best friendships, the two superheroines haven’t gotten their due. But now, thanks to Joanne Starer and Natacha Bustos, Fire and Ice shine as they set up their own hair salon in Smallville, Kansas. Each issue will make you fall in love with this dynamic duo even more, and there’s some hilarious cameos sprinkled throughout.

The Vigil

If you’re a fan of morally-grey superheroes, look no further than The Vigil by Ram V and Lalit Kumar Sharma. A brand new team composed of metahumans from India, The Vigil are built in a similar vein to the WildC.A.T.S. from the 1990s, except they’re even cooler. There’s a kid on the team named Castle who is so terrifyingly smart that The Vigil would rather have him on their team than risk the chance of someone else scooping him up. The evocative character designs by Sharma hint at the interesting backstories for each character, with Saya’s mask being an instantly iconic look. V and Sharma’s miniseries proves that The Vigil have immense potential in the DC Universe, so now is a good time to jump aboard! 

Peacemaker Tries Hard! 

If you’ve haven’t cried from laughter while reading a comic, you haven’t lived. Peacemaker Tries Hard! by Kyle Starks and Steve Pugh is one of the funniest books of the year. Kyle Starks launches one-liners like a potato gun, executed with precision by Steve Pugh’s gorgeous and expressive artwork. What makes Peacemaker such a delight is that he is not very good at being a superhero, and he lacks any sense of self-awareness. Coupled with the fact that he has an adorable puppy named Bruce Wayne, it doesn’t get much funnier than Peacemaker Tries Hard! 

Action Comics

2023 was the year that Action Comics became a book celebrating the entire Superman Family. With new costumes designed by artist Dan Mora, the Super-Family has never felt more central to the evolving DC mythos. Writer Phillip Kennedy Johnson has consistently transformed a different Superman villain with every arc on Action Comics. Under the pen of artist Rafa Sandoval, Metallo reached new heights as a villain, with the story focusing on his chances for redemption. It’s the perfect model for Superman’s values in restorative justice, while also providing a counter to Action’s more clear-cut evildoers, like Mongul and Lex Luthor. 

INDIE PUBLISHERS

Phantom Road

Image Comics’ Phantom Road is written by one of the most distinctive voices in horror comics today, Jeff Lemire. Together with artist Gabriel H. Walta and colorist Jordie Bellaire, Lemire takes us on a highway to hell with haunting images we can never unsee. The story follows a trucker named Dom who stumbles across a stretch of highway where desiccated zombie-like creatures roam. What ensues is like if Resident Evil 2 met Kentucky Route Zero. Walta’s grimy artwork is not to be missed. 

Beneath the Trees Where Nobody Sees

Every once and a while, we are lucky enough to find a series that has us screaming, “WHAT IN TARNATION?!” at the end of the first issue. Beneath the Trees Where Nobody Sees from IDW Publishing is one of those series. Written and drawn by Patrick Horvath, Beneath the Trees has an adorable aesthetic that doesn’t hide the grisly habits of its protagonist, a serial killer named Samantha. However, Samantha is a very cuddly-looking bear, living in a quaint town with other animals, not unlike your own island in Animal Crossing. Beneath the Trees Where Nobody Sees has a gleefully macabre sense of humor and eye-popping visuals. Don’t miss it. 

Killadelphia 

If you haven’t read even a bit of Image Comics’ Killadelphia, you’re missing out on one of the greatest horror books of the past decade. Written by Rodney Barnes with art by Jason Shawn Alexander, Killadelphia explores the sins of America’s past and present through vampires. Only, these aren’t your typical vampires, they’re figures like Former President George Washington. Killadelphia continues to be a thought-provoking look at American history. Alexander’s art captures the violence at the center of it all with gritty excellence. Come for the vampire former Presidents, stay for the heartfelt meditations on family. 

Carmilla: The First Vampire 

Between Killadelphia and Carmilla: The First Vampire, vampires have never felt more fresh in comics. Amy Chu and Soo Lee’s graphic novel is set in 1996 in Manhattan’s Chinatown. Social worker Athena Loo is pulled into a web of mystery after a number of her clients are murdered. Chu’s writing beautifully captures the everyday culture of Manhattan Chinatown, seamlessly weaving the dangers of gentrification with the vampire metaphor. The title of the graphic novel comes from Sheridan Le Fanu’s novella of the same name, and it stays true to the original as a lesbian vampire story. But make no mistake, Carmilla: The First Vampire has its own unique story to tell. 

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Daredevil is one of the most prestigious titles in Marvel Comics. However, when you look back at the Man Without Fear’s earliest issues, you wouldn’t expect a character in a gaudy red and yellow costume to someday hold this title. In fact, Daredevil has never been a pop culture superstar quite like his Marvel contemporaries like the Hulk, Spider-Man, or Thor. Even so, what’s unique about Daredevil is that his series presents a chronicle of contemporary social issues. That’s because Daredevil can’t ignore social inequality—it’s a part of everyday life as a blind lawyer Matt Murdock from working-class Hell’s Kitchen. With this in mind, let’s look at the 10 best Daredevil stories ever published. 

10. Ed Brubaker and Michael Lark

Crime is a key ingredient of Daredevil stories from the last couple decades. Writer Ed Brubaker has excelled in this genre across his career. Brubaker and Michael Lark’s Daredevil had the difficult task of continuing on from a bombshell moment at the end of Brian Michael Bendis and Alex Maleev’s run, where Daredevil was imprisoned. While in jail, Matt Murdock was tormented by the Kingpin himself, Wilson Fisk. The audacious opening to Brubaker and Lark’s run put Matt up against his fiercest foes without any of his usual advantages. If you loved the pulse-pounding prison escape scene in season three of the Netflix Daredevil show, then Brubaker and Lark are a perfect match for your sensibilities. 

Ed Brubaker’s run spans Daredevil (1998) #82-119, plus Daredevil #500.

9. Charles Soule

Writer Charles Soule also works as an attorney. Part of his run on Daredevil highlights the ins and outs of being a lawyer. But beyond Soule’s legal training, he and artist Phil Noto pulled off one of the funniest gags in Daredevil’s history: bringing Matt Murdock’s fake twin brother, Mike, to life. In the earliest issues of Daredevil in the 1960s, Matt created the persona of “Mike Murdock” to fool Karen Page and Foggy Nelson into thinking Daredevil was actually his identical twin brother, Mike. But after a mishap with an Inhuman called the Reader, Mike Murdock accidentally came to life as his own person. Bringing Mike to life had lasting consequences for Daredevil (see: the Devil’s Reign event), and Soule and Noto’s arc merged both the comedic and dramatic sides of Daredevil’s publication history in one story. 

Charles Soule’s Daredevil run spans Daredevil (2015) #1-28, Daredevil #595-612.

8. Frank Miller

Frank Miller is often credited with reinventing Daredevil as a gritty crime story. Miller introduced longstanding characters in Daredevil such as the assassin Elektra Natchios, the ninja organization known as The Hand, and Daredevil’s former mentor, Stick. Together with artist David Mazzucchelli, Miller’s finest work on Daredevil was the “Born Again” storyline, which still remains influential today. Perhaps Frank Miller’s greatest legacy for Daredevil is that he paved the way for future creators to explore the Man Without Fear in a variety of modes. For some, that meant a heavy crime approach, and for others, a more humanistic perspective. When evaluated within the whole of Daredevil’s publication history, Frank Miller’s run may not be the character’s finest, but it is a watershed moment in superhero comics. 

Frank Miller’s run on Daredevil begins as the penciler on Daredevil #158-167, then as writer on Daredevil #168-191, #219, #226-233. Miller wrote Daredevil: The Man Without Fear #1-5 with art by John Romita Jr. 

7. Denny O’Neil

Dennis “Denny” O’Neil doesn’t get enough credit for his role in shaping Daredevil into one of Marvel’s finest characters. O’Neil ushered in a more mature era for superhero comics at large with his and Neal Adams’ sociopolitically-minded run on Green Lantern in the early 1970s. Later, O’Neil was Frank Miller’s editor on Daredevil. After Miller’s run concluded, O’Neil filled in as writer until Ann Nocenti took over the title. O’Neil’s Daredevil reflects his seasoned mastery of the comic book form, telling thoughtful, self-contained stories. Through his writing, O’Neil imbued Hell’s Kitchen with a certain journalistic texture of humanity, making his run deeply refreshing to read. While Frank Miller is often attributed with writing Daredevil with a “mature” outlook, the same should also be said for O’Neil’s run.

Dennis O’Neil’s run as writer on Daredevil spans Daredevil #18, #194-202, #204-#207, #210-218, #220-223, #225-226. 

6. David Lapham and Lee Weeks

Daredevil: Dark Nights by David Lapham and Lee Weeks is the rare story where Matt Murdock’s antagonist isn’t a corrupt human, but Mother Nature herself. This arc takes place during a blizzard that’s left New York City at a standstill. A little girl waits for a heart transplant at a hospital. But the helicopter transporting the heart goes down due to the weather. Matt suits up to trudge across New York City in the snow to retrieve the heart from the site of the crash.

Anyone who’s ever lived in New York City knows that this city is no stranger to horrific weather events. Lee Weeks’ gorgeous art captures the epic scale of this battle of man versus nature, and the limits of the human body. Daredevil’s passionate disregard for his own wellbeing in Dark Nights is incredibly moving. If you’ve ever needed three issues to remind you why Daredevil is so heroic, then Daredevil: Dark Nights #1-3 is a must read. 

David Lapham and Lee Weeks’ story spans Daredevil: Dark Nights #1-3.

5. Kevin Smith, Joe Quesada, and Jimmy Palmiotti

The 1990s were a rough time for Daredevil. It wasn’t until Kevin Smith, Joe Quesada, and Jimmy Palmiotti assembled in 1998 that the Man Without Fear hit his stride again. Under the new Marvel Knights imprint, Daredevil began anew. With Smith’s lyrical narration and Quesada and Palmiotti’s lush art, Daredevil came out swinging and never let up. Smith, Quesada, and Palmiotti kicked off a new era of Daredevil marked by creative experimentation that continued through the early 2000s. In just eight issues, Smith, Quesada, and Palmiotti reminded comics fans why Daredevil is a top-tier Marvel character. And yes, this is the same Kevin Smith who made Clerks! 

Daredevil (1998) #1-8

4. Mark Waid, Paolo Rivera, and Chris Samnee

Mark Waid, Paolo Rivera, and Chris Samnee’s Daredevil departed from the dark and crime-heavy tone that the character had become synonymous with. Instead, Waid’s Daredevil had no private identity. He lived publicly as Matt Murdock, vigilante and lawyer, in San Francisco. Waid and Rivera introduced a fan-favorite girlfriend of Matt Murdock’s, Kirsten McDuffie, a fellow lawyer. Rivera and Samnee’s playful artwork combined with Waid’s adventurous tone reestablished Daredevil as a character who made you smile as much as he made you think. In this sense, this run was a better version of Daredevil’s earliest comics by Bill Everett, Stan Lee, Wallace Wood, John Romita Sr., and Gene Colan. Waid, Rivera, and Samnee proved just how versatile Daredevil is as a character.

Daredevil (2011) #1-36, Daredevil (2014) #0.1, #1-18

3. Chip Zdarsky and Marco Checchetto

If Waid, Rivera, and Samnee’s Daredevil was the Beach Boys’ Surfer Girl album, Chip Zdarsky and Marco Checchetto’s Daredevil was Rage Against the Machine’s debut. Zdarsky wrote Daredevil with righteous fury and emotional complexity, brought to life by Marco Checchetto’s art. Matt Murdock became more and more disillusioned with the justice system as well as his Catholic beliefs. This culminated in him going to prison after killing a man early on in the run. The focus on Daredevil’s rage brought out a terrifying but relatable dimension to his character. With Zdarsky’s attention to both the failings of the justice system and Catholic schools of thought, Daredevil never felt more salient to today’s world. If you’ve ever experienced even a smidge of Catholic guilt, you’ll find yourself at home in Zdarsky and Checchetto’s Daredevil. 

Daredevil (2019) #1-36, Daredevil (2019) Annual #1, Daredevil (2022) #1-14

2. Ann Nocenti and John Romita Jr.

Ann Nocenti and John Romita Jr.’s Daredevil is criminally overlooked. Romita Jr.’s art and Nocenti’s emphasis on Daredevil’s place in his community captured late 1980s Hell’s Kitchen like a photograph—no sensationalism necessary. Thanks to Ann Nocenti’s whip-smart critical eye, Daredevil tackled social issues like misogyny (through the iconic villain Typhoid Mary), environmental racism, corrupt landlords, ableism, and more. Furthermore, Nocenti and Romita Jr. unpacked violence in the superhero genre and its effects on ordinary people. Daredevil and the Punisher’s fight in Daredevil #257 is a testament to this. Nocenti and Romita Jr. skirt the typical preachiness of the two characters in favor of narrating the scene from the perspective of the criminal whose fate hangs in the balance. From scenes like this, it’s clear that both creators loved Daredevil, but they weren’t afraid to give him tough love. In addition, his fight with Mephisto is not to be missed. 

Ann Nocenti’s run is Daredevil #236, #238-245, #247-#257, #259-291.

Romita Jr was artist on Daredevil #250-#257, #259-263, #265-276, #278-282.

1. Brian Michael Bendis, David Mack, and Alex Maleev

Daredevil by Brian Michael Bendis, David Mack, and Alex Maleev is a rare book that fearlessly rewrites what a superhero story can do. The run begins with a story about a child obsessed with Daredevil. David Mack’s gorgeous watercolors defy conventional page layouts. It elevated existing Daredevil characters like journalist Ben Urich in a wholly original way. Bendis brought a sense of soulfulness to Daredevil’s familiar crime dramas, bringing readers into the dizzying sights, smells, and sounds of New York City. Daredevil has a tendency to wall himself off when he feels vulnerable, but Bendis brought us into his headspace like never before. Likewise, Alex Maleev’s vision of New York City is arguably the blueprint for the city moving forward, bringing a palpable sense of grit to the page. Bendis, Mack, and Maleev made a whole new generation of comics readers fall in love with Daredevil.

Daredevil (1998) #16-19, Daredevil (1998) #26-50, Daredevil (1998) #56-81

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The Joker occupies an almost mythological place in popular culture. With his green hair and clown makeup, the Joker has transformed from one of Batman’s campy villains to a figure of terror. The Joker’s darker turn has only increased his popularity, thanks to live-action DC films. Every new actor to take on the Joker role faces the challenge of adding their own disturbing dimension to the character. It seems like every version is trying to be the scariest one.

But as menacing as actors like Heath Ledger and Barry Keoghan are as the Clown Prince of Crime, there is a uniquely haunting effect to the character on the page. In the comic book format, the only limits on the Joker are the imaginations of the creative team producing his story. Considering that chaos motivates his character, this limitlessness adds another layer to his actions. As such, his most terrifying form—seen in Scott Snyder, Greg Capullo, and Jonathan Glapion’s “Death of the Family” arc—feels too visceral to ever become a live-action film.

The Joker in “Death of the Family,” spanning Batman (2011) #13-17, brings a tailored sense of terror to Gotham City. For those who aren’t familiar, Batman’s network of adopted children and allies, known colloquially as the Bat-Family, play a significant role in his comics. The Bat-Family makes Batman strong, but it can also make him vulnerable to villains like the Joker. “Death of the Family” is a story that plays on that vulnerability. The title inverts the famous Batman: A Death in the Family storyline from the late 1980s. There, the Joker murdered Jason Todd, the second Robin.

As the title suggests, the Joker in “Death of the Family” acts as a disruptive force. He removes the sense of safety that Batman has in Gotham and within his own family. To start, the Joker sports a dramatically different look. He wears a mask of his own detached face skin, stretched over the raw flesh underneath. Writer Scott Snyder deploys the Joker like a slasher movie villain. The Joker lurks in the shadows, strategically revealing himself for dramatic effect. In one scene during a power outage, he murders an entire unit of Gotham City police officers Michael Myers-style: through brute force. 

What makes “Death of the Family” Joker so terrifying is his pursuit of maximum psychological damage for Batman and his children. He doesn’t want to directly kill anyone in the main cast, because that would spoil the fun for him. It’s the same reason why he kills those GCPD officers in front of Jim Gordon, leaving him the only survivor. The Joker’s cruelty thrives on letting a select few witnesses live. Then they can be disturbed for the rest of their lives. 

Furthermore, because of the comic book format, a certain level of abstraction applies to the Joker that film and television will simply never measure up to. Even if Hollywood adapted this story, the Joker’s actions would lose some of their impact. This is because audiences would be watching an actor embody the role. Regardless of how excellent Jack Nicholson, Heath Ledger, or Barry Keoghan are as the Joker, we are ultimately watching a familiar face briefly slip into a costume.

In a comic book, the Joker is a drawing. He is no one but himself—an idea that “Death of the Family” touches upon. Artist Greg Capullo and inker Jonathan Glapion conjure this haunting appearance of the Joker onto the page from nothing. Together with Scott Snyder’s scripts, this vision of terror is born, not in our world, but in the world of the story. Because “Death of the Family”‘s Joker is so divorced from our reality, we fear the unknown. 

The Joker’s detached face, one of the primary vessels of fear in the story, contributes to this abstraction. That rotting skin held taut by staples and wires reminds us the familiar can be easily cut away to tease the horror of the unknown lying beneath. If the Joker’s face, a sight we’re accustomed to and maybe even desensitized by, can be warped into a new nightmarish vision with one change, then couldn’t the same be done for Batman?

“Death of the Family” answers this question when the Bat-Family awakens with their faces bandaged and bloody while seated at a dinner table. The Joker taunts them and Batman before revealing the horrific main course on the table. It appears to be the skinned faces of the Bat-Family. Fear is a subjective and personal experience. The Joker in “Death of the Family“ leans into fear’s individualized nature, recalling another standout appearance of his in Grant Morrison and Dave McKean’s Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth. In order for the Joker to be scary, a story must understand what Batman himself fears.

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Star Wars is a franchise with an immense historical timeline. Recently Disney has finally broken the timeline up into nine different eras. On Star Wars’ website, the timeline now consists of:

• Dawn of the Jedi
• The Old Republic
• The High Republic
• Fall of the Jedi
• Reign of the Empire
• Age of Rebellion
• The New Republic
• Rise of the First Order
• New Jedi Order

While almost all of the Star Wars eras have accompanying descriptions, the Dawn of the Jedi remains curiously blank. 

The term “Dawn of the Jedi” may not be familiar to Star Wars fans who have stuck to canon television shows, films, and video games. But against what some may think, the Dawn of the Jedi is not a new time period to Star Wars. In fact, it has existed for more than a decade. That period is the setting for a slew of comics and novels that are now part of Star Wars Legends continuity. Within Legends, the Dawn of the Jedi period ranged from 37,000 to 25,000 years before the events of Episode IV: A New Hope. 

The central text of the Dawn of the Jedi period in Legends is a comic book called Star Wars: Dawn of the Jedi #0 by John Ostrander and Jan Duursema. Ostrander is a celebrated comic book writer, best known for his iconic runs on Suicide Squad, Martian Manhunter, and The Spectre for DC Comics. Published in 2012 by Dark Horse Comics, this one-shot laid the foundation for the Jedi, originally called Jed’aii, and their origin on the planet Tython. 

The first Jed’aii were a collection of Force-sensitive “warriors, scientists, philosophers, priests, and artisans” brought to Tython in eight ships called the Tho Yor. Tython was a planet with strong ties to the Force, providing the perfect training ground for the Jed’aii. They created eight temples on the planet. Each centered around a different purpose: Knowledge, Arts, Science, Healing, the Forge, Force Skills, Martial Arts, and Balance. At this time, the Jed’aii included some full-blooded Sith, a red-skinned alien species whose name those strong in the dark side would later appropriate.  

Dawn of the Jedi #0 also detailed the origins of lightsabers. An alien species called the Rakata, whose Infinite Empire sought out planets strong in the Force, created them first. They armed their scouts to these new worlds, called Force Hounds, with weapons called Forcesabers. These Forcesabers could only ignite through tapping into the dark side. They served as a prototype of the lightsabers that Jedi would later wield. 

Force Hounds would play an important role in the next phase of Dawn of the Jedi stories in comics. Ostrander and Duursema created three consecutive mini-series following Dawn of the Jedi #0 called Dawn of the Jedi: Force Storm, Dawn of the Jedi: The Prisoner of Bogan, and Dawn of the Jedi: Force War. This trilogy followed a Force Hound named Xesh, who was born into slavery and was raised by the Rakata. After meeting a group of Jed’aii, Xesh gradually devotes himself to learning the ways of the light side. 

Ostrander and Duursema’s comics are an important part of Star Wars history to return to now. Elements of Legends continuity are now officially canon thanks to Ahsoka, The Mandalorian, and The Rise of Skywalker. It is no easy feat to explain an enormous swath of Star Wars history. So why shouldn’t Ostrander’s writing and Duursema’s artwork be the basis for Star Wars’ Dawn of the Jedi period? At this point, Star Wars can no longer continue to ignore the stories that took fans where its films didn’t. Darth Revan’s return to canon is evidence of this movement.

Creating Legends may have given Disney a fresh slate to develop its sequel trilogy in. However, many Legends stories like Dawn of the Jedi have stood the test of time where Disney projects like The Rise of Skywalker haven’t. Either way, Ostrander and Duursema’s comics provided a moving foundation for the Star Wars franchise before Disney’s acquisition of Lucasfilm.

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With James Gunn and Peter Safran’s DC Universe on the horizon, one Blue Beetle character could provide the connective tissue between the previous studio regime and the future that’s to come: OMAC. The film introduced OMAC—an acronym for “One Man Army Corps”—as a technological enhancement for the villain Carapax (Raoul Trujillo). It was featured as an armored exoskeleton that could be implanted into the spines of ordinary humans. It then turns them into bulky weapons of war. Blue Beetle (Xolo Maridueña) and his family and friends destroyed the OMACs at Kord Industries. However, the OMAC mythos is too big and too promising to be contained in one film. A film about DC’s Authority is in development and OMAC could tie the emergent threads of the DC Universe together. 

The Origin Story and Purpose of the First OMAC, Explained

The original OMAC first appeared in Jack Kirby and Mike Royer’s OMAC #1 (1974). We meet Buddy Blank, a mild-mannered office-worker chosen by an omnipotent peace-keeping agency to become OMAC. Using an enormous eye-shaped satellite called Brother Eye, the peace-keeping agency imbued Blank with superhuman strength, speed, and durability. He also got a costume reminiscent of the Greek god of war, Ares, complete with a decorative fin. 

From the very beginning of OMAC’s history, the character focused on the relationship between technology and the human body. In the beginning pages of his first issue, OMAC muses, “Where does humanity stop and technology begin? We no longer know…”

Seeing how much Blue Beetle explores the connections between Jaime Reyes and the Scarab, OMAC is a natural point of comparison for the protagonist. 

OMAC, Superman, and the Authority’s DC Comics Relationship

OMAC could be an essential part of the DCU because of a relationship with a team on the horizon: the Authority. The Authority is traditionally made up of members like Apollo, Midnighter, and Jack Hawksmoor. In the nineties, The Authority was the edgy alternative to the Justice League. Their members were flawed and disinterested in being the model of heroism for anyone. 

But recently, The Authority’s lineup and purpose got a new reimagining in print form. Grant Morrison and Mikel Janín’s 2021 series, Superman and the Authority, debuted a new OMAC as a team member. This OMAC, nicknamed “Mac,” is distinct from Buddy Blank’s iteration of the character as well as the militaristic vision of OMAC presented in Blue Beetle.

Blank’s OMAC suit includes a warlike fin and eye insignia. Conversely, Mac dons a pink mohawk hairstyle and pink facial marking shaped like an eye on his forehead. When Mac introduces himself to Superman and the rest of the new Authority team, he mentions that he uses he/him and they/them pronouns. Mac’s OMAC suit includes heavy armor. It works by him verbally commanding how much power he wants to use on a scale of one to ten. Mac is from Earth 9, and is in love with Earth 9’s version of Lightray. This makes him a character from DC’s multiverse.  

Because of Mac’s uniqueness, as well as his comic book ties to the characters in future film projects involving the Authority and Superman, he presents a striking opportunity to strengthen this emergent lore in the DC Universe. This new OMAC has shaped the course of Superman’s mythology over the past two years in DC Comics.

We see their journey in the Warworld Saga arc, spanning principally Action Comics #1029-1036 and Superman: Warworld Apocalypse by Phillip Kennedy Johnson, Daniel Sampere, Riccardo Federici, David Lapham, and more. Along with the rest of Superman’s new Authority team, Mac went to Warworld, a desolate gladiatorial planet ruled by the tyrant, Mongul, in order to liberate the people trapped there. The Warworld Saga laid the foundation for a new era for Superman and redefined the Authority within DC’s status quo. 

The Future of OMAC in James Gunn’s DCU

James Gunn said the comic book influences for the new DC Universe includes stories written by Grant Morrison. These include stories such as All-Star Superman and their Batman run. Morrison’s Superman and Batman work is setting the stage for two pillars of the DC Universe. Therefore, it isn’t a stretch to wonder if Superman and the Authority’s OMAC will make an appearance in Superman: Legacy or The Authority as a member of the team. There is no way of knowing if another OMAC was already operating outside of Palmera City in Blue Beetle. And we also don’t know if there is one like Mac existing someplace else within the multiverse.

Grant Morrison explored the multiverse heavily in works like The Multiversity. So fans will have to wait and see if this element is adapted into the DC Universe. Featuring OMAC in the Authority’s team would cultivate a greater sense of cohesion between Blue Beetle and the future DCU. Mac’s version of OMAC in The Authority would be relatively accessible to newcomers, even if they don’t know much about this collective.

OMAC’s thematic focus on the hybridity between technology and the human body is relevant to today’s world and era of superheroes. It would be a huge missed opportunity if OMAC is just a one-off character. From everything that James Gunn and Peter Safran have revealed about the new DCU, it’s clear that the franchise will pull from the lore from DC Comics. OMAC is a powerful example of the creativity in DC’s superhero comics and it’s time to bring it into full focus.  

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Ahsoka is quietly bringing in elements of Star Wars’ Legends continuity never seen before in live-action. The first two episodes of Ahsoka have made subtle references to the Old Republic period. This gestures at a greater sense of a historical timeline within the Star Wars canon that future projects can follow up on. For fans frustrated by Star Wars’ focus on canonical stories lately, the return of Legends characters, events, and themes marks a hopeful future for the franchise. 

The merging of Legends lore with Star Wars’ canon television shows is an unexpected development. In 2014, after Disney’s acquisition of Lucasfilm, they removed existing novels, video games, comic books, and other non-mainline Star Wars films or the 3D animated Clone Wars television show from canon. Disney placed them under a new banner called “Legends.” With old stories out of the way, Disney was free to construct their sequel trilogy and new slate of video games, comic books, and novels without any burdens. While some characters, like the cyborg bounty hunter Beilert Valance, have managed to cross over from Legends into canon media, there are still hundreds of unused characters waiting in the wings.

The creation of Legends purged considerable portions of the historical timeline before and after the Skywalker Saga in the Star Wars universe. Legends had stories ranging from 37,000 years before Episode IV: A New Hope, to at least 140 years after Episode IV. There were wars and important origin stories that helped elucidate the political climate of the Skywalker Saga and beyond. While many Legends novels and comics are still in print today, the loss of their canonical status dealt a heavy blow to longtime fans. These stories sustained their love of the franchise for decades. 

As a result, one problem for Star Wars under Disney has been the historical vacuum that the films, television shows, and video games take place in. Star Wars has always chronicled a political struggle and its effects on people throughout the galaxy, but the status quo of these conditions certainly arise from something. Just a cursory glance at history will reveal that the past often luminates the future, no matter how distant. This is precisely what drove scores of writers and storytellers to construct these narratives in Legends to begin with. 

But now, with Ahsoka Tano (Rosario Dawson) making the jump to live-action, Star Wars has increasingly sprinkled elements of Legends into official canon, perhaps to remedy this problem. The Old Republic, originally in Legends, spanned 5,000 to 67 years before the events of Episode IV. One of the most important stories set during the Old Republic was the 2003 video game, Knights of the Old Republic. It introduced Darth Revan, a human Sith who later reformed himself as a Jedi. Also important to note that Revan quietly joined canon in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker Visual Dictionary. As it turns out, elements of Knights of the Old Republic and its novel spinoff, The Old Republic: Revan by Drew Karpyshyn, are making their way into official Star Wars canon. 

Ahsoka begins with the former Jedi fighting a team of fearsome droids, later revealed to be the HK class of droids in episode 2 (“Toil and Trouble”). The show goes as far as to confirm that the HK class are “assassin droids.” While Ahsoka and Hera’s (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) conversation at the shipyard may seem ordinary, it officially canonized the HK droids from Knights of the Old Republic. Fans will remember the droid HK-47, an ally of Revan with a comically homicidal personality. Ahsoka’s HK droids look considerably different from that of Knights’s, but it’s a design choice that makes sense. HK-47 originates at least 3,954 years before A New Hope.  

The confirmation of HK droids in Ahsoka also affirms their previous, unnamed appearance in season 2 of The Mandalorian. In episode 5 of the season (“The Jedi”), HK droids are bodyguards for Morgan Elsbeth (Diana Lee Inosanto). Coincidentally, Morgan mentions to Ahsoka in the episode that Mandalorians and Jedi have historically been enemies. This fact refers to the Mandalorian Wars outlined in Knights of the Old Republic and Revan. 

The Mandalorian Wars are another vital piece of Old Republic Legends lore. The combatants were the Jedi and the united Mandalorian clans, whose leader, Mandalore the Ultimate, had attacked the Republic. The war ended in a bitter defeat for the Mandalorians. They became leaderless and splintered across the galaxy after Revan hid the central symbol of their culture, the Mask of Mandalore. As the Revan novel explains, the Mandalorian culture never recovered from this loss. With this historical context in mind, the effects of the Mandalorian Wars certainly help to explain the state of Mandalorian culture in The Mandalorian. 

Ahsoka Tano’s live-action counterpart has ushered in a slew of elements from the Old Republic into official Star Wars canon. Considering no canon movie, television show, or video game takes place during anywhere near the time of the Old Republic, Ahsoka is paving the way for an essential part of Star Wars history to be canonized. This is especially important considering that next year’s Star Wars show, The Acolyte, will be set during The High Republic. The High Republic, the period before the prequel trilogy, has some chronological overlap with the Old Republic, as defined by the Legends timeline.

Could some of the Old Republic threads left by Ahsoka be followed up on in The Acolyte? Only time will tell. Given the trail of hints in Ahsoka and The Mandalorian, if fans wish to know what lies ahead in the future for Star Wars, perhaps they should look to the past. 

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Horror movies based on true stories have a special place in shaping contemporary anxieties. Because cinema is an art form closely associated with verisimilitude, adding in an extra element of “truth” to horror films makes their scares all the more provocative. However, despite film’s best attempts, it is built on illusions with pictures rolling at twenty four frames per second. 

Filmmakers frequently skew or embellish the true story, thanks to creative license for entertainment purposes. Regardless, the discrepancy between truth and fiction can be just as telling as the content of the films themselves. And people do gravitate towards these offerings, with some films becoming bonafide franchises.

Here are seven horror films that are based (perhaps loosely) on real stories.

Editor’s Note: This post contains references to real life events that involve extreme physical violence. Please proceed with caution.

The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974)

One of the most iconic horror movie villains is Leatherface from The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, directed by Tobe Hooper. The 1974 film featured a hulking killer wearing a mask made from human skin, preying on hitchhikers with his family. Leatherface transformed the look of what a horror movie villain could be. 

There isn’t a direct Leatherface analogue in history. However, screenwriters Kim Henkel and Tobe Hooper credit serial killer Ed Gein as an influence in creating Leatherface. Ed Gein was known for, among other horrific crimes, fashioning masks out of human faces. 

The Amityville Horror (1979)

The Amityville Horror adapts the eponymous book by Jay Anson, chronicling the reported hauntings of a house on Long Island. Stuart Rosenberg’s film portrays the Lutz family after they move into a home where a family was murdered the year before. The house soon exhibits demonic activity, with a disembodied voice telling a local priest to “get out.” Over the course of the film, the Lutz family unravels a sinister history about the house they’ve moved into, one that begins before murders occur. 

The veracity of the supernatural elements in The Amityville Horror have been contended for years. Succeeding owners of the Lutz house claimed that no supernatural activity occurred. However, the real horror at the source of the story is absolutely true. Ronald DeFeo Jr. murdered his entire family in their home in 1974. 

Ghostwatch (1992)

Ghostwatch terrorized an entire generation of viewers in the United Kingdom when the BBC special aired on Halloween in 1992. Presented as a live broadcast, Lesley Manning’s Ghostwatch followed a team of paranormal investigators and journalists to an allegedly haunted London house. The family—a single mother and her two daughters—explained that there was an entity haunting the basement and the daughters’ bedroom. Complete with presenter Michael Parkinson hosting the show from a BBC studio set, Ghostwatch fooled thousands of viewers into believing that the footage and broadcast were real. 

Ghostwatch’s premise is inspired by the Enfield Poltergeist, which reportedly haunted the home of a single mother and her two daughters in London in the late 1970s. Like the BBC special, the Enfield Poltergeist possessed one of the daughters, causing her to speak in an unnatural voice. If this scenario sounds at all familiar, it’s also the basis for The Conjuring 2, directed by James Wan. Ultimately, Ghostwatch birthed an entire generation of found footage horror films, like The Blair Witch Project. Arguably, no descendant ever came as close to the effectiveness of its progenitor. 

Scream (1996) 

Wes Craven’s takedown of the slasher genre changed American horror films forever in 1996. The film follows a teenage girl named Sidney Prescott as she grieves the loss of her mother, who was murdered the year before. At the same time, a masked killer known as Ghostface starts murdering teenagers and adults in the town of Woodsboro. As Sidney realizes that she is being targeted by Ghostface, she must uncover the relationship between her mother’s murder and her town’s new serial killer. 

While Scream engages with the mythology and tropes of fictional slasher films, the basis for its story is all too real. Screenwriter Kevin Williamson drew inspiration for his serial killer screenplay after learning about the Gainesville Ripper in Florida. The Gainesville Ripper murdered several University of Florida students within the first few weeks of the fall semester in 1990. Like Ghostface, the Gainesville Ripper used a knife to stab his victims to death. 

The Conjuring (2013)

It’s difficult to imagine the state of demon possession movies today without The Conjuring. James Wan’s 2013 film about paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren shook up what had been a stale subgenre of horror, resuscitating it back to life with his distinctive directing prowess. The film depicts the couple investigating a house haunted by a witch in early 1970s Rhode Island.  

The film’s credits roll with real photographs of the Warrens, as well as the Perron family, who lived in the “haunted” house. And while Ed and Lorraine Warren were real people, their work as paranormal investigators has been disputed for decades. Regardless of the veracity of the Warrens’ work, their careers have formed the basis for one of the biggest Hollywood horror franchises. 

Verónica (2017)

Referred to as the “scariest movie of all time” when it hit Netflix, the Spanish film Verónica is another story about demon possession. Director Paco Plaza’s film, set in 1991 in Madrid, tells the story of a teenage girl haunted by a malicious spirit after playing with a Ouija board during a solar eclipse. While its reputation as “the scariest movie” is debatable, there’s no question that Verónica is a highly effective horror film. 

Verónica is based on the only case in Spanish police history where a detective claimed that something paranormal occurred. In reality, a teen girl named Estefanía Gutiérrez Lázaro died after playing with a Ouija board at school. After her death, the police claimed to experience paranormal activity in the home that her family lived in in Madrid. 

The Pope’s Exorcist (2023)

The Pope’s Exorcist is perhaps the silliest film about demon exorcisms on this list. From director Julius Avery, the film follows the Catholic priest, Fr. Gabriele Amorth. He goes on a special assignment to Spain from the Vatican. Unlike the traditional image of an exorcist, Amorth has a sense of humor about this job. He even gets around on a scooter. Amorth’s chief objective is to determine whether a person is dealing with a mental illness or a true demonic possession. Therefore, he remains skeptical of demonic activity when assessing each case.

However, while treating a boy in Spain, Amorth encounters his wildest case yet.  The film packs in outlandish, self-aware moments. But it is based on the life and work of Fr. Gabriele Amorth, who wrote dozens of books about his work as an exorcist. Amorth’s sense of humor in the film stems from his real life counterpart. It’s unclear to what extent the exorcism shown in The Pope’s Exorcist matches one of Amorth’s cases. However, the film accurately shows the priest’s beliefs, personality, and experience as a lawyer, journalist, and member of the Italian resistance during World War II.

Of course, there are many more horror films that draw inspiration—both directly and indirectly—from real people and events. But, you can re-explore (or discover) these seven films and see how knowing the true stories behind them changes your perception of their narratives.

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Ahsoka Tano has some of the most recognizable lightsabers in Star Wars. Her distinctive reverse grip fighting style makes her one of the most dynamic Jedi to watch in combat. From Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Star Wars: Rebels, and now The Mandalorian, Ahsoka has grown from an enthusiastic Padawan training under Anakin Skywalker to a poised Jedi master who survived Order 66. 

Her live-action debut in the second season of The Mandalorian showed off her white lightsabers and their unique curved hilts. With the Rosario Dawson-led Ahsoka show around the corner, let’s take a look back on the history of Ahsoka Tano’s lightsabers in the Star Wars universe. 

Ahsoka Tano’s First Lightsaber

Originally, Ahsoka wielded a single green lightsaber with a grommet at the hilt. She used this lightsaber in her early appearances in The Clone Wars. Later, Ahsoka used this lightsaber in conjunction with her second, shorter lightsaber.

Why Does Ahsoka Tano Have Two Lightsabers?

While The Clone Wars never showed the moment in which Ahsoka got her second lightsaber, an episode in the Tales of the Jedi series on Disney+ provides a more practical explanation. In Tales of the Jedi‘s fifth episode, “Practice Makes Perfect,” Anakin, Captain Rex, and a squad of clone troopers rigorously train Ahsoka in combat. The clones stand in a circle around her and fire their blasters at her. Ahsoka initially struggles with the exercise because she is only using one lightsaber, making it difficult to defend her backside. But once she gains her second lightsaber, a shortened “shoto” blade with a yellowish-green color, she is more successful in defending herself from all directions. 

What Lightsaber Form Does Ahsoka Use?

Because she uses two lightsabers, Ahsoka uses a lightsaber form known as Jar’Kai. Other practitioners of this Star Wars fighting form include the Sith assassin, Asajj Ventress. This is an uncommon lightsaber form, and it took Ahsoka some time to master, as detailed in the Star Wars: Forces of Destiny season one short, “Teach You, I Will.” Forces of Destiny revealed that Yoda encouraged Ahsoka to train with two lightsabers, identifying Jar’Kai as a form that more honestly captured Ahsoka’s personality and fighting style. 

When Does Ahsoka Receive Her Second Lightsaber?

Ahsoka’s second lightsaber debuts in season three of The Clone Wars, specifically in the episode “Heroes on Both Sides.” The episode follows a time jump, making Ahsoka a much more experienced Jedi. The episode does not show, however, where Ahsoka got her yellowish-green second lightsaber from. Instead, it hangs on her belt alongside her original lightsaber. 

In the years since this episode aired, other animated Star Wars shows have come closer to providing an explanation for this change in lightsabers, like Tales of the Jedi. A lack of clarity on when and how Ahsoka receives her second yellowish-green lightsaber leaves the door open for future projects to depict what is likely a decisive moment in Ahsoka’s journey as a Jedi. 

Ahsoka’s Blue Lightsabers and Their Fate

Later on in the The Clone Wars series, the Jedi confiscated Ahsoka’s lightsabers. The season five episode “The Wrong Jedi” saw Ahsoka put on trial for sedition and murder. She then left the Jedi Order. Ahsoka didn’t get her lightsabers back until she temporarily rejoined the Republic’s war for the Siege of Mandalore. Anakin returned Ahsoka’s lightsabers to her, noting that he had made some improvements to them. Ahsoka’s lightsabers then turned blue. 

Ahsoka used these blue lightsabers for the battle on Mandalore until the clone troopers received Order 66. After surviving the clones’ attack, Ahsoka parted with the lightsabers after burying several clone troopers on a moon. Ahsoka presumably dropped both her lightsabers, though only one is shown, near the graves. By leaving her lightsabers there, Ahsoka faked her own death. 

Later, Darth Vader visited the moon and found one of Ahsoka’s lightsabers. Remembering his former Padawan, Vader took Ahsoka’s lightsaber back to his ship. Considering that The Mandalorian takes place years after the events of The Return of the Jedi and Vader’s death, the current whereabouts of Ahsoka’s blue lightsabers are unknown. 

How Did Ahsoka Tano Get Her White Lightsabers?

Ahsoka got her white lightsabers from the kyber crystals of a Sith Inquisitor called Seventh Brother in the 2016 novel, Ahsoka, by E.K. Johnston. Seventh Brother attacked Ahsoka while she was in hiding on the planet Ilum. She defeated him and took the kyber crystals from his dual lightsaber. Using the light side of the Force, Ahsoka cleansed the crystals of their red hue from the Sith, making them white. 

Using scrap metal around her, Ahsoka forged two hilts for the crystals. Like her previous lightsabers, one of Ahsoka’s white lightsabers is a shoto blade, while the other is normal length. Over time, Ahsoka modified the hilts so that they became the elegant, curved lightsabers fans are familiar with today. The lightsabers’ white color is symbolic, and the white reveals Ahsoka’s decision to align with neither Jedi nor Sith.

Which Lightsabers Will Ahsoka Use in the Star Wars Disney+ Show?

Considering that Ahsoka used her white lightsabers in The Mandalorian, she will use them again as she searches for Admiral Thrawn in the upcoming live-action series. Still, there is plenty of Ahsoka’s backstory that has not yet been explored in depth. Other Star Wars shows like The Mandalorian and Andor featured flashback scenes of the protagonist when they were young. Therefore, it isn’t totally out of the question for Ahsoka to feature similar scenes. Perhaps Ahsoka could reveal how she got her second yellow-colored lightsaber as a Padawan. Maybe the series will even feature flashback sequences where Ahsoka wields her blue lightsabers. Ahsoka Tano is unlike any other Jedi in Star Wars, and she deserves a deeper look into her path as a warrior. 

Ahsoka will premiere on Disney+ on August 23.

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Blue Beetle and Booster Gold are among DC Comics’ myriad of iconic duos. But in contrast to character pairings like Green Lantern and Green Arrow, Hawk and Dove, Icon and Rocket, Batman and Robin, The Flash and Kid Flash, Big Barda and Mister Miracle, and Midnighter and Apollo, Blue Beetle and Booster Gold are two best friends whose DC Comics’ relationship is deeply comedic at its core. As much as they would love for others to take them seriously, this pair is charming because of how little self-awareness they possess. Let’s dig into the friendship story of Blue Beetle and Booster Gold and look at its place in the DC universe.

The Origin Stories of Ted Kord’s Blue Beetle and Michael Jon Carter’s Booster Gold

The particular Blue Beetle in the iconic DC Comics friendship with Booster Gold is not Jaime Reyes, who will make his movie debut in the upcoming Blue Beetle movie. Instead, it is actually the second Blue Beetle, Ted Kord, who is friends with Booster Gold in the comics. (The first Blue Beetle was Dan Garret.) Steve Ditko created Ted Kord as a Charlton Comics character in 1966. After he joined the DC Universe in the wake of Crisis on Infinite Earths in 1986, he developed into a squishier version of Marvel’s Iron Man. Like Tony Stark, Ted Kord is the head of a tech company, Kord Industries. He uses the company’s technology to build his own gadgets and superhero gear. But while Tony Stark is a confident womanizer, Blue Beetle Ted Kord is a nervous wallflower.

In contrast, Michael Jon Carter, a.k.a. Booster Gold, is from the 25th century and uses his futuristic tech to be a superhero in the present. While he has a good heart, Booster Gold is incredibly vain and overconfident. Created in 1986 by Dan Jurgens, Carter/Booster Gold is a satirical look at superheroism under capitalism. 

When Did Booster Gold and Blue Beetle Become Friends in DC’s Comics?

Ted Kord’s Blue Beetle and Michael Jon Carter’s Booster Gold became friends after Carter joined the newly formed Justice League in its “Justice League International” era in the late 1980s. The team got its name from the fact that they were not based out of the Hall of Justice anymore, but out of an embassy in New York City. The Justice League had satellite teams based around the world, including Justice League Europe and even the Justice League Antarctica. 

Justice League International reimagined DC’s flagship superhero team as a workplace comedy. It was about ordinary people caught in the trap of late-stage capitalism under Ronald Reagan. Blue Beetle and Booster Gold’s friendship was emblematic of this idea. Writer J.M. DeMatteis and artists Kevin Maguire and Keith Giffen were a dynamite creative team, capable of hitting comedic beats in the throes of action sequences. Even though its members included an alien (Martian Manhunter), two New Gods (Mister Miracle and his wife Big Barda), and an ever-grumpy Batman, the JLI’s problems were refreshingly down to Earth. This team worried about filing their taxes, argued over the merits of Sylvester Stallone’s filmography, and expressed their disdain for yuppies. 

Why Booster Gold and Blue Beetle’s Friendship Works

Within the events of Justice League International, it was logical for Blue Beetle and Booster Gold to become fast friends. Booster was good-looking and a former a college football player. However, neither he nor Beetle fit the bill for perfect superhero men. Ted startled easily, was reluctant to get his hands dirty in combat, cracked jokes at inopportune times, and would awkwardly try to ask out his crush, Wonder Woman. Booster, on the other hand, loved the spotlight of being a superhero. But he was ill-equipped to thrive as a normal person in the 20th century.

Where Booster Gold was assertive, Blue Beetle was timid, and where Beetle was prudent, Booster was impulsive. Under DeMatteis’ pen, Booster Gold and Blue Beetle’s friendship blossomed organically, as the two tried to make being a superhero a financially viable career. Later on, Justice League International got a new title, Justice League America, and Booster Gold and Blue Beetle were active members into the 1990s. 

The Death of Ted Kord, Booster Gold’s Guilt, and the Rise of Jamie Reyes, a New Blue Beetle

In the 2000s, Blue Beetle and Booster Gold’s friendship took a much darker turn. Blue Beetle was murdered by his former Justice League International teammate, Maxwell Lord, in the lead-up to DC’s Infinite Crisis event in 2005. Later on, Booster blamed himself for failing to protect Beetle. The DC Universe was not without a Blue Beetle for long, though, as Jaime Reyes debuted during Infinite Crisis. 

Jaime Reyes signaled a different direction for the Blue Beetle mantle. Reyes was a teenager and not a CEO like Ted Kord. Likewise, Booster Gold went his own path, taking on a much more significant role in the DC Universe’s time stream. His 2007 solo series by Geoff Johns and Jeff Katz would eventually lead into the 2011 Flashpoint storyline. This came after the revelation that Booster was the father of the time traveler, Rip Hunter. 

Ted Kord Returns and Their Friendship Goes to a New Level

Fortunately, with the relaunch of the DC Universe in 2016, Ted Kord’s Blue Beetle came back to life after making sparse appearances during DC’s New 52 era. The series Heroes in Crisis by Tom King and Clay Mann revealed the extent to which Booster helped Beetle with his trauma as a superhero. Issue four of the series had a therapy-focused take on superhero comics. In it, Beetle explained how Booster has always been there for him and the difference that made in his life. Beetle’s character went through dark moments, like dying at the hands of someone he once trusted. But Heroes in Crisis was a rare moment where Ted Kord broke his usual comedic façade to speak candidly. 

Most recently, Blue Beetle and Booster Gold’s friendship was explored at length in the 2021 series, Blue and Gold, by Dan Jurgens and Ryan Sook. The series followed the two buddies as they opened their own small business, Blue and Gold Restoration, after the Justice League turned them down. Booster became a content creator, livestreaming his and Beetle’s superhero activities. He hoped to build an audience that would make them A-list heroes again. The livestream comments peppered throughout the book make it clear that Blue and Gold are still seen as jokes outside of their small but loyal fanbase. 

In Blue and Gold, Booster repeatedly referred to Beetle as his “sidekick,” which became a source of conflict between the two of them. Beetle acknowledged that he lacked self-confidence and that Booster’s over-confident nature was enough for both of them. However, their partnership needed to be equal. By the end of the series, the two friends had reconciled their differences, underscoring what makes them so lovable. 

The Continued Pairing and Possible Future for Booster Gold and Blue Beetle in the DCU

Booster Gold turned Blue Beetle into a bonafide comedic pillar of the DC Universe. Despite Ted’s anxious personality and bouts of angst, his friendship with Booster Gold pushes him to be a braver superhero. Likewise, Booster’s friendship with Beetle has elevated him beyond being a precise observation about a historical moment in time. Booster and Beetle have a unique sense of platonic male intimacy in superhero comics. Their devotion to each other is an inspiring sight for many readers. Now, Blue Beetle and Booster Gold are coming to James Gunn’s DCU. The Blue Beetle movie and Booster Gold TV show will hopefully lead to a live-action friendship in the future.

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Nick Fury has been a central figure in the Marvel Cinematic Universe since 2008; however, Secret Invasion is the first entry to focus on his life and survival tactics. In one episode, we discover that Nick Fury has tombstones all over Earth. This is not surprising, considering he previously faked his own death in Captain America: The Winter Soldier. In fact, faking death is nothing new for Nick Fury. He did it Marvel Comics and will likely do it again in the future. So, in honor of his penchant for faking his death, here’s all the times Nick Fury has done it in the Marvel Comics as well as the MCU.

Every Time Nick Fury Faked His Death in the Marvel Comics

Strange Tales #148 (1966)

Nick Fury’s habit of faking his own death goes back to 1966’s Strange Tales #148, by Jack Kirby, Don Heck, and Sam Rosen. Fury got caught in an explosion and the Howling Commando, Dum-Dum Dugan, saved and rushed him off to surgery. To Dugan’s surprise, a perfectly healthy Fury popped up behind him, explaining that the body in front of them was a Life Model Decoy (also known as an LMD). Fury used the LMD with a remote control in order to question prisoners, without putting his physical self at risk. The LMD appeared indistinguishable from the real Fury. This set the stage for Fury’s future use of LMDs. 

Strange Tales #156 (1967)

The next year, Nick Fury used a more elaborate plan to fake his own death. Fury was confined to his room while aboard a SHIELD helicarrier in space. At the same time, another ship, a Dyna-Soar, launched from the helicarrier. Unbeknownst to the SHIELD agents, an undercover agent of HYDRA piloted the Dyna-Soar. When the Howling Commandos went to visit Fury, his room abruptly exploded, leading them to believe that he had perished in the inferno. Luckily, Fury broke out of his room and snuck aboard the Dyna-Soar, just in time to foil the HYDRA agent’s plans. 

Agent of Shield #15 (1969)

In Agent of Shield #15 (by Gary Friedrich, Herb Trimpe, Dick Ayers, Sam Grainger, and Jean Izzo), Nick Fury gave readers his most puzzling fake death yet. While out and about in Central Park, a villain named Bullseye (not the Daredevil villain) shot Nick in the head. Nick seemingly dies, but the next issue of the series picks up as if nothing had ever happened. A completely different creative team did the next issue, suggesting that this fake death was for generating interest rather than have permanent repercussions. In fact, the cover of issue #15 advertises it as “The Assassination of Nick Fury!” 

Double Edge: Omega (1995)

Fury’s LMDs would make another appearance in Double Edge: Omega, by John Ostrander, Kim Yale, Doug Wheatley, Jimmy Palmiotti, John Kalisz, and Jim Novak. It spun out of the events of the Punisher’s series at the time. Fury and the Punisher were locked in conflict, as Frank Castle believed that Fury was responsible for ordering the hit that wiped out his entire family. One night, Fury burst into Castle’s room, where the two exchanged gunfire until Castle seemingly killed Fury. However, once the smoke cleared, Fury’s “body” was an assortment of robotic parts, revealing him to be an LMD. The robot’s final words taunted Castle, saying, “SHIELD has a warehouse full of [LMDs], along with other weaponry. So long as the LMDs exist, you will never be sure you have truly killed Fury.” This marks the first time that Fury’s fake death is primarily for tormenting an enemy. 

Original Sin #3 and #4 (2014)

Nick Fury escaped a gory death at the hands of the Winter Soldier, thanks to another LMD. In Original Sin #3 and #4 (by Jason Aaron, Mike Deodato, Frank Martin, and Chris Eliopoulos), the Winter Soldier decapitated Fury while investigating the murder of the Watcher. The Winter Soldier had suspected that Fury had been an LMD, and thankfully, he was correct. The real Fury then revealed that he was an old man. He had used hordes of LMDs that posed as his younger self for years. This countered the established explanation for Fury’s inability to age in Marvel Comics. Previously, his slowed aging was the result of a serum that he took. Original Sin, however, showed that the serum had eventually lost his effects on Fury, leading him to use LMDs to maintain a façade to his allies and enemies. 

Every Time Nick Fury Faked His Death in the MCU

Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014)

In the MCU, Fury was famously “killed” in Captain America: The Winter Soldier when he visited Steve Rogers’ apartment. HYDRA agents shot into the apartment, striking Fury several times. Fury was able to fake his death by taking a drug that slowed his heartbeat to one beat a minute. It was enough to fool Steve Rogers, Maria Hill, and Black Widow. By faking his death, Fury could covertly work with Captain America to bring down the infiltration of HYDRA agents into SHIELD.

Secret Invasion (2023)

In Secret Invasion‘s fifth episode, “Harvest,” Fury tells Sonya Falsworth that he has tombstones for himself all around the world. He does this in order to keep the Avengers’ DNA stashed safely away. He doesn’t attribute a specific event to each of these deaths. But these tombstones do bear his full name on them. This moment doesn’t pack the same dramatic punch as his fake death in Captain America: The Winter Soldier. But it makes us question just how many fake graves he has around the world. 

Nick Fury is one of the most prominent non-powered humans in the Marvel Universe. His fake deaths reflect the vulnerability that he has while entangled in crises far beyond the average person’s imagination. Within the comic book medium, Fury’s fake deaths play with reader expectations because of its serialized form. They’re indicative of his “five steps ahead” mentality, outsmarting both his enemies and readers in the process. Even without using his Life Model Decoys from the comics, it’s clear that this element of Fury’s survival tactics will continue to shape his MCU characterization in the future. 

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The MCU’s latest show, Secret Invasion, marks the return of Talos (played by Ben Mendelsohn), a Skrull who first appeared in 2019’s Captain Marvel. Talos is the leader of a faction of Skrull refugees on Earth, and is close allies with Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson). So far, Secret Invasion explores Talos’ challenges in helping his people. Mendelsohn’s nuanced performance makes him one of the highlights of the series. 

Talos being the dramatic heart of Secret Invasion is a surprising choice to fans of Marvel Comics, considering that he is by no means a prominent character in the source material. In fact, even among Skrulls, Talos was not well-known before his MCU debut in Captain Marvel. He has only been in a handful of comics over the years. Talos made his first Marvel Comics appearance in The Incredible Hulk #418 (1994) by Peter David, Roger Cruz, Cam Smith, Glynis Oliver, and Peter Rosen, later making an appearance in 2006’s Annihilation event.

It would be many years until Talos appeared in Marvel Comics again, this time in Chip Zdarsky and Joe Quinones’ Howard the Duck series in 2015. Yes, a series about Marvel’s resident anthropomorphic duck. Considering Skrulls have been around in the Marvel universe since Jack Kirby’s Fantastic Four #2, all the way back in 1962, Talos was a curious comics choice to feature in the MCU. 

A distinct difference between Talos in Marvel Comics and his MCU counterpart is his powers. As Secret Invasion reveals, MCU Talos can shapeshift into anyone, the same way that any Skrull can. However, in Marvel’s comics, Talos is unique because he is the only Skrull who cannot shapeshift. This is what launched Talos on his path of villainy in the comics, because of the anger he felt from not fitting into Skrull society. This facet about Talos is representative of a trend emerging in the 1980s in comics, where some alien villains were the only member of their species without superpowers. The most prominent example of this type of character is Blackfire, the sister of Starfire in DC Comics, who the Teen Titans battled during Marv Wolfman and George Pérez’s acclaimed run on The New Teen Titans. 

Talos’ lack of powers in Marvel Comics also coincides with a change in personality. Whereas Talos in the MCU is smart, funny, and diplomatic, his comics counterpart is much less interested in the welfare of the Skrull species. The Incredible Hulk #419 describes him as:

“[A]n evolutionary misfit. A throwback to a branch of Skrull development, once extinct, where Skrulls did not survive through shapeshifting trickery… but instead through the unstoppable power of their sinews. Some would think such a time to be a period of savageness. He prefers to think of it as a time of nobility. Then again, what place is there for nobility… in the pathetic existence of Talos the Tamed?”

Talos’ warlike perspective in Marvel Comics is also in line with popular and contemporaneous depictions of aliens in the nineties. Star Trek: The Next Generation featured several storylines about Klingon culture and their practice of ritualized combat. Talos’ Marvel Comics characterization as a “throwback to a branch of Skrull development” also recalls the dynamic between the militaristic Romulans and their more peaceful cousins, the Vulcans, in The Next Generation. 

Clearly, Talos was not meant to be as charismatic like Mendelsohn’s iteration of the character is. Perhaps the reason for Talos’ role in Captain Marvel, as opposed to other Skrull characters, is because he debuted in a Marvel comic from the ’90s. Captain Marvel, after all, took place during the same decade. This would make Talos’ role a subtle wink toward readers of nineties comics.

Secret Invasion follows Talos’ family life and relationship with his daughter, G’iah (Emilia Clarke). In the MCU, Talos has a rocky relationship with G’iah, due to his failure to provide the Skrulls with an adequate home on Earth. This is a departure from Marvel Comics, where G’iah is not Talos’ daughter. Instead, she’s another Skrull living undercover with her husband and children. G’iah premiered in 2019’s Meet the Skrulls series by Robbie Thompson and Niko Henrichon, which detailed the sacrifices and precautions that Skrulls must take in order to live undetected on Earth.

While Talos isn’t in Meet the Skrulls, the general tone of the Marvel Comics story is in line with how the MCU has represented the Skrulls. Since the first issue of Meet the Skrulls came out the same week as Captain Marvel in 2019, it’s possible that G’iah was created for the purpose of joining the MCU eventually. 

While G’iah wasn’t originally Talos’ daughter, the family-focused storyline of Secret Invasion makes sense, given the focus of Meet the Skrulls. In that series, G’iah’s main conflict was between her and her daughters, who have been raised on Earth. Since her daughters never experienced life on Skrullos, their original home planet, G’iah and her husband often wondered if their daughters could ever truly commit to the Skrull cause. Similarly, while the MCU’s version of G’iah wasn’t born on Earth, she has spent the majority of her life there. Her struggle with her Skrull heritage and human influences on Earth, alongside her tense relationship with Talos, thus embodies the same spirit of Marvel Comics’ G’iah from Meet the Skrulls. 

Talos is far from the first Marvel Comics character the MCU has dramatically revised, and he likely won’t be the last. His relative obscurity in comics gave Marvel Studios the opportunity to craft a Skrull character without the fan expectations of notable baddies like the Super-Skrull. Though the MCU isn’t without controversy when it comes to changing the powers of comics characters, Talos has clearly benefited from a fresh Marvel perspective. 

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The 1990s were a transformational time in American comics. Superman died and was later resurrected. The greatest Green Lantern, Hal Jordan, went on a killing spree and tried to destroy the universe. Spider-Man battled a serial killer named Carnage. A wacky merc-with-a-mouth named Deadpool broke the fourth wall on a regular basis. And the first issue of Todd McFarlane’s Spawn sold over a million copies for the nascent indie publisher, Image Comics. Antiheroes were all the rage in the nineties because of popular comics starring Wolverine, the Punisher, Venom, Lobo, Cable, and more. Beyond those obvious highlights, this era was also a revolutionary time for queer representation, especially when you look at Hellblazer‘s John Constantine.

The eighties planted the seeds for the proliferation of LGBTQ+ characters in the nineties. This was in large thanks to Rachel Pollack’s Doom Patrol run and the rise of two British superstar writers named Grant Morrison and Neil Gaiman. The “British Invasion” of American comics in the ’80s led to the launch of Hellblazer. It was a monthly horror series starring the chain-smoking con man and magician, John Constantine. As a working class and deeply flawed occult detective, John Constantine battled the evils of the Thatcher administration in Britain. Constantine remains a deeply singular figure in comics. But he represents both an antihero perspective of this time period, as well as comics’ movement towards queer perspectives. 

In 1992’s Hellblazer #51, by John Smith, Sean Phillips, and Tom Ziuko, John Constantine casually remarks that all of his past girlfriends and “the odd boyfriend” end up walking out on him. It was the first time that Constantine revealed to the reader that he was bisexual. While a subtle moment, the reveal of Constantine’s queerness was groundbreaking in the early nineties. The decade would go on to feature the debut of gay couple, Midnighter and Apollo, and a dramatic coming out story for mutant and Alpha Flight member Northstar. But Hellblazer remains unique in its nonchalance about Constantine’s sexuality. If anything, the reveal of Constantine’s sexuality confirmed what Hellblazer readers already knew: he’s a deeply queer character. 

Queerness has a political significance in that it represents non-normative and transgressive modes of being. This is precisely what the ethos of Hellblazer had always been. The unsavory aspects of Constantine’s life and personality made him a rejection of the traditional “wise old sage” magicians in British literature. His dabbling with the occult and supernatural led him into horrific situations. And he was often unable to help the people affected. Both the disturbing things Constantine encountered in Hellblazer, as well as his deep flaws, questioned the moral foundations underlying superhero comic books. 

Contemporary magic users in comics, like DC’s Doctor Fate and Marvel’s Doctor Strange, captured fans’ admiration. However, Constantine wasn’t someone readers should model themselves after. Instead, the tragic aspects of his life, like his traumatic experience in a mental institution, were something readers could empathize with and relate to. Considering this, it is not surprising that Hellblazer had a starkly different aesthetic from other DC and Marvel books at the time. It took on a grittier and quotidian look despite its supernatural elements. For Constantine, his queerness wasn’t just his sexuality but also his unique perspective and persona.

This idea is especially pertinent with regards to how Constantine stood out from other queer men from ’90s comic books. As opposed to Midnighter, Apollo, and X-Men’s Northstar, Constantine wasn’t buff or particularly attractive. (Interestingly, the character’s aesthetics draw inspiration from singer Sting.) He kept his bony frame hidden under a ratty suit and an even rattier trench coat. While Northstar’s muscular body zoomed the pages of X-Men books, Constantine would rarely punch or kick anyone. When he did, he looked awkward and uncoordinated. There was never an intention for Constantine to look nor behave like a “normal” character in superhero comics. He did not assimilate into the heteronormative image of a comic book hero. 

In the same vein, Hellblazer subverted mainstream narratives of ’90s queerness. Constantine’s casual mention of his past boyfriends was a break from the spectacle of coming out. Coincidentally, Hellblazer #51 hit shelves a couple months after the release of Alpha Flight #106. In that issue, Northstar became the first character from mainstream American comics to reveal that he was gay. The X-Men spinoff book, written by Scott Lobdell, features Northstar pouncing towards the reader while shouting, “I am gay!” It takes a much more sensationalist approach to queer sexuality. 

The story revolves around Northstar visiting his newborn adopted daughter in the NICU. There, a doctor tells him that “the child has AIDS.” Later on, when Northstar fights a father who lost his gay son to AIDS, he says, “Do not presume to lecture me on the hardships homosexuals must bear. No one knows them better than I. For while I am not inclined to discuss my sexuality with people for whom it is none of their business––I am gay!” The issue’s cover tops off its sensationalism, bearing the tagline “Northstar as you’ve never known him before!” Alpha Flight #106 and Hellblazer #51 came within months of each other, five years before Ellen DeGeneres’ People magazine cover with the headline, “Yep, I’m Gay.” 

When viewed in comparison with his contemporaries, John Constantine becomes an even more important figure in queer comics history. Unlike Alpha Flight, Constantine’s sexuality wasn’t a plot device and did not come from a heteronormative gaze. Considering that Alpha Flight #106’s cover reads, “Northstar as you’ve never known him before,” it is clear that the issue was created without an imagined queer readership. In this context, queerness is a personal thing kept to oneself, away from others “for whom it is none of their business,” instead of an entire worldview and mode of existence. Northstar’s queerness was something to identify and not identify with.

Hellblazer #51 showed how queerness also applies to artistic expression beyond just direct content or subject matter. It is also within established canon. In fact, a previous issue by Garth Ennis, William Simpson, and Tom Ziuko shows Constantine meeting with a vampire king in the middle of the woods. Vampires are certainly an enduring metaphor for queer sexuality in literature. Thus, Hellblazer frequently surrounded Constantine with details that hinted at his queerness. 

Hellblazer’s dark subject matter, queer perspective, and political themes laid the groundwork for future LGBTQ+ comics like The Department of Truth, The Invisibles, and the current generation of X-Men comics. Constantine’s antihero elements made him an early example of a queer protagonist who was not bound by the duties of “positive representation.” Instead, Hellblazer gave us a deeply human picture of a queer man living in dehumanizing circumstances. He is someone who wants to do the right thing even when the narrative dooms him. In today’s climate, Constantine’s voice has never felt more urgent. 

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The Disney+ series American Born Chinese is adapted from Gene Luen Yang’s 2006 graphic novel of the same title. The graphic novel was a finalist for the National Book Award and won the Michael L. Printz Award for Excellence in Young Adult Literature. For an entire generation of Asian Americans, American Born Chinese was a gateway for discussing Asian American experiences, specifically a Chinese American experience, in the classroom. Now, showrunner Kelvin Yu has created an excellent adaptation of Yang’s graphic novel. The American Born Chinese series drops lots of comic book references, including a special nod to The Swamp Thing. 

This show follows a Taiwanese American high schooler named Jin Wang (Ben Wang). Jin struggles to form his own identity in a largely white school. A Chinese exchange student named Wei-Chen (Jimmy Liu) arrives and is assigned to shadow Jin at school. Jin is then caught between wanting to be more assertive like Wei-Chen, while also not bringing unwanted attention to himself. He also wants to join the junior varsity soccer team and fit in with the jocks. This is to the dismay of his former best friend, Anuj (Mahi Alam). 

American Born Chinese’s graphic novel engaged with American cartooning’s racist depiction of Chinese, stemming from Yellow Peril’s emergence in the nineteenth century. The first issue of Detective Comics—the series that Batman would later debut in—has a horribly racist cover featuring the face of a Fu Manchu-like character. The American Born Chinese graphic novel triumphs because of its reckoning with the historical baggage of American graphic storytelling. And its television adaptation continues this spirit, spotlighting one recent positive development in Asian American comics representation.

American Born Chinese has numerous references to different comics and manga, thanks to the nerdy interests of Jin, Wei-Chen, and Anuj. A montage in Jin’s bedroom in the first episode reveals his comics and manga collection. It includes the likes of ’90s era Superman, Spawn, Dragon Ball Z, and Naruto. This brings to life the original graphic novel’s focus on the history of comics and cartooning in a way that feels authentic to an Asian American teen today.

One moment in American Born Chinese particularly stands out as a celebration of Asian American perspectives in comics. In episode two of the series, “A Monkey On A Quest,” Jin approaches Anuj and notices that he’s reading a comic. It is Volume One of DC Comics’ The Swamp Thing by writer Ram V, artist Mike Perkins, and colorist Mike Spicer. They discuss the series, with Anuj noting that Perkins’ art redefined DC’s Guardian of the Green for a new generation. Viewers unfamiliar with comics may not have noticed the significance of the scene. However comics fans, particularly those of the Asian diaspora, certainly did.  

The Swamp Thing (2021-2022), much like the original American Born Chinese graphic novel, is a groundbreaking story in American comics. It is the first solo series for DC’s newest Swamp Thing, Levi Kamei, who immigrated to the US from India as a teenager. As Swamp Thing, Levi is known as the Guardian of the Green, “the Green” being all plant life on Earth. His powers transform him into a hulking humanoid plant monster, who can manifest anywhere on Earth wherever there are plants. Levi can also tap into the sensory information of plants on a cellular level. This makes him capable of achieving a type of collective consciousness with all the plants on Earth. 

Ram V’s writing on the story delved into Levi’s experience as an immigrant. It reimagined Swamp Thing’s powers as an extended metaphor for the global mindset of Asian Americans. For Levi, his powers and responsibilities to protect the Green tethers him to his homeland and family in India, even though he now lives in America. His transformation into the Swamp Thing is an expression of his state of being. He is an “Other,” in both America and India, because of his place in the diaspora. In short, Levi Kamei’s Swamp Thing is a quintessential Asian American superhero. He isn’t just an Asian American with superpowers, but a superhero whose powers are born out of being Asian American. 

This scene is a nod to American Born Chinese’s graphic novel fans, many of whom are Asian American comic book readers. While the stereotypical image of a comic book reader has always been white and male, the American Born Chinese graphic novel challenged this notion. This book helped me fall in love with comics as a medium, increasing my hunger for the creative potential of Asian and Asian American stories. Years later, I began to collect each issue of Ram V, Mike Perkins, and Mike Spicer’s The Swamp Thing every month. I’ve never felt more “seen” by a show than I felt with The Swamp Thing’s inclusion in American Born Chinese.

The Swamp Thing‘s mention in American Born Chinese celebrates Asian American comic representation’s expansion since Yang’s graphic novel. While American Born Chinese is a coming-of-age story with fantasy elements, The Swamp Thing is rooted in a rich history of body horror. Including another Asian American comic from a vastly different genre about a protagonist from a different Asian culture proves that American Born Chinese isn’t interested in being seen as the definitive show about “The Asian American Experience.” Instead, it celebrates the multiplicity of being Asian American and the ever-changing canon of Asian American comics. 

American Born Chinese is a refreshing adaptation of a comic book because it pays direct tribute to its original medium. In a media landscape dominated by comic book properties, American Born Chinese reigns king because of its unabashed love for sequential stories and storytellers. 

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Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 introduces one of the heaviest hitters in the Marvel Universe, Adam Warlock, to the big screen. Played by actor Will Poulter, Adam Warlock is a genetically-engineered warrior working on behalf of the High Evolutionary (Chukwudi Iwuji). Fans of Marvel Comics will know Adam Warlock as an important player in the Infinity Gauntlet, Infinity War, and Infinity Watch storylines, but his portrayal in the MCU is much different from his usual role in comics. In fact, Adam Warlock operates in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 as a critique of the MCU’s brand of heroism, particularly in its early Phases. In doing so, the film boldly makes the case for how the MCU can change with the times, calling out its own shortcomings in the process. 

The third Guardians of the Galaxy film follows the team as they race to protect Rocket Raccoon from his creator, the High Evolutionary. Rocket’s tactical genius makes him one of the High Evolutionary’s greatest achievements, prompting the latter to send Adam Warlock in search of him. Against this backdrop, the team must also come to terms with how larger events in the MCU have changed their found family dynamic, as Gamora is no longer in the group. It is an auspicious choice for Adam Warlock to debut in a Guardians of the Galaxy movie, given how the team’s unconventional lineup of heroes compares to standard superhero expectations. 

Adam Warlock’s role in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 touches on how superhero fiction is centered around moral and physical perfection. Characters like Superman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, Hawkman, Captain America, and Thor are physical and ethical paragons. They were created to inspire readers to be their best selves. Superhero teams like the Doom Patrol, Fantastic Four, X-Men, and the Guardians of the Galaxy are meant to counter the genre’s focus on ethical and beautiful people; however, their existence still underscores this basic truth. 

The film’s Adam Warlock is supposed to be a model of perfection seen most clearly in Phase 1 of the MCU. Warlock (like any basic superhero model) is male, buff, handsome, and indestructible. He listens to authority presents as a white person. This is further solidified with several parallels between Warlock and key moments in the MCU’s Phase 1. Adam Warlock’s birth cocoon is reminiscent of Steve Rogers’ chamber that Steve Rogers in Captain America: The First Avenger. You know, the one that turns a skinny asthmatic into a muscly super soldier. His lofty way of speaking and cluelessness recalls Thor in his first film. Likewise, when Kraglin fires his Yaka Arrow at Warlock, it bounces off of him with the same comedic imperviousness as Iron Man’s Mark I armor in the first MCU film. 

But while Captain America, Thor, and Iron Man are amenable to audiences, Adam Warlock’s introduction has an opposite effect. He destroys the sense of peace on Knowhere and its moody atmosphere, courtesy of an acoustic rendition of Radiohead’s “Creep” that Rocket put on. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 sets Warlock up as the direct antithesis to the Guardians crew. He isn’t “a weirdo” like the one in the aforementioned song. Never before has “normalcy” carried such a destructive presence in an MCU film. 

We see this with how the Guardians respond to their injuries during the fight versus Warlock. Groot sprouts four tendrils from his head and nonchalantly walks away on them while Nebula cracks her shattered limbs back into place. These are quintessential Guardians moments, built around the unique bodies of its “too strange” heroes. Warlock, on the other hand, embodies physical perfection. The literal golden boy doesn’t have a single hair out of place when Nebula finally stabs him through the chest. 

While audiences accepted heroes like Thor and Captain America in Phase 1, Adam Warlock and his relationship with the High Evolutionary reveals the sinister side to this quest for perfection. For the High Evolutionary, lifeforms that aren’t “perfect” like Adam are lesser. It’s how he is able to experiment on and then incinerate innocent animals or genetically engineer children and make them run for hours on end without a second thought.

For the High Evolutionary, life is malleable. And physical perfection is always a few tweaks away. If Tony Stark was able to build a life-saving arc reactor in a cave, with a box of scraps, then what’s stopping the High Evolutionary from creating the perfect man? As such, Adam Warlock illustrates the physical and emotional costs of the superhero genre’s obsession with perfection. Because after all, Warlock doesn’t exist to show the denizens of the universe a better path. His creation is for violence. 

The parallels between Adam Warlock and Phase 1 MCU films proves why the franchise needs the Guardians of the Galaxy. The superhero genre’s roots may envision a new type of perfection, but it’s also been the place to celebrate deviation. It’s no wonder Nebula and Rocket Raccoon—two characters who posit as disabled—are the anchors of this film.

In contrast to Adam Warlock, Nebula and Rocket are a different idea of heroic built on empathy from past pain. This especially comes to light when Rocket insists on rescuing the High Evolutionary’s other animal test subjects. (In fact, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 is the only film in the trilogy that doesn’t have a gratuitous shirtless moment with Chris Pratt.) The thesis of the film celebrates the diversity of life and bodily autonomy. As such, it’s fitting to leave behind the stereotypical marker of white male heroism from the MCU’s Phase 1. 

Adam Warlock’s arc with the High Evolutionary explores the toxicity, along with physical and emotional violence, rooted in idolizing perfection. He now makes Steve Rogers’ transformation scene in Captain America: The First Avenger uneasy to watch. Dr. Abraham Erskine believed that America needed “a little guy” to defeat the Nazis and their horrific supremacism. Steve Rogers had the heart of a little guy. But his body had to rapidly balloon in size and muscle tone in order to be adequate. To fight an enemy that believed in biological supremacy, Steve Rogers needed a whole new body type all together. 

It’s almost a shame that Warlock’s debut comes in this late-stage Guardians offering. But with physically marginalized characters like Rocket and Nebula, the Guardians of the Galaxy is one of the only self-aware and self-critical teams in the MCU. With this franchise’s future up in the air after an uneven Phase 4, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 proves that the MCU must seriously reckon with its past to properly evolve.

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In 1993, Warner Bros. released Batman: Mask of the Phantasm, one of the finest takes on the Dark Knight in cinema. The story follows a young Bruce Wayne as he begins his life of crime-fighting as Batman. He is torn between the promise he made to his parents to avenge their deaths, and the life of happiness he envisions with his girlfriend, Andrea Beaumont. While the premise of Mask of the Phantasm may sound like a familiar superhero narrative, its frank depiction of grief built a lifelong kinship between myself and Batman. 

I would rewatch my Batman: Mask of the Phantasm VHS like clockwork in the late 1990s and early 2000s. During this time, it was rare for children’s media to depict what it’s like to have dead family members. Sure, it was common for protagonists to be orphans, but the actual, ritualized reality of mourning was hardly ever shown. I distinctly remember visiting my grandfather’s grave a couple times a year with my family when I was growing up. And I had no other frame of reference for this experience except Batman: Mask of the Phantasm. 

Bruce Wayne visits his parents’ graves over the course of the film at different points in his life. Once, while visiting them during his college years, he meets a young woman, Andrea Beaumont, who is visiting her mother’s grave. The two bond and Andrea eventually becomes Bruce’s first love. On one occasion, he tearfully admits to his parents’ graves that he “didn’t count on being happy” after they died. 

Like Bruce Wayne, I grew up in the shadow of loss. My grandfather, who my mother was very close to, died before I was born. Growing up, my mother was very open about how this loss affected her as a parent, knowing that her father never got to meet her youngest child. With the loss of my Gung Gung (the Cantonese word for maternal grandfather) still fresh, we visited his grave a few times a year when I was a child. I would watch my mother speak in a conversational tone free from the tenseness that colored her exchanges with my grandmother. I never heard her speak that way to anyone else, as life required her to be armored and guarded. It evidenced to me, in my early childhood, how my mother was also once a child. 

In Mask of the Phantasm, Bruce and Andrea speak to their parents’ gravestones in the same tone as my mother. Watching these scenes from the film was like watching my mother at the cemetery. I was a silent observer, listening, trying to make sense of the sadness that I felt. It was an intensely private experience, one that I never talked about with anyone my age. This is perhaps why Batman became so personal to me early on. He was a part of this emotional world of grief that I didn’t yet have the language to describe nor understand. 

I’ve only realized how melancholy Mask of the Phantasm is as an adult. This shows how, despite its thematic focus on grief, it formed such a central part of my identity in my childhood. Even though I understood that it was sad that I never got to meet my Gung Gung, I had such a limited scope as to why. For Batman in Mask of the Phantasm, his grief was never born out of the actual, violent loss of his parents, or even evidence of the event itself. This is a rarity, given how frequently the Waynes’ murders have been depicted in film and television over the years. Instead, it grew from the absence of his parents in his life once he became an adult. 

This spoke to the type of longing and grief I experienced as a child. The film doesn’t show Thomas and Martha’s murders. Instead, the story put Batman in this state of general grief where the inciting event took place outside the film’s scope. This closely paralleled my own life because my grandfather’s death happened before my birth. The loss of Bruce’s parents happened before the “birth” of Mask of the Phantasm’s plot and runtime. I may not have even known when I first saw the film that Bruce’s parents were murdered. It’s this ambiguity around their deaths that made it so easy for me to relate to Bruce. In this way, Mask of the Phantasm comforted me. Batman made me feel safe in the conflicting emotions I felt. 

As an adult, Mask of the Phantasm still speaks to me. It represents the pressures of wanting to honor the dead, while still retaining agency over your own future. It’s a story about the transformative power of grief, for both Batman and for Andrea, who is later revealed to be Phantasm, Gotham’s lethal masked vigilante. 

And yet, Mask of the Phantasm didn’t present a negative outlook for me moving forwards. While grief could be a part of me, it could never be all of me. The film itself echoes this because it isn’t entirely a tragedy. It’s also a thrilling noir and a coming-of-age story. Grief is a facet of Batman: Mask of the Phantasm, but not the entire picture. In this way, I’ll always be grateful that I had Batman to teach me this vital lesson. 

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Evil Dead Rise is at the crossroads of contemporary horror. Typically, horror cinema has worked by stimulating its audience physically, psychologically, or any combination thereof. Splatter films invite the squeamish among us to keel over and feel sick, while science fiction horror functions as an advertisement for staying home. But Evil Dead Rise marries both the existential horror popularized over the last ten years with the chaotic, physical violence of the Evil Dead franchise. The film is a rickety, wooden theme park ride, and is all the more fun because of it. 

The Evil Dead movies have, largely, based themselves in stimulating their audience however they can. The campiness of Sam Raimi’s original trilogy (Evil Dead, The Evil Dead 2, and Army of Darkness) mixed hilarity with gore, powered by Raimi’s distinct, no-holds-barred directorial voice and Bruce Campbell’s enthusiastic Ash Williams. We’re invited to laugh while we scream. Fede Álvarez’s 2013 Evil Dead dropped the comedy of the original films to double down on gore, executed with impressive practical effects. 

With this in mind, Evil Dead Rise has a lot to measure up to. From Irish director/writer Lee Cronin (The Hole in the Ground), Evil Dead Rise follows guitar technician Beth (Lily Sullivan) as she visits her sister, Ellie (Alyssa Sutherland), in Los Angeles. Ellie is a single mother living in a high rise with her three children, Danny (Morgan Davies), Bridget (Gabrielle Echols), and Kassie (Nell Fisher). After an earthquake in their building uncovers the cursed Book of the Dead, also known as the Necronomicon, a demonic force possesses Ellie, forcing the remaining family members to fight for their lives. 

Cronin’s thoughtful writing and measured direction, coupled with powerful performances from Sutherland, Sullivan, and Echols in particular, makes Evil Dead Rise an utterly terrifying thrill ride. While not as gory as the 2013 film, the film’s scares are like arrows carefully nocked and released, aimed squarely at the audience’s vulnerabilities. The film’s directorial precision is one of its strongest areas. Cronin clearly knows when to hold back and when to let all hell break loose. This helps keep Evil Dead Rise from feeling too overloaded with its attempts to scare us. After all, the horror set pieces can only work in contrast to safe, character-building scenes. Without giving too much away, the film’s scenes in a high-rise elevator will have the same effect that Jaws had on beaches in the summer of 1975. 

Evil Dead Rise benefits from being both disturbing and terrifying. It’s a rare balance that makes it memorable against other contemporary demonic possession films. It operates like The Exorcist, but for mothers. Considering Cronin’s previous film also dealt with the relationship between a mother and child, Evil Dead Rise’s thematic focus fits expertly within his wheelhouse. 

While demon-possessed mothers is by no means a new idea to horror, Evil Dead Rise succeeds in recreating what made Reagan’s possession in The Exorcist so disturbing. Like with Reagan, we fully understand who Ellie was before this horrible force entered her life. This makes her later transformation both tragic and terrifying, because we already have an emotional foundation for her character. Sutherland’s gnarly, teeth-gnashing performance as the Deadite Ellie sells this unadulterated evil even further. It’s absolutely one of the film’s highlights. Additionally, Davies, Echols, and Fisher play off each other so well as Ellie’s children that we feel just as terrified, and disturbed, as they do when they see their mother become a monster. 

Given how many horror films about possession currently exist, this is no easy feat. Evil Dead Rise vanquishes its lesser contemporaries by building the humanity of its characters before ripping them to shreds. While this seems like a simple enough task, it is frustratingly rare to see in American studio horror films. Gone are the days where Evil Dead’s characters make the stupidest decisions possible, and act like fodder for Cabin in the Woods-type commentary. Here, Evil Dead Rise takes Evil Dead’s extreme physical violence a step further by adding emotional violence that will leave audiences feeling battered, but not hopeless. 

That said, some fans of Álvarez’s 2013 film may find Cronin’s thematic focus to be an obstacle impeding them from their gory spectacles. Cronin’s film certainly doesn’t have the same level of nastiness as its predecessor. I found that to be a boon, considering that there are children in this story. Thankfully, Cronin wisely skirts misogynist tropes that have bogged down horror cinema’s representation of motherhood, making Evil Dead Rise a refreshing entry for this decade. While motherhood is the entry point into the film’s world of horrors, it is never at the expense of the characters, or their bodies. Evil Dead has a rocky history of violating cisgender women’s bodies for spectacle, but Evil Dead Rise abandons this for good. Given that it’s 2023, it’s about time. 

Evil Dead Rise may tread familiar territory, but its strong character relationships, directing, and thematic focus make it a welcome entry into one of horror’s longest running franchises. Its commitment to both emotional horror and thrilling gore showcases how studio horror films can still exhibit the scrappy spirit of independent flicks. Long live the Evil Dead. 

Evil Dead Rise ⭐ (5 of 5)

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Capcom’s remake of Resident Evil 4 is a masterful reimagining of a classic horror video game. Its release could not come at a more pertinent time for the horror genre as a whole. Remakes have drawn some ire by those who see them as the capitalization of nostalgia. However, Resident Evil 4’s remake brings to light the ways horror has developed since the original in 2005. And while Resident Evil 4’s remake feels like the more mature older sibling to the original, they still bear the same campy DNA that boldly rejects the recent trend of prestige horror. 

Resident Evil 4 chronicles Leon S. Kennedy six years after the events of Resident Evil 2. Now a battle-hardened secret service agent, Leon travels to Spain on a mission. In order to rescue the President’s daughter, Ashley Graham, he has to fight a cult called Los Illuminados. The original Resident Evil 4 introduced a more action-oriented feel to the Resident Evil franchise. Beyond just the game’s third-person, over-the-shoulder perspective that departed from the earlier games’ fixed camera angles, Leon S. Kennedy’s swaggering action man bravado and emo pretty boy looks brought a new type of masculinity to the franchise. The game is as committed to campiness and B-movie aesthetics as it is to its terrifying scares. 

Over the past ten years, people have used prestige horror to describe cerebral, arthouse horror films. These include movies like The VVitch, Hereditary, Annihilation, and The Lighthouse. The term largely exists to differentiate these films from the genre’s perceived “lowbrow” fare. For some, prestige horror films address serious human topics like grief, trauma, and alienation, making them worthy of critical attention. While many prestige horror films are great, the term itself is both condescending and ignorant of the genre’s history. Horror cinema has always addressed heavy human subjects; films like Get Out have just made it impossible for mass audiences to ignore it. 

Another facet that differentiates prestige horror from “regular horror” is the effect that it has on the audience. While films like Scream, Halloween, and Malignant all have an element of fun to their scariness, devotees of prestige horror are drawn to films that are traumatizing because of their “grown-up” subject matter. This isn’t to say that traumatizing horror is lesser than any other type of horror. There’s room at the table for everyone, and this diversity within the genre is why fans like myself are so passionate about it. But prestige horror has made it more difficult than ever for “fun horror” to get the critical recognition that it deserves. 

Resident Evil 4’s remake is here to change that. While the graphics, gameplay, and sound design have all been reimagined, Capcom has largely left the campy but terrifying tone of the original game intact. Leon Kennedy still delivers delightfully schlocky one-liners such as:
“Where’s everybody going? Bingo?”
“Nighty-night, knights.”
“Adios, you son of a bitch.”

Resident Evil fans know that the game is ridiculous–it’s why it’s the preeminent video game horror franchise in the first place. And Capcom’s embrace of its shameless fun seems at once charmingly retro and a defiant rejection of prestige horror. As wonderful as it was to see a game like The Last of Us get its due with a faithful HBO adaptation, the silliness of Resident Evil 4 is a reminder that horror should always leave room for laughter and artifice. 

It’s the humor of Resident Evil that gets at a larger truth about how fear works in horror. Fear is perhaps one of the oldest part of our brains, something that reminds us that we are animals. In some ways, we are also ashamed of this fact, because of how intrinsically connected fear is to our baser instincts. The way that we talk about fear, and the types of fear we privilege over others, is indicative of this fact. Perhaps one of the most frustrating parts about prestige horror is that it often doesn’t give space for accepting fear as a recurrent part of existence, just like humor. Fear doesn’t always need to make us feel bad. Sometimes we need to say something silly like, “Whoa! Goddamn, you’re a big boy!” to get through the horrors of everyday life. 

Still, this isn’t to say that Resident Evil 4’s remake is completely devoid of human topics – quite the opposite. The player comes across a diary entry written by a foreman unknowingly infected by Los Illuminados’ parasite. In just a few words, the game sets up the humanity of this character as he slowly loses his own autonomy. He apologizes to his daughter for not having been a better father. The game succinctly makes Los Illuminados’ leader, Saddler, all the more evil when the player finally reads the foreman’s last diary entry. It’s a mindless, dateless profession of how much of an honor it is to serve Saddler. Like any other Resident Evil game, RE4 remake chronicles how capitalism turns people into monsters, literally. But it doesn’t stop the game from being fun.

One of the most satisfying parts of the remake is its new vision of Leon S. Kennedy. He looks and feels every bit as exhausted and traumatized as he would. He survived the zombie apocalypse on his first day of work! Instead of feeling like an action figure like in the original game, actor Nick Apostolides’ Leon is emotionally intelligent (when he chooses to be) and empathetic to those who are at their most vulnerable. He’s a badass softie without the emotional constipation of The Last of Us’ Joel or God of War’s Kratos. Leon’s openness with both his own fear and his strategies for pushing through is an encouraging sight. In 2023, that feels, frankly, incredibly necessary. 

The remake’s impeccable gameplay, gripping sound design, gorgeous visuals, stellar performances, and perfect pacing has once again made Resident Evil 4 one of the greatest games of all time. But beyond the satisfying synthesis of its parts, the game is a triumph because of how it reframes what makes a piece of horror media “good” in 2023. As terrifying as the game’s Regeneradors are, Resident Evil 4’s remake doesn’t leave the player speechlessly traumatized. By definition, video games provide us with the opportunity to safely immerse ourselves in dangerous situations. The same has been said about horror as a genre. In an increasingly uncertain and terrifying world, games like Resident Evil 4’s remake provides us with an outlet to safely scream our heads off. And that’s exactly the type of energy I need right now.

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Without a doubt, the most enduring horror video game of the 2000s is Resident Evil 4. Capcom’s classic game redefined the survival horror genre for an entire generation of gamers. Rather than just scaring the player at any given moment, survival horror provides additional challenges that forces the player to be strategic with limited resources like ammo, weapons, medicine, and more. Players must make smart, rational decisions in the face of fear to advance to the next part of the game. As such, survival horror games like Resident Evil challenge players to overcome the emotion and physiological response that the games bait them into. And no game does this quite like Resident Evil 4.

The Resident Evil franchise began in 1996, and was an instant success. The first three games used claustrophobic settings like dark, cramped hallways to generate a sense of terror for the player. In addition to this, the games’ use of a fixed third person camera added to that sense of dread. It would cut every time the character rounded a corner. The camera was stationary, often positioned at a low angle in the corner of the hallway, and facing the character as they ran forwards. This deliberately obscured what was around the corner, inviting the player and their imagination to come up with the worst possible scenario. It’s a type of gameplay that’s frustrating from today’s gaming standards. And that is in large part due to Resident Evil 4’s innovative changes in 2005. 

Resident Evil 4 features a third person, over-the-shoulder camera placement that puts the gamer directly above and behind the protagonist, Leon S. Kennedy. Action games use this perspective heavily because it presents a more ideal viewpoint for aiming a gun at targets. And, it balances the integration of the character within the game’s world, as well as the player’s immersion within the action. With this new element, the Resident Evil franchise left behind its fixed camera placements and frequent cuts for good, opting to use third person camera angles for remakes of its second and third games. Resident Evil 4 permanently changed the look and experience for future games. 

This perspective change rewrote the rules for Resident Evil’s scares, which is evident in the game’s opening sequence. No matter the medium, horror ultimately relies on the strategic reveal of new information. Resident Evil 4 revised the terms in which the player gains new information. Before, Resident Evil’s horror came from the deliberate obfuscation of the player’s vision and dark, cramped spaces. A new angle or source of light signified new information, and new terrors ahead. 

In contrast, Resident Evil 4 opens with a scene in foggy daylight, countering horror’s expected, dark settings. The game gives us as much information as possible about the village that Leon must venture through—and it’s absolutely horrifying. Our eyes and ears discern everything as “wrong” in some way. Instead of imploring the gamer’s imagination, the game presents us with an inescapable spectacle of people, not quite zombies, behaving unnaturally. The sound design follows the lead of its illuminated visuals with a barrage of ghastly taunts. Before we even enter the village, we can hear disembodied voices cursing at us. Those sounds form a disconcerting chorus that we can’t outrun no matter where we go. The sense of confusion activates our fight-or-flight response before we confront any of the villagers.  

At the time of Resident Evil 4‘s release, horror games largely encouraged the player to evade monsters, not directly attack them. For example, Silent Hill put the player in a regular person’s shoes as they tried to unravel a mystery with heavy psychological themes. Resident Evil 4, however, made the player a badass, even as they were fighting for their life. In doing so, survival game horror became not so much about putting together clues and solving puzzles. It also demanded that you hit headshots, and strategically conserved your ammo. For the sake of the character in your control, you had to fight off your own terror. 

Resident Evil 4‘s take on fear is significant, given the unique impact that fear has on our brain’s ability to process new information. When we are afraid, our brains direct resources away from our cerebral cortex, the area responsible for rational thought and planning. Those resources instead go towards our amygdala, the emotional center of the brain. This evolutionary design’s purpose is to keep us alive; however, it comes at a cost: our ability to think clearly. For action-heavy video games that require players to make thousands of decisions in a split-second over the course of the story, fear can become an invisible obstacle. 

Resident Evil 4 takes this into account, ramping up the feeling of immediacy between the player and its scares. The aforementioned camera placement brings the player physically, emotionally, and psychologically closer to Leon S. Kennedy. Instead of feeling like they are watching Leon take on enemies, like in Resident Evil 2, players become Leon. This brings a visceral sense of fear to the game, particularly in the opening scene. Leon could immediately die at the hands of a chainsaw-wielding villager if he gets too close. Leon is a smooth-talking action hero who previously survived a first day of work during the zombie apocalypse. But, he’s just as vulnerable as any of us would be in this scenario.

Frank Herbert famously wrote in his novel, Dune, that, “Fear is the mind-killer.” Resident Evil 4 invites players to discover the truth behind this sentiment. As the game’s innovations ramped up its scariness, it also brought action gameplay into a much more dire setting. All action games elicit some stress in the heat of battle. But Resident Evil 4 brings an entirely new wildcard into the fold: fear. There is no shortage of fiends for Leon Kennedy must fight off in the game; however, the true enemy that players must overcome is themselves. With the release of Resident Evil 4’s remake, it’s the perfect time to revisit why this game still terrorizes us decades later.

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It has been 10 years since Sony’s Santa Monica Studio released God of War: Ascension for PlayStation 3. The game laid the groundwork for the franchise’s future successes with 2018’s God of War and 2022’s God of War Ragnarök. A prequel to the rest of the God of War games, Ascension follows the Spartan warrior Kratos as he frees himself from the Furies of Greek mythology.

God of War: Ascension showcased the very best of what the PlayStation 3 had to offer as a console. It featured story beats and eye-popping action sequences rendered, impressively, in-game. This is where the God of War franchise began to diverge from other games of the PlayStation 3 era. Ascension spearheaded the push for seamless animation between cutscenes and actual gameplay. Instead of a noticeable decline in animation quality between the game’s cutscenes and gameplay, God of War: Ascension rendered both at the same depth. This would later become a unique part of the 2018 game, as it increased the immersiveness of the franchise. 

But beyond the technical achievements, God of War: Ascension has several shortcomings. These prove why the game’s 2018 overhaul was so necessary. While the game excels on a visual level, it does so at the expense of its protagonist, Kratos. Players get only a paper-thin sense of Kratos’s humanity, which often gets lost in the visual spectacle of the game—literally. And it is precisely because Kratos came off as more of an action figure than an actual human in God of War: Ascension, that he needed to become a fully-realized, force of nature protagonist in God of War 2018 and its sequel, God of War Ragnarök. 

Today, God of War’s Kratos is one of gaming’s most complex and nuanced characters. Kratos’ distinctive, scarred, ashy, and red-streaked appearance comes from the ashes and blood of his wife and daughter. He mistakenly killed his family while serving the Greek god of war, Ares. As a result, Kratos isn’t your run-of-the-mill berserker from ancient times. He’s a man deeply at odds with himself and the gods who led him to take so many lives. His character asks a simple question: when all of your value as a person is placed on killing, then what does it mean to keep on living?

With Kratos, God of War has always had the opportunity to marry its strongest selling point, action, with a gripping story and memorable characterization. This is what separates “good” action games from “great” action games. Video games are an interactive art form. But we return to them time and time again because we want emotional and psychological fulfillment. This is only possible through a story that connects with us on a human level. 

But for all of Ascension’s exhilarating moments, Kratos feels like an afterthought. The game opens with a heart-pounding scene where Kratos must battle his way out of his imprisonment by the Furies. He takes on hordes of monsters before he must fight the enormous being he was imprisoned in, Aegaeon the Hecatonchires. As the camera deftly keeps up with Kratos in battle, it does so from a great distance. It makes him appear tiny on-screen. 

Similarly, the sound design drowns out most of Kratos’ grunts and noises during the fight. Even as he earns the God of War franchise’s Mature rating by stomping heads and leaving a blood-soaked trail , the player doesn’t learn the physical costs of these actions for Kratos through the game’s sound design. In doing so, God of War: Ascension prioritizes the spectacle of the beings Kratos fights, rather than the spectacle of Kratos, a human being, fighting these creatures. 

This is an important distinction. It ultimately illustrates how the success of action games directly connects to our investment in their protagonist. Yes, obviously, none of this is real. But part of the magic of video games is when the game tricks us into believing that it is real for the character. Video games aren’t just a trick of the eye, ear, or even the mind. They’re a trick of our empathy.

It’s undeniable that God of War: Ascension was one of the most ambitious games of the PS3 era. But it ultimately proves why the God of War franchise needed to reinvent itself five years later. It’s not surprising that the 2018 God of War game featured a single shot camera that never cuts away from Kratos and his young son, Atreus. Now voiced with the commanding, heartbreaking clarity of actor Christopher Judge, Kratos bears the hallmarks of someone who has lived a life. This makes the player more than just an unseen force controlling the characters. It makes them a witness to a man trying to make up for the sins of his past.

In the end, God of War: Ascension makes the case for how M-rated action games need to become more than gratuitous violence and sex, not that either one of those are objectionable on their own. They need to follow up on what it means for their characters to experience them in the first place. Luckily for Kratos, God of War: Ascension was the wake-up call for recognizing his humanity.

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HBO’s new hit series, The Last of Us, continues to enthrall viewers with its emotional exploration of a post-apocalyptic world. Thus far, The Last of Us uses fantastical elements to radically reimagine a better world, even as its characters’ lives crumble around them. Interestingly, the series shows this better avenue through its treatment of chronic illness, whether it’s the real-world sicknesses that also exist in The Last of Us, or the fungal infections that serve as the catalyst for the show. By exploring the emotional, physical, and social realities of chronic illness, The Last of Us is refreshing in its conclusiveness about one basic truth. Eventually, our bodies break down, but that doesn’t mean our stories end. 

In the show’s seventh episode, “Left Behind,” Ellie (Bella Ramsey) and her crush, Riley (Storm Reid), meander around an abandoned mall together. After Ellie finally kisses Riley, one of the Infected bites both of them. Ellie rampages in anger over their dire situation while Riley stays calm. Riley states that they have two options. They can shoot themselves so they can’t turn into the Infected. Or they fight the infection for as long as they can, together. “It ends this way sooner or later, right?” Riley says, “Some of us just get there faster than others. But we don’t quit, whether it’s two minutes, or two days, we don’t give that up.” 

This fate for Ellie and Riley continues the show’s exploration of queer relationships and illness. For the two girls, their infection is an impetus to stay together, rather than separate themselves. In many ways, this recalls the relationship between Bill (Nick Offerman) and Frank (Murray Bartlett) in episode 3 (“Long, Long Time”). Bill and Frank, miraculously, avoid infection; however, Frank eventually falls terminally ill with a condition that was incurable even before apocalypse. Bill tenderly cares for Frank until the latter decides one day that he is ready to die. Surprisingly, Bill also takes a lethal dose of medication because he doesn’t want to continue living without his “life’s purpose”—Frank. 

It’s often said that horror is uniquely suited for discussing societal taboos that are “too jarring” in other genres. This is certainly the case for The Last of Us. The Infected represent some of the taboos that American, capitalist society is afraid to confront: illness and aging. Eventually, most of the Infected in The Last of Us explode into a fungus blossom after a period of time. Like humans, they also age and break down. So in effect, the characters’ fight to survive against the Infected isn’t so much a literal “man vs. zombie” situation. It is more a reckoning with what our eventual fate will be. 

Because illness often comes with age, we try make ourselves look younger for as long as we can. We are so fearful of falling ill and permanently changing that we pretend that it only happens to other people. As the characters’ reactions to the Infected show, the most horrifying part about falling ill or growing old isn’t the disease or age itself. Rather, it’s the isolation and abandonment that we associate with them. We fear the social death that precedes our final, physical death. 

And this is precisely why The Last of Us is so radical in its handling of Ellie and Riley’s infections, alongside Bill and Frank’s battle with chronic illness. When queer characters fall sick, however unfairly, they’re not alone. This is a major break from most mainstream narratives of chronic illness. It usually focuses on the healthy partner’s “bravery” for choosing to love someone who is going to die. But the truth of the matter is, as Riley says, we are all going to die. Death just comes earlier for some of us. By having characters united in this truth, The Last of Us exposes the hypocrisy in our culture’s view of chronic illness and disability.  

As a chronically ill queer person, I am deeply moved by how The Last of Us finds beauty in its most tragic moments. Despite being set unequivocally in a world of horrors, this show envisions a radical, queer space that is free of our culture’s most toxic attitudes towards illness, disability, and dying. It hurt to watch two young lesbians grapple with the unfairness of their own mortality; however, the show remains deeply committed in its refusal to concede to our expectations. The apocalypse in The Last of Us didn’t make people like Riley and Ellie more eager to abandon each other in the face of the inevitable. 

I am not on Riley and Ellie’s “two minutes or two days” timeline. But I do fear that one day, I won’t be able to get out of bed. My illness put a strain on my previous relationship. So, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t afraid of going through my next stages alone. I know the richness of life will continue to exist regardless of how bad my health gets; however, these latent fears are more difficult to shake off than I would like to admit. 

But there’s Ellie, who, like me, is just as much baffled by her own survival as she is scared of what she might become. In episode five (“Endure and Survive”), she admits to Sam (Keivonn Montreal Woodard) that she is afraid of “ending up alone.” And yet, in this episode, she races to patch up a wounded Joel (Pedro Pascal) instead of heeding his advice to leave him to die. For me, she represents how being chronically ill opens up a world of defiant possibilities. Getting hurt never needs to equate to death. Our survival hinges upon our ability to care for each other before the inevitable. And even though I can’t see what’s hurting me, I choose to keep going, like Riley and Ellie did. 

Bill and Frank celebrated aging because “older means we’re still here.” I have taken this idea to heart, for whatever lies ahead for me. 

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DC Studios recently unveiled chapter 1 of its development slate. And, to the delight of DC Comics fans everywhere, a Booster Gold television show is a part of this lineup. Booster Gold is a beloved character and former Justice Leaguer who absolutely deserves the opportunity to become a household name. Aside from being one of DC’s funniest heroes, Booster Gold has deep ties to both the DC multiverse and more lighthearted stories. These which will help differentiate this new era of DC film and television from its darker predecessors. But, there may be many new fans who aren’t as familiar with the comic origins of Booster Gold. Let’s take a dive into this character’s fun history.

The DC Comics History of Booster Gold

Booster Gold is emblematic of the comedic and satiric direction that many of DC’s biggest titles took in the late 1980s and early-to-mid 1990s. He was created by the powerhouse DC writer/artist Dan Jurgens (The Death of Superman, Zero Hour: A Crisis in Time!) in 1986. First appearing in Booster Gold #1 by Jurgens, Mike DeCarlo, Tom Ziuko, and Agustin Mas, he went on to join the new Justice League the following year, which was later rebranded as the Justice League International. 

Perhaps the best way to describe Booster Gold is that he is a buffoon with a heart of gold. He unknowingly satirizes many elements of superheroism under capitalism. Booster Gold’s real name is actually Michael Jon Carter (a playful wink at science fiction conventions). He was born in the 25th century and found fame early on as a college football star.

Despite his talent, Carter became involved in betting. He lost all chance at a professional sports career after he purposely threw a game. With his good reputation soiled, Carter was only able to find work as a nighttime security guard at a museum. On a whim, he stole a superhero costume from the museum. And Booster Gold went back in time to the 20th century. With his 25th century tech, good looks, and ability to play to news cameras, Booster Gold instantly became a popular superhero. This was all without Carter having to prove much that he was up for the job, morally. Assisted by his sarcastic, skeptical robot pal named Skeets, Booster Gold hides the tragic elements of his life under the veneer of his megawatt smile. 

Booster Gold’s Powers, Personality, and Technology

Booster Gold does not have superpowers in the comics. He gets assistance only from his technology and knowledge of historical events in the 20th and 21st centuries. He puts on a great show for civilians as he flies around cities in his flashy suit fighting enemies with energy blasts while Skeets coaches him on his next move. More polished superheroes like Wonder Woman and Green Lantern can flawlessly stop a catastrophe from happening with zero collateral damage; however, Booster isn’t usually so lucky. Part of his charm is his failures, a running theme in his comics. 

Booster Gold is defined by his attempts to turn superheroism into a business, alongside his hilarious, over-the-top sense of confidence that is, at times, deeply out of touch with reality. This dynamic plays out brilliantly with his best friend, Blue Beetle (Ted Kord). Blue Beetle is a nervous worrier who reins in some of Booster’s most outlandish schemes. Their friendship was a key ingredient to the success of Justice League International, spearheaded by writers Keith Giffen and J.M. DeMatteis, with iconic art by Kevin Maguire. With Booster Gold and Blue Beetle on the roster, the Justice League became a much more approachable team for readers. They could easily imagine two well-meaning fools existing in everyday life under Ronald Reagan’s presidency. 

Booster Gold and His Importance in DC Comics’ Timeline and Multiverse

Though comic fans love Booster Gold’s his unique personality and values, he also has an important role in the timestream and multiverse in DC Comics. After Ted Kord’s Blue Beetle was tragically killed in the lead up to DC’s Infinite Crisis crossover event in 2005, it had lasting consequences for Booster. Geoff Johns, who wrote Infinite Crisis and would later go on to write and co-write multiverse-heavy stories like Flashpoint and Flashpoint Beyond. These stories instilled a greater, cosmic role for Booster Gold by revealing that he was the father of the time traveler, Rip Hunter, in Booster Gold #1000000. (This was co-written with Jeff Katz, with pencils by Dan Jurgens, finishes by Norm Rapmund, colors by Hi-Fi, and letters by Nick J. Napolitano.)

Rip Hunter is known principally as the leader of the Time Masters in the DC Universe. This group is responsible for maintaining the health of the timestream in the universe. By making Booster Gold the father of Rip Hunter, Johns added a sense of consequence to Booster’s lighthearted adventures. Before, Booster had shamelessly used his knowledge of historical events to find tragedies to thwart in the present day. Now, he understood the dangers of doing this.

As such, his second series—kickstarted by Geoff Johns in 2007 after the events of 52—explored his relationship with his ancestors in the present day. It eventually led into Geoff Johns and Andy Kubert’s 2011 Flashpoint crossover. This rebooted the DC multiverse ahead of its next era, the New 52. Booster Gold was recently spotlit in Dan Jurgens and Ryan Sook’s Blue and Gold series, which chronicled his and Blue Beetle’s attempt to launch a small business as superheroes.

As Blue and Gold shows, Booster’s motivations might not always be altruistic; however, he remains a lovable figure because of his desperate and slightly delusional optimism. In a world where cynical takes on superheroes abound, Booster Gold is refreshing because of his utter disregard for edginess. And it is this specific energy that DC Studios needs now more than ever.

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Avatar: The Way of Water is an outstanding feat of world-building, largely due to the visual effects on the film. A sequel to the 2009 Avatar film, The Way of Water is the long-awaited second installment in a planned five film series from director James Cameron. Set on the planet of Pandora with its nine foot tall aliens known as the Na’vi, the Avatar franchise explores the tensions between them and their imperialist invaders: humans. The first film gained critical acclaim for its achievements in visual effects; however, public opinion on it derided its familiar, Disney’s Pocahontas-type story. But, The Way of Water surpasses its predecessor’s visual splendor. The film uses its spectacle as the basis for a new type of genre storytelling with VFX leading the way.

The Way of Water focuses on the interactions between different Na’vi tribes and their environment on Pandora. The film introduces a new tribe, the Metkayina. They live on a different part of the planet near a coral reef. In contrast to the jungle-dwelling Na’vi from the first film, the Metkayina are powerful swimmers and divers. They have a unique connection to the plant and animal life underwater. Therefore, a significant part of The Way of Water’s run time is devoted to exploring the Metkayina’s underwater environment. The film’s gorgeous visual effects makes this environment feel like a real, living ecosystem. And this comes to life thanks to the research that the VFX team did on similar ecosystems on Earth. 

In this way, The Way of Water’s visual effects achieve an unprecedented sense of immersion between the film’s environments, human characters, Na’vi characters, and animal characters. Instead of using VFX only as a means for providing an exciting visual spectacle, The Way of Water’s effects directly place the viewer in the world that it has created, which came through an innovative and novel approach. The film was shot stereoscopically, in 3D, with specific attention towards guiding the viewer’s point of focus. During a film press conference, producer Jon Landau described the team’s approach to 3D as “a window into a world, and not a world coming out of a window.” The stereoscopic process mirrors human vision, capturing the world through two different “cameras” a.k.a. human eyes. The brain then composites the two images into one three-dimensional picture. 

Additionally, the film’s immersive feel began in production. Wētā FX devised a new Simulcam that bridged the difference between live action and CG. This Simulcam provided a layered composite image through an eyepiece while shooting. It could show how characters could fit in front of, or behind, layers on-screen. This layering was a crucial difference, especially in a film with so many CG characters walking around CG environments. Landau explained it as the difference between showing “a weatherman in front of a screen,” versus having a “weatherman [walk] through the clouds.”

Because of this, The Way of Water feels lightyears ahead of the egregious, flat-looking CGI of recent blockbusters. In visualizing how characters move and interact between layers in their environment during production, The Way of Water prioritizes building an immersive world. But even as The Way of Water strove for immersive realism, it wasn’t afraid to create a hyperreal environment during its action scenes. During certain fight sequences in the film, the frame rate increased from the standard 24 frames per second to 48 frames per second.

This increased the amount of visual information the audience took in with characters’ movements, lending a hyperreal effect to the action. Lightstorm Visual Effects supervisor, virtual second unit director, and executive producer Richie Baneham explained that this decision was motivated from “an experiential standpoint.”

With characters moving more quickly, capturing the scene at a higher rate brings more attention to their bodies in motion. Like the characters fighting for their lives, the audience switches into a state of hyper-awareness about what is taking place. This sporadic use of high frame rates evidences The Way of Water’s mastery of VFX as a malleable cinematic tool. And, this decision is even more impressive considering most of the characters are CG and the stereoscopically shot footage. Why? Because this drastically lengthened the rendering process. But as impressive as this is, it’s grounded by a clear artistic goal of making the intangible feel real. The “experiential” element is the key ingredient to The Way of Water’s VFX. 

Yet another way that The Way of Water’s VFX sets a new standard is in the interactions between CG characters and human characters. Spider (Jack Champion), a new human character, fits seamlessly into CG environments. His interactions with Na’vi characters feel authentic thanks to new technology developed to aid the actor’s performance. Many films that use motion and performance capture today with an actor playing a non-human character utilize a tennis ball. The creative team mounts it on or around the actor’s body to show other actors where they should look.

This ensures that the eyelines between all the characters in the scene remain consistent. This is crucial when you have, say, six foot tall Thor talking to eight foot tall Hulk. The tennis ball allows for actors in the same scene to respond to each other’s performances; however, neither of them are able to look directly at each other’s faces. This can have an unnatural feel for the actors. 

The Way of Water devised a solution to this problem, which came in handy for Spider’s tense scenes with Quaritch (Stephen Lang). The team created a “Spidercam” rig that mounted a screen with Lang’s live performance at the correct level. They could move the “Spidercam” around the set to match Quaritch’s movements. This ensured that Champion could react to Lang’s performance in a much more natural way that mimicked a “one-to-one performance live on set,” according to Senior VFX Supervisor, Joe Letteri.

The actors’ performances in The Way of Water got a powerful boost by this setup, lending a more believable feel to their characters’ relationships in the film. It is a compelling case for how this new technology can be used as a world-building tool, rather than just a plain spectacle. The film’s fresh approach to VFX builds the audience’s emotional investment in the characters and their environments. It makes Pandora feel like a real, living place. Beyond the film’s jaw-dropping action scenes, The Way of Water succeeds visually because Pandora is a world worth building in the first place.

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Avatar: The Way of Water is an impressive feat of world-building thanks to the level of detail in its visual effects. While the first Avatar film largely took place in a jungle environment on the planet of Pandora, The Way of Water takes Jake Sully, Neytiri, and their family out of their home environment and into Metkayina, where another Na’vi clan live on the edge of a coral reef. Metkayina’s ecosystem is teeming with aquatic life for both plants and animals. And a significant part of The Way of Water’s three-hour runtime explores this marine life with a nod to real science. And even though Pandora is an alien planet, Metkayina feels wonderfully lived-in, from apex predators all the way down to single-celled organisms. 

Avatar: The Way of Water‘s Balance of Real Science and Movie Magic

Creating visual effects for water is no small task, especially when a film takes place on a fictional planet with different physics than Earth. Unlike Earth, Pandora has multiple moons that are much closer to the surface of the planet than ours. Thus, Pandora’s moons would have a much different gravitational pull and effect on Pandora’s oceans. That said, the visual effects team at Wētā had to strike a balance between otherworldliness and believability. After all, a visual effects-heavy film like Avatar can quickly lose its immersiveness if the movements of characters and their environments look unnatural. So while the physics on Pandora are different than they are on Earth, the visual effects team decided to stick to Earthbound physics as much as they could. This made it so abnormal movements wouldn’t distract viewers.

Wētā FX Supervisor Jonathan Nixon explained that the team first built the film’s water effects off of reference footage. They then manipulated it according to the story’s needs. “A lot of that reference that’s based in reality then allowed for us to change when we needed to. Because if we didn’t have that real physics basis, if we started with, ‘Okay, the creature is nine feet tall, the water needs to behave this way,’ then it gets really hard to wrangle this back in when you start to wonder, ‘Why does this look right? This looks odd.’” 

The Real Waters of The Way of Water

And while The Way of Water has a certain otherworldly feel to it, inspiration for the film’s scenes in Metkayina came directly from places around our world. Wētā’s Visual Effects Supervisor Pavani Rao Boddapati explained that, “Bora Bora and several other tropical ecosystems are what we referenced. That’s where you get this abundant life that’s also not very deep. Because Metkayina, especially in the reef where they’re swimming, is not super deep, it’s seven meters at the most.”

In addition, director James Cameron traveled to the Bahamas and to New Zealand to capture reference footage of different aquatic environments. Even as the director of the film gathered reference footage from around the world, VFX artists were encouraged to shoot their own reference if they saw something in their everyday lives. “Your brain expands by just becoming more immersed in your actual reality,” Nixon noted, “It makes you a better artist.” This idea is part of what makes The Way of Water such an immersive film.

Bioluminescent Plant and Animal Life

One of the most striking parts about the aquatic environments in The Way of Water is the diversity of plant and animal life, with bioluminescence being a common factor. Boddapati and Nixon learned about ocean life from consulting with marine biologists from Aotearoa-New Zealand’s National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA). This proved especially helpful given the role that coral plays in Metkayina’s underwater environments.

All of the corals in Metkayina were classified as either “hard coral” or “soft coral,” which would affect their movement underwater. While “hard” corals are existent in tropical places like Bora Bora, “soft” corals don’t actually exist in real life, so the team would seek out reference footage of other species of coral that resembled what they wanted the end result to be. The marine biologists were quick to remind the VFX team that corals are animals, not plants, making The Way of Water a delightful crash course in underwater life. 

Another unique part about The Way of Water’s visual effects was how it used bioluminescence, a phenomenon that hasn’t appeared a lot in films since the first Avatar in 2009. The Na’vi, like many other life forms on Pandora, have bioluminescent skin, often arranging themselves in dots around their faces. And while bioluminescence is part of the Na’vi’s character designs, it still needed to feel motivated in the story. The team had to determine when the bioluminescent dots on the Na’vi would turn off and on.

This also apply to the plants in Metkayina, as some would light up when someone touched them, while others remained lit up on their own. Boddapati explained that the underwater bioluminescence was “ten times more challenging” because of the variables necessary for it to look believable. After the VFX team first learned from a biological standpoint what bioluminescence is and how it actually works, they faced an even greater challenge: bringing it to life underwater. 

The Dinoflagellates of Pandora

For bioluminescence on Pandora, the team used Earth’s dinoflagellates as the foundation. Dinoflagellates are single-celled organisms in coral reefs, and create bioluminescence themselves. In nature, dinoflagellates’ bioluminescence activates when they are agitated; they give off a blue-green glow that lasts for a short time until the energy that powers their bioluminescence burns out. Nixon stated that the team used this same principle for the underwater bioluminescence in Way of Water.

For nighttime underwater scenes, they first isolated variables from their VFX water simulations like velocity and aeration decay. Then, knowing that dinoflagellates glow for a set amount of time in response to agitation, timed the bioluminescence in the water in accordance with the simulation’s velocity and aeration decay. This is why when a character kicks their feet around in the water, the water begins to glow around them. Together, this enhances the characterization of water in the film as a living, breathing character in its own right. 

2009’s Avatar was a groundbreaking film for visual effects, and The Way of Water is an excellent successor. Beyond its jaw-dropping, alien spectacle, The Way of Water feels like a love letter to life on Earth. It builds a sense of poetry through the ecosystem in Metkayina. In a world where blockbusters increasingly lay on jargon like the multiverse, and concepts related to quantum physics, Avatar: The Way of Water’s attention to marine biology is a refreshingly grounded marriage between science and the human imagination.

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Black Panther: Wakanda Forever has radically expanded the potential of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Its presentation of Namor the Sub-Mariner proves that it is ready for the X-Men. Though Namor isn’t the first mutant to appear in the MCU, his particular condition as a Meso-American survivor of Spanish imperialism speaks to the core themes of the X-Men comics. And since Black Panther: Wakanda Forever depicts the complexities of liberation amidst the threat of imperialism, it is the perfect vessel to pilot what the MCU’s X-Men can offer. 

Wakanda Forever follows Princess Shuri and Queen Ramonda as they grieve the loss of King T’Challa. At the same time, their country is in a tense era of international politics, as countries like the United States and France are suspicious of their supply of vibranium. This comes to a head when a covert American operation to find more vibranium threatens the underwater kingdom of Talokan. Its leader, Namor, vows to destroy the surface world to prevent the continued genocide of his people. It then must fall on Shuri to choose if Wakanda’s fate lies with Talokan, or the rest of the world.

Beyond just having Namor, a mutant, in the film, Wakanda Forever beautifully sets up what an X-Men movie could look like in the MCU through its handling of political topics. This is primarily achieved through its reenvisioning of Namor’s identity. Namor has explicitly been non-white in the comics, vocally declaring a vendetta against all white men from the very beginning. However, his arched eyebrows and racially-ambiguous appearance never pointed to a specific human culture he had ancestry from. 

Wakanda Forever takes a much firmer stance. It rewrites his comics origin by making him the protector of an Indigenous community in the Yucatan. Known to his people as K’uk’ulkan, the Sub-Mariner got the name “Namor” when a Spanish missionary called him “el niño sin amor.” Thus, Namor’s Indigenous background is an integral part of his character in the MCU. Beyond the fact that Tenoch Huerta, an Indigenous actor, plays Namor, his politics, anxieties, and hopes for his people stem from his experiences with Spanish imperialism. 

This characterization of Namor is significant, because it echoes the principles that have guided X-Men comics for nearly 50 years now. While the X-Men had been around in Marvel Comics since 1963, they were revolutionized in the mid-1970s. Beginning with 1975’s Giant-Size X-Men #1 by Len Wein and Dave Cockrum, and continuing through writer Chris Claremont’s legendary X-Men and New Mutants runs, the X-Men focused heavily on the unique ethnic and cultural backgrounds of its characters.

Previously, the team had been largely white American. However, with the introduction of mutants from around the world like Storm (of Kenyan descent), Colossus (Russian), and Nightcrawler (a Catholic from Germany), in addition to Indigenous mutants like Thunderbird (Apache), the X-Men found their footing with a more diverse cast. While the cast of Giant-Size X-Men may not seem as diverse by 2022 standards, it was revolutionary at the time to feature Russian and German characters who weren’t villains. 

By approaching Marvel’s Merry Mutants through a culturally-conscious lens, X-Men comics tied mutant identity to contemporary political issues. Since mutations either manifested from birth, or later in life in response to extreme stress, they came to reflect unique problems faced by marginalized groups. For instance, New Mutants member Karma (Xi’an Coy Manh) gained her ability to possess people during the Vietnam War. She took control of a North Vietnamese soldier who was about to kill her younger brother. For many X-Men characters, their mutant identities and marginalized identities are deeply entwined. By grounding mutants within the lived experiences of people from around the world, Claremont’s X-Men illustrated how mutant identity was not monolithic. 

And yet, this straightforward handling of Namor’s cultural background is something the X-Men films have largely shied away from. With the exception of Magneto, a Jewish Holocaust survivor, the X-Men films left out the comics’ emphasis on cultural specificity. Banshee, an Irish mutant whose wife died in Northern Ireland during the Troubles, was American in X-Men: First Class. More troublingly, Sunspot, an Afro-Brazilian mutant who got his powers while defending himself from anti-Black racism, has never been played by an Afro-Brazilian actor. Beyond just whitewashing, the omission of these characters’ identities also omits their political perspectives as mutants. Thus, the discourse in the Fox films is limited by a white American sense of homogeny. 

As such, the MCU should use Wakanda Forever’s vision of Namor as the basis for assembling its X-Men cast. Fox’s X-Men films went astray when they stopped exploring the complexities in the fight for liberation. This is the essential drama of the comics, and the essential drama of Wakanda Forever. Magneto may be a standout character, as a radical militant Holocaust survivor, but he’s so much better when he’s in the company of other mutants whose identities enrich the metaphor. By taking a culturally-conscious route, the MCU’s X-Men can embody the comics’ most radical idea. A diverse group of marginalized people can lead the world to a better place, without flattening out the differences between them. 

Overall, Wakanda Forever proves that the MCU can handle topics like imperialism and genocide in a setting that is both fantastical and politically engaged. These elements are also the core of Marvel’s current era of X-Men comics. The radical reimagining of Namor proves the MCU has the capacity to fully commit to the cultural specificities guiding X-Men. But more than that, it can truly thrive when it embraces complexity over uniformity.

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Black Panther: Wakanda Forever may have introduced Namor as its most nuanced villain yet. But it also revealed the true villain of this next phase of the MCU: CIA director Valentina Allegra de Fontaine. First appearing in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, de Fontaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) has been a mysterious figure. She brought characters like U.S. Agent and Black Widow’s Yelena Belova to her Thunderbolts team. This is similar to how Nick Fury appeared in post-credit scenes in Phase One MCU films, leading to the first Avengers team in the MCU. But as Wakanda Forever shows, Valentina Allegra de Fontaine is actually the next big villain in the MCU. 

Wakanda Forever captures Black Panther’s nation at a watershed moment in international politics. The nation’s secret supply of vibranium now public information. And imperial superpowers like the United States want to obtain the most valuable natural resource in the world. Tensions escalate further when the US blames Wakanda for attacking an American ship that was looking for vibranium. As it turns out, the technology powering the Americans’ search came from 19-year-old Riri Williams (Dominique Thorne). This has placed her in the sights of both Wakanda and the underwater kingdom of Talokan. With Wakanda’s public image under threat, the nation’s only foreign ally is CIA agent Everett Ross (Martin Freeman), the ex-husband of de Fontaine. 

The film’s biggest battles are fought between Shuri’s Wakanda and Namor’s Talokan; however, their real enemy is Valentina Allegra de Fontaine. Both Shuri and Namor fear that their nations will be exploited by Western powers for their vibranium. We soon discover that their fears are valid. Valentina Allegra de Fontaine later explosively admits in a very MCU-villany way that she “dreams” of a world where the United States controls the global supply of vibranium. In a meeting with her colleagues at the CIA, including Ross, de Fontaine is eager to go to war with Wakanda if it means gaining their vibranium. As such, Wakanda Forever paints de Fontaine’s true motivations as deeply imperialistic. 

While imperialism isn’t new in the MCU, de Fontaine’s embodiment of it is. Previously, the MCU has represented imperialism through aliens like Thanos and Thor: Ragnarok’s Hela. Despite their horrifying actions, these villains’ imperialism was presented with a degree of removal because of the fact that they weren’t human. It’s easier to ignore the similarities between Thanos’ paternalistic rhetoric in Avengers: Infinity War and the United States’ history when the former is an eight foot tall alien with purple skin. This violent human operation can be dismissed as pure fiction. 

But Valentina Allegra de Fontaine is drastically different for one reason: she’s human. And more than that, her appearance goes against the villainy that the MCU has conditioned fans to recognize. De Fontaine’s purple streak of hair, “girlboss” attitude, and performance by Julia Louis-Dreyfus lulls fans into a false sense of security. She’s quirky, so she can’t be that evil, even if she’s the director of the CIA, right? How bad can Elaine from Seinfeld be when U.S. Agent is running around murdering people in broad daylight? 

And this is precisely the point. By dressing up de Fontaine’s imperialism under the guise of a quirky white American woman, Wakanda Forever continues Black Panther’s damning exposé of audience expectations. Neither Namor nor Killmonger were the true villains of either Black Panther film. The common evil denominator is US imperialism. Agent Ross admitted that Killmonger learned how to enter and destabilize countries like Wakanda from the American military. Namor is only at war with Wakanda because an American ship of Navy SEALs threatened his underwater kingdom, and blamed it on Wakanda. 

De Fontaine’s grinning face and affinity for Peloton is a veneer that places her squarely within a recognizable world for the audience. In doing so, Wakanda Forever makes a point to say that this villain is more like us than we want to admit to. While Tony Stark was having anxiety attacks in Iron Man 3 about the Chitauri invasion from Avengers, a real threat to global stability was percolating in Virginia. Audiences were taught to fear Ultron and other robots because of their callous nature and capacity for violence. But we see those same behaviors by de Fontaine in Wakanda Forever. The call is coming from inside the house. 

This change breaks a crucial rule about the MCU’s representation of the American government. Before, in films like Captain America: The Winter Soldier, villains in the US government were “bad apples” in a good bunch. Robert Redford’s Alexander Pierce is a uniquely bad person within the World Security Council. He’s an evil that “good” people like SHIELD director Nick Fury must balance out. Pierce was an anomaly working covertly within the system for nefarious purposes, but de Fontaine is much different. She’s an evil person with support and subsequent enablement by the system and American foreign policy.

De Fontaine isn’t unique. She’s simply a reflection of American interests in the twenty-first century. It is fitting then that she is the one who handcuffs Ross, the only “good” CIA agent, in his own home for his treasonous decision to aid the Wakandans. The role that de Fontaine plays in Wakanda Forever hints at the important shift for women in the MCU’s future. Though the MCU has more female heroes, Valentina Allegra de Fontaine’s turn as a villain is refreshing.

In many ways, de Fontaine is the foil of Lupita Nyong’o’s Nakia, an early advocate for Wakanda’s global outreach programs. In this sense, characters’ feelings towards vibranium are now the perfect litmus test for separating the good from the bad. By revealing to the world the secret behind their technological innovation, Wakanda learned who their true enemies are. And as Wakanda Forever evidences, they are much closer than they thought. Let’s see how de Fontaine plays into Phase 5 of the MCU.

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Namor is the latest character to join the Marvel Cinematic Universe with Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. And his arrival heralds a change in the type of characters that Marvel Studios chooses to spotlight. Known in the comics as the half-human ruler of Atlantis, Namor the Sub-Mariner occupies a unique place in the Marvel universe. It is certainly one that Wakanda Forever takes advantage of, giving Namor an air of untouchability that separates him from Marvel’s street-level heroes. Namor’s Atlantean background is different in the MCU; however, his new origin story hints at how the MCU will present characters in the future. By emphasizing Namor’s power as a mythological being, Wakanda Forever affirms that speculative storytelling is the way of its future.

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever follows the late King T’Challa’s sister, Shuri, and her mother, Queen Ramonda. They, along with the nation of Wakanda, try to heal from their family’s losses in a rapidly changing world. Wakanda Forever details the country’s new place in geopolitics after T’Challa’s decision to reveal their technological innovation to the world. Western powers like the United States and France want nothing more than to plunder Wakanda’s vibranium.

These outsiders even have covert missions to try to locate sources of the precious metal around the world. But when Namor and the vibranium-rich kingdom of Talokan strike back against these Western powers, Shuri and Ramonda must make a choice. They will either join him or remain isolated for their own protection. And, through Shuri’s interactions with him, we uncover the full scope of his mythological background—one that informs the story in a fresh way.

One of the most distinctive aspects about Marvel Comics and the Marvel Cinematic Universe is its emphasis on the folk over the mythic. Many parts of the superhero genre are rooted in classical archetypes; however, Marvel Comics’ emphasis on character relatability has driven its success for the past sixty years. It is the foundation for why everyman heroes like Spider-Man have become such pop culture juggernauts.

Audiences can better imagine themselves in outlandish fantasy settings when the characters seem plucked from everyday life. This has only been accelerated by the success of the MCU. Even Thor, a Norse god, can be a bro playing Fortnite in his sweats. And the MCU’s more far-fetched teams like Guardians of the Galaxy still feature grounded elements. Its cybernetically-enhanced raccoon has a voice like Joe Pesci and its half-human leader is bad at dancing. 

And yet, 2021’s Eternals saw the MCU moving towards a more mythic tone with characters who are firmly god-like. Rather than being your next door neighbor, the Eternals are the basis for the oldest and most persistent myths in human history. The collective wonders if their love for humanity, with all of its flaws, can overcome their cosmic programming. These are problems no ordinary human would ever have to think about. But relatability should never be the primary metric for a story’s effectiveness. Eternals remains a divisive film between critics, fans of the comics, and MCU fans, precisely because its perspective is quite different from other films in the franchise. However, Wakanda Forever shows that this shift will continue to take the MCU to new heights. 

By introducing Namor, the MCU doubles down on its commitment to mythic elements. It’s a decision that will test whether or not the franchise can thrive without underhanded reliability at its core. Mythic characters are significant not just because they contrast the humanity of folk heroes like Spider-Man. They are also vital because they are built on possibility, rather than plausibility. Whether or not a mutant like Namor could exist is negligible in the world of the MCU. Mythic stories are more concerned with exploring the limits of possibility, rather than explaining their inner logic. As such, it’s not an accident that a mythic character like Namor appears in Wakanda Forever. He echoes the spirit of possibility that Black Panther: Wakanda Forever’s characters and world are guided by.

The decision to create a new kingdom for Namor based in Mayan culture is a sign of how the MCU will continue to approach mythic stories. As Namor explains in the film, Talokan was born out of the atrocities of Spanish imperialism. Its formation was a last-ditch effort by his people to save themselves from the diseases that the Spanish had brought. Thus, Talokan’s secrecy is how Namor protects his people from genocide. His whispered, rumored status in the surface world isn’t just an aesthetic exercise or a facet of his personality. It’s an illustration of how the mythic as an idea can be reimagined as an anti-imperialist tool.

As such, between Wakanda Forever and Eternals, the MCU is using mythic characters to illustrate the weight of collective problems that go beyond asking your crush to the homecoming dance. For many people, the greatest threat imaginable isn’t a purple alien with a cosmic glove. It is the pervasive reality of state-sanctioned imperialism.

The MCU has been enormously successful because of its relatable characters. But the realms of possibility put forth by Namor in Wakanda Forever set a new bar for how the MCU can reinvent itself in the future. If the MCU is to remain fresh, it must require its fans to choose possibility over plausibility. If this continues, the combination of myth and the MCU might lead to its best era yet.

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Werewolf by Night is the latest Marvel Comics character to enter the MCU. His body horror-filled Disney+ special provides the perfect template for the introduction of the Fantastic Four. Fans are eagerly awaiting the MCU debut of Marvel’s first superhero team, especially given their spotty history on-screen thus far. And as Werewolf by Night shows, the MCU could nail a Fantastic Four reboot by leaning into the more horrific parts of their stories. 

Werewolf by Night’s use of body horror isn’t unprecedented in the superhero genre. In fact, body horror is an essential force guiding fans’ conceptions of superheroes like the Fantastic Four. The superhero genre, at its core, whether through comics, film, or television, focuses around the body. As the lowest common denominator between character and fan, the body connects the outlandish adventures of superheroes to the regular people who find them fascinating. It’s what makes the sight of bullets ricocheting off of Superman’s unperturbed face so impactful. Audiences know the fragility of their own human flesh. In this way, the superhero genre takes what is ordinary and transforms it into the extraordinary, and occasionally, the monstrous.

As such, the Fantastic Four are the definitive Marvel Comics team. The group represents the genre’s emphasis on the body. Created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby in 1961, they embody the core tenets that guided Marvel Comics during the creatively fruitful Silver Age of Comics. The team is led by Mr. Fantastic (Reed Richards), one of the smartest men in the Marvel Universe, who can stretch his body in superhuman ways. His wife, the Invisible Woman (Sue Storm), can generate force-fields in addition to making herself invisible. Sue’s brother, The Human Torch (Johnny Storm), can turn his body into a flying ball of fire. The Thing (Ben Grimm), a towering rock monster with super strength on par with the Hulk, rounds out the team. And while the Hulk can transform back into his human self as Bruce Banner, the Thing is permanently stuck in this form.

Unlike popular comics heroes such as Superman, Wonder Woman, and Captain Marvel (later known as Shazam), the Fantastic Four were not classical hero archetypes from myths and magic. Instead, they were decidedly modern heroes, with a heavy scientific influence that spoke to mid-century technological advancement. With the Fantastic Four, Marvel Comics hammered out a thesis that would define their heroes for the rest of the century: heroes are made, not born. 

The Fantastic Four’s unique DNA as superheroes builds from their origin story, which later became the blueprint for Marvel’s superheroes going forward. As depicted in Kirby and Lee’s Fantastic Four #1, the group embarked on a trip to research “cosmic rays” in space. When their spaceship collided with the cosmic storm, the rays breached the hull of the ship. They then passed through each member. After their ship crashed, the members emerged with horrifying superpowers. As such, the circumstances of the Fantastic Four’s origin not only reflected the Cold War’s Space Race, but also a world where humanity’s technological prowess could lead to irreversible bodily change.

With this in mind, it isn’t difficult to see how Werewolf by Night stems from the Fantastic Four’s legacy. Partway through the special, Gael García Bernal’s Jack Russell transforms into his werewolf form. The camera focuses on Elsa Bloodstone (Laura Donnelly’s) terrified expression as the monster’s shadow dances across the wall behind her. This mimics the effect of Fantastic Four #1. In the issue, both character and reader unite in shared shock as Ben Grimm’s human face permanently transforms into the Thing. Even as Werewolf by Night runs through superhero theatrics, dispatching bad guys with balletic grace, he remains unquestionably a monster. And like the Fantastic Four, his monstrosity isn’t an innate quality, but something that happens to him, against his will. To watch Werewolf by Night, or to read Fantastic Four, is to bear witness to the ambiguous separations between superheroism and monstrosity. 

This theme of superhoism and monstrosity is another key element to the Fantastic Four’s identities. Werewolf by Night excellently pilots this by hitting familiar fight sequence beats through a stylized Universal monster look. With this unabashed indulgence in the legacy of monster movies, Marvel Studios proves it’s ready to tackle the most central question of the Fantastic Four as a group: is all heroism itself a form of monstrosity?

The Fantastic Four’s previous adaptations have fallen short of addressing this question, and have suffered for it. This powerful question challenges fans’ understanding of how heroism works in the MCU. One of the most iconic shots in the Captain America movies reveals Steve Rogers’ chiseled form after Dr. Erskine injects him with the Super Soldier Serum in Captain America: The First Avenger. The heroic music and awestruck looks from the people in the room fill the scene with a sense of benevolence, rather than horror.

Seeing skinny Steve Rogers transformed into a muscular hunk through the miracle of science sets the stage for the MCU’s handling of bodily change and heroism. His physical exceptionalism is intended to be seen as an expression of his noble ideals. In other words, he’s a hero because he’s different, while still remaining familiar enough that he isn’t seen as threatening or villainous.

The Fantastic Four don’t have this luxury. Their freakishness can enhance the MCU’s heroic diversity if Marvel Studios applies the same level of commitment seen in Werewolf by Night. While audiences have accepted an alien tree and a talking raccoon as valid superheroes, the Fantastic Four illustrate the visceral costs and conditions to being a superhero that other characters in the MCU simply don’t experience. The Super Soldier Serum may have rapidly transformed Captain America, but his handsome face and muscles makes him easily accepted by society. On the other hand, the Thing’s civilian identity as Ben Grimm functionally died the day that cosmic rays hit him. He can’t exist in public without people seeing him as a monster, or as a superhero. The Thing is unrecognizable to those who knew him as Ben Grimm.

Likewise, in one striking moment in Daredevil #261 by Ann Nocenti and John Romita Jr., the Human Torch describes the terror he feels every time he fires up his powers, not knowing if this time, his superpowers will simply burn him alive. Body horror is built into who the Fantastic Four are as superheroes. Building their MCU debut around this concept will invite fans to consider heroism within a more critical lens. 

The Fantastic Four are at their best when their stories take the weight of their experiences and bodily changes into account. Though buzzwords and concepts like the multiverse are all the rage right now in the MCU, it shouldn’t distract from the simple, human truth that the Fantastic Four have brought to Marvel Comics. The group shows that heroism can be an intensely isolating experience. It’s not always something chosen by those “gifted” with superpowers. The Fantastic Four have bravely been the face of the fine line between freakishness and heroism in Marvel Comics. By digging into this part of their story, Marvel Studios has the chance to finally give the group the adaptation they deserve.

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Marvel Studios’ latest release, Werewolf by Night, introduces a horde of new characters into the MCU, including the famed monster hunter, Elsa Bloodstone. As Marvel Studios’ first unabashed horror project, Werewolf by Night lays the foundations for further explorations into the genre. With films like Blade on the horizon, the MCU will need to dig deeply into Marvel Comics lore to make this next chapter fully fleshed out. Though fans are accustomed to more traditional modes of heroism with the Avengers, projects such as Werewolf by Night will provide the necessary connective tissue to these next stages in the MCU.

Directed by composer Michael Giacchino, Werewolf by Night is an hour-long special on Disney+ centering on the titular lycanthrope. Gael Garcia Bernal stars as Jack Russell, a man cursed with lycanthropy who convenes with other monster hunters at Bloodstone Manor, presumably the home of Elsa Bloodstone (Laura Donnelly). Shot in black and white, with a distinct style that harkens back to 1930s horror movies, Werewolf by Night is a celebration of Marvel Comics’ under-appreciated horror legacy. 

Part of that legacy includes Elsa Bloodstone, a monster hunter associated with the supernatural. Essentially, Elsa Bloodstone is Buffy Summers meets Lara Croft. As a member of the Bloodstone family, Elsa’s lore runs deep in the Marvel Universe. Her father, Ulysses Bloodstone, bequeathed his powerful Bloodgem fragment to Elsa, giving her enhanced physical abilities. Like Lara Croft, Elsa’s journey has taken her all over the world, and like Buffy Summers, vampires are among her greatest enemies. Bloodstone will likely play an important role in linking together Marvel’s future horror outings, as she has ties to everyone from Doctor Strange, to Black Knight, to Ghost Rider, to Blade. 

Elsa Bloodstone’s comics set a solid foundation for where the MCU could go next. One of her most recent appearances was in the 2021 Black Knight: Curse of the Ebony Blade series by Simon Spurrier and Sergio Davila. There, Elsa came to the aid of Dane Whitman’s Black Knight, a notoriously incompetent hero who wields one of the most powerful weapons in the Marvel Universe: the Ebony Blade. The two fought Mordred, the bastard son of King Arthur, with Elsa chastising Whitman for his poor weapons skills. The Ebony Blade feeds off of the negative energy of whoever wields it, making it dangerous in the hands of the inexperienced.

This makes Elsa not only a seasoned pro at taking down supernatural or magical threats, but an important source of knowledge for other Marvel Comics characters. She’s not an ordinary person thrown into extraordinary circumstances, like Peter Parker or Steve Rogers. Elsa Bloodstone was born to see the world in its horrific clarity with her monster hunting family.

As such, the release of Werewolf By Night sets up a possible Elsa Bloodstone and Black Knight team-up in the MCU. Last year’s Eternals introduced Kit Harrington’s Black Knight, along with the Ebony Blade in a post-credits scene. Like Dane Whitman in the comics, the MCU’s version of the character is clueless about the weapon that he holds. This could give Elsa Bloodstone a perfect chance to come to his aid. Presumably, the MCU’s Dane Whitman lacks any combat skills too, putting Elsa in the position to teach him everything he needs to know. Thus far, Dane Whitman has only dealt with powerful godlike figures from space. Teaming up with human characters like Elsa Bloodstone would integrate him with Marvel’s other street-level heroes. 

Black Knight is far from the only character that Elsa Bloodstone has connections to in the comics. Werewolf By Night also sets up her tie to Blade and the supernatural Midnight Sons team. In the past, Elsa has been a member of the Midnight Sons, alongside Blade; Man-Thing; Doctor Voodoo (also known to fans as Brother Voodoo); Moon Knight; Iron Fist; and Ghost-Rider. The Midnight Sons are usually led by Blade, and most of its members are characters emblematic of Marvel’s dark supernatural bent in the 1970s.

This year, Marvel relaunched and renamed the title as The Midnight Suns, featuring a brand new lineup with Blade as their leader. And while Elsa is not on this new Midnight Suns team, Marvel’s history of brand synergy points to the possibility that the Blade film could introduce the team, with her as one of its members. The MCU has found success with aesthetically-distinct groups like the Guardians of the Galaxy. And a new Midnight Sons team could shake up a universe that is feeling more and more formulaic to fans. 

Thus far, the MCU has established its signature brand of quippy sci-fi action. But this has barely scratched the surface of its comics universe. Elsa Bloodstone’s MCU debut opens doors to a much darker side of comics rarely seen in adaptations. Considering that the MCU has made unapologetically “comic-book” concepts like Infinity Stones part of mainstream pop culture, it’s time the oddballs of Marvel Comics get their due.

Moreover, Elsa Bloodstone’s debut points to a promising future for horror directors and creators in the MCU. While the MCU has flirted with the genre in the past, most notably with Sam Raimi’s Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, characters like Elsa Bloodstone, Werewolf by Night, and Blade require an extra sense of commitment to the genre in order to shine. Werewolf By Night is clearly a love letter to horror and horror comics. And if the MCU wishes to continue this ethos in the future, it should bring the wonderful world of Elsa Bloodstone to life.

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HBO’s Game of Thrones prequel series, House of the Dragon, adapts George R. R. Martin’s book, Fire & Blood. The stories leads to one of the most brutal chapters in Westeros’ history: the Dance of the Dragons. Introducing a new group of Targaryen characters and their various allies and enemies in Westeros, House of the Dragon depicts the Targaryens at their most powerful, almost two centuries before the events of the original Game of Thrones show. 

The Dance of the Dragons was a civil war that sprung up over succession to the Iron Throne. It is one of the precipitating events that eventually brought down the power of House Targaryen in Westeros. Princess Rhaenyra, the heir appointed by King Viserys, battled for the right to rule. And while disputes of succession are by no means new to the world of Game of Thrones, the Dance of the Dragons revealed how hostile Westeros was to the idea of a female ruler. Even though Princess Rhaenyra established herself as the most level-headed option for King Viserys’ heir, the king’s male children from his second marriage to Alicent Hightower further muddied the waters of succession to the Iron Throne. 

So far, HBO’s adaptation of Fire & Blood has stayed largely faithful to the book. However, it lacks one specific aspect that enhances the story’s focus on how society stifles women in positions of power. Fire & Blood, unlike other Game of Thrones books, is an oral history. Instead of following the story from different characters’ perspectives, Fire & Blood offers a macro view of how narratives of the past are constructed, and the political ends that they can serve. This is apparent when the narrator reveals that two different historical accounts exist for the Dance of the Dragons, one written by Maester Eustace, and the other written by a court fool named Mushroom.

Maester Eustace’s account is a sober recollection of House Targaryen’s fall; Mushroom’s is a deeply sensationalized look at Princess Rhaenyra’s life in particular. In turn, this is a perfect framework for the story of House Targaryen, because of how morally complex many of the characters are. With the narrator unsure of which version of history is true, the book leaves it to the reader to determine how much they want to believe from either one. 

This discrepancy comes to a head when the scheming Prince Daemon, brother of King Viserys and uncle of Princess Rhaenyra, returns to King’s Landing. The narrator admits that the history gets muddled between Maester Eustace and Mushroom’s accounts. According to Maester Eustace, Daemon “seduced his niece the princess and claimed her maidenhood,” leading Rhaenyra to later tell her father that she was in love with Daemon. Mushroom, on the other hand, wrote that Rhaenyra longed for Ser Criston Cole, her personal guard, leading Daemon to teach her how to seduce men. This involved sneaking the princess out of the castle and into the Street of Silk, King’s Landing’s red light district. Rhaenyra then tried to seduce Criston Cole, only to have him reject her. Mushroom’s story soon came to light, and Viserys denied his daughter’s wrongdoing before Daemon confirmed that it was true. 

House of the Dragon settles this debate by adapting many details from Mushroom’s account. The main difference is Criston Cole accepted Rhaenyra’s advances. In doing so, it tacitly accepts Mushroom’s version as the truth, without interrogating the political ends the story had in the first place. After all, it was Mushroom who leaked Rhaenyra’s purported activities to the court. Clearly men, including Daemon, had much to gain from sullying the princess’ image. 

The show did try to replicate the discrepancies in the book. We see it in a scene where Queen Alicent confronts Rhaenyra about her rumored activities with Daemon. However, it falls short of presenting the most central fact of Fire & Blood: the hindsight of men forges history. Rather than unfolding in the present through a neutral party, the history of Fire & Blood frequently presents as a collaborative project, one in which the readers themselves are complicit. Fire & Blood pulls readers in to teach them the early history of House Targaryen. Then, it shows them the patchwork of lies and incomplete truths governing the narrative. In the end, they walk away with no definitive account of what really happened. In this sense, Fire & Blood is less a history of House Targaryen, and more a portrait of the construction of history in Westeros in the first place. 

This lack of subjectivity in House of the Dragon is intriguing, given that so much of the show’s themes circle around the subjugation of women like Rhaenyra. By leaving out the roles that Maester Eustace and Mushroom played in documenting the history of House Targaryen, House of the Dragon misses the book’s most damning revelation: even at the height of their power, House Targaryen was never in control of their own narrative. As they terrorized Westeros with their display of dragons and military might, the Targaryens’ power eroded from the inside thanks to men with political agendas watching their every move. While it may be easy to wipe out entire armies full of men with a dragon, not even the Targaryens could extinguish a story spread by men like Maester Eustace and Mushroom. 

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Netflix’s The Sandman is a loving tribute to the original comic published by DC Comics’ Vertigo imprint. Many of its characters remain consistent from page to screen, even if their genders are different in the show. In a world where comics and their Hollywood adaptations have never felt more separate, The Sandman’s attention to detail in regards to its source material feels revolutionary. In one instance, The Sandman tucks in a deep cut from John Constantine’s Hellblazer comics. This small yet vital mention adds another heartbreaking dimension to one of the series’ saddest moments. 

The Sandman adapts the comic written by Neil Gaiman, with art by Sam Kieth, Kelley Jones, Mike Dringenberg, Shawn McManus, Colleen Doran, and more. The story chronicles the journey of Dream (Tom Sturridge), also known as Morpheus of the Endless. Dream is responsible for protecting a space known as The Dreaming, a place of infinite possibility and power channeled from the dreams of humanity. Dream is captured and imprisoned for a period of one hundred years on Earth. After this, The Dreaming falls into disrepair, with Dream’s objects of office—a helm, the ruby Dreamstone, and a pouch of sand—scattered across the Earth and in Hell. As Dream sets off to recover each object one by one, he comes across a powerful, irreverent magic user named Johanna Constantine (Jenna Coleman) who is in possession of his sand pouch. 

Johanna Constantine is based off of the occult detective John Constantine. His appearances in the Sandman comics and in his Hellblazer solo series paint him as a deeply flawed yet charming master manipulator. Magicians are often portrayed as wise and noble in traditional English fantasy stories; however, Constantine is the dramatic opposite. He’s foul-mouthed, difficult to trust, and cursed with an uncanny ability to make terrible decisions impacting his loved ones. Johanna Constantine is canonically John’s ancestor from the 18th century in DC Comics. But Coleman’s portrayal in The Sandman is the most faithful adaptation of the character in live-action. 

This faithfulness to both Constantine’s character and Hellblazer comics is heartbreakingly clear in episode three of the Sandman TV series. In “Dream A Little Dream of Me,” a deep cut reference cements Constantine’s tragic love life. Johanna retrieves Dream’s sand pouch from the apartment of her ex-girlfriend, Rachel (Eleanor Fanyinka). While there, Johanna’s former flame reveals that she called up several of her exes in order to find Johanna. This list includes Oliver, a reference to the Constantine: the Hellblazer comics series by Ming Doyle, James Tynion IV, and Riley Rossmo. In this comic series, John Constantine dated a man of the same name. Oliver met a terrible fate after he made a deal with a demon to condemn his soul to Hell in exchange for the safety of his two daughters. It is a tragic end that is unfortunately common for many of Constantine’s lovers. 

Referencing this particular moment in Constantine’s publication history is significant. It underscores The Sandman’s commitment to its source material as well as the queerness of its characters. John Constantine is one of the most high profile bisexual characters in DC Comics. And the Constantine: the Hellblazer series (2015-2016) remains the most thorough exploration of his queer sexuality in comics. Taking an element of Constantine: the Hellblazer and putting it into The Sandman affirms the show’s depth of lore. And it also cements Oliver and John’s relationship as an indispensable part of his persona.

The Sandman placing this relationship within the context of Johanna and Rachel’s story makes it even more heartbreaking. The version of Rachel that Johanna had been speaking to was later revealed to be an illusion. The real Rachel lays wasting away in her bed, her body emaciated from holding onto Dream’s sand pouch. It’s a cruel reminder to Constantine that her magical prowess always has an adverse effect on the people around her. Johanna thought she was protecting Rachel by vanishing from her life. But she ended up inadvertently dooming Rachel anyway, just as John did with Oliver in Constantine: the Hellblazer. 

By reimagining John Constantine as Johanna in the show, The Sandman queers his original relationship with Rachel. But this happens while also providing a callback to the comics run that radically reimagined his character in the 21st century. This establishes Constantine’s bisexuality in the most Hellblazer way possible, as the phantasm of a former lover lays out the tragic timeline of Constantine’s past.

The Sandman’s Oliver seems to have escaped his sad comics fate; however, viewers never truly know what happened between him and Johanna. Regardless, The Sandman makes it clear that Oliver still remains a ghostly presence in this iteration of Constantine’s life, a fact that haunts both comics fans and now emergent fans of the show. 

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