Will Dr. Ben Song Return Home? - Quantum Leap Canceled By NBC

By Brandon T. McClure

“Dr. Sam Beckett never returned home.”

So ends the final episode of Quantum Leap in 1993. One of the most heartbreaking endings in television history as the entire premise of the show was built around the hope that Dr. Beckett (Scott Bakula) would find a way home. It is apparently the fate of all Leapers to never find their way home as, more than thirty years later, Dr. Ben Song (Raymond Lee) will suffer the same fate. As Quantum Leap fans found out on April 5, 2024, the sequel series of the same name has been canceled by NBC.

Originally created by Donald P. Bellisario in 1989, Quantum Leap aired for five seasons on NBC and followed the time traveling trials of Dr. Sam Beckett as he attempted to put events right that originally went wrong. Thirty years after the show's cancellation in 1993, Steven Lilien and Bryan Wynbrandt revived the show with a new cast of characters and a new leaper, Dr. Ben Song. Together with his friends in the present, including his hologram and fiancé Addison Augustine (Caitlin Bassett), he attempts to put right what once went wrong, all the while trying to discover the larger mysteries surrounding the Quantum Leap program.

There have been talks of a new Quantum Leap series for decades and at one point Bellisario had suggested a movie could come to fruition. Ever since the finale's title card, fans had been hoping that someday Sam Beckett could return home. Practically every convention or public appearance made by the cast or Bellisario had them saying “maybe”. But that changed after the death of Dean Stockwell who played Sam’s best friend and hologram Al. It was Bakula’s belief that there was no Quantum Leap without Stockwell’s Al. But shortly after Stockwell’s death, NBC ordered a revival of the cult classic series centered around a new Leaper. Fans had wondered if Bakula would return but he set the record straight just before the new series began airing. Before the series aired Scott Bakula confirmed that he would not be returning, leaving the new show with a large shadow hanging over it. But the show prevailed and was able to find a dedicated audience, admittedly not a large one. While the first season wasn’t the smash success that NBC was surely hoping for, it was successful enough to get a second season.

Unlike the original show, this new Quantum Leap leaned on serialized storytelling, in order for it to compete in age of streaming television. The first season centered around the mystery surrounding his fiancé, Addison’s future death. Ben had somehow manipulated his leaps to arrive at the point where he could save her life. The second season found Ben at the whim of Ziggy, the supercomputer that seemingly controlled the leaps through time. Through the season Ben unknowingly manipulated the life of a a young woman named Hannah Carson (Eliza Taylor ).

Quantum Leap quite brilliantly began to implement a story that was reminiscent of the Doctor and River Song’s story from Doctor Who. Ben had told her who he was and she would help him through his leaps. All the while, Hannah was working on something in the background as her knowledge in quantum physics grew. She appears in many of the episodes of the second season, and audiences began to wonder if she would discover how to bring Ben back to his own time. As it turns out, she had created a code that would help Ben in the future, but it didn’t bring him home,. Instead, it brought Addison to him in the past. The finale of the second season set up a third season where Addison and Ben would be reunited, leaping through time putting right what once went wrong. Interestingly enough this is not the first time this idea was presented.

In May of 2019 a video was uploaded to Reddit which confirmed that there was a filmed alternate ending, should the show be renewed for a sixth season. This alternate ending was going to send Al through the quantum accelerator to find Sam, who was now leaping through time as himself, rather than in the bodies of other people. This suggests that the sixth season would have Sam and Al leaping together through time, working as a team without the limitations of the hologram idea. Even though Bellisario is only an executive producer and not a creative voice on the show, his original idea (which he denies he had even, though there’s proof) still found its way into the new Quantum Leap writers room. This means that both shows were cancelled before this exciting idea could come to life.

But now the excitement has been replaced by disappointment as NBC has seen fit to cut its losses. The show struggled during its second season, like many shows, due to the studios’ greed driving the writers and actors of Hollywood to go on strike. Quantum Leap struggled in the ratings and will probably never receive the same cult-like fandom the original has, but it had fans and they deserved better. So like Dr. Sam Beckett before him, Dr. Ben Song never returned home.

Book Review/ "The Stardust Grail" by Yume Kitasei

The Stardust Grail
By Yume Kitasei
Published by: Flatiron Books
Publish Date: 6/11/24

I won’t bury the lead: I haven’t had this much fun with sci-fi in a while.

When it comes to sci-fi, I mostly consume it via movies and TV. I’m a huge Star Trek fan and a Star Wars fan to a lesser extent. I love my sci-fi mixed with horror à la The X-Files and The Twilight Zone. I also get a kick out of Rick and Morty, Back to the Future, and a bunch of other sci-fi films and TV shows. But, when it comes to reading, my consumption of the genre is mostly limited to novels set in the world of Star Trek and the military/horror/sci-fi Joe Ledger series by Jonathan Maberry.

Looking at my taste, however, it’s not surprising I enjoyed The Stardust Grail as much as I did. It’s not just a sci-fi novel. If I had to best describe this book, it’s Star Trek meets Star Wars meets the Indiana Jones franchise meets Ocean’s Eleven. This book has it all: action, adventure, space travel, alien species, and heists.

The story centers on Maya Hoshimoto, a young woman who group up on a human colony on a distant planet who was once the greatest thief in the galaxy. Maya has given up crime to move to Earth and study at university. But when her former partner, Auncle, a member of the alien species called the Frenro, shows up at Earth to enlist Maya’s help in getting back The Grail, a lost Frenro artifact that can save the species from extinction, Maya is pulled back in for one last job.

But wait! There’s more! The Frenro were once responsible for the building of the Intergalactic Web, a series of portals that makes space travel possible. Turns out, The Grail also helps them build those portals. And something is destroying the portals, threatening to cut humanity off from the rest of the galaxy. So, not only has Auncle asked Maya to help find The Grail, so has the Earth military, who want to keep the Grail themselves.

Besides the action and adventure, I really appreciated the depiction of Maya and Auncle’s friendship. The Frenro are one of the most alien extraterrestrial species I have seen depicted in a while. They aren’t humanoid. They have a very different society and culture than humans. One of the things I found interesting was the cross-species relationship, which was close and loving, but also difficult because of the differences.

The pace of the book is almost non-stop. Kitasei takes just the right amount of time to slow down for character moments to build the reader’s connection to the characters and their relationships to each other, but is quick to get back to the action. There are plenty of twists and surprises along the way as well, meaning the book never feels predictable.

While I am on the subject of twists and surprises, there is just one near the end that I didn’t like. It was a real “wait, what? Really?” moment. The good news is, it didn’t even put a dent in my overall enjoyment of the book. Neither did the very ending, which was very abrupt. I got to the last sentence and felt like there would be more, but there I was at the end. It threw me for a second.

I said it at the top of this review and I’ll repeat it here: this book is a blast. I didn’t want to put it down, even when I knew I had to get some sleep because I had to wake up early for work. Be sure to pick this one up when it comes out.

The End of The Tomorrowverse & The Future Of The DC Animated Original Movies

By Brandon T. McClure

For 17 years, Warner Bros. Animation and DC Entertainment have been releasing successful direct-to-video animated films through an imprint known as DC Animated Original Movies. These films were based on some of DC’s most iconic characters and comics. In 2020 they released Superman: Man of Tomorrow, a new adaptation of Superman’s origins that launched what would become known as the Tomorrowverse. Meant as a fresh start for the line of movies, the Tomorrowverse laid the groundwork for a new and unique take on DC’s most iconic characters. But after only four years, the Tomorrowverse is coming to an end, and it’s possible this may signal the end of the DC Animated Original Movies.

In 2007, Warner Bros. and DC Entertainment launched the DC Animated Original Movies line with the launch of Superman: Doomsday, a trimmed-down adaptation of The Death of Superman and The Return of Superman. The goal of this new line of films was to appeal to a more adult audience, often getting “PG-13” (and sometimes “R”) ratings and allowing for more faithful adaptations. With this new line of films animators, writers, and directors, could adapt comic storylines more faithfully than live-action films and shows, and represent the various art styles of the adapted comics. Many popular films came from this line including Justice League: Doom (which saw the return of many cast members of the Justice League animated show), All-Star Superman, Superman vs. The Elite, and many more. Save for a few exceptions, each film was a standalone movie, unconnected to any larger storyline. But that changed in 2013 with the release of Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox and the start of the DCAMU.

Bruce Timm has been working exclusively with DC Animation since 1993 and was one of the major producers of the DC Animated Original Movies. He wanted to take a step back to focus on Green Lantern: The Animated Series, so James Tucker came on board to produce the next film, Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox, and effectively took over from Timm. Tucker had been a part of DC Animation for many years at this point but suddenly found himself in charge of a new DC Universe. According to Tucker, Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox, based on the popular comic event Flashpoint, was initially going to be a standalone film but they learned pretty late into production that the “higher-ups” were interested in using the film to launch a series of interconnected films. This series would be dubbed the DCAMU and would go on to release 15 films, and 2 Constantine specials (one posthumously released in 2022 not produced by Tucker), including Justice League: War, Son of Batman, Death of Superman, Wonder Woman: Bloodlines, and more.

Constantine: The House of Mysteries - MAX

It’s important to note that the DCAMU, like many universe designations (Arrowverse, DCAU, etc.) is a fan name that only applies to a particular set of films. Between 2013 and 2020, Warner Bros. Animation released 23 direct-to-video animated films through the DC Animated Original Moves line, but only 16 (including the Constantine special), were part of the DCAMU. Batman: Assault On Arkham, Justice League: Gods and Monsters, Batman: The Killing Joke, and others were all released during the period of time that the DCAMU was running, but were not considered a part of the universe. The DCAMU had a distinct art style and saw most of their voice actors return throughout the entire run, which helped differentiate itself from the other films in the DC Animated Original Movies line.

The DCAMU ended up being a blessing for James Tucker in more ways than one. Before it, Warner Bros. was releasing three unique animated films every year, each by the same team of animators. Since the animation styles were often very different between films, the team would have to start from scratch each time. Creating a “house style” for a franchise allowed them to reuse character assets, which had the added benefit of cutting down on budget and time, and increasing the amount of films that could be released in a year. By 2018, they were releasing four films a year, which generally had one film be a standalone feature and the other three be part of the DCAMU. Probably the most important benefit of the DCAMU was that James Tucker was able to use the franchise as a way of introducing other characters. WB has always been hesitant to greenlight any movie that didn’t have “Batman” or “Justice League” in the title (This is a problem across DC as a whole). For reference, the DC Animated Original Movies have released 20 movies with “Batman” in the title, the most out of any character. With a franchise like the DCAMU, Tucker was able to introduce characters and spin them off into other films. This is how the likes of Justice League Dark, Suicide Squad: Hell To Pay, and Teen Titans: The Judas Contract were able to get made. In an interview with the Word Balloon podcast, after Justice League Dark: Apokolips War was released, he mentioned that it was important for him to showcase other characters, even though it was always a struggle to get them made.

Justice League Dark: Apokolips - MAX

Sometime before 2019 (the timeline is unclear, but likely 2017 or 2018), Tucker was told that the DCAMU would be coming to an end with the, already greenlit, Justice League Dark: Apokolips War. To this day, he claims he doesn’t know why the films ended and there has been no official word from WB. Critics and fans have thrown out ideas for why the DCAMU ended but most just say it was because “they were bad”, which is a ridiculous statement considering their Rotten Tomatoes scores were often within the “fresh” threshold. One theory suggested that the films ended because James Tucker stepped down, but he made it clear that it was not his plan to end. He likely used the ending as an excuse to step down and not the other way around. What’s more likely is that the sales weren’t what WB was interested in seeing. Only two of the nine films released between 2017 and 2020 grossed over $4 million in sales. 

To put this in perspective, the DC Animated Original Movies were relatively inexpensive to make. Each one would cost roughly $2 million or less, so $4 million is a profit for them. These films are also easy to market and repackage for continuous sales over long periods of time. What’s more, Warner Bros. streaming service, MAX (formerly HBO Max), could stream these movies till David Zazlov (head of WBD) wants to save some more taxes. So these films aren’t unprofitable or not successful, but there has been a significant downward trend. The most successful film they’ve ever made was Batman: Under the Red Hood in 2010, which made $12 million according to the-numbers.com. While some Batman films have gotten close to that number, the entries of the DCAMU never made it above $6 million and began to plummet in sales. The highest-grossing film was Son of Batman with $7 million in 2014 and the lowest-grossing entry was Wonder Woman: Bloodlines in 2019 with only $1.7 million. The hope with any film franchise is that there would be growth in sales, but if audiences were voting with their wallets, then it was pretty clear that interest in the DCAMU was waning.

Justice League: Warworld - MAX

Even so, James Tucker was just as surprised as anyone that the DCAMU was ending. He didn’t have a plan for one and was hoping that he could continue for many more years. He had hoped to one day get to do another Teen Titans film, but those desires had to be put aside. He had already gotten WB to greenlight a new Justice League Dark film and now had to find a way to turn that film into a universe-ending epic. Justice League Dark: Apokolips War starts after Darkseid has already taken over the world and many of Earth's heroes and villains have died. Constantine gets a team together for one last-ditch effort to destroy Darkseid and in the process frees the Justice League and the remaining heroes. But so much had already been lost in the battle so Constantine convinces Flash that the only way to fix everything is to reset the universe in the same way that he did during the Flashpoint (the events of Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox). It’s revealed in Constantine: House of Mystery (a short film released after the end of the DCAMU in 2022) that Constantine used his magic to help Flash, which made it so Darkseid couldn’t find the Earth in the new universe that would be created. Darkseid had been an ever-looming threat in the DCAMU, and this plan would allow the new universe a fighting chance, but it opened up Earth to a new, more dangerous enemy.

Regardless of why WB ended the DCAMU, plans began for a new universe that would be dubbed the Tomorrowverse. Named after the first film in the franchise, Superman: Man of Tomorrow, the Tomorrowverse began months after Justice League Dark: Apokolipse War. This new universe was spearheaded by Butch Lukic, Jim Krieg (who wrote Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox), and Kimberly S. Moreau. There was one big difference between the DCAMU and the Tomorrowverse that fans didn’t know, and that was it was always going to end. Butch Lukic told Cinemablend, in January of 2024, that “it was just preplanned. [It was] five, six years ago where we laid out 10 movies that we were gonna do. Because we were basically given 10 movies only, and then you’re out, you’re done.” This marks a stark contrast to the development of the DCAMU, which had no set ending until WB decided it was time.

During an interview with ComicBookMovie.com, Jim Krieg and Butch Lukic discussed what it was like to pitch the Tomorrowverse. “Butch and I had this idea that we would have a long time to build to Crisis,” Krieg said and added “I remember [Butch] and I talking to Sam Register (president of WB Animation) and saying, ‘Maybe we can have twenty films and then end in Crisis?’ I think he said, ‘How about three?’” Judging by this, Sam Register and WB Animation weren’t all that interested in another long-running universe. Krieg and his team went into the pitch meeting with the idea that they could have, at least, as many films as the DCAMU. Krieg told  ScreenRant that “we would have been happy to do 20. But when you want to do 20, and someone offers you 10, you'd say yes anyway," Krieg and his team were insistent and had big plans, but ten movies were all they could get. Butch lamented in the ComicBookMovie.com interview that he “originally wanted to keep doing a slow build with movies like [Batman:] The Long Halloween and [Superman:] Man of Tomorrow. I wanted to take as long as possible and once we gave them our pitch, they said they wanted Crisis involved and they wanted it done in ten movies. That’s why we had to fast-track some of these stories and build it towards this.” Through every interview, it’s clear that everyone is happy with how the Tomorrowverse has played out, but they had to condense 20 movies into 10.

Batman: The Long Halloween

Many of the criticisms that have been lobbied towards the Tomorrowverse make more sense with the realization that they only had ten films to work with. One of the issues that the series was plagued with was the quick-moving and eclectic way the story unfolded. It makes it very difficult for audiences to engage and get emotionally invested in characters and character arcs if the story isn’t properly unfolded. This is not to say that the Tomorrowverse doesn’t work. Many of these films are very good, despite the limitations (except Justice League: Warworld). Batman: The Long Halloween is a near-perfect adaptation of the comic it’s based on and Legion of Superheroes is a great story centered around Supergirl and her journey in the 31st century. The Tomorrowverse, while short, has been very good at utilizing characters outside of Batman and Superman. Characters like Green Lantern and the Justice Society don’t often get the same attention that DC’s heavy hitters do in animation, so it’s been great to have a franchise attempt to change that. As standalone films, they’re all strong features with good voice casts and expressive animation. The connections and the universe-building have just been the Tomorrowverse’s weakness. But, that said, Justice League: Crisis On Infinite Earths could make it all come together in the end as one complete ten-movie arc. It just feels like it’s ending before it even got to start.

Justice League: Crisis on Infinite Earths - Part 1

Justice League: Crisis On Infinite Earths is not the first time WB has adapted Marv Wolfman and George Perez’s seminal event. Famously, the Arrowverse aired a five-part adaptation on the CW that crossed over all their shows at the time (which ended up being the beginning of the end for them) in 2019. But Butch Lukic revealed to ScreenRant, that they’d been working on the animated version since before that by saying “we already were figuring out that we were going to do Crisis before they even were filming anything on their Crisis.” This lines up with what has been revealed about the timeline of when they were told how many films they would get and a particularly weird trend within WB at the time.

It appears that there was a point in WB’s history that saw many DC departments interested in adapting Crisis On Infinite Earths. From TV to animation, to movies, everyone was racing to get theirs made, and the Arrowverse was just the one to make it to the finish line. Before James Gunn and Peter Safran became the head of DC Studios, a man named Walter Hamada was the head of DC Films. After he exited the company in 2022 (in the wake of Batgirl’s tax write-off), The Hollywood Reporter found out that he had been mapping out a new trajectory for his DC films that would culminate in a big-screen adaptation of Crisis on Infinite Earths. Hamada was so confident in this plan that one of the filmed endings to The Flash (the movie) saw Barry receiving a call from Ben Affleck’s Batman that would reveal they were now on separate Earths. Sadly, the changing of the guard at DC meant that this plan was scrapped and a new ending was filmed (this is why the George Clooney ending exists).

While Krieg and his team may have known that an animated Crisis film would be the end of the Tomorrowverse back in 2019, fans did not. But rumors began swirling of the animated Crisis adaptation in 2021 when Journalist Matías Lértora tweeted “An animated TRILOGY adaptation of CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS is coming” and “It is expected that all the DC animated Universes will come together.” Finally, at the 2023 San Diego Comic-Con, it was revealed that 2024 will see two ambitious releases from the DC Animated Original Movies line, Watchmen, based on the Alan Morre and Dave Gibbons comic, and the rumored Justice League: Crisis On Infinite Earths. Only later was it revealed that Justice League: Crisis On Infinite Earths would be a three-part ending to the Tomorrowverse. No new information has been released about Watchmen at the time of this writing.

Justice League: Crisis on Infinite Earths - Part 2

The first part of Justice League: Crisis On Infinite Earths is out now (with part two out in April) and follows Flash as he travels through time and universes to try and stop an Anti-Matter wave that is destroying the multiverse with the help of the Justice League and alternate universe heroes. Matt Ryan’s Constantine makes a surprise appearance in the film to connect the Tomorrowverse to the DCAMU, which was alluded to in the aforementioned Constantine: House of Mystery. It seems that when Constantine and Flash changed the universe, they hid it from Darkseid but opened it up to a new threat, likely the Anti-Monitor, the villain of the original comic. While the first part of the rumor turned out to be true, it remains to be seen if the second part is. So far, no familiar heroes from other DC animated universes have popped up but Krieg and Lukic said to stay tuned. Indeed a rumor came about that suggested that Kevin Conroy had reprised his role as Batman for one last time in a future installment. 

One of the more fun aspects of animated shows crossing over is the opportunity to utilize the unique animation styles of the various shows (see any Teen Titans Go! crossover for examples). It’s now been confirmed that Will Friedle will reprise his role as Terry McGinnis/Batman from the wildly popular animated show Batman Beyond, in Justice League: Crisis On Infinite Earths - Part Two, but he will appear in the animation of the Tomorrowverse. It appears that, rather than having different universes represented by different animation styles, in order to celebrate the animated history of DC, the creators opted to keep it simple. It was likely more of a budget choice than a style choice, honestly. Besides, Justice League: Crisis on Infinite Earths needs to act as an ending to the Tomorrowverse first and foremost. While multiverse stories can be a fun way to celebrate the storied history of a property, they need to serve the story of the main characters they’re following. The allure of nostalgia is strong and this is something that multiverse stories often struggle with (see The Flash for examples).

When asked about the future, Krieg said that "whatever happened afterward would be someone else; a couple of producers would do another universe, which turned out to be the James Gunn-verse." It’s unclear what he means by this, however, when James Gunn was asked on Threads if Justice League: Crisis On Infinite Earths has anything to do with the start of his new DCU, Gunn simply said “They do not.” Considering the timing of his hiring and when these films would have been in production, it is very unlikely that he had anything to do with this. But there’s also the case of his plans for the DCU throughout all mediums. In his original announcement, Gunn stated “It's one of our jobs to make sure the DCU is connected in film, television, gaming, and animation. That the characters are consistent, played by the same actors, and it works within one story.” Gunn said this after implying that the disconnected nature of the various DC projects was diminishing the brand and many shows were canceled in the wake of his hiring. The question of what exactly he means has come up far more times than not. Does he mean that there will be entries in the DCU that are video games or animated films? Or does he mean that all future video games, animated films, and so on will be part of the DCU? The distinction is an important one, but not one that has been made.

To be clear, DC Animation isn’t going anywhere. Harley Quinn: The Animated Series is still a hugely popular MAX show, with a Kite Man spin-off on the way, and it’s just been announced that Gunn will produce a big-screen animated adaptation of Daniel Warren Johnson and Juan Gedeon's comic

The Jurassic League. They’re just now being developed by DC Studios, along with everything else DC-related. Gunn seems like he wants to keep the door open for unconnected stories, like The Batman Part II, but wants to make it clear to audiences that they are “Elseworlds” stories and not part of his DCU. So while there will be video games, animated shows, and movies connected to his DCU, that’s not all there will be. So there is still room for something like the DC Animated Original Movies, even though there might be a significant downsizing in the amount of films made. 

The DC Animated Original Movies are not huge releases for Warner Bros. and with studios insisting that physical media should die out, it’s not outside the realm of possibility that the line of films could be ending (whatever happened to that Milestone movie announced in 2021?). David Zaslav has come into Warner Bros. to clean house (and probably sell it for parts) and has become a ruthless player in the studio system. Not only has he canceled shows, but erased shows and movies to never be seen again. All in the name of tax breaks. Nothing stops him from looking at the measly $2.6 million that Injustice made in sales (the previous six movies didn’t do much better) and deciding that the entire line of films isn’t worth the money anymore.

While it’s undeniably sad that the Tomorrowverse is coming to an end, the future of the DC Animated Original Movies remains unknown. No films have been announced for 2025, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t any, some could be announced at this years San Diego Comic-Con as is tradition. As for this year, two animated Justice League: Crisis On Infinite Earths films and a Watchmen animated film (possibly two) are still on the schedule and Warner Bros. Animation is  hard at work on Creature Commandos, the first part of James Gunn’s new DCU, which is likely out at the end of the year. So that begs the question, is the future of the DC Animated Original Movies, to end with Watchmen? Or will they continue under the watchful eye of James Gunn to either be part of the DCU or somewhere in his multiverse? Or will they just continue as is until David Zaslav notices they exist and comes barging into their offices with a flamethrower to burn it all down? Only time will tell.

COMIC REVIEW: Godzilla X Kong: The Hunted

By Brandon T. McClure

The Monsterverse is no stranger to tie-in comics. It's a staple of Legendary Pictures to publish prequel graphic novels through their publishing arm Legendary Comics. So it should come as no surprise that they’ve done it again with Godzilla X Kong: The Hunted by Brian Buccellato, Dario Formisani, Drew Johnson, and Zid, a graphic novel that sets up the events of Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire. Previous Monsterverse graphic novels have ranged from solid entries in the multimedia saga, to rather disappointing ones, and this one falls right in the middle.

The story follows Raymond Martin, notably named for Raymond Bur’s character Steve Martin from the 1954 original film, as he builds a large mech suit in order to hunt Titans in the Hollow Earth. He hates Titans and wants to level the playing field, much like Apex Cybernetics tried with MechaGodzilla. While he’s going through this, Godzilla is pursuing Skylla, who is attacking various nuclear power plants for some unknown reason. Skylla is upsetting the natural order, and most likely trying to make a play for the title of King of the Monsters, so Godzilla will not take that threat lying down. Elsewhere, Kong is surveying his new kingdom in the Hollow Earth, until his story links up with Raymond Martin towards the end

Prequel comics come with perceived limitations. They can’t do anything that alters the status quo and the ending has to set up the film. They exist as marketing for the “more important” medium of film. So it’s hard, as a comic book fan, to get overly excited and expect more from these comics. Writer Brian Buccellato delivers exactly what he was meant to. There are some really interesting aspects to the story but it’s pretty anticlimactic. Nowhere is this personified more than in the Godzilla segments. Just as Godzilla catches up with Skylla, the comic literally stops the story to say “To Be Continued In Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire.” As a marketing tool, it’s fine, but as a standalone story, it’s lacking.

The most interesting part of the story is Raymond Martin, who would actually have made a good antagonist for a feature film. Martin is a wealthy man who’s turned into a big game hunter, and that’s meant literally. He was in San Francisco during the events of the 2014 film Godzilla and lost his entire family to that attack. This has given him a personal vendetta against Titans, but he’s not ready to go after the alphas just yet. It’s through him that we’re introduced to a new Monsterverse Titan called Spineprowler, who’s basically just a giant jaguar (not the first giant cat Titan that Zid has designed). It’s honestly a shame that he’s killed at the end because there’s some potential here, especially with that name.

The Monsterverse comics have come under fire due to tracing allegations. Some of the images from Justice League vs. Godzilla vs. Kong were clearly traced from screenshots of the various Titans. You would hope that when translating the Titans to a comic book, the artist could take some artistic liberties with the designs. Godzilla: Awakening by Max & Greg Borenstein was able to allow their artist team of Eric Battle, Yvel Guichet, Alan Quah, and Lee Loughridge the ability to take these liberties due to there having been no film at the time. But there doesn’t seem to be any obvious tracing in this book.

Mostly, the art is pretty good in Godzilla X Kong: The Hunted. It’s very dynamic and the design of the Titan Hunter is interesting. Fans of the Skull Island: The Birth of Kong comic will no doubt recognize a familiar style as Zid has been the artist on many Monsterverse books. He’s not alone here, of course. The artist team consists of Zid as well as Dario Formisani and Drew Johnson. The three of them mix their styles well since there doesn’t seem to be a clear division of pages between them.

Those looking for an exciting entry in the Monsterverse might be disappointed, but that’s not to say that there is no value in this comic. Raymond Martin is a cool character and there is plenty of Titan action. The major issue is that it doesn’t operate as anything more than a marketing tool for Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire. It doesn’t reach the heights of the best of them, but it doesn’t hit the lows of the worst of them. It’s a perfectly fine and fun entry in the franchise. If you’re already a fan, then you likely won’t regret picking this one up.

6.5/10

Godzilla X Kong: The Hunted is available at your local comic shop, bookstore, or here and the latest entry in the Monsterverse, Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire is in theaters every started March 29th.

Monsterverse Ranking By Brandon T. McClure

By Brandon T. McClure

I came to the Godzilla franchise in 1998, with the infamous film that came out the same year. Afterward, I would watch the Japanese films all the time whenever a new one came into my local Suncoast (remember them?). I had always hoped that an American company would take another crack at adapting the franchise, but I knew it would be difficult. American films are constantly pushing VFX to be bigger and more lifelike, and while I like the suitmation of the classic films, it was hard not to imagine a world where we got to see Godzilla rendered with state-of-the-art visual effects the likes of which could only be achieved in Hollywood (at the time anyway). The Monsterverse isn’t perfect but they’re solid, fun films and I’m happy to have them. With Godzilla x. Kong: The New Empire on the way, I thought it would be fun to share my ranking of the Monsterverse entries, including the two shows, starting from the bottom.

#6 Godzilla vs. Kong (2021)

D: Adam Wingard/W: Eric Pearson & Max Borenstein

Coming off of Godzilla: King of the Monsters, my expectations were low for something any deeper than a monster brawl. The marketing for the movie was very clear that this was the rematch of the century. Godzilla and Kong are at odds again for the first time since 1963. The Monsterverse exists so that this movie could be made. Luckily it delivered exactly what it was meant to. Godzilla vs. Kong is very much the film that monster fans pretend they want over a film like 2014's Godzilla (just to keep the examples in the family). I can’t lie and say I don’t enjoy a good old-fashioned monster brawl. So why is this at the bottom? The simple answer is that something has to be at the bottom of a ranked list.

The major strength of this film is in the monsters themselves. This time around, the film opts to center on Godzilla and Kong as the main characters rather than “waste time” on the human drama. In a film like this, the human characters do actually get in the way. That’s not to say that there shouldn’t be a human story at the center of these movies, but if you know you’re not going to succeed there, then you should focus on the major draw that’s going to get butts in seats. The action is much cleaner in Godzilla vs. Kong, than in the previous entry, and is well-shot and choreographed. Each monster gets a chance to shine in various environments. Both monsters on the poster are able to get the upper hand in each fight, with Godzilla coming out on top in the end. 

One of my favorite things about this film is how Adam Wingard frames the monsters' personalities. Through camera techniques and expert VFX work, Wingard and his team are able to convey what each creature is thinking and feeling, which allows the audience to connect with them on a deeper level. Framing Kong as the underdog also helps audiences connect with him as the emotional center of the film. One of the best scenes in Godzilla vs. Kong is when he reveals that he can understand humans and can use sign language. Kong signing “home” is surprisingly powerful. Kong is by far more expressive than Godzilla but both are able to convey their thoughts and struggles throughout the movie. It’s honestly impressive. We also learn a lot about the Titan's history on Earth in this movie, which was cool.

It’s very cool that Godzilla vs. Kong frames the monsters as the emotional core of the film, but the actual people don’t get the same love. Godzilla vs. Kong has the worst characters in the Monsterverse and it’s not close. Even the returning characters of Maddy (Millie Bobby Brown) and Mark Russel (Kyle Chandler), are acting wildly out of character. Chandler’s Russel went on a journey of self-discovery in Godzilla: King of the Monsters, learning that Godzilla is important to the natural order of the world, but as soon as he appears in Godzilla vs. Kong, he’s not even willing to entertain the idea that something could have caused Godzilla’s “change of heart”. One other character who suffers in this film is Ren Serizawa. He’s probably the most useless character that had the most potential. The film doesn’t explicitly tell the audience that he’s the son of Dr. Serizawa and he hates Godzilla because of his dad's obsession with him, but that’s who he is. There’s just no time devoted to that story at all. In every scene he’s in, he’s scowling in the background or being pushed around by the head of Apex Cybernetics, Walter Simmons. Then he dies (?) when Ghidorah’s consciousness takes over MechaGodzilla’s body. 

While the villains and “Team Godzilla” don’t get a lot of love, there are some “Team Kong” characters that do. The best character, by miles, is Jia, an indigenous person from Skull Island who is deaf. We learn pretty early on that she has a special connection with Kong. Admittedly it’s this connection that makes her a stronger character than the others, but even Alexander Skarsgard and Rebecca Hall are able to get a few good character moments. I do want to shout out one character on “Team Godzilla” and that’s Brian Tyree Henry’s Bernie. I just think he’s always delightful.

In order to have characters driving the plot forward, the film splits up the main characters into Team Kong and Team Godzilla teams. Team Kong wants to get Kong to the Hollow Earth, while Team Godzilla wants to find out why Godzilla has suddenly “turned” on humanity. I’m sure this worked on paper but it’s painfully clear that all the character work in the script has been edited out of the final film. Who knows if this would have made the movie better, but it does feel more chopped up than the other Mosterverse entries because of it. 

Godzilla vs. Kong has flaws, but it’s very fun. It’s also a tight film, coming in at just under two hours, and paced well enough so you’re never too far away from the next monster brawl. The characters are cut to ribbons, but they’re still fun enough that you don’t get bored when you’re with them. At the end of the day, if you leave the theater entertained then there’s some merit to that. 

#5 Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019)

D: Michael Dougherty/W: Michael Dougherty & Zach Shields

This is probably the one that I end up watching the most. There are many reasons why Monsterverse fans prefer this film over the others, and the one that is sighted the most is that it has more monster action than the previous Godzilla film. That may be true, but I have one major issue with the film that brings it way down. That’s not to say that I don’t like it. There are many things I love about this film. Godzilla: King of the Monsters has my favorite Ghidorah (it’s also cool that they kept his alien origin) design and the Rodan chase scene is one of the coolest scenes in the Monsterverse. What’s more, Monarch’s flying base, The Argo, is exactly the kind of crazy sci-fi nonsense I like to see in monster movies. So why isn’t this higher?

For one thing, while the special effects are truly top-notch (true across the entirety of the Monsterverse), they’re obscured by an excessive amount of particle effects. Every single fight scene is either covered by a rainstorm or snowstorm, making it very hard to admire the technical mastery being shown on screen. Another issue that comes up with the VFX on display is that Michael Daugherty doesn’t have the eye for scale that his predecessor has. This has the unfortunate side effect of making the monsters feel smaller than they are. This was most likely done to give the audience a better view of the fight scenes, but since they’re obscured so much, it just compounds the issue. Ultimately, I just find the film to be visually ugly, and the fight scenes pretty dull. There are cool things in the fights like Burning Godzilla, but there’s not a lot that “wows” me about the action scenes. 

Even though the villains, including Vera Farmiga’s Dr. Emma Russel, are lacking in strong characterizations, Godzilla: King of the Monsters still has some standouts. The likes of Bradley Whitford, O'Shea Jackson Jr., and Thomas Middleditch all get some fun moments and quippy lines that are worth a laugh. The movie tries, in vain, to make the Russel’s family drama work, but there’s not a lot on the page for any of the talented actors to work with. Maddy (Millie Bobby Brown) and Mark Russel (Kyle Chandler) are more bland than the colorful cast of characters that surround them, but they’re interesting enough to move the plot forward.

Another one of my issues, which is minor, is the killing of Dr. Graham (Sally Hawkins) in favor of Kyle Chandler’s Mark Russel. Since Sally Hawkins is a returning character, audiences are already familiar with her and therefore can connect with her more easily. I’m not saying she’s a massively well developed character from the previous film, I’m saying that it’s easier to connect with a returning character than it is with a new one, such as Dr. Mark Russel. For some reason, the creators of the film decided that killing both Dr. Serizawa (Ken Watanabe) and Dr. Graham was a good idea. Certainly, the death of Serizawa is earned and a beautiful moment for the character, but it was Graham who should have been placed as the head of Monarch after Serizawa in my opinion.

Speaking of Monarch, something that I really enjoy about the Monsterverse is the creation of the organization. In Godzilla: King of the Monsters, Monarch gets an upgrade from a few people chasing monsters to a bonafide monster containment force. I really like this expansion because it helps the franchise more organically lean further into some fun sci-fi tropes and pivots away from relying on the military to drive the plot. The opening scene with the newly hatched Mothra is a really good way to showcase how Monarch are really the only people qualified to deal with the return of these massive creatures. 

There’s a really cool Mothra easter egg that’s in this movie that I wish they went further on, or at least could pursue in the future. The movie dabbles in the more mystical side of the Godzilla franchise with the inclusion of Mothra and is able to sneak in the “Mothra twins” because of it. In the original Japanese canon, Mothra always has two twin fairies that are connected to her. Godzilla: King of the Monsters includes all the previous fairy actors as former Monarch agents and implies that Dr. Chen & Dr. Ling (both played by Ziyi Zhang) are the new iteration of the twin fairies, by implying that her family has a supernatural history and connection with Mothra. I hope that future films or even Monarch: Legacy of Monsters could expand on this idea.

Truthfully, Godzilla: King of the Monsters isn’t as hollow as I originally thought. While the big-budget monster action is definitely the point of the film, it does attempt to tell a story about humankind's relationship with the natural world. The idea of “good radiation” is weird, but the movie’s heart is in the right place. Everything the villains do is in favor of bringing the world back to its “natural state”, where the Titans rule and the humans serve under them. It probably would have worked, but Ghidorah isn’t from the Earth so it puts a wrench in their plans when he starts making everything go wrong. Even the heroes know that Godzilla is the true protector of the natural world and the only way humans can survive is through a harmonious relationship with Godzilla/the natural world. It’s pretty surface level but it works more often than it doesn’t. Speaking of Ghidorah, I hope we’ll see more Toho original monsters in future installments.

The biggest thing that I love about this film is its soundtrack. Bear McCreary is a composer that I’ve loved since Battlestar Galactica. But with Godzilla: King of the Monsters, he really brings his “A”- Game. The new renditions of both Mothra’s theme and Godzilla’s theme are excellent, truly delivering the idea that these creatures are gods and protectors. He also creates new themes for Ghidora and Rodan that are instantly iconic. To my memory, the two of them didn’t have themes in the original Japanese films (I could be wrong), so it’s very cool to get some true bangers here. Not to diminish the other composers in the Monsterverse, especially because I like Alexandre Desplat’s score for the first film, but McCreary delivered something a cut above.

While the environmentalism message is a part of the film, it ultimately succumbs under the weight of expectations. There’s a prevailing issue in Western audiences' views of monster movies, which is that human drama gets in the way of monster action (hopefully Godzilla: Minus One changed that). So Godzilla: King of the Monsters is constantly trying to find the balance of human drama and monster action but is ultimately falling short. I wish I loved it like my fellow monster fans but it doesn’t quite reach the heights of the earlier entries.

#4 Skull Island (2023)

Created By Brian Duffield

The show that has, sadly, become the red-headed stepchild of the Monsterverse. The one that many people don’t even know exists. But it does! It does and I will continue to sing its praises to anyone who will listen. Netflix’s Skull Island is a great addition to the franchise that expands Kong’s world and the world of Skull Island. We obviously get plenty of Skull Island action in Kong: Skull Island, but Godzilla vs. Kong took any future stories off the table, so I was very excited to see the Monsterverse return to Skull Island, even if it is only in the past. While the show is really strong, it’s not complete and there doesn’t seem to be any interest in a second season. With future seasons, this could easily rise through this list.

Right off the bat, I was already skeptical because I’m not a huge fan of Powerhouse animation. Most of the animated shows like Castlevania and Blood of Zeus all suffer from the same stiffness issue that dials down their expressions to remain more lifelike. I prefer my animation to be more expressive, so I was genuinely surprised at how often the show didn’t feel as stiff as the others. It’s got the same house style, but the characters are allowed to be more expressive in their movements. This helped the characters shine more. Each one is genuinely well-written and often very funny. There are standouts, like Annie and Dog, or even Cap, but even the smaller characters get some solid moments before the end of the show.

It being an animated show, allows there to be a lot of monsters and some of them are very inventive. There are awesome new creatures that are designed to fit right in with the world of Kong: Skull Island, like the Aloe Turtle or the Rock Bug, but the coolest new monster is the Kraken. This new antagonist has a personal vendetta against Kong due to it being another alpha Titan. It wants to take Skull Island from Kong, but can only do that if Kong comes to the water. Speaking of Kong, he doesn’t get a lot to do in the series. He makes a few brief appearances before the end of the series, but the show keeps him away for most of it. He does get a very cool action scene between him and the Kraken at the end of the series, which makes up for it. Kong also has a bit of a tragic story in this show which adds to Kong being the most relatable monster in the Monsterverse.

The biggest issue I have with the show is that it doesn’t really feel connected to the Monsterverse. Kong: Skull Island created such a unique and wonderful vision for Skull Island and the show doesn’t really pick up too much of that. There are cool monsters, but some feel pretty generic or something that’s meant to be in Castlevania. Skull Island itself doesn’t really look like the one from the movie, most notably because the perpetual storm that surrounds it, is not in the show for some reason. If you weren’t in the know, this would look like an unrelated show about King Kong.

Skull Island surprised me. It’s very fun, and the funniest entry in the Monsterverse, easy. I’ve been a fan of Brian Duffield since I saw Love and Monsters and he has continued to not disappoint. I desperately hope it gets a second season, not only to resolve that cliffhanger but because there’s so much to explore with the Monsterverse Skull Island. To leave that potential on the table indefinitely would undermine the inherent benefits of having a franchise like this.

#3 Monarch: Legacy Of Monsters (2023)

Created By Chris Black & Matt Fraction

The Apple TV+ show that shocked the nation! As you’ll see as you keep going up the list, I’m a big fan of the 2014 Godzilla film. So I got really excited when I heard that the upcoming show would be set pretty soon after the events of that film. But truthfully, I had no idea what to expect. It became pretty clear that the creators of the Monsterverse weren’t interested in developing characters, so how would translating the big-budget monster franchise to a TV show work? Well, against all odds, it worked and is one of the strongest entries in the franchise to date (some would say the strongest). I’m very glad it exists, even if it didn’t make it up higher on my list.

It’s certainly not perfect though, but it’s only one season in so any faults that it could develop in the beginning will no doubt be ironed out with subsequent seasons. But about halfway through the show, I felt like the 2015 plotline wasn’t as compelling as the 1950s one. Of the two, I always found the 1950s plot more interesting, due to just being more interested in that kind of story, but I was interested in where the 2015 plot could go. I liked the characters and I enjoyed the arc they were on as they uncovered the secret of Monarch and the mystery of what happened to their father. But something shifted, and it started to feel like the 2015 plotline was spinning its wheels until it got to the point where certain main characters entered the Hollow Earth.

For me, I’m not one of those people who thinks the show should have dedicated its entire runtime to the 1950s plot, but I really loved seeing the development of Monarch. I loved watching the trio of Bill Randa, Keiko, and Lee Shaw uncover the mystery of the Titans and discover more and more as they try to prove that these monsters aren’t a threat, but a natural part of the world. I also found their love triangle very compelling and enjoyed watching the three of them grow together. I can’t gush enough about how much I loved that story. I’m always a fan of period genre shows and movies, and I’ve always had a fascination with Monarch’s history, so the 1950s plotline was basically tailor-made for me.

This is not to ignore the 2015 plotline, because there’s a lot to love about it. I enjoyed all the characters, especially Tim, and loved seeing how the world reacted in the aftermath of the MUTO’s attack on San Francisco, which they call “G-Day”. Each character has their own motivation for being on this journey and I thought that the characters were well rounded and developed. I also loved the connections to the other entries in the Monsterverse, both big and small, like Ford Brody’s (Aron Taylor Johnson) aunt being Tim’s partner, or seeing the origins of Apex Cybernetics (who would go on to create MechaGodzilla). I also really liked the inclusion of John Goodman and the scene of him on Skull Island sometime before his death.

One of the coolest things the show did was cast Kurt and Wyatt Russel as the same characters in the different plotlines. Trying to piece together why the character of Lee Shaw didn’t look or act 90-ish years old was one of my favorite things to do after every episode. It wasn’t a prevalent question, but it was one that had an incredibly satisfying and emotional conclusion. The ending when he finally reconnects with Keiko after 57 years is incredibly emotional. The two of them are certainly the standout performances of the show for me.

Monarch: Legacy of Monsters isn’t a show that is reverential to its source material, which ended up working for the better, I would say. At almost every turn, it retcons previously established Monsterverse lore. Which is kind of a silly thing to say since it’s a four-movie franchise, with some semi-canon comic book entries. Obviously, the comics can be retconned because hardly anyone reads them (I say this as someone who has read every Monsterverse comic). Something that surprised me though was that it was able to effortlessly retcon a lot of what was said and shown in Kong: Skull Island. Hell, that movie claims that Harry S. Truman founded Monarch in 1946, but the show makes it pretty clear that that isn’t what happened. The reason why I’m saying all this is because it doesn’t matter. The story has to come first and it was refreshing to see a franchise show understand this. I’m always okay with bending canon to fit the story that needs to be told. 

Every episode also includes a giant monster. Godzilla is in the show a good amount of time and the VFX work on him is great. This show has a crazy good VFX budget, which was not something I expected. The scene where a mountain range is revealed to be Godzilla is one of the best-looking shots in the entirety of the Monsterverse. The new monsters like Ion Dragon or Frost Vark are also really cool new additions to the franchise. The Monsterverse has made tons of new monsters, but I think the ones introduced in Monarch: Legacy of Monsters are better than the likes of Behemoth or Skylla (I don’t get why people like Behemoth).

The reason why the show falls short for me, as alluded to up top, is because the 2015 plotline started spinning its wheels after they found their dad. Don’t get me wrong, there are still good character moments, especially when they’re trying to find May or when they convince Monarch to reveal themselves to the world. The other, much smaller, reason is that I’m a lore-obsessed geek and it’s made the Hollow Earth really complicated. These aren’t big issues, and the character issue is more a problem with the current streaming age than the show itself. At the end of the day, it all comes together in an excellent final episode that even sneaks in a really cool Godzilla fight scene.

We are in an age where franchises can jump from film to television, as evidenced by mixed results by the MCU. So the question always has to be, how can this show complement the big screen franchise? Monarch: Legacy of Monsters is probably what I would pick to be the blueprint for this type of multimedia franchise. The way this show is able to weave in elements from every Monsterverse film, from Bill Randa (Kong: Skull Island) to Apex Cybernetics (Godzilla vs. Kong) is shocking. I expected the show to just be this fun side adventure, but it’s necessary world-building for the Monsterverse and something that I feel was desperately needed.

#2 Godzilla (2014)

D: Gareth Edwards/W: Max Borenstein

Depending on the day, I might put this film at number one. But for right now, I’m confident in its second place placing. I have been a Godzilla fan for decades, and my excitement for this film was only rivaled by 2009’s Star Trek before it. A big Hollywood studio had already attempted to make a Godzilla movie and the results were less than desirable. But it really felt like WB and Legendary Pictures had nailed it from the trailers. Thankfully, the film delivered a very cool new take on Godzilla that stays true to his origins and launched a franchise that I never dreamed would be possible.

There are things I really like about this movie, but I’ll focus on the things that hurt the film for me. Ford Brody, played by Aaron Taylor Johnson, is just not a compelling protagonist. There’s an idea in the film about how legacy affects those that come after, but Ford isn’t engaging with that theme, so it doesn’t receive the attention it needs to flourish (Monach: Legacy of Monsters runs with it though). Ford’s lack of an engaging character is made all the worse by Bryan Cranston’s Joe Brody stealing most of the first act. Johnson is a good actor, but he’s just not given a lot in the script to really deliver anything of substance. Cranston is, but they kill him pretty quickly. You have to wonder if the roles were reversed, would this be a stronger movie? It’s hard to say really. Johnson is too much of a passive protagonist who doesn’t actually do anything of note to push the story forward. He just gets pushed along to one set piece after another. They set up his role in the story as a person who’s really good at disarming bombs, but he never gets to disarm a bomb in the movie. So why is he even there?

One of my favorite elements of the film is the inclusion of Monarch, a secret organization that studies Massive Unidentified Terrestrial Organisms (what later films would call Titans). On paper, Monarch feels like the Monsterverse’s answer to SHIELD, but in execution serves a much different purpose. Since the Monsterverse has a massive amount of mythology to explore, Monarch is the perfect solution to create organic exposition about the mythology. I’m a huge lore geek. What many people see as background nonsense, I see as a new obsession. So when this first came out, I loved exploring the lore of the Monsterverse. This idea that Godzilla and the MUTOs are part of an ancient echo system just fascinated the hell out of me. It lit up my imagination in a way that no other Godzilla film had ever done before. I really like this concept that these creatures are supernaturally tied to the natural order of the world and Godzilla exists to keep the balance. Every time a new movie was announced, I hoped that Monarch would remain a part of the story so we could get to explore the lore further. 

I wouldn’t say that any entry in the Monsterverse feels like it was created by a committee of producers, but Godzilla is the movie with the strongest singular voice. Gareth Edwards had only directed one film before Godzilla and he cemented himself as a director with a unique filmic style. Everything from the sound design (the best in the franchise) to how shots are framed is specifically crafted by Edwards. I wish he had gotten to make Godzilla: King of the Monsters and lament that we’ve lost his voice in the franchise. 

This is by far one of, if not, the strongest directed entry in the Monsterverse. It fumbles its themes, but what entry doesn’t? I love the slow build-up of Godzilla throughout the film and the set pieces and sound design are spectacular. The sense of scale is unlike anything else that had come before it. This film succeeds despite the issues with the main character because of Edwards’ strong directing voice.

#1 Kong: Skull Island (2017)

D: Jordan Vogt-Roberts/W: Dan Gilroy, Max Borenstein & Derek Connolly

Kong: Skull Island is the best film in the Monsterverse. For a while, I honestly thought the top of my list would be Godzilla but Kong: Skull Island is just a much stronger film. Jordan Vogt-Roberts set out to make an anti-war/post-Vietnam monster film and he delivered. Kong: Skull Island has a more clear message and clearly defined characters that affect the plot in a meaningful way. It’s actually hard for me to think of anything that I don’t like about this movie. Perhaps this entry will be shorter than the others!

Like many American monster fans, I have a soft spot for King Kong, both the 1933 film and the 2005 film are some of the best monster films ever made. But how many times can you tell that same story? Jordan Vogt-Roberts apparently felt the same way. Instead, he opted to tell a post-war monster film that pays tribute to the original film in many ways but moves Kong into a new setting, which frees the monsters to explore new avenues. It’s actually a really exciting film, in the sense that it opens up limitless possibilities for, not only Kong but Skull Island as well (something that GVK squandered). 

The MonsterVerse likes to play with the idea that these monsters are godly beings, and Vogt-Roberts wanted to bring that to Kong. His massive size is meant to convey his godliness as he looks out over his domain. Other creatures in the film follow the same “god of their own domain” idea but take it in a different direction. While previous Skull Island’s have used dinosaurs, this Skull Island creates flora/fauna hybrid creatures. This is one of my favorite things about the movie since the creature design in the film is one of the most unique in the Monsterverse. Then there’s the Skull Crawlers. Of all the major villains of the films, they’re my favorite. The designs are really interesting and menacing, and this idea that they’re from beneath Skull Island like devils lurking is so well executed. 

There are a ton of characters in this movie, and many of them don’t really get to do much. In fact, loads of them die. But just because the movie is populated by “red shirts'' doesn't mean there aren’t plenty of great characters to get to know. John C. Reilly, John Goodman, Samuel L. Jackson, Brie Larson, and Tom Hiddleston are all really fun characters to follow. What brings this film above Godzilla is that they are directly engaging in the story and theme of the movie. Where Aaron Taylor Johnson’s Ford Brody is being shepherded through the plot of Godzilla, all these characters are driving the plot of Kong: Skull Island.

While the likes of Goodman and Hiddleston all get standout moments in the film, including Hiddleston’s awesome action sequence, it’s John C. Reilly who brings it home for me. His performance as Hank Marlow is one of the best in the franchise. He’s funny as the man who’s been stranded on Skull Island since World War II, but also incredibly sincere and heartfelt. He also has the duty of holding the weight of the anti-war message of the film and does so masterfully. His speech about his fallen brother-in-arms, Gunpei, lays out the central theme of the film “Take away the uniforms and the war… and he became my brother”. Unlike Godzilla or Godzilla: King of the Monsters, Kong: Skull Island is very front and center with what it’s about. It’s definitely spoon-feeding the audience a little but it’s also a movie about a giant monkey so it’s not meant to be subtle.

There are some incredible set pieces in this movie, probably the best in the Monsterverse, which is a pretty high bar. Kong taking down the helicopters and Packard’s (Samuel L. Jackson) attempts to kill Kong, all rank very high in the film. But the standout is the final fight between Kong and the Skull Devil (the big Skull Crawler). That fight sequence showcases some inventive and fun monster action from Kong trimming a tree to him using the propeller of a ship as a weapon and finally pulling the guts out of the evil creature. Every sequence constantly has me going “This is awesome”. There are so many perfect moments that I could single out and gush about, but I’m not here to recap the movie.

I love this movie very much and hope to see Jordan Vogt-Roberts return to the Monsterverse. I love seeing the franchise get into the crazier, more sci-fi, and mystical side of monster movies, but sometimes I wish we could go back to the likes of Kong: Skull Island and Godzilla. I love the Monsterverse and enjoy every entry, but Kong: Skull Island is the gold standard for me, and I hope that someday it’ll reach these heights again.

BOOK REVIEW + INTERVIEW / Empire of the Damned (Empire of the Vampire Volume 2)

Jenny sits down with fantasy & science fiction author Jay Kristoff to discuss his March 12th, 2024 release of his 2nd book in the Empire of the Vampire series . Watch/Listen to our interview to get an inside look at what to expect next for Gabriel de León.

Join the conversation in the comments and on social media.

For audio, please check out the Atomic Geekdom Podcast to listen in.

Empire of the Damned - Empire of the Vampire (Volume 2) by Jay Kristoff

Release Date: 03/12/2024

Published by St.Martin’s Press/ Macmillan

By Jenny Robinson

A lot happened at the end of Empire of the Vampire (Book 1). A LOT.

In a world that has not seen a sunrise for decades, vampires are set to destroy humanity. Our protagonist (or in some cases, our antagonist), Gabriel de León tells his story as the last of the Silver Saints (protectors against the vampires).

The first book in this series sets up a colorful cast of characters. The story is told through Gabe’s perspective but includes such insight to those we meet through it’s pages. In attempt to avoid spoilers in both books, I’ll generically say that Empire of the Vampire has a WTF?!? OH NO!!! traumatic ending.

Empire of the Damned dives quickly into the aftermath of the brutality found in the first volume. Gabriel is still imprisoned, reluctantly (and drunkenly) continuing his tale to the vampire Jean-François. In this, we are starting to really see the toll Gabe has paid in this war. His character is becoming a noteworthy study of endurance despite all of his blatant flaws. The pipe and bottle are becoming more frequent in both his stories and present situation. His love and loyalty constantly being tested.

I had struggled with the writing style a bit during the first book. The story Gabe is telling Jean-François is written as if it is happening right then, instead of in the past. There are moments when mid-story, Jean-François taps into the conversation with a critique or question. This felt very abrupt as I was getting to know the characters and the plot. By the time I got a few chapter into this new book, the relationship between the two made those time line jumps feel more naturally. I began to really enjoy Jean-François’s interruptions. It feels a bit like breaking the fourth wall in cinematography. I was surprised how much I looked forward to those moments in this book.

This volume of the series also added a lot of context towards the vampires. I was delighted to learn more about the various histories, beliefs and abilities of each. Belief is a prominent word for this series as a whole. It’s a tale of faith, regret, worship, hope and sacrifice. It allows this second chapter in the series to grow and find it’s footing that was only beginning to take shape in it’s predecessor.

I am not going to lie, this is a beefy read. It’s violent, traumatic, and an exciting chase to see where Gabriel and Dior’s travels lead them. Clocking in at 752 pages, it’s easy to miss place a few hours (days, months) of your life as you speed through page by page. And I gasped a bit at the last sentence. Book 3 is set up spectacularly.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

JAY KRISTOFF is a #1 international, New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of fantasy and science fiction, including Empire of the Vampire. He is the winner of eight Aurealis Awards, an ABIA, has over half a million books in print and is published in over thirty five countries, most of which he has never visited. He is as surprised about all of this as you are. He is 6’7 and has approximately 11,500 days to live.

He does not believe in happy endings.

Kevin Conroy’s Final Time As Batman

By Brandon T. McClure

After the tragic passing of iconic Batman voice actor Kevin Conroy, Rocksteady Studios revealed that he had reprised his role of the Arkhamverse Batman in the upcoming video game Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League. With no confirmed future appearances, the narrative quickly spread that this would be his final time voicing the character that defined a generation. Unfortunately for fans, this was also a video game where players had to kill Batman along with the other members of the Justice League. It wasn’t exactly the triumphant last hurrah that many wanted. But Rocksteady might have some good news to help cool down the controversy surrounding their game. It now seems like he may be appearing in at least one more DC project.

Kevin Conroy started voicing Batman in 1992 with the launch of Batman: The Animated Series (B:TAS). He went on to become the most prolific Batman voice actor, continuing to voice Batman throughout the DC Animated Universe (DCAU), making vocal cameos in unrelated Batman animated shows and films, and even playing a live-action Bruce Wayne in the five-part Arrowverse crossover event “Crisis on Infinite Earths.” To say that he’s iconic would be the understatement of the century. The role meant so much to him as he continued to pour his heart and soul into the character for more than 30 years. He was able to tell his story in the beautiful “Finding Batman” short story, illustrated by J. Bone, collected in the 2022 DC Pride Special.

In 2009, Kevin Conroy teamed up with Rocksteady Studios to star in the video game Batman: Arkham Asylum. The game became an instant classic as Conroy proved once again that he was the definitive Batman. He reprised this specific Batman two more times in Batman: Arkham City and Batman: Arkham Knight (collectively known as the Arkhamverse). As the final installment in the trilogy, Batman: Arkham Knight seemingly ends with his death. He somberly walks into his mansion seconds before it explodes with him and Alfred inside. While it was obviously meant to be a fake-out, the game was the definitive ending for this version of Batman. So it came as a major surprise when it was revealed that, not only would Kevin Conroy be voicing Batman in Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, but the game would be set in the Arkhamverse, set after the events of Batman: Arkham Knight. 

Fans were, of course, excited to get a new performance from Kevin Conroy. He and Rocksteady Studios had a great working relationship and he was probably more than happy to return. The opportunity to play an evil version of Batman (because he’s controlled by Brainiac) probably appealed to him for many reasons. But it kind of sucks that his final time voicing the character that meant so much to fans is in a game where those same fans have to kill him. Admittedly, it’s not Rocksteady’s fault, they didn’t know he was going to die when they recorded his lines. Unfortunately, due to Conroy’s passing, Rocksteady developed a target on their back. Fans were unfairly calling the game disrespectful to Kevin Conroy’s legacy. Lucky for them, IGN is now reporting that he had been able to record lines for the upcoming animated film Justice League: Crisis On Infinite Earths - Part 3.

At one point everyone at Warner Bros. wanted to do an adaptation of Marv Wolfman and George Pérez’s hugely influential comic book Crisis On Infinite Earths. Notably, the Arrowverse, which consisted of shows such as Arrow, The Flash, Legends of Tomorrow, and more, beat everyone to it. Walter Hamada, the former president of DC Films, for example, was reportedly interested in developing a big-screen adaptation with one of the various endings to The Flash (the movie) supposedly setting up that storyline. An animated version of the story was rumored for many years before it was confirmed at the 2023 San Diego Comic-Con. The original rumor was that this adaptation would bring together all the various animated universes that DC has developed over the years. 

Butch Lukic (Tomorrowverse producer) told ScreenRant that they “already were figuring out that we were going to do Crisis before [the Arrowverse] even were filming anything on their Crisis,” which puts the development of Justice League: Crisis On Infinite Earths sometime before 2019. Since Conroy passed away in 2022, it’s very likely that he was able to record some lines beforehand, depending on how far they were into production. At this time, no one at any level of WB has confirmed whether this is true or not, so it has become a waiting game. At one point, Kevin Conroy was rumored to be in the upcoming Batman: Caped Crusader, a new animated show coming from Bruce Timm, JJ Abrams, Ed Brubaker, and Matt Reeves. However, Bruce Timm recently put to bed those rumors, saying that he “did not record a voice for Caped Crusader. We were hoping to have him do a voice for the new show (and he was eager to do it) but sadly he passed away before we could make it happen.” So after Justice League: Crisis On Infinite Earths - Part 3, there will be no more surprise performances.

Kevin Conroy’s passing continues to be a source of grief in the nerd community, but it’s great that almost two years after his death there are still new performances to look forward to. So, understandably, all eyes are on Justice League: Crisis On Infinite Earths - Part 3 in a way that it hadn’t been before. The third part of the massive film series is due out by the end of the year, though no official date has been released yet. While some fans may have a bad taste in their mouths from having to kill Batman in Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, it’s nice to have the hope that there is one more performance waiting in the wings. IGN has explicitly said that he will play the B:TAS version of his Batman, so it’s poetic that his career may end with the character that it began with.

Out With The Old, In With The New Supergirl

By Brandon T. McClure

As Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom signals the end of the old DC Cinematic Universe (the DCEU) James Gunn continues to build his new one. Now having cast his new Superman and Lois he's turned his sights to a new Supergirl for the upcoming adaptation of Tom King and Bilquis Evely’s miniseries Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow. While some had been hoping that Sasha Calle would be one of Gunn's returning actors like John Cena (Peacemaker) or Xolo Maridueña (Blue Beetle) it doesn't seem to be in the cards. indeed, House of the Dragon’s own Milly Alcock has landed the part.

Unlike her cousin, Supergirl doesn't have an extensive live-action history. Before Alcock, there were only four live-action Supergirls, and only two of them have been headliners, Helen Slater and Melissa Benoist. Sasha Calle was the latest to carry this torch and had the thankless job of doing it in the much-maligned The Flash. She played a version of the character in an alternate reality where Superman never came to Earth. Instead, Kara Zor-El crash-landed and was locked away by the Russian government. After being freed by Batman and the two Flashes she helps them in the battle against Zod. During this battle, she and Michael Keaton’s Batman die over and over again as the younger version of the Flash tries to go back in time to prevent it. Tragically her destiny is to die with no hope of seeing tomorrow. The lesson of the movie is she either dies or is erased from existence. It would seem that the horrific lesson at the end of The Flash has come to pass as this version of Supergirl is to be lost deep in the multiverse.

With The Flash receiving mostly negative reviews many fans and critics were quick to praise Calle as a bright spot in an otherwise cynical and arrogant film. It seemed that while many didn’t care for the film, they were interested in seeing more of Sasha Calle’s Supergirl, even if it wasn’t going to be this specific version. One of the many filmed endings of The Flash has her appear at the courthouse at the end of the film, to reassure Barry and the audience that she is alive, happy, and here to stay. As many audience members will, no doubt, remember, the film instead ends with a George Clooney cameo. The decision to use this ending had the unfortunate side effect of driving home the idea that Calle’s Supergirl only existed to die. But still, there was hope that she would get another shot.

When Gunn announced that Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow would be getting an adaptation in his new DCU, he did not specify who would play Supergirl. Instead, he spent a year hyping up The Flash as one of the best films DC has ever made. He also would vaguely talk about how certain actors from the DCEU would continue into the new universe, as the same character. He would be coy with naming specific actors, but would, for example, mention that he was open to Ezra Miller staying on as Barry Allen. Presumably because of how much he enjoyed The Flash. So there was a glimmer of hope that Sacha Calle, who was so excited to be cast as Supergirl, would get a second chance. A chance at a better script. But sadly, she did not make the cut.

Milly Alcock has been acting since 2014 but rose to prominence when she starred as Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen in MAX’s successful Game of Thrones spin-off House of the Dragon. “I was watching House of the Dragon & thought she might have the edge, grace & authenticity we needed for the DCU’s Supergirl. And now here we are. Life is wild sometimes,” Gunn said on Threads. While many actresses auditioned for Supergirl, Alcock was apparently Gunn’s top choice and will soon grace the big screen in the first solo Supergirl film since 1984. At this time, the screenwriter for the film hasn’t been announced and no director is attached, but Deadline is reporting that she’ll appear in a DC project before making the jump to her own film. Considering the time of her casting, it’s reasonable to assume that it’ll be in Superman: Legacy, but that’s just speculation at this time. 

Gunn did make one thing clear, however: “She’s not exactly the Supergirl we’re used to seeing.” This statement is most likely about Melissa Benoist’s time as the titular superhero. While Gunn has tended in the past to downplay the Arrowverse and their contributions to the DC Universe, this statement doesn’t appear to be that. While Melissa Benoist is very beloved as Supergirl, her version of the character received criticism for being a “gender-bent” version of Superman. A perfectly valid portrayal of the character and one that was beloved by fans for six seasons. It’s clear, however, that Gunn is more interested in the ways that Clark and Kara are different, rather than similar. 

It’s unfortunate that Sacha Calle got the raw end of a bad deal when she was cast in The Flash, but James Gunn is the man in charge and shouldn’t be forced to play with versions of characters he didn’t have a hand in crafting. Milly Alcock will no doubt turn out to be a great choice for Supergirl. Tom King and Bilquis Evely’s comic has already become a classic and time will tell if the film adaptation can live up to it. Even though the live-action legacy of Supergirl isn’t as substantial as Superman’s, she has some big shoes to film. The future of Supergirl is in safe hands with her. 

Jurassic Park 7/Jurassic World 4 Is On The Way

By Brandon T. McClure

In June of 2022, the Jurassic franchise ended for a second time. Capping off the Jurassic World trilogy was Jurassic World: Dominion: a film that brought back the heroes from both trilogies to uncover the mystery around BioSyn’s involvement in a swarm of prehistoric locusts that have been plaguing the United States. Marketed as the end of the franchise, Jurassic World: Dominion made over $1 billion in the post-pandemic box office (a rarer achievement than before), which meant it wouldn’t be the end forever. Now it’s been officially confirmed that a new entry is in the works and heading full steam to its July 2, 2025 release date.

The age of the “never-ending franchise” continues as The Hollywood Reporter and the official Jurassic World Twitter account exclusively revealed that a new entry in the Jurassic franchise is in the works. THR reported that original Jurassic Park screenwriter David Koepp is returning to write this new entry. Koepp’s involvement in the franchise ended with the 1996 sequel The Lost World: Jurassic Park and has been regularly working with Steven Spielberg. His more recent screen credits include the two Indiana Jones sequels, The Mummy (The Tom Cruise one), and Kimi. Many on the internet hope Koepp’s return will herald a “back to basics” approach to the franchise or perhaps a full reboot. None of these approaches have been confirmed at this time, however, the script is far enough along that production will most likely ramp up by the summer.

When the Jurassic franchise returned in 2015 with Colin Trevorrow at the helm, Universal was upfront in its desire to launch a new trilogy of films. Because of its $1.67 Billion success, that desire easily became a reality. Trevorrow would become the most prolific creator in the franchise, co-writing all three big screen entries and directing two of them, Jurassic World and Jurassic World: Dominion (also a short film called Battle at Big Rock). He also produced the Netflix animated series Jurassic World: Campe Cretaceous and its upcoming sequel series Jurassic World: Chaos Theory which follows a group of kids during the events of the films. 

But, outside of what is likely a minor involvement in Jurassic World: Chaos Theory, Trevorrow has left the franchise. Most likely feeling that three billion dollar grossing films was enough. Long-time producers of the franchise Frank Marshall, Patrick Crowley, and, of course, Steven Spielberg are all returning, however. Spielberg's involvement is not surprising since he’s been a producer on every entry. While creatively, he hasn’t been too involved since the second film, he prefers to keep a close eye on the franchise he launched in 1993. Internally this new film is being described as a “new Jurassic era” that will tell an all-new story. 

Currently, no director is attached, but with an ambitious release date, Universal is eager to find one. Deadline reported that Universal was in talks with David Leitch to direct this new entry. Leitch was a stunt performer before turning to directed and launched his own successful franchise with Chad Stahelski, John Wick. Since then, Leitch has directed purely action films like Bullet Train, Deadpool 2, and Atomic Blonde. He’s currently ramping up for the release of his latest feature, The Fall Guy for Universal Studios. Leitch seems to have a good relationship with Universal Studios since he directed Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw for them in 2019. He and his partner Kelly McCormick currently have a first-look deal with them, which is likely why he’s on their radar for Jurassic Park/World. But talks broke down. Universal is reportedly looking for someone to quickly shoot the film rather than someone with creative input. One source told THR that “there’s not enough time to work with new ideas.” Pre-production is far enough that Universal doesn’t believe another creator's input is necessary, so this will make the search for one a little difficult going forward.

The end of the second Jurassic World film, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom saw the dinosaurs freed from the confines of their island and able to roam the world freely. Striking visuals of various Dinosaurs in populated locations became instantly iconic. But Jurassic World: Dominion seemed wholly uninterested in playing with this new status quo. The film, instead, decided to tell a story about BioSyn (InGen’s competitor from the book making their first film debut) sending prehistoric locusts out into the world to eat various crops and cause a food shortage that only they could fix. There was admittedly more to the bloated plotline of the final film, but the bottom line is that it left people interested in seeing a world interact with dinosaurs disappointed, for the most part.

While the Jurassic franchise has been divisive since it returned in 2015, the general audience still led the three films to make over $3 Billion collectively. Some fans may be disappointed to hear this, but there’s no way the new film would ignore the previous three. Not only that but a new installment is releasing this year with Jurassic World: Chaos Theory. This new show is a sequel series to Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous and seems to be set around the time of Jurassic World: Dominion. All signs point to Universal being interested in continuing the world as it was left in the final film, regardless of whether it will be a “new story.” In this instance, a new story could just mean that it will be unrelated to the characters seen in prior films. Indeed, it’s been wildly reported that Chris Pratt, Bryce Dallas Howard, and the original trilogy cast are not being asked to return and reprise their roles.

It doesn’t seem to make sense that this new film will be a “back to basics” approach, even though Koepp’s involvement appears to imply one. If this new film is a continuation of Jurassic World: Dominion then this could finally be the film that tackles the narrative potential of seeing a world having to readapt to dinosaurs living among them. Being free from Owen Grady and Claire Dearing, also allows the filmmakers to tell a new story with new characters while playing in the sandbox that was left for them. While it seems a little silly that we’re staring down the barrel of a seventh installment, David Koepp at the helm suggests that the reports of its extinction were greatly exaggerated.

INTERVIEW / Zoey is Too Drunk for This Dystopia by Jason Pargin

Matt sits down with author Jason Pargin to discuss his latest book, Zoey is Too Drunk For This Dystopia as well as his other works. They also talk about the power fiction has to comment on very real things and make you think.

For audio, please check out the Atomic Geekdom Podcast to listen in.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

JASON PARGIN is the New York Times bestselling author of the John Dies at the End series as well as the award-winning Zoey Ashe novels. He previously published under the pseudonym David Wong. His essays at Cracked.com and other outlets have been enjoyed by tens of millions of readers around the world.

INTERVIEW / Jason Aydelotte aka "Mr. Miracle"

Interviewed by: Matt Spaulding & Jenny Robinson

Written By Jenny Robinson

We’re excited to have “the scariest man you never heard of” as a guest this week. We welcome Jason Aydelotte who was tuckerized as the main super villain in the recent Joe Ledger and Rogue Team International novel Cave 13 by Jonathan Maberry. A writer himself (pen name Jason Kristopher), he has nine novels published by Grey Gecko Press including the bestselling series The Dying of the Light.

Matt and I had an absolute blast chatting about geek interests (Star Wars, Star Trek, Lord of the Rings and more), the process of writing, good story telling, and all of our favorite authors. Jason also has some awesome book suggestions.

We hope you enjoy this Atomic Geekdom “Book Club” chat and we can’t wait to welcome Jason back on again.

MOVIE REVIEW / Kali Karate: The 2nd Beginning

By Anita Wills

From The Blair Witch Project to Best in Show, independent filmmakers have excelled in the genre of Mockumentary film for quite some time. Sean Russel Herman’s experimental mockumentary film Kali Karate: The 2nd Beginning is complete chaos, in a good way. In his feature debut, Herman tells the story of Sensai Houston, a very bizarre martial arts enthusiast who manages to ruin the lives of everyone around him while on his journey to get his ex wife back. 

Not only did Herman write, direct, produce and edit the film, he also took on the lead role as Sensai Houston, a character he created himself that came from his own personal passion for martial arts and comedy. Fans of the Eric Andre Show will appreciate the film’s determination to make the audience uncomfortable and as well as question their own moral compass for laughing. 

Kali Karate is overflowing with different editing and cinematography styles, as well as a comic book transition drawn just for the film. On top of that, there is impressive stunt work and an original “rap” score. That being said, there is little room for the comedy to breathe. Many jokes fell flat due to the fact that there was not enough time to process them before the next one. Several small characters were introduced, but never reached any character development that helped move the story along. 

What really carried the film was the comedic chemistry between Sensai Houston and his roommate Shu played by comedic genius Shu Lan Tuan, as well as the gorgeous but sparse HBO Boxing’s 24/7 inspired shots which was interesting to see in a mockumentary film. 

The artsy dark comedy leaves you wondering, is Kali Karate a love letter to filmmaking, an overflowing introduction of Herman’s talents, or a farewell eulogy to the comedic avant garde?   

Kali Karate: The 2nd Beginning is available on Apple TV, Amazon Prime, YouTube, Vudu, and Google Play Movies. 

Long Beach Comic Con 2023

By Anita Wills

High quality amateur cosplayers and talented original artists helped brighten up a some-what dull Long Beach Comic Con at the Long Beach Convention Center held on September 2nd and 3rd, 2023. This year's con was in a small room smashed in between two other events which made finding the entrance very confusing. The attendees consisted of mostly families with young children, which unfortunately did not benefit the provocative professional cosplayers who acquired a booth for selling pics and making fans. 

Among the vendors selling superheroes' faces on t-shirts and stickers sat the stand out original artist Karina Gazizova. With the clever use of markers on watercolor paper, Karina creates peculiar female characters against a stark white background, “It is important for me to do monthly art challenges to push myself. A strict personal goal of mine is to support myself using only my artistic talents, so far I have been successful.” 

Notable eye-catching cosplays included a spot on Weird Barbie from the recent blockbuster film, a detailed Star Fire from DC’s Teen Titans, and a very fitting Crowley from the fantasy novel turned TV series Good Omens. Star Fire commented that she had been cosplaying for five years and also cosplays as crime fighter Black Canary, whose first appearance was in a 1947 Flash comic book. Crowley stated that they relate to the character’s backstory of a falling from grace in their own personal way.  

It’s unfortunate that the talent who made the con worthwhile had to pay out of pocket. Perhaps one day the cosplayers will unionize. What do you think? Leave a comment to join the conversation.

The Energon Universe: Skybound's First Licensed Universe

(Image of Void Rivals Issue #1 varient by Jason Howard)

By Brandon T. McClure

Since 2005, IDW Publishing has been the home of Transformers. They’ve published hundreds of issues of the Hasbro property up until December 2022. Sadly, it was revealed that IDW would be losing the license to Transformers and GI. Joe. It’s unclear if the decision to not renew was on IDW’s side or Hasbro’s side, but nonetheless the decision was made and IDW would be losing one of their most significant publishing lines. This lead many to wonder where the popular IP would land next.

Speculation began almost instantly about who would want to pick up the license going forward. Marvel, who published the very first Transformers comics, had recently regained the rights to many properties they used to have, such as Star Wars, Micronaughts, and Rom The Space Knight. Because of this, some speculated that Marvel might be interested in regaining the rights to everything, including Transformers. However, it’s been an open secret for many years that Skybound’s owner and The Walking Dead creator Robert Kirkman has been wanting to write Transformers comics. But he owns a creator-owned company within Image Comics, so it seemed unlikely that he would be interested in writing or publishing a comic based on something he wouldn’t be able to own. Then Void Rivals came out. 

(Image of Void Rivals Issue #1 varient by Marz Jr)

Originally solicited as a new creator-owned book from Robert Kirkman and Lorenzo De Felici (Oblivion Song), Void Rivals follows two space pilots from warring factions named Darak and Solila. The two of them crash land on a dangerous planet and have to find a way to work together so they can escape. Readers were in for a shock when they picked up this new book to find the Transformer Jetfire making a cameo. Void Rivals was Robert Kirkman revealing to the world that Skybound is the new home of Transformers and G.I. Joe. Kirkman had apparently made a deal with Hasbro in 2021 and kept it under wraps until the launch of this new issue. 

Void Rivals is just the beginning. New Transformers and G.I. Joe titles will begin in October starting with Transformers written and drawn by Daniel Warren Johnson (Murder Falcon). Soon after, two four-issue mini-series will launch called Duke and Cobra Commander, both written by Joshua Williamson (Birthright, Dark Ride). Tom Reilly, and Jordie Bellaire will join Williamson on Duke, and Andrea Milana and Annalisa Leoni will join him on Cobra Commander. In November, Larry Hama will continue his run on G.I. Joe: Real American Hero, which he started with IDW, with issue #301. The book will pick up where his last issue left off and seems to be the only comic that is continuing and not an outright reboot. However, plot details on Transformers are scarce at this time. Together with Void Rivals, these titles will form the Energon Universe.

What is really interesting about this new Energon Universe is the inclusion of Void Rivals. Decades ago, when Marvel owned the rights to publish Godzilla comics, they had Godzilla go up against all sorts of Marvel heroes. Because of this, when the license went to Dark Horse and then IDW, these comics were unable to be reprinted due to all the Marvel characters on almost every page. It’s a pretty big gamble to have a creator-owned comic like Void Rivals include a Transformer that is owned by Hasbro. Should Skybound lose the rights to the characters, Void Rivals wouldn’t be able to be reprinted in the way that Invincible or The Walking Dead currently are. However, it’s important to note that the general public doesn’t know how long this deal will last. Thinking that far in the future in the comics industry doesn’t really make sense, but it would be interesting to know why Kirkman went about it in this way and not just write a Transformers comic himself.

This is also new territory for Image Comics and its subsidiary Skybound. Both are known as creator-owned publishing companies which means every comic published by them is owned by the creators. Even as Skybound has begun to expand into multi-media formats, the creator is still the owner of the IP. With Transformers and G.I. Joe, that will no longer be the case. Daniel Warren Johnson and Joshua Williamson are great comic creators, but they will have to play by the rules set down by Hasbro for the need to protect their IP’s image. This is something that IDW Publishing got adept at handling and Skybound will no doubt have to go through some growing pains. But hopefully, Hasbro allows them some room to do some interesting things. 

This new Energon Universe certainly has potential as some of the top creators in the industry are working on it. Kirkman also mentioned that older Transformers comics will begin to be republished soon which should make fans excited considering the later Transformers comics didn’t make it to the trade market. At the end of the day, it looks like Transformers and G.I. Joe are in good hands and fans can look forward to some interesting new comics. The Energon Universe has just begun.

BOOK REVIEW + INTERVIEW / Cave 13 (A Joe Ledger and Rogue Team International Novel) by Jonathan Maberry

Matt and Jenny were joined again by one of Atomic Geekdom’s favorite authors Jonathan Maberry to discuss his August 29th, 2023 release of his 3rd book in the Rogue Team International series (15th novel for Joe Ledger and even more additional short stories) . Watch/Listen to our interview to get an inside look at the trouble RTI has gotten themselves into this time.

Join the conversation in the comments and on social media.

For a recap of our previous coverage of Joe Ledger, visit our AG Book Club post of the second book in the series: Book Review / Relentless By Jonathan Maberry

For audio, please check out the Atomic Geekdom Podcast to listen in.

CAVE 13 - A Joe Ledger and Rogue Team International Novel (Vol. 3) by Jonathan Maberry

Release Date: 08/29/2023

Published by St.Martin’s Press/ Macmillan

By Jenny Robinson

** POTIENTIAL SPOILERS AHEAD FOR THE ROGUE TEAM INTERNATIONAL SERIES **

It is no secret that we are huge fans of the Joe Ledger world here at Atomic Geekdom, the series (both DMS and RTI) have some of the best heroes and villains that can be found in an action/thriller story. We’ve followed Joe and his teams through some of the most terrifying missions that feel as if they can come to life in the here and now. This makes us fall in love with these figures and constantly mourn those we’ve lost along the way. Before we even cracked the spine, we knew that Cave 13 was not letting everyone out alive.

The prologue to Cave 13 is one of the most frightening starts in Joe’s book career. We are introduced to the BIG BAD, the antagonist with the contradictory name of Mr. Miracle (aka Jason Aydelotte - who is named after a fan and charity auction winner) and who looks like Santa Claus. Joe and Ghost are trapped, hurt, beaten, and time was running out. This may be the best and frustratingly great way to start a book. Every chapter you know you’re going to come to this point where Joe is compromised. You KNOW that nothing can end well with that much stacked against them. Yet we continue to turn the page as it gets darker and darker. The RTI series is pushing to be some of the finest sinister plot and character development to date.

Being the third volume in the RTI series, the first two (Rage & Relentless) not only linger but shape this world. Most of the DMS stories (Patient Zero on through Deep Silence) can easily stand as individual stories, where RTI continues as more of a serial. Yes, you can pick up Relentless without having read Rage. Same with Cave 13. Maberry does a splendid job adding enough background of the previous events for new comers while also not exasperating life long fans. Honestly, it’s a beautiful example of balance that a lot of authors can get wrong (for example, do we really need to see Bruce Wayne’s origin story again?). This is where Maberry excels. For RTI though, the more you know of the scars the characters all carry from Rage and Relentless, the more the reader is invited to walk in the valley along side them.

Doing the opposite of what I said above, let’s dive into Rage/Relentless a touch before proceeding.

At the end of Rage, Santoro murders Joe’s entire family. Only he, Ghost and Junie make it out (barely) alive. Over the years and books, we have come to know and love Joe’s family. This loss hit hard and was such a painful shock right out of the gates for RTI. This continues as a sense of reprisal in Relentless by the addition of Joe’s fourth head companion, The Darkness. The Darkness was the most horror-struck one dancing inside his brain (which may or may not have originated by Nicodemus - I still ponder that). If the Warrior/Killer is afraid of you, then of corse the Cop/Modern man may want to run and hide. Joe has had the original three riding around in his head due to some serious childhood PTSD. Joe’s scars run deep. That mindset, emotion and accountability from all of his horrors has put a lot of hesitation in the thoughts of Joe’s closes allies (like Tops and Rudy).

Cave 13 carries some of that uncertainty. Is it safe to have Joe in field?

This chapter in RTI originates with the discovery of a 13th cave containing additional Dead Sea Scrolls. And they bring a bit of history, politics, religion and war. The world is unknowingly on the brink of an interesting arms race that is set to launch catastrophic wars throughout the already troubled Middle East. Those scrolls bring a sense of magic and mayhem, sparking confusion. The best description would be a World War while high on violent hallucinogens.

A prize for the readers in this book would be the multiple teams. Not only do we follow Joe’s Havoc team, but they are working along side two additional and surprisingly awesome crews. Mr. Church has compiled a pack including himself, Sergeant Brick Anderson and Repairman Jack (yes, THAT Jack, the character from the F. Paul Wilson novels). The second team must be hands-down the favorite surprise. Lead by the one and only Alexander “Toys” Chismer, this ragtag group seeking redemption has banded together to form THE WILD HUNT. We are keeping our fingers crossed that we get more stories from this point of view. Having Toys lead missions similar (yet different ) to Joe’s but in a more devious manor, is absolutely fantastic. Because of these groups, we get to participate in the growth of these characters by thier unlikely partnerships. The growth of Toy’s relationship with Joe alone has matured so well and this volume has expanded their characters in a very unexpected and welcoming way.

The Aydelote villain, Mr.Sunday (Nicodemus), terrorist organizations and magical illusions keep you on the edge of your seat from literally the beginning to end. I’ll shy away of talking about who we lost. There are some pretty horrible losses in this book. The way we loose those friends is even rougher than anyone could have guessed. Those losses are sure to impact how RTI moves ahead. And since this book ends with so many unanswered questions, BURN TO SHINE (Volume 4 expected out next year) will definitely provide all the anxiety we love as readers. “The war is the war.”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

JONATHAN MABERRY is a New York Times best-seller, five-time Bram Stoker Award-winner, anthology editor, comic book writer, executive producer, magazine feature writer, playwright, and writing teacher/lecturer. He is the editor of Weird Tales Magazine and president of the International Association of Media Tie-in Writers. He is the recipient of the Inkpot Award, three Scribe Awards, and was named one of the Today’s Top Ten Horror Writers. His books have been sold to more than thirty countries. He writes in several genres including thriller, horror, science fiction, epic fantasy, and mystery; and he writes for adults, middle grade, and young adult.

Digimon: The Movie / Coming To Blu-ray With A Twist

By Brandon T. McClure

It’s October of 2000, and legions of Digimon fans have just sat down to watch Digimon: The Movie. The movie begins with a short film from the, then, popular series Angela Anaconda, before going through three eras of Digimon. What wasn’t widely known at the time, but is now, is that Digimon: The Movie is made up of three short films called Digimon Adventure (a prequel film), Digimon Adventure: Our War Game, and Digimon Adventure 02: Hurricane Touchdown. Up until now, there has been no legal way to watch the original three films in the United States. But that’s about to change.

Discotek Media is an American entertainment company that focuses on licensing and distributing classic Japanese anime films and TV shows. They began in 2005 and will often “rescue” shows and films when they’re abandoned by the likes of Funimation (I guess Crunchyroll now) or Viz Media. The main goal for them is to make available and in the highest possible quality, these shows and movies. Recently, they released the original first season of Digimon: Digital Monsters on Blu-ray. It had initially only been available on DVD, but Discotek remastered the series for high definition, complete with the classic English voice recordings. A second release with the original Japanese language (titled Digimon: Adventure) track is on the way. But they’ve been working hard on a surprise for fans.

At the anime convention Otakon, Discotek Media announced that they would release Digimon The Movies Collection 1 on Bluray. This collection will have a remastered version of the classic Digimon: The Movie but without the Angela Anaconda short film (No significant loss there, honestly). But the most exciting news was that the collection will feature the original uncut versions of the three short films that made up the theatrically released film. They will include not only the original Japanese language track but also a brand new dubbing featuring many of the returning actors who voiced these classic characters.

Like many anime in the late 90s and early 00s, Digimon’s English dub is notorious for its changes from the original. Much of these changes were to make the series more palatable to American kids but in many cases, the show ended up losing its emotional weight. These dubbing issues followed into the movie. Digimon: The Movie took previously unconnected stories and connected them while also adding more humorous dialogue. While the three films will have a new American language track, the goal for the translators was to keep the weight and intention of the films intact while also maintaining some nostalgic elements that long-time fans will appreciate.

One of the major selling points of the new dub is that many of the original English voice cast is returning. Some of them had already returned for Digimon Adventure Tri and will return again to provide new dialogue for these three films like Joshua Seth and Mona Marshall, who play Tai and Izzy respectively. Jill Miller and Michael Reisz, who did not return in the reunion films as Kari and Matt will also be returning. This is especially notable for Michael Reisz who had retired a number of years ago. Discotek said that “anyone who we could find & could come back is here." Sadly, in some cases, the voice actor had passed away, such as the voices for Joe and Mimi, Philece Sampler, and Michael Lindsay. These roles were recast with new actors “based on energy & giving a voice & vibe that fits what you heard almost 25 years ago."

Digimon The Movies Collection 1 will hopefully not be the only Digimon film collection Discotek puts out. The very fact that it has the label “1” indicates that they want to do more. There are certainly more Digimon films that fans would be excited to see. Digimon Adventure 02: Revenge of Diaboromon aired as a TV special in 2005 and was the last to be set in the Digimon Adventure era before the Digimon Adventure Tri films and can be found online since it was dubbed with some of the original English voice cast. It’s likely Discotek has this film as well as others from the other Digimon eras and could release them in future collections. That is most certainly the hope when it comes to fans of these classic Digimon shows since being able to own all four films would be a dream come true. 

Between this release, Digimon Adventure 02: The Beginning (the next feature film) and the reboot Digimon Adventure 2020 is finally streaming on Hulu with an English dub. It’s a pretty good time to be a Digimon fan. American fans of the franchise love nostalgia and being reminded of the show and characters they first watched on Fox Kids all those years ago. Getting the opportunity to finally see the original three films that makeup Digimon: The Movie is a fun way to play off the nostalgia and deliver something new for those fans.

NIC GAUGE / Running With The Devil

MOVIE: Running With The Devil

STARRING: Nicolas Cage, Laurence Fishburne, Leslie Bibb, Cole Hauser, Adam Goldberg, Peter Ficinelli, Bary Pepper

RELEASE DATE: September 20th, 2019

WHERE TO WATCH: VOD (Hulu, Apple TV, Amazon Prime)

By Justin Pomerville (2 Broke Geeks)

The Man (Laurence Fishburne) and The Cook (Nicolas Cage) in Running With The Devil.

I know the film business can be tough, and sometimes it’s even harder to write a cohesive story that reads well on screen. But then, there are people who make filler films. These are films that a production company puts out that are just there. They had to fill an obligation for making a film, pull a shell of a script together, and then put it out (usually straight to DVD). Running With The Devil is not the first nor the last film that does this.

What is really baffling about this movie, is that they have a pretty good cast list. On top of having Cage, you have Laurence Fishburne, Leslie Bibb, and Adam Goldberg. This could have had the makings of a decent film but the plot is very generic. A tenacious federal agent (played by Bibbs) follows the supply line of a group of experienced cocaine dealers. They are followed from origins on the farm, through the smugglers, cartel bosses and onto corrupt officials. All with the DEA trying to bring them down. I don’t really need to explain much more on the plot than that. It’s not a terribly bad one, but there were ways they could have elevated it. And that needs to start with giving your characters names.

It’s rare for me to be invested in a character when I don’t know a single thing about them, especially their name. Cage is “The Cook”, Fishburne is “The Man”, Bibbs is “The Agent In Charge”, and the trend continues from there. To the point where no one in the film ever gives anyone a name. Not a single name was uttered in this film making it frustrating to watch.

The Cook (Nicolas Cage) in Running With The Devil.

This film is going to go at the bottom end of “Terrible” on the Nic Gauge scale. Everything about this film was insignificant, but still better than a good handful of films that have also come out.

Is A Post-Harrison Ford Indiana Jones Possible?

By Brandon T. McClure

With Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny in theaters, the journey of Indiana Jones has come to an end. This is not just an emotional conclusion for Indiana Jones but also for Harrison Ford. The 80-year-old actor is ready to hang up the hat and whip for good and he’s been very clear about that in every interview for this film. But, like every new entry in a long-running franchise, most people are asking one question: What’s next?

Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford) in Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny.

The journey to make this fifth installment in the Indiana Jones franchise began shortly after the release of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Steven Spielberg had been feeling burnt out on Indiana Jones after Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and only returned to direct the third installment to fulfill the trilogy. But, originally Paramount and George Lucas intended there to be five films in the franchise. After trying for years to return to the world of Indiana Jones, Lucas finally convinced Spielberg to return for a fourth installment. There was interest to return for the fifth film, but Spielberg, Lucas, and Ford couldn’t agree on what that story would be. When Lucas sold Lucasfilm to Disney, the new president of Lucasfilm, Kathleen Kennedy, wanted to get that fifth film off the ground. When it became clear that Steven Spielberg’s heart wasn’t in returning to the iconic world he began, the decision was made to continue with a new director. James Mangold, director of films like Logan and Ford v. Ferrari was chosen to bring Indiana Jone’s journey to an emotional end.

Even though this is marketed as the end of the journey that began in 1981, many fans are wondering if there could be more stories left to tell. These days it's old hat to envision a large shared franchise of interconnected multi-media properties and it can be nice to have a definitive ending and not something that goes on forever. Indiana Jones isn’t Star Wars and it doesn’t need to be. There are plenty of books and video games to keep Indiana Jones fans satiated. There’s also an argument to be made that Indiana Jones is a character that can’t be recast.

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade was the last adventure with Indiana Jones in his prime because the next time audiences saw this character, he was in his 60s (Actually Indy was only 58 while Ford was 66). Because of this, many hardcore Indiana Jones fans may feel like there are no more stories coming with Indiana in his prime. Unless you were to recast the role like James Bond. Indiana Jones may have started life as a James Bond inspiration, but the character doesn’t share the one thing that has made Bond such a lasting icon: his recasting. At this point in the franchise, recasting Indiana Jones would be difficult if not downright impossible

Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford) in Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny.

A few months ago, rumors began circulating that Lucasfilm was interested in developing a Disney+ original series set in the world of Indiana Jones. The proposed series was going to be a prequel about Indiana’s mentor, Abner Ravenwood. Abner is a character that every fan is familiar with but has never been seen onscreen due to his death prior to the events of Raiders of the Lost Ark. However, it now appears that Lucasfilm is restructuring to focus solely on Star Wars properties. Once again, rumors suggest that this series is no longer moving forward and with the cancellation of Willow, it appears that there’s no interest from Disney to allow Lucasfilm to develop anything outside of their biggest money maker once Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny is released.

This rumored Abner Ravenwood series wasn’t even the first time Lucasfilm seemed interested in developing a spin-off without Indiana Jones. Before Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, rumors were rampant about future plans for Shia Labeouf’s Mutt Williams’ character. It’s entirely possible, had that character, and movie, been better received (Although it was one of the highest-grossing films of 2008 and currently holds a respectable 77% on Rotten Tomatoes) there would have been a spin-off adventure with the character. Mutt Williams was introduced in the fourth film as the son of Indiana and Marion Ravenwood, which seemed like the perfect character to take over the hat and whip. After the film, Lebeouf said “I feel like I dropped the ball on the legacy that people loved and cherished” which ended up ruining his relationship with Spielberg. While no official plans seemed to be in the works for an “Adventure of Mutt Williams” film, this seemed to squash the idea altogether.

Fans have wanted one specific Indiana Jones spin-off for decades, however. One that would center on Indiana’s one-time side-kick in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Short Round. Played by now Oscar-winning actor Ke Huy Quan, the character has been a beloved member of the franchise for years now. While the film wasn’t as well received at the time, it’s been reevaluated and admired as a misunderstood classic. Quan’s turn in Everything Everywhere All At Once has brought the actor back in a big way. He’s even a starring role in the Disney+ series American Born Chinese. Quan, himself has said he’s love to return exclaiming “Are you kidding me? I love Short Round… it would be amazing to revisit that character.” While many, rightly, feel that Quan should focus on new projects, rather than returning to a franchise he was a part of when he was 10, the actor is obviously keen to reprise the role.

The Indiana Jones franchise doesn’t need to be a franchise that spans 30 interconnected films with an Avengers-style team-up at the end to defeat Hitler. But if John Wick can get a spin-off called Ballerina, there’s room for one spin-off in the Indiana Jones franchise. That’s all fans have ever wanted, just one spin-off. One movie or show to play in the world without relying on Harrison Ford. Especially now that Ke Huy Quan is on top, Disney may want to strike while the iron is hot and greenlight a Short Round series.

There are many comics, books and video games that star Indiana Jones, including one coming before the end of the decade (we hope), so there are plenty of stories for fans to explore if they want more. It’s not necessary for the franchise to continue now that Harrison Ford is hanging up the fedora, but it could be fun to explore new places and perspectives of the world that fans love. It doesn’t need to be a Star Wars-like juggernaut mult-media franchise or a massive shared universe like the MCU. All fans have ever wanted was one more adventure. What’s so wrong about that?

Book Review/ "The Camp" by Nancy Bush

The Camp by Nancy Bush

Published by Kensington Publishing

Release 6/27/23

By Matt Spaulding

When I was looking over the list of books up for review sent to Atomic Geekdom, this phrase jumped right out at me: “Friday the 13th meets Yellowjackets…”. That' was the description given to Nancy Bush’s latest novel, The Camp, and I knew right away I had to read this book.

Set most in a summer camp, Camp Fog Lake (aka “Camp Love Shack” to the counselors), located in the Oregon woods, “The Camp” delivers on its promise of being a lot like the hit series Yellowjackets, and a little less on being like Friday the 13th, but I’ll get to that.

The book’s main characters are a group of women, Brooke, Rona, Wendy and Emma, who, when they were young, went to Camp Fog Lake during its last year of being open. While they were there, mysterious deaths occurred that were ruled a murder/suicide. But the women know some things they aren’t telling.

Here’s where things got a bit muddled up for me. While the aforementioned women are the initial main characters, in the present day of the novel we are greeted with yet another set of main characters, the younger generation: Emma’s younger (but still adult) sister Jamie and Jamie’s daughter Harley, who is set to go to the reopening of Camp Fog Lake.

Jamie and her husband, Cooper, are expecting a baby via a surrogate, Mary Jo, who once lived at Haven Commune, a mysterious religious commune very near Camp Fog Lake. Jamie is uncomfortable with Mary Jo having been in a “cult” and this sets up one of the book’s three main mysteries as she goes looking for answers when she goes to visit Harley on parents’ weekend at camp.

I won’t lie, at this part of the book, too many more side characters began to enter the story. Once Harley is at camp, we meet so many other side characters: camp counselors, camp staff, husbands of women, and members of Haven Commune. On top of that, there is a third plot line that involves murders happening away from the camp that introduces police officers. I don’t think all readers will find this parade of names a problem, but I certainly did. I often found myself unsure of who was who and forgetting relations to other characters.

Ultimately, however, not being able to keep up with all of the characters didn’t stop this book from being a great mystery. Between the mystery of what happened at Camp Fog Lake, the mystery of Haven Commune and the mystery of the murders back in town, there is no shortage of things to keep you wondering right up to the very end.

Speaking of the end. While the description of the book that caught me promised a bit of Friday the 13th, the ‘80s slasher horror really didn’t come into effect until the last fifty pages or so. So, while it was a good riff on that genre, don’t go in expecting it throughout the entire book.

Full of murder and mystery set against the backdrop of summer camp in June, The Camp is a great read for when you’re on the deck, at the beach or anywhere else you might be this summer. Dare I even say…at camp?

NIC GAUGE / Outcast

MOVIE: Outcast

STARRING: Nicolas Cage, Hayden Christensen, Liu Yifei, Bill Su, Andy On, Coco Wang, Anoja Dias, Wiliam Herbert, Shane P. Zhang

RELEASE DATE: February 6th, 2015

WHERE TO WATCH: VOD (Amazon Prime, Apple TV, Roku, Vudu)

By Justin Pomerville (2 Broke Geeks)

Gallain (Nicolas Cage) and Jacob (Hayden Christensen) in Outcast.

There are very few movies that I have seen that make me outright ask “What is going on?”. I can use that phrase with a few Nicolas Cage films from that “middle era” time of his career. Films that have been at the bottom of the Nic Gauge usually are littered with them. So, spoiler alert early on: Outcast is one of them.

The plot takes place during the Crusades. A young commander Jacob, (played by Hayden Christensen) leads an army to slaughter an Arab City. Soldier Gallain (played by Cage) pleads with Jacob to leave the people alone. Instead, Jacob exiles him for abandoning God’s will. Three years later in Song, China, a dying emperor names his youngest child, Prince Zhao (played by Bill Su Jianhang) as his successor,. This angers his older brother, Prince Shing (played by Andy On). Zhao escapes with his sister, Lian (played by Liu Yifei) where they must venture out to the emperor’s guards to be saved. They meet Jacob and Gallain on their adventure, and two swear to protect the young king-to-be from Shing and his Black Gaurd army.

Gallain (Nicolas Cage) in Outcast.

Outcast is a laughable film. It’s an action film that suffers from an incohesive script, terrible action sequences, and a cast that overall, feels bored and lifeless. Hayden Christensen over the years, has been a punching bag for his acting capabilities, and unfortunately, this film does not help. He lacks emotion. Every facial expression is the same, having a very sunken sad look. Nicolas Cage’s performance is not that great as well and almost comical with an over-the-top British accent. Unlike Cage’s normal flare, he felt very boring on screen. 

The film is about 90 minutes (too) long, and Cage is only in it for roughly 25 minutes overall. So, although this is a Nic Cage film, it felt a lot like he was not a huge focus. Which is fine. It’s similar to his role in Jiu Jitsu, where he was the top-billed actor, but was barely in it. Because of that and having a lack of anything else really to say about this film, it will go near the bottom of “Hot Mess” on the Nic Gauge.