Geekly’s Quirky Video Games: June 3, 2016

Published on June 3, 2016June 2, 2016 by KyraLeave a comment

QuirkyVideoGame

We’ve neglected video games up to this point on JK Geekly because readers might get confused between video game and tabletop game reviews or news, but I don’t see why we can’t have the occasional video game post. So let’s begin a series of posts that cover quirky video games. We read plenty of reviews or thoughts about mainstream, big budget games, so let’s explore some weird.

These quirky games are ones that have interesting mechanics, stories, or tackle seldom discussed or covered topics. Some are great, others are not so good, and there may be a few that I’ll discuss that some readers won’t even consider a “game,” but all of them are intriguing on some level. The great thing is that a fair number of these under-the-radar games have a small price tag. That’s part of the appeal—my tabletop game habit leaves me a little cash poor. Without further ado, let’s get to this week’s quirky video games.

TheStanleyParable

The Stanley Parable

This one’s not really an under-the-radar game. Video game enthusiasts often mention The Stanley Parable when discussing bizarre video games. Even though you may want to slap the smug look off of their face—and I imagine that some of you are thinking the same thing about me right now—when a video game aficionado says you should try The Stanley Parable, they aren’t wrong. You should try The Stanley Parable.

You play as the titular Stanley as he attempts to escape his drab office space and soul crushing job. A voice-over narrates his every action, and The Stanley Parable does a great job of marrying voice acting with the action on the screen. The unnerving narration functions as comedic relief one moment and bone chilling dread the next. If you download The Stanley Parable from Steam, you’ll even experience a little meta-gaming. You’ll find such achievements as don’t play The Stanley Parable for a year, play The Stanley Parable for the duration of a Tuesday, and click on office 430’s door five times, but the narrator berates you for trying to earn such an easy achievement and coaxes you into doing more tasks.

I probably said too much already. I don’t want to spoil anything else but let’s just say that The Stanley Parable is equal part slipstream and modern Aesop’s fable. It fits the bill for a quirky video game.

LifeIsStrange

Life is Strange

It’s difficult to discuss a storytelling episodic video game without mentioning Telltale Games, because they invented the genre, but I’ll try to limit my mentioning of Telltale while covering Life is Strange.

Life is Strange may have perfected the Telltale Games episodic model. This game tweaked a single mechanic: you can reverse time. Life is Strange’s protagonist can turn back time the duration of a scene—about 5-10 minutes—so you can see what the short term effects of a decision are, but since you can’t reverse time to any moment in the game’s narrative, you won’t know the long-term ramifications of your actions.

Adding that twist could make it sound as if decision making in Life is Strange would be easier than your typical Telltale Game, but it’s the opposite. There are moments where you agonize over which course of action is the best. During an interview, one of Telltale Game’s executives said, and I paraphrase, that Telltale judges the writing of their games based on whether or not gamers will have close to a 50% split between two disparate actions in a scenario. Since you can see these percentages at the end of each episode (for both Telltale and Life is Strange), you can tell that there are three to eight decisions where Telltale episodic game series yield an even split. Life is Strange has five to eight decisions each episode that meet those statistics. Life is Strange out does Telltale in the one statistic Telltale Games uses to gauge the effectiveness of their writing.

Okay. Let’s put a pin in Telltale talk and discuss over aspects of Life is Strange. The time reversal mechanism also yields some interesting puzzles. You control time, not space, so you can walk some place, warp back in time, and you’re elsewhere when the rest of the world catches up to you. That’s trippy, and the resulting puzzles and problem solving are fun. You also have to show how observant you are so you can convince people of your powers. Those moments presented a nice memory game. In fact, there were plenty of subplots and side games to be had with Life is Strange. The writing—for the most part—and the gameplay’s variety are strengths. You play as a teenage girl, and Life is Strange captures what it’s like to be a teenager. That could be a good or bad thing, but regardless, Life is Strange is an earnest game.

It isn’t all sunshine. The voice acting leaves a little to be desired. The lip syncing between the audio and visuals can be distracting too. I don’t mind it when voices don’t match lips—that could be an anime fan thing—but since I noticed the lips not syncing, that could be a deal breaker for some folks. Life is Strange also suffers from the inevitable time travel plot holes, and the last episode, to be polite, was shaky in the writing department, but the overall experience is top notch. If you have any interest in episodic storytelling games, you should give Life is Strange a try.

TheStaticSpeaksMyName

the static speaks my name

The last quirky video game for this week may be one of those “games” that aren’t really games. the static speaks my name is more of an experience that plays out in ten minutes. Seriously, you’ve spent more time reading this post than the time it’ll take to play this game. I just heard some of you groan through cyber space and appreciate you guys reading this post. Really, I do.

Anyway—the static speaks my name is dark and morbid. You play as a man who’s obsessed with a painting of twin palm trees on a small island. You learn more about him and his mental state (similar to Stanley in The Stanley Parable), and I’ll stop there so I don’t spoil it for you. the static speaks my name is a free game on Steam and you can play the “game” as quickly as I can ruin the ending.

I will say that the real psychological game comes at the very end. I know that what I’m about to say is fuzzy (if you haven’t played the game), but if you play this game, take your time during the ending. It’s disturbing, but you could discover something about yourself.

That’s all I have for Geekly’s quirky video games. Hopefully, this will be an ongoing post. Thanks for reading.

Where Vengeance and the Night Intersect

Published on May 9, 2016May 8, 2016 by KyraLeave a comment

TheNightAndVengeance

Top 12 Marvel Cinematic Universe Movies

Published on May 5, 2016May 4, 2016 by KyraLeave a comment

Captain America: Civil War opens tonight and that marks the beginning of the Marvel cinematic universe’s third and final stage. I figured it was time we ranked each Marvel movie, so here we go.

MarvelMoviesNumber12_ThorDarkWorld

12) Thor: Dark World

Marvel movies are notorious for not developing their villains—this will be an ongoing theme—but Thor: Dark World went a step further with under developed villains. You could omit the movie’s villain and not miss a thing. It takes a special Marvel movie to have a meaningless villain (the dark elves, not Loki, as they were the main villain). The rest of the movie didn’t fare much better. Natalie Portman fought through a script she hated. You couldn’t tell she loathed the film from her performance but her alleged ire was the only thing that was memorable.

MarvelMoviesNumber11_IronMan2

11) Iron Man 2

The next two films could switch places, and often do on a regular basis for me, but Iron Man 2 earns the lower spot on the list, despite trying to develop its villain. It’s a mess. Tony’s alcoholism was touched, his illness took center stage after a while, and Ivan Vanko’s backstory dump through expositional dialogue was no dynamo. The movie put too many story threads into two hours and ended up flat. There was little chance the sequel could recapture the excitement of the original, but where’s the joy?

MarvelMoviesNumber10_IronMan3

10) Iron Man 3

Iron Man 3 had more humorous moments than Iron Man 2, but it also had more issues. Seriously, these last two movies could switch places. I hate revisionist history, and Iron Man 3’s villain, set up as the mastermind behind everything Iron Man through flashbacks, played like revisionist history. Renaming a well-known Marvel group like AIM to The Ten Rings was a cheat, and Marvel had one larger than life role for an Asian actor (The Mandarin) and decided to make him a punchline. Hollywood has only cast an Asian or Asian-American in 50% of their TV shows and movies in the last several years (per The Screen Actors Guild), so a buffoonish Mandarin was a terrible look. Oh, and I don’t like having a figurehead villain with a real villain pulling the strings behind the scenes, even if the figurehead villain wasn’t the Mandarin. It’s been done. It’s not clever; it’s a lazy attempt to be clever.

MarvelMoviesNumber09_IncredibleHulk

9) The Incredible Hulk

It’s a testament to how little I think of the previous three movies that The Incredible Hulk doesn’t make for a compelling lead character; he’s too overpowered. He’s great as a side character, a force of nature, or another loose end the Avengers have to tie up. Ed Norton Jr. did an adequate job as Bruce Banner, and Abomination was developed as well as a one-note villain can be, so this movie made it this high on the list despite its hokeyness.

MarvelMoviesNumber08_CaptainAmericaTheFirstAvenger

8) Captain America: The First Avenger

Ever wonder why Captain America movies always have subtitles? Those subtitles are what the movies are called overseas. That has nothing to do with the movie’s quality, I just thought it was interesting. Anyway, the first Cap movie was good. Chris Evans made a convincing Steve Rogers, the origin story went off without a hitch, and I liked Bucky and the addition of the Howling Commandos, but I’ve never seen a character portrayed by Hugo Weaving come across as flat as the Red Skull, one of Marvel’s best villains, and he was a huge, under developed yawn. There’s that term again: under developed.

MarvelMoviesNumber07_AvengersAgeOfUltron

7) Avengers: Age of Ultron

I could’ve swapped Age of Ultron and The First Avenger, but oh well. Avengers: Age of Ultron was yet another Marvel movie that didn’t develop its villain—big shock, I know—but I can’t blame it. The film stuffed as many characters as it could into one film and the bloated cast resulted in Ultron getting twenty to thirty minutes of screen time for a movie that bears his name. Age of Ultron also suffered from the law of diminished returns. We’ve seen these scenes—or similar ones—before and the movie needed more than Marvel’s tried and true CGI goodness. Hawkeye had some great moments, while the relationship between Black Widow and Hulk was a head scratcher.

MarvelMoviesNumber06_Ant-Man

6) Ant-Man

Despite being the final movie in the Marvel cinematic universe’s second wave, Ant-Man shrank down the plot’s scope—pun intended—and delivered a film akin to earlier Marvel films. It made characters the heart of the story. The film couldn’t quite capture the same magic of the earliest Marvel movies, but it came close. The humor was welcome. It presented a fun, super-hero twist to the heist movie genre. And Paul Rudd and Michael Pena were a joy. Sure, the main villain was under-developed—like most Marvel movies—and a greater Hydra threat loomed in the background, but the focus was on family and that made the characters relatable. I’m not sure how many more character-driven movies remain in the Marvel cinematic universe, but Ant-Man was one of them.

MarvelMoviesNumber05_Thor

5) Thor

Loki has daddy issues. It’s a common trope and colors him as a character in broad strokes, but the God of Mischief has had more character development than most Marvel cinematic universe villains, and that’s a great thing. And it’s not the only thing Thor does well. I’m not a huge Thor comic book fan, but the movie does a great job setting up character relations and developing them through actions instead of expositional dialogue. Okay. There was a lot of exposition, mostly from Odin, but a lot of other movies only build their characters through dialogue, and Thor uses the snot-nosed son of Odin’s actions as the main characterization vehicle.

MarvelMoviesNumber04_Avengers

4) Avengers

This one is a spectacle. I marvel at how they balanced the character’ screen time in this one. Folks were thinking Avengers was an impossible movie to make because of the sheer number of characters needed on-screen, but Joss Whedon pulled off a miracle. I would’ve rated this movie a little higher, but viewers need context for this movie. You can’t watch Avengers without first watching at least two or three other movies—you’ll see this argument come up again real soon—and some of the scenes are a little hokey, but man, Avengers was a great popcorn flick. And I love the Hulk as comic relief.

MarvelMoviesNumber03_IronMan

3) Iron Man

I had to give the movie that kicked off the Marvel cinematic universe some respect. Iron Man also holds up really well, unlike its sequels. This is another movie where the character’s actions define who he is. Iron Man could’ve spent a lot of time having Tony ponder the meaning of life—and he does a little bit of this while he’s in captivity—but that’s not who the character is. Iron Man doesn’t tell as much as it shows who these characters are, and that’s wonderful. It also helps that Robert Downey Jr. was born to play the role and he’s a delight.

MarvelMoviesNumber02_CaptainAmericaWinterSoldier

2) Captain America: Winter Soldier

When this one was out in theaters, I couldn’t get enough of it. Winter Soldier shook the Marvel cinematic universe to its core. It developed its characters really well and took secondary characters—like Black Widow—and elevated them. Winter Soldier was also the most faithful adaptation of a comic book to the silver screen. It’s amazing. But this is where the context issue comes into play. While you could say that every Marvel movie—except for Iron Man—is a dependent film, Winter Soldier suffers the most from lack of context. I showed Winter Soldier to someone who said that they love Marvel movies. It turned out that they hadn’t watched Iron Man 2, the first Cap film, or many of the other ones on this list, and they had no idea what was going on. Winter Soldier changed the Marvel universe but it’s also dependent on the rest of the Marvel universe to make any sense. Still, it’s fantastic.

MarvelMoviesNumber01_GuardiansOfTheGalaxy

1) Guardians of the Galaxy

I really should switch these top two, but I showed Guardians of the Galaxy to the same guy who hadn’t seen Winter Soldier, and it was a much different experience. Similar to Winter Soldier, the Guardians were well developed. But while Winter Soldier leaned heavily on plot twists, Guardians of the Galaxy had more memorable moments. Each character—with the exception of the patented Marvel movie underdeveloped villain—had their own moments to shine. Guardians is also the movie that made me yearn less for a Star Wars sequel—no offense, The Force Awakens. That’s not bad for a group Stan Lee forgot was a Marvel comic.

I know that was a long post, but there’s a lot of Marvel movies. These rankings are subject to change. In fact, I may change them soon. There are so many great Marvel movies. Let’s enjoy this comic book movie renaissance. Thanks for reading.

CW Orders Flash-Arrow Spinoff DC’s Legends of Tomorrow

Published on May 7, 2015May 7, 2015 by KyraLeave a comment

Kyle’s Take

It’s official, The CW produce and air The Flash-Arrow spinoff that’s been setting the rumor mill ablaze. You didn’t have too much in the way of facts prior to now because The CW was on the fence about the series – who are they kidding, we knew they were going forward with the series – but now that CW has confirmed the series and named it Legends of Tomorrow, they’ve leaked plenty of information about the upcoming series.

The tentative tagline for the show reads When heroes alone are not enough, the world needs legends. The tagline reveals that we won’t just have heroes in this new team; some villains will grace this team. The title, Legends of Tomorrow, hints at a time-travel, but we now know that our time-jumping hero will be Rip Hunter, played by Arthur Darvill. Hunter has seen the future and will try to prevent something big from happening but he’ll need the help of The Legends to stand a chance of defeating this unstoppable threat.

And here’s our team of Legends:

Arthur Darvill as Rip Hunter

Rip Hunter isn’t this time traveler’s real name because as Rip says, “As a time traveler, I can’t let anyone know what my own past is. What’s to stop my enemies from suffocating me in my crib? Or doing the same to my father?”

We may not know what Rip’s real name is but with the help of his Time-Sphere, he’s had a lot of time traveling exploits. We also know that Rip’s part of the Carter family and that Booster Gold is his father. Don’t get any ideas, dastardly villains, or our next Legend will shrink you down to size.

Brandon Routh as Atom

Starling City isn’t big enough for Atom and the Arrow, so Ray Palmer’s taking his talents to South—actually, I don’t know where this show will be set. If we assume that Starling is in Wisconsin (check out our DC Comics Cities Map for more details), Ray should be headed south and my best guess is that the Legends of Tomorrow could have some scenes in Pittsburgh, PA.

Rip Hunter has spent some of his formative years in the Steel City and so did the next member of The Legends.

Victor Garber and Robbie Amell as Firestorm

Two heads are better than one or so this nuclear man on fire would have you believe. Well, Firestorm’s two heads do come in handy and we get some great dialogue that’s more of a monologue. Would that make it a monialogue?

Anyway, Firestorm may be the most overpowered member on The Legends. Here’s a quick breakdown of the powers he’s had over the years:

Density Control: He can manipulate the density of solids, liquids, and gases—from elements as light as hydrogen to ones as heavy as uranium (you know, because he’s a nuclear man).

Eidetic Memory: Anyone tied to the Firestorm Matrix can access the memories of anyone else (human or otherwise) who has ever been fused to the Matrix, and they can do so with moment to moment clarity. Thanks, but I’m good with not having the memory of another man’s birth.

Energy Absorption: Whether it’s solar, nuclear, petroleum, or even life-force, Firestorm and sap energy from just about any source. How does he stay so thin?

Energy Projection: Nuclear blasts, plain and simple.

Enhanced Vision: Anything you can see, Superman, I can see, too—only I have Thermal Vision.

Flight: Yeah, we know he can fly.

Molecular Reconstruction: How else could he reform his body after he implodes in a ball of nuclear fire?

Phasing: Wow, you couldn’t let Shadowcat (Kitty Pryde) from the Marvel Universe have one cool thing about her. You just had to be able to pass through solid objects, too.

Psychic Link: Eat your heart out, Grodd.

Regeneration: That’s another neat trick. He can already reconstruct his molecules, so why not?

Self-Sustenance: Firestorm can survive in space and doesn’t have to eat.

Superhuman Durability: He can survive bullets and stab wounds.

Superhuman Strength: But can he challenge Supes to an arm wrestling match?

Fortunately, The Flash weakened Firestorm or else The Legends would be playing cheerleader and we’d have no use for one of the next members on our list.

Wentworth Miller as Captain Cold and Dominic Purcell as Heat Wave

Why have one Rogue when you can get two? Miller and Purcell reprise their roles as Captain Cold and Heat Wave in The Legends. I’m not entirely sure why the team needs Heat Wave but the more the merrier. And there may be another addition to The Legends that might make some Arrow merrier.

Caity Lotz as Black Canary?

All we know is that Caity Lotz will be in The Legends. We don’t know if she’s only in flashbacks, portrays a different character, or if she returns as an alternate reality Sarah Lance/Black Canary or if she’s Sarah post-Lazarus Pit. We’ll have to see how The Legends plays her character but we do know the identity of the other female member of the team.

Ciara Renee as Hawkgirl

Hawkgirl was the new hero I most wanted to see in The Legends but this may not be the hard but clean nosed heroine from the mid-80’s to 2011. This Hawkgirl’s alter ego is Kendra Saunders and she might share the New 52’s Hawkgirl origin as a reformed treasure hunter/grave robber. Either way, I can’t wait to see Hawkgirl get some air time and she’s by no means the most mysterious member of The Legends.

Franz Drameh as Jay Jackson

First thing’s first: there is no Jay Jackson in the DC Universe.

He could be a new character or his name could be used as subterfuge for the true identity of the character Drameh’s portraying. This wouldn’t be the first time that DC has introduced a new character in a TV series (Harley Quinn, anyone?) but it also wouldn’t be the first time that DC changed a character’s alter ego name so that fans would keep guessing who the character was over the course of a summer.

Action Jackson – please don’t let that be his character name if he’s a new character – could be anything from Karate Kid, to a reimagining of Kid Flash, to even Cyborg from The Titans. That last one might be interesting. TNT has a Titans TV show planned for later this year or next year but they don’t have Cyborg in the line-up. The CW could be changing Cyborg’s alter ego name (from Victor Stone) to Jay Jackson so that TNT could use Stone as Cyborg in a future season of Titans. It wouldn’t be the first time for that either but I don’t know what the CW has planned. All I know is that I’m intrigued by The Legends’ large cast.

iZombie versus Pushing Daisies

Published on March 24, 2015March 24, 2015 by KyraLeave a comment

iZombie is essentially Pushing Daisies—with a splash of zombie—for a younger demographic. I didn’t include this comparison in my review of iZombie’s pilot (if you want to read my review, here’s a link) because I didn’t want to marry the two shows to each other. I loved Pushing Daisies, so I’m leery to compare it to iZombie. But there are some lessons iZombie can learn from Pushing Daises.

We’ll get to these lessons in a bit, but first, let’s see how these two shows stack against each other.

By the numbers, iZombie resembles Pushing Daisies, but it doesn’t have the same whimsy. The zombie motif adds a dark streak. iZombie could overcome this by adding flare to the special effects and art direction. That’s not a knock on iZombie necessarily. The effects and art direction for Pushing Daisies was top-notch, Emmy worthy. But with its smaller budget, I’m not sure if iZombie can ever compete with Pushing Daisies in this regard, so they could make the subject matter even lighter and still, getting too light-hearted could be an issue.

Pushing Daisies balanced the goofy humor, mystery elements, and romance pretty well—the first season. It got a little too weird for its own good in season two and lost a lot of viewers. Likewise, iZombie’s pilot balanced its elements well. But will iZombie fall prey to the same weird just for weird’s sake? There are a couple of factors that might help.

iZombie grounds itself in police work more than Pushing Daisies ever did—that’s because Pushing Daisies was a fantasy—and you don’t have to explain a zombie as much as a magical pie maker, so that’s another obstacle averted. Then, you have a change in point of view. In Pushing Daisies, you gain distance from the dead because the pie maker brought people back to life: third person reanimated dead. In iZombie, Liv is a zombie and she experiences unliving first-hand: first person reanimated dead. I like the point of view shift. It helps to separate the two shows for me, gives a fresh perspective on the undead, and could keep the show afloat.

There’s plenty of room for both shows and for iZombie in the growing number of zombie media. We’ll have to watch tonight’s episode to find out whether or not iZombie’s elements fall out of balance and even later to see if it can match or beat Pushing Daisies’ number of twenty-two, total episodes. I’d love it if they brought back or rebooted Pushing Daisies.

Actor, Director and “Star Trek” Icon Leonard Nimoy Dies at Age 83

Published on February 27, 2015March 8, 2015 by Kyra1 Comment

We don’t usually write tributes to those we lost on this page, but we don’t usually lose an acting icon either. Leonard Nimoy might’ve tried to separate himself from his most famous character in his 1975 autobiography I Am Not Spock, but that was illogical as the pointy-eared, emotionless, half-human Spock, and the progressive world without prejudice of Star Trek in which Spock inhabited, shaped Nimoy of as a person.

Nimoy—who passed away on February 27, 2015 at the age of 83 from the end-stage of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease—later wrote a follow-up autobiography I Am Spock that showed him embracing his iconic character. To many Sci-Fi fans he was Spock, and he was the only Star Trek original cast member J. J. Abrams insisted on returning in his Star Trek reboot. But Nimoy was so much more than Spock.

The Boston born Nimoy started as a child actor and worked steadily on television before and after Star Trek, appearing on disparate shows such as Sea Hunt, Gunsmoke, and Mission: Impossible. In the ‘80s, he established himself as a film director, overseeing two back-to-back Star Trek installments (The Search for Spock and The Voyage Home) before directing the 1987 hit, Three Men and a Baby.

Once Nimoy got comfortable behind a camera, he shifted to photography, snapping pictures that hung in galleries and collecting some of his works in the book The Full Body Project, which he collected photos he shot of nude plus-sized and obese women. He later said that he wanted people to accept their bodies and show the bodies that people lived in, not the body types that fashion magazines sell.

That kind of sentiment speaks to how Nimoy’s involvement in a socially conscious series like Star Trek shaped his worldview. Through most of his work, Nimoy endeavored to shape the world into a brighter future.

DC Comics Universe Cities

Published on February 20, 2015February 19, 2015 by Kyra7 Comments

Arrow frequently relocates Starling City.

The first season placed Starling near Seattle because the series is filmed in Vancouver and the two cities have similar terrain. The second season flashed geographic coordinates that depicted Starling City’s airport in northern Wisconsin, somewhere north of Green Bay. Then during a Flash/Arrow crossover in the third season, they said that The Flash ran from Central City to Starling City and that Barry traveled 600 miles to do so. Even if Starling City exists in northern Wisconsin, Barry would still have had to travel more than 600 miles, so there may be a third location for Starling City. But the comics place Green Arrow in Star City and that’s in northern California.

As far as the Golden Age Flash’s home of Keystone City is concerned, it’s located across the Missouri River (in Kansas) and serves as a twin city for Central City, MO. I didn’t include it on the map because that would’ve looked crowded.

Metropolis used to be located near New York City but it got moved to Illinois. Many believe that it’s located in Chicago, and that may be, but DC Comics made a public announcement that the physical Metropolis is the official home of Superman. Perhaps I should’ve put a second Superman logo in northern Illinois to muddy up things further.

At any rate, let’s see how these locations compare in terms of population.

I guess Smallville’s population is no more than a drop in the bucket when compared with Metropolis. Ba-dum-bump.

Note: Gotham City’s population refers to post-No-Man’s Land arc.

Worker Placement Board Game Timeline Quiz

Published on February 18, 2015March 11, 2025 by KyraLeave a comment

Spider-Man Joins the Marvel Cinematic Universe

Published on February 11, 2015 by KyraLeave a comment

Marvel fans around the world rejoice. The Spider-Man embargo in Marvel movies has ended. You might just see him in an upcoming Avengers movie and more as Spider-Man joins the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU).

With this new deal the new Spider-Man will appear in a Marvel film from Marvel’s Cinematic Universe. Sony Pictures will then release the next installment of its $4 billion Spider-Man franchise on July 28, 2017 in a film that will be co-produced by Kevin Feige and his team at Marvel, and May Pascal who launched Sony’s Spider-Man franchise 13 years ago. Sony and Marvel will collaborate on a new creative direction for the web slinger. Sony will continue to finance, distribute and own the Spider-Man films. They’ll also have final say with creative control of the character. We’ll have to see what this news will hold, but things are headed in the right direction.

This announcement follows a decade of speculation of will they or won’t they add Spider-Man to the MCU. Today, it’s official. Spidey’s back, but what does that mean for movie goers?

1) Sorry, Andrew Garfield is out as Spidey.

2) Future Spidey–the ones beyond the Sinister Six, perhaps–should get pushed six-ten months into the future. We told you that last week’s graphic was subject to change.

But, hey. We can finally see Spidey on the big screen with Cap, Iron Man, Hulk, and Thor, so we can wade through a short transition period. Welcome back, Spidey.

Here’s a video depicting the legalize that has kept Spidey from Marvel for over a decade.

Upcoming Super Movies

Published on February 5, 2015March 8, 2015 by KyraLeave a comment

We found the following picture of upcoming comic book movies and decided to post it.

Original source is Comics Alliance

This pic doesn’t have all the geeky goods–it only covers upcoming comic book based movies–and all the dates can change from now and when the movies get released, but let’s do some quick takes for the films that have closer release dates.

Avengers: Age of Ultron
2015, the year of Marvel movies, kicks things off right with the anticipated sequel to 2012’s Avengers. The gang returns with some additions: Scarlet Witch, Quicksilver, Warmachine (making his Avengers film debut), Vision, and the titular character Ultron.

Hopefully, Age of Ultron won’t follow the story arc of the abysmal comic of the same name. It doesn’t appear that it will. I’m cool with changing Ultron’s creator from Pym to Stark–Marvel hasn’t introduced Pym yet–but I’m not sure how Ultron ties into the growing Infinity War. I trust Marvel’s creative team, and I don’t plan to leave the theater until after the tail end of the credits roll.

Check out the extended trailer:

Ant-Man
We get introduced to Hank Pym a couple of months after Age of Ultron when he gets his own movie Ant-Man. Michael Douglas plays Pym, but he’s not the one jumping around in tights. Paul Rudd fills Pym’s thief turned protegé Scott Lang, and Lang’s the one riding a flying ant.

To the best of our knowledge, this movie follows the comic. Lang is the second man to don the Ant-Man mantle. He was a thief, who mended his ways after his daughter becomes ill, and Jim will love the fact that Hayley Atwell–a.k.a Hotwell–might find her way on the screen as Agent Carter.

Here’s the trailer. Enjoy.

Fantastic Four
Fox comes out with their attempt to hold onto the Fantastic Four franchise–so long as they keep making movies, Marvel can’t get the rights. But the Fantastic Four reboot has gained a lot of buzz. This shows that people want to see a good Fantastic Four movie.

It remains to be seen if this will be a good FF movie. I hope it is. I’m alright with recasting Johnny as an African-American. So long as the cast has chemistry, I don’t care if Johnny and Sue are twin brother and sister or if one of them is adopted. But Dr. Doom as an IT specialist? What? Tell me that’s an April Fool’s joke in February. I can’t see Doom saying, “Do as I command, Richards, or I won’t give you tech support.”

Check out the Fantastic Four trailer:

Deadpool
Not much is known about this film yet except that Ryan Reynolds will reprise his role as Wade Wilson/Deadpool. Thank goodness. I think I join most fans by saying that I liked him more as Deadpool than as Green Lantern. We don’t have a trailer yet, but the internet leaked a test video of the movie some time ago.

Here’s that leaked movie-test video:

Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice
Batman and Superman have no reason to fight each other–unless we’re talking mind control for one of them. Sure, they’re opposite sides of a coin, but they’re part of the same coin. So I hope the title misleads us, but they’ll have to show at least one scene of the two of them fighting. I’d be down for a bout similar to Thor and Iron Man’s in Avengers.

Thankfully, we’ll see Wonder Woman in this film. You can’t have a not-so-subtle reference to the Justice League in your title without having at least one other member of the JL. I know that the idea of this film turns Jim’s stomach, but I’ll withhold judgment. For now.

Sadly, there isn’t an official or even a trusted unofficial video for Dawn of Justice…yet.

Captain America: Civil War
We get another Cap movie? Score. The movie’s based on the Civil War storyline? Meh.

If you don’t know the Civil War storyline, look no further than The Incredibles. The government institutes a super-power registry with which to monitor superheroes. That doesn’t sound so bad, but Cap is anti-registry, while Stark’s pro-registry. On what alternate universe is Stark pro-registry? He defies the government from confiscating his suits of armor in the second Iron Man movie. Again, I trust the Marvel team, and Captain America: Winter Soldier was arguably the best superhero movie of all time.

Still too soon for a Captain America: Civil War trailer, and the announcement video from Marvel’s media day doesn’t want to load into this post. Sorry for the inconvenience.

X-Men: Apocalypse
Who was that young, thin, blue-skinned dude at the end of X-Men: Days of Future Past? That’d be Apocalypse in ancient Egypt, and he’s getting his own movie treatment in spring 2016.

Fox plans to bring back the core cast from Days of Future Past and add Apocalypse (obviously) and Channing Tatum as Gambit. We’ll have to see about Tatum. We’ll also see Jean Grey, Cyclops, and Storm recast as well as the return of Rose Byrne as MacTaggert (X-Men: First Class). Not much is known about the script, yet. And there’s no word as to whether or not Nightcrawler will make another appearance. Director Bryan Singer has said he wants to include him.

Just in case you missed it, here’s the closing credits scene in Days of Future Past:

Suicide Squad
Incarcerated anti-heroes with explosive devices attached to their spinal cords go on “suicide” missions.

We know the cast–check our previous JK Casting Couch post–and we know that The Joker factors into the script. Again, I’ll withhold judgment, but I can’t see The Joker as either a member of the Suicide Squad or as the Suicide Squad’s foil. I will say that the Suicide Squad is my most anticipated DC Comics movie in the next year and a half.

Sorry. We’ll have to wait for a trailer for this movie, too.

Beyond the summer of 2016
We’ll stop here for now. The more we travel beyond the summer of 2016, the less we know about the projects, but we’ve got a lot to look forward to in the coming months.