So reads one of the many replies to the Netflix Geeked X account’s 2024 post announcing a Magic: The Gathering animated series for the streamer. That commenter’s skepticism (and many others like them) may have been curt, but it was certainly warranted. Despite being one of the most successful games ever made and having decades of compelling built in lore, Magic: The Gathering has had a surprisingly tough time making it off of card stock and into other visual media.

Sure, the legendary trading card game’s stewards at Hasbro and Wizards of the Coast have produced some interesting promotional animation, but M:TG has still not yet broken into the world of scripted television or film like comparable gaming title (and WotC cousin) Dungeons & Dragons.

That is all set to change soon. As not only is director Matt Johnson’s Magic: The Gathering movie forging full steam ahead with the announced casting of Maya Hawke, but Netflix has also now finally revealed details from its own M:TG animated series, including a title, release window, synopsis, some early art, and more! With such a major download of new information, Netflix can be forgiven for some playful chastising of the non-believers in its video sneak peek released during MagicCon Atlanta.

Yes, there’s our old “I’ll believe it when I see it” friend right at the nine-second mark. Thankfully, we’re all now seeing it together. The Magic: The Gathering series is titled Planeswalker and will premiere sometime in 2027. As its name implies, the show will focus on the dimension-traversing magicians who populate the card game’s canon (not only is “planeswalker” a card type in the game but you, the player, are also a planeswalker according to Magic: The Gathering. Congrats!)

In particular, the plot will hone in on a young Chandra, who should be eminently familiar to red aggro deck enthusiasts. The series’ synopsis reads: “PLANESWALKER chronicles the fierce clash between formidable mages known as Planeswalkers. At the center of this struggle for power and survival burns Chandra, a volatile pyromancer hunted for her gifts and haunted by her past. Confronted by an insidious force, Chandra and some of the most legendary Planeswalkers must harness their extraordinary abilities, navigate treacherous alliances, and battle their own inner demons to prevent a cataclysmic war that threatens to consume their very existence. As the line between victory and annihilation grows thinner, a single spark determines the fate of thousands of worlds.”

There are no further details yet on what other planeswalkers will be joining Netflix’s series, but that sneak peek makes zero effort to hide that one of them will be the hulking leonin (cat person) Ajani Goldmane.

Terry Matalas and Cindy Appel (both of the recently-concluded VisionQuest) will serve as co-showrunners on the series. The former gets the money quote in Netflix’s video, saying “Each of these cards is this window into this incredible world. It’s not just world-building. It’s worlds-building.”

We’ll find out just how many worlds there really are for Chandra, Ajani, and friends to explore when Planeswalker premieres in 2027.

The post Netflix’s Magic: The Gathering Series Gets Proof of Life With First Look Footage appeared first on Den of Geek.

Turns out, the answer is, “Wrong.” Shang-Chi has been missing from our screens since 2021, and will finally return in Avengers: Doomsday. According to Liu, the wait was worth it. “I was so stunned by the fan response to the first film … [and it] definitely set off some sort of expectation in my mind that the character journey would be paid off somehow,” he told Empire. “When Doomsday came around, I was like, ‘This feels right.'” Happy though we may be for Liu’s feelings about his character, we respectfully disagree. We should have had at least one Shang-Chi sequel before Doomsday.

For those who have been following the steady onset of superhero fatigue, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings is a pleasing outlier. For most, fan interest peaked with Avengers: Endgame, which put a nice button on the shared universe experiment that we’ve all been enjoying. No, COVID did not help, nor did the decision to follow Spider-Man: Far From Home, the first MCU movie released after Endgame and proper hit, with the lackluster prequel Black Widow. But generally, MCU movies have felt more shoddy since 2019.

Along with Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, and the cameo-laden mega-hits Spider-Man: No Way Home and Deadpool & Wolverine, Shang-Chi is a rare, under-appreciated bright spot. Liu puts in a star-making performance as a West Coast slacker who reveals himself to be the Master of Kung Fu, forced back into action to confront his warlord father Wenwu, played by the legendary Tony Leung. While the movie does devolve into sludgy, stock MCU visuals in its final act, director Destin Daniel Cretton manages to bring enough Wuxia influences to make the film feel distinctive, giving the MCU its best action sequences.

By the time Liu stood toe-to-toe with Ryan Gosling as a rival Ken in Barbie, it was clear that we should have had multiple Shang-Chi sequels in production. But that never happened.

On one hand, we can see why. After Shang-Chi, Marvel moved Cretton to the big leagues, tasking him with directing the next two Avengers movies, The Kang Dynasty and Secret Wars. Presumably, Cretton would have taken Liu with him, making Shang-Chi a centerpiece of the latest incarnation of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes.

But between the tepid response to Kang’s proper debut in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania and Kang actor Jonathan Majors’ off-screen behavior getting him fired, Marvel decided to radically refocus. Gone was The Kang Dynasty from the schedule, replaced by Doomsday. Now, Endgame directors Joe and Anthony Russo would return to helm the film, moving Cretton to Spider-Man: Brand New Day.

Between Brand New Day‘s huge box office numbers and the excitement around Doomsday, it’s hard to argue that Marvel made the wrong choice. But still, we can’t help but be annoyed by the lack of Shang-Chi.

The MCU has long tried to do multiple genres within its franchise (remember people saying Captain America: The Winter Soldier is a paranoid thriller?), but rarely had it done so as well as Shang-Chi. The character’s kung fu fighting style feels distinct from the choppy brawling and CG laser-blasting common to other entries. Furthermore, Shang-Chi as a character puts an interesting twist on the core MCU hero archetype. Like Tony Stark, Shang-Chi has to atone for past mistakes, albeit those of his destructive father instead of himself. When he wears the ten rings, he too feels the temptation of corruption. Finally, there’s Liu himself, a winning screen presence who has all the charisma we want from an MCU hero.

That last point may be the most salient, given that Shang-Chi has rarely carried a solo book long since his first appearance in 1973’s Special Marvel Edition #15, by Steve Englehart and Jim Starlin. Shang-Chi absolutely has his fans, and he’s recently benefited from an excellent run by Gene Luen Yang, one of the best writers working today. But he’s hardly been an A-lister on the level of the other Avengers.

With Liu in the lead, Marvel could have used Shang-Chi to give the franchise a new direction and properly expand the line. We’re certainly happy he’s back in Doomsday, especially given a prominent set piece against Channing Tatum‘s breakout Gambit. But this should have been the latest in a string of adventures for Shang-Chi, not a long-awaited return.

Avengers: Doomsday arrives December 18, 2026.

The post Avengers: Doomsday Is Way Too Late for Shang-Chi’s Return appeared first on Den of Geek.

We may be getting an answer to both questions at once. According to the latest newsletter from insider Matthew Belloni, Amazon/MGM are making a strong play to secure Robert Pattinson as the next Bond. That play includes a shorter franchise commitment than offered to rivals Josh O’Connor and Jack Lowden, who “were required to sign up for four Bonds, if chosen,” Belloni wrote. He continued, “Pattinson, on the other hand, was able to lower that commitment to three (plus a whole lot more money than the others), given his stardom.” In other words, we might be seeing a trilogy from director Denis Villeneuve and Pattinson, setting a new standard in the world of 007.

Continuity has never been important to Bond, as demonstrated by the opening of 1981’s For Your Eyes Only, when Roger Moore‘s Bond visits the grave of his wife, Tracy. In most cases, it would make perfect sense for a man to think about his late wife. But Tracy only appeared in the sole George Lazenby outing On Her Majesty’s Secret Service from 1969, and the murder rampage that opens Sean Connery‘s return in 1971’s Diamonds Are Forever isn’t explicitly his revenge for her death. In fact, the beginning of For Your Eyes Only is the one time that any Bond film directly references Tracy.

As powerful as Diana Rigg’s performance as Tracy was, audiences accepted Bond’s apparent lack of attention toward his late wife. They understood the franchise as a series of stand-alone adventures, so loosely connected that Charles Gray could play British intelligence agent Dikko Henderson in 1967’s You Only Live Twice and then become the third person to portray arch-villain Blofeld onscreen for Diamonds Are Forever, both of which feature Connery.

But the nature of blockbuster cinema has changed. Audiences only understand stakes in terms of ongoing stories, as demonstrated by the way they talk about superhero franchises. The X-Men movies suddenly matter again because they’re being integrated into Avengers: Doomsday, while The Marvels doesn’t really count because it hardly continued the tale of the MCU. The firing of James Gunn isn’t just throwing the entire DCU into turmoil, but it’s making audiences wonder if they should even catch up with an acclaimed series like Lanterns, because the events of that show may no longer count toward future stories.

When Casino Royale rebooted Bond in 2006, it fully embraced modern blockbusters, starting a story that would be told over the next four movies. In fact, the 2008 follow-up A Quantum of Solace picks up directly after Casino Royale, with Bond taking action for the death of Vesper Lynd in a way that makes his avenging Tracy seem downright glacial.

But the Craig era also felt like a major swing away from the established Bond model, perhaps too far afield. Do we want to see the first adventures of a new 007 each and every time? And didn’t that approach run into trouble when Craig grew tired of the role, to say nothing of strikes and COVID, meaning that it took 16 years to tell the full story? Why run that risk in the future?

Focusing on trilogies allows the franchise to split the difference, giving audiences a bit of an ongoing story without overburdening the character. Moreover, as Belloni indicates, a trilogy would also allow more big-name talent to do their take on Bond. Even though notables such as Steven Spielberg, Christopher Nolan, Danny Boyle, and Quentin Tarantino have all expressed interest to varying degrees in making a Bond movie, thus far, the franchise’s only auteur was Sam Mendes, then best known for American Beauty. And while every Bond actor has gone on to make a name for themselves, only Pierce Brosnan was fully established when he got the part, and then on the TV show Remington Steele.

A limited, three-picture deal would better draw the attention of people like Villeneuve and Pattinson, offering them the irresistible opportunity to play in such a fabled playground, but not shackling them for forever. And if longtime Bond fans don’t like what the creative team does with the character, they don’t have to give up the franchise forever. They can just wait until the trilogy is done and see if they like the next tenure better.

And even if the whole trilogy thing doesn’t pan out, well, that’s hardly the end of the world. If there’s one thing the Bond franchise has proven, it’s that it can weather all manner of audience shifts and changes in the culture, keeping the adventure going, in one way or another, for more than 60 years.

The post James Bond: Robert Pattinson Rumors Could Open the Way for a New Status Quo appeared first on Den of Geek.

Devil’s Crest recently dropped its first two episodes on Prime Video, and from the start, it bears a striking resemblance to Sword Art Online. Protagonist Yuuma Ashihara is play-testing a virtual reality game called Actual Magic, and when he can’t log out, it seems like he is about to face the same trials Sword Art Online’s hero, Kirito, did. However, Devil’s Crest takes a major turn when Yuuma escapes the world of Actual Magic…and learns that the game’s monsters are roaming free in the real world, and that he can use the magic abilities from the game.

This effectively makes Devil’s Crest a reverse isekai. For those who aren’t familiar with their anime terms, isekai is short for “another world,” and usually features a character being pulled into a fantasy realm to help save it from a certain threat. Isekai is arguably one of the most popular genres of anime, and Sword Art Online helped pave the way for a wave of these stories, including Re:Zero and That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime.

But the rise of isekai anime also led to a formula that quickly grew well-worn. An event sends a high school student – usually male, usually from Japan – into another world. Said student, who often retreated into video games, learns that he has a special skill or that his time playing video games gives him an advantage. The student fights a horde of monsters, usually under the command of a demon king. Most of the female characters he meets are impossibly beautiful, attracted to him, or both. Rinse and repeat.

Devil’s Crest seems determined to break this formula, as Kawahara introduces a few plot points that set it apart from the usual isekai tropes. First, Yuuma is in middle school instead of high school, meaning he’s dealing with the twin terrors of adolescence and a world being invaded by monsters. Second, most of his classmates are transforming into monsters, so Yuuma has a personal stake in rescuing them rather than assembling a harem of interchangeable female characters. Thirdly, Devil’s Crest grows immensely dark in its premiere: characters die, lose their humanity, and struggle to survive – and the darkness only increases when you remember that these are pre-teens.

In a way, Devil’s Crest seems to be Kawahara’s attempts to fix some of the problems that popped up in Sword Art Online. Most of that series’ critics pointed out that Kirito becoming immensely overpowered, and his love interest Asuna being reduced from a capable fighter to a damsel in distress in later story arcs dampened the series’ promise and led to some of the issues that still plague isekai stories. Kawahara’s work on Devil’s Crest shows that he’s taken those concerns into consideration – and that he’s still capable of delivering stories that reshape the way fans interact with anime.

The post Sword Art Online’s Creator Just Dropped A New Anime Worth Watching appeared first on Den of Geek.

A new report from The Wrap indicates that since James Gunn and Peter Safran were fired from their positions as the heads of DC Studios and replaced by Jeremy Latcham, Clayface is now categorized as an “Elseworlds” film. As other reports about the firing have made clear, Skydance owner David Ellison fired Gunn and Safran in part because their nerd-first approach to superhero movies wasn’t reaching a wide enough audience and, more importantly, wasn’t bringing in enough money. But putting the financially-successful Clayface into the Elseworlds category seems contrary to that goal, precisely because most people have no idea what “Elseworlds” means.

The specific term Elseworlds comes from DC Comics, as the title of an imprint that publishes alternate-reality and out-of-continuity stories about established characters. The first Elseworld’s comic set the tone: 1989’s Batman: Gotham by Gaslight, by Brian Augustyn and Mike Mignola. Set in 1889 Gotham City, the story pits a Victorian Batman against Jack the Ripper, taking the usual Dark Knight tropes and giving them a unique twist. Other stories under the imprint ranged from 2003’s Superman: Red Son, about a world in which Kal-El crashed in Soviet Russia instead of Kansas, to crossovers with pulp figures like Tarzan and the Martians from H.G. Wells’s The War of the Worlds.

The concept of Elseworlds goes back even further than 1989, back when DC would label a certain tale an “Imaginary Story,” giving creators license to put heroes in strange situations. Marvel would have its alternate reality stories, long before they gave them a permanent home in the series What If…?, in which Uatu the Watcher would show the reader strange worlds where Spider-Man‘s Uncle Ben survived the fateful burglary attempt and Doctor Doom became a force for good.

In short, Elseworlds give audiences and creators a break from the demands of a shared universe. And that’s a problem for a company that really wants to create a shared universe. Marvel has sequestered its What If…? stories to an easily-skippable animated series, and even then, used the Watcher (voiced by Jeffrey Wright) to painfully explain the episodes’ relationship to the rest of the world.

When DC Studios had James Gunn, he used his large social media presence and nerdy enthusiasm to sell the idea to the public, making it clear that The Batman and Dynamic Duo were not part of the DCU. Case in point: Gunn went online to explain that Clayface would be in the mainline DCU, confirming that the Matt Hagen we meet in that movie was the same guy who fought Frankenstein and Rick Flag in Creature Commandos.

But now Gunn is out as DC Studios co-head, and his persona and social media presence are gone with him. In his place is Latcham, who doesn’t have quite the same following or persona. Thus far, Latcham’s most visible an a frequently reposted interview from June of this year, in which he talked to the conservative Christian Broadcasting Network about making superhero movies that his grandmother would approve of.

That’s hardly a good position for explaining the nitpicks of continuity, even if we weren’t talking about changing the status of a largely well-liked movie. But that’s the position that Skydance has put itself in, firing a guy who was really good at explaining the nerdy stuff to general audiences and replacing him with someone who hasn’t explained anything to anyone yet, all while creating further confusion about the shared universe in the public mind.

The Skydance bosses probably wish they could dismiss such blunders as the work of a malevolent shapeshifter. But Clayface doesn’t exist in real life, so they only have themselves to blame.

The post Clayface Is Already Creating Trouble for DC’s New Status Quo appeared first on Den of Geek.

During an interview with Empire, Russo discussed Downey’s performance as Doom and how the lord of Latveria is a “Gothic villain” driven by an unspeakable loss: “He’s a father who’s a victim of trauma. He has lost a child. When people see the film they say it’s a very scary movie. It’s scary because he’s so profoundly damaged.” Some (including us) might feel that this is the wrong step to take, especially given that in comics canon Doom already suffered a boatload of trauma when his mother’s soul was stolen by Mephisto. Yet the Russo brothers have drawn a link to Doom and the Avengers via the shared mantle of fatherhood.

Most teasers for Avengers: Doomsday have shown the biggest names in the Marvel Cinematic Universe settling into fatherhood. Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) is shown hanging up his Captain America suit and holding his newborn son. Thor (Chris Hemsworth) is shown praying to his late father, Odin, begging for a peaceful life with his daughter Love – and showing that the Russos are following up on one of the few good parts of Thor: Love and Thunder. Ant-Man (Paul Rudd) is shown tearfully embracing his daughter, Cassie (Kathryn Newton). This raises the stakes exponentially: instead of fighting to save all of reality from crumbling, the Avengers now fight for a world in which their children can live in.

Perhaps the biggest example, though, lies with the Fantastic Four. A “special look” for Doomsday revealed that Doom hails from the First Family’s world of Earth-828, while the mid-credits scene for The Fantastic Four: First Steps also shows the metal-clad monarch approaching a young Franklin Richards. This feels extremely in line with Doom’s hatred of Reed Richards in the comics, and what better way to hurt Reed than by taking his child? It also explains Reed’s sheer anger at Doom in the teasers, and an ominous line Doom says: “All of you have lived stolen lives. And now you must give them back.”

Many fans have speculated that this refers to the Avengers’ actions in Avengers: Endgame, which saw them travel through time to collect the Infinity Stones and undo Thanos’s wipeout of half the universe. This more than likely is going to be the reason for the incursions in Doomsday, but it also hints at the possibility that Doom lost his child in one of those incursions – backing up Joe Russo’s words about him being profoundly damaged. It also makes sense why he took Franklin, since in his warped mind he might believe that securing his lifelong enemy’s child makes up for losing his. 

Avengers: Doomsday centering on the theme of fatherhood is rather fitting, given that a lot of fans who’ve been with the MCU since its beginning are probably now fathers themselves. And if Doomsday and Avengers: Secret Wars do wind up serving as the end of another chapter for the MCU, those fathers are probably going to wind up introducing their children to a big piece of pop culture in the same way my dad introduced me to Star Wars and Star Trek.

The post Avengers: Doomsday Is Shaping Up To Be A Story About Fatherhood appeared first on Den of Geek.