It’s been an open secret in the world of comic books that The Joker knows, and has always known, that Bruce Wayne is Batman. He just doesn’t care. It wouldn’t be funny for him to sneak into Wayne Manor in the middle of the night and put a bullet in Bruce Wayne’s head while he’s sleeping. It’s Batman who he’s interested in, Batman is his playmate. Well after years of teasing it looks like The Joker is finally going to pull the ripcord on pretending he doesn’t know that Bruce Wayne and Batman are the same man. He’s finally going to play that Ace up up his sleeve. This awesome art from Jorge Jimenez gives us a little preview of things to come in the upcoming Joker War storyline. It certainly looks like The Clown Prince of Crime is not holding back.
To add another interesting wrinkle to the story, The Joker’s got a new girlfriend and her name is Punchline. The Joker and Harley has been consciously uncoupled for several years now, with Harley Quinn leaning more into hero than villain territory these days. So it looks like Mister J. has moved on to a woman who is more interested in keeping up with his bloody, homicidal antics. We’ve only seen a little bit of Punchline in the current Batman comics, but expect her to play a bigger role as we get closer to Joker War. Here’s more beautiful art by Jorge Jimenez, who designed Punchline, so you can get a better look at the character and how she is different from Harley Quinn.
The second image is a profile on the character, Punchline from a resent issue of Batman
Joker War will be written by James Tynion IV, the current writer of DC’s monthly Batman comic. Tynion’s been doing excellent Batman work at DC for several years now, on books like Detective Comics and his current run on Batman. He also worked closely with Scott Snyder, arguably the greatest modern Batman writer, on Snyder’s Batman books as well as co-writing multiple issues of Snyder’s recent run on Justice League. This storyline has been teased for awhile now and we’ve been treated to sneak peeks at The Joker while he’s planning his masterpiece.
As you can see in the images below, any doubt about how much knowledge The Joker really has about Batman and his family, is quickly erased…
Because of the national health crisis, there haven’t been any new monthly comic books shipped to vendors over the last few weeks. Regular comic book distribution to Comic Book Store‘s and apps like ComiXology, is expected to begin again in mid-May, in a few weeks. So the release dates of storylines like Joker War, that were supposed to start at the end of April or the beginning of May with Batman # 95, No loolike a late May or early June beginning for the joker war. Fortunately however long it takes, things will get back on track. This is definitely going to be a big story for the Batman franchise so look for more coverage when Joker War begins in late May or June. I know I’m excited!
Thanks for reading! Follow me on Twitter @PJWrightWBM or type Worlds Best Media into the search bar, you can also like and follow us on our Facebook page; World’s Best Media. Those likes and follows, as well as iTunes reviews, go a long way to supporting World’s Best Media. We really appreciate the loyalty and support shown to us by our fans, so thanks again! Stay healthy and stay safe!
It’s a good time to be a fan of Batman: The Animated Series. With the new comic book series Batman: The Adventure Continues, an in canon continuation of the series. Written by Alan Burnett and Paul Dini, 2 of the biggest creative players behind the original Animated Series, this new comic continues the classic story of the original show, while introducing new and iconic elements from Batman’s rich mythology. Besides the new comic book series, there’s some fantastic art I found online by an incredible artist.
I’ve been an artist my whole life. Even as kid I was always drawing. Though I would experiment with painting, watercolor, and other material, Sketching has always been my favorite. I love finding cool art online. Specially art featuring the kind of stuff we cover here at World’s Best Media. Cool paintings of classic scenes from movies, aspiring comic book artists displaying their version of iconic characters, hand drawn movie posters, that sort of thing. A quick word on film posters: they used to so cool. Works of art in their own right. A few movies will still put out cool posters, but most are photoshopped crap. The work of men like Drew Struzan who’s worked on some of the most iconic films of all time! I’ll post some his work below so you can see what I’m talking about.
Classic Drew Struzan posters
Whether it’s movies, comics, or TV, there are a lot of fantastic artists (amateur and professional) that put their stamp on great genre work with their art. The Batman: The Animated Series pics below definitely fall into the category of fucking amazing.
All of these incredibly beautiful pieces of art based on the characters from Batman: The Animated Series, were done by rafagrassetti . You can see more of his spectacular artwork on his Instagram page: https://www.instagram.com/rafagrassetti/?hl=en right here. It’s amazing how he takes the unmistakable design of BTAS, yet still makes it his own with his slightly more realistic take on the characters. As you can see he based all of his work in the original BTAS character designs, not any of the redesigns done in Season 4 or the hour long block that was referred to as “The New Adventure of Batman/Superman”. My personal favorite is Killer Croc. He’s drawn with slightly more animalistic attributes without turning him into a full blow crocodile monster like we’ve seen in recent years. I think some of these may even be sculptures, which just shows what a monumentally talented artist Rafa Grassetti is.
Thanks for reading! Follow me on Twitter @PJWrightWBM or type Worlds Best Media into the search bar, you can also like and follow us on our Facebook page; World’s Best Media. Those likes and follows, as well as iTunes reviews, go a long way to supporting World’s Best Media. We really appreciate the loyalty and support shown to us by our fans, so thanks again! Stay healthy and stay safe!
This was a busy week, so I was late to post a webpage for the latest episode of The World’s Best Podcast, even though the episode came out earlier this week. I think it worked out well, because the delay meant that way I get to show you guys some cool content related to my review of The Invisible Man and promote my guest appearance on Tim Cuff and Ryan McDonald’s podcast, Cuff’s Basement! Going on that podcast was a lot of fun and you can read all about it below my invisible man review content.
Anyway, on this episode of “The World’s Best Podcast”, I review the excellent new thriller THE INVISIBLE MAN! Full Spoilers! Listen here: https://www.spreaker.com/episode/23699306 Or subscribe on Stitcher, Spreaker, iHeartRadio, Deezer, Podchaser, Castbox, Podcast Addict, Google Podcasts, & Apple Podcasts/ITunes…
During this weeks episode, I talk about how The Invisible Man is among the roster of Universal’s Classic Movie Monsters.
Icons such as, Dracula, The Wolfman, Frankenstein’s Monster, and more. These films are largely the reason vampires, werewolves, and various forms of the undead appear so frequently in our popular culture. There have been literally thousands of TV shows and movies featuring vampires and werewolves (sometimes even both). However, in other cultures around the world vampires and werewolves are far less prevalent in popular culture and take a backseat to other supernatural creatures.
I found this awesome piece of art online that gives us a more gruesome and terrifying look at Dracula, The Wolfman, and Frankenstein’s Monster, without losing the classic Universal Monsters “look” that made them so iconic!
During my review of The Invisible Man, I brought up several scenes I love from other movies starring classic universal monsters. Like this fantastic scene from 1999’s The Mummy starring Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weiss:
I LOVE 1999’s The Mummy and this is probably my favorite scene. Wait until the end, Brendan Fraser’s reaction to seeing The Mummy for the first time is fucking CLASSIC!
I also mentioned the iconic werewolf transformation scene in the film, An American Werewolf In London. As well as the much less iconic, but still interesting transformation scene from Benicio Del Toro‘s remake of The Wolfman. You can watch both clips below:
An American Werewolf in London (1981) Transformation Scene
The Wolfman (2010) Transformation Scene
Here’s a side-by-side comparison between The Invisible Man of 1933 and the new 2020 version (without giving too much away about what makes this new incarnation of The Invisible Man so cool…)
L. 1933; R. 2020
Well, that’s it for my review and coverage of The Invisible Man, but we’re not quite done yet today… Now, let’s switch gears here a little bit! It’s two podcasts for the price of one!
As some of my listeners may know, Ryan McDonald who is a frequent co-host on the The World’s Best Podcast and Tim Cuff who was my original co-host on the show, have their own fun and unique podcast called Cuff’s Basement. It’s hilarious, it’s weird, and it’s a blast to listen to. I recently had the chance to make an guest appearance on Cuff’s Basement, on an episode of the show where Ryan, Tim, and I each picked our 3 Favorite Comic Book Superhero Movies of all time. Of course, being the comic book movie super fans that we are, this ended up being a three-part episode. You can listen to the first 2 installments of our 3-Part episode right now, through the link to the Cuff’s Basement iTunes feed, which I’ve posted below. While you’re there don’t forget to hit subscribe, so you can listen to Part-3 of our Best Superhero Movies podcast as soon as it’s posted! I had a lot of fun recording this with the guys and I hope you all enjoy listening. Don’t miss it!
Thanks for reading and listening! Follow me on Twitter @PJWrightWBM or type Worlds Best Media into the search bar, you can also like and follow us on our Facebook page; World’s Best Media. Those likes and follows, as well as iTunes reviews, go a long way to supporting World’s Best Media. We really appreciate the loyalty and support shown to us by our fans, so thanks again!
It’s Movie Trailer Tuesday here at World’s Best Media! We have some new trailers and featurettes from 2 very different, but very cool upcoming superhero movies: Marvel’s Black Widow and the new film from DC Animation, Justice League Dark: Apokolips War!
First up, we have the final trailer for Marvel’s Black Widow, opening May 1st. Fans have been clamoring for a Black Widow movie for years and early projections have this film doing big numbers for Marvel.
Personally, I’m most excited to see Taskmaster make his big screen debut. Taskmaster is a mercenary and assassin who can perfectly mimic the fighting style and ability of any combatant he encounters. It was especially cool to see Taskmaster studying the surveillance videos of Natasha’s big fight with the guards at Hammer Industries during the climax of Iron Man 2 (her first appearance in The MCU). We also see Taskmaster breakout moves mimicking the some of the best hand to hand fighters in The MCU, like Captain America, Black Panther, and Hawkeye. I think this is going to be a blast, but check out the trailer for yourself right here…
DC Animation just released their adaptation of Superman: Red Son, arguably one of the most beloved Superman stories ever told. I loved the film, it was a return to the glory days of fantastic DC Animated Movies. Even though I love the DCAU, lately they have not been on par with the amazing work they’ve done in the past. However, it looks like they may be back on track. While Red Son was excellent, I found myself even more excited by the sneak peek at the next DC Animated film, Justice League Dark: Apokolips War.
This is the culmination of at least a dozen or more movies that began with Justice League: War, which was about how the Justice League was formed to repel the forces of Darkseid and his invading armies. DCA puts out at least 3 or 4 movies every year and at least 1 or 2 of these films have taken place in this shared DC Animated Universe that started with Justice League: War (The other films released each year tend to be their own standalone stories like Superman: Red Son, Batman Gotham by Gaslight, or The Killing Joke). This new film looks like the DCAU version of Avengers: Endgame. This video was previewed as a feturette on the special features of Superman: Red Son, just give it a watch and you’ll see how cool this movie looks…
If that wasn’t enough, DC Animation also released a trailer for the new film as well which you can watch right here…
Justice League Dark: Apokolips War will be available digitally on iTunes on May 5th and on Blu-Ray/4K on May 19th.
Thanks for reading! Follow me on Twitter @PJWrightWBM or type Worlds Best Media into the search bar, you can also like and follow us on our Facebook page; World’s Best Media. Those likes and follows, as well as iTunes reviews, go a long way to supporting World’s Best Media. We really appreciate the loyalty and support shown to us by our fans, so thanks again!
A cool little surprise hit the Internet today, with our first official look at Robert Pattinson suited up as The Dark Knight Detective himself, in the upcoming film directed by Matt Reeves, The Batman. This first look came courtesy of some test footage released of Pattinson in the new costume. It’s only about a minute long and we don’t get to see the full costume, but what we do see is very intriguing. I don’t want to over analyze things because we really only see the costumes from the mid-torso up. I will say, from what we do see, I thought it looked great. Pattinson certainly held himself well in the costume.
The Bat-Suit has been clearly influenced by the popular Arkham games, which has an armored, segmented design that you can see in the torso. Taking inspiration from the classic Arkham game series is a smart idea because the costumes on display in the games look both functional and beautifully designed. They are fantastic.
I also felt that there was a hint of Batman Beyond in the suit’s look, I can’t put my finger on. exactly what, but something about it felt a little Batman Beyond to me. Anyway, take a look at the costume in the video below and judge for yourself:
The Batman” hits theaters on June 25, 2021.
Thanks for reading! Follow me on Twitter @PJWrightWBM or type Worlds Best Media into the search bar, you can also like and follow us on our Facebook page; World’s Best Media. Those likes and follows, as well as iTunes reviews, go a long way to supporting World’s Best Media. We really appreciate the loyalty and support shown to us by our fans, so thanks again!
On this very special episode of “The World’s Best Podcast”, Tim Cuff makes his triumphant return to the show! Tim was one of the original co-hosts of “The World’s Best Podcast” and helped make the podcast the success that it is today! What better occasion to have Tim return to the show, than to join up with me to review “Birds of Prey”? The film focuses on Margot Robbie’s Harley Quinn, who’s trying to survive the brutal Gotham underworld after her break up with The Joker. Harley allies herself with other classic DC characters like Black Canary, Huntress, and Det. Rene Montoya to take on the vicious Gotham crime boss, Black Mask. Tim and I are both DC mega-fans, so it’s been great to see the DCEU (or The Worlds of DC) get back on track with movies like Aquaman, SHAZAM!, and of course, JOKER. Does “Birds of Prey” continue DC’s winning streak or do we have another Suicide Squad on our hands? Check out the episode to find out! Enjoy! FULL SPOILERS!
Listen here: https://www.spreaker.com/episode/22616693 Or subscribe on Stitcher, Spreaker, iHeartRadio, Deezer, Podchaser, Castbox, Podcast Addict, Google Podcasts, & Apple Podcasts/ITunes…
Thanks for reading and listening! Follow me on Twitter @PJWrightWBM or type Worlds Best Media into the search bar, you can also like and follow us on our Facebook page; World’s Best Media. Those likes and follows, as well as iTunes reviews, go a long way to supporting World’s Best Media. We really appreciate the loyalty and support shown to us by our fans, so thanks again!
The new trailer for Birds of Prey (Or The Who Gives A Fuck Bullshit of Fucking Harley Quinn) has dropped. Do with that information what you will. My only interest in this movie is a vague curiosity about how characters I’ve been reading on the comic book pages for years, will be translated into into a live action big budget comic book movie. Check out the trailer here and then read my thoughts on the project below: https://youtu.be/x3HbbzHK5Mc
Is it just me or does it seem like Warner Bros. really doesn’t give a shit about this movie? It should be a bigger event for DC/Warner Bros., studios have seemed to realize niche genre movies released I’m mid-February have a tendency to do well. Movies like Kingsman: The Secret Service and Deadpool we’re both big successes, coming out on, or near, Valentines Day weekend. So at the very least, this seems like a good spot to release a movie like this. But it feels like two steps forward one step back with DC. After a string of hits with Wonder Woman, Aquaman, Shazam!, and Joker, as well as the. highly anticipated Wonder Woman 1984 coming out this summer, Birds of Prey seems like a step backwards into the realm of Suicide Squad and Justice League.
On one hand, this look like it could be a real dumpster fire, but there’s a part of me that thinks there’s a small chance it could be cool. After watching the trailer a few times, I’ll say this for the trailer, it definitely has a fun energy to it. I also noticed some interesting elements and choices made by the filmmakers. For example, there are big visual cues and callbacks to several excellent Harley Quinn focused episodes of Batman The Animated Series like “Harley’s Holiday”, “Harlequinade”, and “Harley and Ivy”. If there’s any source material Birds of Prey would be wise to draw inspiration from, it’s Batman The Animated Series . Especially because two of the leads in Birds of Prey, Rene Montoya (Rosie Perez) and Harley Quinn, were characters that were created on Batman The Animated Series and eventually made their jump into the comic books. One of the things I disliked about Suicide Squad was how little they used Harley’s story from Batman The Animated Series. The film didn’t have any interest in showcasing the fascinating and complex relationship that developed between Harley and The Joker, while she was treating him as a psychiatrist at Arkham. Suicide Squad also opted to use an inferior, new origin for Harley that had recently been showcased at the time in a DC Comics revamp, instead of using the superior transformation from Dr. Harleen Quinzell into Harley Quinn that we saw in The Animated Series, (for what little they showed of her origin and her relationship with The Joker at all).
Then there are the problems with the villains in the movie. I love seeing Ewan McGregor in a DC movie, I just wish he was playing a more interesting character than Black Mask (and what seems to be an extremely loose interpretation of Black Mask at that). There was a rumor a while back that Ewan McGregor would feature in the rumored Justice League Dark movie where he was supposedly going to play either John Constantine or Jason Blood/Etrigan The Demon. McGregor would have been amazing in either of those roles and they’re both far more interesting than Black Mask. Which brings me to another double edge sword presented by this film. I like the inclusion of lesser used Batman villains like Roman Sionus a.k.a. Black Mask and Victor Zsasz, but they seem to be different enough from their comic book counterparts to wonder why they were included at all. I understand what works on the comic book page may not work on the big screen and certain things get lost in translation, especially from one medium to another. Sometimes those changes can even be for the better. However, it seems like these characters are Black Mask and Zsasz in name only, so why bother to use them? I could be wrong, I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.
To wrap things up, I’ve seen more negatives than positives when it comes to Birds Of Prey, so my expectations are pretty low going into this. But sometimes the best movie going experiences happen when your expectations for a film are in the toilet and the movie pleasantly surprises you.
Thanks for reading! Follow me on Twitter @PJWrightWBM or type Worlds Best Media into the search bar, you can also like and follow us on our Facebook page; World’s Best Media. Those likes and follows, as well as iTunes reviews, which go a long way to supporting World’s Best Media. We really appreciate the loyalty and support shown to us by our fans, so thanks again!
I love DC’s Animated Movies. I always look forward to what stories they choose to tell in their animated films every year. I’ll even go so far as to say that some of them are among the best superhero movies ever made. There’s one story in particular that fans have wanted to see for years: an adaptation of Superman: Red Son, a miniseries by Mark Millar and Dave Johnson. Red Son is a classic DC “Elseworlds”story. Elseworlds stories are essentially alternate takes on classic DC stories or characters. It’s almost like a “what if?” tale. Like, what if Batman existed in the Victorian era Gotham City and hunted Jack The Ripper? Or what if, years in the future, the original members of the Justice League must come out of retirement to deal with a new generation of violent and destructive “heroes“ that have risen up in their absence? (These are all real Elseworlds stories by the way).
The story of Superman: Red Son is brilliant in its simplicity. What if instead of crashing his spaceship in Smallville, Kansas where he was raised by the Kent’s, little baby Kal-El’s ship landed in Soviet Union era Russia? How would that change the history of the world? Would Superman’s inherent goodness shine through despite being raised in a culture like The Soviet Union, during the height of The Cold War? Red Son takes this premise and runs with it brilliantly. We even get to see different versions of characters like Batman, Lex Luthor, Wonder Woman, The Green Lantern Corps, and many more.
Over the past couple of years, the DC Animated Movies have dipped a little in quality compared to some of their truly phenomenal earlier films, like their adaptation of The Dark Knight Returns, Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox, or Batman: Under The Red Hood. I have noticed a little bit of an uptick in quality over there last few movies, so hopefully Superman: Red Son will be the film that gives us another DC Animated Movie classic. You can watch the trailer right here:
Thanks for reading! Follow me on Twitter @PJWrightWBM or type Worlds Best Media into the search bar, you can also like and follow us on our Facebook page; World’s Best Media. Those likes and follows, as well as iTunes reviews, which go a long way to supporting World’s Best Media. We really appreciate the loyalty and support shown to us by our fans, so thanks again!
It’s a great day to be a DC fan! DC and Warner Brothers just dropped the first trailer for Wonder Woman 1984 and it looks pretty damn cool! The first film was excellent and Gal Gadot crushed it in the role. Now that the origin is out of the way and audiences have become familiar with the character, the filmmakers are free to take the Wonder Woman story in any direction they want. Gal Gadot beautifully embodied Diana and everything she stands for in the first Wonder Woman. A film that solidified her status as the perfect person for the role, especially after being a highlight in movies like Batman V Superman and Justice League.
I’m a big Batman V Superman apologist, I actually love the film despite its many flaws and Wonder Woman is one of the big things the movie has going for it. Justice League on the other hand is arguably the worst film in the DCEU (or The Worlds of DC or whatever the fuck they’re calling it now), yet she shines as Wonder Woman in an otherwise poorly conceived and executed movie. With this much success as the character already under her belt, Wonder Woman 1984 has the potential to push Gal Gadot’s Wonder Woman into icon status. I hope they’re able to do something exciting that isn’t a retread of the original movie, but still captures the spirit of what makes Wonder Woman great.
Of course Chris Pine returns as Steve Trevor. It will be interesting to see exactly how they choose to resurrect the character or bring him to 1984. This isn’t supposed to be a different person who looks exactly like Steve Trevor, like his grandson or something. This is the same man that Diana knew during WWI. To be honest, I don’t particularly care about the details, I like the character and I’m happy to see him return in this movie.
I was a little disappointed that we didn’t get to see Cheetah in this trailer. That’s the character played Kristen Wiig. There are several different versions of Cheetah, but the one I’m most familiar with and the one I hope they use is Dr. Barbara Minerva.
Dr. Barbara Minerva was an archaeologist who became friends with Diana. Her specialty was mythology and ancient cultures that existed around the time Themyscira was created. Through a bizarre series of events that I won’t get into here, she’s cursed by some ancient god into becoming a cheetah-like monster. The transformation made her overly violent and bloodthirsty, but for the most part she retains her human mind. In some versions she directly blames Diana for her condition. I’m really excited to see if they do this character design justice. In my opinion, CGI motion capture would be the best way to go, I’d like to see them lean more into the monstrous cheetah side than the more human look we’ve seen in other iterations. I’ve included some images from a recent Wonder Woman story by written Greg Rucka with art by Liam Sharp. They’re good examples of the direction I hope the filmmakers go with for Cheetah’s design…
On the flip side, I was very pleasantly surprised to see the inclusion of another classic DC anti-hero/villain: Maxwell Lord. Played by Pedro Pascal who’s currently wowing audiences in The Mandalorian, will be playing Maxwell Lord, who I had no idea was even in the movie.
Maxwell Lord is a wealthy businessman who has a long and dark history with the Justice League and Wonder Woman in particular. At one point he fully funded the Justice League a classic JL run in the 80’s called Justice League International. It was later revealed that he was a meta-human with telepathic powers and this long time ally to the Justice League was actually a much more sinister figure than anyone knew. So that’s a really fun character to throw into the mix because they could play him in a lot of different ways. In addition to the trailer also got some really cool character posters (featured throughout the article) The posters for the first Wonder Woman movie were fucking works of art and these posters are certainly unique. I especially love that golden wing armor that we see Diana wear in the trailer, if they make a poster with that costume I will most certainly be buying a copy. Anyway, this is definitely high on my list of most anticipated films of 2020, take a look at the trailer right here:
Thanks for reading! Follow me on Twitter @PJWrightWBM or type Worlds Best Media into the search bar, you can also like and follow us on our Facebook page; World’s Best Media. Those likes and follows, as well as iTunes reviews, which go a long way to supporting World’s Best Media. We really appreciate the loyalty and support shown to us by our fans, so thanks again!
After almost a year of build up, The CW’s DC Mega-Crossover Crisis On Infinite Earths is about to begin. So I thought this would be the perfect time to post my Crisis Primer, something to give you a little bit of information you might not otherwise have known. Here you’ll find out where and when to watch everything Crisis, as well as some fun little side projects that you may want to take a look at! I hope you like it!
By far the most ambitious project taken up by The Arrowverse, the 5-part crossover starts Sunday, with Chapter 1 on Supergirl, Chapter 2 on Batwoman, and Chapter 3 on The Flash. Chapter 3 will presumably end on a cliffhanger of some kind when all of the shows go on their annual winter hiatus. The epic story will finish off it’s final 2 chapters, with both installments airing on the same night , January 14th with Arrow at 8pm and Legends of Tomorrow at 9pm.
The CW will also be airing a 2-part special, Crisis Aftermath, hosted by mega-fan and frequent Arrowverse director, Kevin Smith (Smith has directed multiple episodes of Supergirl and The Flash, including what is widely considered to be one of the best episodes of The Flash, “The Runaway Dinosaur”). Part 1 of the special will air Sunday night after Supergirl and Part 2 will air after what is sure to a huge cliffhanger installment of The Flash on Tuesday night. The special will include interviews, behind the scenes looks, and more! Including host Kevin Smith, breaking down the big moments and reveals of the crossover along with a panel of guests including various cast members from The Arrowverse shows like Jon Cryer, as well as the series writers and showrunners. Also appearing on the panel, will be the legendary Kevin Conroy, who after playing The Caped Crusader in Batman The Animated Series as well as countless other movies, video games, and TV shows, will be making his live action debut as Bruce Wayne during Crisis (Conroy’s appearance in Crisis is one of the things that has me most excited about the crossover).
In one of the most recent trailers for Crisis On Infinite Earths, The Monitor tells the gathered heroes that they must find seven champions throughout time and space, that can help stop The Anti-Monitor and Crisis. I’m sure there will be more to the story than this, but I think that’s a great idea because it’s a cool way to get interesting characters off on missions together who don’t always interact with one another. Watching them find other cool DC character that will certainly be fun to see. So with Crisis coming right up, I thought it might be fun to share my picks (or my guesses) for who exactly“The Seven Paragons” or heroes that The Monitor needs assembled to help save The Multiverse. A group I’m calling… THE MONITOR’S MAGNIFICENT SEVEN! So let’s get started!
Kingdom Come Superman –
This one seems like a no brainer. Despite the many flaws of Superman Returns, Brandon Routh was not one of them. If early buzz is to be believed Routh absolutely crushes it in his return to The Man of Steel.
2. Future and/or alternate reality Bruce Wayne (played by Kevin Conroy)
We already know that Brandon Routh Superman is from the classic Mark Waid and Alex Ross story Kingdom Come. From what little we’ve seen of Bruce Wayne in in the trailers he is wearing some sort of exoskeleton from the neck down that helps him move around. In Kingdom Come, Batman wore something very similar. After decades of crime fighting, his body was essentially broken so he wore a full body brace much like the one we see in the promos. Which leads me to believe that this version of Batman/Bruce Wayne is also from the Kingdom Come universe. Bruce Wayne is another sure bad for the seven heroes.
3. Tom Wellings’ Clark Kent (Smallville’s Universe)
This is another obvious one, but it won’t be any less fun to see. I can’t wait to see a scene that has all three superman together in one room.
4. Black Lightening
They kind of give this one away in the trailer. It’s pretty apparent that Black Lightening is very important to the heroes’ plan to stop The Anti-Monitor and the antimatter wave. Another good bet.
5. Lex Luthor
Considering that The Monitor resurrected him from a lethal gunshot wound delivered by his sister and has been keeping him in his own weird, little, pocket dimension where Lex continuously beats him at chess, I think Lex is a strong contender for one of The Seven. As The Monitor says to Lex, this is his chance to prove he’s the hero that he’s always said he is, but will Lex take it?
6. John Wesley Shipp’s Barry Allen
Even though his Earth was seemingly destroyed in Elseworlds last year, he was certainly able to stay one step ahead of The Monitor. He seems like a prime candidate for The Monitor’s Magnificent Seven.
7. Ryan Choi AKA The Atom (Osric Chau)
Sadly this will be Brandon Routh‘s last season on Legends Of Tomorrow. However, that doesn’t mean The Atom will be leaving the team. In the comics, Ray Palmer has a protégé who becomes the second Atom and he will be introduced during Crisis. After the crossover, he’ll be taking up residence with the rest of the crew of The Waverider. I still think they’re going to throw a few surprise characters at us, so this one is a longshot but I figured, what the hell?
DC and The CW also took the opportunity to drop our first look at the new season of Legends of Tomorrow. Legends typically has a shorter season than the rest of The Arrowverse shows, so the first episode of Legends this season will be in the crossover. However, it’s technically not the season premiere. It’s being billed as a “special episode“ with the official season premiere airing January 21st. Check out the trailer:
DC is also publishing a 2 issue tie-in comic to go along with the crossover. Usually tie-in comics like these follow characters or events that may have been mentioned in the main story, but weren’t heavily featured or touched upon. They can be a cool look at what some of the other characters may have been up to that we don’t see on screen during the main crossover. The stories are co-written by original Crisis on Infinite Earths writer Marv Wolfman and Arrow showrunner Marc Guggenheim.
The very cool cover was drawn by classic DC artist, Jerry Ordway, who worked on the original Crisis as well. Ordway’s cover features Green Arrow, The Flash, Kid Flash, Supergirl, The Ray, and Felicity Smoak. Kid Flash, The Ray, and Felicity aren’t appearing in Crisis, which shows my point that these tie-in comics typically feature side adventures focusing on characters that aren’t in the spotlight of the main story. I couldn’t find an exact release date for either issue, but they’re expected to hit stands in January and February 2020,
Finally, we have one last trailer for Crisis before it begins and I think it’s my favorite so far. One of the previous trailers had that fantastic line from Brandon Routh’s Superman, “Hope is the light that leads us through the darkness“, but it is a think this one has it beat with Kevin Conroy‘s Bruce Wayne delivering this killer line: “Battle not with monsters, lest you become a monster.” Hell yeah, Batman. Watch it here:
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-Paul
*Oh! I almost forgot! One last thing, I really think we are going to see Diggle wield a Green Lantern power ring in Crisis. They’ve been teasing it for years and if there’s any place to do it, it’s here. Fingers crossed!
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