San Diego Comic Con News Roundup

For the bulk of my adult life, San Diego Comic Con has been a hub for major Hollywood studio news, at least as far as blockbuster content goes. Occasionally, the quality of the panels and the significance of the announcements wanes but more often than not, what we see at SDCC is big news. This year did not disappoint, offering all kinds of buzz and intrigue for tentpole movies and peak TV alike. Here are a few of the bigger news items, announcements, and trailers that caught my eye over the weekend.

TRAILERS
Top Gun: Maverick
While Top Gun didn’t completely put Tom Cruise on the map, it certainly launched his career into a whole new stratosphere when it made its debut 33 (!!!) years ago. Maverick surely isn’t the most TIMELY sequel of all-time but I admit my skepticism eroded within about the first two seconds of this trailer. KICK THE TIRES AND LIGHT THE FIRES!

IT: Chapter 2
A great trailer for a movie that looks to roll along right in the terrifying tracks laid down by its predecessor. Horrifying and unbelievably creepy for anyone (like me) who wishes this dang clown had never been unearthed in the mind of Stephen King, the character design on Pennywise looks spot on and we also get our first glimpse at the grown up Losers Club. RIP my dreams for the rest of the summer.

Cats
Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance
This was more of a behind the scenes feature than an all-out trailer but still, it bears noting. My Twitter feed was FULL of overwhelmingly positive reactions to this panel and the footage shown therein and I think this was a brilliant way to highlight what we have to look forward to later this year.

The Witcher
I’m not familiar with the source material but I know there are a lot of fans who have been pining for a movie/TV series for quite some time. I think the trailer is solid but there are definitely some notes that leave me nervous as to whether or not this kind of high fantasy can translate well on Netflix.

Picard
Holy cow. I have been pumped for this one since its announcement but my goodness, what a magnificent trailer! Gonna have to go ahead and alter my budget to include CBS All Access in early 2020.

Snowpiercer
I confess I kinda forgot about Snowpiercer since its debut in 2013. I’m not completely confident that TBS is the network to bring this show to life and there has already been a tremendous amount of behind the scenes turmoil. Still, this is a competent trailer that does a good job of piquing interest.

As always, Comic Con was filled with new trailers this year including Watchmen, Catwoman, Westworld, His Dark Materials, a Walking Dead movie, and Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back 2 for….some…reason…

MARVEL PRESENTATION
The Twitter buzz leading up to the Marvel presentation on Saturday night was palpable and by the time the panel actually began, we were all expecting something BIG. Marvel did not disappoint. Kevin Feige unveiled a timeline slide for Marvel’s Phase Four and meticulously teased, announced, and elaborated on each upcoming MCU project scheduled between now and the end of 2021. We got our first glimpse at five upcoming Disney+ shows, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Wandavision, Loki, What If…?, and Hawkeye, as well as the next five movies in the MCU: Black Widow, Eternals, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness, and (most excitingly for me), Thor: Love and Thunder.

As if that wasn’t enough, Feige concluded his presentation by hinting at Black Panther 2, Captain Marvel 2, Guardians of the Galaxy 3, a here-to-unknown Fantastic Four movie, and some plans for “the mutants” (as he put it) before melting the face of everyone in the room by bringing Mahershala Ali on stage and announcing his casting as the titular hero in a Blade reboot. The entire panel was a smashing success, proving once again that Marvel is the driving force behind the blockbuster industry and all challengers should bow in its presence.

Some of these newly announced movies and series are self-explanatory to some degree but several of them represent completely new territory or a new storyline for an existing MCU hero that may not be as widely known. As such, I asked Ariel Rada of the Geek101 Podcast to tell us a little about these comic properties and what we can expect from their upcoming adaptations.

The Eternals
Millions of years ago, a race of beings called Celestials (think Galactus-like beings) traveled to Earth. These beings jump-started the evolution of the human race. The Celestials also singled out several humans and transformed them into god-like beings called The Eternals. Each Eternal is blessed with immortality and unique super powers. In 2007, Neil Gaiman and John Romita Jr. created a seven issue run of The Eternals imagining a world where they were on Earth but living as normal humans unaware of their abilities. Like most things Gaiman writes, it’s highly recommended. Expect the upcoming film to look at humanity through the lens of immortality and a loose adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s run.

Shang-Chi and the Legend of Ten Rings
The origin of Shang Chi: Master of Kung Fu is pretty...umm...let’s use the word “dated”. Shang Chi is known in the Marvel universe as the best hand-to-hand combatant that’s not Captain America (and he’s kinda cheating with the super soldier serum). Shang Chi is known for being able to best skilled fighters such as: Daredevil, Iron Fist, and Hawkeye. He was raised as a living weapon. Regarding the “Ten Rings”, you need look no further than Iron Man 3. The Mandarin, played by Ben Kingsley, is the leader of an organization known as the Ten Rings. In the comics, the Mandarin is a Chinese supervillain with ten uniquely powered rings. He was originally an Iron Man villain and it makes all the sense in the world to pit him against Marvel’s upcoming Asian superhero.

What If…?
The phrase, “What If?” is quite famous among comic book fans. What If? is a comic series designed to tell a new story in the Marvel multiverse. For example, the first What If? Comic was, What If Spider-Man Joined the Fantastic Four? A simple sentence changes the fundamental history and fiber of the universe. These alternate reality comics are released every few years and we’ll see how Marvel handles this new series; do they adapt beloved stories or create their own What If universes.

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness
The good doctor is no stranger to alternate dimensions. There are countless comics focused on Doctor Strange exploring the multiverse to save humanity. In the upcoming film, it’s believed that Marvel will introduce a demi-god named Nightmare. Nightmare is an alternate dimension being, like Dormammu from the first film, that can haunt the dreams of regular people. This god is usually seen in the pages of Ghost Rider comics but has often clashed with the Sorcerer Supreme.

Thor: Love and Thunder
In the Marvel Comics, (those paper book thingies, not the films) Thor was once deemed unworthy to wield his trusty hammer. The world was now without a god of thunder. Soon after, in a comic book run simply titled Thor, writer Jason Aaron introduced the world to a new Thor: a mysterious woman deemed worthy by the hammer Mjolinr. Five years later, we know that this Thor was Jane Foster; a trick that Taika Waititi is hoping to borrow for his new MCU project. To get the down low, check out Jason Aaron’s words and Russell Dauterman’s art in the 2014 comic run of Thor.

NEWS and NOTES
James Cameron, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Linda Hamilton brought Terminator: Dark Fate to their panel and promised that this Terminator would be different. Also Edward Furlong is back if that does it for you.

Agents of SHIELD will end after its seventh season which will air next summer.

Veronica Mars creator Rob Thomas announced that the show’s new season, exclusive to Hulu, was dropping right during the panel, a week ahead of schedule. This was cool but also…all the people in the world who MOST care about Veronica Mars were at Comic Con in that very room and couldn’t exactly watch the show right then and there.

Creepy Dolls in Pop Culture

Just yesterday, Chrissy Teigen posted a photo of herself on Instagram of herself in a doll shop.

While I don't have exact metrics, I feel like at least 80% of us seeing this photo felt she was in imminent danger. In fact, the two comments shown make reference to this severe threat. So how did a children's toy become a source of such dread for so many of us? Since June brings with it both an Annabelle sequel and a Child’s Play reboot, this seems as good a time as any to visit this issue. Here are six pop culture entries (three TV episodes, two movies, and a book) that got Brian, Megan, and I to a place where a fear of seemingly harmless inanimate objects meant for joy actually makes complete sense.  

Megan Spell
“Night of the Living Dummy”
While there are many Goosebumps scares that kept me awake at night, I can think of nothing quite so viscerally frightening as Slappy the Dummy. Ventriloquist dummies are the definitive creepy doll; they are never anything but terrifying. I still see the cover of that book in my nightmares.

Slappy is actually one of two ventriloquist dolls in the book that the two main characters fight over, repeatedly, because for some wholly incomprehensible reason, whoever has a dummy in this town is considered cool. Once “Mr. Wood” comes into the picture, mysterious accidents begin to occur, and with time, both dolls are speaking, acting out, and controlling children like slaves. Chill!

Annabelle
A horror writer’s greatest trick is getting the audience, grown adults, afraid of small porcelain kid’s toys. Even more, the writers of The Conjuring franchise have managed to squeeze out three variations of the Annabelle “origin” story.

 The Annabelle doll has gone through various hauntings (possessed by a dead child, cult leaders, etc.) and of course, is nearly indestructible despite being made of china. Obviously the supernatural/murder-y elements are what makes Annabelle the creepiest, but there is just something so unsettling about the idea of throwing something down a well and it just…shows back up unexpectedly. It’s truly mindboggling that anyone would own antique dolls in the year 2019.

Amy Carter
Rod Serling has a lot to do with fear of dolls. When a picture like the one of Chrissy Teigen above pops up, I immediately think of two episodes of the OG Twilight Zone, both of which I spent much of middle school wishing I could unwatch.

“The Dummy”
I like how Serling can pack more commentary and earned suspense into 24 minutes than most horror/thriller writers can do in a two-hour feature. “The Dummy” is about a ventriloquist, Jerry, who is convinced his dummy, Willie, is alive and messing with him. We quickly learn Jerry has a drinking problem and a history of (at least) mental health evaluation and, according to his boss, a schizophrenia diagnosis. And what's scarier than a doll coming to life and attacking you? A doll coming to life, attacking you, and no one else believing it's happening. 

The audience is let in on the fact that Willie really is alive very early in the show. His head is in a slightly different position every time Jerry looks at him in a mirror, he winks, and even bites Jerry, leaving a mark. But we're not sure what he's capable of. When Jerry decides to be rid of Willie once and for all, locks him in a trunk, and then sees him in a chair in the alley way outside, the camera tilts about 30 degrees to the left - is Jerry crazy? Are we crazy? We can't find our footing. It's not until the very end that we can be sure of the villain's intention. Willie reveals that he is a monster, created by Jerry, and now he wants the limelight. For the final act of the episode, we see Willie's face on the human and Jerry's on the dummy. Willie's rise to control is complete. Horrifying. 

“Living Doll”
A theme common to both episodes is that the dolls have a lone target, thusly isolating their victims and causing all others to assume they've lost their minds. The difference with “Living Doll” is another character gets let in on the secret by the end of the episode. It's about a little girl, Christy, and her mother, Annabelle (!!), who bring home an expensive talking doll, much to the Step Dad's chagrin because, "she has too many dolls already." He's a jerk, verbally abusive to Christy, and as soon as Talky Tina gets a minute alone with him, she tells him she isn't going to like him. 

 Trying to keep his mental footing, he dismisses it as a trick being played by his wife, but Tina's persistence in expressing her hatred for him causes him to see Tina as a real threat. He tries to squash her head in a vice, ignite her, and decapitate her with a circular saw - all for naught. What's scarier than a doll coming to life, attacking you, and no one else believing you that it's happening? All that, plus the doll being indestructible. Tina gets the last laugh and positions herself on the stairs in a way that causes him to trip and fall to his death. Annabelle finds him and her at the bottom of the stairs and she says, "I'm Talky Tina, and you better be nice to me." Horrifying. 

Both of these episodes, along with 4 full seasons of The Twilight Zone, are streaming on Netflix. 

Brian Gill
“Dolls are creepy.” That’s my full thesis on this matter because I feel it requires no presentation of evidence, it’s just inherent fact that most (sane) people know in their hearts.

The OG Child’s Play
This movie came out when I was five so I’m not completely sure when or how I became aware of its existence; I just remember that it was a thing I knew about and was terrified of. “Great. Now I can’t even trust my toys anymore.” was my thought process. I would guess I was somewhere around ten when I was finally peer pressured into watching the movie while spending the night at a friend’s house then spent the rest of the night pretending I wasn’t TOTALLY FREAKED OUT by that stupid doll. In the years since, I know I’ve seen this original film at least once more (because I had literally no memory of the plot, only “killer psycho doll”) and parts of the sequels and while realistically I see now how cheesy Chucky really is, in my heart I am still very, very freaked out by the whole Child’s Play ordeal.

X-Files Season 5 Episode 10, “Chinga”
I watched very little of The X-Files during its original run. However, for a long stretch during the early-to-mid-2000’s, the show played in syndication 400 times a day on TNT. This was as close as we came to binge watching a show in a pre-Netflix world and I ate it up, absorbing every episode I could get my eyes on. I distinctly remember this episode, about a demon-possessed doll that gave its owner visions of horrific deaths that then became reality, though I only just discovered it was written by Stephen King. Makes sense. My first viewing came at that hour of the night where you probably should go to bed but you say, “Eh, just one more episode” and then I had to watch about fourteen hours of Friends in order to purge my brain of the horror “Chinga” had inflicted upon me. Even now, when I get on an X-Files kick and binge my way through a season or two, if this episode pops up on my screen, I immediately skip it and thus retain my ability to sleep.

X-Men Films Ranked

I wasn’t big into superheroes growing up. I knew the standards (Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, etc.) and had some toys but, as far as pop culture stuff goes, I was far more interested in Star Wars and then Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. That changed significantly when I was nine with the introduction of ­X-Men: The Animated Series into the FOX Saturday morning cartoon lineup. I was immediately hooked on the series, on the universe, and on the characters. I cared about the X-Men and the situations they found themselves in thrilled me. It was the first show I remember that took its young audience seriously and treated us like the semi-responsible teenagers we would soon become. As a result, I read some of the X-Men comics, fell even more in love with the world, and later, I followed the production of the first movie with an intensity only rivaled by my anticipation for Phantom Menace (*sad Price is Right horn*). This is my favorite superhero movie franchise and no matter how good or bad the Marvel and DC movies are, I’m always more excited about a good X-Men movie and more disappointed by a bad X-Men movie than anything coming from the other franchises. With Dark Phoenix opening to miserable reviews this weekend and the Disney merger now a done deal, this chapter of the X-Men is closing and thus, I felt it time to look back on the franchise and rank the movies that make up this universe. 

NOTE: I went back and forth on whether the Deadpool movies and the various Wolverine movies should be included in this discussion. Ultimately, I think they belong though there’s a case to be made that these movies are X-Men-adjacent not X-Men-proper.

11. Last Stand (2005)
There are some good elements in Last Stand but the vast majority of them come down to the success of the previous films in the trilogy. “Do you like X-Men movies? Well this sure is an X-Men movie!” seems to be the tagline. Losing Bryan Singer’s direction (he left to make Superman Returns) is one thing; replacing him with Brett Ratner’s big bag of nothing was quite another. Ratner took the helm of a franchise on the brink of superhero domination and rammed it into the ground on takeoff. Lazy writing, an absurdly overstuffed story, and a fundamental misunderstanding of what makes the X-Men great are just a few highlights of the mess that is Last Stand.

10. Apocalypse (2016)
Apocalypse is probably better than at least the next film on this list but it’s also far more disappointing. Coming off of First Class and Days of Future Past, it seemed like the X-Men series had finally found its groove. With Singer in the director’s chair (making this the first X-Men movie since X2 that was directed by the same director of the previous film) and a cast that included some rising young stars and Oscar Isaac, Apocalypse felt like a sure thing…until it very much was not a sure thing. The story is muddled, the acting is, frankly, quite bad, and the promise of the cast is squandered. As a huge X-Men fan, this is probably one of the five or ten most disappointing movies of my life.

9. Origins: Wolverine (2009)
It is impossible to defend Origins as an actual good movie. It is very much not a good movie. Moreover, it failed the relaunch the X-Men brand post-Last Stand and even led to the scrapping of a series of planned Origins spin-offs. I acknowledge all of this while also acknowledging that, even still, it’s a very watchable movie for me. Maybe it’s a guilty pleasure, maybe it just scratched the X-Men itch and brought to life one of the more interesting storylines from the comics/animated series, or maybe it’s because Gambit appears in the form of my beloved Taylor Kitsch/Tim Riggins. Whatever the case may be, each time I watch Origins (and I have watched it far more times than I’d care to admit), I think, “Gosh that was bad but yeah, I’m definitely going to watch it again sometime.”

8. The Wolverine (2013)
This second attempt at a Wolverine spinoff is, for me, the exact opposite of Origins: It’s a competent, well-made film that I never even think about watching. I was underwhelmed in my first viewing and I’ve never gotten past that feeling in either of my subsequent viewings. Honestly, I sometimes forget it exists, especially in a post-Logan world. When I do remember it exists, I’m hard-pressed to remember much about it, good or bad, other than perhaps the action sequence on the train. Wolverine is FINE but it doesn’t have Tim Riggins so how fine is it really?

7. X-Men (2000)
The OG doesn’t get nearly enough credit for laying the groundwork for the myriad superhero movies that have come since 2000. I was supremely pumped for this movie when it came out and it never occurred to me then that it could possibly be anything less than a smash hit but in retrospect, this was a very risky endeavor. There are definitely some bumps within X-Men that likely would’ve been ironed out if it weren’t essentially the first movie of its kind and much of the plot is fairly nonsensical on close inspection. But the fact that it still holds up as a quality superhero flick is a testament to the entire production and it started the franchise out on a very high note.

6. First Class (2011)
Big props are owed to Matthew Vaughn for reinvigorating a franchise that had lost almost all of its cultural relevance in the years since X2. There are gripes to be had with First Class (Montage! Montage! Montage!) but the new cast is superb across the board and Vaughn clearly understood the tone and depth of this universe. It’s a fun movie but it still has teeth and it handles its material with an appropriate level of seriousness. Of the new cast and their character interpretations, Michael Fassbender is particularly brilliant.

5. Deadpool (2016)
Deadpool had been rumored and taken through various production periods so often that by the time it finally debuted, anyone who had followed the project couldn’t help but feel nervous. A friend of mine, a long-time comic reader, literally whispered, “Please be good, please be good” as the lights in our theater dimmed and our screening began. It’s almost as if fans of these comics and this character willed it into a quality movie. It doesn’t hurt that Ryan Reynolds made the PERFECT Wade Wilson and the PERFECT Deadpool, but Tim Miller and FOX deserve a ton of credit for understanding their character and allowing him to be his dirty and unsanitary yet charismatic and charming self on screen.

4. Deadpool 2 (2018)
I know lots of people who found Deadpool 2 to be disappointing compared to the first one. For me, however, I thought it was a great story for highlighting the best elements of the character, the X-Force sequence was magnificent (although hilariously short lived), and as I’ve always said, there is no movie franchise that is not made better by the addition of Josh Brolin. This movie also removed any fear I had about its predecessor being a one-off, lightning in a bottle situation. Now my only question is how effectively the Merc with the Mouth can be incorporated into the X-Men Universe-proper.

3. Days of Future Past (2014)
DoFP isn’t *quite* to the level of, “I think this movie is great and I won’t be hearing any arguments to the contrary” but it’s close. Time travel is always a dicey proposition and the confusing nature of the narrative is both the source of frustration for this movie’s detractors and ultimately the downfall of the franchise as a whole as it moved into Apocalypse and Dark Phoenix. But this was everything I wanted in an X-Men movie, bringing together both parts of the cast and telling a magnificent story with a flair that feels more like the animated series than any other entry from this franchise. I’ve watched this movie perhaps more times than all of the other X-Men movies combined, and I always find it compelling.

2. X2: United (2003)
As mentioned previously, I think the first X-Men is a great achievement in comic book filmmaking. But I thought it was a GREAT movie, maybe even as good as an X-Men movie could possibly be, until X2 dropped in 2003. Then it was like, “Oh. So, THAT’S what a great X-Men movie looks like.” The maturation of the actors in their roles, the introduction of a few new characters, the improvements in shot selection, set pieces, and the like all combine to make X2 not just a great X-Men movie but one of the great, (and now, I think, overlooked) comic book movies ever made.

1. Logan (2017)
The best of the X-Men movies is oddly the least enjoyable, at least for me. I’ve gotten beaten down by the rise of gritty superhero movies, though not because of their edge so much as the often-uninspiring stories they tell. The decision to make this an R-rated feature and to let Wolverine go “Full Wolverine” was an important one, to be sure, but it’s not THE reason it’s so good. Logan sets itself apart from most of its post-Dark Knight contemporaries by telling a strong, compelling story that pairs beautifully with its broken, exhausted hero. Jackman is incredible in this role and he gives the movie all he has left to give but it is his pairings with both Stewart’s addled Professor X and Dafne Keen’s Laura that bolster Logan’s overall quality. Through these relationships, the movie offers redemption to Logan, a character who has literally a century of sins for which to atone, and it does so with equal measures of grace and heartbreaking brutality.