Newstime: The Stories You Might Have Missed This Week

July 27, 2018

Written by Sarah Minazzo, Chris Daniel & Kieron Byatt

From film to TV, gaming to comics and everything in between, here’s what you might have missed in pop culture news this week.

TV

San Diego Comic-Con trailers have taken the internet by storm, spawning a wealth of discussion, debate, speculation and more.

In animation, the event brought trailers for Invader Zim: Enter The Florpus, The Dragon Prince, Adventure Time: The Ultimate Adventure, Young Justice: Outsiders, Star Wars: The Clone Wars and Matt Groening’s Disenchantment.

With Roswell: New Mexico, Nightflyers, Origin, The Orville and Star Trek: Discovery also receiving the trailer treatment, it looks as though space is the final frontier for 2018.

Fan favourites including CW’s Arrow, The Flash, Supergirl, DC’s Legends Of Tomorrow, Supernatural and Riverdale are set to return to the screen soon whilst AMC’s The Walking Dead and its spinoff, Fear The Walking Dead, are yet to terrify audiences for another season each.

We also got new trailers for Titans, Iron Fist, Doctor Who, Black Lighting, The Gifted and more. Head over to Supanova’s SDCC trailer roundup to watch the rest of them.

Despite earlier reports, HBO is not actively developing other Game Of Thrones prequels. In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, HBO programming chief Casey Bloys said they were only working on the Jane Goldman prequel at this stage, and would potentially look at more if that goes well.

After years of uncertainty, it looks like we’ll finally be getting a long-awaited Locke & Key comic book adaptation series, with Netflix this week ordering 10 episodes after Hulu passed on the series back in March.

Netflix has also ordered a teen drama in the style of Lord Of The Flies starring Kathryn Newton (Blockers, Big Little Lies).

FILM

SDCC also gifted us new trailers for Shazam!, Aquaman, Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes Of Grindelwald and Godzilla: King Of The Monsters; all of which you can find in our roundup.

Meanwhile, at the Wonder Woman 1984 panel, the audience was treated to a preview clip from the film currently in production, seeing Gal Gadot back in action fending off villains like only Wonder Woman can. Since then, Insecure star Natasha Rothwell has signed on for the Wonder Woman sequel.

Director Robert Rodriguez and producer James Cameron dropped a new trailer of the Alita: Battle Angel live-action adaption via an online Q&A during SDCC, proving that you don’t need to be there in person to build up hype for upcoming films. The trailer has since surfaced online.

After it was officially confirmed that Joaquin Phoenix has signed on for the Joker alternative universe movie, it is now rumoured that Robert De Niro is in talks for a yet to be known role in the production.

Over in London where the new Men In Black film is in full swing, Emma Thompson has suited up for her return as Agent O, last seen heading the organisation in Men In Black 3.

GAMING

A new Spider-Man trailer has been released, giving us a fresh look at the villainous Silver Sable and our first glimpse at the Velocity suit. Alongside Spider-Man includes Mary Jane Watson and Miles Morales, building the Spiderverse one web at a time. Spider-Man will be available on PS4 on September 7.

Lego DC Super-Villains, the newest addition to Lego’s extraordinary video game franchise, has also released a new trailer. The standout feature of the game allows the player to completely create their character from scratch, determining how the character will interact and most importantly, fight. Lego DC Super-Villains is set to release on October 16.

We’ve also been given an exciting new gameplay walkthrough demo for the final season of The Walking Dead Game.

ANIME

A new key visual has been released ahead final season of Fairy Tail, featuring one of the show’s most popular characters, Natsu (pictured).

One Piece creator/author Oda Eiichiro was interviewed by Japanese newspaper Yomiuri Shimbun and has revealed that the over 900-chapter manga is “80% complete”. The end is still not quite nigh!

Rebuild Of Evangelion has announced that the fourth instalment, Evangelion: 3.0 + 1.0, will premiere 2020. This was promoted through a series of teasers proceeding screenings of Mamoru Hosoda’s Mirai.

Also featuring in our SDCC roundup, the upcoming Dragon Ball Super: Broly feature film has a new teaser.

COMICS

SDCC saw a gaggle of announcements and first looks in the world of comics, including a sneak peak of the cover for Geoff Johns and Jason Fabok’s Three Jokers three-issue miniseries, which addresses the “There are three” revelation from Johns and Fabok’s “Darkseid War” storyline.

If that wasn’t enough, Scott Snyder announced a six-issue mini-series of The Batman Who Laughs with art by Jock spinning off from Dark Knights, as well as teasing a massive DC Crossover event in 2019.

Then there was Marvel’s Next Big Thing panel, which teased a cavalcade of upcoming titles and characters, including Infinity Wars Prime, Death Of The Inhumans, Cosmic Ghost Rider, Life Of Captain Marvel and Avengers.

Recognising and seizing on the popularity of their TV series characters, Marvel has announced a new line of digital original comics. Marvel Digital Originals will be exclusive digital-only releases focusing on their popular TV properties including their Netflix universe. The collection started with a relaunch of Jessica Jones joined shortly after by Cloak And Dagger and now Luke Cage, Iron Fist and Daughters Of The Dragon featuring Misty Knight and Colleen Wing have been announced. The double-sized40-page digital issues will release every month with story arcs spreading over three issues.

Marvel is celebrating the 20th anniversary of their Marvel Knights line-up by relaunching it with Donny Cates as the creative runner. The collections will see mature and dark takes on Daredevil, Punisher, Black Panther, Ghost Rider, Elektra and other beloved characters.

Gail Simone has been crowned the chief architect of Lion Forge Comics’ Catalyst Prime Universe, taking the reins as the creative lead. The superhero universe launched last year with a mission statement of increasing diversity and representation in the comic book world.

Beloved Star Trek star George Takei is writing a graphic novel for IDW Publishing about his childhood imprisonment in a WWII-era internment camp for Japanese-Americans. They Called Us Enemy will be scripted by Justin Eisinger and Steven Scott and illustrated by Harmony Becker.

Unfortunate news for Saga fans, creators Brian K. Vaughn and Fiona Staples of the Image Comics smash-hit will be taking a one-year hiatus to “creatively recharge” before finishing the series.

Marvel Zombies will return with a franchise reboot in October. Writer Maxwell Prince and artist Stefano Raffaele will be relaunching the horror twist on your favourite Marvel characters.

Joss Whedon’s Dr. Horrible is returning, in comic form! 10 years after the release of popular web-short Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog, the villain is coming to Dark Horse Comics, written by Whedon with art by José Maria Beroy and Sara Soler.

THIS WEEK’S COMIC PICKS

Big Trouble In Little China: Old Man Jack #11 – Fans of the ’80s classic B-movie need to jump on this if they’re not already familiar with aged Jack taking on classic foe Lo Pan! Written by John Carpenter himself with art by Anthony Burch, Jorge Corona and Brett Parson.

Action Comics #1001 – As well as ongoing writer duties for Superman, Brian Michael Bendis deepens the ethos of the Man of Steel with artist Patrick Gleason on the recently awarded Guinness World Record keeper for longest running comic title in history, Action Comics!

Justice League Dark #1 – Hot on the heels of Justice League: No Justice comes a new line-up of JL Dark to take on nefarious supernatural threats. Wonder Woman leads the team-up of Zatanna, Swamp Thing, Man-Bat and Detective Chimp in this relaunch written by James T Tynion IV with art by Raúl Fernández and Alvaro Martinez.

New World #1 – Writer Ales Kot and artists Tradd Moore and Heather Moore deliver this sci-fi romance miniseries where a “nice-guy” hacker and a “bad cop” reality TV star fall for one another in a post Second Civil War United States of America.

Infinity Wars Prime #1 – Marvel’s big crossover event begins with Gerry Duggan and Mike Deodato Jr’s which promises universe shattering revelations and plot-twists!

Lead image: Alita: Battle Angel