Hey guys! How was your week? Mine was a bit crazy, but still pretty good. I had friends over yesterday afternoon for a chat on my front lawn and it was a good time. Today I want to talk about the upcoming movies, shows, books and comics that I'm really excited for. Or at least that I'm looking forward to seeing when they come out. I'll start with movies first.
While I think Marvel waited too long to make it, I'm really excited to see Black Widow. I thought the trailer was good, though I also think that David Harbour looks ridiculous in his Red Guardian costume. Black Widow has been one of my favourite characters in the first three phases of the MCU. I thought she was okay in Iron Man 2 and The Avengers but it really wasn't until her appearance in Captain America: The Winter Soldier that I began to think that she'd be really good in her own movie. The only problem that I actually have with the movie is that because of Black Widow's death in Avengers: Endgame this movie is a prequel by necessity. So while it does fill in those gaps between Captain America: Civil War and Avengers: Infinity War I feel like the movie will end up focusing more on the supporting characters just because we already know where Natasha ends up by Infinity War and Endgame and so we know that due to that plot convenience, she's not in any real danger in this movie. Hopefully that's not the case, but it's always a possibility. Aside from Scarlett Johansson and David Harbour, the only main cast member that I'm even vaguely familiar with is Rachel Weisz and that's only because I've seen her in The Mummy and The Mummy Returns.
I've already talked about this movie in a previous post, but I'm really looking forward to Wonder Woman 1984. Wonder Woman was my favourite movie of the three that I got to see in theatres back in 2017 and while I said that I'm keeping my expectations down for this movie because I loved the first one so much, my excitement for this movie has grown immensely since the trailer dropped last month. It's been pushed back to December 25th, but sadly, chances are that I'm not going to get the chance to see it in theatres because of the pandemic. But, you never know, maybe by New Year's Eve it'll be safe enough that I'll be able to go see it. The cast is amazing, though of the newcomers to the cast, I think I'm most excited to see Pedro Pascal as Maxwell Lord. I'm not familiar with the character in the comics, but he was played by Peter Facinelli in season 1 of Supergirl back in 2015 so I know him from there. Of course Pedro Pascal plays the titular role on The Mandalorian so seeing him outside of the Mandalorian armor is going to be awesome.
I know I gave this movie a hard time when the teaser trailer dropped last month, but despite my worries about the film, I am legitimately excited for The Batman to come out. I mean it's the first time we're seeing a live action movie version of the Riddler since Batman Forever came out in 1995 as well as the first time we're getting to see a live action movie version of the Penguin since Batman Returns came out in 1992. Which is super exciting. Also I'm interested to see what Robert Pattinson is like as Batman/Bruce Wayne. I'm sure it's going to be very different than the previous versions we've had of the character in live action. Though I do hope it's closer to the Michael Keaton or Ben Affleck versions than the Christian Bale version. At least in terms of the gravelly voice that Bale had in The Dark Knight Trilogy.
The last movie that I'm looking forward to is Flashpoint, which is the movie starring Ezra Miller as Barry Allen/the Flash. As you know, I'm not a fan of Ezra Miller's version of the Flash, or of Ezra Miller as an actor in general, but I'm looking forward to Flashpoint because Ben Affleck and Michael Keaton are returning as their respective versions of Batman and it's adapting a storyline that I honestly like quite a bit despite the fact that it led to the New 52 and the end of my regular purchasing of the Batman comics I was reading at the time. Now let's move on to TV shows.
I've been back and forth about Star Trek: Discovery since it started. Season 1 didn't start off too well, but ended pretty great. Season 2 was a lot better, but was still weird because of how poorly the supporting characters were developed over the course of the season. So when the trailer dropped for season 3 I was really confused because it looked almost nothing like a Star Trek show, aside from the Discovery of course. That's been my biggest criticism about both Star Trek: Picard and Star Trek: Discovery. Visually they both look amazing, but as each season progresses they start to look less and less like Star Trek and more and more like a generic Sci-Fi show or shows like Dark Matter and The Expanse. And that's why I love Lower Decks so much. Visually, it looks like Star Trek. From what we got in the trailer though, season 3 of Discovery reminds me more of Andromeda than Star Trek. Even the season's premise is more like the premise for the first season of Andromeda than anything else. But I'm looking forward to seeing what they do with it.
Even though there's no poster for it, and no trailer yet, I'm really excited for Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. I'm also cautious about it, because it is a spin-off of Discovery and the way that show has been handled has been really weird, as I mentioned above. It's the same people in charge of Strange New Worlds so I'm expecting more of the same that we got in the first two seasons of Discovery, except it's set on the Enterprise with Pike, Spock and Number One as the lead characters instead of Burnham. Having said that, the reason I am excited for this show is that Anson Mount, Ethan Peck and Rebecca Romijn all did a great job as Pike (Mount), Spock (Peck), and Number One (Romijn) so to see those characters in starring roles is awesome and an updated version of what TOS would've been had NBC greenlit the original pilot episode, "The Cage" starring Jeffrey Hunter, Leonard Nimoy, and Majel Barrett as Pike, Spock and Number One respectively. So in a way this show has been fifty-four years in the making.
The show I am probably looking forward to the most is season 8 of The Goldbergs. As you know The Goldbergs is my favourite show that is currently airing and for it to be in it's 8th season is exciting to me. They haven't said much about the season yet, only that the season premiere is going to be a tribute to the classic 1980 film, Airplane! before going into what was supposed to be the season finale for season 7, but got cut from that season due to the pandemic. Luckily the show has such a loose continuity that it's not a problem to just drop it into the beginning of the next season. By the way, how is Sam Lerner, who plays Geoff Schwartz on the show, not on the season poster? He's been in the main cast since season 5. Which is crazy to me.
I've never watched Titans. I keep meaning to, but it hasn't happened yet. However, I'm excited for season 3 because they revealed during DC Fandome last month that Barbara Gordon is going to be in the season, along with the Scarecrow, as Jonathan Crane anyway, and the Red Hood, and it's going to be set in Gotham City. So I'm probably going to be watching seasons 1 and 2 before the third season drops on Netflix here in Canada after it finishes airing in the U.S. You did it to me again DC/WB.
Superman & Lois is another show that I'm excited for. Though I'm not as excited about it as I am the other shows on the list. I watched Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman when I was a kid and this show, just from the premise, since we don't have a trailer for it yet, seems like it's going to be like that show, but a modernized version of it. The thing that I'm worried about is that the focus will be on the family drama aspect rather than the superhero aspect. The comics have that balance between Superman spending time with his family as Clark Kent and spending time as Superman fighting the bad guys and saving Metropolis or the world. But even season 7 of Arrow showed Oliver being at home with Felicity and William more than it showed him in the Green Arrow costume once he got out of prison just before Elseworlds started. There was still some action with Green Arrow, but most of the action took place in the future with Mia and the older version of William. But hopefully they'll have a better balance for Superman & Lois, just because it is the first live action solo series for Superman since Lois & Clark ended in 1997. And no, I'm not counting Smallville since Clark doesn't become Superman until the very end of the series finale.
The next show that I'm really looking forward to is season 2 of The Mandalorian. I didn't talk about it on the blog but I loved the season 2 trailer that dropped last week. I've been waiting for this season to start since the beginning of the year when season 1 ended. It's just that one show that I'm excited for the most, besides season 8 of The Goldbergs. I am a bit wary of the four guest characters that are going to be in the season just because they are from other Star Wars media, and three of them might not translate well from their original mediums. Like I'm fine with Boba Fett showing up just because A) they didn't put him in right away in the first season and B) he's there for fan service and we all know he's there for fan service and I'm just perfectly fine with that. But Ahsoka Tano and Bo-Katan Kryze are from Star Wars: The Clone Wars and Star Wars Rebels, the animated shows. So I don't know how well either character will translate from animation to live action, but it is cool that they are making those connections. Which is something that would never have happened back when George Lucas was in charge. The third character that I'm wary of is Cobb Vanth, a character created by Chuck Wendig for the Star Wars: Aftermath novel trilogy. Again, I like that they're crossing characters between mediums, but Vanth also might not translate as well into live action from the novels. I'm sure Favreau and his people know what they're doing so I'm not too worried about it, but it is a bold thing to do since not everybody who watches The Mandalorian has seen The Clone Wars and Rebels or read the Aftermath trilogy, so they won't know these characters like the hardcore Star Wars fans who love all of this stuff. None of this diminishes my excitement for the show to return though.
Season 3 of The Orville is another show I'm really excited for it to return. Season 2 was so so awesome, particularly the two part episode, "Identity" and I can't wait to see what Seth and the crew have in store for us now that they have a bigger budget to play with this season. The Orville has become one of my all-time favourite shows and I am so glad they got a third season especially if they go bigger and more serious like they've been saying they will in season 3, since the season was announced just after season 2 ended. So it should be a good time.
The final show I want to talk about is Invincible, based on the comic by Robert Kirkman. Invincible is one of my favourite superheroes next to Batman, Green Arrow and Spider-Man and I thought that the comic would make a really good TV show either live action or animated. Well, it's an animated series, with a pretty all-star cast, including Seth Rogen, Mark Hamill and J.K. Simmons. There are so many characters in the comic though that the cast list on both Wikipedia and IMDB is pretty long. The only problem for me is that I probably won't get to see it because it's going to be on Amazon Prime Video and I don't think it's going to air anywhere else here in Canada. Like most Amazon Prime shows it will probably be available to buy on iTunes, so I'll probably buy the season and watch it that way, because I am really excited for Invincible to be an animated series.
The book that I'm excited for is Ready Player Two by Ernest Cline, the sequel to Ready Player One. As you know I am a huge fan of Ready Player One and I've been looking forward to the sequel for a really long time now. Cline hasn't revealed very much about the book so far. Only that it's going to be between 384 and 400 pages, and that it's going to be a new storyline with all of the characters, but that it'll still involving pop culture references. So that kinda begs the question: what references will be included in the sequel? I mean the first book included so many of them from the '70s and '80s as well as a cross-reference of other references from the '90s and 2000s. But a lot has happened in geek culture since 2011. The MCU gained prominence, Disney took over Lucasfilm, Fox and others, streaming services became prominent and Star Wars had three animated TV shows, five movies and a live action series. So it'll be interesting to see what references Cline includes in the new book. Especially since Armada, his second novel, had a lot of them too.
I don't have a whole lot of comics that I'm actually looking forward to. But there is one single issue that I'm excited to get and read. And that's Nancy Drew & The Hardy Boys: The Death of Nancy Drew #4. It's already out now, but I haven't gotten it yet. Hopefully soon though. There's only one issue left after this one and I'm excited to see how they end the mini-series. I've really enjoyed the first three issues so far and I'm excited to finish off the series. Even if I have to wait for the trade paperback.
Speaking of trade paperbacks, there's only one that I'm looking forward to and that's the trade paperback for the five issue crossover series, Mighty Morphin Power Rangers/Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I have four out of the five issues in singles thanks to Brad. Unfortunately, he wasn't able to get me issue #3, so that's the one I'm missing. The trade paperback for the crossover comes out on Tuesday so if I end up getting it before Brad is able to find a copy of issue #3 then I'll just have the issue that way and not worry about getting it in single issue form. I was wondering when the trade was going to be coming out since it's only been three months since the final issue came out and I thought there would still be two or three more months to go before the trade was released. But Amazon has the release date as September 29th, which is this coming Tuesday. Either way I'm excited for it to come out.
That's all of the shows, movies, books, and comics coming out that I am excited for. There are plenty of other ones that I don't have any interest in, but I wanted to talk about all the ones I want to see, want to watch and want to read since I don't talk about that kind of stuff enough on this blog. Have a great rest of the weekend guys and I will see you back here next week for plenty of posts, including the very special Living with Disabilities post that I have planned. Later.
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