First of all, to people celebrating tomorrow, may you have a merry, mellow Christmas. To everybody out there, happy holidays. If you’re having some time off the next few days, enjoy. Stay safe and look after yourselves.
Before we jump into the last weekly recap for 2021 – we’ll be taking a break from regular scheduled content next week – we just want to say thank you for your readership. We’re a very small team, pretty much all working full-time day jobs, so it can be a real scramble to generate and deliver the quality content that’s our aim. Your support in the 5 months since site launch (huh, just 5 months?) makes it worthwhile.
We’re going to focus on growth, the spotlighting new voices and a few experiments in 2022. Until then, though, we’ll be putting aside our critical lenses, leaning back and just playing/watching/reading for fun. See you all next year.
Now, onto the biggest pop culture news of the past week.
Film
The official teaser trailer and poster dropped for Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. Sam Raimi directs this second solo outing for Benedict Cumberbatch’s Dr. Stephen Strange, Sorcerer Supreme and Master of the Mystic Arts. If you haven’t guessed by its title, and the fact it’s set after Loki, and Spider-Man: No Way Home, Multiverse of Madness sees our magic-powered hero dive deeper into the mysteries and dangers of the multiverse.
Joining Strange are Elizabeth Olsen’s Wanda Maximoff/Scarlet Witch, and, in her Marvel Cinematic Universe debut, America Chavez, played by Xochitl Gomez. Multiverse of Madness hits cinemas on May 6.
From Robert Eggers, the filmmaker behind The VVitch and The Lighthouse, comes Viking epic The Northman. Combining Eggers’ brain-searing visceral style with obvious Hamlet inspiration, Alexander Skarsgård stars as a prince out to avenge his father’s murder. The all-star cast also includes Nicole Kidman, Anya Taylor-Joy, Ethan Hawke, Björk, and Willem Dafoe. The Northman releases in cinemas April 22.
Comics and Books
Goodbye skull logo. Marvel’s anti-hero vigilante The Punisher (AKA Frank Castle) is ditching his iconic emblem – which has been increasingly coopted by militant right-wing groups. No doubt to distance the character from the unauthorized usage, in a new 13-issue comic series, Frank will instead adopt the logo of The Hand, as he becomes the organisation’s brutally efficient warlord. More here.
In bigger industry news, Dark Horse has a new owner. The third biggest US comics publisher – which recently got back the rights to produce Star Wars comics, and has a notable partnership with comiXology to print digital titles published under its Originals banner – has been bought by Swedish video game conglomerate Embracer Group.
The motivation for the purchase? The untapped potential of the Dark Horse library, as just 11 of its 170 properties have been optioned for film and TV shows. More on the deal here.
Streaming Television
We’ve known about Netflix’s plans for an entire Witcher-verse for a while now, and before Season 2 of the main Witcher series, we got an animated movie centred on Vesemir, Geralt’s mentor. This past week we received our first glimpse of 2022 live-action prequel series The Witcher: Blood Origin, starring Sophia Brown, Laurence O’Fuarain, Michelle Yeoh, Lenny Henry and Mirren Mack.
The official synopsis of this 6-episode show: Witness the untold history of the Continent with The Witcher: Blood Origin, a new prequel series set in an elven world 1200 years before the events of The Witcher. Blood Origin will tell a story lost to time – exploring the creation of the first prototype Witcher, and the events that lead to the pivotal “Conjunction of the Spheres,” when the worlds of monsters, men, and elves merged to become one.