Another week has gone by. Now, what does that mean? Well if you worked for DC Comics, it was not a great week. We'll get to that at the end but first, some GOOD news. Saddle up.
From Ice To Light
Shawn Ashmore, a.k.a. Iceman, will be trading in his X-Men uniform for a lighter in the upcoming season of The Boys on Amazon Prime Video. He'll be playing The Lamplighter, the member of The Seven that stepped down before the series began and was replaced with new comer Starlight. The character actually has an interesting backstory with The Boys, at least in the comics. Since the series takes some liberties lets see how he is worked into the show when it returns September 4th on Prime Video.
The Doctor Is In
We all remember Christopher Eccleston aka the Ninth Doctor, right? This was the guy who kicked off the revival of Doctor Who in 2005. After 15 years he is returning to the TARDIS for another adventure....in audio. Will he ever return in live-action? That's probably a no-go.
In 2013 Doctor Who was celebrating the 50th anniversary of the show. Because of this milestone the writers created a special 77-min episode called "The Day of the Doctor" which brought back David Tennant's Tenth Doctor to team up with Matt Smith, who was the current Doctor at that time in the show. As the stories goes, Christopher Eccleston was asked to reprise his role in the anniversary special along with the David Tennant and Matt Smith but declined to return. In the end, we were given John Hurt as the War Doctor so that was a fun surprise!
Why didn't Christopher Eccleston want to return to the TARDIS again? He only played the Doctor for one season and then left the series, stating there were things happening on the set he wasn't happy with. Nothing ever came to light after that statement was made, so to this day it is still a mystery.
The audio version of his take on Doctor Who will be available in May of 2021.
Same Story Different Look
I guess HBO's hit series Game of Thrones was suppose to be VERY different. In the early days of getting this show launched it was originally pitched as an animated series claiming that is the only way they could honor the books. I guess the person who really wanted it done that way was late to the meeting and that's why it was live action. Could you imagine the Red Wedding animated?!
Make Room On The Shelves
For many Friday means payday and thanks to Hasbro it's all going away. Why? The Power Rangers Lightning Collection is growing yet again with the announcement of Wave 6. In this line up we have a wing-less Goldar which matches up to his first appearance in the series. Second is Tommy (again) but this time suited up as Zeo Ranger 5-Red. A dragon shield-less Zack from Might Morphin', and finally, Ashley as the Yellow Space Ranger from Power Rangers In Space.
You can pre-order any of them, or all of them, through Amazon or if you're a member, through Hasbro Pulse. Release date is scheduled for this October.
DC Destruction
I hate to end on a rough note but this has been the elephant in the room all week. On Monday August 10th, there were massive layoffs over at DC Comics, DCUniverse, and DC Direct. In fact, if the name DC was in the title it was chopped up somehow. It seems Warner Media, now owned by AT&T, went through a massive restructuring equivalent to the events of Crisis on Infinite Earths. Jobs were eliminated, divisions were shut down, and people were moved into different roles. Here's what we know:
DCUniverse is basically on life support. No shock here. With the launch of HBO Max, which is also owned by AT&T and Warner Media, a lot of the content was moved from DCuniverse to HBO Max including Doom Patrol, the Superman movie collections, along with the Tim Burton Batman movies, and many of the DCAMU films. The streaming services days were numbered the moment AT&T were given the keys to the place. Do not be shocked if there is an announcement by the end of the year that this service is going away.
*updated 8/14/20 at 3:55pm* According to this statement from Jim Lee, former Publisher of DC Comics, now liaison for the brand, has confirmed that ALL of DCuniverse original shows and content, including Titans will be moving over to HBO Max in the near future.
DC Direct is ending. This division was stated 22 years ago to highlight the characters of DC and Image Comics. If you ever wanted anything for your shelves that came from the pages of either of those comics this was the place to get it. If I were you, I'd get over to their website now to order what you can!
DC Comics. Okay...good news, DC Comics is not ending. Phew. Bad news, many titles were canceled including Teen Titans, Hawkman, Young Justice, to name a few as their writers and artists were fired during this restructure. Even DC Publisher Jim Lee was removed as head of DC Comics and will now serve as a liaison between DC Comics and Warner Media. A new publisher is rumored to be coming from E-Sports. Wait, WHAT?! Yeah. It's clear that Warner Media does not want to be in the comic book business but rather focus on characters and live action series. Much like what Disney did when they took over Marvel Comics.
Is this change over at DC a good move or a bad move? I think we're just going to have to wait and see. Full in-depth story can be found here
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Until next week. I'm Maz and that's the Geek Freak of the Week!