io9’s Top 100 Posts of 2022
Roughly speaking, we write about 4,000 or so posts each year at io9. Sometimes it’s breaking news, like Marvel Studios announcing the entirety of its Phase 5 slate. Sometimes it’s things we want to help explain to you, like our many looks at Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. Sometimes, we just want to make fun of crap. Whatever you come here for, we thank you for reading—and for making these the most popular articles of 2022.
After last week’s stunning, mind-bending episode, Westworld could have taken it easy this week. But after its lackluster third season, the show has returned to its roots of heady, thoughtful science fiction, and clearly has no intention of pulling up and retreating. While tonight’s episode isn’t as thrilling as last week’s installment, it’s enough because it focuses on the season’s biggest mystery: what the hell is going on with Christina?
[Read more here.]
The 2022 San Diego Comic-Con was held in person last week for the first time since 2019, and exhibitors made up for the long time away with a huge number of new movie and TV show trailers. The big comic book movie news came when Marvel returned to Hall H and debuted trailers for Black Panther: Wakanda Forever and She Hulk: Attorney at Law; A Guardians of the Galaxy 3 and Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantamania trailer were also shown, but only those at Hall H were able to see it. DC struck back with new trailers for Shazam! Fury of the Gods and Black Adam.
But of course, Comic-Con has gotten a lot bigger than just comic books: By our current count, more than 35 trailers were released during the four-day festival from studios including Universal, Paramount, Amazon, Fox, and Disney.
If you missed one, don’t worry: We’re collecting them all here for your viewing pleasure.
[Read more here.]
Dungeons & Dragons recently released its new boxed set, Spelljammmer: Adventures in Space, a revamp of the original 1989 setting which allowed players to have campaigns in the stars rather than on the ground. Like previous playbooks, Spelljammer’s Astral Adventurer’s Guide has introduced six new playable races, and it’s the lore behind one of them that’s recently landed the TTRPG giant in controversy.
[Read more here.]
Jane Foster stands at the gates of Valhalla, having earned a warrior’s rest after making a sacrifice so worthy that even she, a mortal, had gained the respect of Asgard’s fallen heroes. But she waits a moment, turning from the gates of eternal paradise. All she can say is “I wasn’t ready to die.”
[Read more here.]
Just two months after swearing off giving Winds of Winter updates, perpetual updater and writer of Winds of Winter George R.R. Martin has an announcement: He has a Winds of Winter update.
[Read more here.]
“Wait,” Everything Everywhere All at Once’s Jobu Tupaki (an interdimensional being of unrivaled cosmic power and chaos, covered in blood and glitter, having just killed three men) says to her mother. “In this universe, you’re still hung up on the fact that I like girls?”
[Read more here.]
After over a month in theaters, Spider-Man: No Way Home is still number one at the box office. And while it’s rumored to be coming home for digital download in late February, today you can bring a piece of it home yourself. The entire script is online.
[Read more here.]
2021 was a big year for superhero movies, particularly for Marvel and its webheads. In addition to the massive, nostalgia-fueled juggernaut Spider-Man: No Way Home, Tom Hardy and his massive chompers chewed up Venom: Let There Be Carnage to sizable box office success. The conversation surrounding both films was if Sony’s Eddie Brock would come and try to use MCU Peter Parker’s head as a stick of gum, and the ultimate answer the two films landed on was… not what fans expected.
[Read more here.]
Everyone can now experience The Batman from home and with that comes access to loads of behind-the-scenes clips and of course the director’s commentary. The Wrap reported on highlights from Apple’s exclusive Matt Reeves commentary track, which has given more context as to why the film closed on the Riddler (Paul Dano) and the Joker’s (Barry Keoghan) meet-cute over Gotham domination.
[Read more here.]
If you’re a fan of shonen anime, chances are you’ve heard of Jujutsu Kaisen. Based on the manga of the same name by Gege Akutakmi, the series sees teenager Yuji Itadori learn to become a Jujutsu sorcerer to fight Curse spirits after swallowing the finger of a powerful Curse named Sukuna. It premiered in October 2020 and quickly gained a big following thanks to its characters and fight scenes from Studio MAPPA, and it’s only grown since the end of its debut season in 2021. Good news, then: the series is coming back for another season, albeit in 2023.
[Read more here.]
Before the trailer for Indiana Jones 5 was released, the world hardly knew anything about it. They knew who was in the cast and its release date, but until the trailer hit, 99.9% of the world didn’t even know the film’s title. In some deep, dark pockets online, though, certain fans think they know everything, and director James Mangold just fired back.
[Read more here.]
If I told you the best part of tonight’s episode of The Walking Dead was a doorknob, would you believe me? Because it’s true, but that sounds like a bigger knock against “Variant” than I mean it to be. It was a pretty cool doorknob.
[Read more here.]
The era of the 13th Doctor is over, and it went out how ultimately much of Chris Chibnall’s time as Doctor Who’s showrunner went over the last four years: with moments of brilliance outshined by a plodding, unwieldy mess of narratives that threatened to drag its excellent star down with it. In that way, it’s perhaps a fitting finale, if an unjust one.
[Read more here.]
If you’ve been curious to know what’s in that infamous $5,000 Star Wars–themed drink, it’s no longer a complete mystery. The Kaiburr Crystal, available exclusively aboard the Disney Wish cruise ship in its Hyperspace Lounge, is an extravagantly presented, themed cocktail that should come with the camtono it’s served in but alas is not—probably because the boozy elixirs it’s concocted from are some of the most expensive top-shelf selections in the galaxy.
[Read more here.]
Jurassic World is the most Jurassic movie of all the Jurassic movies. It takes the structure of the first movie—a theme park run amok—and blends it with the franchise’s ultimate fantasy, finally revealing what a fully functioning dinosaur theme park looks like. It’s John Hammond’s vision come to life. The result, however, is a mixed bag, because for everything Jurassic World does to imitate the original film so well, it makes two or three mistakes along the way.
[Read more here.]
Out of nowhere this evening, Ryan Reynolds teased that a new Deadpool film, coming in 2024, will bring Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine into the Marvel Cinematic Universe—alongside his own beloved take on the merc with a mouth, of course.
[Read more here.]
Today, on the Nintendo Twitter account, we got the first look at the upcoming Mario movie via its movie poster, as well as a drop date for the upcoming trailer, and… wait… what’s going on with Mario’s butt?
[Read more here.]
Andor is so refreshing in part because it does not feel like the kind of Star Wars show that is going to drop everything, point at a familiar character arriving onto the scene, and go “Look! Star War!” And yet, out of nowhere, this week’s thrilling episode dropped maybe one of the most absurdly deep-cut canonizations this era of Star Wars has ever seen.
[Read more here.]
Another New York Comic Con, another overwhelming, arguably intimidating number of exclusive Pop Vinyl figures. In fact, 2022’s slate includes nearly 50 toys ranging from the MCU to obscure Disney characters—so we’ve decided to let you know about every single exclusive Pop coming to the con and where you can get your hands on them, even if you aren’t attending.
[Read more here.]
Two years ago, io9 premiered the trailer for The Phenomenon, a UFO documentary built around the “unavoidable fact” that aliens are real. Now filmmaker James Fox is back with a follow-up that explores that anti-skeptical thesis through a more international lens, delving into “the Roswell of Brazil.” It’s called Moment of Contact, and io9 is once again excited to premiere the trailer.
[Read more here.]
Now that we know a fifth Indiana Jones film actually exists, is coming out, and even has a real title, it’s time to dig a little deeper. Thursday’s reveal of the first trailer for Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny was chock full of recognizable Indy action with plenty of Nazi punching, cave exploring, and train jumping. But there’s still not much in the way of what exactly this movie is about, who these characters are, or what the heck a Dial of Destiny is.
Is this movie actually about time travel as has been so rampantly speculated? Why does Indy look so many different ages? Let’s look at all the little details we found in the first trailer for Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny.
[Read more here.]
Every time Marvel Studios makes an announcement about its upcoming Moon Knight show, social media is typically blanketed with one of the most famous panels featuring Khonshu’s fist: the hero hunting down Dracula, to get his goddamn money. But, as beloved as it is, it’s not actually a real panel from the pages of Marvel’s comics—but the story it’s from might be just as silly as Marc Spector being a vampire debt collector.
[Read more here.]
Prey is one of the best Predator sequels ever. But is it the best? Find out in our ranking of all the Predator films.
[Read more here.]
Good news if you liked the unhinged vibes of Picard’s season 2 finale: if this new trailer for the third and final season is anything to go by, that vibe is continuing strongly.
[Read more here.]
Comic-Con is back in San Diego this week, returning for an in-person event for the first time since 2019. And alongside all the big news and amazing cosplays that can only mean one thing: there’s suddenly going to be a lot of very cool things that you can spend lots of money on. And hey, some of them will be available even if you’re not at Comic-Con!
There are so many Comic-Con exclusives every year we’d be preparing for SDCC 2023 just trying to show them all off—check out places like the unofficial SDCC Blog to see absolutely everything exclusive to the show in 2022—but here are a few of our favorites from this year’s batch.
[Read more here.]
Finally, the Rock has made his long-awaited debut in the DC Universe as Black Adam. Promising that the hierarchy of power will change, Dwayne Johnson suits up (costumes now available) to deliver a bolt of lightning to revive the state of the DC slate. If it worked seems to depend on who you ask.
[Read more here.]
“Babylon’s Ashes” is not just The Expanse season six finale, it’s the series finale, and the episode is as bombastic and action-packed as you’d expect—but it’s also got quite a few quiet moments, and together they serve to remind us how much we’ll miss this remarkable show.
After last week’s “Why We Fight” saw the surprising (but, let’s face it, inevitable) team-up of former foes UN Secretary-General Avasarala and badass Belter captain Camina Drummer, all systems are go for The Expanse to showcase the fight the series has long been building toward: Marco Inaros versus… everyone. Literally everyone.
[Read more here.]
An apartment building with ties to the occult. A person obsessed with a mystery they uncover in found footage. The blurring of media and reality. Surveillance and paranoia. The possibility of other dimensions! Netflix’s spooky series Archive 81 combines all of these elements, and it does it so well it’s no shocker it’s become a huge hit for the streamer.
But Archive 81 is only eight episodes. What are you going to watch once you’ve binge-watched all of Melody (Dina Shihabi) and Dan (Mamoudou Athie)’s bizarre adventures? While there’s nothing out there exactly like it—don’t worry, we won’t be spoiling any Archive 81 plot twists if it’s still on your watchlist—we’ve come up with eight films that share enough similar themes to act as sort of companion pieces.
[Read more here.]
Three Santa Clause films just weren’t enough. Now, almost two decades since the release of the third one, Disney is bringing back the holiday comedy as a limited series for Disney+. Tim Allen will reprise his role as Santa in a story where he’s looking for a new Santa to pass the sleigh to.
[Read more here.]
Fans of shonen manga and anime have plenty of series they love—series we’ve talked about a few times on this site—and among the upper tier of those is Hunter x Hunter. Yoshihiro Togashi’s martial arts manga has been a commercial and critical success since it debuted in 1998, but due to Togashi’s health issues, it went into its longest hiatus ever in 2018 following the release of its most recent issue. After four years of waiting, it sounds like the series is about to make a[nother] comeback.
[Read more here.]
The Disney D23 Expo has had a solid amount of reveals and footage for various Marvel films and shows in production. Kevin Feige revealed the main roster for the upcoming Thunderbolts film. That cast is:
- Sebastian Stan as the Winter Soldier
- Florence Pugh as Yelena Belova/Black Widow II
- David Harbour as Red Guardian
- Wyatt Russell as John Walker/USAgent
- Hannah John-Kamen as Ghost
- Olga Kurylenko as Taskmaster
- Julia Louis-Dreyfuss as Contessa
[Read more here.]
As it had to, it all came down to Dolores and the Man in Black.
[Read more here.]
Warhammer 40,000 is home to lots of strange and peculiar factions, beyond the realm of its poster-child Imperial zealots in the Space Marines. There’s haughty Space Elves of both the standard and goth varieties, there’s hive mind Xenomorph knockoffs, there’s Space Orks (not to be confused with regular old Orcs), and more demons than you can shake a chainsaw-sword hybrid at. But none of them compare to the weirdness of the game’s latest returning faces.
[Read more here.]
At a glance:
- Inspired by the events detailed in J.R.R. Tolkien’s history of Middle-earth beyond The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, Rings of Power explores what happened long before the events of those novels, dubbed the Second Age of Middle-earth.
- Set thousands of years before the events of the books and movies (which Rings of Power has a… tenuous connection to, and Amazon has been vague on the specifics), it details several events during the aforementioned Second Age, including Sauron’s forging of the titular magical Rings of Power, and the infamous One Ring designed to dominate all others to his will.
- It’s set to begin streaming on Prime Video starting September 2. Read io9’s review here.
- Season one will run for eight episodes, and the series has already been granted a second season.
[Read more here.]
People die in the name of rebellion in Star Wars all the time. X-Wings blinking out in balls of flame above the Death Star, speeders splintering on the salt of Crait. Heroic last stands like Admiral Holdo, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Anakin Skywalker, or Kanan Jarrus. But this week’s Andor offers a view of sacrifice arguably as tragic, if not more tragic, than any of those deaths.
[Read more here.]
This week’s episode of The Book of Boba Fett has an energy quite unlike anything the show has delivered so far. It also has a story quite unlike anything the show has delivered so far. And a cast. And a premise. Because, as strong as it was, it wasn’t an episode of The Book of Boba Fett at all—and being as good as it was only served to highlight some of the show’s biggest problems.
[Read more here.]
In the much-anticipated buildup to Rick and Morty’s season six premiere, Adult Swim released an interactive fan event where Wormageddon sculptures were set up across the globe, providing clues towards the next season of the animated show. With the season now underway, Adult Swim has released the first episode, “Solaricks,” on YouTube, available for (almost) anyone to watch for two weeks.
[Read more here.]
As the summer movie season comes to an end, a few all-time blockbusters are busting back into theaters. One is from just last year but the other is the original. The first. Maybe the best of the best. Steven Spielberg’s 1975 classic, Jaws.
[Read more here.]
Cyberpunk: Edgerunners has a lot of weird baggage attached, from its connection to the controversial and divisive CD Projekt game to being the latest in the legacy of Studio Trigger. But Netflix’s latest anime acquisition has a lot to love… and a few things to love a little less.
[Read more here.]
Ah, I believe it was that wise old philosopher Garfield the cat who called Labor Day the time we “celebrate work by playing all day.” So let us celebrate twerk as well, and take a moment to enjoy these utterly delightful photos of Tatiana Maslany, pre-CG, twerking with Megan Thee Stallion on last week’s episode of She-Hulk.
[Read more here.]
The complaint that blockbuster movies nowadays are too long has been a standard gripe for awhile now, and so common that it’s become stale and annoying on its own. I want to acknowledge that I know this, and agree with this sentiment, and yet I am utterly powerless not to say Matt Reeves and Robert Pattinson’s upcoming The Batman is too damn long. Like, way too long.
[Read more here.]
Unless you spend your time in a cave with flying nocturnal animals, you’re probably aware there’s a new Batman movie in theaters this week. Matt Reeves’ The Batman is the first live-action Batman solo film in a decade, if you can believe it. Of course, Ben Affleck played the role in a few other films in between, and Lego Batman got his own movie in that time too. Still, there’s just something bigger and more resonant about a solo Batman movie and The Batman is certainly both of those things.
But where does it stand in comparison with the other films? That’s what follows in our Batman ranking post. We’ve pitted all 13 feature-length, theatrical films starring Batman against each other. So no direct-to-video films, no cameos, etc. Nevertheless, what’s last? What’s first? Click through and find out.
[Read more here.]
The Owl House, considered by io9’s Justin Carter to be an incredible piece of animated media, has just embarked on its third—and final—season, and now fans without Disney+ subscriptions can watch the premiere, “Thanks to Them,” on YouTube.
[Read more here.]
The premise seems rom-com enough: two adults literally crash into each other then quickly form a friendship followed by romance. But one has a secret. A very big secret. And the show’s title makes it seem like this rom-com blends some other genres too. Maybe even horror.
[Read more here.]
The Marvel Cinematic Universe has managed to catapult several actors to stardom, and Chris Hemsworth is one of its best poster boys. Previously best known for playing Kirk’s dad in the opening minutes of Star Trek’s 2009 reboot, the first Thor movie from 2011 supercharged his career like a bolt of lightning, to the point where he’s got a new action franchise in the form of Netflix’s Extraction and the recent Disney+ series, Limitless.
Limitless recently premiered, and it’s during the fourth episode that Hemsworth learned he has a “strong” genetic predisposition to develop Alzheimer’s disease as he gets older. Both of his parents have the APOE4 gene, which is said to lead to an increased risk of the memory-losing disease. As a result, he’s announced a brief retirement from acting to spend time with his wife Elsa Pataky and their three kids.
[Read more here.]
If the companies behind a product no longer care about ruining something for an audience, why should you? Today, mere hours before the release of Black Adam, the official DC Comics Twitter account posted a cute little animation. One that, well—we aren’t going to be assholes and spoil it without warning, so if you want to be spoiler free, stop reading here. Just know that DC is not being cautious or subtle.
[Read more here.]
Welcome back to io9’s monthly Nerd’s Watch, where we pare down the enormous lists of new films and television shows arriving on all your favorite streaming services into the sci-fi, fantasy, and horror titles we think you’ll like most.
[Read more here.]
Whenever Doctor Who is ready to cast a new Doctor, the internet is always aflurry with wild suggestions and outlandish “leaks” that, more often than not, never play out as true. But as Doctor Who fandom looks toward the return of showrunner Russell T. Davies—and the 14th Doctor arriving in time for next year’s 60th anniversary—the series has found itself caught up in one of the strangest rumors it’s faced in years.
[Read more here.]
Friends, zombies, countrymen, lend me your ears! I have come to bury The Walking Dead, not to praise it. I haven’t come to trash-talk it either, actually. But it feels important to note that the zombified version of TWD that has been shambling around our TV screens for years has had its skull crushed and its brains pulverized. You know, metaphorically speaking.
[Read more here.]
I like Stranger Things as much as the next nerd, but this new release schedule feels, well… a little weird. Here are the details; the fourth and penultimate season of Stranger Things will consist of nine episodes split up into two ‘Volumes’ with a month’s wait in between. According to the Netflix press release, the first seven episodes of Volume 1 will be available on May 27th. The last two episodes, entitled Volume 2, will be released on July 1.
[Read more here.]
The much-improved fourth season of HBO’s sci-fi series Westworld concluded last night with a cliffhanger for the ages. A cliffhanger that does, in fact, set up the end of the series. We just may never get to see it.
[Read more here.]
After what’s felt like ages of waiting, Amazon revealed a little more about its plans for its Lord of the Rings prequel streaming series today, namely, its name: The Rings of Power. Sauron’s plans to ensorcell the Elves, Dwarves, and realms of Men with his magical trinkets has been at the heart of Tolkien’s universe forever, but before we get to what the new show will tell us… what do we know about the rings already?
[Read more here.]
The word “Madness” is right there in the title. And yet, we almost weren’t prepared for just how mad things get in the latest trailer for Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. After debuting its first trailer at the end of Spider-Man: No Way Home, this second trailer debuted during the Super Bowl and raised the stakes exponentially with all manner of wild revelations and images. Some of which are clear, many of which are not, and in this slideshow we’ll dive into the biggest, most interesting, images.
[Read more here.]
Two years ago, news that Oscar-winning filmmaker Barry Jenkins was making a prequel to The Lion King made everyone scratch their heads. What the heck would that be and who asked for that? Well, finally, at the D23 Expo, Jenkins showed up to explain what it was about Mufasa: The Lion King that makes it unique.
[Read more here.]
A few days after Variety reported that the Dwayne Johnson-led Black Adam was looking like it was going to fail to return much of a profit—if any—Deadline has come out with a piece stating that the Variety article is wrong, actually, and Black Adam is doing just fine in the box office. The star himself has also chimed in.
[Read more here.]
There’s no other movie right now that has elicited multiple re-watches like Jordan Peele’s Nope. It’s the kind of film where you leave the theater with a lingering buzz about what you just saw, questions about some of the reveals, and curiosity for anything you might have missed—the meaning of the shoe, for instance, has gone viral.
[Read more here.]
Morbius is here and it’s doing fairly well. But the journey to this moment wasn’t so smooth, not just because of covid-19 delays, but because of the methods of its star, Jared Leto.
[Read more here.]
In a new interview with The Hollywood Reporter, She-Hulk’s Jessica Gao confirmed that Hulk’s son, Skaar, was a cameo that came directly from Kevin Fiege himself. Skaar appeared alongside Hulk at the very end of the finale episode, showing up in the middle of a family picnic just before the credits ran. No explanations were given, of course, but I’m here to explain everything you need to know about Skaar, and the implications that his appearance has for the MCU.
[Read more here.]
Do you ever feel tense when watching The Walking Dead anymore? Does the TV show ever truly surprise you anymore? I’m pretty sure it’s been quite a while since TWD made me feel like a character was in real danger or did anything that made me wonder what was going to happen next. Tonight’s episode, “Faith,” was a pretty egregious example of The Walking Dead’s continuing failure to do either.
[Read more here.]
“The latest Marvel movie/TV show/something or other just changed the Marvel universe forever!!!” is a sentiment you hear about practically every Marvel movie/TV show/something or other at this point. Game-changing potentiality drives scope and scale and pushes us onto the next thing, and the thing after that. She-Hulk joins its Marvel compatriots in doing so, but it comes at it with a suitably askew angle.
[Read more here.]
Reader, I have to admit: it has been several days since I first saw the Star Trek: Picard season two finale by the time you’re reading this. And I still cannot tell you if I mean to say “unhinged” here as either a good or a bad thing.
[Read more here.]
Power Rangers fans across the world are still in shock from the sudden passing of Mighty Morphin’ star Jason David Frank this past weekend at the age of 49, with tributes rolling in from across the worlds of Power Rangers and Super Sentai to honor the actor—including a touching new video from Hasbro.
[Read more here.]
In a world full of fantastical mysteries, there are few things more mysterious in Middle-earth than the Istari: the powerful sorcerers who helped, in ways big and small, shape the very fate of the world. But for all we know of Gandalf and Saruman, the wider world of Lord of the Rings’ wizards is worth learning about now that Rings of Power is here.
[Read more here.]
Superhero movie end credits scenes are usually a film’s best-kept secret. No one dares discuss or spoil the big cameo or plot twist that happens after the film, setting the table for what’s to come. In the case of Black Adam, though, that hasn’t quite been true.
[Read more here.]
Fans of the Predator franchise surely found lots of little winks and nods to the previous films in Hulu’s new prequel, Prey. A line of dialogue here. A piece of set dressing there. Then… that one big reveal at the end you were certainly not expecting. As cool as the one specific thing was, it’s actually even better than you realize. Prey director Dan Trachtenberg explains.
[Read more here.]
It’s been over a decade since the last book in the A Song of Ice and Fire saga, Dance of Dragons, hit shelves. Game of Thrones has started and ended. House of the Dragon, the first of multiple planned spinoffs, is about to air. And in all that time, we’ve been waiting for The Winds of Winter to howl. And yet, here we are.
[Read more here.]
I cannot stop thinking about the end credits scenes of Morbius. They might be the apex of what end credits scenes can be. From here? It’s all downhill. These scenes are magical. The scenes are terrible and, frankly, we love them for it. We’ve peaked and there’s no going back.
[Read more here.]
Kevin Feige, after teasing Marvel fans during Cinema Con, has officially revealed Phase 5 of the Marvel Cinematic Universe at San Diego Comic-Con. We’ve known that something big was in the pipeline for a while, so while this isn’t a surprise, it’s always interesting to see the full plan laid out and speculate about directors, actors, and storytellers. (And maybe look at what’s going on in the VFX pipeline too.)
[Read more here.]
While Tim Burton’s Wednesday certainly attempts to imitate the aesthetic of the ‘90s Addams Family films, the surrounding plot and characters of Netflix’s newest teen drama fail to capture the morbid charm of Charles Addams’ gothic family.
[Read more here.]
It’s been three years since One-Punch Man released its second season. In that time, we’ve heard nary a word on if the adventures of the ultra-powerful Saitama would continue in anime form, even as its live-action film adaptation is slowly starting to ramp up. But hey, turns out that a third season is on the way after all.
[Read more here.]
The Peripheral—Prime Video’s William Gibson adaptation from the producers of Westworld—explored some intriguing ideas in its tale of a young woman whose virtual-reality adventuring vaults her into a broken version of the future. But today’s season finale felt like a scramble to the finish; there was too much going on in too little time, with an end that felt too abrupt to be satisfying… and required rewinds to make sense.
[Read more here.]
It’s only a few weeks before Switch players can get their hands on Pokémon Legends: Arceus. The next big entry in the series is winding back the clock to the Hisui Region before it came to be known as Sinnoh, and tasks players with exploring the area to research the pocket monsters in their natural habitats.
[Read more here.]
House of the Dragon viewers have had themselves some fun watching the Game of Thrones prequel over the last two months. But it isn’t Game of Thrones without some kind of drama happening, and ahead of this Sunday’s season finale, the episode up and got leaked out of nowhere.
[Read more here.]
It’s almost unfair to add “so far” to that headline as a disclaimer, because looking at what’s to come, it’s hard to think of something that could top the Daniels’ maximalist sci-fi action/relatable familial trauma generator epic Everything Everywhere All at Once as the best sci-fi film of 2022. But if you’re not sure why we’re so sold on it still, good news: it just got easier for you to check it out.
[Read more here.]
Actor Ted White passed away on Friday at the age of 96, reports Bloody Disgusting. In horror circles, White is best known for playing slasher icon Jason Voorhees in 1984’s Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter.
[Read more here.]
The Umbrella Academy’s third season just hit Netflix, and we binged it immediately—hey, if this show’s taught us anything, it’s that an apocalypse could happen at any moment! Thanks to the latest timeline shake-up, season three brought more Hargreeves siblings than ever before, amplifying all the problems this super-powered family tends to cause. So how did this season fare?
[Read more here.]
If you thought Westworld peaked in season one… you’re probably right. But if you’ve been waiting for Westworld to give you a great twist again, or perhaps despaired that the show would never thrill you like it used to, or that it had completely lost its way during the mediocre third season, tonight’s episode proved otherwise. And if it didn’t match the greatness of season one, it came pretty damn close.
[Read more here.]
In last week’s recap, I wrote the following: “Do you ever feel tense when watching The Walking Dead anymore? Does the TV show ever truly surprise you anymore? I’m pretty sure it’s been quite a while since TWD made me feel like a character was in real danger or did anything that made me wonder what was going to happen next.” I am pleased to report tonight’s episode surprised me, made me anxious, and left me wondering what’s coming next week.
[Read more here.]
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever is almost here. That sentence alone feels like a miracle. Though the 2018 original grossed well over $1 billion and gave Marvel Studios its first Best Picture nomination, the road to the sequel was anything but smooth. The tragic loss of star Chadwick Boseman was the first, and biggest, hurdle. There was also a global pandemic to navigate, on-set controversies, injuries, and more. Now, finally, November 11 marks the release of the highly anticipated sequel which itself is the grand finale to Phase Four of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
[Read more here.]
Moon Knight is a series that goes to some rather unfathomable places for a Marvel TV show. It’s darker and more mysterious than perhaps anything since the studio’s Netflix endeavors. It, with rather considerable restraint, chooses not to constantly reference its place in Marvel Cinematic Universe. Perhaps most unfathomable of all, however, is that it asks you to believe that Oscar Isaac can deliver a convincing English accent.
[Read more here.]
Trying to keep track of what’s coming in the realm of Star Trek feels like trying to stop a tribble from procreating. Before even more new series are announced, here’s our guide to when to expect all the new Star Trek shows, as well as returning familiar favorites, and what else is in the works right now. Engage!
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Thanks to an apparent technical glitch, Riddler-level intel has dropped that we can expect to see the The Batman at home in late April. Deadline reported (and screen-capped) the dates before they were removed from the HBO website, and the trade says its news that the DC hit will arrive Tuesday, April 19 on HBO Max, and Saturday, April 23 on HBO service providers is “legit.”
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Bill Murray said it in 1978 and we’re still saying it today: “Star Wars! Nothing but Star Wars! Give me those Star Wars! Don’t let them end…” Star Wars is everywhere these days, with multiple movies and TV shows in the works from Disney and Lucasfilm. This article will give you the most up to date Star Wars release dates so you know exactly when every new Star Wars movie or Disney+ show will arrive.
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The branches of the Targaryen family tree stretch far beyond the Game of Thrones TV franchise. In fact, if you look to George R.R. Martin’s original Song of Ice and Fire novels—including Fire and Blood, upon which House of the Dragon is based—there are more than 50 named Targaryens mentioned throughout Westerosi history. They all have two things in common: platinum blond hair and an abundance of ae’s and y’s in their names. Now, with scientific methods far too scientific to explain, I have ranked all of them solely by their names, not by their characters, according to their greatness—and thus beginning with the most unfortunately named Targaryen of them all.
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I loved Cobra Kai season 5. Let’s just get that out of the way. Yes, in this article I’m gonna talk about things I both liked and didn’t about the brand new season but, even the things I didn’t like aren’t “bad.” They’re just not as good as the good stuff.
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Eiichiro Oda has been playing the long game. That’s not news to anyone reading One Piece, his globally popular manga, which has been dropping Easter eggs and seeding revelations for two and a half decades. The biggest one—and certainly the most divisive one among its many fans—was revealed this past weekend, and it has irrevocably changed one of the longest-running manga forever.
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Good luck on the minefield of social media today as the post-credits scene of DC’s Black Adam has leaked, over a week before the film’s October 21 release. As Warner Bros. gets to work scrubbing posts, we imagine the Rock is gearing up to take back his thunder.
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As always, we at io9 support sexiness. We also support sexy Halloween costumes. If you want to go out this Halloween dressed as a Sexy Emoji or a Sexy Witcher, we support your choice! But may we suggest, trying to make sure your sexy costume is 1) recognizable, 2) not horrible, and 3) actually sexy? To help guide you, we’ve found this year’s crop of awful Halloween outfits, from… oh, that would be spoiling it. Read on, but be warned—while this is technically SFW, some pasties are involved.
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The young, post-Return of the Jedi Luke Skywalker who appeared in last week’s penultimate episode of The Book of Boba Fett looked a great deal better than the young, post-Return of the Jedi, and extremely janky CG Luke Skywalker who picked up Grogu in the season two finale of The Mandalorian. However, there was still something off about Luke.
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Kevin Conroy—the actor who became Batman for generations of fans when he voiced the Dark Knight in the iconic Batman: The Animated Series and Justice League cartoons, as well as a plethora of video games, including the Batman Arkham franchise—has died. He was 66.
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If you were online, and specifically on Tumblr, over the weekend of November 18-20, you’ve definitely heard of Goncharov (1973). Widely considered one of Martin Scorsese’s lost masterpieces of Mafia cinema, it was released in 1973 but suppressed in the states for various reasons. Alternatively, it was never released. Or, in another timeline, Goncharov won several awards and is already in the Criterion Collection. Everyone agrees that all this is true.
With complete sincerity, Goncharov (1973) is (if you hadn’t guessed already) an entirely made-up movie.
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The first volume of Stranger Things season four was released last week, and now we know, once and for all, just how long volume two is going to be. Episode eight will clock in at just over an hour, while episode nine, the season finale episode, is two hours and 19 minutes long. So two episodes of television, about three and a half hours, and it’s not even the final season.
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Locke & Key’s third and final season arrived on Netflix this week, and while there was a lot to like about it, it had some flaws, too—enough to make it the series’ weakest outing. However, that doesn’t mean you should skip watching the final chapter of this entertaining, imaginative show based on the Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodríguez comic series.
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The Book of Boba Fett has come to a close. Well, chapter one at least. Today brought the seventh and final episode of The Book of Boba Fett season one, meaning there’ll be no new Star Wars content on TV for at least a few months. The show also left behind lots of burning questions—though most of those don’t have much to do with the titular character, since his portion of the story, for the most part, was fairly well wrapped up.
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One of the biggest films of all time just got bigger. This weekend, Spider-Man: No Way Home is being re-released in theaters with 11 minutes of additional footage. Referred to in some places as the “More Fun Stuff Edition” (but more commonly just as an extended edition), the film adds multiple brand new scenes while also expanding some of your favorites.
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Remember how last week I said it felt like we’d reached something of an emotional turning point in The Rings of Power, and that, in true Lord of the Rings style, our heroes had been challenged at their direst and were due for some much-needed hope? Well… about that.
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He’s wanted to be the very best for a very long time, but perpetual kid/two-and-a-half-decade-long professional Pokémon battler Ash Ketchum is, at long last, an official Pokémon world champion.
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Jason David Frank has passed away at the age of 49. The news was initially broken by his personal trainer and close friend, Mike Bronzoulis, and later corroborated by this publication (via Frank’s representative), along with fellow Rangers actors Walter Jones and Blake Foster.
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It all changes during the end credits. Since the beginning, Marvel Studios has put scenes during and after its credits to keep fans in the seats and tease what’s to come. It’s where Nick Fury debuted, where we first met Thanos and Wanda, and were teased about Captain Marvel. These are all crucial, unforgettable, exciting scenes. And yet we think Marvel’s latest film, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, has the best credits scene in Marvel Studios history.
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We don’t talk about Bruno… but we do include him in this rundown of la familia Madrigal.
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