New York Comic Con Special Edition 2019

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NEW YORK COMIC CON | OCTOBER 2019 | DENOFGEEK.COM

DC TV SUPERHERO PREVIEW

REGINA KING AS SISTER NIGHT

BEGINNER’S GUIDE TO OVERWATCH Q&A: JEFF GOLDBLUM

HBO WATCHES THE

WATCHMEN 1 DEN OF GEEK

THE TIMELESS SUPERHERO EPIC CONTINUES ON TV

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p WATCHMEN Executive Producer/ Writer Damon Lindelof and Executive Producer/ Director Nicole Kassell bring superheroes to HBO. PG. 34

TABLE OF CONTENTS FALL MOVIE PREVIEW 2019 Zombies, Jedi, and an imaginary Hitler, oh my!

IMAGE CREDIT: VAN REDIN/HBO, DISNEY, THE CW, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC

PG. 44

THE ODYSSEY OF JEFF GOLDBLUM A new TV series opens up the world of the legendary actor.

CW SUPERHERO PREVIEW

The Arrowverse says goodbye to its flagship show, introduces Batwoman, and builds towards a Crisis. PG. 28

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LETTER FROM THE EDITOR

WHO WATCHES...

What can Watchmen teach us about 2019?

BY MIKE CECCHINI

IT’S NEVER TOO EARLY TO REGISTER TO VOTE. Resources are available at vote.org

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more apparent with each passing day.

The real President Nixon, of course, was hounded by scandal, held views on race relations that could at best be considered troubling, and was openly hostile to the press. Sound familiar?

He also had the good sense to resign in disgrace, something that sadly sounds as unrealistic as something from a comic book these days.

But while virtually every page

Assistant Print Editors Alec Bojalad, Kayti Burt, Mike Cecchini, David Crow, Nick Harley, John Saavedra Creative Directors Lucy Quintanilla, Joshua Moore Design and Illustration Hannah Kneisley, Jessica Koynock Copy Editor Sarah Litt

DENOFGEEK.COM CEO Jennifer Bartner-Indeck PUBLISHER Matthew Sullivan-Pond Editor-in-Chief Mike Cecchini Deputy Editor Chris Longo

of Watchmen reflects its era’s tension and anxiety, the new Watchmen TV series from HBO will need to similarly speak to our 2019 anxieties. How will Damon Lindelof (Lost, The Leftovers) and co. do so? You may find some hints in our cover story, which begins on page 34.

But what will you do with the reality handed to you by 2019 and beyond?

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Associate Editors Alec Bojalad, Kayti Burt, David Crow, Don Kaye, John Saavedra, Tony Sokol Social Media Manager Brian Berman Advertising Director Adam McDonnell Advertising Executive Andres Ball CONTACT US 109 West 38th Street Rm 1202 New York, New York 10018 SPONSORSHIP msullivan@denofgeek.com

IMAGE CREDITS: DC COMICS, ART BY DAVE GIBBONS

WATCHMEN ’S “REAL WORLD” approach to superheroics was a novelty in 1985, but equally important to its effectiveness was how its world deviated from and reflected our own.

In Watchmen’s world of heroes, it wasn’t enough for masked adventurers and vigilantes to appear on the scene in 1938 or for an actual superhuman to arrive in the mid 1960s, Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons also explored how the presence of such extraordinary individuals would impact history itself, which they did in ways great and small.

Electric cars are already the norm in Watchmen’s 1985, decades before they started to pepper the real-world automobile market. The United States, with the aid of Doctor Manhattan and the Comedian, managed a decisive victory in the Vietnam War, which changed the course of American history, with President Richard Nixon riding a wave of popularity that allowed him to still hold office in ‘85, years after traditional term limits would have ousted him. Had Nixon actually been serving as president in 1985, he would have been 72 years old, roughly the same age as the current occupant of the Oval Office, whose precipitous mental decline becomes

PRINT EDITOR Chris Longo

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BOOKS & COMICS FALL BOOKS GUIDE PG. 12 • HOPEPUNK PG. 14

DUNLAP

BIG APPLE, BIG TALENT

These 10 indie comics creators are putting the comics back in Comic Con. BY ROSIE KNIGHT NEW YORK COMIC CON IS ONE OF THE BIGGEST COMIC CONVENTIONS IN THE world, with fans, creators, stars, artists, writers, and cosplayers converging on the Javits Center every October. With all the announcements and incredible reveals at the show, it can be easy to get swept up and forget what that first C in NYCC stands for: Comics. To make sure you make the most of the con floor this year, we’ve selected 10 artists who will make venturing into the impressive (and sometimes intimidating) Artist Alley a highlight of your 2019 convention schedule!

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BAKER/GOUX

ASHLEY A. WOODS Breaking into comics via self-publishing can be tough, but that’s exactly what Ashley A. Woods did with her series Millennia War. Since then, her art has been making waves as she showcased her talents in the acclaimed Black Comix: African American Independent Comics, Art and Culture, covers for Black Mask’s acclaimed Black series, and on titles like Tomb Raider, Lady Castle, and Niobe, the last of which was recently picked up by HBO. That’s not Woods’ only TV claim to fame, though, as her art will soon be seen in J.J. Abrams and Jordan Peele’s upcoming chiller, Lovecraft Country.

IMAGE CREDIT: NICOLE GOUX, ROYAL DUNLAP, NGOZI UKAZU, AND DC COMICS

UKAZU

DAVE BAKER AND NICOLE GOUX This powerhouse pair of cartoonists have been making brilliant comics together for a few years and are probably best known for their teen coming-of-age comic F*ck Off Squad. Dynamic, stylish illustrations from Goux and razor-sharp writing from Baker make their books some of the best of the last few years. Baker is also a talented artist whose surreal sci-fi series Action Hospital is one of the most unique books on shelves, and Goux was recently announced as the artist on DC’s new Cass Cain Batgirl Original Graphic Novel, Shadow of the Batgirl.

made her one of the internet’s favorite artists. Rian’s lovely and utterly singular art has been featured on the covers of comics from massive publishers like Marvel, Archie, and IDW. If you want art that will make you happy every single time you look at it, then put visiting Rian at the top of your NYCC to-do list.

DANIEL WARREN JOHNSON You’ve probably seen Daniel Warren Johnson’s extremely intricate and impressive commissions pop up on your Twitter timeline. The comics creator’s favorite comics creator is also the mind behind Image Comics’ radical Extremity (alongside colorist Mike Spicer). Dense illustration, surprising layouts, and explosive action define much of Johnson’s work, but he’s also funny (check out the searingly silly Murder Falcon) and heartfelt (his self-published Star Wars comics are heartbreakingly great). Basically, he’s got something for everyone!

NGOZI UKAZU Check, Please! is nothing less than a cultural phenomenon and the Ignatz-nominated cartoonist behind it will be at NYCC again this year.

Ukazu’s gorgeous webcomic about hockey, baking, and falling in love took the internet by storm, becoming “the most funded webcomics Kickstarter ever” before it was picked up by rad comics publisher First Second.

Ukazu is a unique talent in the industry who tells heartfelt, gorgeous stories that offer a respite from the horrors of everyday life alongside vital lessons about growing up.

RIAN GONZALEZ Looking for a bit of magic in your life? Then make sure you head to Rian Gonzalez’s table. Her technicolor visions of your favorite heroes have

ROYAL A. DUNLAP With his newly announced queer climate change comic, b.b. free, coming from Boom! Studios (alongside America’s Gabby Rivera), Royal Dunlap is one of comics’ most exciting new prospects. But if you’ve been keeping an eye on the industry, then you’ll already recognize his distinctive style; his art has graced the covers of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and will feature in the upcoming Elements: Earth anthology in a story written by James F. Wright.

TESS STONE Good horror comics are hard to find, but Tess Stone’s Not Drunk Enough has been entertaining genre fans since it began in 2015. The monster melee ensues after a lab accident and, four years later, is still going strong. A talented cartoonist, Stone is known for his stylized illustrations, spot colors, and love of the weird and strange. If you want to pick up something creepy-cute at NYCC this year, then make sure you visit Tess when you venture into the Javits.

AFUA RICHARDSON If you read Marvel’s Eisner-winning Black Panther: World of Wakanda series, then you’ll already be familiar with the wonderful art of Afua Richardson. Her vibrant artwork has been seen on the covers of comics, including All-Star Batman, X-Men ‘92, and Captain Marvel. Not only is she a massive comics art talent, her illustrations influenced the team who worked on the Black Panther movie.

She also drew the critically-acclaimed Genius, co-creating a brilliant and unexpected heroine in Destiny (alongside writers Marc Bernardin and Adam Freeman).

ZU ORZU You might recognize Zu Orzu’s stunning work from the covers of comics like Valiant’s XO Manowar and Punk Mambo, or you might recognize her digital colors from Jinxworld’s Cover. If you’ve yet to discover Zu’s work, then NYCC is the perfect time. And if you already like her instantly-recognizable mixed media, then make sure you visit Zu this year before she becomes a household name!

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BOOKS & COMICS

THE DC UNIVERSE GOES TO HELL Year of the Villain culminates in Hell Arisen. BY JIM DANDY

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Lex Luthor will take on The Batman Who Laughs, spelling bad news for DC heroes.

Art by Steve Epting.

Batman/Superman, including Donna Troy, Supergirl, Commissioner Gordon, Blue Beetle, Hawkman, and Shazam, as they fight for the life of the Dark Multiverse against Lex and the cosmic goddess and multiversal creator, Perpetua. “It is basically a battle of the minds of these two exceptionally dangerous and smart beings,” Tynion says.

If you noticed an extension of the eternal “who would win in a fight: Batman or Superman?” argument baked into Hell Arisen, that’s because it’s intentional. The pair are variations on the iconic duo’s greatest villains: Luthor, returned to his mad scientist roots, matching up against an alternate-universe Batman hit with a massive dose of Joker psychopathy.

“They are two sides of a very messed up coin,” Tynion says, “in the same way that Batman and Superman are.”

Tynion finds himself matched with artist Steve Epting for Hell Arisen.

Epting (with writer Ed Brubaker) is perhaps best known as the artist who brought Bucky Barnes back to life in

the pages of Captain America, and his extended run with Marvel’s spies and super-soldiers is playing a role in how Tynion blocks out the story.

“I am definitely tailoring it to his strengths,” Tynion says. “What I think Steve Epting does best is he can build this tension. That’s why he does spy thrillers really well and this is a different sort of thriller. This is a very dangerous horror thriller.”

Horror is a genre Tynion is very comfortable working in. His breakout comic, Memetic, with artist Eryk Donovan, was a body horror thriller that landed the pair a GLAAD Award nomination. While some of his DC work has horror trappings—Justice League Dark feels very much like an homage to ‘70s Marvel and DC monster books—Hell Arisen looks like the hardest horror he’s written for the company.

“My main priority is to tell a genuinely horrifying story in the present,” he says.

If it’s anything like his past work, he should meet that goal comfortably.

IMAGE CREDIT: DC COMICS

JAMES TYNION IV HAS BEEN WRITING comics for DC for seven years. In that time, he’s gone from co-writing Batman backups to being one of the architects of the Justice League line, but he’s never shepherded a big crossover. That will change this winter with Year of the Villain: Hell Arisen, the next step in Apex Lex Luthor’s assault on the DC Universe. According to Tynion, this is the biggest story he’s written in his DC career. But its roots go back even further.

“This is something going all the way back to the original Dark Nights: Metal event,” Tynion says. “It set two different tracks in motion... Justice League has been the path of Lex Luthor... setting out into the world to create this new Legion of Doom to awaken this ancient cosmic goddess Perpetua and transforming himself into this apex predator.”

Running parallel to Lex is The Batman Who Laughs in his own title and Batman/Superman, creating his own team of infected heroes.

“Now we’re going to see those two threads come to a head,” Tynion says, “because what Year of the Villain: Hell Arisen is, more than anything, is the clash between Lex Luthor and the Batman Who Laughs.”

Hell Arisen follows the Batman Who Laughs and the heroes he’s been infecting with his toxin in

“The BEST fantasy novel I’ve read in years.”

—STEPHEN KING

“Brilliant, funny, raw.”

—LEV GROSSMAN, New York Times bestselling author of The Magicians

“So delicious, so twisty, and so immersive.”

—KELLY LINK, author of Magic for Beginners and Get in Trouble

“Rocked my world.”

SECRET SOCIETIES.

—JOE HILL, New York Times bestselling

ENTER THE

“Mesmerizing…

I was one rapt reader.”

author of NOS4A2

DARK MAGIC. MURDER.

NINTH HOUSE.

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—CHARLAINE HARRIS, bestselling author of the True Blood series

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FLATIRON BOOKS

BOOKS & COMICS

THE FALL BOOK GUIDE

BY KAYTI BURT

THE ADVENTURE ZONE

THE TENTH GIRL

Justin, Travis, Griffin, and Clint McElroy, and Carey Pietsch (First Second) NOW AVAILABLE

Sara Faring (Imprint) NOW AVAILABLE

Debut author Sara Faring bursts onto the literary scene with a gothic YA horror inspired by her Argentinian heritage. When teen protagonist Mavi agrees to teach English at an elite girls school in remote Patagonia to escape the military regime that disappeared her mother, she soon learns that not all dangers are earthly.

Vaccaro School is haunted, and Mavi must solve the mystery of the missing tenth girl before it is too late.

The Princess Bride meets Dungeons & Dragons in this series of graphic novels that follow hero-adjacents Taako the elf wizard, Merle the dwarf cleric, and Magnus the human warrior as they look for things like magical artifacts, Merle’s errant dwarf cousin, and a railroad murderer. With the third book in the series on the horizon, now is the perfect time to dive into the hilarity, excitement, and imagination of The Adventure Zone.

The start of a planned trilogy, Gideon the Ninth follows indenturedservantturned-swordswoman of the Emperor’s Ninth House Gideon Nav, who is tasked with keeping sworn enemy Harrowhark Nonagesimus safe. Come for the lesbian necromancers, stay for the skeleton battles!

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THE FUTURE OF ANOTHER TIMELINE Annalee Newitz (Tor Books) NOW AVAILABLE In what is sure to become a feminist time travel classic, io9 founding editor Annalee Newitz ties together the perspectives of time traveler Tess, working to stop a group of misogynists from destroying time travel forever, and Beth, a 17-yearold girl exploring the punk scene in 1992 California.

THE MYTHIC DREAM (Saga Press) NOW AVAILABLE

Editors Navah Wolfe and Dominik Parisien join forces once again for this anthology of reimagined myths from some of the most talented, engaging, and important speculative fiction authors of today, including Seanan McGuire, Naomi Novik, Rebecca Roanhorse, Carmen Maria Machado, and Amal El-Mohtar.

When 20-yearold Alex is offered a full-ride to elite Yale University, there’s just one catch: she must keep an eye on the occult goings-on of Yale’s secret societies for her mysterious benefactors. This fantasy horror’s tale of power and privilege is the first adult novel from YA powerhouse Leigh Bardugo and is one of the most-anticipated reads of 2019.

ILLUSTRATION BY JESSICA KOYNOCK

GIDEON THE NINTH Tamsyn Muir (Tor Books) NOW AVAILABLE

NINTH HOUSE Leigh Bardugo (Flatiron Books) OUT OCTOBER 8

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BOOKS & COMICS

ARE YOU AFRAID OF THE DARKNESS?

A brief explainer of the hopepunk movement, its origins, and its possibilities. BY KAYTI BURT

The Expanse, both the book series and TV adaptation, is an example of hopepunk storytelling.

WHEN AUTHOR ALEXANDRA Rowland first posted to Tumblr in 2017, “The opposite of grimdark is hopepunk. Pass it on,” she had no idea how intensely that sentiment would resonate with the platform’s community and beyond.

“Initially, I was just vaguely bemused that anyone was listening to me,” Rowland says, “but at the same time, I understood intellectually why hopepunk was resonating

HOPEPUNK READING GUIDE 14 DEN OF GEEK

with people. Simply put: they were hurting, and hopepunk was a thing that helped comfort the hurt.”

What is hopepunk? It depends on who you ask.

Rowland, quoting her essay “One Atom of Justice, One Molecule of Mercy, and the Empire of Unsheathed Knives,” says: “Hopepunk is a subgenre and a philosophy that ‘says kindness and softness don’t equal weakness, and that, in this world of brutal cynicism

and nihilism, being kind is a political act. An act of rebellion.’”

To understand hopepunk as a concept it helps to understand what it stands in contrast to. Grimdark is a fantasy subgenre characterized by bleak settings in which humanity is fundamentally cutthroat, and where no individual or community can stop the world’s inevitable decline.

Hopepunk, in contrast, believes that the very act of trying has meaning,

THE GOBLIN EMPEROR

by Katherine Addison

WAYWARD SON

by Rainbow Rowell

TRAIL OF LIGHTNING

by Rebecca Roanhorse

SAGA by Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples

CHOIR OF LIES

by Alexandra Rowland

THE EXPANSE

by James S.A. Corey

UPROOTED

by Naomi Novik

PARABLE OF THE SOWER

by Octavia Butler

THE SOL MAJESTIC

by Ferrett Steinmetz

that fighting for positive change in and of itself has worth—especially if we do it together.

“I think it’s a reaction against the overwhelmingly nihilistic, dystopian slant to a lot of stories in the world right now,” says author Annalee Newitz. For Newitz, hopepunk isn’t a subgenre but rather “a reason to tell stories, a motivation, or maybe a narrative tone.”

“The idea is to tell a story where there are hopeful elements or maybe a hopeful resolution to the characters’ struggles,” Newitz says. “I don’t mean to suggest it’s all about having a happy ending, because you can have a pretty ambivalent, broody ending that still conveys hope. Hopepunk is really about showing readers that we can make it through even the most difficult situations. Even if your hero dies, hopepunk suggests that someone else will be there to take up her torch and carry on.”

Hopepunk is Curtis blowing up the train at the end of Snowpiercer, or Max and Furiosa deciding to risk everything and go back to the Citadel at the end of Mad Max: Fury Road. It’s Naomi choosing to open the Roci’s door to let in as many desperate Ganymede refugees as possible in The Expanse.

It’s believing that humanity may not be inherently good, but we’re not inherently bad either, and that giving people the chance to prove themselves compassionate is a worthwhile choice.

“At Uncanny, we tend to think of this as ‘radical empathy’ or ‘radical kindness’—choosing to do the good, kind thing, even when the system

doesn’t encourage that, as an act of courage,” say Lynne M. Thomas and Michael Damien Thomas, the editors of Uncanny Magazine.

The Thomases think of “hopepunk” as a marketing term, one that has gained prominence in the last few years but that has been around much longer: “There have been veins of hope (as opposed to grimdark hopelessness) across literature for hundreds of years, and for decades within the SFF genre.”

EVEN IF YOUR HERO DIES, HOPEPUNK SUGGESTS THAT SOMEONE ELSE WILL BE THERE TO TAKE UP HER TORCH AND CARRY ON. If hopepunk, by some definitions, is nothing new, it is a cultural lens seemingly on the rise after a pop culture period ruled by cynical stories, like Breaking Bad and The Dark Knight, and in a real-world environment that has become increasingly distressing.

“We can retreat into paralysis, and pretend that’s somehow pragmatic or realistic,” says Newitz. “Or we can say, fine, this is a horrible problem, let’s get together with other people and try to solve any small part of it that we can. Those are the two pathways we can take through a narrative, too. We can tell stories about people who try to fix things, rather than rejoicing in

UNCANNY MAGAZINE

by Lynne M. Thomas and Michael Damien Thomas

THE FUTURE OF ANOTHER TIMELINE

by Annalee Newitz

THE CITY IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT by Charlie Jane Anders

THE BOOK OF THE UNNAMED MIDWIFE

by Meg Elison

their splendid destruction. It’s a way of showing other people that just because things aren’t perfect, doesn’t mean they can’t be better.”

Has the definition of hopepunk changed since Rowland first coined the term?

“The heart of [my original definition] hasn’t changed at all, but my efforts to remind people of the angry part of hopepunk definitely have grown,” she says. “The instinct is to make it only about softness and kindness, because those are what we’re most hungry for. We all want to be treated gently. But sometimes the kindest thing you can do for someone is to stand up to a bully on their behalf, and that takes guts and rage.”

In 2019, hope can feel impossible.

If the past few years have taught us anything, it’s that the struggle to create a kinder and more just world is one that will never be linear and will never be over. It is bigger than any one of us, and longer than any lifetime. If hopepunk is the stories that keep us trying in the long shadow of that reality, then it is a vital ingredient to the recipe for change.

So what is hopepunk storytelling?

It’s whatever you need it to be... as long as what you need it to be is a way forward in the darkness.

“In hindsight,” Rowland says, “I’m just very happy–when so many people find a philosophy like hopepunk meaningful and compelling... it sorta restores a bit of your faith in humanity, doesn’t it? Maybe all is not yet lost if there are enough people around to say, ‘Oh. Yes, this.’”

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BOOKS & COMICS

FANGIRL POWER Young adult fiction is leading an evolution in fan culture representation. BY KAYTI BURT WHEN ONLINE FANFICTION community Archive of Our Own (AO3) took home the Hugo Award for “Best Related Work” at this summer’s Worldcon, it was a hallmark moment for transformative fandom.

The term “transformative” is used to describe the traditionally female-driven spaces where fans engage with source material through the creation and consumption of fanworks that recontextualize canon, like fanfiction, fanvids, fanart, cosplay, and meta-analysis. This is a different mode of engaging with pop culture than the traditionally male-driven “curatorial fandom,” which values the accumulation, demonstration, and acceptance of canonical knowledge.

Professor Anne Jamison, author of the 2013 book Fic: Why Fanfiction is Taking Over the World, says she has seen the mainstream understanding of transformative fandom change “dramatically” over the course of her time as a fan studies scholar.

“Some [of that change is happening] in journalism, some in academia, some in television,” Jamison says. “Many more writers [are becoming] open about their ‘fannish’ roots and enthusiasms—it’s seeping in around the edges.”

This change has been particularly noticeable in young adult publishing. In 2013, Rainbow Rowell published Fangirl, which follows teen fanfic writer Cath during her first year at college. Fangirl would go on to motivate an entire YA subgenre that centers depictions of transformative fan identities.

“Publishing houses know their readers are involved in fandom and will relate to it,” says Jamison. “It fits well into a rite-of-passage narrative. And, of course, many younger writers grew up 16 DEN OF GEEK

in [or] are active in fandom, and so they have those stories to tell.”

Britta Lundin, a TV writer for Riverdale and the author of the 2018 book Ship It, is one such writer.

MORE WRITERS [ARE BECOMING] OPEN ABOUT THEIR FANNISH ROOTS AND ENTHUSIASMS. “Fanfiction has been a big part of my life since I was in middle school,” Lundin says of her decision to write a novel that centers fanfiction. Ship It follows a 16-year-old fanfiction writer named Claire who is pulled into the publicity tour for her favorite TV show.

“I learned how to write from fanfic, I learned about relationships from fanfic.

Most of the stories I read that centered queer characters until recently were

fanfic. It’s been hugely influential on me as a person and yet I didn’t really talk about it or see it discussed. I wanted to show how important fanfic can be —for young queer people especially.”

While the AO3 Hugo win could symbolize another step toward the destigmatization of transformative fandom in the entertainment industry, most commercial pop culture spaces still have a long way to go in their understanding and representation of subjects like fanfiction and the fangirl identity.

“I do think we, as a culture, still see fandom as a childish pursuit,” says Zan Romanoff, author of Grace and the Fever.

The novel is a 2017 publication about a teenage fan whose online and inperson worlds collide when she meets one of the members of the fictional band Fever Dream.

“So it’s more comfortable to write [fandom] into narratives about kids and teens than to admit that, as an adult, a person could still want to be actively engaged in a fannish community.”

In other words: we say fangirl, not fanwoman.

“But fandom isn’t something to be ashamed of,” Lundin says. “Writing and reading queer fanfiction shouldn’t be a ‘guilty pleasure.’ It’s real, it’s valuable, and it’s worthy.”

YA FANGIRL BOOK GUIDE

MORE TITLES TO CHECK OUT: Geekerella by Ashley Poston, Queens of Geek by Jen Wilde, The Wicked + The Divine by Kieron Gillen & Jamie McKelvie, Gena/Finn by Hannah Moskowitz & Kat Helgeson, Scarlett Epstein Hates It Here by Anna Breslaw

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TELEVISION

THE GANG GETS NOSTALGIC

The cast of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia on the show’s record-setting longevity.

BY CHRIS LONGO AND ALEC BOJALAD

A COUPLE OF FRIENDS USED A camcorder to shoot a TV pilot, so the story goes. Flash forward 14 seasons later and It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia is now TV’s longest running live-action sitcom.

The core cast of Charlie Day (Charlie), Glenn Howerton (Dennis), Rob McElhenney (Mac), Kaitlin Olson (Dee), and Danny DeVito (Frank) got a little sentimental with us as they took a quick break from shooting season 14.

LONGEST RUNNING SITCOMS Cheers

Happy Days

11 Seasons 1982 – 1993

11 Seasons 1974 – 1984

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Married…with Children 11 Seasons 1987 – 1997

The Jeffersons

M*A*S*H

11 Seasons 1975 – 1985

11 Seasons 1972 – 1983

Two and a Half Men 12 Seasons 2003 – 2015

IMAGE CREDIT: FXX

STREAMING PG. 20 • Q&A: JEFF GOLDBLUM PG. 24 • THE CW SUPERHERO PREVIEW PG. 28

“

“Even though the characters might change, they don’t evolve. We want to make sure that [Mac] doesn’t become a better person or a sweeter person, or a more endearing person, or a nicer person. We felt like we wanted to still keep the tone, so I would say in all the right ways he’s remained exactly the same.” —Rob McElhenney on playing Mac

“The way they treat [Dee] is so funny to me because I think it highlights how horrific it is to speak to a woman like that. I reap the benefits on social media because every time I post something I get thousands of, ‘Shut up, bird!’ comments, and piggybacking on top of that are people defending me. It’s fun to play, especially in this day and age, a character that allows all this misogyny and doesn’t really know how to deal with it other than yelling.” ­—Kaitlin Olson on playing Sweet Dee

“I love hanging out with these really insane people. I love to be challenged. I love doing all kinds of crazy shit. You know, they haven’t put me naked inside a couch in a while.” —Danny DeVito on staying invested in the show

“Sure, we can continue writing the show, but as we get older and are doing the same thing for so long, you just sort of get stuck in the same creative rut if you’re not allowing for other people to come in and bring different perspectives. [The show] is always going to be jammed through the prism of the way that we see the world or see a TV show, but now we have the benefit of all these different ideas and experiences coming in that we might not have had before.” —Glenn Howerton on diversifying the show’s writer’s room

The Big Bang Theory 12 Seasons 2007 – 2019

My Three Sons 12 Seasons 1960 – 1972

“We very rarely get any kind of blowback, and I think the reason is because we try to make it abundantly clear that, and our audience is savvy enough to recognize, we’re not advocating bad behavior, we’re satirizing it.”

—Charlie Day on tackling risky topics

PHILADELPHIA FILTH AND SQUALOR It takes a village to last this long, and Always Sunny has a town full of wonderful, recurring weirdos.

Rickety Cricket (David Hornsby) The continued devolution of the one-time priest reveals what extended exposure to the Gang does to a person.

The Waitress (Mary Elizabeth Ellis) The singular pursuit of Charlie’s creepy love, the Waitress has lived a turbulent life in the margins of the series.

The McPoyles (Jimmi Simpson, Thesy Surface, Nate Mooney) Siblings Liam, Ryan, and Margaret love two things: milk and making the gang’s life a living hell.

Maureen Ponderosa (Catherine Reitman) Once Maureen handled her dead tooth, Dennis became smitten with her. She’s now his ex-wife. And also a cat. A dead cat.

Bill Ponderosa (Lance Barber) Maureen’s brother is a rampaging id of terrible decision-making.

Gail the Snail (Mary Lynn Rajskub) Nobody wants to salt the snail but she gives you no choice.

Ben the Soldier (Travis Schuldt) Ben is simply a shorts-loving dude who is largely immune to the Gang’s insanity.

Artemis Dubois (Artemis Pebdani) Artemis is a one-time paramour of Frank and Dee’s only friend. She has a bleached butthole.

Rex (T.J. Hoban) Rex is the image of male perfection according to Mac. He’s served as Mac’s stand-in and the leader of a cult.

The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet

It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia

14 Seasons 1952 – 1966

14 Seasons 2005 – Present

The Lawyer (Brian Unger) The Lawyer may be the only person on Earth capable of keeping the Gang in check.

And thank God, because chaos would otherwise reign.

Jack Kelly (Andrew Friedman) Charlie’s uncle Jack may or may not have molested him as a boy. Either way he’s an awful lawyer and self-conscious about his tiny hands.

DEN OF GEEK 19

A STREAM BECOMES A FLOOD

Major entertainment brands are launching new VOD platforms, but will increased fragmentation be good for consumers?

BY ALEC BOJALAD IN THE NEXT FEW YEARS, THE streaming war will only expand. With more major media players entering the fray, including Apple TV+, WarnerMedia’s HBO Max, and Disney+, the plethora of entertainment options for consumers has never been greater. But can it keep growing?

More choice for consumers is usually a good thing and, in most cases, it drives down the price of products.

But some studies are now beginning to indicate that, for many entertainment seekers, there may be too many options. According to Deloitte’s annual 20 DEN OF GEEK

Digital Media Trends survey, nearly half (47 percent) of U.S. consumers report being frustrated by the number of subscriptions and services required to watch what they want to watch.

Whereas in the recent past, the vast majority of available programming could be found via cable services that bundled channels and other on-demand shows, now the entertainment landscape is fractured among hundreds of competing services. Per the Deloitte study, there are more than 300 over-the-top (OTT) streaming video services in operation today.

“While more options are good, it can definitely turn overwhelming,” Chris Brantner of Streaming Observer says. “And it’s not just Disney coming out with its own service, but we have Apple and NBC as well… how can you keep up?”

Brantner started Streaming Observer back in 2015 to help potential cable cord-cutters navigate the world of streaming services. He acknowledges that cord cutting is more difficult—and expensive—than ever. That’s not even to mention the logistical headache of simply knowing where any given show is located in the streaming world.

For anyone with a vested interest in watching all the best pop culture has to offer, regardless of genre, the costs of streaming become fraught very quickly.

If you take a list of the best TV episodes of 2018 (let’s just pick one completely arbitrarily and without bias and go with… Den of Geek), it becomes clear just how many different monthly charges one would need to incur with or without a cable package to watch everything. To take in the full list would require subscriptions to Netflix ($12.99 per month), Amazon Prime ($12.99), Hulu ($5.99), HBO ($14.99), Showtime ($10.99), Starz ($8.99), Funimation ($5.99), and then

PHOTO CREDITS: MARVEL TV/ABC; HANNAH KNEISLEY (ILLUSTRATION)

TELEVISION

whatever combination of cable or live streaming services that would net Cartoon Network, FX, AMC, IFC, BBC America, Disney XD, NBC, ABC, Syfy, The CW, and BBC Two. Brantner says that the streaming world launched with a focus on consumer freedom and choice, pointing to the mythical “a la carte TV” model that consumers have always demanded but cable providers never offered. But there was always an issue with this a la carte mindset.

“The bottom line is channels are cheaper when bundled together. It’s why cable creates the big bundles in the first place. Sure, despite Netflix bumping up prices to $13 a month or whatever, it’s pretty cheap in and of itself. But if you want to watch Game of Thrones, you need to add HBO NOW for $15. It can add up if you’re not careful.”

Since Netflix began offering streaming in 2007, the industry has only continued to expand and fragment with little opportunity for consolidation. What can a consumer do to make sure they’re getting as much programming as they can handle for a reasonable price?

The good news is that many media experts and commentators foresee a future in which streaming services

begin to bundle existing options to more closely resemble traditional cable and give consumers a better value.

“The next stage will be almost like the bundle in cable service,” says Dr. Sylvia Chan-Olmsted, director of media consumer research at the University of Florida. “Disney can bundle ESPN, Hulu, and something else. They can bundle things that provide better value.”

In fact, Disney is going to do just that, offering a bundle of Disney+. ESPN+, and Hulu for $12.99. The consolidation was made possible after Disney moved to fully acquire Hulu from its other initial investors, Fox and Comcast.

According to Seth Van Sickel, Vice President of Operations for Sling TV, live streaming providers like Sling have already been working on the most affordable ways to bundle existing options.

“I think it’s on us and companies like us to make it easy for the consumer,” he says. “We believe a lot of the choice that we built into our product and the way we’ve packaged allows us to avoid the bloated bundles, which I think has the ability to go up at a much higher rate. You don’t want to spend a hundred dollars for a ten dollar product.”

Currently, there is a divide between live streaming services like Sling or YouTube TV and the On Demand streaming services like Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime, with only Hulu offering a Live TV bundle as an option along with its original and on-demand content. New platforms from companies with a cable background like NBC Universal’s Peacock and WarnerMedia’s HBO Max could also lead to increased opportunities for bundled live and on demand packages.

For now, however, the landscape remains intimidating. As consumers wait for the streamers to bundle together their ultimate packages, Brantner recommends being flexible.

“You don’t have to hold every streaming subscription all at once,” he says. “It’s a fluid model where you can add and cancel subscriptions as shows and sports are in season. You just have to be willing to pay attention and do the work to figure out what you need.”

Or alternatively, consumers can just embrace the chaos. According to Dr. Chan-Olmsted, the streaming landscape is a war right now, but streaming Darwinism could be the next step.

“I love it!” she says. “The more the merrier. They fight it out, bleed to death, and it’s good for the consumers.

The strong ones will survive and the consumers will benefit.”

DEN OF GEEK 21

TELEVISION

Daveed Diggs and Jennifer Connelly are the “heart” and “brain” of TBS’ Snowpiercer adaptation.

FULL SPEED AHEAD WHEN SNOWPIERCER WAS RELEASED in 2013, buzz for the film spread like wildfire. Critics and audiences praised director Bong Joon-ho’s innovative morality play and social satire about the remnants of humanity aboard a train circumnavigating the globe after a planet-wide climate disaster.

Now Orphan Black’s Graeme Manson is set to take the closed ecosystem and class-specific railway cars of the film version, itself based on a French graphic novel, to TBS with the idea that many stories can be told about the class struggle and fight for survival among the passengers.

“The film is so linear,” Manson says.

“It starts in the tail, and it charges to the engine. And we have that element as well, but it’s a drama that’s set among the classes of the train. So we bounce around the train, and our heart is still with Daveed Diggs in the tail but our brain is up with Jennifer Connelly in the engine and they’re well balanced.”

While the Snowpiercer TV series tells 22 DEN OF GEEK

a new story, Diggs will play Andre Layton, who may be seen as the analogue of the Chris Evans character from the film, and the Tilda Swinton role in the film shares certain similarities with Connelly’s character, Melanie Cavill, who is the head of hospitality on the train. “She’s the voice of the train, and she has a lot of access to different parts of the train,” Connelly says. “She’s curious about everything — it’s her job!

Every aspect of the train.”

Connelly explains that Snowpiercer is uniquely positioned to tackle larger themes that are relevant to today’s society. “It takes place seven years after a catastrophic climate event,” she says.

“The remnants of humanity are all on this train that has to keep moving in order for everyone to survive. It’s a form in which to explore where we are now and explore social, political, and environmental issues in a fun, exciting, entertaining, and cinematic way.”

Diggs says Snowpiercer has opportunities to explore issues of class while

still being action-packed: “The great thing about a train, when you’re exploring issues of class, is it sets class linearly, right? It makes it really easy when you’re allowed to look at first class as being at the front and poverty as being towards the back. But the real interesting part of the show is how those things start to shift over the course of the season and how those areas are forced to mix.”

Since each railway car features a different aspect of the train’s culture, there are plenty of chances to captivate viewers with new environments even though the setting never technically changes. “It’s not in any way visually boring,” Connelly says.

“It’s actually the opposite! I thought it was astounding what they were able to create in terms of the sets. You know, each car is its own world in a very surprising way.”

Snowpiercer premieres Spring 2020 on TBS.

PHOTO CREDIT: TBS

A TV adaptation of the film Snowpiercer hopes audiences will climb aboard. BY MICHAEL AHR

TELEVISION

THE MAN WITH NO NAME

The Mandalorian dives into the grit and grime of the Star Wars galaxy.

BY JOHN SAAVEDRA

PHOTO CREDIT: DISNEY+

THE MANDALORIAN IS A NEW KIND of Star Wars story: a live-action TV series set five years after the events of Return of the Jedi. But it’s not just the time period or the format that makes this show unique. The 10-episode Disney+ series opts out of the bright fantasy and epic battles of the Skywalker Saga and instead embraces the grime and grit of a lawless corner of the galaxy where only the man who shoots first survives.

That man is Pedro Pascal’s (Game of Thrones) titular character, an enigma clad in Mandalorian armor and armed to the teeth, carrying a rifle that looks just like Boba Fett’s Amban

Pedro Pascal plays the nameless Mandalorian who wanders from one seedy outpost to the next, looking for his next payday.

phase-pulse blaster from the Star Wars Holiday Special — a nerdy detail showrunner Jon Favreau (The Lion King) and executive producer Dave Filoni (Star Wars Rebels) undoubtedly added with relish. “Mando,” as Favreau and Filoni refer to him, is a drifter, a man with no name making his way from one seedy criminal outpost to the next, looking for bounties.

Yes, The Mandalorian is meant to indulge all of our Boba Fett fantasies.

From the footage we’ve seen thus far, including the exclusive scenes that premiered at Star Wars Celebration Chicago, Pascal plays the part of the Man With No Name perfectly. In one

scene, he’s surrounded by a squad of dust-covered stormtroopers from all sides, but where a more cautious man might see death knocking at his door, he only sees favorable odds.

The series is set in a part of the galaxy that hasn’t yet been completely freed from the tyranny of the Empire, which is still holding on to the few planets and moons it has left after Return of the Jedi. The fallen government may no longer be a welloiled war machine, but acolytes like Moff Gideon (Giancarlo Esposito) still have plenty of forces at their disposal to keep the spirit of the Empire alive.

Don’t expect a hero to swoop in and take out the Empire just because it’s the right thing to do, though. This isn’t your traditional black-and-white Star Wars tale where the good guys zap the baddies. Mando isn’t out to topple Gideon or any crime lords, the most notable of whom is played by Werner Herzog, a man who holds the key to one of the Mandalorian’s bounties in the first season. Mando is in it for the reward, and that sometimes means throwing in with the bad lot.

Justice might be served, but only for the right price.

Most of those bounties are handed out by Greef Carga, who is played by the legendary Carl Weathers. Greef is the head of a bounty hunter guild and seemingly the closest Mando has to a friend. Mando also works with Cara Dune, a former Rebel shock trooper who has struck out on her own. She’s played by Gina Carano, a former MMA fighter. But Mando’s most exciting ally of all is undoubtedly IG-11, a trigger-happy assassin droid turned bounty hunter voiced by the inimitable Taika Waititi (Thor: Ragnarok).

In 1977, Star Wars gave us a taste of the scum and villainy waiting inside its many cantinas and desert slums. With The Mandalorian, it’s finally tossing us headfirst into that underworld and, unlike Obi-Wan and Luke, Mando is definitely looking for trouble.

The Mandalorian premieres Nov. 12 on Disney+.

DEN OF GEEK 23

Q&A

BY C H RI S L O N GO

Jeff GOLDBLUM THE ODYSSEY O F

With a new streaming show and jazz record, the iconic actor is embarking on his greatest pursuit of all: satiating his endless curiosity.

IT’S FRIDAY THE 13TH AND JEFF GOLDBLUM IS AVOIDING STRANGE TIDINGS.

“Take it easy today,” Goldblum states matter of factly over the phone. He’s got a full slate of interviews to promote his new show, and it’s on the same day he released a single and fresh artwork for his upcoming jazz album. “Not that I’m superstitious,” he continues. “Not even a little bit. That’s all nonsense. Absolute nonsense. No, I go with science.”

If there’s a formula to having a long and satisfying career in the limelight, Goldblum deserves an honorary Ph.D. for tinkering with the optimal compounds. The 66-year-old actor is closing in on five decades of film work; from classics like The Fly, Independence Day, and Jurassic Park to more recent hits like The Grand Budapest Hotel and Thor: Ragnarok.

Instead of retreating into the Hollywood Hills to enjoy his 24 DEN OF GEEK

spoils, Goldblum is jet-setting. More specifically, his artistic endeavors recently landed him in Palm Springs where he was playing piano on a platform in the middle of a pool at Frank Sinatra’s former estate, Twin Palms.

“I thought, ‘I don’t know if they’re ever going to get this piano in that pool, but I’ll be a ring-tailed monkey if it didn’t happen,’” Goldblum says of his album promotional shoot.

“Then we fooled around and got those shots. I wonder what Frank Sinatra would think of that?”

The striking album cover sees Goldblum above water, playing keys in a clean black suit with black shades on, and with the San Jacinto Mountains set against the backdrop.

It’s not the only connection the actor and musician has to Sinatra: his first agent in Los Angeles during the mid-1970s was Sinatra’s daughter, Tina.

DEN OF GEEK 25

As many co-stars in Hollywood will note, it takes far less than six degrees of separation to enter Jeff’s orbit.

Few actors have a resumé as eclectic and varied as Goldblum’s. Ragnarok co-star Tom Hiddelston once told GQ that between takes on set of the Marvel epic, “We would play a game about Jeff Goldblum movies with Jeff Goldblum on the set of a movie we were doing with Jeff Goldblum.”

Even fewer celebrities—save for maybe Bill Murray—have leaned into internet culture appropriating their stardom with a playful awareness like Goldblum. The iconic shot of a shirtless Dr. Ian Malcolm from Jurassic Park often resurfaces online as a meme. In London last year, it became a literal 25-foot, 330-pound statue in a park near Tower Bridge—launching Goldblum to a new level of Instagram fame.

While he’s flattered by the outpouring of affection from fans and his contemporaries, the husband and father of two young boys is enjoying domestic life (someone has to drive the kids to karate and swimming lessons) and worldly pursuits in his new gig as the host, narrator, and colorful personality of The World According to Jeff Goldblum. The latter comes from National Geographic and premieres on the new streaming platform Disney+ this November. In the series, Goldblum uses his curious mind to explore the backstories and interesting people behind ordinary topics like sneakers, ice cream, gaming, bikes, coffee, and more in the 12-episode first season.

What drives you to pursue deeper knowledge in areas like sneakers and ice cream?

Well, I’m curious. I like surprises.

I read a little bit of background information, but [the show producers] set-up these out of left field, spitball, off the beaten track places for me to go to, and people for me to talk with, and then it becomes just an extemporized, spontaneous encounter with them. I think it’s through the door of surprise that a portal opens that allows me

to be particularly fascinated and in wonderment.

Each episode unfolds like a personal journey. What truths did you learn about yourself along the way?

We do an episode on bicycles and they put me on one of these… BMX it’s called. I had never heard of that.

These are bikes you stay standing on, and you go up and down these dirt-built courses, up and down hills.

It was a very hot day and I might’ve been overdressed. I rode on that for a long time because there were a bunch of kids and experts doing it, and I was keeping up with them. I almost overdid it. I learned about the limits of my resources.

Through this show I started to investigate areas that I may not have otherwise. While we were shooting, I was reading and learning about [historian and author] Yuval Noah Harari. I watched many of his videos on YouTube and then read all three of

his books, Sapiens, Homo Deus, and 21 Lessons for the 21st Century. I learned truths about myself, our species, our history, and how we came to be here.

I learned truths about what the life sciences tell us in terms of how we function, and how free will may have been a myth that we made up but may in fact not have much credence.

For decades, I’ve done a version of meditation, but this recent period, and doing this show, has sort of transformed everything that I’m doing and certainly what I’m interested in exposing my kids to. I’m jettisoning some of my half-baked ideas that were only borrowed and vaguely investigated.

What can this show say about your worldview that watching an interview or seeing you in a film role can’t?

You’ve seen me play different parts. In my latest movie, called The Mountain, I played a guy based on Walter Freeman who introduced lobotomy to America

I KNO W IT’ S U NCO MMO N TO WO RK I N MO R E NO UR IS H I NG WAYS AS TH E DECADES GO ON. I ENJOY EVER Y PRECIOUS DAY A N D MOMENT. to stay disciplined and play piano and work on one acting thing or another.

It’s just fun to keep solving these puzzles, just for the sheer fun of it.

Do actors and musicians flex similar muscles?

IMAGE CREDIT: PARI DUKOVIC (PREVIOUS PAGE) AND MARTIN KLIMEK (ABOVE), NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC

Jeff Goldblum visits the facilities of Specialized Bikes where advanced research on aerodynamics and speed take place.

in the ‘40s and ‘50s. So [fans] have seen a variety of versions of me and have seen me play characters. I do this press stuff and I have an Instagram account, but I think there’s a deeper dive into what’s going on in my brain or how it seems to work.

Did you ever think that the internet could launch you from an already famous actor to an icon?

It’s fun. I’m only sort of secondarily aware of some of that stuff. I’m busy and focused every day, planting new plants and nourishing the garden.

I’m doing what I love every day. We’re coming out with this new record on Nov. 1. The first thing I do when I get up in the morning is play my songs and work out in the gym. Then I get the boys dressed and breakfast and off to school.

Things are popping. I go out on the street and people are very sweet. I enjoy taking pictures with them. Then when we do these jazz gigs, I get to see them in groups, and it’s real fun. I like

That’s a good question. In my case, they’re overlapping and they are not dissimilar. I improvise some acting, working on Portlandia and with Taika Waititi on Thor: Ragnarok. I enjoy a lot of that. Of course jazz has a lot to do with improvisation, listening, interacting, and telling a story and communicating something. It’s intended to land on the listener’s ear and to make a connection with the listener, and have something interactive—an event between you and the people you’re doing it with and the people who consume it. That’s all somewhat similar between acting and music.

You collaborated with artists like Sharon Van Etten and Fiona Apple on your new album, and consistently work with top Hollywood talent. What does reaching a place where you can be selective about working with creative partners mean to you?

I’m surprised and wildly grateful because when I was a kid, I was just dead set on [acting]. I don’t know where I got this idea from. My dad was a doctor and nobody in my family was doing anything like [acting]. I’m from Pittsburgh. I had this obsessive idea about becoming an actor and then just made my way to New York by myself

and started to study.

I’ve had good teachers. I studied with Sandy Meisner and he set the course for me. He said it takes 20 years until you can call yourself an actor after continual work, and then a lifetime of progress if you’re lucky enough to keep working at it.

I took that to heart and I feel like I’m getting better and better. I know it’s uncommon to work in more nourishing ways as the decades go on. I enjoy every precious day and moment.

In terms of what you value artistically, what are the essential Jeff Goldblum roles?

I’m seeing the whole palette of stuff that I’ve done. I am happy to do a variety of things and work with a variety of people. I wouldn’t change anything. If I had to give names, Rick Alverson, who directed The Mountain.

My own taste thrills to his brave and unique sensibility. I like Wes Anderson so much, as so many other people do. I think he’s a genius. I was rewatching some movies because [my wife] Emilie had never seen California Split and Nashville. There are a couple of movies that I did with Robert Altman early on. He was important in my growth and education. And then this Nat Geo show is just up my alley right now. That would reflect my taste right now.

In a GQ profile a couple of years ago, you said, “I don’t really drink or smoke. I like to keep my perspective wholesome.” Nowadays it feels harder than ever to maintain a wholesome perspective. Is The World According to Jeff Goldblum your roadmap for the rest of us?

I’m not an advisor. It’s really personal.

All the things that I’m interested in, we’ll see if other people are interested in them. Everybody needs to find their own voice and their own path through life. But I’m happy to share what feels like is working for me.

The World According to Jeff Golblum, from National Geographic, premieres on Disney+ Nov. 12.

DEN OF GEEK 27

e t i n i f n i n o crisis

B AT W OMAN ARRO W T H E F LASH SUP ERG I R L B LACK LIG HTNI NG

TV

With one new show debuting, a classic coming to an end, and the biggest story to ever hit the Arrowverse looming, it's a good time for DC TV shows.

AL EC BO JAL AD • K AYT I B U R T • M IK E C EC C H INI

28 DEN OF GEEK

IMAGE CREDITS: JACK ROWAND/THE CW – © 2018 WARNER BROS. ENTERTAINMENT INC. (BATWOMAN)

o r e h r e Sup

Ruby Rose stars as Kate Kane, aka Batwoman.

SERIES PREMIERE

BATWOMAN OC T O BER 6

BATMAN IS NO STRANGER to the recent TV landscape, having just made his splendid, cowled debut in the final episode of Fox’s Gotham.

The Caped Crusader has, however, been MIA in The CW’s DC-centric Arrowverse. And he’s going to stay that way…at least for a little while. Because this fall the Arrowverse is set to add an even more novel and interesting member of the Bat Family.

Batwoman stars Ruby Rose as Kate Kane a.k.a. Batwoman. With a kickass red mane and thirst for vengeance, Batwoman will help keep Gotham safe now that Batman has been gone for three years.

“I wanted to really keep the tone of our show in Gotham and very grounded,” showrunner Caroline Dries tells reporters during TCA press tour. “We are just starting out. It’s not normal for [our characters] to interact with aliens and travel to different universes and stuff like that.”

Batwoman will mark some important firsts in other ways, however. Kate Kane will be the first openly lesbian superhero headlining a show in the Arrowverse (though Black Lightning’s Thunder is technically the first overall). Producers also intend for Kate to be Jewish like her comic's counterpart…though they added that they haven’t found a way to bring it up in the show yet. Still, Batwoman will introduce a hero that fits in well tonally with both her Arrowverse and Batman counterparts.

“I brood a little. Let’s be honest,” Rose says.

DEN OF GEEK 29

W O R R A O CTOBE R 15

SEASON

8

SOMETIMES WHEN LONG-RUNNING SHOWS END, the people involved are concerned with their work’s legacy. How will this be remembered? Will there be spinoffs?

Will I still be invited to cons? The folks behind Arrow’s eighth and final season don’t have to worry about any of that.

Arrow’s legacy is evident, with several spinoffs and a crossover airing simultaneously alongside its final season. This season’s big crossover event, Crisis on Infinite Earths, will air across episodes of Supergirl, Batwoman, The Flash, Legends of Tomorrow, and episode eight of Arrow’s 10-episode final season. Presumably, the crossover will be as much of a send-off for Arrow and Oliver Queen as it is a launchpad for the next generation of The CW superhero-verse.

“It's kind of surreal,” says John Diggle actor David Ramsey. “Some of this experience is kind of like you're sitting out of your body watching it a little bit. And then the other parts you are trying to make sure you grasp it, because you know it won't happen again, right? This never happens. Ever. Eight seasons with how many spinoffs? It just doesn't happen.”

But Crisis is only one part of Arrow’s final season, with the show looking to wrap up its two timelines: the present and 2040. The eighth season will pick up a week after the events of the Season 7 finale, which saw Oliver strike a deal with the Monitor to save Flash and Supergirl's lives in exchange for his own. Oliver agrees to help the Monitor to fight the upcoming Crisis and, at the end of season 7, the Monitor comes to collect.

Season 8 will see Charlie Barnett joining the cast as John Diggle Jr. He will presumably come into contact with new series regulars Katherine McNamara as Mia Smoak, Joseph David-Jones as Connor Hawke, and Ben Lewis as William Clayton. With Colin Donnell (Tommy Merlyn) and Josh Segarra (Adrian Chase) also set to return at some point in the final season, Oliver and co. are in for some serious surprises.

30 DEN OF GEEK

THE FLASH

OCT OB ER 8

WHEN THE FLASH RETURNS, it will have to pick up the pieces of a divisive fifth season. But the new season brings a new showrunner, new big bads (plural), and a central role for Barry Allen in the big Arrowverse crossover, Crisis on Infinite Earths. So what’s different about The Flash Season 6?

The structure, for starters. New showrunner Eric Wallace describes the season as two distinct “graphic novels” broken up in the middle by Crisis on Infinite Earths. The first half of the season will introduce Sendhil

IMAGE CREDITS: DEAN BUSCHER/THE CW – © 2019 WARNER BROS. ENTERTAINMENT INC. (ARROW); JEFF WEDDELL/THE CW – © 2019 WARNER BROS. ENTERTAINMENT INC. (THE FLASH)

Stephen Amell as Oliver Queen, the Green Arrow.

Ramamurthy (Heroes) as Dr. Ramsey Rosso, the villain known as Bloodwork. Crisis on Infinite Earths will close out the first arc of the season in December and, when the show returns in 2020, it will reveal a brand new big bad, whose identity remains a mystery as of this writing.

Combine that with whatever major changes may or may not be in store for Barry Allen and Team Flash after the events of Crisis, and this should make for a very different season of TV than what we’ve seen from this show, or even the Arrowverse as a whole, so far.

SEASON

6

Grant Gustin’s Barry Allen gets a new Flash costume.

DEN OF GEEK 31

SUPERGIRL SEASON 4 ended with a series-changing twist: Lex Luthor told his sister Lena Supergirl’s true identity. Melissa Benoist teased that there would be “rough times ahead” for Kara and Lena’s relationship, while executive producer Jessica Queller gave deeper insight into how the way in which Lena found out Kara’s secret will affect how she processes it.

"Lena's Achilles' heel is betrayal,” said Queller, “and she has made that clear to her friends from the beginning and the way she found out about this betrayal—Lex twisting the knife and sort of pouring salt on the wound—affects how she feels about it.

So that will be a huge, central story."

Queller described this as Supergirl’s “Black Mirror season,” teasing that the dark side of technology would be a major theme explored. Presumably, this will tie into the new Big Bad, teased in the final moments of Supergirl Season 4: Leviathan.

"It's our own incarnation of Leviathan, based on what's come before [in the comic books]," executive producer Robert Rovner told us at SDCC. "It's going to be a full, season-long arc and, like we did with Red Daughter, we're going to dole it out and have little clues along the way until it evolves into something much bigger."

SEASON

5

L R I G R E P U S O CTOBE R 6

Melissa Benoist gets a new look as Kara Danvers on Supergirl.

32 DEN OF GEEK

Cress Williams as Jefferson Pierce.

SEASON

3

BLACK LIGHTNING “THE MARKOVIAN WAR is coming and Freeland is ground zero.” This is the epic cliffhanger Black Lightning ended its second season on, implying that nothing will ever be the same for the Pierce family and their community.

If that weren’t already enough reason to tune in, we’re also eager to find out what will happen to Tobias Whale now that he is in The Pit, what Agent Odell plans to do with the version of Khalil he has on ice, and how power-

IMAGE CREDITS: DEAN BUSCHER/THE CW – © 2019 WARNER BROS. ENTERTAINMENT INC. (SUPERGIRL); ANNETTE BROWN/THE CW – © 2018 WARNER BROS. ENTERTAINMENT INC. (BLACK LIGHTNING); KATIE YU/THE CW – © 2018 WARNER BROS. ENTERTAINMENT INC. (CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS)

CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS “WORLDS WILL LIVE. Worlds will die. And nothing will ever be the same.”

That was the tagline of Crisis on Infinite Earths, the comic book event series that redefined what fans thought was possible for superhero storytelling and set the tone for all big comic book crossovers to follow.

“It's hard to bring everything that's on the page and adapt it to the screen, but they're doing a really good job of that,” LaMonica Garrett, who plays the Monitor, tells us. “Without going too far into details, they're trying to stick as close to the comic book as possible. And that's hard to do.”

The comic book story brought together DC heroes from different realities to combat a threat to the multiverse. The conflict would reshape reality. The TV version will take a similar approach, uniting not only the current shows of the Arrowverse, but other beloved elements of DC media in an approach tested out during last year’s Elseworlds crossover when

OCT OB ER 7

ful Jennifer will grow in Season 3.

With some of Black Lightning’s characters poised to show up for The CW’s big Crisis on Infinite Earths crossover event, now is the perfect time for those who have yet to tune in to the story of Jefferson Pierce and his family of superheroes to do so. Part family drama and part superhero story, Black Lightning centers black characters and community like few other shows on television, and it easily has the best soundtrack of its peers.

DECEM BER 6

LaMonica Garrett as the Monitor.

John Wesley Shipp reprised his role as Barry Allen from the 1990 The Flash TV series. In this year’s crossover, Brandon Routh will return to the role of the Man of Steel for the first time since 2006’s Superman Returns and Kevin Conroy, the beloved voice

of the Dark Knight on Batman: The Animated Series, will appear in live action as a future version of Bruce Wayne.

While there are probably more surprises in store, one thing is certain: “nothing will ever be the same.”

DEN OF GEEK 33

Regina King as Sister Night and Tim Blake Nelson as Detective Looking Glass.

HBO TURNS TO LEFTOVERS CREATOR DAMON LINDELOF TO TELL A NEW STORY WITHIN THE WATCHMEN UNIVERSE

BY ALE C B O J ALAD DEN OF GEEK 35

Then in 2017, as production wrapped on the final season of The Leftovers, HBO approached the show’s creator one more time. He nearly refused yet again but decided to take some time to think it over.

“I went off and asked myself, ‘Is there any reason that Watchmen

needs to exist as a television series?’”

Lindelof recalls. “And if it existed, as a fan, what would I want to see?”

Now, almost a decade after he was first asked, writer and executive producer Lindelof is ready to show everyone just what he would want to see when Watchmen premieres

From left: Regina King as Angela Abar and Yahya Abdul-Mateen II as Cal Abar.

Jeremy Irons as the Lord of a Country Estate. Louis Gossett Jr. as Will Reeves.

Oct. 20 on HBO. Watchmen defied conventional constructs when it was first published

by DC Comics between 1986 and 1987.

Moore and Gibbons’ work wasn’t so much a new take on superhero stories as it was an atom bomb dropped directly onto superhero myth itself.

Watchmen introduced characters inspired by relatively forgotten Charlton Comics heroes to imagine a world where masked vigilantes fighting crime was reality, and the presence of superheroes significantly changed the outcome of world events. With the help of costumed adventurers and the superhuman abilities of Jon Osterman, a.k.a.

Doctor Manhattan, the United States decisively won the Vietnam War, turning Vietnam into another American state and keeping President Richard Nixon in office through the book’s present day of 1985.

When Lindelof began to imagine

IMAGE CREDIT: PREVIOUS SPREAD, MARK HILL/HBO

D

AMON LINDELOF TURNED DOWN WATCHMEN TWICE. The creator of Lost and The Leftovers is one of many who consider Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ classic graphic novel a sacred text. When Warner Bros. broached the topic of a Watchmen TV show with Lindelof a year after Zack Snyder’s Watchmen film premiered in 2009, he said no. When the subject was raised again a couple of years later, he said no once more. His reasons were legion: the original work is considered by many to be unassailable in its influence and brilliance, Alan Moore is famously resistant and often outright contemptuous of any adaptations of his masterpiece, and Snyder and others have already gotten a crack at adapting or expanding on it both on the screen and the page like with DC’s Before Watchmen prequels and a sequel, Doomsday Clock.

IMAGE CREDIT: MARK HILL/HBO ( ANGELA ABAR, CAL ABAR), COLIN HUTTON/HBO (COUNTRY ESTATE)

what a Watchmen continuation would look like, he realized it would be necessary to ensure the altered geopolitical reality of the books remain canon. Or, in the parlance of Lindelof ’s series Lost, “Whatever happened, happened.”

“It’s a wonderful alt-history, and an exciting one,” Lindelof says. “We’d say, ‘Everything that happened in the original Watchmen through the end of ‘85, we inherited.’ That happens, we cannot aberrate from it. But now we

have 30 years of alt-history between ‘85 and 2019 to construct ourselves that is in conversation with all of those events that occurred. We now have the opportunity to take some risks and come up with some new ideas that are supported by the foundation designed by the original Watchmen.”

Some of those risks and new ideas include expanding on how presidential term limits have become more of a suggestion than a requirement. For example, after Nixon

dies in office in this universe’s 1988, Vice President Gerald Ford takes over to finish out his term. He is defeated

by Robert Redford in 1992, a detail also present in DC’s Watchmen comic book sequel Doomsday Clock. Redford remains president during the series’ version of 2019.

But maintaining the alternate reality of the Watchmen universe isn’t the only task at hand for Lindelof and his team of writers. There’s also the matter of developing a story within that universe. Watchmen will feature a collection of new characters along with a handful of familiar faces.

Regina King (If Beale Street Could Talk) stars as Angela Abar, a lead detective in the Tulsa Police Force who dons a mask to protect her identity. Don Johnson (Miami Vice) is the Tulsa chief of police, Judd Crawford. Jean Smart (Fargo) portrays FBI Agent Laurie Blake, a name with significance to Watchmen fans. Tim Blake Nelson (Ballad of Buster Scruggs) is Det. Looking Glass. Jeremy Irons (Justice League) is a mysterious and unnamed lord of a British manor.

“My true north always was ‘what would I want to see?’” Lindelof says.

“To do Watchmen without having any of the legacy characters in it would piss me off, so they had to be in it. And then the question was how many of them should be in it and how central to the storytelling should they be?

Should we use them as antagonists or protagonists? Or is there even such a definition of antagonism and protagonism in Watchmen?”

Lindelof adds that in the early going, the show is weighted toward the introduction of new characters that weren’t in the original Watchmen before the plot starts to introduce more legacy elements. The goal is to create a balanced experience both for fans of the comic and newcomers to the story.

“The show is becoming a bit of

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a Rorschach test in and of itself,” Lindelof says. “I don’t want to come out there and say, ‘This is what it is.

And this is how I define it, and you have to define it that way.’ I want to let the audience define it the way they want to. The pilot has been constructed as an entry point for people who have no familiarity with Watchmen. But my feeling is that, as the season goes on and the episodes unfold, it should still be accessible and understandable to a new audience.”

Watchmen executive producer and director Nicole Kassell, who previously worked with Lindelof on The Leftovers, was determined to include some recognizable symbols and images for devoted fans.

“I really wanted to give Easter eggs to the diehard fans - a piece of production design, a prop, costume design, everything,” she says. “We’re From left: Jean Smart as FBI Agent Laurie Blake. Hong Chau as Lady Trieu.

always looking at whether we should be paying homage to the source.”

Kassell arrived to the project as a Watchmen neophyte, having not yet read the graphic novel when she signed on to direct three of the series’ nine episodes. She devoured the original while sick in bed, during a 2017 weekend when nuclear tensions between North Korea and the United States were heightened.

“I just felt like, ‘oh my God, we’re right back at a nuclear standoff,’” she says. “It felt amazingly or eerily relevant [to] the anxiety of the period.

It really tapped into the anxiety we’re feeling now.”

Watchmen has an uncanny ability to feel relevant regardless of the time period in which it’s read, and that’s something Lindelof says is important for the HBO show to capture while still maintaining its own sense of self.

“There was never going to be a version of us making Watchmen that is as good as the original,” Lindelof says. “Nothing’s ever going to be that good. And to aspire to that bar, we would have been setting ourselves up for failure. So we had to try to do something different. It’s obviously called Watchmen, but it had to be its own thing.”

Plot details and trailers for the series have remained deliberately vague, which is unsurprising given Lindelof’s appreciation for mystery and HBO’s appreciation for the massive intellectual property it has on its hands. What can be revealed, however, is that this Watchmen’s version of ‘80s Cold War paranoia is the 2010s’ ugly intersection between race and policing in America. The seeming antagonists of the pilot are the Rorschach maskwearing domestic terrorists known

IMAGE CREDIT: MARK HILL/HBO

as the Seventh Cavalry. Their reign of terror has led to the Tulsa police force wearing masks of their own, because there is power in anonymity… as anyone with a sturdy internet connection can tell you.

Fraught and disturbing comparisons to our own political landscape arise just as easily from this version of Watchmen as in the original book. Kassell, who is from Charlottesville, Virginia, read the pilot in the winter of 2017, just months after a white supremacist rally and subsequent riot within the city shocked the country.

“I have neighbors in Charlottesville who wear the red hat and they love me like a daughter,” Kassell says.

“I don’t agree politically with it on such a major level. I’m married to a Chinese man, an immigrant. I have biracial children. I was grappling with how do you live with this inherent contradiction of some of your closest friends being good people that signify so much that you hate or that you signify what they hate.”

Even though Watchmen did it in 1986, capturing the intricacies of the modern world is quite the tightrope act for the new series—a reality of

I WENT OFF AND ASKED MYSELF, ‘ IS THERE ANY REASON THAT WATCHMEN NEEDS TO EXIST AS A TELEVISION SERIES? ’ AND IF IT EXISTED, AS A FAN, WHAT WOULD I WANT TO SEE? ” which Lindelof is well aware.

“I’ll be honest with you,” he says. “I don’t even know if it worked. There was a lot of experimentation going on and I feel like I learned a lot from making these nine episodes, but I’m not entirely sure I’m able to articulate to you what I learned.”

The difficulty of bringing Watchmen to 2019 is steep enough that Lindelof hasn’t yet considered what the future of the show could hold beyond these nine episodes.

“We are presenting a mystery and we

are resolving that mystery,” Lindelof says. “It doesn’t mean that it can’t continue, because of course it can; it always can. But it wasn’t designed to have a cliffhanger where it’s like, ‘Wait till you see what we do next season.’

It’s just not built that way.”

Damon Lindelof turned down Watchmen twice. He accepted Watchmen the third time for reasons he himself may not yet be able to fully articulate. One thing he is sure of, however, is that Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ work is one of pop culture’s great teachers.

“It taught me that there are rules,” he says. “There are rules by which the genre conventions play out.

It’s so clear to me when I read the original Watchmen that it was written and designed by people who loved comics. I think that, very often, Watchmen is misunderstood as being this incredibly subversive piece of art, which it is. But very often people missed the love of the genre that is built into it. It isn’t just a takedown of superheroes, it’s a celebration of them.

You have to love it first before you take it down.”

Watchmen premieres Sunday, Oct. 20 at 9 PM on HBO.

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FILM

SUPERHERO CALENDAR

You didn’t think Endgame was the end, did you? There are still plenty of superhero movies on the way!

2020 FEBRUARY 7 Birds of Prey FEBRUARY 21 Bloodshot MAY 1 Black Widow

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JUNE 5 Wonder Woman 1984 NOVEMBER 6 Eternals

2021 FEBRUARY 12 Shang Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings MAY 7 Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness

2022

JUNE 25 The Batman

MAY 6 Black Panther 2

AUGUST 6 The Suicide Squad

MAY 22 DC Super Pets

NOVEMBER. 5 Thor: Love and Thunder

DECEMBER 16 Aquaman 2

PHOTO CREDITS: MARVEL, ART BY BRIAN STELFREEZE (BLACK PANTHER), WARNER BROS. ENTERTAINMENT (WONDER WOMAN), DC COMICS, ART BY LEE WEEKS (BATMAN)

MOVIE BUFF’S MAP OF MANHATTAN PG. 42 • FALL MOVIE PREVIEW 2019 PG. 44

SPONSORED CONTENT

THE FRIGHTFUL AND THE FUNNY Alien and Ghostbusters return to cinemas nationwide for anniversary celebrations this October via Fathom Events. BY CHRIS CUMMINS Dan Aykroyd and Bill Murray in Ghostbusters (1984) which celebrates its 35th anniversary this year.

PHOTO CREDITS: ALIEN: ©TWENTIETH CENTURY-FOX FILM CORPORATION, PHOTOGRAPHER: BOB PENN / GHOSTBUSTERS: COLUMBIA PICTURES/PHOTOFEST

Sigourney Weaver in Alien (1979) which still scares us 40 years later.

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bviously, the biggest thrill about October being upon us is the imminent arrival of Halloween. Even as you read these words your friends and coworkers are carefully curating their seasonal viewings to make sure that they can wring every possible thrill out of the season.

And why the hell not? The real world is a terrifying place, so it’s a most welcome thing to have cinematic escapes where the scares are entertainingly familiar… and that eventually end. With that in mind, we would like to suggest what we feel are two “must watch” films this, and every, Halloween: Alien and Ghostbusters.

We’re sure there are those of you who already have these in your October viewing queue, but we really want

to speak to the horror purists here who discount both these flicks from their Halloween watchlist because they incorporate science fiction and comedy into their chills.

Although both Alien and Ghostbusters have horror elements, they are unconventional genre efforts. When Alien originally hit theaters 40 years ago, no one was initially sure what to make of Ridley Scott’s dynamic fusion of elements–traditional monster movies combined with the sort of sci-fi existentialism best left to works like 2001: A Space Odyssey. One of the most interesting anecdotes about the marketing of the film is how Kenner Toys–then riding a wave of unprecedented success with their Star Wars action figures–quickly snatched up the Alien license… only to be left

with plenty of unsold product when the movie turned out to be a more terrifying, downbeat affair than what audiences got spending time in a galaxy far, far away.

Foregrounding a female action hero in an era when women characters were often nothing more than love interests or screaming victims, Alien was revolutionary. Then there’s H.R. Giger’s incredible creature design or Alien’s still-effective chestburster scene.

Simply put, Alien forced Hollywood to evolve and illustrated that mashing up genres could result in both critical and commercial success.

This was also the case for 1984’s Ghostbusters. The combination of a peerless cast that included Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Harold Ramis, and Sigourney Weaver with ground-breaking special effects and an innovative script that seamlessly mixed big laughs with genuine scares (the Terror Dogs are legitimately chilling) was unlike anything ever seen before. To this day, Hollywood continues to frantically try to recapture the magic of the original– with mixed results.

So here’s what we suggest: take some time out this season and be sure to watch both Alien and Ghostbusters. More than just a tribute to the enduring kick-assery of Sigourney Weaver, these films are ideal examples of when horror goes outside of its comfort zone to expand the limits of storytelling.

What results are two films that are perfect at Halloween, and always.

PRESENTED BY

GHOSTBUSTERS, NOW 35 YEARS OLD, PLAYS OCT. 6 AND 10. ALIEN, AT 40, SCREENS OCT. 13, 15 AND 16.

TICKETS AND MORE INFORMATION ARE AVAILABLE AT WWW.FATHOMEVENTS.COM. DEN OF GEEK 41

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One of New York City’s newest and most beloved parks, this slice of urban bliss has made special use of an abandoned strip of elevated train tracks. It also saw Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone make eyes in The Amazing Spider-Man 2.

12th Avenue and 34th Street

THE HIGH LINE

While we cannot offer you the corner penthouse of Spook Central, enjoy knowing that this Ghostbusters location is on the National Register of Historic Places. Ivo Shandor would be proud.

55 Central Park West and 66th Street

2. THE DANA BARRETT BUILDING

The dream home of occultists everywhere, Mia Farrow found the spot crawling with hellish neighbors in Rosemary’s Baby. Many celebrities still live here, though hopefully not for the basement parties.

Central Park West and 72nd Street

1. THE DAKOTA

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This historic Broadway theater has housed the original productions of Oklahoma!, The King and I, and The Producers, but you probably know it best as the spot where Michael Keaton went nuts in Birdman.

8th Avenue and 44th Street

ST. JAMES THEATRE

Whether you take a picture from the top or bottom, you’ll love the site where King Kong met gravity.

The former speakeasy is a staple of pop culture both fictional and otherwise, appearing in films like All About Eve and Wall Street while serving as a favorite real-life watering hole for Ernest Hemingway, and Bogie and Bacall. Tip to cosplayers: the outside is photogenic ‘30s chic, but it’s business casual to get inside.

52nd Street Between 5th and 6th Avenues

6. 21 CLUB

Grab a croissant or pastry of choice and have your Breakfast at Tiffany’s! Little black dresses and crack of dawn arrivals are optional.

5th Avenue and 57th Street

5. TIFFANY & CO.

Boy, this really is a great city, I don’t care what anybody says.

The same could be said for how well Manhattan still plays in the shadow of the Queensboro Bridge and Gershwin.

E. 59th Street and Sutton Place

RIVERVIEW TERRACE

5th Avenue and 34th Street

EMPIRE STATE BUILDING

If you’re near the Plaza, stop by this classic footbridge that was a repeated backdrop for Home Alone 2: Lost in New York.

Southeast Corner of Central Park

GAPSTOW BRIDGE

Borat tried to leave his brown mark on this hotel’s sign, which some say would have befitted its namesake.

Central Park West and 61st Street

4. TRUMP INTERNATIONAL HOTEL & TOWER

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Who you gonna’ call?

The Ghostbusters Ecto-1 out of the historic Hook & Ladder Company 8 firehouse in Tribeca, of course.

N. Moore Street and Varick Street

GHOSTBUSTERS FIREHOUSE

SO, YOU’RE IN NEW YORK FOR COMIC CON AND DON’T WANT TO spend the whole time standing in line for panels. What to do? Go out and see the city! Whether you’re just visiting or a local, there’s a cornucopia of cool places to enjoy in ideal autumn weather.

Manhattan is a theme park of nerdy pop culture iconography and we’ve broken the island down into a series of movie location must-sees.

If you visit any of the below spots in the next week, be sure to snap a photo and tag us on Instagram @DenofGeek.

BY DAVID CROW | ILLUSTRATION BY JESSICA KOYNOCK

THE MOVIE BUFF’S MAP TO MANHATTAN

More iconic than any one movie that’s used its fountain, Lincoln Center has seen Bill Murray twirl in Ghostbusters, Natalie Portman pirouette in Black Swan, and Gene Wilder do, well, whatever Gene Wilder does in The Producers.

Broadway and 64th Street

3. LINCOLN CENTER

Plenty of major movies about Wall Street sin have shot here, hence why the most likable character to make a scene was Tom Hardy’s Bane in The Dark Knight Rises.

Wall Street and Broad Street

NEW YORK STOCK EXCHANGE

Where Harry met Sally. Well, at least Sally’s talent for selling pastrami sandwiches.

Ludlow Street and Houston Street

KATZ’S DELICATESSEN

One of the grandest achievements in American architecture, this historic landmark from 1902 has appeared in a plethora of movies, but most memorably as The Daily Bugle in Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man Trilogy.

5th Avenue and E. 22nd Street

9. FLATIRON BUILDING

This monument to New Yorker regality from the dawn of the 20th century has stood proudly with its doors open since 1911. And in 1984, it memorably opened Ghostbusters.

5th Avenue and 42nd Street

8. NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY

For the New York Daily News to still be running its ink in the 21st century is cause for celebration. So is the fact that its building doubled for The Daily Planet in Superman: The Movie.

42nd Street Between 3rd and 2nd Avenue

7. NEW YORK DAILY NEWS BUILDING

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feature-length origin story for one of pop culture’s greatest villains, Joker is the story of Arthur Fleck (Joaquin Phoenix), a wannabe comedian who lives with his ailing mother, and the increasingly violent spiral of his life. “I’ve always enjoyed movies that are a little difficult to speak about right after, and you go, I want to process this a little bit,” Joker director Todd Phillips tells reporters after a September screening. “I always find those to be particularly rewarding in a way. It’s not like that was a specific goal but… I always enjoy movies where you can’t necessarily distill it down to a one line thing.”

As Phillips says, Joker can’t be summed up in a single sentence.

The movie eschews the operatic blockbuster heights usually associated with Batman movies to tell a disturbing story about malignant narcissism and the violence it begets.

However, Joker is no Batman movie, and it doesn’t take place within the confines of any shared cinematic universe. Instead, it takes place in a Gotham that looks uncannily like New York City in the late 1970s or early 1980s, a time period that was deliberately chosen by the filmmakers to help keep it separate from the ongoing DCEU shared universe of films.

With no Batman to serve as a moral center, no wider DC Universe to concern itself with, and a grounded 44 DEN OF GEEK

urban setting, the film is anchored by an utterly mesmerizing performance from Phoenix. Phillips knew he wanted Phoenix for the part, and had discussed the script with him long before the actor formally agreed to take on the role of the infamous villain. “One day he just showed up at a wardrobe fitting,” Phillips jokes.

Phoenix’s evolution isn’t merely one of putting on makeup. His Joker even moves differently from others we’ve seen, notably with the dancingon-the-staircase scene glimpsed in the trailers. The actor worked with a choreographer and then “just started watching a lot of videos with dancing and movement,” Phoenix recalls.

The eerie physicality of Phoenix’s performance helps keep the movie’s focus firmly on Arthur’s descent into

madness, and not on recognizable moments from comic book history.

While fans might notice familiar elements from Gotham City mythology, the film doesn’t adhere to any of the character’s established origin stories.

“We didn’t take anything from one particular comic,” Phillips says. “We kind of picked and chose what we liked from the 80-year canon of Joker.”

Of course, fidelity to the source material isn’t crucial if there’s a good story to tell, no matter how beloved (or, in the case of the Joker, reviled) a character might be. But with superheroes and their foes now undisputed box office champions, the director saw an opportunity to do something unexpected with one of the most famous villains in all of pop culture.

“I just thought that there’s a new way to tell a comic book movie, [to] do it as a character study,” Phillips says.

“Part of what interests me… was to deconstruct the comic book movie a little bit, that was part of what was exciting about it.”— MIKE CECCHINI

Joaquin Phoenix’s Arthur Fleck transforms into the most notorious comic book villain of all time in a character study that owes much to 1970s cinema.

preview

OCTOBER 4 DEN OF GEEK 45

fall movie preview

The Lighthouse After writing and directing one of the seminal horror movies of the decade, Robert Eggers (The Witch) returns to New England folklore with his sophomore effort, though with a decidedly more recent, nautical vibe. Set at the turn of the 20th century, the movie finds two isolated lighthouse keepers spending their winter in grim weather and even grimmer company.

The toast of Cannes, The Lighthouse features performances from Robert Pattinson as Ephraim Winslow and Willem Dafoe as his elder, Thomas Wake. Its black-and-white vision evokes German Expressionist classics as much as tales of yore, as does the hinted Lovecraftian horror that waits for the men just offshore and below the surface.—DC

OCTOBER 18

jojo rabbit Taika Waititi is a director as well known for his risk-taking as his idiosyncratic sense of humor, but he appears downright giddy about walking the line between hilarity and bad taste with his next effort, Jojo Rabbit. After all, it is Waititi himself under the tiny moustache and swastika as a rascally Adolf Hitler. An imaginary version of Hitler, to be clear. In his latest writing and directing effort, Waititi, who is of Māori and Russian Jewish descent, plays the imagined BFF of a little boy named Jojo (Roman Griffith Davis), a lonely child growing up in Nazi Germany. With no real friends, he creates a good-hearted one in the visage of the Führer. It’s a wacky premise made all the more intriguing by a supporting cast that includes Scarlett Johansson and Sam Rockwell.—DC OCTOBER 18

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OCTOBER 18

DOUBLE TAP

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en years is a long time. Most had given up on a sequel to 2009’s delightfully odd Zombieland. But perhaps the filmmakers were just waiting until every lead in the cast earned an Oscar nomination (or win in Emma Stone’s case)? It certainly makes for catchy marketing as the now A-listers are still competing for Zombie Kill of the Week.

The sequel finds Stone, Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson, and Abigail Breslin up to their old tricks, this time crashing at the White House for the winter. But hijinks threaten to turn into high drama as Breslin’s Little Rock sets off on her own and they begin meeting new and tenacious survivors. With the whole creative team in front of and behind the camera back, now’s a good time to start working on your cardio. —DC

fall movie preview

Despite being borne out of two great action movies, James Cameron’s The Terminator (1984) and Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991), there hasn’t been a good movie in this cyborg franchise since Linda Hamilton stepped away from playing Sarah Connor. But that’s what makes Dark Fate interesting. For the first time in nearly 30 years, she squares off against cybernetic villains.

With director Tim Miller (Deadpool) helming the reunion, maybe this time the future is brighter.—DC NOVEMBER 1

Terminator: Dark Fate

NOVEMBER 8

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omehow Warner Bros. and writer-director Mike Flanagan convinced Stephen King to let them not only make a sequel to The Shining, but specifically to Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining… an adaptation he notoriously detests. How’s that for scary? Flanagan is one of the great horror directors of his generation—previously helming the superb King adaptation Gerald’s Game and Netflix’s The Haunting of Hill House—and now he is taking on the challenge of adapting the sequel to King’s most personal novel, as well as a sequel to one of the greatest horror films of all-time.

In the movie, we find Danny Torrance (Ewan McGregor) as a middle-aged man struggling, like his father and grandfather before him, with alcoholism. That, and the knowledge he still has the psychic gift of “shining.” It’s the latter that attracts the attention of a creepy cult led by Rebecca Ferguson as Rose the Hat, a woman older than she looks. And she has designs on a new shining child, too. —DC

48 DEN OF GEEK

In 1966, the idea of an American-made car beating European engineering at the 24 Hours of Le Mans race seemed far-fetched. It still does.

Yet this grease-and-bolts Cinderella story really occurred, and is the subject of an old-fashioned Hollywood epic— one of the last from a pre-Disney 20th Century Fox. Directed by James Mangold (Logan), the film stars Christian Bale and Matt Damon as the stateside driver and engineer gutsy enough to accept Ford’s offer to beat Ferrari at their own game. We’re more than ready to ride shotgun on that road trip.—DC NOVEMBER 15

Ford v Ferrari Little Danny Torrance (Ewan McGregor) is all grown up. But given he’s standing in the literal footsteps of his old man at the Overlook Hotel, we can’t imagine the years have been kind to him.

Frozen II When Frozen came out in 2013, it signaled a new revival for Walt Disney Animation Studios and harkened back to the Broadway-styled magic of their best renaissance movies of the 1990s.

It also offered new types of Disney princesses that six years later—a literal childhood—still enchant wee ones whenever the names “Elsa and Anna” are uttered. Hence Frozen II arrives with the fanfare of a generational touchstone, as Elsa (Idina Menzel) and Anna (Kristen Bell) travel north of Arendelle and into an autumn-bound land wherein answers to Elsa’s past (and perhaps their parents’ fate?) reside. The whole cast of transcendent talent is back, as are directors Jennifer Lee and Chris Buck, and Oscar-winning songwriters Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez. Better be ready to hum tunes from this one until well after 2020.—DC NOVEMBER 22

Knives Out Rian Johnson has wanted to make an Agatha Christieinspired murder mystery since before 2012’s Looper, and prior to a little film called The Last Jedi coming his way. Now, after making what some of us think is the best Star Wars movie of this century, he is returning to the idea of an old-fashioned whodunit. Knives Out looks both retro and refreshingly different, and early buzz has us wondering who is the deadliest among the movie’s killer cast, including Chris Evans, Jamie Lee Curtis, Toni Collette, Ana de Armas, Lakeith Stanfield, Michael Shannon, Christopher Plummer, and Daniel Craig.—DC

NOVEMBER 27

Jumanji: The Next Level Before its release, Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle looked like it had potential to be a charming throwback to ‘80s bodyswapping comedies. But we doubt even Dwayne Johnson was ready for it to be so warmly received that it had better legs than The Last Jedi, knocking it out of the #1 spot at the box office for all of January 2018. Now the revived franchise returns along with a winning cast that includes Johnson, Kevin Hart, Karen Gillan, and Jack Black. But this time Johnson and Hart are essentially new characters, playing video game avatars of grandfatherly Danny DeVito and Danny Glover instead of teenagers. Yeah, we’re already smiling.—DC

DECEMBER 13

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IMAGE CREDITS: 20TH CENTURY FOX (FORD V FERRARI), A24 (THE LIGHTHOUSE), FOX SEARCHLIGHT (JOJO RABBIT), LIONSGATE (KNIVES OUT), NETFLIX (THE IRISHMAN), PARAMOUNT PICTURES (TERMINATOR: DARK FATE), SONY PICTURES (JUMANJI, LITTLE WOMEN, ZOMBIELAND), WALT DISNEY PICTURES (FROZEN II), WARNER BROS. (JOKER, DOCTOR SLEEP)

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obert De Niro has been trying to bring the controversial mob book, I Heard You Paint Houses, to the screen for about a decade, a road that has led him to a reunion with Martin Scorsese. The legendary pair’s first movie together since Casino in 1995, The Irishman is a reunion of much of the Goodfellas/Raging Bull team, including Joe Pesci. And as a sign of the changing times… it’s debuting on Netflix, who agreed to foot the bill for the pricey de-aging technology that allows this generational crime saga to be told.

Robert De Niro plays Frank Sheeran, a union official who apparently claimed that he personally offed his buddy Jimmy Hoffa (Al Pacino). It’s an American crime epic that spans decades, offering Scorsese’s unique lens on the gray area between some organized labor and organized crime—and how Sheeran allegedly eased the friction between the two with bullets.—DC

NOVEMBER 27

Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci reunite on screen for the first time since Casino (1995). Here they discuss “painting houses,” but we suggest you don’t call them to work on your walls.

Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women is one of the formative novels in American literature, living on as one generation of young women passes it down to the next. While the lives of the March sisters have been adapted masterfully to the screen before, the fact that Greta Gerwig chose the book as her follow-up to Lady Bird creates instant intrigue. Apparently by focusing more on the second volume of the novel (originally published under the title Good Wives), Gerwig zeroes in on the forward-thinking themes of a book about young women navigating a professional world they weren’t expected to enter. Still the tale of four impoverished sisters in New England growing up during the Civil War, Gerwig’s Little Women comes with an astounding cast, including Saoirse Ronan, Meryl Streep, Florence Pugh, Emma Watson, Laura Dern, and Timothée Chalamet.—DC DECEMBER 25

Little Women

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THE RISE OF SKYWALKER

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here’s never been a more important Star Wars movie than The Rise of Skywalker.

The film is not only tasked with bringing the Sequel Trilogy to a close but also giving the entire Star Wars saga a satisfying ending. The adventures of Luke, Anakin, Obi-Wan, Han, Leia, Padme, Chewie, Finn, Rose, and Poe have all come down to one final battle between good and evil. Will Rey (Daisy Ridley) defeat Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) and the First Order or will the galaxy succumb to the dark side?

The Rise of Skywalker is set about a year after the events of The Last Jedi and Rey has almost completed her training. It’s safe to say that our hero is much stronger in the Force—did you see her flip over a TIE fighter in the movie’s first trailer?—but Rey has never faced a greater challenge. Kylo Ren rules the galaxy as its Supreme Leader and an even darker presence lurks in the background: the Emperor.

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The hooded figure who first turned Anakin Skywalker to the dark side and almost succeeded in doing the same to Luke returns for the final battle. We don’t yet know how he’s back or what part he’ll play in the movie—is it a cameo or has he been pulling the strings all along? Ian McDiarmid is confirmed to reprise the role he immortalized in Return of the Jedi and the prequels. We can even

hear his signature evil cackle at the end of the movie’s teaser trailer.

Might the Emperor’s reappearance have something to do with the Death Star ruins Rey and her friends journey to in the movie? Or perhaps the Knights of Ren are involved? Yes, Kylo’s mysterious faction of warriors, alluded to throughout the Sequel Trilogy, will finally be revealed in The Rise of Skywalker.

Back in the director’s chair is J.J. Abrams, who co-wrote the script with Chris Terrio (Argo). It makes sense that Abrams, who also directed The Force Awakens and has been creatively involved with the Sequel Trilogy since its conception, is the filmmaker to see Rey’s story through, but the director has never made a movie quite as big as this one. If The Force Awakens was Abrams bringing Star Wars back to its roots with a movie that paid homage to 1977’s A New Hope, then The Rise

IMAGE CREDIT: DISNEY (STAR WARS)

DECEMBER 20

Rey (Daisy Ridley) prepares for the culmination of all her training and searching.

Fans do as well, as director J.J. Abrams finally opens the mystery box.

of Skywalker is a celebration of both the old and new, the final stitch in a tapestry begun by George Lucas and continued by Disney.

“No one’s ever really gone,” Mark Hamill says in the first trailer.

That’s indeed the case in The Rise of Skywalker, which will also see the return of Luke and Leia. While the Jedi Master died at the end of The Last Jedi, he also became “one with the Force,” meaning that we’ll likely see him guiding Rey from the afterlife, just as Obi-Wan once did for Luke.

As for Leia, while the dearly missed Carrie Fisher passed away in 2016, her character will appear in The Rise of Skywalker thanks to unused footage from The Force Awakens. We’ve already seen some of this footage in the trailers—a scene between Leia and Rey in which they share a hug.

Even with the return of Leia, Luke, and the Emperor, this final chapter

still has a few surprises left in her, sweetheart. C-3PO finally has his gold arm back, shedding the rusty red one he’s sported for the past two movies—and preview footage also teases that Threepio will don sinister, red eyes, which could mean the droid is done with etiquette. Elsewhere, we’ve learned that a new type of stormtrooper called a Sith Trooper will make trouble for the Resistance.

At least three new locations will also be introduced in the movie, including desert planet Pasaana, home to a new alien race called the Aki-Aki, and snow planet Kijimi, which has a thriving Thieves’ Quarter. Along the way, we’ll meet new characters, such as Keri Russell’s

“masked scoundrel” Zorri Bliss; Naomi Ackie’s mysterious Jannah; and Allegiant General Pryde (Richard E. Grant), a leader within the First Order.

Looming over all of these new twists and nods to the past is the movie’s most intriguing tease: Dark Rey, a dark side nightmare version of the Sequel Trilogy’s hero revealed in footage shown at D23. The sight of a hooded Rey armed with a doublebladed red lightsaber has sent Star Wars fandom down a rabbithole of speculation and theories.

Fortunately, we’ll get all the answers we’re looking for when The Rise of Skywalker hits theaters on Dec. 20. —JOHN SAAVEDRA

GAMES

TIM AND LEONARD MAKE AN RPG • PG. 56 THE FMV NEW WAVE PG. 58

toolset, which includes a useful hook and fantastic self-healing ability, won’t take you long to learn.

DAMAGE REAPER With his ability to teleport to new locations and fade out of existence, Reaper is an incredible damage character for players looking to flank the opposition. His self-healing abilities, powerful shotguns, and multi-kill ultimate ability make him a fan favorite.

Mercy

Moira

Orisa

A TRUE HERO Get better at Overwatch with these characters! BY MATTHEW BYRD

ANYONE CAN BE GOOD AT OVERWATCH. ALL YOU NEED TO DO IS PICK THE right character. While every Overwatch hero has their own pros and cons, some are more beginner-friendly than others. Whether you prefer to play as a tank, support, or damage dealer, these are the absolute best choices for beginners.

TANKS ORISA While fellow shield tank Reinhardt will always have a place on most Overwatch teams, Orisa is the shield that beginning players should learn.

Her skills are a bit more complicated than Reinhardt’s, but her ability to deal damage from a distance and shoot her shield to a targeted location means she doesn’t need to be in the middle 54 DEN OF GEEK

of every fight. She’s a great option for players who want to learn to work as a team without throwing themselves in the fray.

ROADHOG As a huge tank with a massive health pool, Roadhog tends to survive most fights. This makes him an effective tank and an especially appealing option for players looking to stay in the battle a bit longer while they learn the ropes. Roadhog’s simple

easiest characters to master. With his sprint ability, area of effect healing, and ultimate that allows you to auto-aim, Soldier 76 will feel familiar to anyone who has ever played a first-person shooter.

SUPPORT MERCY Despite a series of changes to her abilities over the years, Mercy’s role as the main healer of any team hasn’t changed. Just hold Mercy’s primary fire button near the teammate you want to heal or secondary fire to damage boost, and watch as you instantly become the most beloved member of your squad.

MOIRA Moira’s abilities allow her to alternate between firing powerful healing bursts that can restore the health of multiple allies over time and an auto-lock damage beam that hurts enemies while restoring health to you.

You don’t need to have perfect aim to deal a respectable amount of damage as Moira, and you can still serve as one of your team’s best healers while also having fun as an attacker.

IMAGE CREDITS: BLIZZARD ENTERTAINMENT (OVERWATCH), PATRICK TOMASSO ON UNSPLASH (BACKGROUND)

SOLDIER 76 Soldier 76 is one of the

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RPG

Tim and Leonard Make An

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The co-directors of Obsidian’s The Outer Worlds want to show everyone what role-playing means to them.

BY MATTHEW BYRD

In Obsidian's The Outer Worlds,

corporations have colonized and branded the furthest reaches of space. It’s a terrifying look at a dystopian future that may come to pass. But it is also a fantasy about the past. Many fans have waited a long time to play another Obsidian RPG with the same impressive 3D world, bleak humor, and emphasis on freedom of choice as 2010’s beloved Fallout: New Vegas.

Nobody has waited longer for The Outer Worlds, though, than co-directors Tim Cain and Leonard Boyarsky. Over 20 years ago, they were key figures in the development of the original Fallout, one of the most important PC RPGs ever made. Eventually, they split and forged their own paths in the industry. As it turns out, it didn’t take much convincing to get the band back together.

“I got [Leonard] to come over here [from ActivisionBlizzard] by saying, ‘Hey, you know when we made Fallout? Let’s do that again but with more money and more people,’” Cain says.

Fallout was Cain, Boyarsky, and the rest of the team’s attempt to bring tabletop gaming concepts to video games.

“I saw Tim running different people through a tabletop scenario and it felt like a totally different experience every time,” Boyarsky says. “That was one of our earliest conversations about what a role playing game on a computer could be.”

With Fallout, Cain and Boyarsky helped bring tabletop RPG ideas to PCs, but even at that time, a debate emerged regarding what, exactly, an RPG is. After all, you play a role in many games. So what distinguishes the RPG from its counterparts?

“I always thought role playing meant you, the player, defined who the character was, what his motivations were, as much as possible,” says Cain. “There’s always a fantasy of ‘I'm in this fantastic role, playing a character and doing whatever I want, and seeing how the world reacts.’”

This emphasis on creation and choice often forces players to confront themselves. In a recent playthrough of The Outer Worlds, Boyarsky decided to play an evil character.

However, his plans were derailed when he faced an evil choice that he just couldn’t commit to.

“In that instance, it wasn’t so much that I didn’t want to do it,” Boyarsky says. “I just had to keep reminding myself that I had to pick those lines and I’d pick [one and think], ‘Oh I should have picked the other one.’ Because that wasn’t really the character I wanted to play.”

RPGs like Fallout and The Outer Worlds force you to come to terms with who you choose to be in their worlds, but Boyarsky and Cain are careful not to put players in a position where they feel there is a right choice.

“We don’t want you to feel like you’re doing something

wrong by playing the character the way you want to play them,” Boyarsky says. “You have to deal with the consequences of your actions, but it’s your story. You should feel like the game is, in its own way, rewarding you for playing your character.”

In The Outer Worlds though, playing your character isn’t just about telling the game who you think you are. More often than not, you define yourself through your actions.

“In our game you wouldn't say you were an alcoholic,” Cain says. “You'd play the game for a while and if you drink a lot of alcohol, we'd say, ‘Hey, you seem to use a lot of alcohol, you want to be a drug addict?’ We offer it to you. So a lot of our character building stuff doesn’t just happen during character creation.”

Character creation may be an essential part of Cain and Boyarsky’s approach to RPG design, but it’s not the rule.

The ever-expanding definition of role-playing accommodates games like The Witcher 3, which see you play as a preset protagonist and make comparatively minor character decisions.

The Witcher 3 may regularly land high atop best RPG lists, but it can’t recreate the experience of tabletop RPGs or games like Fallout. That’s part of the reason why The Outer Worlds has captured the imagination of old-school RPG fans. It was designed to recreate the spirit of those classic experiences.

“I love The Witcher, but it’s not a game I would make,” Cain says. “I don’t want people to stop making Witcher-like games. I just want people to realize, for all these games where there’s a predefined character and a very strong storyline, there are other games that can be made differently that still fall under the moniker of RPG.” It’s possible that part of the reason why RPGs like The Outer Worlds are comparatively more rare is because they’re also exceptionally difficult to produce.

“Making a game is not an easy process by any stretch of imagination,” Boyarsky says. “However, having a preset character like [The Witcher’s] Geralt, who you can always show during the cinematics and who has a specific personality, it's easier to create some drama and cinematic moments. It’s much more of a challenge to do it the way we're doing it.”

The modern definition of an RPG has been further complicated by the incorporation of RPG elements in action games. Even the Call of Duty franchise utilizes progression elements that let you grow your character as you play. Such games have helped expand the reach of the comparatively niche RPG genre, but have they also diluted its spirit?

“Yes,” says Cain. “I think more and more games are saying that they have RPG elements, but they give you a predefined character and a predefined story. Sometimes I play those games and I feel like they have a story to tell, and gosh darn it, they’re going to tell it. So just sit down and enjoy the ride.”

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Yet, The Outer Worlds features a more active combat style that resembles an action game upon first look. While that approach is certainly more broadly appealing, Cain and Boyarsky acknowledge that it’s difficult to incorporate role-playing into action.

“We always have the discussion of when your character in the game shoots somebody, how much of that is your player skill and how much of that is the character skill?” Cain says. “If the overall number was mostly the character skill then the player says, ‘I’m standing next to someone point blank and I’m missing,’ If you rely too much on player skill, then you just made a first-person shooter.”

Finding the right balance is an ambitious goal, but Cain and Boyarsky have always dreamed big when it comes to RPG design.

With The Outer Worlds, though, they’re trying to incorporate some of the lessons they learned from making RPGs that were perhaps too ambitious for their own good.

“The first meeting I had with [The Outer Worlds] lead designer Charlie Staples, I told him, ‘You have to edit me. I will have lots of ideas,’” Cain says. “Of course they’re all good. Not all of them can go into this game because we don’t have the time. We had many discussions and arguments over the

last several years while making this game, and I didn’t win all of them. I should have, but I didn’t.”

The two find comfort in other limitations. They acknowledge that The Outer Worlds is a smaller game (what some call an “AA game”) and that it doesn’t have the resources of other major titles. That means not being able to do certain things, but it also helps them make the RPG they want to make.

“If we had over a hundred million dollars riding on this game, there’d be a lot more people concerned about how well it may or may not do,” Boyarsky says. “I feel like we didn’t have to be as concerned about making some of the choices that come naturally to us with our dark sense of humor than we otherwise would have if we were trying to sell 30 million units or whatever.”

While the pair would certainly love to see The Outer Worlds sell 30 million units, the joy of this opportunity seems to stem from the pleasure of watching others make their own adventures.

“Somebody was actually watching me finish the game and he asked why some group was there helping me. I was like, ‘Oh, because I was really nice to them all throughout the game. They’re here to help me now at the end,’” Cain says. “He was surprised and said, ‘Well I was nice to them.’ I asked, ‘Were you really? Were you nice or were you really nice?’ I said, ‘Go back and be really nice.’”

To Cain and Boyarsky, The Outer Worlds is a chance to pick up where they left off and make the types of games they love most.

“We kind of learned how to make games when we were at [Fallout developer] Interplay. It’s the way we made the majority of our games,” Boyarsky says. “Obsidian feels like an extension of the heart of Interplay.

So in that way, it very much feels like a homecoming.”

This emphasis on creation and choice often forces the players to confront themselves.”

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IMAGE CREDIT: TAKE-TWO INTERACTIVE

In The Outer Worlds, players get to explore space outposts owned by greedy mega-corporations. below: You'll encounter strange creatures and fauna all throughout the Halcyon system, where the game takes place.

CULTURE FINDING COMFORT IN CREEPY DOLLS PG. 62

A FAN’S OUTPOST OF DREAMS

We paid a visit to Walt Disney World’s newest attraction, Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge.

BY AARON SAGERS

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MY FIRST VIEW ON BATUU IS OF the Millennium Falcon, with the Spaceport, Docking Bay 7, and a range of rocklike spires beyond. I am on another world, but it’s one that feels familiar after a lifetime of experiences in the galaxy far, far away.

This is Black Spire Outpost on the planet Batuu, home to Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge, the themed land at Walt Disney World’s Hollywood Studios in Orlando and Disneyland in Anaheim.

One of the first thoughts a Star Wars fan might have upon stepping foot on this alien planet is, “Chewie, we’re home.”

To borrow a phrase from the baseball film Field of Dreams, seeing it all

PHOTO CREDIT: DISNEY, ILLUSTRATION CREDIT: HANNAH KNEISLEY

for the first time conjures memories so thick in my eyes I have to brush them away as I walk through the spaceport. I’m surprised by the wave of emotions when I visit the park in Orlando during a media preview day in late August. After all, the 14-acre billion-dollar Anaheim expansion (the largest in the theme park’s history) has been open for two months at this point. I thought I was prepared.

But I’m also a Star Wars fan, through and through. And it’s all so beautiful.

Signaling “Bright Suns” and “Rising Moons,” and a multitude of other phrases to locals, traders, smugglers, and fellow Earth travelers, I am in it.

I am living in a world I have loved for decades, via action figures, read-along story books, and cassettes before I had first seen a Star Wars film in theaters.

The most magical moments no doubt come in the cockpit of the Millennium Falcon. I pilot, co-pilot, man the guns, and try out each of the six seats in the Smuggler’s Run attraction/ ride. With Chewie growling over the comms, and “legitimate businessman” Hondo Ohnaka offering dubious advice, it all feels real. Punching the ship to lightspeed, and watching as the hunk of junk slips into hyperspace and then engages in battle with the First Order—because the story of Galaxy’s Edge is set after the events of The Last Jedi— is perhaps the most satisfying theme park moment I’ve ever experienced. And yes, the ride maintains the appeal even after waiting in a long line.

Operating the Falcon on an adventure—and learning over multiple missions how much my actions truly impact, literally, the ship—Smuggler’s Run taps into something I’ve always known I wanted. However, a visit to Savi’s Workshop is nearly religious and a new experience I didn’t even know I craved: building a lightsaber.

Within the innocuous-looking scrap metal shop (so as not to draw undue First Order attention) is Kembe, one of the Gatherers. Kembe offers lucky visitors the opportunity to draw upon

the Force, select pieces of metal, install a kyber crystal power source, and ignite the elegant, enigmatic weapon wielded by Jedi and Sith.

Realistically, this is an expensive $200 affair—the end result is a customized souvenir of impressive quality and surprising weight—but the ritual is memorable.

Yes, the emotions of builders are so effectively manipulated with lighting, sound cues, and familiar theme music

TO BORROW A PHRASE FROM THE BASEBALL FILM FIELD OF DREAMS, SEEING IT ALL FOR THE FIRST TIME CONJURES MEMORIES SO THICK IN MY EYES I HAD TO WASH THEM AWAY. that it’s difficult not to feel the power of the Force in Savi’s. I walked out believing I had some responsibility to wield my ancient device with care – as if Savi had charged me with a mission to support peace and justice in uncertain times.

Contrast the spirituality of Savi’s with the Disney-friendly bawdiness and outlaw nature of Oga’s Cantina

where intergalactic­—and alcoholic— libations are served up (all under the watchful, if reclusive, eyes of crime boss Oga). Former Star Tours droid R-3X now spins tunes as DJ-Rex, and the antics around the bar are rowdy and loud. The bar staff runs a tight ship; only two drinks before you’re jettisoned back into the warm Batuu climate. And they are prone to bursting into chants. But I feel more at home in the cantina.

Maybe it’s the fizzy Fuzzy Tauntaun in my hand—or the punchy Yub Nub, or the herby Dagobah Slug Slinger, or the roasted caramel Gamorrean Ale— but I quickly forget about my oath to Savi, and my lightsa… err, piece of scrap metal… and start trading stories about the secret Resistance Base, Kylo Ren, or the sweet deal I got at Dok-Ondar’s Den of Antiquities.

I land on Batuu multiple times between the media preview and return visits. I explore Black Spire as an innocent child, though one of drinking age and with a valid credit card. I do hand over plenty of money, and I think of the galaxy from my own long time ago—and a galaxy that still exists in the present. Like so many, Star Wars has marked the past.

And Galaxy’s Edge, though a commercial enterprise, nonetheless feels like a homecoming.

Kylo Ren is an imposing figure at Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge.

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Finding comfort in

D

olls can be great companions for tea parties, sleepovers, and adventures. But for many people, they are creepy toys that watch you as you sleep; popular vessels for demonic possession; or miniature, porcelain, homicidal effigies.

So why are they so damn scary? It turns out there is a scientific reason—and a paranormal one.

According to Dr. Margee Kerr, a sociologist who specializes in fear, while our childhood experiences with dolls may have been a source of joy, comfort, and safety, seeing dolls out of context can freak us out as an “ultimate betrayal of innocence.”

“Fear can be understood as a measure of distance between what we expect and what we experience. If a doll is too lifelike, our brain can’t figure out if it’s a human or toy, that can generate a powerful sense of unease,” she says.

Annabelle

The Conjuring introduced Annabelle to mainstream audiences in 2013, when it was the visage of an antique porcelain doll with a pallor and a ruby red, mischievous smile that was the focus of Ed and Lorraine Warren’s most recent case file.

The actual Annabelle is far more mundane, and looks like a Raggedy Ann doll. It is about the size of a four-yearold child—and may be attached to an inhuman entity.

Before she made her big screen debut in James Wan’s

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movie, Annabelle was introduced in Gerald Brittle’s 1980 book The Demonologist: The Extraordinary Career of Ed and Lorraine Warren.

According to the Warrens, in 1970, a mother purchased the doll from a hobby store as a birthday gift to her adult daughter Donna Jennings. Jennings, a nurse, lived with another nurse, Angie Stapleton; Stapleton’s fiancé Lou Carlo was a frequent visitor to their modern apartment.

FEAR CAN BE UNDERSTOOD AS A MEASURE OF THE DISTANCE BETWEEN WHAT WE EXPECT AND WHAT WE EXPERIENCE. The Warrens were allegedly called onto the case by Episcopal clergy because the doll had begun to move around the home. At first, Jennings said the doll’s position would change while she was away at work, or would appear to be standing on its own, or kneeling. The doll would change rooms while they were gone and written notes on parchment began appearing—with writing that looked like a child’s—saying “Help Us,” or “Help Lou” (the trio told the paranormal investigators they didn’t own a pencil and didn’t have parchment around). One night, they discovered blood on the doll’s hand and chest.

PORCELAIN OR PLUSH, RAGGEDY OR MINT CONDITION, A NY DOLL CAN HAVE A HAUNTED HISTORY.

BY AARON SAGERS | ILLUSTRATIONS BY JESSICA KOYNOCK

The name Annabelle Higgins was introduced by a medium the nurses consulted. The medium claimed she was the spirit of a seven-year-old girl, who had lived in happier times when the apartments were still fields. The girl only wanted love, said the medium. She requested permission to stay with the women and to enter the doll—a request they granted, much to Ed Warren’s dismay.

Activity increased over the course of a year, culminating with Lou having a dream about the doll floating over him, hands on his neck, strangling him. On another occasion, he heard sounds in Donna’s room and went to investigate, encountering the doll on the floor while something attacked him from behind, leaving seven bloody claw marks (which they said was a symbolic mark of the beast).

The Warrens determined an inhuman spirit was manipulating the doll (as opposed to possessing it), and the recognition it received from the roommates empowered it as it looked for a human host. Enlisting Father Cooke of the Episcopal Church, the apartment was exorcised, and the Warrens ended up with the doll.

The celebrity ghost hunters believed a “vicious hatred” tried to run them off the road as they transported the doll home. Despite building a special case to contain Annabelle at their Occult Museum, they claimed a Catholic priest’s life was endangered, and a young man was killed on his motorcycle shortly after they challenged the doll. The doll supposedly arrived at the museum with a spectral black cat that would stalk Ed’s office and

dematerialize by the doll’s side.

Currently, the Warren’s Occult Museum is closed, and Lorraine recently passed away. As with each of these dolls, the story should be treated with skepticism, considering the lack of corroboration.

Robert

Before Annabelle made her big screen debut in The Conjuring, Robert was the most famous haunted doll out there. The doll looks almost more simian than human.

With black beady eyes, tiny distressed cuts on his face, and a peculiar grin, he wears a little sailor outfit, likely originally worn by his owner: Robert Eugene Otto of Key West, Florida.

Robert the Doll’s story goes back to 1904, when young Robert, the boy who went by Gene, acquired it from his grandfather who had acquired Robert during a trip to Germany. Manufactured by the Steiff Company (which made the first Teddy bear) the wool-stuffed life-sized doll was possibly intended as more of a display mannequin.

Robert was a constant companion for Gene, and was accused of various misdeeds and mysterious movements by the boy. Toys were mutilated, furniture overturned, and eerie giggles could be heard throughout the Otto home— and Gene always placed the blame on Robert.

As he grew older, Gene became an artist, and his inherited home was known as The Artist House. Robert would be perched in a window in the second-floor turret

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“This is fine.” room, where people claimed he would change position.

After Gene died in 1974, Myrtle Reuter purchased the home, and Robert came with it. She said the doll would move on its own, giggle, and change expression should anyone badmouth Gene.

In 1994, Reuter donated the doll to the Fort East Martello Museum—the gallery of which was designed by Gene. Even before Robert became an attraction, he attracted visitors.

Kept in a glass display case, Robert “lives” at the museum still, where people claim to be cursed by him should they insult him or take his photo without asking for permission.

He is also credited with interfering with electronic devices.

Robert is a bit of a celebrity, and receives about three letters a day, ranging from apologies for bad behavior toward him to letters asking for advice. He is said to be a fan of sweets, and some people send candy. Interestingly, Robert sits with his own doll: a dog with a gaping mouth that resembles the “This is Fine” meme.

Whether Robert is cursed with voodoo and inhabits the energies of his former owner and lifelong friend or he’s just an old doll with a creepy story, you can find out for yourself by visiting him at the Fort East Martello Museum.

Peggy

As far as haunted dolls go, Peggy looks mundane with her blue eyes and blonde bob. But she might make you sick. Something of an internet sensation, Peggy was owned by British investigator Jayne Harris of Haunted Dolls and has been reported to cause nausea, dizziness, headaches, and perhaps even heart attacks in those that simply see her photo. Those that encounter her in person might even go mad.

Harris came into possession of Peggy courtesy of previous owners who said she was causing bad dreams. Mediums who have visited the doll have claimed she is inhabited by a spirit persecuted in life, possibly with ties to the Holocaust. Harris

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and her team came to believe Peggy’s spirit is a woman from 1946 London who died of an illness that affected her chest.

Peggy, to avoid having too much information out there about her, made Harris’ notebook go missing following a séance.

Most recently, she was acquired by Zak Bagans of Ghost Adventures, who displays the doll at his Haunted Museum in Las Vegas. Bagans said it affected him more than Robert, and claimed a typewriter began typing on its own during a séance with Peggy. He added that, since taking over ownership, she has manifested flies and poltergeist activity.

To view it at his museum, he requires visitors to sign a waiver (which is either a great safety measure or brilliant publicity stunt).

Harold

Harold the Doll is known for being the first of many haunted dolls to be sold on eBay, in 2003. His auction earned him media attention, and later, an appearance on Ghost Adventures (Bagans hates dolls, but it’s good television to feature allegedly haunted dolls on a ghost show).

The initial story behind the badly worn doll is that he belonged to the young son of a Florida man who had passed away in the 1940s. When the son died, the man and his wife reported hearing crying and singing from the boy’s bedroom. A priest advised him to burn the doll, but it wouldn’t burn, so the man kept it in his shed for about 60 years—allegedly. Then, the original eBay seller put “Haunted Harold” up for sale, after blaming the doll for his cat dying, and losing his girlfriend to the pool man two days after buying it.

After being purchased for $300, Harold was passed along from one owner to the next, and some believed he caused misfortune everywhere he went. Noises were heard and, occasionally, it would seem that Harold’s expression had shifted to a smile. According to the Ghost Adventures episode, a friend of one of the owners developed a brain tumor shortly after visiting Harold.

Anthony Quinata purchased the doll in 2004, and said there were souls imprisoned in and by the doll. He chronicled attacks by Harold on him and others in a book about his time with the doll, appropriately titled Harold the Haunted Doll.

Letta

The story of Letta is one of those that, even if only portions of it are true, it’s damn creepy. Owner Kerry Walton said he discovered the doll—wooden, with glass eyes—in the 1970s under the floorboards of an abandoned house he was scavenging in Wagga Wagga, New South Wales, Australia. He put the doll in his trunk, and proceeded to drive home—until, that is, he heard movement and a howl of “Letta me out.” Hence the name Letta was born.

Upon bringing Letta home, Walton said his children were terrified of it, and claimed they heard it talking to itself and moving on its own. Also, dogs apparently acted aggressively toward it. Those who encountered Letta may have vivid nightmares or feel nauseous. Plus, Walton said Letta walks around at night.

When he had it examined, Walton claimed Letta dated back 200 years. It was supposedly haunted by the restless spirit of a drowned boy. Unsurprisingly, Letta made the television rounds and became a famously haunted doll. Walton has vowed not to get rid of Letta, despite the inky cloud of dread and anxiety hanging around it. Then again, he does travel with the doll, and charges for photographs.

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