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BaalÕs Kryptonian army has invaded Themyscira. Wonder Woman and the Amazons will show them why that was a deadly mistake. |
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This is it: the final stand for Cybertron! Will Starscream and Windblade’s gamble finally pay off or will all of Iacon be destroyed by the zombie titans? |
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“THE EXTREMISTS” part three! The Extremists now control a nation, and within its borders, all is ordered and protected—all but free will. But how do seven people, even the JLA, fight an entire country? And even if they could, no one can truly prepare for the catastrophic design Dreamslayer has in store for reality itself. |
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When Dick, Wally, Donna and Garth awaken in an unfamiliar place, they find themselves face-to-face with their mentors: Batman, The Flash, Wonder Woman and Aquaman! Allied together against a common foe, the mentors and prot_g_s must race against the clock to unlock the secret of their current predicament and save the planet from an alien invasion! |
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Get the inside scoop on one of the yearÕs most talked about debuts! Experience DOOM PATROL #1, presented in its original raw pencil form, along with behind-the-scenes details including preliminary art, process material and more! |
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Batgirl and Supergirl must team up to break into Arkham Asylum! In this all-new Rebirth annual Batgirl must seek Supergirl’s help to solve a mystery that leads them to the heart of the most insane insane asylum there is! But what they discover—and who they discover—in Arkham will lead to a much, much bigger story! |
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“Biff Goes To Town” They say you can never go home again, but no one told that to Biff Tannen. With a growing fortune and his eyes set on Hill Valley, Biff returns to claim the city and grow it in his toxic image with the creation of BIFFCO ENTERPRISES. As a result, the Hill Valley Civic Committee is formed to stop Biff by any means necessary. But will tragedy dissolve them before they get their chance? |
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THE SHARPENED EDGE” Kyle Barnes hones his abilities... preparing for the battle ahead. |
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Mayhem and V.E.N.O.M. have Matt Trakker and the M.A.S.K. team trapped with no hope of escape unless Gloria Baker can use an ace up her sleeve to save the day. But Mayhem is primed to unleash his final assault and implement his plan to distribute his secret weapons across the planet as the final battle between M.A.S.K and V.E.N.O.M is set. |
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The Merc with a Mouth is back, even deadlier and more deranged than before! The planet has been invaded by Skrulls, everything's gone topsyturvy... but, in Deadpool's world, that just means it's Monday! Crazy times call for crazy men, but c'mon, this guy's insane! Like it or not, Deadpool may be the only person on the planet who can save us... but who's to say he wants to? An explosive debut story by writer Daniel Way (Wolverine: Origins, Ghost Rider, Bullseye: Greatest Hits) and fanfavorite artist Paco Medina (New Warriors, New X-Men)! Deadpool: His madness is his method! You won't want to miss it! Collects Deadpool (2008) #1-5. |
By: Angela Russo (@Amaruki99)
Jane makes a bumbling return to the dating scene complete with rusty flirting skills and an awkward first date with Michael’s former partner Dennis. Things between Alba and Jorge are heating up as the two enjoy a much more successful evening. Rogelio closes his lawsuit and begins shooting his new telenovela. He and Xiomara profess their love for one another and are reunited at last. Petra quickly moves past her drunken night with Rafael, going to great lengths to finally win back Chuck. Unfortunately, the police are now monitoring her every move in an attempt to find Anezka.
This week’s installment Jane the Flirt finally acknowledges what has been painfully absent…romantic love. While the past few episodes have been scattered and lacking direction, Chapter Fifty-Nine was much more cohesive. All sub-plots fit neatly into the overarching theme of flirting, reading signals, and the perceptions and miscommunications of the dating scene. Jane’s missteps in parenting have finally moved to the back-burner!!! The return of romance also ushers in a renewal of the quirky comical hijinks, commentary, and asides classic to the show. I greatly enjoyed this episode’s running, “flirt alert,” gag. When Jane gets a few serious contenders I would like to see some asides with an old daydream friend – bachelorette Jane!
Jane the Virgin is famous for having the narrator drop major foreshadowing with a casual sentence and not mentioning it again for a season or longer. A notable example of this occurs in season one, ominously predicting Michael’s inevitable death. Since that proved to be true I’ve had my radar on scan for any seemingly innocuous commentary from the narrator. Chapter Fifty-Nine drops some not-so-subtle foreshadowing straight out the gate:
“It should be noted that Jane Gloriana Villanueva had been passionately in love with exactly three men in her life.”
He then goes on to purposefully skip the first, and list Michael and Rafael. Now that Jane is back on the dating circuit, I have to imagine we will be revisiting this teased nugget of her past either via flashback, or as a potential love-interest further down the line. Rafael is alive and well, but he and Jane are still quite firmly in the friend-zone. Nonetheless, the intimacy and trust they share is no less prominent as Jane repeatedly turns to Raf for dating advice. It’s clear that the writers want to perpetuate the strong bond between these two former lovers. For now I see them putting Jane through a more interesting phase of self-discovery now that she has emerged from the cocoon of motherhood. She needs to figure out who she is and what she wants post-Michael.
As it is, her first forays of flirting were predictably awkward and uncomfortable. I literally cringed when she confronted Alex about maintaining a professional relationship, and was immediately skeptical when she accepted a date with Michael’s former partner Dennis. It was too safe. Too similar. Much more of an ice-breaker experience than anything else. Her physical attraction to Fabian is sure to be just another phase in the process of her dating awakening.
Until Jane gets a few impractical infatuations and flings out of her system and starts dating in earnest, the show needs a love triangle to hang onto….which leads me to Petra and Rafael. The dynamic between these two is frustrating to say the least. Now that Xiomara and Rogelio are finally back together do we really need to revisit this whole will-they won’t-they nonsense? The inconsistency in this episode alone makes me roll my eyes. Rafael vacillates between sheer horror, awkward dislike, and then in a quite cliche and predictable twist, childish jealousy as Petra quite naturally continues to pursue Chuck. As a former playboy, he is not used to being tossed aside so easily. No matter what the narrator says, I don’t view Rafael’s jealousy as anything other than him protecting his ego.
History has had Petra constantly being passed around the male cast from Lachlan to Rafael, then Roman, then Milos…Lather. Rinse. Repeat. A strictly platonic relationship with Rafael has been a very positive nurturing experience for her, providing a familiar foundation so she can breathe and grow away from the manipulative ways encouraged by her mother. Some fans aren’t pleased to see Petra dating a brand new character, but I find the change to be refreshing…so long as it leads to something different. Unlike past boyfriends, Chuck seems to be more than up to the task of meeting Petra on equal footing. He calls her out constantly, holding her accountable to how she really feels. Reformed or not, Petra definitely needs a strong man who won’t get trampled under her penchant for scheming. Chuck’s opposites-attract cowboy charm definitely takes her down a peg and balances her out.
All the pheromones running rampant this week have overshadowed the crux of this particular story-arc: What happened to Scott? For weeks I have been wondering where Anezka has been. The police seem to think that Petra has been protecting Anezka somehow keeping her under wraps. The suspicious email she writes in Czech would seem to indicate as much…or does it? Perception and misdirection are hardly limited to the romantic aspects of the series. Viewers frequently see misleading representations of reality to advance the twists and turns of the plot. Could Petra be writing to Anezka? Certainly, but there is insufficient information to determine whether either one of them is the killer or even involved in Scott’s death. Let’s not forget Rafael’s role in all of this. What happened during his nine months in prison? Why was he so keen on getting the burn book first? What secret is he hiding? Jane the Virgin will be on hiatus until April 24th. In the meantime, catch up on past episodes with Nerd HQ’s recaps and reviews!
Chapter Fifty-Nine was directed by Anna Mastro and written by Deirdre Shaw.
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Spinning directly out of the epic events of DC UNIVERSE: REBIRTH #1, the Fastest Man Alive finds himself at the center of a DC Universe at a crossroads. WARNING: Do NOT read this issue until after you read DC UNIVERSE: REBIRTH #1! |
By Kimberly Kuxhause
After playing Assassin’s Creed III, and Assassin’s Creed Liberation, I don’t think anyone could say they were overly confident about Black Flag. Sure, it had pirates, but the world had seen that trend play out time and time again. By no means do pirate themes guarantee success (The short-lived TV show Crusoe comes to mind). Yet as the beginning scenes unfurled, the game revealed its true colors as something transformative and groundbreaking. The developers did so much work to improve the quality of the game in all its aspects, making Black Flag a well-rounded game that everyone can enjoy.
The gameplay improvements we’ve seen in Assassin’s Creed are extensive to say the least. It’s only natural that when you get a series of this magnitude and this many spin-offs, there are bound to be a few bump along the road. I think Black Flag comes the closest to game perfection I’ve seen in a series. You can now fast travel to viewpoints which makes it far more useful to collect them. Fighting and running is impressively fluid. You don’t have to wonder about missing a jump or falling behind your tail because of a cart in the road. Not to mention that you don’t have to manually shove through people – Kenway does this for you. The new weapons wheel, or should I say cross, allows for fast and easy selection of weapons options. The player never has to scroll through more than 2-3 options for their desired weapon, as opposed to the constant scrolling in AC III. Post-mission feedback not only immerses the player further into the overarching storyline of Abstergo video game industries but gives Ubisoft valuable mission feedback. Within missions there are now several checkpoints to which a player can restart if they’re looking for that 100% synch. The feature is an absolute must as it makes missions far less frustrating. More stealth options mean new ways of completing missions. My favorite is the “whistling” option. It’s a great way to nab guards just out of hand’s reach. Another small, but significant, improvement is that looting only requires one touch of a button. No more accidental interruptions by guards, just a quick snatch and grab.
Side missions and collectibles receive their own feedback, resulting in Mayan Stellae, Naval Forts, Animus Fragments and Shanties. Mayan Stellae offer quick little puzzles with a big payoff, Mayan bulletproof armor. Naval Forts function like Borgia towers or Assassin dens in previous games. I especially like the fact they can’t be reclaimed. With so much else to do on the map, going back to defeat the fort – just to make sure you aren’t hounded while completing other missions – would be annoying. Black Flag intertwines collectibles into its gameplay much better than previous games. I really appreciate that these are already marked on your map, instead of having to “happen” upon them as you travel. With the larger open-world map of Black Flag, marking them is essential to retain interest. Animus fragments can be anywhere, in areas as small as sand banks, and their collections give the player multiplayer awards (whether or not that’s beneficial to you depends on your use of multiplayer). Shanties provide a wonderful way to immerse the player in the game and learn about traditions of old. They are properly difficult to catch and the fact that they disappear for a few minutes after a failed attempt is less than ideal, but understandable. Hearing them as you sail your pirate ship brings the player into the story and gives them something else to listen to besides the crash of waves.
No game is without its drawbacks, and though it reached near perfection, Black Flag does have a few. The running and fighting aspect, while fluid, might be too fluid. Kenway is rather eager in climbing ladders instead of buildings, or taking a sharp turn instead of a slight one. Getting used to the new controls does ease some of this frustration, but I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had to restart a mission because of fast footing. And speaking of missions, sometimes they run together too seamlessly. If a player wants to replay a mission due to poor synchronization, they might have to wait through 2-3 other missions to even get to the DNA progress screen. There’s also a small glitch in the first mission with regards to hunting. Though Kenway didn’t “receive” his Assassin gear, he can use the Assassin blade to hunt animals on the island. It’s small, yes, but worth noting. The biggest issue, however, is how large a role the multiplayer aspect plays in the game. As someone doesn’t enjoy multiplayer modes, and has a poor internet connection to boot, the multiplayer awards for collectibles really don’t intrigue me. In fact, once I made this realization, I stopped collecting the animus fragments. I almost wish Ubisoft would make multiplayer its own game. Leave me to my assassin’s and their storyline please.
Now we get to the intense narrative that really defines Assassin’s Creed. The pirate storyline is less Assassin oriented than Pirate, but don’t let that fool you, the game still involves Assassins. Kenway begins his journey as an assassin, and one of his best mates is an assassin – although he doesn’t discover that until later in his tale. We receive a rich tale of several real-life big name pirates – Blackbeard, Mary Read, and Charles Vane to name a few. We see the triumphant rise of piracy, and its lackluster fall as the world caught on. I can’t make much critique of this story. Multiple missions provided introductions to new game components, like underwater exploration and plantation robberies, while allowing for hours upon hours of engaging gameplay. Assassins overlapped with pirates, fusing the two worlds into an amazing entertainment experience. And at the end of my Black Flag replay I made the sober realization: This was the first game in the Assassin’s Creed series where I enjoyed the main story more than the overarching one. But why was that? For one so interested in storylines, why didn’t Black Flag check off all the boxes?
While the first person narration in Abstergo Entertainment does directly engage the player in the Assassin world, they don’t receive that rich characterization from previous titles. Melanie and John are really the only characters with which we interact. Melanie is entertaining, but she isn’t really a dynamic character. John drops creepy, mysterious hints as to his ulterior motives, but we only realize his devious nature at the end. Coworkers are all silent NPCs. I suppose I wanted more interaction with the world in which I was supposed to be invested. I want to talk to Shaun, see what icons are historically important. I long to hear Rebecca’s witty quips about “baby” and join in on her excitement at the latest technological opportunity. In becoming a character in a silent world that isn’t sided with either Templars or Assassin’s, the player becomes neutral component of the game. I actually miss the engagement we had from Assassin’s Creed III where we travelled to different modern day locations, making a difference in real time, or even the character exploration we received from Revelations, where we relived Desmond’s past with him. I just wanted something more to tie me to the war my character is (unknowingly) mediating. Now, don’t get me wrong. I still loved becoming a character in the game, hacking computers and reading secret sticky notes. It was absolutely delightful. But as much as I enjoyed it, I felt there was something missing from my experience. I want more than casual engagement in a storyline – I want to feel that sense of urgency that compels me to play both the modern and past story with equal vigor.
Black Flag exceeded my expectations. The extensive open world, multiple side missions, and character engagement set the game at a much higher standard than its predecessors. Multiplayer offered more to those who were looking for it and we received a solid enough overarching plot to transition us from the Desmond era. And although I would’ve liked a richer narrative, I can’t help but applaud the stories I did experience. Regardless of my own preferences, there’s no pretending that Black Flag wasn’t a spectacular game. Ultimately, it’s Ubisoft’s dedication to improvement that keeps me coming back to Assassin’s Creed for more. They nurture artistry and innovation in their game creations, which is obvious to see in the games they produce. At the end of Black Flag, I looked forward with anticipation and glee. The series was as strong as ever.
By: Jaclyn Cascio (@jaclynator)
J.J. Abrams brilliantly revived Star Trek movies for a new generation. Could Bryan Fuller do the same for Star Trek television? We haven’t seen anything Trekkie on TV since 2005, when Enterprise was cancelled due to poor ratings. Now, it looks like we’ll have to tune in to CBS All Access sometime this year to find out for ourselves if the magic is back with Star Trek Discovery!
Announced in November 2015, the impending 13-episode season of Star Trek Discovery has been in the works for some time. Creator and writer Bryan Fuller (Hannibal, American Gods) didn’t join the project until February 2016. Working along with Alex Kurtzman (Star Trek, Star Trek Into Darkness), the show began to take shape. Kurtzman and Fuller have both worked on various iterations of Star Trek and are trustworthy hands to place such a project into. Nicholas Meyer also joined the team as a writer and consulting producer, another Star Trek alumni who wrote an original Star Trek movie script or two. The trust is deepened with the involvement of Rod Roddenberry (son of Gene Roddenberry) and Trevor Roth, both serving as executive producers.
Eventually, in October of 2016, Bryan Fuller had to step down from his duties with Star Trek Discovery, most likely due to other obligations (such as the upcoming American Gods). However, the mythology and story arc that Fuller created for the season will be used, and Fuller has expressed interest in returning to the series if it continues and he has the time and an offer to do so. With the loss of Fuller, Star Trek Discovery gained Gretchen J. Berg and Aaron Harberts as replacement showrunners with Akiva Goldsman to provide support. Filming began at Pinewood Toronto Studios in January 2017 and is scheduled to continue until September.
So what’s this story that Fuller had a hand in creating before stepping away from the project? It looks like Star Trek Discovery will take place about 10 years before events in the original Star Trek series. Placed in the original “Prime” timeline (not the “Kelvin” alternate timeline in the new movies), it will follow the crew of the USS Discovery, particularly the lieutenant commander of the ship, (Number One) Rainsford. Season one of the show will revolve around an incident/event in Star Trek mythology that has been referred to and talked about, but never seen on screen or explored. As per usual, Star Trek Discovery intends to be progressive, as Gene Roddenberry always intended for that universe. The show plans to showcase minority, female, and LGBTQ characters, along with lots of aliens! (Because, you know…space.)
Sonequa Martin-Green (The Walking Dead) is set to play Number One, Lieutenant Commander Rainsford on the USS Discovery. She will be the first female African-American lead of a Star Trek series. Although not centered on the captain, he will still be a present part of the crew, with Jason Isaacs (whom you might remember as one Lucius Malfoy) as Captain Lorca. James Frain (Gotham) will play Sarek, the astrophysicist better known as the father of Spock, while Anthony Rapp will be Stamets, an openly gay character working as a science officer with a focus on space fungi. Mary Wisemen will be Tilly, a final year Starfleet cadet assigned to the USS Discovery and Doug Jones (known for his prosthetic acting work in movies like Pan’s Labyrinth and Hellboy) will be science officer Lieutenant Saru.
Meanwhile, over on a sister ship, the USS Shenzhou, Captain Georgiou (Michelle Yeoh) will be joined by a chief medical officer (Maulik Pancholy of 30 Rock) and junior officer Connor (Sam Vartholomeos). And somewhere is an Admiral Anderson, played by Terry Serpico.
And if you were hoping for Klingons, your prayers have been answered. Chris Obi will play Klingon leader T’Kuvma along with Shazad Latif as Kol, a commanding officer of Klingons. We will also see a Klingon ship battle deck commander named L’Rell (Mary Chieffo).
So the series is currently in production and coming this year. In a bold move, only the pilot episode of Star Trek Discovery will air on CBS. To watch the full series in America, each weekly episode will premiere on the new streaming service, CBS All Access. If you’re in Canada, the show will premiere on CTV and following episodes will air on Space (in English) and Z (French), moving then to CraveTV. If you find yourself in another country and desperate for a Star Trek fix, a ground-breaking agreement (which essentially funded the entire project) will allow Netflix to release each episode for streaming within 24 hours of the U.S. debut, allowing users in 188 countries to enjoy Star Trek Discovery.
However, we don’t have a release date for Star Trek Discovery just yet. While initially slated to premiere in January 2017, it was pushed to May 2017, and was delayed again for a late summer or early fall release. CBS Studios reported, “This is an ambitious project; we will be flexible on a launch date if it’s best for the show. We’ve said from the beginning it’s more important to do this right than to do it fast.”
Don’t get your underoos in a bunch, though. Star Trek Discovery is coming. Eventually. For more updates as production continues, you can follow the show on Twitter or on their Facebook page.
