Author: Simon Andrews

Today saw the release of the final explosive trailer for Marvel’s The Punisher, which will premiere next month. Frank Castle’s debut season marks the sixth collaboration between Netflix and Marvel. It also means that trying to keep track of the status of each individual Defenders character series is now becoming somewhat of a full-time occupation – especially with the latest Daredevil teaser. So why not let us take the effort out of that task, and bring you quickly up to speed on where everybody’s show currently stands? Marvel’s Jessica Jones Season 2 has already finished production, having flooded the internet with…

There aren’t many criticisms that can be leveled at the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but the regular inclusion of lackluster villains is the one criticism that Marvel has often struggled to shake off. Their heroic characters are carefully crafted, coming to the party with heartbreaking histories and a layered network of interesting relationships with one another. Which largely isn’t true of their opponents, who tend to have pretty shallow reasons for being angry at the world, and ultimately only hang around for the duration of one movie. Those colourful pages inMarvel comics are filled with highly dangerous and genuinely interesting antagonists,…

It’s hard to find a word to quantify how impactful the Marvel Cinematic Universe has been on both cinematic and comic-book culture. Marvel have created a format that’s enjoyed continual success, growing and expanding year on year. And one of the key reasons for that success has been the total saturation of their projects with character cameos, Easter-eggs and hidden in-jokes. Marvel understand that the best way to generate and maintain online chatter about their work is by keeping their hardcore fans engaged, even long after a movie has been released. From a blurry image that gets spied in a…

Of all the movies in the Marvel Cinematic Universe canon, Captain America: The Winter Soldier still remains the benchmark all the others have to aim for. It’s saturated with slickly-executed action sequences, deep character development and some pretty unbeatable performances from the cast. Chief among these was Frank Grillo’s killer debut as the villainous Brock Rumlow (Crossbones), and this week, the actor has teased he may well be reprising the role for future Marvel projects. Whilst being interviewed by Forbes about his role in the The Purge franchise, Grillo had this to say: “It’s great to be part of Marvel…

Other than that now infamously leaked San Diego Comic Con trailer, and some official concept art that surfaced online, the only other detail that has come from Marvel so far about Avengers: Infinity War is Joe Russo’s insinuation that we can expect some major character deaths. Which is upsetting, and became a whole lot more upsetting last weekend when Vin Diesel went and tweeted a rather unsettling picture of the character he provides the voice-work for known as Groot. A couple of months ago, a series of fan posters by South African artist Damian Peters started to do the rounds…

Recently, I spent a rather significant amount of time researching an article about actors who had managed to play more than one different Marvel character. Initially, I hadn’t thought there would be that many, but having trawled back through a vast collection of pre-Marvel Cinematic Universe Marvel movies, that list was soon spiraling out of all control, and had to eventually be cut back to a manageable 30 candidates. It was during the course of this lengthy search back and forth through the darker and dustier corners of IMDb that it became more and more apparent that the demographic of…

There are few tasks in the industry less daunting to a screenwriter than that of trying to adapt edgy and satirical comic-book material. Get it right, and you have the next ‘Deadpool’ or ‘Kick-Ass’ on your hands. Get it wrong, well. You’re looking at the next ‘Powers’ or ‘Powerless’. You see, regular readers of comic books are generally quite forgiving when you provide them with a steady flow of Easter-Eggs and In-Jokes. Larger audiences, however, are a lot more reluctant to suspend the necessary levels of disbelief. If you jettison the key features you need for an exciting superhero adventure…

DC fans have already witnessed some pretty twisted alternate versions of Bruce Wayne over the years. From the dimension destroying machinations of his Owlman doppelgänger, to the murderous vampiric Batman of Earth-43, there’s no shortage of nightmarish incarnations of how The Dark Knight could have ended up had he chosen to take a darker path. Well, the roster is about to get significantly bigger… Marvel’s answer to a very significant drop in comic-book sales has been the announcement of their LEGACY storyline. Whereas previous relaunches have focused on promoting and re-branding supporting characters in an effort to create new fan-favorites,…

For fans of Marvel’s Punisher, the arrival of November’s Netflix series simply cannot come quickly enough. Thankfully, a project that until recently was so shrouded in a thick layer of secrecy has suddenly become a great deal more accessible, with a flood of new material finding its way online within the past few weeks. First up were a number of high definition photos showing Jon Bernthal decked out in full costume, kicking ass and taking names in some official set pictures. These were accompanied by an updated promotional logo for the project, and then that heart-rendingly emotional teaser trailer hidden…

It’s turning into a hell of a year for fans of Marvel’s Punisher. Following an impressive debut in Season 2 of Marvel’s Daredevil, Jon Bernthal’s Marvel Cinematic Universe incarnation of the character is finally due to reappear on our TV screens in his own series in November – but that’s not the only new version of the character we’re going to be seeing. At the same time as The Punisher show will be arriving on Netflix, Marvel’s new ‘Legacy’ series will also be landing in comic book stores. This is the latest attempt by the company to reverse their falling…