There's very little we know about Hugh Jackman's final appearance as the "X-Men" hero Wolverine, other than the fact it will be a third and final "Wolverine" solo film happening relatively soon — the spring of 2017, to be exact. 

With three other "X-Men" movies in the pipeline first — "X-Men: Apocalypse" (where Jackman will next appear as Wolverine), "Deadpool", and "Gambit" (starring Channing Tatum)  — it's not likely that we'll hear much about Jackman's last solo outing for a little while. 

That doesn't mean Jackman isn't talking about it, though. Monday night, the star posted a photo on his Twitter account, asking fans what they would like to see in his final film wearing the iconic claws.  

This comes a few weeks after San Diego Comic-Con, where Jackman did some speculation of his own and teased a possible adaptation of "Old Man Logan"— a post-apocalyptic story where an older Wolverine is the only superhero left in a world dominated by villains.

The final "Wolverine" movie, which remains untitled, is scheduled to arrive in theaters on March 3, 2017.

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In mid-July, Marvel announced that its forthcoming "All-New, All-Different" line of comic books would be accompanied by a full range of over 50 alternate covers paying homage to iconic hip-hop album art.

"For years, Marvel Comics and Hip-Hop culture have been engaged in an ongoing dialog," Marvel Editor-in-Chief Axel Alonso said in a press release.  "Beginning this October, we will shine a spotlight on the seamless relationship between those two unique forces when we unveil the first of more than fifty variant covers, each of which pays tribute to an iconic album cover from the past 30 years that shaped pop-culture over the past three decades."

The covers will feature art riffing on a number of iconic hip-hop albums from the past 30 years, with everything from Wu-Tang Clan's "Enter the Wu-Tang: 36 Chambers" and Lauryn Hill's "The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill" to 50 Cent's "Get Rich or Die Trying" and Nas' "Illmatic."

Another case of cultural appropriation?

The initiative wasn't particularly well-received online. Criticssaidthecovers were nothing more than a classic case of cultural appropriation, yet another instance where a company capitalizes on the art and ethos of a marginalized culture it doesn't engage with in order to drive profits. It's a recurring theme in pop culture, from Elvis Presley (whose trademark rockabilly sound took cues from R&B and Gospel and made them palatable to mainstream, white audiences) to Miley Cyrus (whose post-"Hannah Montana" rebirth has been defined by an affectation for Ratchet culture as an accessory).

David Brothers, a comics professional and critic specializing in the intersection of race and comics, articulated on Tumblr that Marvel's hip-hop covers were doing much of the same — looking to profit from a month-long nod to hip-hop (a genre inextricable from Black culture) while ignoring the fact that it employs a disproportionate amount of Black creators. This, coming on the heels of a newly-announced universe that will comprise 50 entirely new series, with none of the currently-announced titles having a Black writer, is a bad look.

"One issue with Marvel publishing hip-hop-themed covers in the wake of not hiring black creators is that…a dialogue goes two ways," writes Brothers. "Axel Alonso said Marvel has been in a long dialogue with rap music, but that isn’t true. It’s a long monologue, from rap to Marvel, with Marvel never really giving back like it should or could."

It's worth noting — and this is something Brothers acknowledges — that to Marvel's credit, the publisher has hired Black creators like the Jamaican-American artist Damion Scott and African-American artist Khary Randolph to produce a number of these hip-hop tribute covers. But this still comes across poorly, since the same artists aren't currently working on any Marvel books, and precious few other Black artists are already working on Marvel books. 

This is also coming at a time when Marvel is finally recognizing the diversity of their readership, and making strides towards having its characters reflect that. With newcomers like Kamala Khan, the Pakistani-American teen that stars in "Ms. Marvel," and more prominent roles given to existing characters of color — like Sam Wilson, the former Falcon and current Captain America — Marvel's reticence to actively engage with critics is all the more frustrating.

In his regular interview column over at Comic Book Resources,  Marvel Editor-In-Chief Axel Alonso comes across as rather adversarial when addressing the criticisms the publisher has received over the initiative. 

"We talked about how this initiative would likely be a lightning rod for a broader discussion about diversity in comics, and I said so be it, that's a good conversation to have," said Alonso. "But some of the 'conversation' in the comics internet community seems to have been ill-informed and far from constructive. A small but very loud contingent are high-fiving each other while making huge assumptions about our intentions, spreading misinformation about the diversity of the artists involved in this project and across our entire line, and handing out snap judgments like they just learned the term 'cultural appropriation' and are dying to put it in an essay. And the personal attacks -- some implying or outright stating that I'm a racist. Hey, I'm a first-generation Mexican-American."

Alonso then went on to praise the diversity of his editors and announced that some of the covers would come from new talent that Marvel has never worked with before — and could conceivably do even more work for the publisher in the future. 

So why the controversy?

Artists and influence

A big part of the problem is how artists tend to be treated at the Big Two publishers, Marvel and DC — they're the majority of the work force, responsible for what's probably the most labor-intensive part of making a comic book. Unlike writers, many of whom can (and do) take on about five monthly series at a time, a professional comic book artist can only really commit to one monthly publication.

The natural consequence of this is one of influence — despite being integral to the success of the book they work on, they aren't seen as "architects" of a publisher's universe because — unless they are also writers — they aren't visible as a guiding force for an editorial direction. This is multiplied by certain long-running, flagship titles like "Amazing Spider-Man" or some of the "X-Men" books, titles that ship twice monthly and often have a rotation of artists to hotswap out in order to meet their aggressive shipping schedule. 

Of course, there are exceptions, and good ones at that. Some of the best, most highly-acclaimed books that Marvel and DC publish tend to have artists that are either credited or considered as co-storytellers with the writers they work with (like Chris Samnee on "Daredevil", or Greg Capullo on "Batman"). Other times, the publisher will assign an idiosyncratic, well-known artist to a book specifically because their distinct style will get readers excited and help the book succeed (Think Michael Allred on "Silver Surfer", or John Romita Jr. on "Superman"). 

But again, these are exceptions, and the day-to-day reality of it all comes with the unfortunate side effect of making the contribution of an artist appear diminished in the grand scheme of things — they are the driving force behind less books than their writing counterparts, and participate in a system where they often appear to be interchangeable cogs in a machine designed to ship books as fast as possible.

In this context, minority creators are there to be seen, and not heard. 

This is the frustration inherent in discussing diversity in comics — representation is nice, but it's not worth a thing if you won't listen to the people who are underrepresented. As journalist and editor Laura Hudson writes in Wired, those in charge often aren't eager to listen to the critics from cultures they are ostensibly trying to reach. 

"When faced with these sorts of criticisms," writes Hudson, "the responses from publishers and creators tend to be a jumble of righteous indignation about good intentions or creative freedom, vague lip-service to the importance of diversity, or outright dismissal ...Rather than seeing diversity initiatives as a matter of altruism or avoiding controversy, the most transformational approach advocated by critics and creators alike is the one that views it both as a form of honesty and as a valuable creative investment."

Hip-hop is a vast and diverse genre of music, containing multitudes of sub-genres and sensibilities. It is, in its endless variety, honest and raw, offensive and heartfelt, unsettling and beautiful. 

Most often, it is the art form of people with no other recourse; the only place where they could ever hope to be heard. 

You can't have a dialogue with hip-hop without acknowledging that. 

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NOW WATCH: Marvel celebrates the release of ‘Ant-Man’ with a microscopic art show

"You can tell in a few seconds whether or not any given comic is a world you want to spend time in."

Someone told me this recently over dinner, as we caught up and chatted about work and life and comics. I've thought about it a bit, because comics, unlike most other media I consume, have a way of creeping up on you. You don't know how passionately you feel about a given comic you've been reading until you sit down to talk about it, and realize that it's taken up residence in a corner of your brain, resonating with you at a low frequency, waiting for you to turn the dial just enough and everything clicks and you know exactly why you've been following this story from month to month. 

"Low" is a book that I instantly knew I had to spend time with. I was sold from the moment I saw the first cover. But it wasn't until several months later that I knew it was a favorite of mine, or that I cared about it so much. 

A monthly comic book by writer Rick Remender and artist Greg Tocchini, "Low" takes place in the far future, long after Earth's sun has expanded and rendered the surface of our planet uninhabitable. To survive, humanity retreated to the depths of the ocean while sending out probes in the hopes of finding another habitable world. 

However, "Low" doesn't actually kick off until thousands of years after all that. We didn't find a new world, and we're just about out of resources on this one. Humanity has resigned itself to a life of unrepentant hedonism for the upper class and bleak nihilism for the rest. Hope — for a better life, a better future, one where humanity survives — is such a radical concept that it has become a religion. 

Stel, the protagonist, is a believer, a woman who has faith in the so-called "Delirium of Hope."

She's going to need that faith, too, because the story begins with her entire family being torn apart. In the heartbreaking first issue, Stel's happy family encounters a band of ruthless pirates who kill her husband and kidnap her daughters, leaving her alone with her son, Marik.

She won't find her daughters for years. 

"Low" isn't exactly a subtle book — it's about a woman brought down to the depths of despair set at the bottom of the ocean, which couldn't be more on the nose if it were called "This Is A Comic About Depression"— but there's just so much it does right. 

The first thing being the art. 

Few books draw me in the way "Low" does, because few artists approach comics like Greg Tocchini. Tocchini eschews hard angles and straight lines in favor of a flowing, curvy line that gives the book's post-apocalyptic undersea setting a life of its own. Accompanied by a rich and varied color palette and an aesthetic that's genuinely fresh and unique, "Low" is a book that makes you want to sink to its depths and root for Stel to defy all odds and rise again. 

As a physical object, "Low" is also gorgeously designed and beautifully rendered. The cover art is consistently fantastic, the sort of thing you could stare at forever, and every element — from the title to the price to the back cover — is thoughtfully placed to provide a complete experience.  

Writer Rick Remender is known primarily for propulsive high-concept science fiction on books like "Fear Agent" and "Black Science" (as well as acclaimed stints on Marvel comics like "Uncanny X-Force") that, at their best, keep their sights squarely focesed on the characters at the center of their sci-fi bigness. 

"Low", however, might be Remender's most personal work yet, but also his most accessible. It's elegant in its simplicity, a cathartic excision of crushing despair that one feels as their world collapses around them and optimism becomes harder and harder to hold on to. Stel is defiant, if not downright foolhardy, in her faith in the future, even as more of what she loves is stripped away from her, even if every step closer to her goal unveils some new heartbreak. She continues to push on. 

It works because sometimes we don't need the heroes of our fiction to save cities or worlds. Sometimes we need them to just keep getting back up again. Sometimes we just need them to remind us that there is always hope.

You can easily pick up the first volume of "Low"— which collects the series' first six issues — on Comixology, Amazon, or anywhere comics are sold. 

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In mid-July, Marvel announced that its forthcoming "All-New, All-Different" line of comic books would be accompanied by a full range of over 50 alternate covers paying homage to iconic hip-hop album art.

Join the conversation about this story »

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At the beginning of the year, New Line Cinema announced it would rebooting author and screenwriter Ernest Tidyman's '70s action hero John Shaft in a brand new film. The project was announced in February, but details remained scarce. Then, at the end of July, New Line announced the creative team behind the film, which included "Black-ish" creator Kenya Barris and "The Goldbergs" producer Alex Barnow.

Given the pedigree of the writers hired for the project, it should probably come as no surprise that the New Line's plans are to make the "Shaft' reboot with a "comedic tone" that will "retain its action roots," per The Hollywood Reporter. (This would be the second reboot, following the 2003 John Singleton film starring Samuel L. Jackson)

This is a move that some writers and critics, like Complex's Frida Garza, are intrigued by. Others, like Devin Faraci of Birth.Movies.Death, are a bit skeptical of the move. 

But no one has reacted as passionately as David Walker, the comic book writer and filmmaker responsible for the recently-concluded, award-winning, and all-around excellent "Shaft" comic book miniseries with artist Bilquis Everly for Dynamite Entertainment, along with "Shaft's Revenge", the first official Shaft novel authorized by creator Ernest Tidyman's estate since the 1970s. 

In a blog post titled "An Open Letter Regarding SHAFT' Walker published on his pop culture-oriented website BadAzz MoFo, Walker railed against the notion of a "Shaft" comedy, writing: 

"Police brutality has reached epidemic proportions, and white supremacists seem intent on pushing this nation toward a violent and deadly racial conflict. Last month, an armed white man walked into a church, and massacred nine black people. Not since the 1960s has there been more of a need for a black action hero—one that can provide a cathartic escape from life’s day-to-day horrors, and deliver the sort of wish fulfillment that cinema is intended to do."

Walker argues that the character of John Shaft is such a rarity — a black action hero, a character archetype almost entirely missing from modern cinema — that changing him from iconic badass to comedic action hero isn't just a complete misreading of the character, it's irresponsible. 

"When we look at what happened in the late '60s and early '70s, in terms of  film and television, what was going on in America with the Civil Rights movement and a lot of the violence that we were seeing across this country, there was this response to it that manifested in the early '70s," Walker said in a follow-up interview with Tech Insider. "That's when 'Shaft' came out, and 'Sweet Sweetbacks Baadasssss Song'. I want to be really careful that I don't say 'It's just like it was back in '65' — but there's a lot of similarities there, and it feels like a lot of the unresolved business of the Civil Rights movement of the '60s; we're now facing them 50 years later."

Hence, Walker's point about police brutality, and the necessary cathartic release of a black action hero. Of course, this could also take the form in the most popular type of action hero in 2015: The superhero (Walker currently writes the DC Comics series "Cyborg", which just launched in July). But that doesn't make it an easy thing to accomplish in our culture right now.

"The challenge is always going to be getting people to look at things they are uncomfortable with," says Walker. "Our superheroes are modern-day versions of the gods of old mythology. They are there to give us morality tales of good vs. evil, right vs. wrong. We're living in a time in society right now where we really have to question our notions of who are the good guys and who are the bad guys. And the reality is that when a police officer shoots an unarmed person in the face, we have to question — what are the roles here?" There are still some people who want to believe that the police are absolutely 100% good. We don't live in a world of moral absolutes, we never have. I really do think we need to address some of this stuff."

Despite his harsh criticism for the police in light of the sobering number of highly-publicized incidents of police brutality against victims like Eric Garner and Sam Dubose, Walker acknowledges that the problem isn't so much the police as it is "a racial ideology that diminishes the value of black life." It's a subject that Walker believes pop culture needs to address, and that "Shaft" is the ideal response to it — much like it was 40 years ago. 

"I'm not opposed to comedy in any context, but I think for black people — we're either sidekicks, or victims, or the joke tellers. I'm trying to think of a movie in the last several years I've seen where, there's an actual black hero where he's not a sidekick and there's not a comedic bent to to him — I think with the exception of Denzel Washington and 'The Equalizer' — it's all been sidekicks or comic relief. He's just about all we're given. We get Denzel, we get Will Smith, and we've got Jamie Foxx right now — we're about to get Michael B. Jordan."

They're all fantastic actors, notes Walker — but black actors are still terribly underrepresented in lead action roles, which makes the comedic twist to "Shaft" hurt that much more. 

"If you're starving — I don't care how you feel about fast food," says Walker. "But if you're starving, McDonald's is going to feel like a feast, Burger King is going to feel like a feast. As a culture, and as a people, we're starving." 

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Deadpool is the new black. 

The forthcoming movie starring the Marvel Comics antihero is quite unlike any other superhero film we've seen so far, an R-rated action-comedy with a self-deprecating, fourth-wall breaking sense of humor that's evident right from the very first official video released for the movie: A trailer for its trailer.

If you aren't familiar with Deadpool from the comics, this is exactly the sort of thing he's known for — self aware jabs at the conventions of the genre he appears in. It's one of the things Deadpool fans love about him. The trailer plays directly into this — on the movie's official Facebook page, the post accompanying the trailer reads:

 "#Deadpool did a trailer to a trailer. What a post-modern assh***."

That's the sort of meme-y glibness the Internet just loves. In fact, Deadpool might be the perfect superhero for Internet fandom. 

"He really is the Internet's. He came of age along with the Internet,"current "Deadpool" comic writer Gerry Duggan tells Tech Insider. "There is something to that — there are people who only know him from Tumblr ... there was a newness to Deadpool, and he wasn't that hard to sort of go back and reread everything that had been done because as much of it as there was, you're not talking about a legacy character like Spider-Man or Captain America that goes back decades and decades. He was a bit easier to mine."

Deadpool is unique among superheroes in that he has — by no real effort on the part of his creators or Marvel — grown to become the comic book personification of internet memes. 

"It's definitely a double-edged sword," says Duggan. "I think there are people that dismiss Deadpool stories out of hand, because maybe they have seen stuff online that someone makes that we didn't make, and they think 'Oh that's just crude and crass.' And that's not really our bag, we're really trying to write humor. It may or may not be crude, but Deadpool is a character that's out there just selling himself now. Whether it's in cosplay, or fanfic — even if it's just taking pages out of context — they sort of live online."

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The first reviews for 20th Century Fox's "Fantastic Four" reboot have finally hit the Internet, and they seem to confirm the negative buzz that has been surrounding the film for months.

Most of the criticism centers around an underwhelming story that takes too long to build to its climax and an underutilized cast.

Here's a roundup of four of the first reviews to hit the web: 

The Hollywood Reporter:

"All of this takes at least an hour and it's build-up to...nothing at all. A sense of heaviness, gloom and complete disappointment settles in during the second half, as the mundane set-up results in no dramatic or sensory dividends whatsoever. Even if lip-service is paid to some great threat to life on Earth as we know it, the filmmakers bring nothing new to the formula, resulting in a film that's all wind-up and no delivery. If the writers couldn't think of anything interesting to do with these characters in this first series reboot, they do nothing to inspire the viewer to expect they could do something exciting with a sequel."

The Wrap:

"It’s one thing for a movie to leave you wanting a sequel and quite another to make you wish you were watching that sequel instead.“Fantastic Four” — the second attempt by Fox and the third by Hollywood in general to bring Marvel Comics’ popular superteam to the big screen — offers glimmers of good things to come in its final moments, but only after the audience has slogged through yet another dispiriting origin story and yet another Earth-rescuing battle in a bland, CG-created nowhere land."

Variety:

"If the original comics were defined in part by the interaction of the characters — from Ben’s depression at having become a “monster” to the budding relationship between Reed and Sue to Johnny and Ben’s squabbling — those dynamics emerge only fitfully. And while comicbook aficionados will likely welcome the seriousness of tone, the near-absence of humor and lengthy emphasis on building the interdimensional portal largely handcuffs the cast, with only a hint, for example, of the ebullience Johnny gleans from his newfound powers."

Digital Spy:

"The biggest mistake here seems to have been trying to marry a dark and realistic tone with the story of four teenagers whose superpowers include transforming into rock, generating force fields and becoming very stretchy. While far from the unmitigated disaster some had predicted, Fantastic Four feels unlikely to kick-start a new franchise, barely sustaining the narrative steam to power itself through its modest 90-minute running time."

As bleak as all that sounds, maybe don't abandon all hope yet? There have been a few other screenings so far, and fan buzz on Twitter from them is pretty positive.

"Fantastic Four" premieres Friday, August 7, 2015.

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One of the show-stoppers of 20th Century Fox's big San Diego Comic-Con panel was the trailer for the X-Men spinoff film "Deadpool." Fans reportedly loved it — so much so that the trailer was shown twice! Tuesday night, the official trailer was released and it was quickly trending online. Gifs from the trailer can be found all over Tumblr.

But who is Deadpool, and why is this a big deal?

Created in 1991 by Fabian Nicieza and Rob Liefeld, Deadpool was originally an antihero in the Punisher mold, a scumbag antihero with big guns and two swords. But in 1997 writer Joe Kelly and artist Ed McGuiness decided to reinvent the character completely, and it's thanks to those two that Deadpool is famous. 

The Deadpool Kelly and McGuiness depicted was a parody machine, lambasting every trope of action heroes and superhero comics with an extra fourth-wall breaking twist: Deadpool knew he was a comic book character, and talked about it all the time. Since then, that's been a defining trait of the character, who has since become the hero of numerous violent action-comedy comics, each more ridiculous than the last (The recently concluded series by Brian Posehn, Gerry Duggan, and Tony Moore kicked off with Deadpool taking on zombie US Presidents).

That's what people love about Deadpool: Over-the-top action and crazy meta-comedy. 

And from the trailer screened at San Diego Comic-Con, which is now available for all to see, it looks like this new movie is getting everything right. It's remarkably faithful to the source material. We're introduced to Ryan Reynolds character, Wade Wilson, a man with cancer in his "liver, lungs, prostate, and brain," promptly quipping that they are  "all things I can live without."

Humor? Check. 

Wilson then submits himself to a military experiment that promises to make him "a superhero" and heal him. In the comic books, this is the same Weapon X project that gave Wolverine his metal skeleton and claws.  Just before the procedure begins, Wilson requests that they "please don't make the super suit green. Or animated!"

Meta-humor? Double check.

Then, an action sequence that looks like a pretty close live-action approximation of the leaked CGI test footage that fans adored — only with a sudden, surprise cameo by Colossus. 

Not-very-subtle connection to the X-Men? Check.

Then Deadpool tells the audience that "he's touching himself tonight."

Breaking down that fourth wall? Definitely.

Oh, and then they reveal the side-effect to the experiment that turned Wade into Deadpool — his skin is horribly scarred and disfigured, and there are several very descriptive and filthy jokes traded between Wade and his pal about how ugly he now looks. "Like an avocado had sex with an older avocado" is probably the tamest one, I swear. Then there's a bunch of stylish and gory violence, complete with headshots.

R-rated comedy and violence? Totally there. 

Deadpool is a character you sort of have to experience for yourself to understand why he has such ardent fans, but it's hard to miss the appeal of an exuberantly irreverent R-rated superhero comedy. It's something that we haven't really seen before outside of maybe the first "Kick-Ass," and as we become more and more accustomed to the spectacle of superheroes onscreen, "Deadpool" could prove to be an extremely fun palate cleanser. 

At the very least, it's a heartfelt apology for the first time Reynolds played Deadpool in "X-Men Origins: Wolverine." Because that was horrendous. 

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This might be hard to believe given that the early buzz on 20th Century Fox's big "Fantastic Four" reboot has been overwhelmingly negative, but the "Fantastic Four" comic books the movie is based on really are incredible.

It cannot be stressed enough how influential the "Fantastic Four" comics kicked off by Jack Kirby and Stan Lee are. Writing them off is a terrible mistake that's unfortunately very easy to make thanks to their apparent inability to crack into the wider pop culture consciousness, but that doesn't change the fact that almost everything you love about modern superheroes (and Marvel in particular) started with "The Fantastic Four."

And that doesn't change the fact that the villain at the center of the new movie, Doctor Doom, was always going to be the biggest challenge this or any "Fantastic Four" movie was going to face. 

If it's hard to believe that the comic books from which the Fantastic Four sprang to life are enduring classics, trying to convince you that a guy named "Doctor Doom" (real name: Victor Von Doom. Not kidding) is one of the best villains in comics isn't that far off from asking you to perform a trust fall over a pile of broken glass. It sounds preposterous!

Look, you're not an unreasonable person if you do think this. I thought this, until not too long ago. But then I read some Fantastic Four comics featuring Doctor Doom, and they were some of the best superhero books I've ever read. 

One of these comics is "Fantastic Four" #67 by Mark Waid and Mike Wieringo. It's the prologue to a story called "Unthinkable," (an early highlight of Waid and Wieringo's now-classic run, well worth reading in its entirety). "Unthinkable" is a great, hard-to-put-down read that does a lot to sell Doctor Doom as Greatest Villain Ever, but if you only have time to read a single issue instead of five, read "Fantastic Four" #67. 

It'll surprise you, mostly because the Fantastic Four aren't really in it. Instead, it's about Victor Von Doom traveling incognito in search of his lost love. Interspersed between scenes of his ongoing search are moments from his youth and how he fell in love, which goes a long way towards making Doom sympathetic, but don't sacrifice the arrogance that is integral to his character. It ends with one of the most chilling twists in Marvel comics — a ruthless act that cements Doom's place as one of the best Marvel villains for being both shocking and completely in character. 

One of the things that makes Doom such a great character is that he isn't straight-up maliciously evil — he just believes that he is above everyone else with every fiber of his being. He would be the world's greatest hero, if it meant that it would prove that he was better than everyone alive. But because that's something that people he considers beneath him spend their time doing — like Reed Richards and the Fantastic Four — he'd rather devote his time to destroying them in order to prove that he is a man of superior intellect and fortitude.

Probably the best moment to ever illustrate this was in "New Avengers" #24 by Jonathan Hickman and Mike Deodato, Jr, in which one character, humbled by the utter failure of his last-ditch attempt to save the entire universe, turns to Doom for help. That's one of my top five pages in all of superhero comics, because it's such a perfect encapsulation of Doom's character, and why he's unlike anything else in all of fiction. "Doom is no man's second choice" is a line so good, I want it tattooed on my forearm so I can read it every time I pick up a comic book. 

All of this serves to illustrate how there's a certain purity to Doom's character that is utterly compelling for a villain to have. That he's the ruler of a sovereign nation while being both a brilliant scientist and master sorcerer whose machinations have often brought him within reach of godhood (a goal he's achieved in Marvel's big "Secret Wars" epic that's going on right now) just serves to amplify these traits and make him a frighteningly formidable foe.

Whatever the new movie portrays Doctor Doom as — at this point it's probably a spoiler to talk about in detail, other than the fact that it looks like the movie's really off-base — chances are that we won't see this Doom onscreen. It requires too much faith in Doom as a character and a concept, something that a studio trying so very hard to make the Fantastic Four "dark" and "cool" isn't likely to do. 

Which in turn, is probably while we'll never get a good version of the heroes he faces in theaters, either. 

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Deadpool is the new black. 

The forthcoming movie starring the Marvel Comics antihero is quite unlike any other superhero film we've seen so far, an R-rated action-comedy with a self-deprecating, fourth-wall breaking sense of humor that's evident right from the very first official video released for the movie: A trailer for its trailer.

If you aren't familiar with Deadpool from the comics, this is exactly the sort of thing he's known for — self aware jabs at the conventions of the genre he appears in. It's one of the things Deadpool fans love about him. The trailer plays directly into this — on the movie's official Facebook page, the post accompanying the trailer reads:

 "#Deadpool did a trailer to a trailer. What a post-modern assh***."

That's the sort of meme-y glibness the Internet just loves. In fact, Deadpool might be the perfect superhero for Internet fandom. 

"He really is the Internet's. He came of age along with the Internet,"current "Deadpool" comic writer Gerry Duggan tells Tech Insider. "There is something to that — there are people who only know him from Tumblr ... there was a newness to Deadpool, and he wasn't that hard to sort of go back and reread everything that had been done because as much of it as there was, you're not talking about a legacy character like Spider-Man or Captain America that goes back decades and decades. He was a bit easier to mine."

Deadpool is unique among superheroes in that he has — by no real effort on the part of his creators or Marvel — grown to become the comic book personification of internet memes. 

"It's definitely a double-edged sword," says Duggan. "I think there are people that dismiss Deadpool stories out of hand, because maybe they have seen stuff online that someone makes that we didn't make, and they think 'Oh that's just crude and crass.' And that's not really our bag, we're really trying to write humor. It may or may not be crude, but Deadpool is a character that's out there just selling himself now. Whether it's in cosplay, or fanfic — even if it's just taking pages out of context — they sort of live online."

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This might be hard to believe given that the early buzz on 20th Century Fox's big "Fantastic Four" reboot has been overwhelmingly negative, but the "Fantastic Four" comic books the movie is based on really are incredible.

It cannot be stressed enough how influential the "Fantastic Four" comics kicked off by Jack Kirby and Stan Lee are. Writing them off is a terrible mistake that's unfortunately very easy to make thanks to their apparent inability to crack into the wider pop culture consciousness, but that doesn't change the fact that almost everything you love about modern superheroes (and Marvel in particular) started with "The Fantastic Four."

And that doesn't change the fact that the villain at the center of the new movie, Doctor Doom, was always going to be the biggest challenge this or any "Fantastic Four" movie was going to face. 

If it's hard to believe that the comic books from which the Fantastic Four sprang to life are enduring classics, trying to convince you that a guy named "Doctor Doom" (real name: Victor Von Doom. Not kidding) is one of the best villains in comics isn't that far off from asking you to perform a trust fall over a pile of broken glass. It sounds preposterous!

Look, you're not an unreasonable person if you do think this. I thought this, until not too long ago. But then I read some Fantastic Four comics featuring Doctor Doom, and they were some of the best superhero books I've ever read. 

One of these comics is "Fantastic Four" #67 by Mark Waid and Mike Wieringo. It's the prologue to a story called "Unthinkable," (an early highlight of Waid and Wieringo's now-classic run, well worth reading in its entirety). "Unthinkable" is a great, hard-to-put-down read that does a lot to sell Doctor Doom as Greatest Villain Ever, but if you only have time to read a single issue instead of five, read "Fantastic Four" #67. 

It'll surprise you, mostly because the Fantastic Four aren't really in it. Instead, it's about Victor Von Doom traveling incognito in search of his lost love. Interspersed between scenes of his ongoing search are moments from his youth and how he fell in love, which goes a long way towards making Doom sympathetic, but don't sacrifice the arrogance that is integral to his character. It ends with one of the most chilling twists in Marvel comics — a ruthless act that cements Doom's place as one of the best Marvel villains for being both shocking and completely in character. 

One of the things that makes Doom such a great character is that he isn't straight-up maliciously evil — he just believes that he is above everyone else with every fiber of his being. He would be the world's greatest hero, if it meant that it would prove that he was better than everyone alive. But because that's something that people he considers beneath him spend their time doing — like Reed Richards and the Fantastic Four — he'd rather devote his time to destroying them in order to prove that he is a man of superior intellect and fortitude.

Probably the best moment to ever illustrate this was in "New Avengers" #24 by Jonathan Hickman and Mike Deodato, Jr, in which one character, humbled by the utter failure of his last-ditch attempt to save the entire universe, turns to Doom for help. That's one of my top five pages in all of superhero comics, because it's such a perfect encapsulation of Doom's character, and why he's unlike anything else in all of fiction. "Doom is no man's second choice" is a line so good, I want it tattooed on my forearm so I can read it every time I pick up a comic book. 

All of this serves to illustrate how there's a certain purity to Doom's character that is utterly compelling for a villain to have. That he's the ruler of a sovereign nation while being both a brilliant scientist and master sorcerer whose machinations have often brought him within reach of godhood (a goal he's achieved in Marvel's big "Secret Wars" epic that's going on right now) just serves to amplify these traits and make him a frighteningly formidable foe.

Whatever the new movie portrays Doctor Doom as — at this point it's probably a spoiler to talk about in detail, other than the fact that it looks like the movie's really off-base — chances are that we won't see this Doom onscreen. It requires too much faith in Doom as a character and a concept, something that a studio trying so very hard to make the Fantastic Four "dark" and "cool" isn't likely to do. 

Which in turn, is probably while we'll never get a good version of the heroes he faces in theaters, either. 

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"Fantastic Four" has only been out for one weekend, but it has already been deemed a failure. 

Some of the criticism will be well-deserved — there are very obvious problems with the movie, problems that are easily identified and very clearly hamstring all the good things the film has going for it. Problems like erratic, strange pacing, a terrible climax, and a total lack of a compelling antagonist. It's a terrible shame, really. 

If you've read any of the comics coverage I've written here, you might have figured out that I absolutely love the Fantastic Four. They're great characters unlike any others in comics, and all the things that make them unique in the comics — the fact that they are a family with a married couple at its core, that they are explorers and scientists first and foremost, that they are all about the joy and wonder of the unknown forever exploring the farthest reaches of imagination— these  are all things that make them something superhero blockbusters desperately need right now. 

But we're here to talk about a movie, not a comic book, and while it's easy to point out the various ways "Fantastic Four" fails its source material, it's probably far more egregious a sin that the movie doesn't do justice to the immense talent of everyone working on it.

Director Josh Trank has only made one feature film before this — the excellent found footage superhero horror story "Chronicle"— but it established him as a promising, interesting storyteller who might do something special with an honest-to-God comic book franchise. He's also assembled a cast of some terrific young actors at the top of their game, particularly Miles Teller ("Whiplash") and Michael B. Jordan ("Fruitvale Station"). 

It's an utter shame to see all that talent go to waste here. 

Make no mistake, though — the movie isn't all bad. Not in the least! The first half is really compelling stuff, introducing us to seven-year-old genius Reed Richards and his best friend Ben Grimm, before jumping to his teen years where he's talent scouted by Dr. Franklin Storm (Reg E. Cathey) to join the Baxter program, a sort of government think tank currently devoted to cracking interdimensional travel  — a problem Reed has inadvertently solved. 

This first half of the film makes "Fantastic Four" more science fiction than traditional superhero story, and if you don't mind the lack of action or spectacle it's really quite good. Even after the teleportation accident that transforms Reed, along with three of his associates and his best friend Ben, there are flashes of a fascinating film unlike anything we've really seen before in superhero cinema: a sci-fi horror story.

Then it faceplants. Hard.

Not long after Reed and his friends transform — Johnny Storm (Michael B. Jordan) into a human torch, Sue Storm (Kate Mara) can turn invisible and project force fields, Ben Grimm (Jamie Bell) changes into a massive, rock monster, and Victor Von Doom (Toby Kebbel) goes missing — the film starts to quickly fall to pieces. Characters start doing things for reasons that make little sense, one time jump too many gives the film a choppy, stitched-together feel, and it leaps — it certainly doesn't build— to the messiest climax I've seen in a blockbuster movie in a long time. 

That climax is where all the film's problems come to a head — Doom returns, similarly changed (good luck trying to figure out how, though — outside of his disfigurement, the film doesn't even bother trying to explain his powers) and after a genuinely brilliant and scary scene where he kills his way through the lab, he's pursued by the as-yet-unnamed Fantastic Four back to Planet Zero, the other dimension from which the Four's powers originate. 

What follows is a mess of a final fight scene, one that seems to come completely out of nowhere while also managing to be the least exciting thing ever. That it takes place in a barren CGI landscape certainly does not help.

And just like that, the movie's over. 

Yet calling "Fantastic Four"bad doesn't seem to feel right. Make no mistake — it certainly isn't good — but what it feels, more than anything, is incomplete. Already, much has been made of the ugly behind-the-scenes battle that has unfolded across numerous articles across various publications, but many people who will see this movie will also never read them. They'll never wonder if they could've gotten something different; they'll just know that what they got is a mess.

Worst of all, it's a mess that will likely scare many people away from some of the finest superhero comics ever made.

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Marvel's next big film, "Captain America: Civil War" has so many superheroes in it, it's practically an "Avengers" sequel. But thrown in with a cast that includes everyone from Falcon (Anthony Mackie) to The Vision (Paul Bettany) are two huge heroes making their Marvel Cinematic Universe debut: Spider-Man and Black Panther. 

While bits and pieces about Spidey's appearance have trickled out ever since 19-year-old Tom Holland was cast in the role, we still know very little about Chadwick Boseman's Black Panther other than the character will likely fill a neutral role, refusing to take sides in the titular conflict between Captain America and Iron Man.

For the uninitiated, Black Panther is the alter ego of T'Challa, king of the fictional African nation of Wakanda. Wakanda is an extremely important location in the Marvel Universe, because — in addition to being a bastion of learning and technology far more advanced than that of the Western world — it's also home to some of the largest deposits of Vibranium, the super-rare metal found in Captain America's shield (and sought after by the titular villain in "Avengers: Age of Ultron"). 

Thanks to a sly Instagrammer named Andreas Meyer, we now have our first look at Black Panther in costume and on set:

#ChadwickBoseman as #BlackPanther and #SebastianStan as #BuckyBarnes #filming in #Berlin for #CaptainAmerica #civilWar #Action #Stunt #marvel #marvelcomics

A photo posted by Andreas Meyer (@meyerfotos) on Aug 12, 2015 at 9:37am PDT

The photo shows off a costume that adheres pretty closely to the concept art revealed at Marvel's big Phase 3 event last October — it's certainly not as slick, but this is a fuzzy set photo, a far cry from a color-corrected and CG-enhanced still that will more fully convey the high-tech nature of the Black Panther suit from the comics. 

"Captain America: Civil War" is currently in production and scheduled to hit theaters on May 6, 2016. 

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"Fantastic Four" is a strange comic book movie, one that's very shy on the actual superheroics. This could have been one of the film's great strengths, but ultimately served to cripple it in the long run. But how much of it comes from the source material?

Quite a bit, it turns out. 

If there's any direct comic book parallel to the story in "Fantastic Four," it's in the comic book series "Ultimate Fantastic Four," a 2003 comic book series that rebooted Marvel's First Family in a 21st century context. 

While "Ultimate Fantastic Four" was probably pitched as a radical reinvention, it really just ended up making the characters younger (they're adults in the mainstream "Fantastic Four" comics that kicked off in the '60s) and updated their origin a bit (from "spaceship bombarded with cosmic rays" to "interdimensional teleportation accident").

This worked out just fine, though, since — barring maybe the final few installments of its impressive 60-issue run — "Ultimate Fantastic Four" remained very accessible to readers who didn't follow other superhero comics. 

Unfortunately, while the new movie takes a lot of cues from the "Ultimate" origins, much of the comics' spirit (read: fun) was left out. But how about the look? 

Let's compare:

"House of Cards" alum Reg E. Cathey plays Dr. Franklin Storm.

An aging scientist who believes his generation has made a mess of the world, Dr. Franklin heads up the think tank that he recruits Reed into. The biological father of Johnny Storm, and the adopted father of Susan, he shepards the teleportation project, and convinces Reed, Sue, Johnny, and Victor von Doom to work together to get it done. 

On the page, Dr. Storm isn't all that different.

There's one big, obvious difference — his race, which also makes him the biological father of only one of the Storm siblings — but his role is more or less the same. He's a mentor to the team, acting as a shield between them and overzealous government liaisons. 

Miles Teller plays Reed Richards, the young genius largely responsible for the accident which creates the Fantastic Four.

In the film, we meet Richards when he's in grade school and causes a blackout with his homemade miniature teleportation device. As he matures, he's quiet, dedicated, and — following the accident — wracked with shame and guilt.

Post-transformation, Reed gains the ability to stretch like rubber, although the film is extremely conservative about showing this power off. His costume is the crudest of the bunch, with wiring and spring-like materials designed to stretch with him.

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"Fantastic Four" is a strange comic book movie, one that's very shy on the actual superheroics. This could have been one of the film's great strengths, but ultimately served to cripple it in the long run. But how much of it comes from the source material?

Quite a bit, it turns out. 

If there's any direct comic book parallel to the story in "Fantastic Four," it's in the comic book series "Ultimate Fantastic Four," a 2003 comic book series that rebooted Marvel's First Family in a 21st century context. 

While "Ultimate Fantastic Four" was probably pitched as a radical reinvention, it really just ended up making the characters younger (they're adults in the mainstream "Fantastic Four" comics that kicked off in the '60s) and updated their origin a bit (from "spaceship bombarded with cosmic rays" to "interdimensional teleportation accident").

This worked out just fine, though, since — barring maybe the final few installments of its impressive 60-issue run — "Ultimate Fantastic Four" remained very accessible to readers who didn't follow other superhero comics. 

Unfortunately, while the new movie takes a lot of cues from the "Ultimate" origins, much of the comics' spirit (read: fun) was left out. But how about the look? 

Let's compare:

"House of Cards" alum Reg E. Cathey plays Dr. Franklin Storm.

An aging scientist who believes his generation has made a mess of the world, Dr. Franklin heads up the think tank that he recruits Reed into. The biological father of Johnny Storm, and the adopted father of Susan, he shepards the teleportation project, and convinces Reed, Sue, Johnny, and Victor von Doom to work together to get it done. 

On the page, Dr. Storm isn't all that different.

There's one big, obvious difference — his race, which also makes him the biological father of only one of the Storm siblings — but his role is more or less the same. He's a mentor to the team, acting as a shield between them and overzealous government liaisons. 

Miles Teller plays Reed Richards, the young genius largely responsible for the accident which creates the Fantastic Four.

In the film, we meet Richards when he's in grade school and causes a blackout with his homemade miniature teleportation device. As he matures, he's quiet, dedicated, and — following the accident — wracked with shame and guilt.

Post-transformation, Reed gains the ability to stretch like rubber, although the film is extremely conservative about showing this power off. His costume is the crudest of the bunch, with wiring and spring-like materials designed to stretch with him.

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There are many, many problems with the 2015 reboot of "Fantastic Four"— the movie's dismal box-office opening, terrible reviews, and a mess of behind-the-scenes drama leave little room for doubt.

When an intended blockbuster movie fails this spectacularly, however, there are usually a few larger reasons behind the flop. So let's talk about one of those possible reasons: Realism. 

A lot of 20th Century Fox's 2015 attempt to make "Fantastic Four" is a direct response to the studio's first attempt to make "Fantastic Four" back in 2005 and 2007. Those movies were campy, so this one would be serious; those movies were aimed at a family-friendly audience, this one was made for serious, thoughtful viewers; those movies were over-the-top, so this one would be realistic.

Realism is a great thing to have, but it's a poor storytelling goal when dealing with inherently unrealistic things like superheroes — a realistic response tends to boil down to two very simple reactions: fear and/or awe. And it seems that the more "realistic" a story wants to get, the more it veers to the former. 

Minor spoilers for "Fantastic Four" follow.

Not long after the accident that turns the titular four young people into superhuman beings, three of them are placed under strict government supervision while their abilities are eagerly monitored by nefarious military personnel eager to turn them into living weapons (as well as figure out how to replicate the accident and make more super people). One of them, Ben Grimm (Jamie Bell, in the film's sole moment of anything approaching pathos), has been turned into a rock monster, which makes him really effective as a walking tank. 

He is immediately placed into military service, and while it's not clear if his consent is sought or not, he does express that he's resigned himself to it, since he doesn't believe he'll be cured and has no chance of having a normal life. 

Once upon a time, the idea of the military wanting to take a scientific discovery or superhero and make it a weapon was a terribly original idea. 2015 is not that time. 

Of course, it can still be done in a compelling way, but when you get down to the specifics of comic book superheroes, it gets in the way of what really makes them special. For example, you just don't have as much time to explore what makes Superman great after you've spent so much of it meticulously depicting how the military would respond to him. 

It also makes everything far more homogeneous — superhero stories, by definition, are about people with extraordinary, dangerous abilities. While there is much variety to all these abilities and the people who have them, when you get down to it, they are almost all scary or awe-inspiring to normal people who don't have them. But when you bring authority figures in — people who are defined by power — the only sensible response is fear. 

So you have The Thing as a weapon, Superman in cuffs, Batman hunted by the police, Thor versus a Spec Ops team, or the entire plot of "The Avengers." 

And all this time, you're exploring other people, and not the main characters that make your story different: The heroes. Not only is the "realistic" approach exhausting in its cynicism, it promotes passive storytelling. If, for example, "Fantastic Four" wasn't a film so concerned with being grounded and realistic, it would maybe be free to explore the truly exciting thing about the characters as articulated on this page in "Fantastic Four" #60 by Mark Waid and Mike Wieringo.

Much like this comic suggests — and Vulture's Abraham Riesman elaborates on — the Fantastic Four occupy a truly unique place in pop culture. They're more like a family of super-brilliant, space-faring, Indiana Joneses than a crime fighting team, forever seeking out and diving headfirst into the new, the strange, the inexplicable.

"In this era of superhero ascendancy at the multiplex," Riesman writes,  "there are no tales that look forward."

That's what happens when you get bogged down in this modern cinematic notion of "realism"— everything becomes reactive, by necessity. 

"Realism"— it's in quotes because there's no way of actually knowing how anyone would really respond to these extraordinary things that don't exist — isn't necessarily wrong or bad. There are many good superhero movies that take a "realistic" approach! It remains, however, a limited approach — one that often serves to restrict these stories more than it illuminates them. 

We're getting more and more movies based on comic book superheroes every passing year, and there doesn't seem to be any sign of it slowing. There is endless amount of variety to be explored with each and every one of these characters regardless of whether or not they come from Marvel, DC, Valiant, or elsewhere. 

Having them constrained by something as mundane as "realism" would be a rather easy way to ensure they're all pretty boring. Or at the very least, predictable. 

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Christoph Brown has a very unique skill set — he is really, really good at drawing via Etch A Sketch. Calling himself The Amazing Etch Man, his YouTube channel is full of sporadically-posted videos stretching back eight years — with subjects ranging from Taylor Swift to Stephen Colbert.

The latest video Brown posted was in July, and its subject is the action heroes that dominate the box office every year – The Avengers. 

If you've never seen Brown (or any other Etch A Sketch artist) work before, it's a lot of fun — especially if you're like me and struggle to depict the most basic geometric shapes on an Etch-A-Sketch.

We first saw this on movie site slashfilm.

Check out a few of them below.

It almost feels like Iron Man is about to fire off his repulsor beam in this shot.

Simple lines add detail to Captain America's costume and shield.

His Thor even has chaotic-looking lightning coming off the hammer, Mjolnir.

If you want to see Brown etching these characters in real time, check out a time-lapse below. You can also find Brown on the web over at his site, Etch U Productions.

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When "Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice" and "Suicide Squad" come to theaters next year, we'll be introduced to a completely new version of the Joker.

With both films pretty far off, we don't know too much about either film. 

Sure, we know an aged Batman and Superman will be duking it out in "Batman v Superman," and that some of DC's villains will be gathered into a crew to work for the government in "Suicide Squad." But there are still a lot of questions, many of which circle around the Joker. 

Naturally, fans have been pouring over the few trailers and images we've gotten so far, and a crazy conspiracy theory has emerged regarding the Joker.

Fans think this iteration of the Clown Prince of Crime harbors a twisted secret, and that he may not be the character we think. 

What follows is mere speculation, but if you're the sort of moviegoer who likes to go into these things knowing as little as possible, then beware — if any of this is right (and it probably isn't) then it could be a huge spoiler.

Here's how it goes:

What if the original Joker that fought Ben Affleck's Batman (who, when we meet him in "Batman v Superman," has already waged a 20-year war on crime) was dead, and the guy Leto is playing is actually the Dark Knight's sidekick Robin — twisted and broken to become a new, second-generation Joker? 

Seriously.

Why would the Joker ever be Robin?

That's a good question! There are a few things you need to know. First: While Batman has almost always been Bruce Wayne, there are several people who have taken on the role of Robin to fight at his side. The first and best known was Dick Grayson — he outgrew the role to become his own hero, Nightwing.

The Robin we want to talk about is the one who takes Dick's place after he left, an angry teenager named Jason Todd. He gets killed by the Joker in a controversial storyline from the late '80s, "Batman: A Death in the Family." The two obviously have a very well-connected past. 

So, this theory about the Joker being Jason Todd has been floating around, in some form or another, for at least three months on Reddit's fan theories page.

At first, it seemed to come out of a sense of fan denial, rejecting the notion that Jared Leto's shirtless tattooed getup depicted the "real" Joker. When the first official image of the Joker was revealed in April, many fans were upset with it. 

After all, it didn’t look like the previous incarnation of the Joker fans saw on screen in 2008’s “The Dark Knight," or any version of the character fans have come to know.

Fans decided it could only be a red herring, the real Joker wouldn't look like that — and the theorizing bent over backwards to justify this. But that was long before San Diego Comic-Con, before we got a good look at "Batman v Superman" and "Suicide Squad" in new trailers. Once we did, things got interesting. 

An image from the "Batman v Superman" trailer showed off a defaced Robin costume that Bruce Wayne keeps on display in what looks like a memorial to his fallen comrade. Knowing what you do about the Joker's connection to Robin, the image sent fans into a frenzy thinking the Joker could be in both "Suicide Squad" and "Batman v Superman."

A number of Reddit users over on r/FanTheories have really taken to the idea that Robin could be the Joker in earnest, but few articulated it better than Jason-G169, who offered the most comprehensive version of the theory yet.

According to Jason-G169, when you consider a number of things — like the possible meaning of the Joker's tattoos, or a few cryptic lines of dialogue — a creepy narrative starts to emerge. 

The theory, as proposed by Jason-G169, hinges on a few key points:

1. The Robin suit on display in the "Batman v Superman" trailer.
2. A line Bruce Wayne delivers to Alfred as footage of the Robin suit appears on screen: "20 years in Gotham, how many good guys are left? How many stayed that way?"
3. The Joker's radically different appearance in all things "Suicide Squad." 
4. This image, which appears sans context in the "Batman v Superman" trailer.

It all comes together like so:

• Batman, at one point, worked with a Robin, Jason Todd, that the Joker then killed (hence the memorial, and that newspaper clipping).
• Batman lays aside his cape and cowl not long after Todd is killed and retires, only to come back to address the threat that Superman presents after his fight in "Man of Steel" levels parts of Metropolis — including a Wayne Financial building (as the trailer suggests).
• The Joker is dead (this is the biggest leap in the theory).
• BUT, before the Joker died, he kidnapped Robin and tortured, tattooed, and brainwashed him. This would help explain the Joker's wild new appearance — the false teeth and the notorious "Damaged" forehead tattoo. (More on this later.)
• There is now a new Joker, and it's the former Robin, Jason Todd.

It's not a bad bit of conjecture, but a lot of it hinged on cues that could be interpreted any number of ways.

Fans are pretty willing to buy this theory though because Robin has turned out to be the Joker before. 

2000's animated "Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker"— possibly the darkest Batman story ever told — features the Joker kidnapping an even younger Robin, Tim Drake (Jason Todd didn't really exist in the Animated Series) and tortures the boy until he's a mirror image of the Clown Prince of Crime. Years later, when Drake is grown, he returns as a second-generation Joker terrorizing Gotham City.

But then one fan noticed a small detail that seems to connect Robin and the Joker. Remember that defaced costume we brought up earlier from the "Batman v Superman" trailer? And the first official image of Jared Leto as the Joker? Comic Book Resources spotted this update by Redditor DeathByRequest that noticed something eerily similar about the two.

Both The Joker and the Robin costume seem to have been shot twice in the same places. 

What's crazy about this idea is that most of the material supporting it doesn't come from the "Suicide Squad" trailer, but the "Batman v Superman" one. This makes it all the more appealing, as it's a sudden twist in the DC mythology that makes the movie universe pivot in a potentially interesting (yet excessively dark) way. 

There are a number of possible reasons for doing this, the most appealing one is simple — it riffs on two fan-favorite stories. The first, "A Death in the Family," the comic book story where Joker kidnaps and brutally kills Jason Todd, and Batman is unable to stop him. The second, the animated series in which Tim Drake becomes the Joker we just mentioned.

Batman fans are kind of misanthropic towards the Boy Wonder.

There are also other, real-world justifications for this bit of speculative theory, but they're mostly the product of fan reasoning, and nothing very solid. The thinking is that it's easier to make a new Joker a complete pivot from Heath Ledger's iconic performance — which, undoubtedly, casts a long shadow — if he's technically not the same character.

Of course, there is no reason to think Zack Snyder and David Ayer aren't confident enough filmmakers to just make their own weird Joker and let that be that. Filmmakers do that sort of thing all the time.

However, the theory isn't perfect either.

Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie) is a bit of a huge wrinkle, especially since our deep dive into the "Suicide Squad" trailer shows that the film appears to be taking liberties of its own when it comes to her origin.

Harley's whole deal is that she used to be a psychiatrist named Harleen Quinzel who tries to treat the Joker but ends up being seduced and twisted by him. The trailer is pretty clear that it's Jared Leto's Joker that does this — and that the two go on crime sprees with Batman hunting them down long before what looks like the titular Suicide Squad is assembled.

Also, as MTV News notes, this isn't the only fan theory out there, it's just the most popular, cohesive one. All sorts of crazy possibilities have been brought up, from the Joker being former Police Commissioner Jim Gordon to just being a straight-up decoy.

Whoever Jared Leto's Joker winds up being — and it's very likely that he's just the Joker — we're sure to learn more as the marketing for both films continues. 

"Batman v Superman" is in theaters March 25, 2016. "Suicide Squad" hits theaters August 5, 2016.

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This summer's "Fantastic Four" isn't the blockbuster franchise-starter its studio might have been hoping for. Instead, it is a fascinating failure, one that has everyone who did see it (or caught wind of the nasty behind-the-scenes drama) wondering what could have been.

The movie viewers saw was a slow-burn science fiction story largely set inside of labs and in boring CGI wastelands with a sudden, rushed climax that was wholly unsatisfying.

Its plot, in summary, followed a young genius Reed Richards, who was recruited into a government think tank in order to develop a teleportation device that leads to another dimension. He's joined by Susan Storm, her brother Johnny, his best friend Ben, and the misanthropic Victor Von Doom when an experiment to travel to the other dimension goes awry thanks to a spur-of-the-moment, unofficial test. They all gain superpowers, which the military is interested in exploiting, until Doom (who was presumed dead) shows up and tries to end the world, for some reason. 

They fight him, and the movie ends. That's it. But it appears the movie wasn't always like this. 

Over at Birth.Movies.Death, writer Devin Faraci has written up a summary of one of the movie's earliest drafts, written in 2012 and credited to writer Jeremy Slater (Slater still has a story credit on the finished film, but executive producer Simon Kinberg was brought on to rework the story as a last-ditch effort to save the movie during all of its development turmoil).

According to Faraci, the script is entirely different from the movie audiences saw, straying far from the pensive science-fiction vibe of the finished film in favor of full-on crazy cosmic adventure, complete with alien civilizations, the Mole Man, and a certain Devourer of Worlds.

In short, it sounds like a real Fantastic Four story.

Here's the basic gist:

• Instead of a barren wasteland, the Negative Zone (Planet Zero in the finished film) the group heads to is an entire abandoned alien city. 
• In this city, they find a giant, powerful being named Galactus, the Devourer of Worlds. He's what causes their experiment to go wrong, appearing to kill Doom and nearly destroying the Gate as they return, initiating the accident that begins their transformation.
• In the finished film, there's a time jump after we learn about their powers. That time jump is here too, but it's longer — four years instead of one.
• In the middle of the script, there's an encounter with a secondary villain, Mole Man — a direct homage to the very first Fantastic Four comic. 
• During the whole time, Doom is actually alive, working in the shadows to take over his native country of Latveria. His endgame is to build his own teleportation device, the Quantum Gate, in order to destroy Galactus.
• The final confrontation is between the Fantastic Four and Doom, but with the threat of Galactus looming large. Because of this, the script ends with Reed and the FF kickstarting a school for young geniuses who will help them come up with a way to beat Galactus before he comes to devour Earth.

You can read more on the early script over at BMD here.

As Faraci says, the script is definitely overstuffed, with a lot going on — but when the finished film doesn't have enough going on, it makes this sound much more delightful. 

What's more, it has Galactus! A real Galactus, not anamorphous cloud-thing that we saw in 2007's "Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer."

In comparison, the real Galactus looks like this:

Having Galactus would've been a big deal — mostly because he's emblematic of everything big and crazy about superhero comic books, the biggest, proudest icon of the boundless imagination of creators like Jack Kirby who were inventing things no one had ever seen before on a daily basis. If Marvel Comics truly began with the birth of the Fantastic Four, then the arrival of Galactus within the pages of their titular comic signaled the moment when the publisher was at the absolute peak of their game — a peak that would carry on for a shockingly long time. 

"Fantastic Four" still might have failed with this script, but at least it would've had one of the biggest aspects of the source material intact: its ridiculous, crazy, ambitious imagination.

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It was in a cramped, messy conference room overflowing with boxes and memorabilia.  That’s where three men sat across from me and calmly told me their plan to overthrow two of the biggest entertainment giants in the world.

Together, the three of them — Dinesh Shamdasani, Gavin Cuneo, and Russell Brown — represent the corporate leadership of Valiant Entertainment, a small comics publisher with gigantic ambition.

They might even have a shot at realizing that ambition, with a recent nine-figure investment from the Beijing company DMG Entertainment to turn their comic book characters into feature films.

"Another publisher might’ve created Valiant Studios, hired creative executives in LA, and done up the offices," says Valiant Entertainment's CEO and Chief Creative Officer Dinesh Shamdasani. "I mean, look at this thing. Look at this place."

The soft-spoken yet talkative executive acknowledges our cramped surroundings in the publisher's small Midtown West office, where there isn't enough room to house both the comics the company publishes and all of the people responsible for putting them out into the world. "We want to put the money in places where people can see it."

They're going to need to, because what the Valiant team wants to accomplish sounds a little bit crazy.

"We're fighting two giant conglomerates," says Shamdasani. "We're fighting Warner Bros. and Disney, not Marvel and DC."

That's big talk from a company that isn't anywhere near the household name as its targets. But Valiant is already a company full of small miracles. 

The Valiant Entertainment of today didn't even exist five years ago. Before 2012, the Valiant name was a brief yet brilliant spark in comics history, an early-90s success story founded in part by former Marvel Comics talent. The comics they published — which kicked off in 1992 — were a remarkable success, with books like "X-O Manowar" (a story about a Fifth-Century Visigoth warrior who finds high-tech alien armor and is thrust into the present) and "Shadowman" (a jazz-and-voodoo themed supernatural thriller).

However, the turn of the century was not kind to the comic book industry, and Valiant would be shuttered in the early 2000s, the victim of corporate consolidation. 

Then came 2012, and everything changed. 

That summer was when a rebooted Valiant, with new leadership and financial backing, debuted to the comics reading world with the "Summer of Valiant," a splashy promotion for the relaunch of the comic book universe first seen in the early 90s. The company re-introduced its comics — leading with their most popular character "X-O Manowar"— pretty much from scratch, slowly rebuilding its fictional universe in a smart, modern way.

High-concept superheroics became sprawling sci-fi epics. Stories about psychic teenagers became contemplations on addiction and morality. A "Terminator" -esque action thriller became fodder for a somber story about humanity and redemption.  

And they were all very, very, good.

Almost overnight, Valiant was back in business, and over the past three years they have turned one of the most unlikely revivals in comics into an enviable hot streak with no signs of slowing down. Crazy, right?

"Our strategy is very simple," says Shamdasani. "Step one: focus on publishing. Don't bite off more than you can chew. Focus on quality. Build long term. Step two: Expand slowly. Slow and steady wins the race. Do quality merchandise, do quality digital initiatives. [Travel] the convention circuit. Step three is to go into larger media." 

To hear Shamdasani share the secret of Valiant's success is to, frankly, hear the most common-sense foundation any decent business is built on. It is not radical. It is not innovative. It is not very sexy. But it is working, and it looks like it really is putting the small publisher on track to being within grasp of its stated ambition: to become "Marvel 2.0."

But there is a murky middle space between kicking off and sustaining a comic book business and becoming a household name. Valiant has been remarkably aggressive and successful with the former — spending much of this year on a lengthy conventiontour and making "allies" out of retailers — and becoming a household name. 

"We're in a very fortunate situation," says Russell Brown, a former Marvel executive and Valiant's director of consumer products, marketing, and ad sales. "We don't have to rush anything, we don't have to extract crazy dollars from people  — which sets up a whole chain. If you push people towards high dollars to participate (and everyone wants to be a part of Marvel 2.0), the problem is they rush product to market, it doesn't sell through, then there's a problem and people say 'Valiant is not working.' So what's the rush? We're slowly, slowly finding the right partners, in the right categories — it's a real progression." 

Those partners are eclectic, varied, and — according to Valiant — successful. There's the tea inspired by X-O Manowar, the metal album inspired by Shadowman, the costumes they designed for the USA luge team for the 2014 Winter Olympics — the year the States took home the Gold for the first time.

As interesting and bizarre as some of these may seem, according to Brown, they're all carefully selected to put the Valiant name on quality products that will appeal to the niche they cater to — and hopefully inspire interest in Valiant. 

Then there's the movies.

The centerpiece of the film plan Valiant has announced so far (there is more in the works) is a five-picture deal with Sony centered on its "Bloodshot" and "Harbinger" comics — each franchise will get two films apiece, before crossing over in a grand finale called "Harbinger Wars."

However, the sort of interconnected movie universe pioneered by Marvel Studios is a thing that lots of studios want in on — and not just for comic book characters. 

But audience fatigue is not something Valiant is all that worried about.

"They have elements of the superhero genre; certainly the iconography and conventions," says Shamdasani, "But they're built to be in genres that aren't 'superhero' ... You can also see it in our film choices. Fans ask why not X-O Manowar — he's the biggest, largest-selling character."

"Bloodshot's a character that's more easily adapted to a film genre," Shamdasani continues. "It's something that a larger audience can look at a trailer and understand 'Okay, I've seen films like this before. I've seen 'Terminator,' I've seen 'Robocop,' I've seen 'Total Recall,' I've seen 'Die Hard.' I know what something like this is going to be, and it's something I can get behind." 

But it's not just about positioning their comic book characters as something that filmgoers are already interested in, according to Shamdasani. There's also the creative decisions — like hiring Chad Stahelski and David Leitch, the directors of the excellent sleeper hit "John Wick"— that combine with smart positioning to result in a more interesting whole. 

"We oftentimes relate back to our approach in the comic book world in how we're going to approach the film world, in that the creative and quality of the product has always been at the forefront and the most important thing that we do," says Gavin Cuneo, Valiant's Chief Operating Officer and CFO. "That's the way we're approaching films as well." 

In the next few weeks, the Valiant team will be moving out of those tiny offices to a space with enough room to have more of its team working together. It will be their fourth move in just as many years. 

It's a weird sort of real-life parallel to Valiant's rise as an entertainment company — unassuming, always moving, and unusually grounded for the comics industry. A place that runs off a carnival barker's energy, forever selling the promise of something you've never seen before and is quite often something you have.

"We're a different type of universe than the ones that are out there — we were created more recently, which means we more accurately reflect the world that we live in today," says Shamdasani. "[These characters] are not necessarily superheroes, they don't have capes and secret identities ... there's much more diversity, more big female characters, much more diversity in race, religion, creed. All because the universe was created in the 90s, where it was a more diverse world we were living in, as opposed to reflecting the 60s when Marvel was created, or the 30s, when the DC universe was created."

Much of the virtue behind Valiant Entertainment's work is bolstered by one important fact: They're small. In their version of the old story, David didn't beat Goliath with a lucky stone's throw, but by moving faster and wearing out their larger, slower, all-consuming competition. 

If Valiant is successful, then it too will be big — and with that bigness will come a whole new set of problems to solve. 

"Our challenge, I think, is one thing: I think it's just time," says Shamdasani. "The original Valiant set up the foundation, we're picking up the ball and running with it. Our goal is to tell as many great stories, one comic at a time, brick by brick — for as long as we can."

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