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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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 —represented 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 president 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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NOW WATCH: Disney’s plans for a new ‘Star Wars’ amusement park look like nothing you’ve ever seen

Cosplaying — or the hobby of crafting homemade costumes in order to dress up as your favorite characters in pop culture — is a huge part of comics fandom. Traditionally a hallmark of conventions and other fan events, the Internet has allowed cosplayers to practice their craft year-round, showing off some remarkably accurate representations of superhero costumes in beautifully composed pictures. 

This fall, Marvel will show the cosplayers some love by featuring them in a series of 21 variant covers. Instead of the traditionally illustrated cover art, select copies of 21 of Marvel's brand-new series that will launch this October following the conclusion of "Secret Wars" will have special photo covers featuring a number of top cosplayers dressed up in costumes of their own design. 

It's a genuinely great move on Marvel's part. Cosplaying is often a thankless passion project that is sometimes criticized for "ruining" fandom — when in reality it has become a vibrant new venue for attracting new fans who wouldn't have otherwise picked up a comic book. 

Let's take a look at the cosplayers Marvel will highlight this fall.

This "A-Force" #1 cover features Jay Justice as She-Hulk standing tall.

You can check out Jay Justice here.

The cosplay cover to "All-New Inhumans" #1 will show off Yaya Han as Queen Medusa in a more regal outfit.

This "Amazing Spider-Man" #1 cover showcases Aaron Rivin in a great costume and smart perspective.

Check out more of Aaron Rivin's costumes here.

NOW WATCH: This guy combined photos of celebrities to create portraits of flawless superhumans

Duke University, like many institutions of higher learning, has a summer reading program. Dubbed The Duke Common Experience Summer Reading Program, it's designed to give incoming freshmen from all over the world a shared text to discuss as they begin their studies.

This year, the text is Alison Bechdel's graphic memoir "Fun Home," an award-winning autobiographical work about Bechdel's relationship with her late father, who died not long after Bechdel came out as gay — and discovered he was, too. Although "Fun Home" was first published in 2006, the book is enjoying a fresh wave of publicity thanks to its Tony Award-winning Broadway musical adaptation.

However, some students are objecting to the selection, choosing to skip reading it "because its sexual images and themes conflicted with their personal and religious beliefs,"reports the Duke Chronicle.

Reading the summer reading selection is not a requirement to attend Duke (nor is it at most universities with similar programs), but several students have reportedly posted their reasons for objecting on the Duke University Class of 2019's private Facebook group, according to the Chronicle. 

As a work of graphic nonfiction — a true story in comic book form, if you will — "Fun Home" seems to be singled out not just because of its subject matter (which includes frank explorations of sexuality) but precisely because of its medium.

"The nature of ‘Fun Home’ means that content that I might have consented to read in print now violates my conscience due to its pornographic nature," one student told the Chronicle. 

This complaint — that a work with controversial subject matter is less objectionable in prose but degrees more offensive in comic book form — is actually an old and recurring one. Most recently, similar objections were raised by a student of Crafton Hills College as recently as June 2015. 

Comics and graphic novels come under such frequent scrutiny that a non-profit organization known as the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund was formed to preserve the First Amendment Rights of the comic book medium.

Some students at Duke University have raised counter-arguments to those who would object to reading "Fun Home," arguing for its literary merit since it details a lived experience very different from the one many of those students may have faced. 

But since there is no requirement to read "Fun Home," there can never be a real resolution to this debate. At the very least, incoming Duke students are all engaged in a conversation about the same thing — which was the point all along. 

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NOW WATCH: Everyone is terrified of sharks, but this is actually the deadliest creature on Earth

There are a lot of Deadpool fans out there, enough to clamor for — and eventually, get— what looks like a faithful feature-film adaptation. That's no easy feat. He's quite possibly one of the top ten barely-filmable Marvel comics characters in existence.

Deadpool is weird — he's an unkillable mercenary that's horribly scarred and has an obnoxious sense of humor. Deadpool is violent. Deadpool knows he is a comic book character and frequently breaks the fourth wall to tell you so. 

But above all things, Deadpool is irreverent. It's that last quality that has made him a big hit in comics conventions, thanks to the antics of cosplayers like the man known as D-Piddy.

I was put in touch with D-Piddy (who chooses to remain anonymous) via current "Deadpool" writer Gerry Duggan, but I had seen much of his work before — and you probably have, too. Over the past few years, he's made a name for himself by dressing up as Deadpool, going to conventions, and filming his antics. The end result is often a heavily shared and thoroughly GIF-ed montage like this one:

"I mess around with people. I try to stay in character," Piddy told Tech Insider via email. "It got on Reddit, and I liked what people said about what I did, so I kept doing it. As for my name ... I wanted to call myself 'something Deadpool' (like LA Deadpool and Dancepool came to mind) since that's the character I was most known for, but I didn't want to use 'Deadpool, in case I wanted to cosplay something else (also, the name "Deadpool" wasn't mine, it's Marvel's, and I wanted to be me). Still, I wanted something kind of to do with Deadpool. I saw a Variant cover with Deadpool wearing a do-rag that said D. Pooly, and I thought that was cool, but I just changed it to D-Piddy."

Piddy doesn't come across as someone out to achieve viral fame and glory, but rather as someone who stumbled across a good thing and figured he'd go for it. A longtime fan of comics and attender of fan conventions (he calls himself a "jack-of-all-trades kind of nerd," equally into all of the traditional geek culture pastimes), Piddy discovered Deadpool not in a comic book, but in a cousin's collection of trading cards. 

"My cousin used to collect Marvel Fleer trading cards, and I came across this one card — Spider-Man was my favorite comic book character, and I thought he was a guy who looked like Spider-Man except he had guns," says Piddy. "I didn't know much about him, I just thought he looked cool. And then I started buying my own comics when a comic book store opened nearby so I started collecting the 'Civil War' crossover series. I really liked Cable at the time, so I bought 'Cable and Deadpool.'"

And just like that, he was off. 

By the time he discovered Deadpool in earnest, Piddy was already a regular cosplayer and attendee of fan conventions of all stripes, and saw a certain Internet-friendly appeal in the character thanks to the work of writer Daniel Way. 

"It was very internet meme-y. All those things that the Internet is known for, that are kind of /b/ type material," says Piddy, referring to message board 4Chan's notorious "random" board where anything goes — from harmless memes that have been absorbed into the wider internet culture to some of the most objectionable content the web has to offer (If you want to head there, you can click here, but it's full of content that's NSFW). "That's what Deadpool ended up being. He can break the fourth wall. He can do anything with any character and it makes sense," adds Piddy.

This made Deadpool the perfect character for him to cosplay.

"I took that as an opportunity to channel Deadpool with me," says Piddy. "So if I'm at a convention with other cosplayers from all types of genres, I can be there [as Deadpool] and it makes sense. So that went around, and people found that very interesting."

Part of the appeal of Piddy's particular brand of Deadpool cosplay antics was the fact that he was a dancer, something that seamlessly blended in with other fun bits that he could do on the show floor.

But one of the biggest things that led to Piddy becoming really well-known was simple: timing. 

In the summer of 2012, Korean pop sensation Psy released the ridiculously viral music video for his song "Gangnam Style." It spawned countless parodies, many of which also went viral — and a certain Deadpool version of the routine just happened to be one of Piddy's very first viral videos. 

Piddy's parody came near the very start of  a fresh wave of meta pop-culture riffing for the Deadpool character that also helped establish his persona as one of the most prominent Deadpool cosplayers. With the publishing of a Gangnam Style cover which arguably was inspired by his video, a guest appearance on the New York Comic-Con panel for the "Deadpool" video game, and a sly shout-out or two within the pages of the comics themselves, Piddy found himself sucked into the memetic ouroboros of Deadpool fandom as his videos were posted on huge sites and endlessly GIFed.

"It's a bit flattering how people find the things that I do humorous," says Piddy — but he's still pretty set on remaining anonymous. "I think once [people] have a sense of who's under the mask, it's not about the character, or what you do. Because when I cosplay, I want to be that character."

This even extends to the "Deadpool" writers and artists he's met over the years — D-Piddy tells me that he's never introduced himself out of costume. 

Piddy is still wearing the Deadpool tights, but he's hanging them up more and more these days — out of all of the convention montages on his YouTube channel, only two feature the cosplayer dressing up as Deadpool this year. 

"He doesn't really have a sense of justice even though he wants to be righteous — he kind of just does whatever he wants to do that fits him," says Piddy, reflecting on what makes him connect with the character. "People try to go the righteous route, even though it hurts them. Deadpool is just in it for himself, and that's kind of like me? If you have the opportunity, go for it, but he's just trying to hustle his way through, surviving ... I guess his core being is this dude who just wants to make a living at what he does best."

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NOW WATCH: YouTube star reveals why people are so obsessed with cute Japanese toys

While "Captain America: Civil War" has already finished principal photography and shown off some footage at Disney's big D23 Expo, the wider public hasn't gotten any sort of official look at the film. That's not really surprising, since "Civil War" — which will kick off Marvel Studio's ambitious Phase Three plans — is still seven months from release, with a certain other huge blockbuster looming between now and then. 

But concept art leaks are not beholden to a carefully executed marketing plan, especially when said concept art is being shared by one of your big stars. 

The concept art was leaked via a YouTube video by user Mr. Sunday Movies, which was then captured and disseminated across the blogosphere via ComicBookMovie.com, which Mr. Sunday Movies writes for. 

Then Jeremy Renner, who plays Clint Barton aka Hawkeye, posted the art on his Twitter feed and it was open season.

This seems to mostly confirm previous rumors about which heroes will be on which side of the conflict at the heart of Civil War, which is based on a comic book of the same name where superheroes were compelled to register with the government or go rogue. 

While it doesn't seem to reflect some of the things we've heard about the movie so far (like the presence of Spider-Man, or the rumor that Black Panther would be neutral), the party lines do seem to check out based on most of the info that has leaked out thus far. 

Also, most of the returning players (except maybe The Vision and Falcon) are sporting fresh new threads:

Renner seems particularly into his new outfit, too. 

Also, yes, that is Ant-Man on his shoulder.

That's a big deal. Want to know why?

The two have teamed up in a pretty cool way before.

"Captain America: Civil War" will be in theaters May 6, 2016.

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NOW WATCH: A 19-year-old will play Peter Parker in the next Spider-Man movie

What will happen next year when The Man of Steel goes up against The Dark Knight? Astrophysicist and 'StarTalk Radio' host Neil deGrasse Tyson explains how Batman can compete against Superman.

Produced by Darren Weaver and Kamelia Angelova. Additional production by Kevin Reilly and Rob Ludacer.

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StarTalk Radio is a podcast and radio program hosted by astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, where comic co-hosts, guest celebrities, and scientists discuss astronomy, physics, and everything else about life in the universe. Follow StarTalk Radio on Twitter, and watch StarTalk Radio "Behind the Scenes" on YouTube.

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Comic Con is the premiere event where comic and movie fans get together and show off the cosplay costumes they have been working on all year. Cosplayer Thomas DePetrillo from Extreme Costumes blew the crowds away when he showed off his 9.5-foot-tall Iron Man Hulkbuster costume.

Produced by Darren Weaver. Original reporting by Kirsten Acuna. 

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We saw a lot of great cosplay at the 2015 New York Comic Con — including at 9-foot-tall 'Iron Man' costume. Here are the best costumes that we saw this year.

Produced by Darren Weaver. Original reporting by Kim Renfro and Kirsten Acuna.

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We saw a lot of great cosplay at the 2015 New York Comic Con — including at 9-foot-tall 'Iron Man' costume. Here are the best costumes that we saw this year.

Produced by Darren Weaver. Original reporting by Kim Renfro and Kirsten Acuna.

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Go to any pop culture or comic convention, and you're likely to see a lot of cosplayers – people dressed up as some of their favorite characters from comics, video games, anime, and other media.

We spent a day with Stella Chuu– a cosplayer who travels the world attending different conventions – at New York Comic Con to find out what it takes to become a star in this fandom-dominated world.

Produced by Matthew Stuart

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Many unexpected plot twists were played out over the course of "Game of Thrones," culminating in a season finale that left fans reeling at the narrative aftermath.

While at New York Comic Con, we asked some of the biggest "Game of Thrones" super fans their thoughts on what season 6 will bring. If you're not caught up yet with the show, then let this be your SPOILER WARNING.

Video by Corey Protin. Reporting by Kim Renfro. 

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Many unexpected plot twists were played out over the course of "Game of Thrones," culminating in a season finale that left fans reeling at the narrative aftermath.

While at New York Comic Con, we asked some of the biggest "Game of Thrones" super fans their thoughts on what season 6 will bring. If you're not caught up yet with the show, then let this be your SPOILER WARNING.

Video by Corey Protin. Reporting by Kim Renfro. 

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If there's only one thing to know about Thor, aside from being the Norse god of lightning and thunder, it's that only he* is deemed "worthy" of being able to wield the legendary hammer Mjölnir.

All the Avengers have tried, and failed, to pick up his legendary hammer:

Though replicas exist, there are no ancient Norse powers in our world that govern specific objects. We do have magnets, though. And fingerprint scanners. And batteries. And, you know, science stuff. 

And that's exactly what YouTube user Allen Pan used to create his own version of Mjölnir: four 12-volt batteries powering electromagnets that are only de-activated with Pan's own fingerprint. It's all powered by a small processor, called an Arduino Pro Mini:

As his video's description says, the hammer is "pretty much unliftable unless you've got my fingerprints." He means that literally — there's a fingerprint scanner on the handle:

So Allen took his version of Mjölnir out into the wild — specifically, the sunny streets of Venice Beach, California — and attached it to various metal objects lodged in the ground. A massive metal sheet and a manhole cover were the two spots that worked especially well for making the hammer unmovable.

Many tried:

And tried:

And tried:

And tried!

But everyone failed. Except for Allen:

Don't miss the full video to see how you can make your own Mjölnir— if you're worthy, that is!

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NOW WATCH: This giant Iron Man Hulkbuster costume blew everyone away at Comic Con

Cosplayers flood into New York City every year for the annual Comic Con event. We rounded up some of this year's best cosplayers to see how they compare against the characters they play.

Video by Corey Protin. Reporting by Kim Renfro. Additional camera by Darren Weaver.

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We asked a bunch of "Batman" superfans at this year's New York Comic Con what they thought about Ben Affleck playing Batman in the new film, "Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice." 

Video by Corey Protin. Reporting by Kim Renfro.

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Who would win in a fight: Batman or Superman? We asked that question to a bunch of  DC Comic superfans at this year's New York Comic Con to see if we could foretell the future of the upcoming film "Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice." 

Video by Corey Protin. Reporting by Kim Renfro.

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Has it already been seven months since "Avengers: Age of Ultron"? Well don't worry, because there's always another movie with one of the Avengers around the corner, and this one's major.

Chris Evans returns as the shield-wielding hero in "Captain America: Civil War," but he's no longer beloved by the American public. In the first trailer for the film that aired on "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" on Tuesday night, he's been tagged as a "vigilante," apparently for helping his friend (and wanted man) Bucky.

All of this results in a major disagreement among the Avengers (that's what the "Civil War" is there for).

"Sometimes I want to punch you in your perfect teeth," Robert Downey Jr.'s Iron Man tells Captain America before they come to actual blows.

The movie also stars Scarlett Johansson, Anthony Mackie, Jeremy Renner, and more, and it's out May 6, 2016.

Watch the trailer below:

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Not long after moving into the new house, we realized that there just wasn't enough room my ever-expanding comic book collection.

And so, with a heavy heart, I canceled my account with my local comic book store, and started the process of re-subscribing to all my comic books digitally, via Amazon's Comixology service.

A big part of why I still went to the store — San Francisco's amazing Isotope Comics, to be specific — was because a good comic book store is also a great place to hang out.

Even after the comics had started piling up to a dangerous degree, I liked just visiting the store too much to really consider an all-digital alternative. 

It got to the point where I was using my boxes of comic books to prop up my desk. Seriously.

So for me, after more than a decade of regular trips to comic book stores on two coasts to pick up my haul, this is the end of an era. For the comics industry, currently in the middle of a tremendous boom period, it's a sign of big, technology-driven change to come.

And unlike what happened to the music industry, the digital comics revolution seems to be helping everybody: customers, creators, publishers, and stores alike. But mostly me, with my storage issue.

The app for that

The de facto standard for digital comics is Comixology, an app that lets you buy and read comic books on the web, phones, and tablets. It started as a tool to help comic book store customers manage their in-store "pull list" subscriptions, but pivoted into digital comics circa 2009.

When Amazon bought Comixology back in 2014, it claimed that people were using the app to download 8 million comics per month. As of June of this year, The Guardian reported that digital comic books accounted for 10% of all comic sales in the US alone.

Comixology works a little bit like the Amazon Kindle apps, but for comics, and looks like this:

When Comixology first came around with this app in 2009, the big publishers like Marvel and DC were holdouts, leaving it to the smaller, independent companies to stock the virtual shelves. Plus, independent companies like Dark Horse Comics were insistent that they could make their own way, with their own apps.

But times change, and now just about every comic book publisher releases their comics via Comixology, selling them at the same price you would buy it for in stores (usually between $2.99 and $4.99 per 20-to-30 page issue. This hobby ain't cheap). And they come out on the same day they hit stores.

In addition to the new releases, there's an already-huge-and-growing selection of archival issues from comics' long history. On Comixology, you can pick up Action Comics #1, Superman's 1938 first appearance for $0.99, which is vastly cheaper than the $3.2 million that a print version sold for at auction last year.

You can manage subscriptions in Comixology, so it automatically downloads your new comics every Wednesday, which is when the fresh books hit stores. And many publishers (except Marvel and DC Comics) let you download restriction-free PDFs of your purchased comics to your computer.

An extremely nice bonus is that Comixology also lets brick-and-mortar comic book stores set up digital storefronts. So I can still buy my comics and have some cash go back to the Isotope. 

One annoying thing: Last year, Amazon took out the ability to directly buy comics via the iPhone or iPad, seemingly chafing that Apple takes a cut of in-app purchases. So you have to actually buy the comics via the web browser on those devices.

Netflix for comics

The other absolutely vital app for comic book readers is Marvel Digital Unlimited, for web, iOS, and Android. It's $10 a month or $69 a year, and despite some bugs it's absolutely wonderful.

Marvel Digital Unlimited looks like this:

Marvel Digital Unlimited is basically Netflix for Marvel Comics: It has 17,000-plus comics from Marvel's 75-some-odd year history, going back to the era of World War II era of Human Torch and Captain America comics. Every Monday, a new batch arrives.

The company has a clever way to keep people on the hook for new comics: Marvel Digital Unlimited is on a permanent six-month delay from Marvel's regular release schedule. So while you get every Marvel title, including its recent run of pretty great "Star Wars" tie-ins, you have to shell out for the regular issues if you want to stay totally current.

Marvel also wisely curates lists of notable storylines and character appearances, making it easier to navigate that overwhelming flood of comics. 

There are some drawbacks. You need to be connected to the Internet at all times to fully take advantage of Marvel Digital Unlimited, since you can only store 12 comics for offline reading at a time. And the app itself is super buggy, with crashes on the regular.

But for the value you get, it's totally worth it. And no, there's no equivalent app for DC Comics, so no Batman or Superman to be found here.

To be continued

There's a lot you lose when you go all-digital. For instance, many comic creators are still designing their pages with print in mind, and they don't always look great on a smaller screen:

Both Comixology and Marvel Digital Unlimited make it easy to zoom in to each individual panel, but then you lose the effect of the page as a whole.

On the other hand, Marvel and DC have both been using the potential of digital comics to play around with formats and styles. 

And since 2013, Marvel has had its irregular series of "Infinite Comics," designed to be viewed on a digital screen:

At the same time, DC has been running experiments in short, weekly comic book series spotlighting major characters like Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman, selling each for a cheaper 99 cents.  

Meanwhile, Marvel has made it a point of including a digital download code with its print comics, so you get both copies (and hiking prices $1 per issue almost across the board for the privilege). DC tried, but ultimately abandoned, a similar initiative. 

All of that said, the absolute best part of digital comics is how it's sparked a reinvigoration of the comic book market. By removing the need to go to a comic book store, digital comics have opened up the door to a much broader audience, well past the traditional, stereotypical comic book nerd.

It means that in addition to established characters like Wolverine and Ant-Man, there's finally established room in the market for non-superhero, non-traditional comics like "Saga,""Lumberjanes," and "The Wicked and the Devine" to become smash hits.

And so, while I'm definitely lamenting the fact that I'm going to be visiting Isotope Comics a little less, at least I know that I'm still supporting both my local comic book store and a growing industry in independent comics. Plus, hey, fewer boxes to lug around. 

SEE ALSO: Google has an amazing hidden 'Star Wars' joke right in the search engine

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NOW WATCH: Comic fans tell us who would win in a fight between Batman and Superman

The Batmobile is one of the most recognizable pop culture vehicles in history. An amazing feat for a car that was already ten years old when the show debuted.

Produced by Matthew Stuart

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