Latest news with #StarWars
Gizmodo
3 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Gizmodo
The Most Amazing Cosplay of San Diego Comic-Con 2025, Day 1
It's that time of year again; San Diego Comic-Con is upon us and is off to a festive start for the biggest fan party of them all. Between the convention floor bustle and the packed panels, all of nerdom comes to represent their genre favorites for the annual celebration of all things pop culture and comics. Five Nights at Freddy's 2 reigned supreme on the first night along with Toxic Avenger, and South Park but it was the fans who came decked out in their fandom's finest who always stole the show. Many of whom dressed to impress as icons represented in films, television, and more that were at the con to showcase the latest. Let's jump into it with a look at some of the characters we spotted in cosplay form on Day 1, from merry Marvel mutants, to Harley Quinn cats, to Star Wars faves and much, much more! Stay tuned to io9 for even more coverage of San Diego Comic-Con 2025 (and, of course, plenty more cosplay). Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what's next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.
Time Magazine
3 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Time Magazine
How the Fantastic Four Shaped the Future of Superheroes
When The Fantastic Four: First Steps premieres this week, it will mark the return to prominence of four heroes not just foundational to Marvel and its ever-expanding empire of comics, movies, and television shows, but to modern pop culture and storytelling. The Fantastic Four, a tight-knit family with strange powers, were created by comic industry veterans Stan Lee and Jack Kirby in 1961. The comic, with its bickering heroes and setting in New York City, defied genre conventions and offered a radically different vision of superheroes than the staid, righteous Superman and Batman. Immediately successful, the Fantastic Four birthed modern Marvel comics and its vast, interrelated web of heroes and villains spanning more than 35,000 issues to date. It also created the template for the modern superhero—irreverent and wise-cracking, but flawed and vulnerable. From the Fantastic Four, the Marvel style of superheroics multiplied, yielding Spider-Man, the Hulk, the X-Men, and Iron Man, among many others. Inevitably, the Marvel brand of superhero narrative leapt from the printed page to other media, first cartoons, then television and on to the movies. The Fantastic Four didn't just pave the way for the Marvel Cinematic Universe, a 37-film behemoth that has grossed $31.9 billion, but also seven Superman movies ($2 billion and counting), 13 X-Men movies ($2.49 billion), the Dark Knight Trilogy ($1.12 billion) and dozens of others. Beyond the superhero genre, it's hard to watch franchises like Star Wars and the Fast & the Furious, with their bickering, misfit heroes, without seeing traces of the Fantastic Four's DNA. 'The Fantastic Four were always the heart and soul and center of the Marvel universe and the Marvel universe has inspired so many creative people in so many different ways,' says Tom DeFalco, the former editor-in-chief of Marvel who wrote 60 issues of the Fantastic Four comic in the 1990s. On and off the silver screen For characters so integral to Marvel and its history, the Fantastic Four has been noticeably absent from its cinematic universe. That's largely a result of misguided deals made in the 1990s, when a cash-strapped Marvel sold off the movie rights to its top-tier characters, including Spider-Man, the X-Men, and the Fantastic Four. While Spider-Man and the X-Men both enjoyed some success in their early 2000 movies, Fantastic Four fans were not as fortunate, with a pair of joke-heavy movies released in 2005 and 2007 to mostly poor reviews, and a disastrous 2015 reboot that made the first two shine in comparison. The Fantastic Four comic has also faded in and out. Starting out as Marvel's flagship comic in the 1960s, it sputtered in the 1970s before taking off again in the 1980s. The comic drew critical acclaim under writer Jonathan Hickman in the early 2010s, before disappearing entirely from 2015 to 2018, allegedly to deny Fox any free publicity for its movie. Marvel regained the rights to the Fantastic Four (as well as the X-Men) when Disney acquired Fox's film studio in 2019, and the comic, currently written by Ryan North, has been on a recent upswing. Despite that checkered history, C.B Cebulski, Marvel's editor-in-chief, says the company has never wavered in its commitment to the Fantastic Four comic and the title will enjoy extra attention in the wake of the movie release. 'From my point of view, the FFs been the core,' Cebulski says 'They've been the core in publishing. What's happened outside of publishing was never really a concern to me. But we've always focused our best efforts on making sure those four —Reed, Johnny, Ben, and Sue — were somehow featured in the best possible light every year since I've been at Marvel and before.' The story of the Fantastic Four It's hard to imagine now, in this era of superhero ubiquity, but there was a time when costumed crusaders had all but vanished from the cultural landscape. Modern superheroes were born in comic books in the late 1930s and they headlined dozens of titles throughout the 1940s. Fueled by patriotic stories, circulations soared, with some titles selling more than a million issues annually. But by the mid-1950s, super heroes had all but vanished from newsstands, a result of changing tastes and a paranoid, Cold War-fueled campaign to protect children from harmful influences. The catalyst was Seduction of the Innocent, a 1954 book by psychiatrist Frederick Wertham that argued American children were being led into juvenile delinquency by lurid and violent comics. Wertham's book led to a Congressional inquiry, led by Senator Estes Kefauver of Tennessee, best known for his investigations into organized crime, and the blacklisting of dozens of comic creators. It also led the comic book industry to create the Comics Code Authority, a self-regulating body that prohibited titles with the words 'Horror' and 'Terror,' banned any mention of the occult, and insisted that in comic books, law enforcement must always be treated with respect and crime should never pay. As part of this self-censoring regime, comic publishers purged their lines of most superheroes, leaving western, romance, and humor comics. A handful of heroes remained, mostly stalwarts like Superman and Batman, but their stories were wan and gimmicky, far from the action-packed tales of the previous decades. Out of this parched environment, came the Fantastic Four. Unlike their relatively simple origin in the comic—a brilliant scientist, his best friend, his girlfriend and her kid brother go into space and are bombarded by cosmic rays—the creation of the Fantastic Four title is shrouded in mystery, controversy, and litigation. One version says Marvel's publisher, inspired by the success of rival DC's newly launched team book, the Justice League of America, demanded his own version. Another says Stan Lee, frustrated by years of toil churning out uninspiring comics, was prompted by his wife to try something new that would excite him. Another version assigns all the creative credit to Jack Kirby, a brilliant artist and storyteller who shunned the spotlight as much as Lee craved it. Most industry observers agree both Lee and Kirby made important contributions, but precisely who did what remains unknown. But for the next 101 issues, the two would work together, with Kirby largely coming up with plots and drawing the stories, while Lee added his distinctive dialogue and feverishly marketed the title. The eventual addition of legendary inker Joe Sinnott completed the package. For all that was revolutionary about the Fantastic Four, there is little about the characters' powers that is original. Mr. Fantastic's stretching ability mimicked Plastic Man, the Human Torch was a retread of a 1940s character with the same name, the powers of the Invisible Girl (as she was first known) date at least to H.G. Wells, and the Thing resembles any number of monsters. And collectively, as a team of uniformed adventurers with cool sci-fi gizmos, they looked a lot like the Challengers of the Unknown, a team created by Kirby for DC in 1957. Instead, the inventiveness came from the characters and their interactions. In the first issue, the Thing, (understandably) dismayed at becoming a monster, lashes out at the others. By issue three, the teenaged Human Torch quits the team in a huff. In issue eight, it's the Thing who quits. There's also humor, pop-culture references, and lots of action. For young comic readers, this was a radical departure from what they were reading elsewhere. 'The DC characters embraced authority, they were do-gooders, like the police who would come to your school and give a lecture,' says Jim Salicrup, who edited the title in the 1980s. 'There was a certain primal quality to Marvel characters.' Making the Fantastic Four unique among super teams is their family dynamic. While the members of other teams come and go, the Fantastic Four are, for better or worse, stuck with each other. 'They all are really closely tied together, by the original events that conspired to make them into the Fantastic Four. And they all went through it and they all got handed different cards in the deck,' says Walter Simonson, who wrote and drew the comic in the early 1990s. 'They're not people or characters from different origins and different places that get together and say, 'Hey, let's fight crime.'' According to Hickman, who wrote the Fantastic Four from 2009 and 2012, early drafts of the First Steps script missed that critical element. 'One of the notes I gave the studio was, 'This is excellent. It's very cool. I love this story, but here's the problem: It's about a superhero team and not a family.'' (He says subsequent drafts fixed it). After the initial success of the Fantastic Four comic, Lee quickly began adding new superheroes to the Marvel lineup, often working with Kirby, and busily cross-pollinating the titles. A year after the Fantastic Four debuted, they appeared on the cover of Amazing Spider-Man No. 1. The Hulk appeared in Fantastic Four 12. The Avengers brought five heroes together. The comics all contained letter pages, where fans debated the finer points of plots and characters, while Lee's monthly columns relentlessly promoted the lineup. A fan club soon followed. Readers ate it up. 'It was like joining a benevolent cult,' Salicrup says. By the end of the 1960s, the Marvel style of storytelling had spread to DC, whose heroes began to wrestle with real-world issues like racism and drug addiction. And Lee and Kirby continued to crank out their stories, introducing characters as varied and memorable as the Black Panther, Dr. Doom, Nick Fury, and Thor. That sustained decade of creativity is unmatched in comics, and was the result of the alchemy between Lee and Kirby, says Hickman. 'There are people who believe that you should swing for the fence every time,' Hickman says. 'That ideas are not a non-renewable resource, that it's a self perpetuating machine, that the more that you add to it, the more you get out of it. And I think people like that are prone to be able to do massive sprawling works of art. Those guys just happen to be those kinds of creators at the origin of what is a North American superhero industry. And we are so fortunate that we had those guys at the helm of the ship.'
Business Upturn
7 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Business Upturn
Ahsoka Season 2: Latest updates on release date, cast and plot details
Hey, Star Wars fans! If you're as pumped as we are about Ahsoka Season 2, you're probably dying to know what's next for our favorite Togruta warrior. After that wild Season 1 finale, the Disney+ show has us all buzzing with questions. When's it dropping? Who's coming back? And what's the deal with those giant statues on Peridea? We've scoured the latest news from Star Wars Celebration 2025 and beyond to bring you the juiciest updates on release date, cast, and plot. Let's dive into the galaxy far, far away! When is Ahsoka Season 2 coming out? There's no set release date just yet, but cameras are rolling. Production kicked off in Spring 2025, and all signs point to a 2026 premiere. Given that the Mandalorian & Grogu movie is slated for May 2026, Ahsoka will probably arrive later—maybe in the summer or fall—to give both the space they deserve. At this year's Star Wars Celebration, Dave Filoni confirmed filming was underway, and fans got a sneak peek at some concept art that hinted at a much bolder direction. Ivanna Sakhno, who plays Shin Hati, even teased that the new season is 'bigger and even more in-depth,' which only adds to the hype. Ahsoka Season 2 expected cast Rosario Dawson is, of course, returning as Ahsoka Tano. She'll be joined by Natasha Liu Bordizzo as Sabine Wren and Eman Esfandi as Ezra Bridger, who finally made it back home in the Season 1 finale. Hayden Christensen is also returning as Anakin Skywalker. He'll likely have a more significant presence this time—think more Force ghost moments or World Between Worlds flashbacks. Christensen recently said he feels more 'connected' to the role now, which is exciting for longtime fans. In a sensitive but thoughtful move, Rory McCann (of Game of Thrones fame) will take over the role of Baylan Skoll following Ray Stevenson's passing. Ivanna Sakhno is also back as Shin Hati, with her character's journey expected to take on more emotional depth. Lars Mikkelsen returns as the menacing Grand Admiral Thrawn, and Mary Elizabeth Winstead is expected to be back as Hera Syndulla—though that hasn't been officially confirmed. Steve Blum is finally bringing Zeb Orrelios into Ahsoka , after his blink-and-you-missed-it cameo in The Mandalorian . And in a cool addition, Elden Bennett joins as Admiral Ackbar, who seems poised for a strategic clash with Thrawn. There are also whispers that we might see Ariana Greenblatt again as young Ahsoka, and maybe—just maybe—Ewan McGregor as Obi-Wan in a vision or flashback. Nothing's confirmed, but hey, we can dream. Ahsoka Season 2 potential plot Plot details are being kept under wraps (because, of course), but based on where we left off, it's safe to say we're in for something wild. Ahsoka and Sabine are still stuck on Peridea, while Ezra and Thrawn have made it back to the main Star Wars galaxy. So we're looking at a dual storyline that spans two galaxies. That concept art from Celebration 2025? It showed Ahsoka and Sabine going up against massive, evil droids—so the action's definitely leveling up. More intriguingly, Season 2 is expected to dive into some of Star Wars' most mystical territory: the Mortis gods and the World Between Worlds. Baylan was last seen approaching those strange statues on Peridea, which strongly hints that the Force is about to get way weirder—and more powerful. Filoni called it 'a big mystery,' and we're all in on figuring it out. Thrawn, meanwhile, has teamed up with the Nightsisters and has an army of stormtroopers enhanced by dark magic. His clash with Admiral Ackbar is expected to be one of the season's highlights, bringing a high-stakes military showdown that could shape the future of the New Republic. And then there's Anakin. With Christensen back, his relationship with Ahsoka is far from over. Whether through visions, the Force, or the World Between Worlds, his influence will likely shape Ahsoka's choices moving forward. Ahmedabad Plane Crash
CNN
8 hours ago
- Entertainment
- CNN
How one man's superhero mission has brightened thousands of lives in all 50 states
It's not every day that Deadpool comes to visit your bedside. But a lucky number of people across the United States have had that experience thanks to Yuri Williams. Since 2017, Williams has donned an array of iconic superhero costumes to spread cheer to sick children, the unhoused, veterans, people with disabilities, and even animals. Recently, he met up with kids and spread smiles at Miller Children's and Women's Hospital near his home in Southern California. But Williams has traveled to all 50 states five and a half times and estimates he's visited with more than 25,000 people in need, all out of the goodness of his heart. 'The goal is to provide these special moments for people,' he said. 'It's a great feeling to be able to go in and uplift these people that are in need of uplifting.' The 48-year-old is a probation officer by day but spends his free time organizing costumed visits. And Williams rarely makes these trips empty handed – he gives out toys, backpacks, food, clothes, and blankets, among other items. Sometimes the gifts come from organizations like Toys for Tots, and other times, he pays for whatever is needed out of his own pocket. Williams' costumed appearances are not limited to Deadpool. He has dressed as other superheroes including Spider-Man and Miles Morales, and Star Wars favorites like Kylo Ren, a Stormtrooper and the Mandalorian. Occasionally, he goes out with a Marvel sidekick in the form of Captain America, also known as a 75-year-old volunteer named Ron. 'It's making a distraction, wearing the costume,' Williams said, 'but at the same time, I'm able to help them because they feel like they can trust me.' This comic book aficionado's origin story began in 2009, after losing his mother, Lynda Hubbard, to an eight-year battle with cancer. 'My mother was a loving individual,' Williams said. Hubbard was a probation officer, who inspired her son to go into the profession and showed him what it meant to care for your community. After her passing, Williams said he struggled with deep depression for five years. But eventually, he came up with the idea to start a nonprofit to honor his mother and her spirit. A Future Superhero and Friends was born and became a way for him to bring joy into his own life. 'It makes me feel good inside,' he said. 'I'm making an impact on people in this world, and that's what my mom instilled in me every single day.'
The Star
10 hours ago
- Entertainment
- The Star
'Lilo & Stitch' becomes Hollywood's first US$1bil movie of 2025
Stitch has become increasingly popular, ranking in the top 10 bestselling Disney franchises, alongside stalwarts like Mickey and Minnie Mouse, the princesses, Star Wars and Marvel. Photo: Handout Walt Disney Co.'s live-action adaptation Lilo & Stitch has now generated more than US$1bil in worldwide box office revenue, becoming the first US film of the year to do so. The movie, based on the 2002 animated film of the same name, made US$416.2mil in the United States and Canada and an additional US$584.8mil internationally. It is the highest-grossing Disney live-action film ever in Mexico, where it brought in US$67mil. "We knew there was a lot of love for Lilo & Stitch with audiences around the world, yet we never take that for granted," Disney Entertainment co-Chairman Alan Bergman said in a statement. "We're proud of how this new film has connected with people." The Burbank-based media and entertainment giant has already announced that a sequel to Lilo & Stitch is in development. The original animated movie was only a modest box-office performer at the time, bringing in US$273mil. Yet over time, Stitch has become increasingly popular, ranking in the top 10 bestselling Disney franchises, alongside stalwarts like Mickey and Minnie Mouse, the princesses, Star Wars and Marvel, Disney has said. Sales of Stitch-themed merchandise totaled about US$2.6bil last year. And before the new film was released, the Lilo & Stitch franchise, which includes animated series, TV films and direct-to-video movies, drove 546 million hours of global viewership on Disney+, with the original movie accounting for more than half of that. Bergman said in May that the popularity of the little blue alien "definitely" played a role in greenlighting the live-action film. The success of Lilo & Stitch comes as family-friendly movies have ruled the box office. The momentum began in April with Warner Bros. Pictures' A Minecraft Movie , which has now made US$955mil worldwide, and continued with Lilo & Stitch and Universal Pictures' live-action adaptation How To Train Your Dragon , which released in June and collected more than US$564mil globally. Globally, the biggest film of the year remains Ne Zha 2 , a Chinese animated juggernaut that grossed more than US$2bil in ticket sales, the vast majority of which came from its home country. – Los Angeles Times/Tribune News Service
