Fans of Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples critically acclaimed comic book Saga can finally breathe easy. The series is returning to the stands in early 2022.
The two creators dropped the news during the "In Conversation With Brian K. Vaughan" panel at NYCC. Image Comics confirms the series will resume with Saga #55, which slated for release on January 26, 2022. Just as Saga debuted during Image's 20th anniversary celebration in 2012, the return is meant to mark the publisher's 30th anniversary.
“Other than my own family, collaborating with Fiona Staples on Saga is the most important thing in my life, so I can’t thank readers and retailers enough for their patience,” said Vaughan in a statement. “I think our next 54 issues will be even more shocking, strange, and spectacular than the first 54, so we can’t wait to be back on the shelves at your local comic shop soon.”
Staples said, “I've really missed connecting with readers through the pages of Saga, so I'm thrilled to roll up my sleeves and dive into this world again. The next arc is already going places I never imagined. I'm so grateful that we're able to keep doing this!"
Saga originally went on hiatus with issue #54 in 2018, marking the series' planned midway point. In the letter column for that issue, Vaughan wrote, "“After fifty-four issues and over 1,200 consecutive pages of sequential storytelling together, Fiona and I have decided to take an extended break before we eventually reunite with Saga #55. And unlike our usual three months of 'Vacationanza' between arcs, we plan to pause publication of this series for at least the next year.”
Jesse is a mild-mannered staff writer for IGN. Allow him to lend a machete to your intellectual thicket by following @jschedeen on Twitter.
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A teaser trailer for the sixth season of Outlander premiered during the show's New York Comic Con panel on Saturday, October 9, ahead of its arrival in Early 2022.
The teaser was initially only available for attendees in person with those watching the livestream not able to view it. But a teaser was uploaded to Starz’s YouTube channel and Outlander social media accounts during the panel. It’s not clear if it’s the same teaser that was shown to the crowd.
In the teaser, we see a glimpse of many of Outlander's characters before we see a sign being nailed to a board that reads "Refuse British Goods." Claire then says, "It's starting. The storm, the war… it's almost here." As she speaks, we see glimpses of the British soldiers and some of the tragedy that is set to befall some characters in the upcoming battles and winter season.
Executive producer Maril Davis talked about how the season was shortened by multiple episodes due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite that, she still promises a “traumatic” and “packed” eight-episode season for the fans early next year.
“We filmed eight episodes but it feels like 20,” Davis said.
The panelists–consisting of the book’s author Diana Gabaldon, Davis, and lead actor Sam Heughan in person with actors Caitriona Balfe, John Bell, Lauren Lyle, and César Domboy joining virtually–promised a season that will heavily feature the Christie family. Heughan promises trouble from the Christies and says it will make for some good TV for the fans.
“You’ll love them and hate them,” Heughan said.
The Outlander season five finale aired in May 2020. After delayed production due to COVID-19, Starz announced in June 2021 that Outlander would receive a shortened eight-episode season six in early 2022, according to Deadline.
Due to the shortened season six, Deadline says Starz promised a 16-episode season seven and a 90-minute premiere episode for season six. Davis announced during the panel that season seven will film in 2022.
Sonequa Martin-Green and the crew of the USS Discovery were on hand at New York Comic Con 2021 today to debut the official Season 4 trailer for the flagship Trek series on Paramount+. Key art for the season was also revealed, featuring Martin-Green as now-Captain Michael Burnham, complete with the new uniform design that we first glimpsed in the Disco teaser from last April.
Here's the logline for the season from Paramount Plus:
Season 4 of Star Trek: Discovery finds Captain Burnham and the crew of the U.S.S. Discovery facing a threat unlike any they’ve ever encountered. With Federation and non-Federation worlds alike feeling the impact, they must confront the unknown and work together to ensure a hopeful future for all.
The new season of Disco hits the Paramount streaming service on Thursday, Nov. 18. Check out the key art right here:
The NYCC Discovery panel included Martin-Green as well as her co-stars Anthony Rapp (Stamets), Mary Wiseman (Tilly), Wilson Cruz (Culber), David Ajala (Booker), and Blu del Barrio (Adira), plus showrunner and executive producer Michelle Paradise. The team was pretty tight-lipped about the new season, but they did drop a few hints about what to expect from their character arcs in year four.
Martin-Green spoke about her character's finally taking the captain's chair on a permanent basis, saying there are a lot of things that need to be learned and a lot of discoveries and challenges for Michael. And every relationship is affected by it because all of a sudden there’s a sort of distance that occurs, a bit of stepping back that has to happen so the captain can make the best decision for the entire crew.
The cast were asked how the “anomaly” threat of the season affects each member of the crew. Stamets is a scientist first and foremost, so he’s driven to solve this riddle day and night. Tilly is great at science, “so that helps,” said Wiseman. She’ll also be feeling more responsibility in a position of leadership this season. That combined with the events of Season 3 spirals her off into a personal journey of investigation. Culber will be taking on double duty as a medical officer as well as the ship’s counselor, and the danger of the anomaly means that there will be great anxiety among the crew. For inspiration, Cruz looked to the doctors and health professionals in the real world and how they have dealt with the pressures of COVID-19. Martin-Green added that none of the characters were expecting a threat this big so soon after jumping to the future, but that the true character of the crew comes out during this moment of pressure.
Paradise also mentioned that the Federation president who you can spot in the trailer is a Cardassian/Bajoran/Human – this is the 32nd century, after all!
Star Trek: Discovery continues to explore the undiscovered country on Paramount Plus when Season 4 premieres on Thursday, Nov. 18.
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Now that Loki has opened up the Marvel multiverse, Marvel's What If…? has shown us some of the alternate realities where life in the MCU took a slightly different turn. Over the course of Season 1, we saw some pretty wild superhero battles, including a number that would flat-out never happen in the regular MCU.
From Hank Pym showing how to beat a Hulk to Uatu going full Dragon Ball Z against Ultron, let's take a look back at the biggest and most unexpected match-ups in What If…?: Season 1.
Captain Carter vs. Shuma-Gorath
While the premiere episode follows the main story beats of Captain America: The First Avenger pretty closely, it does take a last-minute swerve. Rather than duke it out with Red Skull, Captain Carter is faced with a much bigger and more powerful enemy – the unholy monstrosity known as Shuma-Gorath. We might have expected this monster to appear in a future Doctor Strange movie, but not trading blows with a serum-empowered version of Peggy Carter. Good thing this Cap carries a sword along with her shield.
The Ravagers vs. The Collector and The Black Order
In the Avengers movies, the Black Order are happy to do the bidding of their master Thanos. Who would have thought we'd see the Mad Titan fight against these minions, and as a teammate of T'Challa, no less? The role reversal is strong in the climax of Episode 2. This episode also does far more than the movies ever have in showcasing the threat posed by The Collector. When you've accumulated valuable trophies like Captain America's shield and Hela's helmet, even the galaxy's brightest heroes are outmatched.
Hulk vs. Yellowjacket
There's super-strength, and then there's the Hulk. The Green Guy's power is near-incalculable, and he's perfectly capable of fending off entire army battalions on his own (as we saw once more in this episode). But we also learned just how easily even the Hulk can fall when someone has the right tools. One Magic School Bus-style trip into Hulk's bloodstream and Hank Pym is able to plant a bomb that explodes Hulk from the inside. A real blowout victory, if you will. It's a stark reminder of just how dangerous Pym's technology can be when in the wrong hands. Especially if those hands are his own.
"Nick Fury" vs. Yellowjacket
Episode 3 gave us another unexpected match-up when Nick Fury confronted a grieving Hank Pym at the grave of Hope van Dyne. For once, we saw Fury taking matters into his own hands and putting up a surprisingly good fight against his much more powerful foe. Who knew Fury was so limber? Of course, by the end it was clear "Fury" was actually Loki in disguise, but still. We're not apt to see this alliance in the regular MCU anytime soon.
Doctor Strange vs. Strange Supreme
Doctor Strange has already gone up against some of the most terrifying villains in the MCU, including Dormammu and Thanos. Who would have thought his greatest battle would be against himself? Episode 4 shows us the full power of magic unleashed when the good and evil halves of Strange collide. And where our Stephen Strange would surely find a way of triumphing in the regular MCU, all bets are off in the realm of What If…?. By the end, Strange Supreme found himself the sole survivor of a universe torn to shreds by his actions.
Doctor Strange's Cloak vs. The Marvel Zombies
The MCU movies have established Doctor Strange's Cloak of Levitation as a character unto itself, one who doesn't always obey the whims of its master. That really pays off in the opening moments of Episode 5, where the Cloak shows up just in time to save a befuddled Bruce Banner from zombified versions of the Avengers and the Black Order. When the enemy thrives on human flesh, it sure pays to have an ally who has no flesh of its own.
Wakanda vs. the US Military
This may be What If…?, but Episode 6 showed us an all too believable turn of events when General Ross waged war against the nation of Wakanda. It turns out global superpowers don't like it when a remote African nation suddenly turns out to be king of the technological hill. It doesn't help that Episode 6 casts Killmonger as an Emperor Palpatine-esque mastermind manipulating both sides. The end result is a bombastic clash between Wakanda's elite warriors and a fleet of Killmonger/Tony Stark-designed anime robots. Compared to this episode, the scope of the final battle in 2018's Black Panther feels quaint.
Thor vs. Captain Marvel
Thor and Captain Marvel were both off-world during the events of Civil War, which is probably just as well for the sake of the planet. But if you've ever wondered what might happen if these two strongest Avengers went head-to-head, Episode 7 has the answer. We've never seen punches land this hard in the movies. Each blow sends these heroes flying across entire continents. Fortunately, this feud proved to be as short-lived as hero vs. hero rivalries usually are.
Ultron vs. Uatu
Episode 8 marked a major turning point for Marvel's What If…?, as Uatu shifted from passive observer to active defender of the multiverse. It takes a special kind of villain to orchestrate that change, and we got just that with a turbo-charged version of Ultron. The ensuing battle may well be the biggest and most memorable in the series so far. Who knew Uatu had that kind of power to throw around? Not that it was enough to stop a being with a perfect Synthezoid body and the power of the Infinity Gauntlet.
The Guardians of the Multiverse vs. Ultron
The season finale delivered Round 2 of the epic Ultron throwdown, with the newly minted Guardians of the Multiverse giving their all to stop Ultron. Between a Doctor Strange imbued with the power of countless demonic entities and an Ultron capable of rewriting reality as we know it, the power levels here were off the charts. Where else will you see a portal dump thousands of Marvel Zombies on top of a killer android? The Avengers should count themselves lucky they only ever had to deal with vanilla Ultron.
Jesse is a mild-mannered staff writer for IGN. Allow him to lend a machete to your intellectual thicket by following @jschedeen on Twitter.
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The last two episodes of What If…? Season 1 (read our What If…? season finale review) saw Ultron, or at least a variant thereof, return to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Of course, the Avengers villain made his big-screen debut in 2015’s Avengers: Age of Ultron, a debut that was greeted with mixed reviews.
Still, if the second Avengers film didn’t quite do the robotic baddie justice, the graphic novel Avengers: Rage of Ultron – which was published to promote the then-forthcoming film – managed to surpass it, while also reminding us not just why Ultron is such a great character in the first place, but also how the robot's origins lie even deeper than the Marvel comics in which he first debuted. Scripted by Rick Remender, with art by Jerome Opeña, Pepe Larraz, and Mark Morales, Rage stands as one of the definitive Ultron stories. Let’s examine why.
The True Origins of Ultron
Springing forth from the minds of Roy Thomas and John Buscema, Ultron debuted in Avengers #54, but it wasn’t until his fourth appearance – Avengers #58 – that his origin was revealed. He turned out to be a rogue creation of the Avengers’ own Hank Pym, aka Ant-Man/Giant-Man. After trying to murder his father, Ultron settled for wiping his memory.
Though Ultron is destroyed by his own creation the Vision shortly after this revelation, he has returned countless times, becoming the bitterest foe of the Avengers and Pym in particular. The android’s relationship with his creator is often depicted as Oedipal – the desire to murder one’s father and wed their mother. The first story to call attention to this was The Bride of Ultron (Avengers #162, script by Jim Shooter, art by George Pérez), wherein the villainous android abducts his “mother,” Janet Van Dyne, aka the Wasp. His intention? To use Janet as the basis for a mate, one named after Oedipus’ mother Jocasta, no less.
Ultron’s desire for companionship overlaps with another story of creation gone wrong – Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein or The Modern Prometheus. It’s a common joke to say, “Actually, Frankenstein was the scientist, not the monster.” This joke misses the forest for the trees, though. Victor Frankenstein is both the scientist and the story’s monster. He deserted Adam, his son by intent if not blood, at the creature’s birth because Adam didn’t conform to Victor’s expectations; Adam’s rage against his father is the rage of an abandoned child. It is this same rage that burns within Ultron.
We Need to Talk About Ultron
Rage of Ultron begins in the Bronze Age of comics, when the Avengers of yesteryear face off with Ultron’s latest iteration. To save the world from nuclear armageddon, the Avengers seal the android in a Quinjet that’s blasting off into space, and Hank laments that to save the world he had to betray his son. Years later, Ultron’s prison crashlands on Titan, moon of Saturn and home of the Eternals. Infecting the moon’s computer core, Ultron reshapes Titan into a singularity of his will and then returns to Earth to do the same there.
Rage of Ultron pushes many Avengers into supporting roles because it knows which characters it wants to focus on – naturally, Ultron and Hank. By centering and juxtaposing the two, Rage asks what, if any, difference exists between them, and if alternate choices from Hank could have resulted in a better path for Ultron.
Ultron’s desire for companionship overlaps with another story of creation gone wrong – Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.
Remender writes Ultron much like Shelley’s Adam: determined to avenge himself on a parent who would not love him. The comic even rewrites Ultron’s birth and the original falling out with Hank. In a flashback from Avengers #58, Ultron tried to kill Hank seconds after being born for no reason at all. In Rage’s version, however, Hank – convinced by the robot’s cold cynicism that he made a mistake with its programming – tries to destroy Ultron first. Ultron resents his father for this and it’s why, even in his general misanthropy, he reserves a special hatred for Hank Pym. By making Ultron’s legacy of violence the fault of not just the android himself, but Hank as well, the comic in turn explores Hank’s own simmering resentments and how those bled into his creation – with Hank as his creator, Ultron’s rage was predestined.
While coated with superhero pomp and spectacle, Rage of Ultron is at its core a somber story about the blend of love and resentment which fills the relationship between a parent and their child. Indeed, it has less in common with any MCU movie, and more with Lynne Ramsay’s We Need to Talk About Kevin. In Rage, Hank assumes the role filled by Tilda Swinton’s character Eva Khatchadourian: a parent wrestling with having brought a monster into the world. In turn, both stories ask if a parent’s love is truly unconditional – if someone can love a being determined only to hate.
This begins with the cover of the book. Ultron’s visage casts a shadow which engulfs all the Avengers, but it’s Hank whose image aligns with, and is dwarfed by, Ultron. The meaning of this composition is two-fold. For one, Ultron and his father are the same – two manifestations of the same being, with only one unburdened by humanity. Second, Ultron is the shadow which Hank will forever cast. The achievement for which he’ll be remembered is not one of his scientific or superheroic feats, but having created his own greatest enemy.
Kurt Busiek, author of both Ultron Unlimited and Rage’s preamble, introduced the idea that Ultron’s programming had been modeled from his creator’s personality. Busiek used this to deepen Hank’s guilt but it’s Remender who takes the idea to its fullest potential by exploring what this genesis means not just for creator, but creation. Children are extensions of their parents after all – our progeny perpetuate our legacy, yet reveal our failings all the same.
Creator and Creation
In the book’s third act, Hank decides it’s time for him to understand why his son is evil. To ask why, instead of experiencing “stolen moments basking in [his] child’s success, vibrancy, and joy,” Hank’s relationship with Ultron has brought only pain.
To answer, Ultron pulls from Hank’s own memories and argues that his father has never been respected, disparaging Hank as “a formless man constantly changing his identity in search of validation.” And he’s right. Hank’s genius is overshadowed by that of others like Reed Richards and Tony Stark, and all he’s remembered for are his mistakes. Even in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, his comic claims to fame, from the creation of Ultron to being a founding Avenger to his identity as Ant-Man, have all been usurped.
Ultron rants at his father that he is nothing more than Hank Pym’s Id unfurled, a murderous inferiority complex given life in a metal shell: “We are Ultron! You could never find your place in this world, so you built me to destroy it. You never truly stop me because you want me to succeed!”
The robot’s declaration soon proves truer than he’d intended. The Vision uses his phasing powers to merge with Ultron, hoping to shut his own father down from the inside. Hank, moved by the sight of his son in agony, pleads with Vision to release Ultron. The resulting scuffle sees Hank and Ultron merged. As one, the two finally know harmony.
Neither Vision nor Captain America can defeat this new being, and their appeals to Hank’s now non-existent humanity fall on deaf ears. The more the fused Pym-Ultron speaks, the harder it becomes to know which words come from which half, especially when Pym-Ultron declares “I was born hollow into a world I didn’t belong to!”
Hearing these words, Eros of Titan uses emotion-swaying powers on Ultron, attempting to turn anger into love. He fails, replacing rage not with self-acceptance, but with guilt, and a repentant Ultron flees. The tragedy of father and son is intertwined; Hank could never move past his mistakes, while Ultron can’t believe his father’s love for him. Both would mean Hank Pym doing the one thing he was never able to do: love himself.
A funeral is held for Hank as the merged Ultron drifts alone through space – Hank’s heart is the one organic part of his body which survived the melding. It’s an ending on par with The Killing Joke, the last word that needs to be written about a rivalry between a superhero and their archenemy. Just as that story ended with Batman and the Joker holding each other in the rain, sharing a laugh at their mutual madness, Hank and Ultron’s rage has subsided, but is intertwined always and forever.
