Entertainment
Marvel Is Lying To You With The Avengers: Doomsday Trailer
By Chris Snellgrove
| Published
Say what you will about Marvel Studios, but they are still capable of surprising us. We haven’t gotten any big reveals about Avengers: Doomsday for a hot minute, and many fans assumed that we wouldn’t get anything significant until San Diego Comic-Con. However, the studio shocked everyone by releasing the first full trailer for the upcoming film online this morning. It’s far more substantial than the teasers we got last year, showing ample footage of our heroes teaming up to fight a new threat. We also get a great look at Doctor Doom in action as he deflects a mighty attack from Thor without breaking a sweat.
While the fan reaction has been divided, the trailer has some undeniably cool moments, including Steve Rogers’ reunion with Thor. What you might not realize while you’re soaking it all in, though, is that Marvel is effectively lying to us with this trailer. Most of the dialogue comes from Thor, who is rallying other heroes against a threat they will need “a miracle” to stop. The framing of the Avengers: Doomsday trailer implies that Doom himself is the threat. In reality, everyone is freaking out about the movie’s real Big Bad: the incursions that threaten the entire multiverse and that will kill all of your favorite heroes.
Mighty Marvel Misdirection
Now, before we get started, a word of warning. In discussing the first Avengers: Doomsday trailer, I’m going to be dipping into spoilers for the film. Some of these spoilers come from trusted leakers, but most come from my long boxes of comics. You see, Doomsday and Secret Wars are adapting a Marvel comics storyline that came out over a decade ago, so it’s easy to extrapolate some of where these films are going. If you haven’t read the comics or peeked at the leaks, though, my breakdown may spoil some of the movie’s biggest surprises. That makes this your last chance to back out if you’d rather know as little about Doomsday as possible.
Still with me? Great. Now, why do I say the Avengers: Doomsday trailer is effectively lying to us? Most of the dialogue comes from Thor, who gives a grim speech to other heroes. He discusses how he has teamed up with far stronger warriors who “died facing enemies and threats that scared me far less than this one.” He ends the speech saying, “we’re going to need a miracle.” There are plenty of interesting scenes while he speaks, but none are as captivating as Thor’s fight with Doctor Doom. Because of this, the trailer leads us to believe Thor has been talking about Doom the entire time.
The Saddest Marvel Movie
He isn’t, though. What he is talking about, which is only hinted at in the trailer (when Xavier looks up to see a bright explosion), are the incursions. Ripped straight from Marvel Comics, the plot of Avengers: Doomsday deals with different realities colliding into one another. When this happens, both universes are destroyed. However, a universe can survive by doing something horrific: wiping out the other universe before the collision. Doctor Doom alludes to this in the trailer when he talks about being “faced with an unthinkable decision.” That decision is whether the heroes are willing to wipe out entire realities in order to save everyone they love.
So, all of this is more or less backed up by official synopses for Avengers: Doomsday. The next parts are based on speculation from me and other comics-loving fans across the internet. Early in the trailer, we see Xavier looking in shock at a bright explosion. This is one of the other realities (most likely the Tobey Maguire Spider-Man universe) getting destroyed. According to the rumors, the X-Men have had to do this several times before, which is why the Avengers are wary of them. Presumably, this is why Gambit and Mystique are fighting, respectively, Shang-Chi and White Widow Yelena Belova in Xavier’s mansion.
From Secret Enemies To Secret Wars
Interestingly, the rumors claim that Doctor Doom presents himself as an ally first…someone who convinces both the Fantastic Four and Steve Rogers to come to the 616 universe and work with the Avengers to stop the incursions. However, the heel turn comes when the villain reveals that he actually wants the incursions to happen, and by the end, one of those incursions has killed everyone except Doom, who uses powers stolen from Loki to resurrect everyone, erase their memories, and make them part of the only reality that is left: Doom’s Battleworld. Avengers: Secret Wars will show what happens next, and its climax will help reboot the MCU.
Kevin Feige is basically gambling everything on that reboot; it will pave the way for properly introducing new X-Men into the MCU, recasting popular characters, and even bringing in fan-favorite superheroes like Miles Morales. There’s a certain irony here, of course: the incursions are the major existential threat of Avengers: Doomsday, and because of them, none of our favorite heroes will survive. Without those incursions, though, we’d never get the upcoming reset, and without that, there would be no way for the MCU to live.
Multiple fictional worlds at stake, an entire cinematic universe on the line, and Robert Downey Jr. talking like Nandor from What We Do in the Shadows? Superhero fatigue be damned, it sounds like Avengers: Doomsday will be one hell of a thrill ride!
Entertainment
Time for a new smartwatch? Snag the Samsung Galaxy Watch 8 Classic for 51% off ahead of Samsung Unpacked.
SAVE $280: As of July 21, get the Samsung Galaxy Watch 8 Classic for $269.99 at Woot, down from its usual price of $549.99. That’s a discount of 51%.
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If you’re looking to kit your wrist out with a new smartwatch, now’s a great time to do so. Samsung is on the verge of debuting several new models, and that means the old ones are going down in price. Case in point: the Samsung Galaxy Watch 8 Classic, which you can get for an excellent discount right now if you don’t want to wait for the new crop of devices.
As of July 21, get the Samsung Galaxy Watch 8 Classic for $269.99 at Woot, down from its usual price of $549.99. That’s $280 off and a discount of 51%.
This classy smartwatch opts to keep things traditional while offering a variety of modern features that you’ll appreciate. That includes a bright, easy-to-read display, a rotating bezel you use to select apps and navigate menus, and several health-tracking abilities so you can stay on top of what’s happening with your body and fitness at all times.
From a heart rate and sleep score monitor to a daily Energy Score calculated from your heart rate, sleep, activity, and rest this watch can make sure you’re ready for the day in all the ways that count. It can also be used to help track blood pressure.
Mashable Deals
Beyond all its health-centric features, this is a great smartwatch for day-to-day functionality and staying on top of your schedule. It has a built-in AI assistant as well as the option to use voice commands to navigate, which means you never have to use your hand to get things done if you don’t want to.
If you’re ready to debut a new smartwatch without breaking the bank, now’s a good time to buy in.
Entertainment
The Latest Poster For Avengers: Doomsday Secretly Spoils The Plot
By Chris Snellgrove
| Published
With less than five months left until the film’s release, Marvel has taken their marketing for Avengers: Doomsday to the next level. Right now, fans are mostly focused on the trailer that dropped today, which is no surprise; after all, it’s not every day that you see the reunion of Thor and Steve Rogers or, for that matter, a battle between Shang-Chi and Gambit. Amid all the breathless hype over the trailer, however, a more powerful advertisement is lurking in plain sight. At the same time Marvel launched the trailer, they also released a new Avengers: Doomsday poster.
Compared to that crowded character poster, the new poster is downright subdued. It features Doctor Doom staring at a huge tapestry with a broken world and two characters: a woman and a boy. Some comics fans think this image is Doom and his mother, a character who is eventually damned to Hell. However, other fans are convinced that this is actually an image of Doom’s wife and child; if true, this would effectively ruin the biggest plot twist. How does it do that? If you don’t mind some potential spoilers for this year’s biggest film, just keep reading!
You Can’t Spell “Painting” Without “Pain”
So, let’s start this story in reverse (just don’t let the TVA get me!): why do some fans think the woman in this poster is Doctor Doom’s mother? In the comics, she’s a big deal. To defeat an evil dictator who was ruling her country with an iron fist (an actual fist, not the kung-fu guy), she made a deal with the devil. As usual, the deal went wrong, and she lost control of the powers that she gained from Mephisto. She renounced those powers, got killed, and was then dragged into Hell. To see her again, Doom later mastered magic, visited Mephisto, and conducted an experiment that ruined his own face.
However, all of the lore behind this origin story is too dense to fit into Avengers: Doomsday, a movie which is already crowded with endless character cameos. It seems the movie is taking a different direction, as multiple reports have claimed that the two figures are actually Doom’s wife and child. An unconfirmed leak of the movie’s plot (don’t say I didn’t warn you about spoilers, kids!) claims that Doom actually lost his family to one of the incursions, which is when one reality collides with another. This motivates Doom to learn more about the incursions and to plot his revenge.
A Hero Will Be Broken
Revenge against whom, you ask? According to the leaked plot, Steve Rogers! Reportedly, Loki visits the former Captain America in the past and warns him that the TVA will prune his entire timeline because he’s not supposed to be there. In an act of seeming kindness, Loki brings Cap, Peggy, and their young son to the Fantastic Four’s universe. However, the leak claims that Steve’s presence in this universe somehow triggers an incursion and that Doom disfigured himself and killed his own wife and son trying to stop it. In a shocking twist, Doom reportedly kills Steve’s son in front of the hero in an act of vengeance.
Now, again, all of this comes from a leaked plot summary that hasn’t been confirmed, so all of this could be an Ego-sized bottle of hogwash. But it’s worth noting that the Avengers: Doomsday teasers last year prominently focused on both Captain America and Thor becoming fathers. This potentially adds credence to the idea that this is a film about family and how far someone will go to protect the ones they love. If the leaks are true, this innocuous poster featuring Doctor Doom is spoiling the motivation the villain will have to cross time and space and cross countless moral event horizons along the way.
A movie where costumed vigilantes (like Batman, Spider-Man, and so many more) are driven by the ghosts of family members they lost when they were children? Well, nobody ever accused Marvel of being all that original!
Entertainment
The Best Horror Series Ever Made Is Now Streaming For Free
By Chris Snellgrove
| Published
My absolute favorite kind of movie is the anthology. When you have a collection of short films all rolled into one, it provides the ultimate ROI for the audience. Don’t like one of the stories? You can just thug it out with the short runtime or skip ahead to the next tale. Either way is infinitely preferable to slogging through a two-hour film that started boring you to tears in the first scene. The anthology is much rarer in television, however, because networks and streamers have learned just how attached fans get to the same characters and stories, causing them to run these shows into the ground.
Heroes, Stranger Things, Star Trek: Discovery…what do all of these shows have in common? They were designed to be anthologies that would change things up each season, but their early success meant we were stuck with the same cast for years as the show got worse. Fortunately, true anthology lovers are just a click away from getting their fix. Right now, Tales From the Crypt is streaming for free on Tubi, just waiting to delight all you ghouls and boys. It’s not just the perfect anthology show; it is, in fact, the greatest horror series ever made!
Meet The Cryptkeeper
Tales From the Crypt fully embraces its anthology format, with every single episode focusing on different characters and different terrifying tales. What ties all of them together is our host, the Cryptkeeper. He’s a snarky, hilariously mean corpse of a character brought to life by a small army of puppeteers. The show originated on HBO, and its creators embraced the fact that it didn’t have to abide by any of the restrictive standards of network television. As such, episodes were filled to the brim with vulgar language, nudity, sex, and more buckets of blood than you can shake a bodybag at.
Younger horror fans should know that it’s almost impossible to overstate the popularity of Tales From the Crypt and its ghoulish host. Despite all the blood, breasts, and beasts, the show was wildly popular with kids, including my own underage self. Accordingly, it got two spinoffs aimed directly at children: Tales From the Cryptkeeper (a Saturday Morning children’s cartoon) and Secrets of the Cryptkeeper’s Haunted House (a weird gameshow). If that seems odd, this was during the same time that Kenner marketed toys based on Terminator 2 and Aliens directly to kids. What can I say? The ‘90s were weird, man!
Friends In Low Places
One compelling reason to check out Tales From the Crypt is that it had plenty of awesome guest stars, all of whom were happy to do an episode without being tied down to a long contract. Guests included Arnold Schwarzenegger, Brad Pitt, Michael J. Fox, Tom Hanks, and so many more. In most cases, these actors are performing against type, making what happens to them onscreen that much more shocking. Trust me: if you only know actors like Robert Picardo and Wil Wheaton from Star Trek, you’ll never look at them the same way after watching Tales From the Crypt.
For me, though, the single best thing about Tales From the Crypt is the show’s wicked sense of humor. With his relentless puns, wild expressions, and unhinged laughter, the Cryptkeeper sets the tone for a show that has black comedy running through its veins at all times. This adds serious entertainment value and also helps position the show as a light (but filling) bite for horror fans. Not in the mood for elevated horror and don’t have the time for a two-hour psychological thriller? You can always count on Tales From the Crypt to deliver a perfect slice of scary entertainment in under 30 minutes.
There’s not much more to say, especially without spoiling these awesome episodes. Ready to see if this early HBO success story lives up to the hype? Maybe you want to laugh and scream in equal measure, or just write down some weird new puns with which to torment your children? Whatever your reason, the best horror series ever made is just a click away. Tales From the Crypt is currently streaming for free on Tubi, which is arguably the best platform for any boils and ghouls who love a good scare!
TALES FROM THE CRYPT REVIEW SCORE
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