Entertainment
DC Just Quietly Admitted Defeat To Marvel
By Chris Snellgrove
| Updated
For the better part of a century, there has been a creative war between two powerhouse publishers: Marvel and DC. While there are plenty of others making comic books, these are the biggest names in the game, each amassing millions of fans. Eventually, the war leapt from the page to the silver screen, with each side releasing its own bevy of superhero films. For a long time, Marvel has been dominant. Not only is the MCU the most popular cinematic universe ever created, but it outlasted the DCEU, which crashed and burned in its attempt to be the grim and gritty alternative to Marvel.
Last year, however, James Gunn launched the DCU with Superman, his film about the most famous superhero of them all. The movie was a hit, one that earned more than both of the MCU’s rival summer films (The Thunderbolts and The Fantastic Four: First Steps). It looked like Marvel might finally have a worthy rival, but now, it looks like the fight is already over. Gunn’s new cinematic universe was already in trouble when Supergirl became a critical and commercial bomb. Now, Gunn himself has confirmed that the DCU won’t show off anything at San Diego Comic Con’s famous Hall H, where Marvel is planning on making several major announcements.
Why Hall H Is So Important
So, what’s significant about Hall H? Basically, this is the home of the biggest presentations at San Diego Comic Con. Fans often line up a day in advance to get inside this 6,500-seat room; there, they are treated to a bevy of exclusive panels, trailers, and other previews courtesy of major Hollywood studios. Historically, Marvel has made major announcements in Hall H, and this year is no exception. Fans attending SDCC can expect major announcements about Avengers: Doomsday, Spider-Man: Brand New Day, X-Men ‘97, and more. Because of this, DCU fans were hoping James Gunn would bring some major announcements of his own.
Unfortunately, that’s not gonna happen. While there will be some other DC offerings elsewhere at SDCC (including an immersive Lanterns experience and a DC booth with a Superman Experience), there will be no DCU panels, updates, or anything else at Hall H. James Gunn himself confirmed this while also explaining his reasoning: namely, that he can generate hype for upcoming films for free via social media, but making a big splash at San Diego Comic Con would cost several million dollars. For the DC Studios co-CEO, the juice just ain’t worth the squeeze.
It’s All About The Money
He’s not wrong, of course: it’s always been hard to track how effective marketing movies to SDCC attendees is, especially because almost every “exclusive” thing they are shown ultimately ends up (officially or unofficially) on the internet. Plus, this is the fourth year Warner Bros. is skipping the Hall H hoopla, so Gunn’s announcement may not seem that shocking. Still, DCU fans are a bit surprised because there are major projects coming up, including Clayface and The Man of Tomorrow. Following Supergirl’s failure, this would be the perfect time to hype up the DCU, but Gunn is content to play cautious and coy.
From the outside looking in, this certainly feels like conceding defeat to Marvel. Instead of building hype and creating its own counternarrative, the DCU is just letting Marvel have all the glory at the biggest nerd convention in the world. Maybe this is practical: highly-anticipated films like Spider-Man: Brand New Day and Avengers: Doomsday were always destined to earn more than Supergirl, even if it hadn’t underperformed. Still, though, if Gunn isn’t willing to make the effort to market his cinematic universe, why should fans make the effort to check out future movies and shows?
When it comes to the ongoing battle between Marvel and DC, it seems clear that the house Stan Lee built has already won 2026. But will it ultimately win the war? Maybe, maybe not. Kevin Feige is gambling everything on Doomsday, and if that movie flops, it could be the beginning of the end for the MCU. That could make 2027 the perfect year for Gunn to strike back with some killer content of its own. If this year has taught us anything about saving the DCU, though, it’s that this is not a job for Supergirl!
Entertainment
The Retcon That Ruined The Best Star Wars Movie
By Chris Snellgrove
| Updated
I’m on the record as being a very big fan of Solo: A Star Wars Story. While I still think Lucasfilm made a mistake by firing Lord and Miller (like, can you imagine the Spider-Verse guys directing a movie set in that galaxy far, far away?!), this is a very solid standalone film. Talented actors bring familiar characters like Han Solo and Lando Calrissian to vivid life. Additionally, the film introduces a colorful assortment of new characters, including the beautiful Qi’ra and the scheming Dryden Vos. However, none of the newbies are quite as entertaining as L3-37, the droid voiced by Phoebe Waller-Bridge.
The movie presents her as a kind of love interest for Lando, with dialogue hinting at a sexual relationship between them. As disturbing as it is to ponder the scoundrel having a living (non)Fleshlight, that’s not the most disturbing thing about this character. Towards the end of Solo, this plucky droid is uploaded into the Millennium Falcon’s computer, meaning she is technically part of the entire Original Trilogy and Sequel Trilogy. This retroactively ruins The Empire Strikes Back, making Lando seem like a heartless monster while forcing us to question if L3-37 nearly got our favorite heroes killed.
Bringing A Third Into The Cockpit
The revelation that L3-37 was part of the Millennium Falcon’s computer retroactively makes many events in the Original Trilogy kind of weird, in retrospect. For example, she was technically part of the Battle of Yavin. Remember when Han Solo showed up at the last minute and nearly got Darth Vader killed? If the Sith Lord had actually bitten the dust, L3-37 would have gotten the assist! She was also in the Falcon when Lando Calrissian led the attack against the second Death Star. That means that she and Wedge Antilles are basically the only living things to have fought against both Death Stars, landing them a place in the galaxy’s history books.
While all of that is pretty cool, L3-37’s presence in the Millennium Falcon’s computer arguably makes the events of The Empire Strikes Back much, much weirder. For example, we see Lando make no real effort to check in on his old flame despite knowing she is still in there (before you finish typing the comment: yes, he checks in on her in a short story, but we never see it onscreen, and 99 percent of fans will never read that book). This, combined with his gambling the ship away in the first place, makes him seem like a monster that never really cared about her in the first place.
The Most Important Droid In The Galaxy?
Additionally, L3-37 being in the Falcon retroactively makes our heroes’ hyperspace issues in the second Star Wars movie problematic. There are some cute moments, of course: when C-3PO gripes about the computer having an “appalling dialect,” we now know that Lando’s old droid was basically cussing him out. That’s funny, but it also implies that L3-37 was effectively hindering repairs to the ship that were necessary to help Han Solo, Leia Organa, and Chewbacca escape the Empire. Everyone loves a droid with some attitude (just ask Star Wars fans who love Chopper!), but it’s hard to root for L3-37 when she’s clapping back so hard that it nearly gets our heroes killed.
At any rate, this snarky droid gets multiple chances to redeem herself. In addition to helping with the attack on the second Death Star, she was part of the attack on Exegol that freed the galaxy, once and for all, from Emperor Palpatine. In this sense, it’s fair to say that she helped save countless lives throughout the entire galaxy far, far away. Forget all the pilots, Jedi, smugglers, and soldiers that we see onscreen. At the end of the day, the greatest hero in Star Wars just happens to be Lando Calrissian’s former sex toy!
Entertainment
NYT Connections hints today: Clues, answers for July 21, 2026
The NYT Connections puzzle today is not too difficult if you’re a theater kid.
Connections is the one of the most popular New York Times word games that’s captured the public’s attention. The game is all about finding the “common threads between words.” And just like Wordle, Connections resets after midnight and each new set of words gets trickier and trickier—so we’ve served up some hints and tips to get you over the hurdle.
If you just want to be told today’s puzzle, you can jump to the end of this article for today’s Connections solution. But if you’d rather solve it yourself, keep reading for some clues, tips, and strategies to assist you.
What is Connections?
The NYT‘s latest daily word game has become a social media hit. The Times credits associate puzzle editor Wyna Liu with helping to create the new word game and bringing it to the publications’ Games section. Connections can be played on both web browsers and mobile devices and require players to group four words that share something in common.
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Each puzzle features 16 words and each grouping of words is split into four categories. These sets could comprise of anything from book titles, software, country names, etc. Even though multiple words will seem like they fit together, there’s only one correct answer.
If a player gets all four words in a set correct, those words are removed from the board. Guess wrong and it counts as a mistake—players get up to four mistakes until the game ends.
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Players can also rearrange and shuffle the board to make spotting connections easier. Additionally, each group is color-coded with yellow being the easiest, followed by green, blue, and purple. Like Wordle, you can share the results with your friends on social media.
Mashable Top Stories
Here’s a hint for today’s Connections categories
Want a hint about the categories without being told the categories? Then give these a try:
Meet The Mashable 101: Our list of the content creators shaping the internet today
Here are today’s Connections categories
Need a little extra help? Today’s connections fall into the following categories:
Looking for Wordle today? Here’s the answer to today’s Wordle.
Ready for the answers? This is your last chance to turn back and solve today’s puzzle before we reveal the solutions.
Drumroll, please!
The solution to today’s Connections #1136 is…
What is the answer to Connections today
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Kinds of tops: CROP, HALTER, TANK, TUBE
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Software downloads: APP, DRIVER, EXTENSION, PLUGIN
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Elements of a musical: BOOK, LYRICS, MUSIC, ORCHESTRATION
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Tele___: GRAM, KENESIS, PROMPTER, VISION
Are you also playing NYT Strands? Get all the Strands hints you need for today’s puzzle.
If you’re looking for more puzzles, Mashable’s got games now! Check out our games hub for Mahjong, Sudoku, free crossword, and more.
Not the day you’re after? Here’s the solution to yesterday’s Connections.
Entertainment
Star Trek’s Greatest Writers Thought The Best Episode Would Be A Disaster
By Chris Snellgrove
| Updated
One of the most fascinating things about insanely talented writers is that they are typically overly critical of their greatest works. Sometimes, this is because they lack confidence in themselves and worry that everything (no matter how successful) could always be better. Other times, it’s simply because they were writing under a tight deadline and became convinced they could have done better if they only had more time. This actually happened to some of the greatest writers of Star Trek: The Next Generation when they were working on one of the show’s best episodes: “Yesterday’s Enterprise.”
These days, fans look back on this episode as a defining episode of the series, one that demonstrated how much potential TNG really had. At the time, though, the writers (including future Deep Space Nine showrunner Ira Steven Behr and future Battlestar Galactica showrunner Ronald D. Moore) feared that the episode would be a disaster because they had to work over Thanksgiving and turn a completed script in by the end of the weekend. However, the sheer quality of the episode proved one thing once and for all: if there’s anything these guys can do, it’s work well under pressure!
Star Trek Into Darkness (Literally)
Why did the writers for “Yesterday’s Enterprise” have to work on the episode over Thanksgiving? This had everything to do with the episode’s special guest stars, Denise Crosby and Whoopi Goldberg. Crosby’s character had been killed off back in Season 1, so she was busy with other projects during filming for Season 3. Meanwhile, Goldberg was a big-deal movie star who only appeared on Star Trek because she loved the franchise so much. The episode was originally going to be written after Christmas, but to accommodate both actors’ schedules, the writers had to suddenly have a completed script by the end of Thanksgiving weekend.
According to the reference book The Making of Yesterday’s Enterprise, Ira Steven Behr said that the writers (which included himself, Ronald D. Moore, Hans Beimler, and Richard Manning) were understandably grumpy about having to work over a holiday weekend. In order to get the episode done under the deadline, each writer was given a different portion of the script to handle. For example, Moore was the main guy handling the romance between Tasha Yar and the time-displaced Richard Castillo.
Dropping Everything For Some Very Special Guest Stars
Despite having a game plan, they feared the episode would suck; according to Star Trek: The Next Generation–The Continuing Mission, Eric Stillwell (who developed the story) claimed, “Most of the writers were not very happy with the script. They thought it was going to be horrible, because they don’t like having to write [something] and make it work in three days.” However, these writers embraced a silver lining: they finally got to write the kind of dark, tension-filled episode that various Trek bigwigs (notably, Gene Roddenberry himself) always rejected. Fortunately, their hard work paid off, and “Yesterday’s Enterprise” became the third highest-watched episode of the entire series.
It’s hard to understate the influence of “Yesterday’s Enterprise,” which became a favorite episode of Denise Crosby, Rick Berman, and episode director David Carson. It won an Emmy and was voted the best episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation on six different occasions. And, for better or for worse, Roberto Orci later said this episode was the primary influence of Star Trek (2009), which kickstarted the Kelvinverse. Ironically enough, though, this insanely successful and influential TNG episode was written by four annoyed writers over three days, all of whom thought it would be completely awful and just wanted to eat some leftover turkey!
The Retcon That Ruined The Best Star Wars Movie
Twins activate OF Byron Buxton from injured list
