by A.J. Focht
After months of rumors and unfounded speculations, there is finally some solid evidence of the presence of the Skrulls in the upcoming Avengers movie. A recent change to the Avengers IMDb page has confirmed that Cobie Smulders (Robin from How I Met Your Mother) is not only playing Maria Hill, Nick Fury’s second in command, but she is also cast as Anelle, the Skrull Princess. How large of a part the Skrulls play is still unknown, but I’m betting they’re Loki’s mysterious army.
While the Avengers are prepping for an apparent intergalactic invasion, the writers of Captain America 2 are discussing what’s going to happen next. Screenwriters Chris Markus and Stephen McFeely recently revealed details about plans for the sequel. There is a high possibility that the second movie will revisit Cap’s past, during an intentional six-month break that was left in the first movie. They are torn at the moment though because they feel it would be a shame not to visit present day Captain America.
On screen superheroes are hotter than ever, and the CW is looking to cash in further. After ten successful seasons of Smallville (six of which were good) the CW canceled the show, which left a large gap in their schedule. Rumors of everything from Nightwing to Raven have floated around, but nothing has come to fruition. Most recently, we hear Supernatural creator Eric Kripke is looking to fill that slot with a Deadman series. Deadman is a lesser known ghost superhero with several powers, including possession of others. Kind of a cool in concept, but I doubt it has the fan base to get past a pilot.
That’s ok though, we don’t need a Deadman series if David Foster’s new Star Trek pitch takes off. Unlike some of the recent failed Star Trek pitches, this one is fully developed with a 5-7 season plan. Since Enterprise was canceled fans have had six years without new TV episodes of Star Trek. Hopefully, David Foster can fix this.
Gamers everywhere raged in unison this last week when it was revealed that GameStop was tampering with copies of Dues Ex: Human Revolution, opening the product and removing a free game code inside. After the notices hit the internet, it didn’t take long for the nerd rage to force GameStop to apologize. GameStop is offering everyone that purchased the regular edition of the game for the PC a $50 gift card and a buy two get one free used game purchase to make up for it. The incident has only brought further corporate shame to the mass video game retailer, and only serves to make gamers want to use those internet game downloading services all the more (which is what the removed coupon was for).
On a final note, PAX was held this last week. Every big named upcoming game from Skyrim to Halo 4 was either there to play or with recent updates. With little new news after directly following Gamescom, PAX was more of a local (not international) chance for attendees to experience many games early and hear first hand what developers were planning for the future. For a closer look, check out Kotaku’s PAX highlights.
