If there’s one thing Star Wars fans can agree on, it’s that
bounty hunters are awesome. Also awesome? The Dark Side. So, millions of voices
suddenly cried out in glee and were suddenly excited when Lucasfilm unveiled
the trailer for Star Wars: Tales of the Underworld, a series of shorts
premiering on Star Wars Day, May the 4th, exclusively on Disney+.
The series will revolve around gunslinging mercenary Cad Ban
and Count Dooku’s former lead assassin Asajj Ventress, two fan-favorite baddies
from Star Wars: The Clone Wars. They’re in some of the best episodes of that
series, and I often credit Bane’s first appearance, Season One’s “Hostage
Crisis,” as the moment The Clone Wars went from being a simple kid’s show to
some of the best Star Wars storytelling out there.
Watch the trailer for Star Wars: Tales of the Underworld
below.
If you saw the news Tuesday morning you might have thought
it was a bizarre April Fool’s joke, but Sony Pictures wasn’t foolin’ when they
revealed that their anticipated follow-up to smash-hit Spider-Man: No Way
Home would be called Spider-Man: Brand New Day and that it would be
hitting theaters on July 31, 2026.
The Brand New Day subtitle might be slightly
triggering for longtime Spidey fans, as it references a mostly maligned story arc
that began in 2008. You see, in the comics, Peter Parker’s beloved Aunt May was
shot, and Peter made a pact with the actual Marvel devil – Mephisto if you’re
nasty – in order to keep her alive. In exchange for May’s life, Peter sacrificed
his marriage to Mary Jane Watson. To this day, Peter and MJ’s marriage has yet
to be restored. So, yeah, it’s a bit of a sore spot.
The ”Brand New Day” storyline served as the hardest of soft
reboots for the comic book Web-Slinger, introducing new romances, characters
and villains in a reset continuity. Given the events of No Way Home,
during which Tom Holland’s Peter sacrificed his non-Spidey life to save his
universe, it seems like the MCU could be pushing the character in a similar
clean-slate direction: low-tech suit, street-level storytelling and new
relationships. And this could be a fantastic change of pace, since Holland’s Peter has unfortunately been often overshadowed
by other Avengers and other Spider-Men in his prior MCU outings. With the promise of a more Spidey-centric narrative I’m excited
to see what’s “Brand New” for my favorite superhero in 2026.
In other Wall-Crawler news, Sony’s animated Spider-Man:
Beyond the Spider-Verse, is officially hitting theaters on June 4, 2027.
A series of empty chairs whipped comic book social media
into a frenzy earlier today as Marvel Studios’ employed a slow-drip live-stream
approach to reveal many – but all – cast members set to appear in the Russo Brothers’ Avengers:
Doomsday, now officially in production. Marvel’s cross-platform stream unveiled a new cast member’s chair every few minutes for more than five hours,
concluding with Doctor Doom himself, Robert Downey Jr., appearing at its
conclusion.
In addition to MCU mainstays like Chris Hemsworth’s Thor, Paul
Rudd’s Ant-Man, Florence Pugh’s Yelena Belova, Tom Hiddleston’s Loki, Sam
Wilson’s Captain America, Letitia Wright’s Suri/Black Panther and Simu Liu’s
Shang-Chi, we also saw chairs for each member of the Fantastic Four – whose debut film drops this summer – as well as X-Men
series actors Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellan, James Marsden, Rebecca Romijn, Alan
Cumming and Kelsey Grammer. Plus, it looks like Deadpool & Wolverine scene
stealer Channing Tatum is back as Gambit!
This cast is absolutely stacked, but I also feel like the aforementioned Deadpool & Wolverine said pretty much everything that needed to be said about the Marvel Multiverse. This could just be a bunch of action figures being dumped onto the carpet and smashed into each other for three hours. Having said that, I not only love action figures but feel strongly that the Russos’ efforts are among the strongest stories in the MCU. This could be something really special.
Notably, no Spider-Mans (Spider-Men?), members
of the Guardians of the Galaxy, and neither Deadpool nor Wolverine were confirmed
for Avengers: Doomsday but, then again, May 1, 2026 is a long time from now ... multiversally speaking.
