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Among many other pop culture milestones, 2019 marks the 25th anniversary of Kurt Busiek and Alex Ross’ Marvels. That series more than earned its venerable reputation, showing just what sorts of high-minded Marvel stories were possible even as the mainstream superhero industry was circling the drain in the mid-’90s. And it’s safe to say Marvel readers had never seen anything like Ross’ amazingly detailed, almost photo-realistic painted art. Marvels Epilogue #1 offers one last opportunity to revisit this world and photojournalist Phil Sheldon through the eyes of the original creative team. It’s a welcome treat, albeit one that struggles to justify the high price of admission.Marvels Epilogue is exactly what the name suggests – an epilogue to the original miniseries. This standalone short story picks up with Sheldon story in the late ’70s Marvel era, with new heroes like the All-New, All-Different X-Men and Nova rising to prominence. Much of this story unfolds between the beats of an early Chris Claremont/Dave Cockrum installment of Uncanny X-Men, as Sheldon and his daughters attempt to enjoy Manhattan at Christmastime and walk right into the middle of a mutants vs. Sentinel conflict.

The end result is a charming throwback to an earlier period of Marvel;’s history. It’s a lot of fun to see Busiek and Ross work their new story into the fabric of an existing one. Ross is great about recreating key scenes and images from that X-men issue without losing sight of his own bold, powerful approach to storytelling. Some of the figures tend to be a little overly stiff and posed, but that’s basically par for the course with this brand of comic book art.

Better still, this epilogue does genuinely add something to the original series. It allows Marvel to end on a more optimistic and hopeful note. Rather than ending with the Death of Gwen Stacy and Sheldon’s disillusionment with the superheroes that he built a career around, we see an older Sheldomn getting back in touch with his original sense of wonder. It also creates a stronger bridge between the original series and the Ross-less sequel, Marvels: Eye of the Camera.

All the Creators Joining Forces for Marvel Comics #1000

That all being said, Marvels Epilogue reads more like a nifty bonus feature in a Marvels hardcover edition than something that demands its own comic. The actual story is a mere 16 pages long, leaving Marvel to pad out the latter half of the book with interviews, sketches and other supplemental content. Asking readers to pay $5 for so little new story content is a bit much. Better to wait until the contents of this issue do eventually make their way into a new collected edition.

As fans speculated, Jean Smart will be playing former Silk Spectre Laurie Juspeczyk (aka Laurie Blake) in Damon Lindelof’s Watchmen series, Lindelof confirmed to IGN at HBO’s Television Critics Association presentation on Wednesday.A new trailer shown to critics at the panel featured a shot of Smart’s character, previously rumored to be FBI Agent Blake, juxtaposed against a pop art-style painting of the Minutemen that included a costumed Silk Spectre. In the footage, Agent Blake even admits that she used to dress up in costume and punch bad guys too.

The Comic-Con trailer for Watchmen released this past weekend doesn’t include those scenes with Smart but does feature more overt ties to the storyline of Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ seminal comic, including several shots of Doctor Manhattan, a shot of Nite Owl’s Owlship, more emphasis on Jeremy Irons’ Adrian Veidt (aka Ozymandias), and acts of violence being perpetrated by the terrorist group known as the 7th Cavalry, who have co-opted Rorschach’s mask for their own political ends.

HBO’s Watchmen Comic Con Trailer Gallery

Lindelof confirmed that the series is a sequel to Moore and Gibbons’ comic, and the plot of the original is sacred. “We re-explore the past, but it’s canon. One of the rules we have is everything that happened in those 12 issues could not be messed with, we were married to it, so there’s no rebooting it. Nixon was still president in ’85, he was reelected in ’88, he died in office and then as his vice-president, Gerald Ford became president and then was defeated in the election of ’92 by Robert Redford.” Fun fact, even though the show is set in 2019, Lindelof confirmed that Redford is still president “and has been since the early ’90s when they abolished term limits.”

Still, Lindelof said, “Whether or not it feels like it’s Watchmen is in the eye of the beholder,” insisting that he loves the source material and has a “tremendous amount of respect for it” but that, “I had to separate myself from this incredible reverence, because if I was too reverent, I wouldn’t be able to do anything that was risky… Hopefully once you’ve seen the grand plan you’ll have a more informed answer in terms of its conversation with the source material.”

Earlier in HBO’s TCA session, HBO programming president Casey Bloys responded to a suggestion that Alan Moore historically hasn’t been thrilled with adaptations of his work by conceding, “I think that remains the case, that he’s not thrilled.” Lindelof expanded on Moore’s relationship with the Watchmen TV series by revealing that he had reached out to the legendary writer to get his blessing on the project and was rebuffed.

“I don’t think that I’ve made peace with it, and that’s the way he would want it too. It’s an ongoing wrestling match, he’s a genius, maybe the greatest writer in the comic medium … he’s made it very clear that he doesn’t want to have any association or affiliation with Watchmen ongoing, and that we not use his name to get people to watch it.” Still, Lindelof pointed out that back when Moore was writing his legendary comics runs in the ’80s, if someone had told him “you’re not allowed to do this because Superman’s creator doesn’t want you to do that or Swamp Thing’s creator doesn’t want you to do that,” Moore would’ve said “f–k you, I’m doing it anyway,” due to his “rebellious, punk-rock spirit.”

“I’m channeling the spirit of Alan Moore to tell Alan Moore ‘f–k you, I’m doing it anyway!” Lindelof laughed.

Watchmen TV Show Cast and Characters

HBO announced on Wednesday that Watchmen will be premiering in October, with a specific date yet to be announced.

With reporting by Terri Schwartz.

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Remedy Entertainment’s upcoming third-person shooter Control has gone gold, according to a developer on the team. Effectively, development on the game has completed and discs are ready for manufacturing and distribution. Everyone can rejoice and wait with bated breath as the game’s August release date inches closer.

Remedy’s game director Mikael Kasurinen tweeted that Control is “done,” noting that the work the Finnish studio’s put in over the past three years was “an achievement from the best dev team on the planet.” Control is headed to PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One on August 27.

Ville Ruusutie, Remedy’s principal animation programmer, offered some additional context on Kasurinen’s news. In a tweet of his own, Ruusutie said the team “lost animation middleware and wrote new from scratch” while noting it was a “big risk” but thinks the studio has done well considering some of the “big tech challenges” Remedy has faced working on Control.

Control comes three years after the studio’s last outing, Quantum Break. In Control, you play as Jesse Faden, the Federal Bureau of Control’s new director, exploring the Oldest House and harnessing supernatural abilities to defeat enemies and find her brother. We found it to be Remedy’s most interesting game since Alan Wake after spending some time with it, saying, “Control is being designed with a Metroidvania-like structure that requires you to re-examine previously explored locations when new skills are unlocked, and the thought of incorporating an alternate dimension into this concept is very intriguing.”

Though Control is headed to PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One, the game will be a limited-time Epic Games Store exclusive. PC requirements have been revealed, and while one of them is a mandatory Epic Games account, Control will arrive on Steam in Summer 2020.

Pokemon Masters, the new Pokemon mobile game from DeNA (the studio behind Fire Emblem Heroes, Super Mario Run, and other Nintendo mobile titles), is coming to iOS and Android soon. The Pokemon Company has previously said the game would launch sometime this summer, but we may now know its exact release date thanks to the App Store.

While the official Pokemon website still lists Pokemon Masters as “planned for Summer 2019,” the game is expected to launch on August 29, according to Apple’s digital storefront. GameSpot reached out for clarification, and a PR representative for The Pokemon Company confirmed the game’s tentative release date is August 29; however, the rep noted the release date is subject to change, and it will be officially announced once it is finalized.

Meanwhile, certain countries will be able to play Pokemon Masters a little early. A “preview version” of the title is launching for Android devices in Singapore this week. The preview version will also come to Canada, although no specific date was announced. Progress made in the preview version can be carried over to the full game when it launches later this summer.

If you’re eager to jump into Pokemon Masters, pre-registration for the title is now live on the App Store for iOS and Google Play for Android. Everyone who pre-registers for the game will receive a notification when it is available to download. Like many other mobile titles, Pokemon Masters will be free to download and play, with optional microtransactions. You can read more details on the official Pokemon website.

Pokemon Masters is set in a new island region called Pasio, where famous Pokemon trainers from around the world have gathered to participate in the Pokemon Masters League tournament. Each trainer has one partner Pokemon, forming a “Sync Pair,” and you can team up with other Sync Pairs to engage in three-on-three Pokemon battles and earn Gym Badges. You can take a look at some of the confirmed Pokemon Masters Sync Pairs so far in our gallery. For more on the title, check out our Pokemon Masters hands-on impressions.

It’s been a good day for fans of the animated series Batman Beyond. Not only is the series finally being remastered and released on Blu-ray this fall, co-creator Bruce Timm teased a potential Batman Beyond: Season 5.Timm hinted at this possibility during the Batman Beyond 20th Anniversary panel at Comic-Con today. During the Q&A session, a fan asked if a fifth season revival would ever happen, to which Timm replied, “If this thing sells like crazy on Blu-ray and creates buzz, that would make it more possible.”

While hardly confirmation of a fifth season, this does offer hope that the animated saga of future Batman Terry McGinnis could still continue. It’s worth remembering that Young Justice co-creator Greg Weisman made similar comments when the series first hit Netflix, and now a long-delayed third season is current airing on the DC Universe app (and a fourth season was confirmed at the DC Universe panel).

According to Timm, the series may have continued after the direct-to-video movie Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker had that film sold better. He revealed that the Justice League Unlimited episode “Epilogue” (which is set in the Batman Beyond timeline and reveals Bruce Wayne to be the father of Terry and Matt McGinnis) began life as a second Batman Beyond movie. Initially, that movie would have featured Catwoman as the main villain, with Selina Kyle filling the role that eventually shifted to Amanda Waller in “Epilogue.”

Comic-Con 2019: 33 Must-Have Exclusive Collectibles

Voice actor Will Friedle voiced his interest in a storyline focused on Matt McGinnis coming to terms with his true parentage and possibly even taking up the mantle of Batman. “I had never put that together until a year ago. Poor Warren never had any kids. But it’s good to have a Batman on hold.”

The panelists offered another tease toward a potential future storyline. A pair of fans dressed as twin villains (and granddaughters of Harley Quinn) Dee Dee asked if we’ll ever learn the identity of their grandfather. According to Timm, “We’ll have to think about that for a future sequel.”

For more on Batman’s TV future, check out our advance reviews for the Batwoman series premiere, the Pennyworth series premiere and the Harley Quinn series premiere.

Jesse is a mild-mannered writer for IGN. Allow him to lend a machete to your intellectual thicket by following @jschedeen on Twitter.

Fortnite isn’t the only battle royale game on the cusp of a new season. PUBG Corp. has rolled out PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds‘ Season 4 update on PC, introducing some big changes to the shooter, including a revamp of its original map, a new Survivor Pass with an assortment of new missions to complete and rewards to unlock, and more.

The biggest changes come to the aforementioned map, Erangel, which has received a major visual overhaul. PUBG Corp. says it has “improved the graphical quality of Erangel’s various areas and terrains across the board,” ranging from improved textures to updated terrain. According to the developer:

“We’ve updated existing terrain, signage, and buildings and have added a small number of buildings to some areas as well. To better illustrate Erangel’s history, terrain elements have been added or revised. Trenches, blast marks, camo nets, and abandoned tanks have been added across different areas of the map.”

Additionally, PUBG’s Season 4 Survivor Pass, dubbed Aftermath, is now available. The pass can be purchased on Steam for $10 USD and grants holders access to a variety of seasonal, premium, and weekly missions to complete, which will level the pass up and unlock an assortment of new cosmetics and other rewards, such as emotes, clothing items, and weapon skins.

The Season 4 Survivor Pass also introduces a new cooperative mission system. Much like Fortnite’s Party Assist feature, this allows players to team up with friends and contribute to a mission’s progress. New weekly missions will go live every Wednesday throughout the season. The Season 4 Survivor Pass will be active until October 15.

In addition to those changes, the Season 4 update also makes balance adjustments to many weapons and vehicles. You can find the full patch notes for the update on the PUBG website. PUBG Corp. says Season 4 will also be coming to the PS4 and Xbox One versions of the game this summer, although no exact date has been announced just yet.

The X-Men have a bit of a reputation for being, well–complicated is probably putting it lightly. Divisive may be a better buzz word. There’s a tendency in fan circles for people to fall into one of two categories: The kind whose eyes light up at the mere mention of a mutant and the kind who instantaneously go gaunt and fearful the moment they realize they’re about to have to engage in an X-Men related conversation. This reputation is certainly well earned–X-Men live-action films pre-date the MCU, their cartoon series is second only to Batman: The Animated Series in terms of Saturday morning nostalgia bombs, and the team’s most famous members are more readily recognized and understood by the general population than most of the Avengers.

It’s just that their comics are also notoriously insurmountable, their stories are the absolute epitome of everything that makes superhero comics seem absurd, and their continuity seems to be in an almost permanent state of flux. Trying to figure out just how and where to engage with X-Men stories can feel like the worst kind of homework, where well-meaning fans will spout off list upon list of classic stories that are required reading, and then follow them up with list upon list of caveats to explain which parts need to be remembered, which parts should be cherry-picked and forgotten, when the dead characters come back, where the time travel kicks in, how Cyclops is the worst, how Cyclops is the best, how Jean Grey’s powers are changed and then changed again–and so on, and so on.

The past several years of Marvel comics publication haven’t really helped the problem. The X-Men status quo has been up in the air, split between multiple color-coded team books with key players like Charles Xavier tabled, time-travel plots bringing duplicate past versions of characters like Jean Grey and Bobby Drake to the present, and mutantkind itself being all but wiped out because of an Inhuman disaster that may or may not have been thanks to some behind-the-scenes movie rights conflicts between Fox and Disney. Thankfully those days are behind us.

It wasn’t that the stories themselves were bad, per se, but trying to find somewhere to start that didn’t leave you feeling like you’d missed a few seasons was all but impossible–especially if you were someone who really just wanted to read a story about your favorite big-screen X-Men without needing to graduate from a college-level course in X-Men history to understand it.

But thankfully, there is a light at the end of that particular tunnel, and it’s coming from an unexpected quarter. Legendary writer Jonathan Hickman, whose work on Avengers provided a ton of the groundwork that went on to inform movies like Avengers: Infinity War, has teamed up with artist Pepe Larraz for an X-Men reboot like no other–one that is intended to completely overhaul the way X-Men stories work for the foreseeable future, and provide the perfect gateway for anyone and everyone to finally start reading X-Men comics.

The plan is relatively simple. Hickman and Larraz are kicking off their effort with two dueling mini-series called House of X and Powers of X with alternate release schedules. House of X #1 hit shelves today while Powers of X #1 will hit shelves next Wednesday, and so on. Then, in the conclusion of each mini-series, a “new era” of X-Men stories will begin in earnest with new ongoing X-Men titles kicking off for monthly consumption, picking up threads laid in HoX and PoX to move the ball forward.

So, in theory, everything you could need to know about the future of mutants in the Marvel universe is contained in these two mini-series, and should you choose to engage, the next twelve weeks will become your one-stop crash course in X-Men.

Senior editor in charge of X-Men comics, Jordan D. White, spoke with GameSpot at this year’s San Diego Comic-Con about what, exactly, HoX and PoX are setting out to do. “House of X is the story of the most eventful month in the history of the X-Men, where the big, huge changes are happening in the present,” White said. “It has to do with Xavier’s master plan–[which] we haven’t heard about until now…Whereas Powers of X is the story of the past, present, and future of mutantkind, all connecting to that master plan. So the two stories really, really are two halves of the same whole. They weave together.”

Though they’re definitely accessible for people who have never picked up an X-Men comic before, White also assured us that they won’t be holding anything back. Anyone who’s read a Hickman comic, or just sat through Infinity War, would know enough about his style to expect a little bit of mind-bending–but don’t let that put you off.

“If you feel overwhelmed, the people who know a lot feel overwhelmed too,” White laughed. “Let me say that. Jonathan likes to throw big ideas out there. If you were reading Avengers for 50 years before he wrote Avengers, you still were going, ‘Whoa!’ And that’s the same with X-Men. So I think everybody is going to be on the same level playing field. You’re going to go in, your mind’s going to be blown, but you’re going to be ready for it.”

White continued, “[The point of these stories is to] reaffirm what is great about the X-Men while making people see them in a new way. It repositions them. I mean, Jonathan’s very big on that. [He understands that] you definitely need to be connected to what came before. You need to give people that feeling that this is all one piece. But at the same time, if you’re not doing something new, you’re not doing your job. Ideally, in a year, you will be reading a completely different kind of X-Men stories than you’ve ever read.”

If you’ve picked up House of X #1 today and are feeling particularly amped–don’t worry. White was also kind enough to give us a list of his favorite classic X-stories for new readers. These aren’t essential to understanding the new stories, of course, but if you’re hungry for some mutants and the week-long wait between issues feels like too much, these are for you.

• Astonishing X-Men vol. 1: Gifted

• New X-Men vol. 1: E is for Extinction

• Days of Future Past

• X-Men: The Dark Phoenix Saga

• X-Men Schism

House of X #2 hits shelves on August 7, while Powers of X #1 arrives next week on July 31.

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