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While it seems normal to see Dave Bautista starring in some of Hollywood's biggest movies, like Denis Villeneuve's upcoming adaption of Dune or Zack Snyder's Army of the Dead, fame and fortune weren't always easy to come by for the former wrestler turned actor.

In a recent interview with the Guardians of the Galaxy star, who is currently promoting his new ad campaign for the Disney Streaming Bundle, IGN wanted to know how Disney -- which truly vaulted him to stardom with Guardians -- has changed Bautista's life.

Check out Dave Bautista as "The Streamer" in a new TV spot for the Disney Bundle, which includes Disney+, Hulu (Ad-supported), and ESPN+ for $13.99, in the video below or at the top of the page:

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"For people to really understand how much my life has changed, they would have to understand where I came from, what I went through when I was in wrestling, what I left behind to take a chance on going into acting," Bautista told IGN. "And when I got the role of Drax in Guardians, I barely worked in three years. So I'd really left wrestling behind and I could have gone back with my tail between my legs, but I still [would] have been just stuck in a place that I never would have gone any further, but I just took a chance. And then when I got [cast], not only because I was broke, [everything changed]. When I say broke, my house was foreclosed, I had nothing, man. I sold all my stuff. I sold everything that I made from [when] I was wrestling. I had issues with the IRS. I was just lost in everything."

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Bautista went on to explain how once people saw him as Drax, his life was completely transformed. "When Guardians came out and people saw me as Drax, it just started opening doors," Bautista said. "So Drax didn't just change my career. It literally changed the trajectory of my life. My life just got better and I just became more successful. And that's when things really just started to seem like surreal. It wasn't many years [earlier] when I was just like borrowing money to pay for food, pay for rent. Borrow money to buy my kids Christmas presents. It wasn't long before all that stuff [had happened]. So it happened for me fast, which made it seem even that much more surreal. But it did, it changed my life. It gave me a life."

Bautista also shared that he's currently in Greece filming Knives Out 2, the sequel to Rian Johnson's hit whodunnit flick.

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David Griffin still watches DuckTales in his pajamas with a cereal bowl in hand. He's also the TV Editor for IGN. Say hi on Twitter.

Filed under: Green,Weird Car News,Alternative Fuels,Green Culture,Technology,Truck

Continue reading Glenfiddich uses whisky waste to fuel its delivery trucks

Glenfiddich uses whisky waste to fuel its delivery trucks originally appeared on Autoblog on Wed, 28 Jul 2021 11:25:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Continue reading UK to add overhead contact lines on highway to power electric trucks

UK to add overhead contact lines on highway to power electric trucks originally appeared on Autoblog on Wed, 28 Jul 2021 11:48:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Ryder Damen is stopping package thieves with the help of a Raspberry Pi and artificial intelligence.

Everyone knows Mark Hamill is the once-and-future Luke Skywalker. But the actor revealed today on Twitter that he's played a secret role in every Star Wars movie since 2015.

More specifically, Hamill revealed that he's done secret voice cameos in every Star Wars movie since 2015, so that means his voice can be found somewhere in The Force Awakens, The Last Jedi, Rise of Skywalker, Rogue One, and Solo.

The actor revealed this secret on Twitter after the Wookieepedia Twitter account posted about his role as EV-9D9 in The Mandalorian.

New goal! Track down the secret cameos

— Wookieepedia (@WookOfficial) July 21, 2021

As you can see in the Tweet above, Hamill's revelation has sent the Wookieepedia (and many others who replied to Hamill's tweet) into a frenzy to track down the secret voice cameos Hamill has done. EV-9D9 is a great start, and anyone who's watched Season 2 of The Mandalorian knows Hamill has another appearance in the show.

However, how can one go about finding the other cameos in the Star Wars movies released since 2015? Well, a great start would be William M. Patrick. This is the name Hamill is listed as in the credits of Rogue One, Solo, and the Sequel movies for his secret voice performances, something Hamill revealed last year on Twitter.

Hamill said his secret voice cameo pseudonym, William M. Patrick, is a reference to his brothers, William and Patrick Hamill. As for the M, Hamill said last year that he'll not reveal what it stands for but something tells us it stands for Mark.

It was never about billing (L-#RogueOne R-#Solo) or salary. It was for fun & the fans & because I❤️#EasterEggs! I misremembered my pseudonym as "Patrick Williams"-It was actually "William M. Patrick" (for my older & younger brothers) I'm not telling what the M. stands for. #Guess pic.twitter.com/AOSdsdtD5a

— Mark Hamill (@HamillHimself) June 22, 2020

For more about Star Wars and Hamill's place in it, read about why the actor can't imagine playing Luke Skywalker again, and then check out his heartfelt letter that he wrote to fans as he reflects on the end of his Luke Skywalker era. Read this story about the ending for Star Wars: The Force Awakens that Hamill pitched to director JJ Abrams after that.

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Wesley LeBlanc is a freelance news writer and guide maker for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @LeBlancWes.

We went back to every film that Black Widow starred or co-starred in, and counted every time that she did "The Pose."

The funniest part of Black Widow, the latest MCU movie now in theaters and on Disney Plus, is when Yelena (Florence Pugh), emulates Black Widow's iconic pose. She doesn't go into it smoothly, however, the way Natasha does. Instead, she drops into it awkwardly and clumsily, calling attention to how impractical it is.

"You're a total poser."

"I'm not a poser!"

Black Widow is one of the most cool-headed characters in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Even when she appears rattled, she might be doing it to get a psychological edge over the person she's targeting. But this irritated her a bit.

However, is Yelena's barb founded in truth? We went back to every film that Black Widow starred or co-starred in, and counted every time that she did "The Pose," a three point stance whilst looking upward (hair flip optional). Let us know if we missed any.

1. First Pose

Movie: Iron Man 2 (2010)

Here's the original classic shot, which has probably done more to popularize The Pose via posters, photos, coloring books, and stickers than its actual appearances in the movies.

2. Takedown #10

Movie: Iron Man 2 (2010)

This is from the same fight scene, right near the end. Happy is nearly done knocking out his one bad guy.

3. Chitauri Roll

Movie: The Avengers (2012)

This is from the climactic New York battle. Natasha rolls off the Chitauri cruiser and onto a rooftop. The editing hides The Pose a bit, but the hair flip makes it unmistakeable. It's the only Pose in the entire movie.

4. Sokovia Siege

Movie: The Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015)

This is the first of two poses in Age of Ultron.They're both during the opening battle, when The Avengers attack the Hydra compound in Sokovia.

5. Pose-Into-First-Aid

Movie: The Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015)

Perhaps the most ridiculous example of The Pose on this list, Black Widow sees that Hawkeye is injured, and she slides towards him in a three-point stance. Impractical, but aesthetically pleasing.

6. Infiltrating Johannesburg

Movie: The Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015)

Oddly, this is the only time Natasha goes into the pose after dropping from the ceiling. Yelena emulates this moment late into Black Widow, when she infiltrates the Red Room. "Ugh. That was disgusting," she mutters under her breath.

7. Covert Pose

Movie: Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014)

There's only one pose in Winter Soldier. Natasha does while disguised as Hawley. She infiltrates the World Security Council, takes down a security guard, and goes right into her three-point stance.

8. Disaster in Lagos

Movie: Captain America: Civil War (2016)

This one is from the opening scene, during the botched mission in Lagos. After this movie, Black Widow appears in both Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame, but doesn't do The Pose once.

9. Meeting Taskmaster

Movie: Black Widow (2021)

Natasha does The Pose five times in her self-titled film. The first time is early in the movie, when Taskmaster attacks her to steal the mind control antidote. Taskmaster also mimics the pose back at Natasha in the same scene.

10. Escape from Budapest

Movie: Black Widow (2021)

The second Pose is when she's escaping with Yelena from Budapest and running through the streets.

11. Prison Break

Movie: Black Widow (2021)

This is Natasha's first pose after Yelena goofed on her for doing it. "Such a poser," Yelena mutters as she rolls her eyes.

12. Descent from the Red Room

Movie: Black Widow (2021)

The fourth Pose is when The Red Room is falling out of the sky, and she hitches a ride on a piece of debris.

13. Redemption of Romanoff

Movie: Black Widow (2021)

The fifth and final Pose occurs right after the third one, when Natasha lands on the ground and releases Taskmaster from mind control with the antidote. So that's 13 Poses in nine movie appearances. We're surprised too. We thought there would be more.

How to explain its ubiquity? It really comes down to that very first, iconic Pose, during her hallway fight scene in Iron Man 2, which was the go-to Black Widow image for every media outlet for years. Maybe Yelena got caught up in the marketing blitz like the rest of us.

Spoilers for Marvel's Black Widow...

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Black Widow actor Florence Pugh, who plays Natasha Romanoff's sister Yelena, has revealed that the best joke in the movie was improvised.

More specifically, it stemmed from a conversation Pugh had with stunt performers about what her character's superhero pose in Black Widow could be. After mentioning Scarlett Johansson's Black Widow pose, the stunt performers told Pugh that Johansson's pose would actually break every bone in her character's body if it was done in real life.

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"The whole, 'me taking the piss out of Scarlett's pose' was becasue on set, in the stunt rehearsal, the stuntees were like, 'We gotta figure out your pose,' and I was like, 'oh cripes, I have to have a pose,'" Pugh said in an interview with MTV News.

Pugh asked the stuntees what would be realistic and they told her that none of the superhero poses "are correct for landing," including Black Widow's. Realistically, her landing pose would leave her with "so many broken bones." Pugh, shocked to learn of this, asked if Johansson knew that and it was there that she began to "take the piss out of her."

Black Widow writer Eric Pearson was one set and, after hearing this discussion, wrote the joke into the movie — the one that probably made you laugh a lot if you've seen it.

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"He was like, 'I'm sorry...I've been listening to this and I love it,'" Johansson said. "And I was like, 'here we go, ten years of work, flush it down the toilet.'"

Johansson joked that when "these kids come in," alluding to Pugh's new placement in the MCU compared to her own 10-plus years in it, things like that joke in Black Widow happen.

"Ten seconds of me prodding you the wrong way and we get juicy material," Pugh said. "I mean, obviously I'd love to have a pose. I think that'd be a nice wink-wink, but I don't know. Honestly, I think I've been now so terrified of it being posey after I've made such a joke about Natasha being posey that now I'm like, 'oh maybe I should just walk into rooms.'"

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It's safe to say that most everyone is probably thankful Yelena doesn't have a superhero pose in Black Widow because it gave the world an excellent joke. Now, tell us about the vest with pockets, Pugh.

For more about Black Widow, check out our thoughts on the movie in IGN's Black Widow review and then read about how the movie tackles the MCU's darkest issues yet. Check out this story about how one of the actors in Black Widow says he's the MCU's first mutant after that read about this Fantastic Four easter egg that almost ended up in the movie.

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Wesley LeBlanc is a freelance news writer and guide maker for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @LeBlancWes.

Valve has announced its own handheld gaming console. The Steam Deck is a compact gaming PC running a custom version of SteamOS and can play all of your Steam games while also functioning as a computer. The Steam Deck has a formfactor similar to other portable gaming consoles like Nintendo Switch or the PlayStation Vita. On either side of the display are analog sticks with the d-pad on the left and ABXY keys on the right. Unlike most other controllers, the Steam Deck places its keys in a unique arrangement, where the keys are on the same plane as the analog keys. This has...

hile the MCU is still establishing a new overarching direction in the aftermath of Avenegrs: Endgame, it's safe to say Kang the Conquerer is going to be a big deal in the years ahead. Jonathan Majors debuted as a version of this iconic Marvel villain in the Season 1 finale of Loki, and the death of He Who Rmains merely sets the stage for more versions of Kang to plague the timeline.

So the question is, now that Thanos is gone, how much of a role will Majors' character play in the MCU moving forward? We know Majors will play Kang in 2023's Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, and we even got our first look at Kang thanks to a Comic-Con poster. But even the next Ant-Man movie is just the beginning of Kang's story.

If you're not familiar with Kang or why he has the potential to be the next Thanos-level threat to the MCU, we're here to shed light on this powerful villain and also explain the Season 1 Loki ending. These are the topics we'll be covering here:

• Loki Ending Explained: Kang's First Appearance
• Who Is He Who Remains/Kang the Conqueror?
• Kang's Origin
• Kang the Conqueror Powers and Abilities
• Kang's Many Identities
• Kang and the Young Avengers
• Kang the Conqueror Actor Jonathan Majors and Marvel Universe Connections
• Kang in TV and Games

Loki Ending Explained: Kang's First Appearance

In the Season 1 finale of Loki, Loki and Sylvie finally make it to the end of time (should that be capitalized?) to confront the mysterious figure behind the TVA, a.k.a. the Time Variance Authority. No, not the Time Keepers, who we learned a couple of episodes back were fakes, but the actual figure who has been overseeing the pruning of the Sacred Timeline: He Who Remains.

In this Loki episode, Majors plays the character as a fun figure, one who perhaps has gone a little bonkers living forever at the end of all time, knowing everything that is going to happen.

Well, to a point. As the episode proceeds, He Who Remains explains his backstory, but also that they are now reaching a moment in the timeline where he will no longer know how things are going to play out -- a juncture that will finally free him of the self-imposed prison he has been living in as master of the timeline. And it's up to Sylvie and Loki to decide what comes next. At the same time, the one Sacred Timeline the Time Variance Authority has been maintaining under his watch will start to splinter into an untold number of timeline branches...

But first, about that backstory: He Who Remains explains that it all began with a Variant of himself, a scientist from the 31st century, who discovered that other timelines/realities exist. At first things were friendly as other versions, or Variants of this scientist, began to meet up across different timelines. But then some Variants turned to conquering, and the Multiverse War we learned about in Episode 1 began. In the end, He Who Remains... well, remained. As the winner of the war, he created the TVA to keep other timelines from branching into existence in order to avoid another multiversal conflict.

And so now He Who Remains wants out, and Loki and Sylvie have a choice: Become the new masters of the Sacred Timeline, or kill He Who Remains, which will bring about the multiverse once again and, inevitably, the return of an untold number of He Who Remains/Kangs who will wind up re-starting the war. Loki wants to take over, if only to avoid the inevitable conflict that will result from killing He Who Remains. But Sylvie wants to kill He Who Remains, choosing the chaos of a multiverse -- and free will -- over all else. After fighting Loki, she kisses him -- and then pushes him back through time to the TVA before stabbing He Who Remains, who doesn't even fight back. We last see Sylvie at the end of time, contemplating her decision as the timeline branches and splinters into an infinite amount of variations -- a multiverse.

The Loki finale ends with our title character landing back at the Time Variance Authority, but he soon realizes that it's a TVA seemingly from a different timeline, because Mobius and Hunter B-15 have no idea who he is. (Or is it that the Timeline Formerly Known as Sacred has been rewritten?) And then he sees it -- a statue of He Who Remains, who now looks a lot like Kang from the comics. Is Kang the Conqueror now the master of time (and the TVA)? We'll surely find out in Season 2, which was revealed in post-credits tease that simply shows TVA paperwork being stamped with the words "Loki will return for Season 2."

Loki star Tom Hiddleston has since confirmed Season 2 will begin filming in Summer 2022. And we also learned at Comic-Con that Kang will play a huge role in future phases, with Phase 6 culminating Avengers: The Kang Dynasty and Avengers: Secret Wars.

Who Is He Who Remains/Kang the Conqueror?

It's not easy recapping the convoluted history of Kang the Conqueror. He's a villain who's gone by many names and many different motivations in his countless clashes with the Avengers and Fantastic Four. But through it all the basics have stayed the same. Kang is a man who sees himself as the rightful master of the world. Using the power of time travel and the most sophisticated weaponry his future world has to offer, Kang has repeatedly sought to rewrite history to his own whims and ensure his own rise to power.

Kang's love of time travel is exactly what makes him such a dangerous and seemingly never-ending thorn in humanity's side. No matter how often he's defeated, banished or even destroyed utterly, some version of him is always out there, waiting and plotting. In the Season 1 Loki ending, He Who Remains is clearly a Kang Variant, but apparently a more benevolent one than the Kang (or Kangs) we'll likely get moving forward in the MCU.

Kang's love of time travel is exactly what makes him such a dangerous and seemingly never-ending thorn in humanity's side.

Kang's Origin

While the first appearance of Kang the Conqueror is featured in 1964's The Avengers #8, the character technically debuted a year earlier in Fantastic Four #19. We'll try to summarize Kang's confusing origin story as simply as possible.

Kang's real name is Nathaniel Richards. Originally a historical scholar from the 31st century (and possibly a distant descendant of either Reed Richards or Victor von Doom), Nathaniel discovers Doctor Doom's ancient time travel tech and uses it to travel back to the era of ancient Egypt. Crowning himself "Rama-Tut," he lords over his new subjects and uses his futuristic tech to make himself seem like a god. That is, until the Fantastic Four show up to end his reign.

After escaping to the 20th century, Rama-Tut meets Doctor Doom and uses Doom's distinctive armor as inspiration for his next supervillain identity, the Scarlet Centurion. However, he's again defeated by Earth's heroes and attempts to return to his own timeline.

This is where Kang the Conqueror is born. Richards accidentally travels forward too far in time, arriving in an era when human civilization has collapsed. As the only person left who understands the advanced but forgotten technology of the 40th century, the newly minted Kang is able to quickly conquer his new timeline and even extend his new empire beyond Earth's borders. Not content to be ruler of a futuristic empire, Kang begins a recurring game of toying with time and attempting to rewrite history to suit his own whims.

Kang Cheat Sheet

First Appearance:Fantastic Four Vol. 1 #19 (as Rama-Tut), The Avengers Vol. 1 #8 (as Kang)

Creators:Stan Lee & Jack Kirby

Aliases:Immortus, Rama-Tut, The Scarlet Centurion, Iron Lad, Mr. Gryphon, Victor Timely

Recommended Reading:The Avengers: Kang - Time and Time Again, The Avengers: The Complete Celestial Madonna Saga, Avengers Forever, Uncanny Avengers by Rick Remender

Kang the Conqueror Powers and Abilities

As an ordinary human from the 31st century, Kang has no innate superhuman powers. However, he's a gifted physicist and historian, using his knowledge of science and history to manipulate the timeline and accumulate power. His distinctive green and purple suit of armor (inspired by Doom's own armor) both enhances Kang's strength and allows him to survive in whatever inhospitable environments he may find. Kang has a time-ship that allows him to freely travel through the time-stream, and he's also assembled a vast army comprised of the best warriors from throughout history.

Kang also sometimes wields a ray gun that can sap a person's strength and willpower, along with various doomsday weapons only a 40th century tyrant could dream of.

Kang also seems to be functionally immortal. Because he's so fond of abusing the timeline for his own selfish ends, there are countless variations of Nathaniel Richards in existence. No matter how many times Kang is defeated, there's always another incarnation of the Conqueror ready to continue his crusade.

Kang's Many Identities

Kang is every bit as convoluted a character as one would expect from a man whose favorite hobby is manipulating time. But part of what makes Kang such a confusing character is that he's had so many different names and identities over the years. It doesn't help that these various characters weren't all originally conceived as being the same person, so a lot of these connections have been forged after the fact. If you're familiar with the comic book storytelling term "retcon," Kang is basically its living embodiment.

As we've already covered, Nathaniel Richards uses names like Rama-Tut and the Scarlet Centurion early on in his career as a time-travelling tyrant. But taking up the mantle of Kang isn't his last identity shake-up.

At some point in his long life, Kang gives up his name and his empire to instead forge an alliance with an advanced alien race known as the Time-Keepers. In exchange for true immortality, Kang agrees to preserve the timeline and ensure the Time-Keepers' rise to power. At that point he becomes Immortus. Ironically, his younger selves are responsible for much of the damage Immortus is tasked with undoing.

Kang has held other cover identities while masquerading as a 21st Century human, including a small-town mayor named Victor Timely (a nod to Marvel's previous title Timely Comics) and a business tycoon named Mr. Gryphon.

If all this isn't complicated enough, thanks to time travel these various incarnations of Kang basically coexist alongside each other and sometimes collude or wage war against one another. There's even an entire team of Kangs known as the Council of Cross-Time Kangs. Picture the Citadel of Ricks in Rick and Morty, but with less alcohol and self-loathing.

Kang and the Young Avengers

There's another notable incarnation of Kang who may well factor into the MCU at some point. The 2005 series Young Avengers introduces a team of teen heroes modeled after classic Avengers but with very different backgrounds and origin stories. The team's founder, Iron Lad, isn't a descendant of Tony Stark, but is actually a teen version of Nathaniel Richards from a splinter timeline. Kang attempted to travel back in time and rescue his younger self from a group of bullies who had left him hospitalized for months. Kang saves himself and gives the young Nathaniel an advanced suit of armor in the hope of hurrying along his transformation from ordinary man to Kang. But instead, young Nathaniel is horrified by his older self and travels back in time to form a new team of Avengers.

Ultimately, this version of Kang is killed and Iron Lad is forced to wipe his own memories and return to the future, restoring the proper timeline. But he leaves behind a copy of his consciousness inside his armor, which fuses with the broken remnants of Vision to form a new version of that iconic Avenger.

Iron Lad is an important Kang offshoot to know, given that Marvel is showing every sign of introducing the Young Avengers in the MCU.

Kang the Conqueror Actor Jonathan Majors and Marvel Universe Connections

After appearing in the Loki finale, we know Jonathan Majors will be back as Kang in Ant-Man 3 -- but Kang's love of time travel and perpetual habit of returning to threaten the Avengers all over again make him perfectly suited to become a recurring antagonist across the MCU. It doesn't hurt that he has deep connections to so many different Marvel characters and teams.

As mentioned before, Kang may well be a descendant of Mister Fantastic or Doctor Doom. Both characters have certainly played a key role in his development as a villain. He also has connections to major characters on the cosmic side of the MCU. In the comics, Kang once competed with the Grandmaster for a chance at godlike power, and he attempted to claim the so-called "Celestial Madonna" (better known as Mantis) as his bride.

Decades after it was originally published, Marvel added more layers to the events of Fantastic Four #19 by revealing Nathaniel's true motivations for traveling back in time and becoming Rama-Tut. He was actually seeking out a young En Sabah Nur, the mutant destined to become Apocalypse, to crown him as his heir. He never succeeded, though Apocalypse turned out to be a chip off the old block in terms of harnessing futuristic technology and seeking to dominate the world.

With Kang now firmly linked to the Fantastic Four, Avengers and X-Men, Marvel forged yet another connection in the 2015 series Uncanny Inhumans. There, Black Bolt gives his son Ahura to be fostered by Kang, seeing the time-traveling tyrant as the only safe haven in a world growing steadily more hostile toward the Inhumans.

Kang in TV and Games

• TV: Given his status as one of the greatest Avengers and Fantastic Four villains, it should come as no surprise Kang has enjoyed a healthy career outside of Marvel's comics. His first animated TV appearance came way back in 1967's Fantastic Four animated series, with the episode "Rama-Tut" adapting the events of Fantastic Four #19. Whether as Kang or Rama-Tut, the villain has appeared in numerous other Marvel cartoons like X-Men Evolution and Avengers: United They Stand. He even had a brief cameo as Immortus in an episode of X-Men: The Animated Series. But Kang's most significant animated appearances have come more recently. He played a recurring role in both Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes (voiced by Jonathan Adams) and Avengers Assemble (voiced by Steve Blum). He made his live-action debut in the Season 1 Loki finale.
• Games: Kang has appeared in F2P games like Marvel: Avengers Alliance and Marvel: Contest of Champions, but his most notable video game appearance so far has been in 2017's LEGO Marvel Super Heroes 2. Kang (voiced by MCU veteran Peter Serafinowicz) serves as the main villain of the game and is also available as a playable character.

July 23, 2022: This story has been updated with the latest information about Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania.

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

Spoilers for Loki episodes 1-5 follow.

From Wakanda to Xandar in Guardians of the Galaxy, the MCU is increasingly defined by the extraordinary fictional places it shows us on-screen. It'll be no surprise to learn that bringing these locations to life is a massive collaboration between lots of very talented people – and for Loki on Disney Plus, which releases its final episode this week, pretty much everywhere we've seen across the past five episodes is a location that doesn't actually exist. 

From the Time Variance Authority's gorgeous offices to the cyberpunk-infused planet of Lamentis-1 in 2077, it's taken us on an extraordinary tour across different times and places in the Marvel universe – and the level of work it took to make all that happen has been enormous. 

"What might be helpful for you to hear is that this project is truly unprecedented and that each episode basically represents, in my opinion, the amount of world building that you typically do on one Marvel movie, for the most part," the show's production designer Kasra Farahani tells TechRadar. "So it's a huge amount of work, which is [why] we were on the project for so long."

Farahani has been helping to shape the look of the MCU for over a decade, with credits on Thor, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, Black Panther and Captain Marvel under his belt. So when he says that each episode of Loki took as much effort as a whole MCU movie, he knows what he's talking about. 

We ask Farahani to define what a production designer does on a project like Loki. "So as a production designer, you're kind of responsible – in the initial phase – for distilling the words on the page into a series of general conceptual imagery that the entire collaborative team can respond to and comment on. And through an iterative process like this, you arrive at what the conceptual kind of roadmap is for the look of this story in the different worlds you have to build." 

At first, it's laying the visual groundwork for everything we're going to see on screen. 

"And then the second phase of that becomes the process of taking those conceptual designs, and translating them into a series of plans – either literal plans to build sets or plans on how to integrate with visual effects to create things virtually."

This leads to everything the last five episodes of Loki have shown you. 

• How to watch the Marvel movies in order
• Will Kang the Conqueror appear in Loki episode 6?
• What we know about Shang-Chi

Creating the TVA

When we think of Loki's production design, it's those lovely TVA hallways that come to mind. As the location where Loki is detained at the start of the series, it feels like a real place and out-of-time simultaneously – like it's eternally a 1960s office there, even though everyone who works in this location is policing the concept of time itself. 

Creating the TVA is the first thing we wanted to ask Farahani about. "It was a dream job. The original brief, in a very concise way, described the look of the TVA as Blade Runner meets Mad Men, which was a very evocative description. And then in discussions with Kate [Herron], our director, in my initial meeting with her before we'd even met, we had so many of the same references – a lot of which included Terry Gilliam's Brazil because it had, I think, a very important missing element, which was the anachronism and the heavy presence of a bureaucracy; a kind of monolithic, uncompromising bureaucracy."

Pop culture influences were one thing, but personal experiences from both Farahani and British director Kate Herron also shaped how the TVA headquarters would look on-screen. "So, the brutalist architecture near the urban areas where Kate grew up, the mid-century modern institutional architecture that populates the entire West Coast of the United States where I grew up – these sort of mid-century, institutional influences were a big part of [the TVA]. And it became about contrasting that in places, almost paradoxically, with the warm and whimsical palettes of some of the more light versions of mid-century modernism." That last part is where the Mad Men influence comes in. 

Destroying a sci-fi city

Loki episode 3 memorably sees the destruction of Sharoo, a city on Lamentis-1 – one of the many end-of-the-world scenarios where Sylvie is hiding out from the TVA's grasp. Farahani highlights this as one of the more challenging locations to bring to life, and an example of how intense collaboration makes the magic happen. 

"Episode 3 – which takes place on Lamentis-1 – had lots to figure out in terms of interacting with virtual environments and our physical environments, maybe more than any other episode, because our show was so overwhelmingly [made with] built sets and done in-camera," Farahani says.

"Like for instance, Sharoo at the end of episode 3, we built that set completely to facilitate this 360-degree oner that they did," he says. In case it isn't obvious from the context, 'oner' means a single long shot that appears to have no cuts to the viewer. 

"So everything above 16 feet is a set extension, but everything below that was in-camera. That sequence, specifically because it had to appear to be a virtual oner, there was a lot of choreography and planning going into working with Autumn [Durald], our cinematographer, Richard Graves, our assistant director, Monique Ganderton, our stunt coordinator, and of course Kate, to figure out the exact locations of the stitches, to tailor the scenery, and the special effects – explosions and things like that – to facilitate the editorial needs of concealing this oner."

The end result is a long and impressive effects-heavy shot of actors Tom Hiddleston and Sophia Di Martino watching a city get destroyed around them – which is far beyond what we've come to expect from regular TV shows in terms of scale and detail. Clearly, this is what Farahani means by each episode feeling like a movie.

The Loki bowl

Not everything on the series is described in full on paper by the writers – Farahani describes episode 5's bowling alley location in the Void, the Loki Palace, as one area where the production design could fill in the blanks. "In episode 5, the Loki Palace from a design standpoint, that was something that was so fun, but was one of the few things that took a little while and a few iterations of the script to arrive at what it was. And in the end, the art department had quite a lot of license to arrive at that design.

"The script called for a temple, but didn't say too much more, so we arrived at this idea of a bowling alley that was among the many, many things in the Void – these aberrant things that have been deleted from time because, if they had been allowed to exist, they would have created some rifts in the timeline."

This dilapidated bowling alley, then, features alien plants growing through it, among many notable props – and all of this was carefully considered. 

"The way things work in the Void is they get dumped in there – Alioth devours them," Farahani says. "And then time passes – more things dump on them. So you create this sense of strata and the topography. And so the idea was that they'd found this cavity of this still-habitable, but very precarious bowling alley from the mid-century underground, and they'd occupied it. We collided it with lots of different things you can see: there are alien vines from a different reality that were deleted that happened to fall adjacently, growing through this bowling alley. There are layers and layers of detail. And sometimes they come through in the photography, and sometimes they don't."

Farahani mentions one detail of the Loki Palace that's in there, but not necessarily easy to spot in the episode – there's a display of photos of the wall featuring star players at the bowling alley, and they're not quite human. This demonstrates how much thought goes into these minute details that only appear briefly on-screen, which matter a lot to the Marvel fans that devour these shows and movies. 

Finally, we can't resist asking Farahani for one teaser about this week's final episode – one location we know is coming in Loki episode 6 is some kind of mansion castle, which is where we saw Loki and Sylvie heading at the end of episode 5. "All I can say is stay tuned," Farahani says. "And I think I think fans are gonna really love what's coming next."

Loki is available now on Disney Plus, and the final episode releases on July 14.

• Best Disney Plus shows

Loki has become the first MCU Disney+ show to be confirmed for a second season. The time-traveling, reality-breaking trickster god's solo series ended after six episodes with a brief post-credits teaser that simply stated Loki will return for Season 2.

Unfortunately, this split second confirmation included absolutely no other information. Details about the production schedule, cast, or potential release of the second season have not been made available. Next on the docket for the MCU on Disney+ is the animated show What If…? Which recently received a release date of August 11 as well as its first full-length trailer.

Continue Reading at GameSpot

Deadpool finally joins the Marvel Cinematic Universe thanks to his very first crossover... with Korg from Thor Ragnarok?

Okay, so this isn't the official debut of Ryan Reynolds' Merc with a Mouth in the MCU, but Reynolds and Taika Waititi did appear as their Marvel characters together to promote the upcoming film Free Guy which features both actors.

The pair react to the trailer for Free Guy in-character which is not how I would have expected Deadpool to meet up with the MCU, but here we are. Check out the video below.

If you include Deadpool’s cocaine rider, this is the most expensive reaction video ever made. pic.twitter.com/XvhIQMtBfS

— Ryan Reynolds (@VancityReynolds) July 13, 2021

Free Guy is an upcoming film where Reynolds plays a video game NPC who develops free will. Waititi is in the film as well playing the main villain trying to thwart the newly sentient Reynolds.

Korg seems like a pretty random Marvel character to include in this promotion at first glance. But aside from having both Reynolds and Waititi in the movie, Free Guy is also one of the films Disney inherited after its acquisition of 20th Century Fox.

And now that both Reynolds and Waititi are under the House of Mouse's banner, what better way to promote Free Guy than by having them remind folks that they're also both part of the MCU too?

Deadpool will officially join the MCU eventually and it will be an R-rated film according to Marvel boss Kevin Feige. In the meantime we'll likely see Waititi's Korg first when he appears in the upcoming Thor: Love and Thunder, which Waititi is also directing.

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Matt T.M. Kim is IGN's News Editor.

Netflix has finally given us a better look at the upcoming Witcher animated film, Nightmare of the Wolf, with the first look at its lead character, Vesemir. Nightmare of the Wolf is coming out on August 23.

At the first-ever WitcherCon, Netflix offered the first teaser for Nightmare of the Wolf and announced the release date.

THE WITCHER: NIGHTMARE OF THE WOLF, a Witcher anime film about Geralt's mentor Vesemir from Studio Mir, premieres August 23. #WitcherCon pic.twitter.com/fVEpxq8N5x

— Netflix Geeked (@NetflixGeeked) July 9, 2021

Vesemir is a Witcher and the person who mentored Geralt during his training. He is a friend and ally to both Geralt and Ciri, and Nightmare of the Wolf will explore his story.

In 2020 Netflix announced that it was working on an animated movie starring Vesemir, Geralt's Witcher mentor and friend. Netflix Animation is co-producing the film alongside Studio Mir, the team that worked on shows like Dota: Dragon's Blood and Legend of Korra.

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Check out the full WitcherCon schedule plus our recap for everything announced at today's show.

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Matt T.M. Kim is IGN's News Editor.

A New Zealand mother has reportedly named her three children Metallica, Slayer and Pantera. The news of the unidentified woman's choice of names for her kids was first broken by New Zealand journalist and documentary filmmaker David Farrier (Netflix's "Dark Tourist"). "Proud to report that a New Zealand mother has named her children Metallica, Pantera and Slayer," Farrier wrote on his Twitter. "She told me, 'It's not easy raising three of the heaviest bands.'" Farrier went on to say that he has seen the birth certificates of all three kids and admitted that he was was initially suspicious, especially after noticing that Metallica had a middle name of "And Justice For All", in honor of the band's fourth album. "I reached out to the Registrar-General himself, asking if there are any restrictions naming babies after band names, or albums," Farrier wrote. New Zealand Registrar-General Jeff Montgomery answered that "there are no restrictions on naming babies after bands or albums, as long as the word used is not generally considered to be offensive or does not resemble an official rank or title." Farrier shared a photo of the woman and included the following message: "I think it's important to note (as you can see in the photo in my article) this mother is also a big fan of crossbows, which are also truly metal, and she deserves our complete and utter respect for this (and for raising three kids)." According to Good Housekeeping, very few baby names in the United States are actually forbidden, with naming laws set by each state and some states having more requirements than others. In some other countries, however, there are much stricter naming laws, with some requiring parents to choose from a pre-approved list of names, or petition the government to add a name to the list. Most U.S. states prohibit using baby names with numerals in it, obscenities, and some states have character limits for the first name.

Tencent Games has rolled out a new initiative in China that forces players to submit to a digital face scan to verify they aren't minors. This is the company's effort to comply with the Chinese government in its bid to curb video game addiction among minors.

The software makes use of AI to determine if players are attempting to trick the system, forcing players offline if they either fail or reject the request for the scan. This applies to all Tencent's games between the hours of 10 PM and 8 AM. The use of AI will allow the system to detect players using tricks to circumvent the check, while continually learning from fraudulent attempts that were successful.

The measure, called "Midnight Patrol," is another system that Tencent has implemented since Chinese authorities drafted a bill of requirements aimed at curbing video game addiction among Chinese minors. This included the requirement to have games use real names for account creation, so that play time and spending could be monitored and restricted for players under the age of 18. These requirements were put in place after gaming-related incidents sparked the authorities' interest, according to Sixth Tone.

Continue Reading at GameSpot

Moderna has injected its mRNA-derived vaccine for the seasonal flu into a human volunteer for the first time as part of a Phase 1/2 clinical study, the company announced on Wednesday. 

This is a very early test for the new vaccine technology, geared primarily towards building a baseline understanding of the treatment's "safety, reactogenicity and immunogenicity," according to a Moderna release. mRNA-1010, as the vaccine has been dubbed, is designed to be effective against the four most common strains of the virus including, A H1N1, H3N2, influenza B Yamagata and influenza B Victoria. 

According to the World Health Organization, these strains cause between 3 and 5 million severe cases of flu every year, resulting in as many as 650,000 flu-related respiratory deaths annually. In the US alone, roughly 8 percent of the population comes down with the flu every winter. The company hopes this vaccine will prove more potent than the current 40 to 60 percent efficacy rate of conventional flu vaccines.  

“We are pleased to have begun this Phase 1/2 study of mRNA-1010, our first mRNA seasonal flu vaccine candidate to enter the clinic. We expect that our seasonal influenza vaccine candidates will be an important component of our future combination respiratory vaccines,” Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel said. “Respiratory combination vaccines are an important pillar of our overall mRNA vaccine strategy. We believe that the advantages of mRNA vaccines include the ability to combine different antigens to protect against multiple viruses and the ability to rapidly respond to the evolution of respiratory viruses, such as influenza, SARS-CoV-2 and RSV. Our vision is to develop an mRNA combination vaccine so that people can get one shot each fall for high efficacy protection against the most problematic respiratory viruses."

This vaccine has been generated using the same genomic techniques the company utilized to develop its COVID-19 treatment in 2020. The technique works by exploiting the human body's own cells to reproduce snippets of viral DNA to instigate an immune response and prime the body against future infection. Since this method doesn't require the entire virus (either weakened or dead) but rather just a birt of its genetic code, mRNA vaccines could be applied to any number of deadly modern diseases including malaria, TB — even cancer.  

BLIND GUARDIAN frontman Hansi Kürsch spoke to Sakis Fragos of Rock Hard Greece about the progress of the recording sessions for the band's next studio album. He said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "As of today, we finally decided who's going to do the mastering, which means we have finished the mixing. And I wanna hand in at least the audio stuff to the record company within the next two weeks." As for the musical direction of BLIND GUARDIAN's new material, Hansi said: "It is by far the most intense album we did in a very, very long time. It is, in every measure, a roller-coaster ride. There is a lot of let-your-hair-down stuff — more than I expected. There are some typical surprising BLIND GUARDIAN elements. "I'm just curious to see, really, or to hear what people will think about it. I think it's a very, very strong album. It will surprise a lot of people. "It is straight-forward in the sense of BLIND GUARDIAN, so don't expect a straight-forward album if you compare it to anything else," he explained. "It's not a straight-forward album at all, but it's very straight-forward for BLIND GUARDIAN. It's very aggressive, it's very dark. "The composing mostly has been accomplished before corona started to happen, but you can feel that there is a lot of anger in the album. It really delivers also very catchy and positive vibes, but there is a very raw energy you will feel." BLIND GUARDIAN played a brand new song, "Violent Shadows", during last year's Wacken World Wide digital festival. The band's latest release was the all-orchestral album "Twilight Orchestra: Legacy Of The Dark Lands", which came out in November 2019 via Nuclear Blast. To create the concept, lead guitarist André Olbrich and Kürsch worked alongside German bestselling author Markus Heitz, whose latest novel, "Die Dunklen Lande", was released in March 2019. The book is set in 1629 and contains the prequel to "Legacy Of The Dark Lands". BLIND GUARDIAN's last "regular" studio album, "Beyond The Red Mirror", was issued in 2015. It was the band's first LP since 2010's "At The Edge Of Time", marking the longest gap between two studio albums in BLIND GUARDIAN's career. It was also the group's first album without bassist Oliver Holzwarth since 1995's "Imaginations From The Other Side". Holzwarth has since been replaced by Barend Courbois.

Researchers found that a blood test developed using a machine learning algorithm is accurate in detecting more than 50 types of cancer.

Lucasfilm and Disney+ unveiled the first look at the anime series Star Wars: Visions alongside revealing that all nine episodes will debut on September 22, 2021.

The news was shared during Anime Expo Lite, and it was revealed that this anthology of animated shorts celebrating Star Wars is being created by seven Japanese anime studios that will use "their signature animation and storytelling styles to realize their own visions of the galaxy far, far away."

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Lucasfilm made the decision to allow these creators to tell stories that didn't have to fit in the official Star Wars timeline, even if they wanted to use established characters.

“We really wanted to give these creators a wide creative berth to explore all the imaginative potential of the Star Wars galaxy through the unique lens of anime,” James Waugh said. “We realized we wanted these to be as authentic as possible to the studios and creators who are making them, made through their unique process, in a medium they’re such experts at. So the idea was, this is their vision riffing off all the elements of the Star Wars galaxy that inspired them — hopefully to make a really incredible anthology series, unlike anything we’ve seen before in the Star Wars galaxy.”

The list of studios and their Star Wars: Visions shorts are as follows;

• Kamikaze Douga – The Duel
• Geno Studio (Twin Engine) – Lop and Ochō
• Studio Colorido (Twin Engine) – Tatooine Rhapsody
• Trigger – The Twins
• Trigger – The Elder
• Kinema Citrus – The Village Bride
• Science Saru – Akakiri
• Science Saru – T0-B1
• Production IG – The Ninth Jedi

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From The Duel that features Samurai-esque Jedi and Sith to Lop and Ochō which stars a "space bunny-person," to a new tale of dark side twins and the story of master and padawan in a twist on "hallmark Star Wars motifs," there will be a ton of variety and uniqueness in each story.

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Have a tip for us? Want to discuss a possible story? Please send an email to newstips@ign.com.

Adam Bankhurst is a news writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @AdamBankhurst and on Twitch.

Hackers just perpetrated one of the largest known supply chain cyberattacks so far. The Financial Times and Wall Street Journal report that IT management software giant Kaseya has fallen victim to a ransomware attack that compromised its VSA remote maintenance tool. The company initially claimed that "fewer than 40" of its customers were directly affected, but security response firm Huntress said three managed service providers it worked with had also succumbed to the attack and compromising over 200 companies.

The number could be higher. Huntress noted there were eight affected cloud service providers, potentially affecting many more firms. Swedish supermarket chain Coop closed almost 800 stores after one of its contractors became a target.

Kaseya said it had identified the likely source of the security flaw and was developing a patch that would be "tested thoroughly." In the meantime, though, the company urged all customers to shut down their VSA servers and keep them offline until they could install the update. Software-as-a-service customers were "never at-risk," Kaseya added, although the company took down that functionality as a precaution.

It's not certain who's behind the attack, although Huntress tied the campaign to the Russia-linked REvil group that attacked beef supplier JBS.

The incident is the latest in a string of high-profile ransomware attacks, including JBS and Colonial Pipeline. It also follows the large-scale SolarWinds breaches attributed to another group, Nobelium. Online security is quickly becoming a major issue in the supply chain, and it's not clear these problems will disappear any time soon.

Kaseya's breach also reflects the dangers of relying heavily on one company's software platform. While the number of directly affected clients is small, the supply chain network appears to have created a ripple effect that damaged numerous companies down the line. The situation might not improve until there's either tighter security among Kaseya-like providers or more competition that reduces the potential damage.

Knives Out 2 is currently filming in Greece, and a number of photos have emerged from the set, one of which seems to reveal that Ethan Hawke has joined the cast.

We don't have any context for these set photos, so keep that in mind. The photos show off some of the big ensemble cast, including Kathryn Hahn, Dave Bautista, Madelyn Cline, and Kate Hudson, among others. They're all new to the franchise, while Daniel Craig's Benoit Blanc returns to presumably help solve another mysterious death. He's seen in these set photos dressed very stylishly and classically. Check out the images below.

The plot details for Knives Out 2 are unknown at this stage, but Collider guessed that it could involve a wealthy family on vacation, with the suggestion that something goes horribly wrong and Blanc is called in once again to investigate.

Continue Reading at GameSpot

"The Nexus Event" could have some major consequences for the future of the MCU.

Loki Episode 4, "The Nexus Event" unveiled some devastating truths about the TVA and its members, both for us the audience and for the characters themselves. Last week, Sylvie dropped the bombshell that the agents of the TVA are actually just brainwashed variants and this week, we explored exactly what that meant.

Of course, that didn't happen until the whole Lamentis debacle was finally solved. If you remember from the final moments of last week's episode, we last left Loki and Sylvie staring their own imminent demise in the face as the planet collapsed around them. Thankfully, Mobius was able to swoop in and save them in time, but only because of a powerful and confusing spike of nexus energy.

This then sparked a chain of events that left the TVA crumbling, its agents in disarray, and the fabric of reality itself--well, you get the idea here. Things are not looking good for space and time, though maybe not in the way you'd might expect. Things aren't splintering off into a multiversal web (at least, not yet) but revelations are happening, and none of them are good.

Here are 8 important things to note in this episode, from Easter Eggs to references and nods to the MCU at large.

1. Asgard

Loki has provided opportunities to revisit many places in history, but returning to Asgard (which is currently destroyed in the present day MCU) is a bit of a staple by now. This episode revisits the palace several times, but it's also where we kick things off.

2. Kid Loki

We'll talk more about Kid Loki (the other one) in a second, but we're introduced to a version of the character here as well--kind of. It's not our Loki, it's Kid Sylvie. She's being arrested by Ravonna for "crimes against the sacred timeline." What kind of crimes? We can't be sure--and Ravonna refuses to elaborate. Based on the end of the episode, that could mean that Ravonna is simply a good soldier following bad orders, or something much more sinister.

3. The Wolf

Did you catch the wolf figurine in Kid Sylvie's playset? That's a model of Fenris, of course, who we saw in action during Thor Ragnarok. In that version of events, Fenris was a servant of Hela who she had to resurrect when she attempted to take the kingdom--but it's unclear if the same things transpired in Sylvie's version of history.

4. Sif

Here's a familiar face! Lady Sif hasn't been around in the MCU for quite some time--since Thor: The Dark World, specifically. She'll be back for Thor: Love And Thunder, however, so it's nice to see actor Jamie Alexander in costume again to jog our memories.

5. Kree, titans, vampires

Mobius shouts out the TVA's history with "Kree, titans, and vampires." Kree we know from Captain Marvel, titans is a nod to our good friend Thanos who hails from the planet Titan, vampires, however, is a new one. Hey, remember Morbius? That's coming out. It's not technically part of the MCU, but there's that.

6. The jet ski

Alas, poor Mobius, he "died" as he lived--fondly remembering how cool jet skis are. Of course, Mobius's pruning doesn't necessarily mean that he's gone for good (after all, the mid-credits scene seems to confirm that being zapped out of existence isn't really death) so there's still a chance we'll actually get to see Owen Wilson jet ski'ing around in real time.

7. Who created the Time-Keepers?

After the unsettling revelation that the Time-Keepers are, in fact, just a bunch of robots like the performers at the weirdest and most cosmic Chuck E. Cheese, Loki asks the obvious question: If the Keepers are just puppets, who made them? In the comics, there's actually an answer for this--a being called He Who Remains, a former director of an alternate timeline's version of the TVA, created the Time-Keepers in our reality. But in the comics, they weren't robots--so do with this information what you will.

8. The mid-credits

Hopefully you didn't close your Disney+ app before the credits of this week's episode, because there is a mid-credits scene, and it's a critical one. Not only do we get absolute confirmation that Loki's pruning didn't kill him--at least not in the traditional sense--it also introduces some new and colorful characters.

Warning: Spoilers for Episode 4 of Loki follow.

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The Loki series has taken Marvel fans across time and space, and in Episode 4, “The Nexus Event,” things seem to go somewhere altogether different. In the series’ first post-credits scene, Loki wakes up to find himself in a ravaged world that he first mistakes for Hel. Crumbling buildings, even a ruined Avengers tower, are scattered across the gray landscape.

The first person to greet him in this strange place is himself--or, more accurately, variants of himself we haven’t met before in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Could this be an entire world of Lokis? Or maybe home to all displaced variants? 

While two of these Lokis are very familiar to comic book fans, the other two are something of a wonderful puzzle. Let’s meet these new variants. 

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Classic Loki (Richard E. Grant Loki)

“Classic” Loki, as he’s listed in the credits, is the most recognizable of the bunch. He’s clad in yellow and green spandex and is the first to speak to the bewildered God of Mischief. (Also, Richard E. Grant is a brilliant stroke of casting genius for this surly Loki.)

[caption]Boastful Loki, Kid Loki, Classic Loki... and Alligator Loki?[/caption]

This is the God of Evil that tormented Thor for most of the time since the character was created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby in 1962. He plagued not only his brother, but his machinations extended to Earth and the Avengers and Doctor Strange as well. Far more villainous than mischievous, this version of Loki served his role as the bringer of Ragnarok without the antihero qualities that the God of Mischief has adopted since. 

Classic Loki seems to be the most haggard of the bunch, with dirty clothes and a bag slung over a shoulder. Has he been on this crumbling world the longest? 

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Kid Loki (Jack Veal Loki)

We’ve obviously seen Lady Loki in the series in the form of Sylvie, and now it’s Kid Loki’s turn to make an appearance. In the comics, after the fall of Asgard, Loki was reborn on Earth as a young boy and a far more compassionate version of his previous self. This reborn God of Mischief was the first step on Loki’s path to chaos instead of pure villainy. He played an important role in the wide-ranging battle against the God of Fear during the Fear Itself comic event, using his iconic cunning to give Thor a fighting chance.

Kid Loki ultimately died at the hands of Classic Loki, so this mid-credits scene has some slightly awkward undertones. Jack Veal plays him on the show.

Boastful Loki (Deobai Oparei Loki)

The Loki on the left is credited as Boastful Loki and is played by Deobai Oparei. This displaced variant appears to be a combination of both the gods of mischief and thunder, holding a hammer of his own while donning the familiar costume of Loki. Is he a variant that perhaps proved worthy?

Loki has picked up Mjolnir in the comics before. In 2014’s mega event AXIS, heroes and villains had their personalities inverted due to a magic spell. Loki became a god of good. When it was time to face the evil Thor in Loki: Agent of Asgard #9, the former God of Mischief reached for Mjolnir in a desperate attempt to fight back—and was found worthy. But it didn’t last. When the spell was reversed, the two brothers returned to their former personalities, and Mjolnir fell from Loki’s hands.

 The God of Mischief would lift the hammer again in 2020’s Thor #4, but the rest of that story has yet to be told. It remains to be seen how much, if any, of this version of Loki will be part of Boastful Loki’s backstory.

Alligator Loki

Blink and you might miss it, but a reptile wearing a familiar crown is perched on Kid Loki’s lap. Do we know anything else about this variant? No. Are we obsessed with it already? Yes.

Thor was once turned into a frog--by Loki, obviously--and a frog version of Thor from another Earth served as a member of the Pet Avengers. (Don’t laugh. They defeated Thanos.) Alligator Loki might be a nod to the Frog of Thunder’s adventures in Thor #365, which involved snarling alligators in the sewers of New York. 

From the series’ trailers we know that the Vote Loki version of the Asgardian has yet to make his appearance. Who else might be waiting in Loki Limbo?

For more on the show, check out the Loki release schedule, find out if there are Loki post credits scenes each week, dig in on some Time Keepers theories, and get some back story on Sylvie Laufeyson, Sophia Di Martino's Lady Loki Variant as well as our theories on Episode 4 and whether or not Loki is in love with Sylvie!

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Kelly Knox is a freelance entertainment writer who also contributes to StarWars.com, DCComics.com, Nerdist, and more. Follow her on Twitter at @kelly_knox to talk Star Wars, Dungeons & Dragons, and comics.

I don't consider myself an audiophile. For years, my primary pair of headphones were just the wired earbuds that came with my phone. I’m hard-pressed to tell the difference between MP3 and FLAC. Yet, I recently bought a U-Turn Audio Orbit Plus turntable, a pair of Kanto YU4 speakers and several vinyl records on eBay. How did this happen?

It all began nearly a decade ago when I joined a They Might Be Giants fan club. For an annual fee, the band would send members not just bumper stickers and t-shirts, but also several 7-inch singles and the occasional 12-inch LP. Two years later and I had accumulated a mini collection of vinyl that I had no way of playing.

Not wanting to spend a ton of money, I decided to see what the fuss was about and buy a cheap Crosley Cruiser Deluxe (you know, the one in its own suitcase that every late-millennial hipster bought from Target a few years back). I wasn’t expecting much for $50, but somehow it still managed to fall far short of those expectations, with thin and flat audio that sounded bad even to my untrained ears.

Engadget

But the experience was strangely charming: It’s hypnotic to set a record on the platter, watch it spin and witness the needle transforming its grooves into sound. Playing a record also reminded me of my childhood, when I would spend hours in my bedroom listening to cassette tapes and CDs, and reading the liner notes. I got lost in the music in a way that random playlists on Spotify can’t quite replicate.

I looked around for higher-quality turntables, but the only ones I could find at the time were far outside my price range. I was also reluctant to spend more money on extra equipment like amplifiers, preamps and speakers. Plus I wasn’t entirely convinced that my non-audiophile ears would be able to tell the difference between vinyl and digital. It didn’t seem worth it.

But as time went by, I secretly longed for one. I know it sounds shallow, but to me turntables just look cool. Additionally, vinyl has undergone a resurgence and it’s not uncommon these days for artists to release special edition LPs with album artwork and bonus tracks that aren't available elsewhere. Call me pretentious, but the idea of owning something tangible, something beautiful, that also supports an artist I love, really appeals to me.

Engadget

Then came 2020, and in a fit of quarantine-induced mania, I decided that this was the time to finally give in to the vinyl lust that’s been building all these years. After a copious amount of research that included reading reviews and watching YouTube videos, I chose a setup that could deliver a combination of affordability, design and quality, at least for my tastes and budget.

I knew right away that I wanted U-Turn Audio’s Orbit Plus ($309) as the turntable. It’s not quite as inexpensive as the company’s own Orbit Basic ($200), but it’s still relatively affordable compared to some of the higher-end turntables on the market. Admittedly, one of my primary reasons for going with U-Turn Audio is the sleek and minimalistic design of the company’s hardware. I opted for the Plus over the Basic because its acrylic platter makes for more consistent speeds. It also comes with the Ortofon OM5E cartridge, which I had read delivers a more neutral, balanced sound.

As someone who’s never set up a turntable before, I was impressed with how easy the U-Turn Audio was to put together. When I received it, the tonearm and cartridge were already in place. All I had to do was position the platter, the mat and the belt, connect the appropriate plugs, and I was ready to go in a little over five minutes. Plus, changing speeds between 33 rpm and 45 rpm is as easy as slipping the belt into another pulley groove.

Engadget

Another thing I like about the Orbit Plus is how customizable it is. It comes in a variety of different eye-catching colors, and I could choose to change out the cartridge for something a little more premium later on if I wanted to. I could also add a built-in phono preamp (which is needed to amplify the signal from the cartridge to your amplifier or speakers) or incorporate a cue lever that lowers and raises the tonearm. Bear in mind that adding these different options (aside from the color change) will cost extra. The addition of the preamp, for example, increases the price of the Orbit Plus to $379.

I went without a preamp on the Orbit Plus because my choice of speakers are the Kanto YU4s, which already have one built-in. I decided against separate components like an amplifier or a standalone phono preamp because I wanted to keep the setup simple, with as few devices as possible. Powered speakers like the YU4 allow me to do that. In fact, the YU4’s versatility is one of the reasons I like it so much. It has RCA and AUX inputs, optical inputs, a USB charge port, a subwoofer output, plus Bluetooth capabilities. Thanks to the latter feature, I often use the YU4 as computer speakers as well.

Engadget

What's more, the YU4s are just so good-looking. It has this modern, minimalist design that I think pairs wonderfully with the Orbit Plus. I currently have the YU4s positioned on either side of it, and I'm very pleased with how it all looks together. On top of that, I found the YU4’s price ($370) quite reasonable as well, especially with all of its features.

As a self-professed non-audiophile, I found the audio quality of this entire setup to be more than satisfactory. The highs are crisp and the volume is powerful enough to fill the room. The one complaint I would have is that the Kanto YU4’s bass is a little lacking. It’s there, but it just isn’t as thumpy as I would like. Kanto does sell a separate subwoofer for extra bass, but for $300, I think I can live without it.

Since I’ve purchased the turntable, I’ve spent many evenings sitting in my room listening to entire albums without the distractions from the phone or computer. I even enjoy the ritual of cleaning each record and putting them back in their sleeves. It’s become a form of meditative self-care for me. Is that too precious? Does that make me a hipster? I don’t pretend it isn’t at least a little tiresome. But right now, in the midst of a pandemic, I’ll take any kind of self-care I can get.

Nothing says summer quite like a cooler full of beer, but it wouldn’t be 2021 without a modern twist on the concept. Meet the Beer Outdoor Transporter or BOT from Heineken. It can hold up to 12 cans of beer, will follow you almost anywhere and has a “charming” AI personality. Think Wall-E but with garish corporate branding, and you’re most of the way. 

But just by virtue of being a robot instead of something you wear, the Heineken BOT is way cooler than the Smooth Operator Vest Keystone Light put out earlier in the month, and it can carry more beer to boot. Like the Smooth Operator Vest, BOT is a limited edition item. The only way you can get yourself one is by entering the competition Heineken plans to hold on July 1st. 

Apple's new sci-fi TV show Foundation now has its first trailer, and it offers a glimpse into the intrigue and mysteries that await viewers. The show is led by David Goyer, who wrote The Dark Knight films.

Foundation, which is based on the Isaac Asimov's novel series, follows a group of exiles who attempt to "save humanity and rebuild civilization amid the fall of the Galactic Empire."

Jared Harris (Mr. Deeds, Chernobyl) stars as Dr. Hari Seldon, while Lee Pace (Guardians of the Galaxy, The Hobbit) plays Brother Day. The series also stars Lou Llobell, Leah Harvey, Laura Birn, Terrence Mann, Cassian Bilton, and Alfred Enoch.

Continue Reading at GameSpot

It's been almost 35 years since the release of Among the Living, the album that put Anthrax on the pop culture map. Now the band is revisiting that seminal work in a brand new form as an original graphic novel. And none other than living comic book legend Grant Morrison is one of the creators involved.

IGN can exclusively debut a preview of Morrison and artist Freddie E. Williams II's story, which is based on the track "Indians." Check it out in the slideshow gallery below:

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Each chapter of Among the Living is inspired by a different album track. Morrison and Williams are just two of the major creators involved with this comic book re-imagining of the classic heavy metal album. Among the Living also features work from Anthrax members Scott Ian, Joey Belladonna, Frank Bello and Charlie Benante, as well as Rob Zombie, Slipknot's Corey Taylor and My Chemical Romance's Gerard and Mikey Way. The creative lineup also includes writers Brian Posehn, Jimmy Palmiotti, Brian Azzarello, Rick Remender and Joe Trohman and artists J.G. Jones, Eric Powell, Darick Robertson, Scott Koblish, Erik Rodriguez, Maan House, Roland Boschi, Steve Chanks and Dave Johnson.

As if that weren't enough, the book also features a new zombie-fied take on Anthrax's iconic mascot, the Not Man, designed by The Walking Dead's Greg Nicotero.

If a graphic novel adaptation of a heavy metal album seems like an odd twist, it's worth remembering that Anthrax have often taken inspiration from other pieces of pop culture for their songs. Several tracks are directly inspired by Stephen King stories like The Stand and Apt Pupil, and the band has also homaged everything from Judge Dredd to Lost.

Anthrax: Among the Living is published by Z2 Comics and is scheduled for release on Tuesday, July 6. You can preorder the graphic novel on Amazon.

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This will actually be the second album-inspired graphic novel Mikey Way has worked on in 2021. Way recently debuted Electric Century, a graphic novel based on the album of the same name.

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

Loki's third episode, "Lementis" went full sci-fi for an apocalypse in space.

This week's episode of Loki pivoted focus from the buddy-cop dynamic of Loki and Mobius to the new, contentious relationship between Loki and, well, himself. Kind of. While Episode 2 dropped the Lady Loki bombshell, Episode 3 made things even more complicated--but at least we have a name for this new Loki to keep things from getting too confusing.

After making a surreptitious escape from the Roxxcart, Loki and Sylvie were able to make a brief attempt on the TVA before being forced to retreat--but unfortunately for them, they wound up in yet another apocalypse. The alien moon of Lamentis-1, where the episode gets its name, is on a collision course with another planet and about to be entirely destroyed. To make matters worse, Loki and Sylvie's TemPad, their ticket to anywhere else in time and space, is out of batteries, leaving them stranded.

Of course, desperate times call for desperate measures and the two begrudgingly struck up a partnership, if only to save their own lives. Along the way, between intermittent bouts of fighting and attempts to betray one another, they learned some interesting facts about their very different lives, and some of the things that make them the same.

Here are 9 Easter eggs, references, and nods to Marvel comics to keep an eye on in this episode.

1. The danger flip

Loki has plenty of cool moves in his repertoire, but his twin dagger flip (most memorably featured in slo-mo during Thor: Ragnarok's big Immigrant Song showdown) is one of his coolest.

2. Lamentis-1

Purple-tinted planet Lamentis-1 does exist in the comics, though not for long and not in a major way. It has a grand total of one comic book appearances to its name--Annihilation Conquest: Prologue #1. In the book, it plays a role in the conquest (get it? Like in the name?) of a race of war-like aliens called the Phalanx. It also sets up a cosmic force called the Annihilation Wave (again, like in the name). While all of this might point towards big plans for MCU movies in the future, it's far more likely that Lamentis-1 was just a convenient apocalyptic event for the showrunners to pull from comic book history.

3. That's no moon

The apocalyptic event happening on Lamentis-1 is a full on collision with a planet--something we've seen a few times both in the MCU and in Marvel comics. Remember the fight with Thanos in Infinity War where he threw a moon at Iron Man? Similarly, during the Secret Wars event, planets were colliding into one another all the time because they were trying to occupy the same position in time and space. Of all the apocalypses to showcase, this one is definitely meant to trigger some memories.

4. Sylvie

Okay, this one's a little confusing so bear with us. Loki spends the bulk of this episode probing at the "variant" and her identity, asking questions like "are you sure you're a Loki?" which are met with her bristling at the thought and vehemently denying it, until she finally admits she's using a different name: Sylvie.

This is a nod to a character from the comics named Sylvie Lushton, who actually isn't a version of Loki, but a mortal from Bronxton, Oklahoma who Loki either tricked or wholly created (it remains unclear) to have Asgardian powers, simply because he liked the idea of a mortal who thought they were Asgardian. Comics Sylvie was based at least partly off another Asgardian--Amora the Enchantress--though the two of them can and do exist simultaneously with one another.

Obviously, Loki in the show didn't create Sylvie as a fun little experiment, so it's unlikely we're going to see a 1-to-1 translation of this comic book backstory, but it does seem likely that Sylvie is being set up not as a "replacement" Loki, but as the MCU version of Amora. It's even possible that she really isn't a Loki variant afterall, but an incarnation of Amora playing a game.

5. We love a space train

The surreal, sci-fi passenger train trope is one as old as time--or at least as old as the genre--but this episode's obvious inspiration from cult genre classics like comic-turned-film-turned-show Snowpiercer, anime Galaxy Express 999, an even the recent animated series Infinity Train seems apparent. Also, did you catch the names of the two ticket taking soldiers before Loki and Sylvie boarded? They called each other Hudson and Hicks--nods to Bill Paxton's Hudson and Michael Biehn's Hicks from the movie Aliens. Lots of sci-fi DNA in this episode, to be sure.

6. Relationship with a postman

Sylvie is clearly making a joke here about her lack of time for any sort of romance but it's also a very obscure nod to one of the biggest gags in a specific run of Thor comics. When Asgard was moved to Earth following its destruction in space, it became a floating castle on the outskirts of Broxton, Oklahoma--and the residents of the town were surprisingly chill about it. The introduction to Asgard's new status quo came as a local mailman very casually delivered a letter to Asgard into a mailbox driven into the ground outside the floating castle's walls.

7. Another!

Hey, remember back in the first Thor movie when Thor shattered a coffee cup and demanded more after Jane took him to a cafe? Apparently it runs in the family.

8. Enchantment

Even more evidence for Sylvie's status as the MCU's first Enchantress, throughout this episode both Loki and Sylvie take to calling Sylvie's abilities "enchantments" rather than magic, or powers, or even tricks.

9. Before the TVA

Now this is an interesting one. According to Sylvie, everyone who works at the TVA is actually a variant, but none of them know this. It's unclear just how far this extends--is Mobius also a memory wiped variant? Is Revona? Or does it only include their foot soldiers? But things are looking a little bleak in terms of the Time-Keepers and their agenda. Maybe they're not as powerful and benevolent as the TVA seems to believe.

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