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Wesley Matthews sprinted down the right sideline, cradled Damian Lillard’s outlet pass, and spotted Dirk Nowitzki. It was early March and the Portland Trail Blazers were engaged in a sluggish back-and-forth with the Dallas Mavericks. I’m going to swing on the rim, Matthews said he thought upon seeing Nowitzki between himself and the basket. There’s no way he can keep up with me in transition. He hoped his impending dunk would rouse the home crowd and build some momentum for Portland, a team jockeying for position in the crowded Western Conference playoff race. Matthews planted his left foot, a move he had performed countless times, in an effort to change directions and beeline toward the hoop.

The dunk never happened. Instead, Matthews collapsed. He felt like he had been kicked in the back of his ankle. The ball bounced away and play continued, the TNT cameras following the action. Matthews’s durability had earned him a reputation as one of the NBA’s iron men. When he’d go down, he’d always get back up. He’d played through the pain of hip flexor strains, ankle sprains, and knee hyperextensions. “I can’t remember the last time [before March] I saw him go down,” said Mavs assistant Kaleb Canales, who spent years coaching Matthews in Portland. “But when he goes down, he pops back up. That’s what he usually does, so I knew that there was a strong chance that this was a big injury.” Pam Moore, Matthews’s mother, was watching at home in Wisconsin and immediately worried when she didn’t see her son hustle back into the play. Now she was glued to her television screen, waiting for the replay that would confirm her worst fears.

Before he fell all the way to the floor, Matthews was already looking back. Who the hell kicked me? But there was no one behind him. He knew then that he had felt the pop every player dreads, and the thought raced through his mind: You just tore your Achilles. He would spend much of the next hour futilely attempting to convince himself otherwise.

Maybe it’s just a couple of ligaments. Maybe it’s partial. Maybe it’s my ankle. But Matthews’s attempts at rationalization could not drown out reality. Deep down, he knew what the MRI would reveal long before doctors explained the results to him, in the bowels of the Moda Center. The Trail Blazers’ billionaire owner, Paul Allen, left his courtside seat to check on Matthews. Neil Olshey, the general manager, entered the room. The immediate shock of the injury began to wear off, giving way to even more disturbing thoughts about Matthews’s future. Why now? I’m having the best year of my career. Our team is a championship contender. Contract year. Was I in line for a huge payday? Absolutely. Was it deserving? Absolutely. Will it happen? I don’t know.

Matthews had good reason for concern: The track record for players trying to return from Achilles tears is grim. Some never play another NBA game. Kobe Bryant blew out his left Achilles two years ago at the age of 34, but subsequent unrelated injuries have made it difficult to evaluate the success of his comeback. Elton Brand, Chauncey Billups, and Christian Laettner each sustained the injury and never again looked like the players they’d been before the tear.

Matthews addressed the media the night of his injury. At the time, he feared that the close bond he’d developed with the Trail Blazers and the team’s fans might never be the same. “It’s disbelief, you know?” Matthews told reporters. “I’m sitting up there in that tube having an MRI, and I don’t hear noise, I don’t feel my Achilles, I’m just … I can’t believe I’m up there while my team’s battling. I just haven’t processed all of it yet.”

Matthews returned home and took a long shower, his mind wandering through the possibilities of his now-uncertain future. He received a text from Bryant, who asked about his spirits and urged Matthews to find refuge in nonathletic hobbies during rehab, to read and become more knowledgeable. “It lifted me up almost immediately,” Matthews recalled. “He didn’t have to reach out, and he did — especially being somebody that you idolized, looked up to, competed against, arguably one of the best players of all time.” As an undrafted rookie with the Utah Jazz, Matthews guarded Bryant in the 2010 playoffs. “It wasn’t easy,” he recalled. “It was fun, though. I was playing hella defense, but he was making some tough shots. I’m hopeful that we get to match up again.”

After surgery to repair the tendon, doctors outfitted Matthews with an orthopedic boot and gave him crutches, estimating that his recovery would take six to nine months. Matthews thought about his impending free agency and reasoned that teams would consider his work ethic and toughness when deciding to offer him a contract: All right, nine months puts me at November. That’s essentially the start of the season. Nine months, cut that in half: four and a half months, I should be able to do stuff. I should be able to convince people that I will be all right. People know what I’ve done. They know who I am.

Matthews also reassured himself that he had been smart with his money. “Technically, you’re safe,” he said he told himself. “Everything else is gravy.” His agent, Jeff Austin, consoled him without sugarcoating the truth. “Some teams are going to back away,” Austin told Matthews. “But we aren’t looking to sign with five teams. We’re looking to sign with one.”

Toronto, Phoenix, and Sacramento showed interest in Matthews despite the injury, but he turned down an offer from the Kings before signing with the Mavericks in July. Dallas prioritized Matthews in free agency, signing him to a four-year deal that stretched to $70 million once DeAndre Jordan backed out of his commitment to the team. “First, my docs played a big part,” Dallas owner Mark Cuban explained in an email regarding Matthews. “I think Dr. [Tarek] Souryal is the best in the business. So that was a critical foundation. And then there is Wes. He is driven. He is a worker. So I knew he would and has done the rehab.” For Matthews, joining Dallas has created an opportunity he hasn’t had since his high school days in Madison, Wisconsin: the chance to be a team cornerstone.

“I think most guys that aspire to be great, they want to be a part of something great — but not just a part,” Matthews said. “[They want] to be a factor in why it was great. And I really feel that’s why Dallas wanted me, and I feel that’s perfectly aligned with where I want to go.” Matthews knows there are people around the league who doubt his ability to make a full recovery, but as a player who entered the NBA as an undrafted free agent and then developed into one of the league’s best two-way shooting guards, he’s used to being doubted. “People want to count you out all the time,” he said. “I don’t got to look for it that hard.”

Sam Forencich/NBAE/Getty Images Matthews on the floor after rupturing his Achilles tendon in March.

Wesley Matthews was not supposed to be in a position to guard Kobe Bryant. He was not supposed to earn playing time as a rookie under Utah coach Jerry Sloan. He was not supposed to be in the NBA at all, for that matter.

The day of the 2009 draft, Matthews couldn’t relax. He tried to ease his nerves by staying busy on draft night, heading to his high school gym to practice shooting. As dreams came true for other players, Matthews shut out the world and worked on his craft. Before long, a text interrupted his peace: The Memphis Grizzlies had nabbed Sam Young, a fellow shooting guard who’d been a projected first-rounder, with the 36th overall pick. Matthews knew what that meant: If Young was being chosen 10 to 15 spots lower than pre-draft predictions of when he’d get picked, then Matthews, projected to go between 38 and 50, probably wouldn’t be selected at all. He took more shots while the rest of the second round passed. By the time the final pick was announced, Matthews had already left the gym and returned home. Moore, his mother, hugged him. “It’s not always the best thing to be drafted,” she said. “You can be drafted in a place where there’s no need for you. We get to write our script now.”

In the moment, Matthews relied on some frequent advice from his grandmother: After a win or a loss, he had until midnight to feel excited or mad. When the new day arrived, it was time to bury those emotions and move forward. “So until 12:01, I was furious,” Matthews said. “I was mad. I was upset. I was every kind of emotion. But 12:01 hit, [I] got myself together, went [out] and celebrated with my friends.” It’s not as though the disappointment simply evaporated. “No one gets over something in a minute,” Matthews continued. “But the fact that you’ve committed to trying to do that — it helps.” He received a call from his agent that night. The Jazz had wanted to take Matthews in the second round but opted for a frontcourt player as insurance in case they lost a big man in free agency. Utah was interested in signing Matthews for summer league, and from that moment he pledged to make the Jazz keep him.

That gritty confidence was instilled by Moore. “Making sure he was just tough,” she said. “I think it really was around sports and you just carried it over: ‘You save the tears for home. You never let them see you cry.’ I think that stemmed from me trying to overcompensate for a man not being in the house.”

As a single parent, Moore wanted to ensure that her son would never look back on his life and ask what if. “Maybe I was too hard at times,” she said. “I don’t see too many negative repercussions with Wesley, only that sometimes it does scare me that he thinks he needs to be perfect. … He has this idea in himself that he is Iron Man. I have to remind him: ‘Wesley, that’s a fictional character.’”

Wes Matthews Sr. played in the NBA for nine seasons, grabbing championship rings with the Lakers in 1987 and 1988. But he wasn’t involved in his son’s upbringing. When people approach Wesley Matthews Jr. to talk about his dad’s basketball exploits, he looks at it as strangers talking about a stranger. Rather than use his absentee father as an example, Moore used her own sparkling athletic career to inspire her son. She was recruited to the University of Wisconsin–Madison as a basketball player and a sprinter, but track and field was her baby. “In that regard, Wesley’s totally different than me,” Moore said. “He’s a very team-oriented person. I was a selfish athlete. I didn’t like shortcomings of other people around me.” She became a two-time All-American and won the 1981 national indoor title with a 53.88-second finish in the 400 meters, a mark that remains a Badgers record.

Moore had hoped to compete in the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, but the timing proved difficult. She finished her college career in ’82 and contemplated her options: She could train for the next two years, relying on her family to support her while she chased an Olympic dream that was no guarantee and could be dashed by an untimely injury. If, for some reason, she didn’t qualify for the Summer Games, what would Moore have to show for her time, effort, and energy?

She had already graduated college and received an offer to work for Neiman Marcus as an assistant buyer. Moore’s coach believed that she could qualify for the Olympics if she kept working and training, but her practical side won out. She wanted to support herself. “I had no one to say, ‘Pam, you can’t turn this down,’” she recalled. “And that’s why I wanted to make sure it would never happen to Wesley, because if I had to go back and do it [differently], I would have found a way to train for two more years, to see what might have been.”

Moore avoided the what-might-have-beens with Matthews: “I just wanted him to never have to look back.” She had him attend study sessions on Saturday mornings. When he played sports, she wanted him to train harder and smarter than everybody else. “When you have that feeling that there’s nobody out there that’s worked harder than you, that’s a feeling that takes you to the next level,” she told him.

Matthews routinely played against older competition growing up, and it was little surprise when he was promoted to varsity midway through his freshman year at James Madison Memorial High. There, he asked coach Steve Collins how he could help the team. Collins told Matthews to allow the game to come to him. “I wish I would have told him to take over a little bit more, because I think we ended up losing in the tournament that year,” Collins recently said. As a junior, Matthews broke his left hand in the state semifinals, and despite the injury he played in the championship. “He couldn’t even catch the ball,” Collins recalled. They lost that year, but Matthews guided Memorial to the Wisconsin championship the following season.²⁴

When Matthews had to decide where he’d play college basketball, Moore did extensive research. With her blessing and guidance, he bypassed the hometown Badgers — where his parents had both been stars — and chose Marquette. “In the recruitment process, it really was Wes and Pam and Pam and Wes,” said former Marquette coach Tom Crean. “You knew you were recruiting a really strong family. But at the same time, you were recruiting two teammates, because they’ve [always] been together.”

At Marquette, Matthews formed a three-guard lineup with Dominic James and Jerel McNeal, and the trio started nearly every game together over their four seasons. “We had nicknames,” Matthews said. “We were the kids. We were the freshmen. We were the three amigos. We were everything, but it was always all three of us together. And until my last year, I was the afterthought. Dominic was Rookie of the Year our first year. Jerel was Defensive Player of the Year as a sophomore. Third year, Lazar Hayward came onto the scene and he was a newcomer.” As a senior, Matthews’s game finally blossomed, but even though he raised his scoring average from 11.3 to 18.3 points per game, Matthews still went undrafted. Buzz Williams, who by then had replaced Crean as Marquette’s coach, tried to convince then–Utah Jazz general manager Kevin O’Connor about Matthews’s value. “I’ve never coached in the NBA, so I’m not saying I have all the answers,” Williams recalled saying. “I am saying that Wes will figure out how to get on the floor and then your coach will have a hard time figuring out how to get him off the floor.”

Before Matthews joined Utah’s summer league roster, a Turkish club offered him $140,000 for the upcoming season. The six-figure contract was enough to provide financial security. He thought about the money for two hours. Then he thought about his pre-draft workouts and the players he had encountered who were now preparing for their NBA debuts. “I didn’t lose a workout,” Matthews said. “One-on-one, two-on-two, three-on-three, I did not lose a workout. I had 13 of them. I just kept thinking — the money, the money, the money. Nah. I’m an NBA player.”

Playing with the Jazz in the Orlando summer league did not go well. He averaged 6.2 points, 1.4 rebounds, and 1.2 assists in five games. More importantly, he could tell that he hadn’t made the impact on the floor required to earn a regular-season roster spot. He worried that he’d missed his shot at the NBA, but Sacramento added him to its roster for the Las Vegas summer league. There, Matthews played well enough to convince the Jazz, who were waiting for Kyle Korver and C.J. Miles to return from injuries, to offer Matthews a deal. By the end of his rookie season, Matthews found himself starting in the playoffs against Bryant and the Lakers. “We were glad to get him and he was a joy to coach, because he was a hard-nosed type of player,” said former Jazz coach Sloan. “The energy he put into play was second to none. I think he complemented his teammates pretty well, and he’s had a great career because of his attitude and the way he wants to be recognized in this league.”

Matthews became a restricted free agent after his rookie season. That summer, he signed an offer sheet with the Trail Blazers for five years and $34 million, but he expected Utah to match. “Every article I read, I got no indication that I was going anywhere but Utah,” Matthews recalled. “There was no way they were going to let me go. So I already had in my mind that I was going back to Utah, and I was excited about it. I was excited to play with [Paul] Millsap again and D-Will [Deron Williams] again. But [the Jazz] felt otherwise.”

Utah didn’t match the Trail Blazers’ offer, and Matthews went to Portland. At his introductory press conference in Portland, The Oregonian’s Jason Quick asked Matthews if he was worth the contract. The question lingered with Matthews. “Because I had to show I was worth it,” he said. “To me, when I signed that deal, it was double motivation. When Utah didn’t match, that was Utah telling me I wasn’t worth that, and then when I signed it and I was coming to Portland, now I had to live up to it or surpass it.”

Noah Graham/NBAE/Getty Images Matthews, in his rookie year with the Utah Jazz, guarding Kobe Bryant in the 2010 Western Conference semifinals.

Determined to prove himself worthy of the Portland contract, Matthews found inspiration in a comic-book superhero. Not only would he play through pain and minor injury like an iron man, but he would begin thinking of himself as Marvel’s Iron Man. “You’ve seen the movies,” Matthews said. “He’s as human as everybody else. He’s had to battle stuff just like everybody else. But he figures out a way to make it work. He’s not imposing. He’s not physically dominant, but he’s smarter than everybody else. He stays up. He’s tinkering. He’s working and he gets the job done. I may catch a few people on a dunk. I may blow past a few people. I’m athletic, but I’m not a Gerald Green. I’m not a Russell Westbrook. But I can be just as effective as all of them.”

Matthews averaged 15.9 points and almost three 3-pointers per game last season for a Trail Blazers team that finished 51-31 before losing to the Grizzlies in the first round of the playoffs. Many around the league considered Matthews the prototype for a 3-and-D wing, a player who could stroke from range on offense and play lockdown defense, although Matthews feels the label limits him. “I think people don’t necessarily want to give me the credit of [being] a complete, solid 2-guard,” he said. “I don’t know why. I feel like for people to label me anything more than a 3-and-D would make them admit they were wrong about me.”

The night after Matthews’s injury, he watched Portland play from a hospital room in California. He had surgery to repair his Achilles a few days later. Afterward, doctors instructed Matthews to keep his leg elevated for 18 to 20 hours a day. He watched television. He played video games. “I started getting out of the cast, and as the weeks went on, the number of hours [of leg elevation] kind of went down, so I would try the crutch a little bit,” he said. “But I could really only stand not having my foot elevated for probably 20 minutes at a time before it would hurt.”

This summer, once Portland had been eliminated from the playoffs and star free agent LaMarcus Aldridge chose to sign with the Spurs, the Blazers decided to rebuild their roster. The team traded Nicolas Batum to Charlotte for Noah Vonleh and Gerald Henderson. (This move came before Aldridge had officially left the Blazers, but ESPN’s Marc Stein reported that the franchise already believed it had little chance to re-sign Aldridge when it acquired Vonleh and Henderson.) Matthews didn’t even have the option to remain with the Trail Blazers, a franchise still haunted by the injury-riddled careers of Greg Oden and Brandon Roy. “Once I got hurt, everything about Portland kind of shifted,” Matthews said. “Especially that we didn’t sustain winning and we dropped off the way we did. I think that not only [Aldridge] moved on, but Portland moved on from us as well — when I say Portland, I mean management and the decisions they wanted to make.”

In Dallas, Matthews had hoped to form a Western Conference contender alongside DeAndre Jordan, Chandler Parsons, and Dirk Nowitzki. Of course, that was not in the cards. But even after Jordan reneged on his verbal agreement to sign with Dallas and Matthews’s new team was made the butt of thousands of emoji jokes, Matthews didn’t waver on his commitment to the Mavs. “There was just too much love for me,” Matthews said. “They genuinely wanted me. Just me. I wasn’t a package deal for them. They wanted to shore up two positions, center and 2-guard, and I was the 2-guard. That was a question that was heavy on me: Let’s say DeAndre doesn’t come, do you still want me?”

“He made his own decision and that was it,” Matthews said of Jordan’s infamous flip-flop. “Am I mad that he changed his mind? No. The only thing that I have an issue with is, I’m reaching out [and] he just didn’t hit me back. If you’re like, ‘Hey, man, I feel this way,’ it’s fine. I’m not going to hold a gun to your head and say, ‘You can’t go.’ At the end of the day, we’ve got to make the best decision. If you thought it was here and realized it wasn’t, I can’t fault you for that.”

Without Jordan, few NBA observers believe the Mavericks will be able to compete for a playoff spot in the always-daunting Western Conference. Matthews has spent much of his summer rehabbing in Dallas with Parsons, who is recovering from knee surgery. “We have it set that we are going to be the best wing tandem in the league and we’re not going to use these injuries as excuses,” Matthews said. Parsons recruited both Matthews and Jordan to Dallas, and he will settle for Matthews. “Throughout the whole process, he was the guy I wanted at shooting guard,” Parsons said. “Selfishly, I think he’s perfect to play alongside me, because he’s a defending, knockdown-shooting, post-up 2. I couldn’t think of another 2 that I’d rather play with. Obviously, James Harden’s very good. Klay Thompson’s very good. But for my game and our offense and our team, having us on the wings together is a pretty great combination.”

Glenn James/NBAE/Getty Images Matthews at Dallas Mavericks media day.

Being sidelined last season was harder for Matthews than any obstacle he has faced on the court. “[Basketball]’s been everything to me,” he said. “Not only playing the sport, because I love it, but it brings my family together and gives them so much excitement. Being an only child, that’s what they had to look forward to. They would come to my AAU games. They would come to my high school games. They were always at my college games.

“I feel like it’s easy to let yourself down. It’s easy to give up on yourself. [To say], ‘I don’t feel like going to the gym today.’ But when you make it about someone else — my family — I can’t justify not giving everything I have. It was tough not to be able to go out and perform for them.”

In mid-September, doctors cleared Matthews to run, and he hoped to participate in noncontact, five-on-zero drills by the time training camp opened in Dallas. When that deadline passed, he wanted to be ready for the start of the regular season. Now, his return appears even further away. “The basketball stuff, the cutting, I’m not worried about that,” Matthews said. “It’s the instinct, when that ball’s bouncing, to sprawl out extended and keep it in bounds, to make that hustle play.” Mavs head trainer Casey Smith said Matthews’s recovery depends on how his body can handle an incrementally increased workload. “The Achilles is unique in that everything you do when your foot hits the ground puts stress on the area,” Smith said. “It’s every change of direction, every landing, every jump.”

Dominique Wilkins is one player who can serve as inspiration for Matthews’s comeback. At 33, he returned from a snapped right Achilles to regain his All-Star form and average 29.9 points per game. “When I came back, people had their doubts,” Wilkins told Grantland after Bryant ruptured his Achilles in 2013. “People said I was done and [that] my career was over. Going through my rehab, literally every day for nine months, I came back and had my best all-around season of my career. It just depends on the person and how driven they are.”

That is one area Matthews doesn’t have to worry about. “He’s one of the best system players in the entire league,” said Dallas coach Rick Carlisle. “I viewed him as one of the stars of their team in Portland. We want to get him healthy and we want to integrate him to be that kind of star on our team. And we will get there and he will get there. But we’ve just got to make sure we don’t skip any steps when it comes to the process of his rehabilitation and reconditioning.”

Matthews, who once played in 250 consecutive games before being forced to sit with a hip injury, takes his Iron Man nickname seriously. His emphasis now is on moving forward and not suffering any setbacks. “He and I had that conversation the other day,” Smith said, referring to Matthews’s return to live game action. “It’s not going to be a situation where I watch him and say, ‘OK, you look great, you’re ready to go.’ He’s got to feel it and be comfortable with it.” When that time comes, Matthews will be back on the court, confident as always.

“My body of work speaks for itself,” Matthews said. “If people put my numbers next to other people at my position who they deem are the top, and you just showed the numbers, I’m sure people would be surprised to see it’s my name and not someone else’s. I don’t have anything to prove. I’m just excited to go out there and show.”

While this shouldn’t be surprising, given the ongoing story about Hideo Kojima and Konami’s public differences, this is a nice bit of clean up.

According to the New Yorker (via Gamespot), the legendary developer has finally parted ways with Konami, as of October 9th. This means that after 30 years, Kojima is now a free agent.

Don’t expect any news on his moves just yet though. The same report says that Kojima has a non-compete clause that isn’t up until December, so we won’t hear anything about a movie until at least then.

When we finally know what he is doing next, I’ll be sure to keep you guys informed.

It Seems That Hideo Kojima Has Finally Left Konami

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Y: The Last Man is being developed as a television series for cable outlet FX. Long in development as a film, the project was ultimately abandoned when its story could not contained in a single two-hour film.

Written by Brian K. Vaughn with art by Pia Guerra and others, Y told the tale of Yorick, an escape artist and the last male survivor of a devastating event that killed every human being with the y-chromosome. He sets out to learn why.

The project, led by Vaughan and Color Force‘s Nina Jacobson and Brad Simpson are currently looking for a writer to help develop the series with Vaughn, who is himself no stranger to TV. Vaughn worked on the series Lost during its 2004-2010 run.

Y: The Last Man To Become A Television Series On FX

“Savage Dragon” creator and McFarlane’s fellow Image founder Erik Larsen will join the series as of “Spawn” #258, in what McFarlane describes as

a “true partnership.” Effectively, the two will co-write the series with Larsen penciling and McFarlane inking — though it’s a bit more freeform than that.

“It’s going to be sort of a tag team,” McFarlane told CBR News. “We’re going to co-plot, we’re going to co-write. He’s going to do the early, rough laydowns on it, I’m going to do a little bit of inking, he’s going to do a little bit of inking, I’m going to do some penciling on top of his inking, and we’re just going to do this hodgepodge that, at the end, you’re going to go, ‘Who wrote that?’ ‘I don’t know, do you remember, Erik?’

Five issues to kick off with, starting with Spawn #258…

NYCC ’15: Erik Larsen Draws Todd McFarlane’s Spawn

Last week, the news of completely new Street Fighter V character, Laura, accidentally slipped out. We saw pictures of what she looked like then, but nothing leaked of her in motion.

Well, here is a little clean up. This trailer has now hit the web, showing off the Brazilian fighter. Much like Street Fighter’s other famous Brazilian, Blanka, she has electricity powers. I assume that means the two are linked somehow?

Take a look at her in action here:

I don’t really know why Brazilians all seem to control electricity in the Street Fighter universe honestly. That is kind of interesting…

New Street Fighter V Character Laura Gets A Trailer

Hot on the heels of Marvel Studios‘ Phase III announcements, Disney has set its overall film release schedule through 2020, according to Variety. The Incredibles 2, the long awaited sequel to Brad Bird‘s first Pixar film, is set for June 21st, 2019. In the preceding years, Pixar will release sequels to Cars and Toy Story, landing in the June release spots on June 15th, 2017 and June 16th, 2018 respectively.

Besides Pixar and Marvel films, Disney has scheduled a number of untitled live action films referred to as “Disney Fairytale,” no doubt further retellings from their animation library, through 2020. That year will also see the release of two untitled Pixar films. Not counting then yearly Star Wars installments, Disney plans to release nineteen films over the next five years.

Disney Sets Incredibles 2 Release Date; Slate Through 2020

It’s time for deerstalkers and pipes in the new trailer for the upcoming Sherlock special. The on-off episodes sees Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman playing Holmes and Watson in a thoroughly Victorian mode. Teased during Comic-Con, the new trailer suggested foul spectral happenings are afoot. It also reveals how much at home Cumberbatch and Freeman are in the parts, no matter the century.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Set to air as part of PBS‘s Masterpiece series, the special is still without an airdate.

New Sherlock Special Trailer Takes Holmes And Watson Back To Their Victorian Roots

So why survives the Secret Wars, as Marvel launches a number of All-New All-Different Marvel relaunch titles today? Expect spoilers for Amazing Spider-Man #1, Old Man Logan #5, Avengers #0 Doctor Strange #1, Point One #1, Contest of Champions #1 and more…

Okay, so that wasn’t a spoiler. We knew that was coming. But a number of those that follow are. So break out the spoiler warnings and tread carefully.

Exactly. That top scene is from the oversized Amazing Spider-Man #1 which sees a very different Peter Parker extending himself in all sorts of ways, but remaining true to himself.

There is one big plot twist in this issue that I am going to completely ignore, in favour of some of the other changes and reveals to talk about.

That’s right, folks, we have another Spider-Man to join Miles Morales, the Web Warriors, Spider-Woman, Spider-Man 2099, Silk and Spider-Gwen… as Peter Parker has a different public profile. But one that stays very close to his roots.

Now that “with great power comes great responsibility” is quoted by the courts, it’s nice to see it used in a different fashion. But it;s not just lip service to his late Uncle…

There are similarities… so who else apart from Miles Morales survives?

Well we knew Singularity would appear in A-Force, but she makes an appearance in the Captain Marvel strip in Avengers #0 too. Who else?

Okay, I guess we knew that he did. Got his own title and everything. But how about someone we weren’t expecting and far more spoilery? Well back to Amazing Spider-Man #1, and there’s a real final page spoiler coming…

…recognise the logo? Well, if not, here is this fellow.

If you hadn’t been reading Renew Your Vows, he’s the big superpower thieving Big Bad tyrant dictator from that Secret Wars series. Somehow he made it across. Who else?

Blimey, they’re not messing around here, are they? Ultimate Mister Fantastic is around, even if Mister Fantastic of the 616 (or whatever it’s called now) isn’t.

Okay, so what other changes are imposed?

Well some folk have been revived, thanks to the dimensional raiding of Contest Of Champions, which seems to suggest a multiverse as well as the return of a certain Netflix star…

…stick is back from the dead. Somehow. We get a new Inhuman…

With age transference powers. And while we may not have a 616 Reed Richards hanging around the place…

…we do have a HERBIE, Agent Of SHIELD.

And the Agents Of SHIELD have a traitor… and you get to find out who. Then of course there’s that last page of Iron Man….

Doctor Strange has been de-aged, losing the greying temples and he’s turned into both a mystical barhopper and a horndog. Basically… he’s John Constantine without the ciggies.

…and a few more robes. He’s been totally Cumberbatched.

Vision looks like he will be a lot more cold and callous moving forward…. and there are some new faces.

Captain Marvel gets a big cast, with astrobiologist (yes, that’s a thing now) Dr Bell joining the space station team.

The government is tracking down Carnage and need a new monster catcher..

The new Guillotine comes from a long line of Guillotines…

While Spider-Woman gets a new look, and seems to not be taking notice of those Fighting Supervillains While Pregnant Can Severely Harm Your Baby warnings.

While Ms America seems to be channelling Phonogram, saving the universe through music…There are same-sex wedding bells in Amazing Spider-Man, Though strangely they sound just the same as opposite-sex wedding bells.

A nd what about the X-Men? Yes, you thought we’d forgotten about them. Well…

Rogue has been nobbled by the mutant-killing Terrigen mists. But how come this is the only place we even hear of this issue?

Conspiracy!

Comics courtesy of Orbital Comics, London. Where, in conjunction with the Lakes International Comic Art Festival, Orbital is pleased to present French artist Boulet in a special live-draw event with whiskey tasting on October 19th. Book now…

Who Survives Secret Wars? Secrets Of The All-New All-Different Marvel Universe (MAJOR SPOILERS)

Today sees the launch of Invincible Iron Man #1, the debut title of Marvel’s All-New All-Different relaunch, by Brian Bendis and David Marquez.

Much has been made in promotion of the final page of the comic which may be internet-breaking.

So we have new armor, maybe new girlfriend, new powers in the armor, and a whopper of a last page of the first issue—which is not going to be revealed here.

But now the comic in question is on sale, and it does give us a very strong idea of how Secret Wars may end. Spoilers… and context.

No seriously I mean it. Big spoilers….

Okay. a post Secret Wars Doctor Doom is not only no longer a god but he can’t seem to keep his own country together.

Mind you he may have some other concerns.

Because this is what he now looks like

Two things. First, in the original Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars, Doom fixed his face to be perfect, before his Beyonder-based power was taken away from him. But in the new Secret Wars, that’s the one thing he was unable to do. Did that change?

And secondly, that face isn’t perfect. It has once scar across it. That was the Jack Kirby version of what Doctor Doom looked like under his mask… flipped to the other eye.

….so egotistical that he had to cover his whole face because of it. Stan Lee preferred the grossly disfigured version…

and it took John Byrne to marry the two together.

Just as with Howard The Duck, we have gone back to the Gerber, with Doctor Doom, it seems we have gone back to the Kirby….

We’ll be talking more about Secret Wars changes to the new Marvel Universe later.

Comics courtesy of Orbital Comics, London. Where, in conjunction with the Lakes International Comic Art Festival, Orbital is pleased to present French artist Boulet in a special live-draw event with whiskey tasting on October 19th. Book now…

Last Page Of Invincible Iron Man #1 – Will It Break The Internet? (MASSIVE SPOILERS)

Adi Tantimedh writes,

So Ridley Scott’s adaptation of Andrew Weir’s novel The Martian is a hit on opening weekend and looks set to be a global hit in the next few months. The story of a lone astronaut stranded on Mars having to use all his skills and scientific knowledge to improvise ways to stay alive while his colleagues both in space and on Earth use their skills and knowledge to sae him is an elegantly simple pitch. Man vs. Nature, survival against the odds, the refusal to give up are all universal themes.

>The movie is remarkably faithful to the book, which was already plotted, structured and paced like a meticulous three-act Hollywood blockbuster movie to point I wondered if Weir had taken Robert McKee’s screenwriting class. I don’t say this to knock McKee. He is the best teacher of screenwriting out there, and granted, there are writers and movies that adopted his lessons badly, but The Martian is not one of them. I liked the book when I read it, and to see a movie version of a book is always going to end up an exercise in comparisons in my head, noting what was cut, what was kept, and ultimately, what was changed. We’ve seen movies from books that have different endings, movies from books that are so radically changed they barely resembled the book anymore, but The Martian is a minor miracle in how faithful it is to the book.

The movie is like a condensed version of the book, preserving the hero’s snarky voice and also touching on the emotional toll of his isolation more than the book does. Maybe it cuts out too much for fans of the book. No Pirate Ninja jokes. A potentially devastating dust storm in the latter half of the second act of the novel is left out, probably for time. The solution for his final rescue changed slightly from the book. Even the part where help comes from China, which some people might think was included to appeal to a Chinese audience and financing, was originally in the novel. All in all, it’s a fun romp that redeems Ridley Scott after the awful script of Prometheus and the bloated, pointlessness of Exodus.

What’s really interesting is the general amount of goodwill towards the movie. Variety published an editorial examining its appeal. It’s pro-Science, pro-competence, pro-smart, pro-NASA. As the editorial points out, the movie has been a surprise hit among young people and those active on social media at a time when they might be abandoning TV shows and movies in favour of online content.

Hollywood is greeting the movie’s success with a combination of relief and delighted mild surprise. The Martian’s success also seems to indicate that scientifically plausible or accurate movies about astronauts has serious commercial appeal. This is not the same as the Space Opera genre, which tends to feature a lot of made-up Science to bolster stories that are often really about medieval empires at war or military fantasy in space, and considered cheesy by many Hollywood executives. At heart, Star Trek was about allegories for contemporary social and political fables. The astronaut genre demands a sense of authenticity, to show how hard it is to explore and work in outer space. Gravity, despite its inane scientific inaccuracies, was a hit for its suspense and innovative long-take filmmaking. Interstellar was a hit for its grand cosmic ideas. The Martian is the most scientifically accurate movie of the lot and the one with the knowing sense of humour laid over its optimistic message. All this at a time when an anti-Science right wing has been cutting funding to NASA. The Martian serves as propaganda advocating space travel and the value of NASA. All these astronaut movies, all the way back to Apollo 13, argue that going to space is worth it in spite of the dangers. Not once does The Martian push a reactionary message of fear saying we’re better off not going into space. These movies all argue that we should go into space for what we can learn, despite the dangers. The effort is worth it.

Space is the future. Space is possibilities. Space is Escape. Space is redemption for us all.

Space is box office gold.

Men are from Mars at lookitmoves@gmail.com

Follow the official LOOK! IT MOVES! twitter feed at http://twitter.com/lookitmoves for thoughts and snark on media and pop culture, stuff for future columns and stuff I may never spend a whole column writing about.

Look! It Moves! © Adisakdi Tantimedh

The Martian And Hollywood’s Return to Space – Look! It Moves! By Adi Tantimedh

Star Wars 7 News hears tell that the full and final trailer for Star Wars: The Force Awakens will arrive on October 19th. Their source credits a manager of a multiplex in Victoria, British Columbia, with the date and said advance tickets will go on sale at the same time.

As of now, October 19th is a rumor, but makes a certain amount of sense as advance tickets tend to go on sale two months ahead of release these days. A trailer would certainly boost interest, not that Star Wars really needs it at this point. At the same time, it seems risky for a theater manager to offer details like that; especially with the city and province mentioned prominently in the report.

The site also reports the trailer will be the last bit of new footage from movie prior to release. TV spots will build from the material already in circulation.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens arrives in theaters on December 18th.

Is The Final Trailer For Star Wars: The Force Awakens Arriving On October 19th?

Japanese website Comic Natalie (via Anime News Network) reports Takashi Miike will helm a live action adaptation of Blade of the Immortal. It is scheduled for release in 2017.

Based on the manga by Hiroaki Samura, the film will follow Manji, a ronin cursed with immortality. He also acts as bodyguard to a young woman who “swears vengeance against a group of sword fighters who murdered her parents.”

Miike is known in the US for films like Audition and Ichi the Killer.

Blade of the Immortal is published in the US by Dark Horse Comics. ANN reports the company plans to reprint the series in an omnibus format.

Takashi Miike To Direct Blade Of The Immortal

While the Coach revival will likely never see the light of day, that nostalgia for 80s and 90s television isn’t over quite yet. According to The Hollywood Reporter, MacGyver — the ABC adventure series starring Richard Dean Anderson as a spy who could build seemingly anything from a pair of sticks — will return as a CBS series.

The new show will feature “a 20-something MacGyver as he gets recruited into a clandestine organization where he uses his knack for solving problems in unconventional ways to help prevent disasters from happening.”

I wonder if we’ll buy a 20-something knowing how to make a astrolabe from a discarded tin of tuna and a sewing needle. Maybe he’ll be recruited right out of the Eagle Scouts. In any event, I hope the highly convoluted solutions continue to be as outlandish as they were in the original series.

And while we’re on this TV remake kick, where’s the new version of The Fall Guy?

MacGyver To Reboot As CBS Television Show

Falling down the YouTube rabbit hole as I often do, I stumbled upon this upload of 1977’s The Making of Star Wars. The ABC special is a curious time capsule. Star Wars has always been adept at its marketing — it even made an appearance at San Diego Comic-Con ahead of its premiere — but as this was made at the very dawn of the blockbusters, it presents the material in a very innocent way. At the same time, over the course of the hour, it introduces a lot of basic special effects filmmaking concepts and techniques to an audience curious, for the first time, about how the cheese is made.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Even the interview segments with George Lucas illustrates just how new this all was at the time. Growing up in a world where there was always Star Wars, it is sometimes hard to grasp just how much it shifted everything. I wonder if I’d ever heard of blue screen compositing if not for the film.

1977’s The Making Of Star Wars Is A Nostalgic Look Back On The Phenomenon

Microsoft have been big on acquiring things of late. The company is throwing around cash in serious ways to obtain tools and games, which will likely have a positive effect on their output.

In that vein, Microsoft have revealed in a blog post that they’ve bought the Havok engine off of Intel. Havok is a game engine that has produced games like Uncharted, Bioshock, The Elder Scrolls and many, many more. In a statement to IGN, the corporation have said they they don’t plan to keep this exclusive to Microsoft games though, as they plan to loan the physics engine out to the broader games industry.

We will continue to license Havok’s technology to the broad AAA games industry. This also means that we will continue to license Havok’s technology to run across various game consoles including Sony and Nintendo

I’m not sure this will really have a huge effect on consumers for the most part, but for mere console war bragging rights, the other console makers might well be paying Microsoft to make games soon, which is odd.

Microsoft Have Bought The Havok Engine Off Intel

@richjohnston was right, waid anf samnee on black widow.

— Veronica Cristina (@veronicacris) October 2, 2015

Seems so.

We ran this back in May.

Then this in August.

Today Entertainment Weekly ran this.

And this.Saying

WAID: Even more than Daredevil, this is very much a partnership. Not only are we bringing the rest of the creative team over, but Chris and I are going back and forth on story, and Chris is doing a lot of the heavy lifting. With Daredevil, he came on after we were already running for a year. Being able to launch something from the ground zero with Chris means that he gets even more of a chance to put his vision into it.

SAMNEE: I try to think of it as how we would do a creator-owned book, but we’re just doing it at Marvel with an established character. I’m just having a ton of fun playing with an established character in a world we all know, but without any constraints. We can kind of do whatever. We’ve started coming up with a new Big Bad for Widow — she’s had a few big opponents over the years, but I think this is the biggest threat to her.

Mark Waid And Chris Samnee On Black Widow. Official Now.

Daredevil: Man Without Fear by Frank Miller and John Romita Jr  is a wonderful Daredevil comic book, and a large chunk of it was grabbed by the recent Netflix Daredevil series.

Well, it seems the pair are reuniting for a Dark Knight III spinoff book, title as yet unknown, with Dark Knight inker Klaus Janson.

But it may attempt to tell an earlier Batman story, a prequel to The Dark Knight Returns, that leads up to the elements that make that world different…

This is the Batbook project that John Romita Jr left Superman for, that Bleeding Cool previously reported on.

Expect an announcement at NYCC.

Frank Miller And John Romita Jr Reunite For ‘Man Without Fear’-Style Dark Knight III Tie-In With Klaus Janson

Bleeding Cool has already reported on the coup at Marvel Studios that saw Kevin Feige take the film making side of Marvel away from the influence of the comic book publisher which birthed it, creating a Feige Island that reports directly to Disney instead.

We are still waiting to see the effects of this, if any, to Marvel’s publishing line.

But what other figures were significant on Marvel Studios’ side? Who has joined him on said island?

Well one was Victoria Alonso, promoted from visual effects chief to executive vice president of physical production. Before the coup d’etat she was threatening to leave if she wasn’t promoted. Now she has been promoted.

Then there’s Louis D’Esposito, described as an all round nice guy, a whiz with the figures and a great producer, if not the plotlines.

These are your Three Musketeers of the coup. But as D’Artagnan is Jeremy Latcham, SVP, Production & Development, who also looks to gain a lot from the deal…

Especially if Feige is, as rumoured, in pole position to take Alan Horn‘s job at Disney.

But someone who may not gain is Nathan Moore, producer on Winter Soldier and Civil War, who ran the Marvel Writers Group programme that frustrated Kevin Feige, but found Guardians Of The Galaxy.

Apparently Kevin is not his biggest fan…

Who Were The Three Musketeers Behind The Marvel Studios Disney Coup?

According to The Hollywood Reporter, John Goodman has joined the cast of Kong: Skull Island as “the government official who leads the expedition.” He joins Tom Hiddleston, Brie Larson, Jason Mitchell, Toby Kebbell and Samuel L. Jackson in the Kong Kong prequel/sequel/reboot/shared universe launcher. Rumored to be set in the 1970s, it will explore the origins of the creature-filled island that spawned the giant ape.

As previously reported, the film recently moved from Universal to Warner Bros., where production company Legendary Pictures intends to make a big-budget version of King Kong vs. Godzilla and start a shared monster universe.

Which is cool as long as Mothra gets her own feature.

Skull Island, the be directed by Jordan Vogt-Roberts, is set to being shooting soon, with a March 10th, 2017 release date.

John Goodman To Sail To Skull Island

While chatting with comicbook.com, Gotham creator and showrunner Bruno Heller revealed he is interested in incorporating the Court of Owls — the Gotham City secret society created by Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo — into the series, even admitting the concept will eventually appear.

“Yeah, absolutely, [I’m interested]. I won’t say that it’s part of – I don’t even want to say that, because I don’t want to spoil part of the story,” he explained. “The Court of Owls is deep, deep, deep Gotham mythology. The comic book fans know about it, but I would suspect the larger audience is not so familiar. We sometimes have to make a distinction between the ‘Nolan-era Batman movie fans’ and the comic book fans. It’s not that they’re two separate audiences, just that there are two levels of engagement. Court of Owls is very much deep DC mythology.” Except the show is at its best when it uses that mythology in an intriguing way, like the Red Hood episode.

The producer admits that the show’s longevity requires holding some things back and while he considers the Court “a brilliant conceit that will absolutely be part of our storytelling,” he would not confirm when they might appear.

Though, truth be told, those two blond extras at Penguin’s table in last night’s season premiere immediately struck me as a possible hint of the Court’s deep ties in Gotham.

Gotham’s Bruno Heller Confirms The Court Of Owls For Series … Eventually

With the VR ‘revolution’ coming just around the corner, one of the big question surrounding all the new VR headsets is how much will these things cost. It is more or less the final, pre-release mystery we have, and will be an incredibly important step in the future of VR headsets.

Well, it isn’t going to be cheap, I can tell you that much. In an interview with Bloomberg, PlayStation’s Andrew House has revealed that we can expect PlayStation VR to hit the price of a new console. Without giving numbers, House said that the headset will be priced like “a new gaming platform.”

This lines up with what I expected, with my guess landing around the $200-$350 range. This is all conjecture of course, but this is a pretty solid hint from PlayStation. The question is will consumers be willing to adopt it? At that, I won’t even hazard a guess.

PlayStation VR Will Be Priced ‘As A New Gaming Platform’

So earlier this week, after seeing many of the Frank Cho Spider-Gwen “Outrage” covers, inspired by Robbi Rodriguez‘ condemnation of artists sexualising his character, Robbi tweeted,

frank cho should send me a gift basket since i made nim more relevant in the industry then any of his last few projects.

— RobbiRodriguez (@RobbiRodriguez) September 18, 2015

And how did Frank Cho respond? As you’d expect, via the medium of sketch cover.

… to be sold at Baltimore Comic Con in a week’s time. And it seems like Frank has backup.

Few things are as amusing as a 1-hit-wonder lecturing a 20 year comic legend how his “relevance” is now suddenly due to him.

— J. Scott Campbell (@JScottCampbell) September 18, 2015

But so does Robbi.

I'm a huge fan of @RobbiRodriguez. The guy's a class act and I hope he knows it.

— Scott Kurtz (@pvponline) September 19, 2015

So Cho posted a more direct response, saying,

Yes. I DO have a gift basket for you, Robbi Rodriguez. :-)

In the gift basket:

*Drawing Beautiful Women book to help you draw better. (Autographed.)

*English Grammar for Dummies book to help improve your grammar skills beyond the second grade level.

*Preparation H for your butt hurt.

Fanboy Rampage: Frank Cho Vs. Robbi Rodriguez

Fans of the Luc Besson Taken films where Liam Neeson has to constantly save his family from kidnappers will like this news. NBC is reportedly developing a TV series based on the Bryan Mills character set as a prequel to the films. The project has already gotten a straight-to-series order from the network.

The series is said to be focused on a younger Mills who has no wife and child and is learning those particular skills that later make him a nightmare for kidnappers.

Besson will be an executive producer on the series.

[Source: Deadline]

NBC Developing A Taken Prequel Series

There has been a lot of speculation as to what Konami are going to do next, now that Metal Gear Solid V is out. There has been a theory that the publisher could pack it all up, choosing to develop mobile games over AAA titles going forward.

Well a new report by french site Gameblog, as corroborated by Eurogamer, says that the publisher is going to be leaving all AAA production behind, except for the case of Pro Evolution Soccer. The same site, also claimed that worldwide technology director Julien Merceron had left the company due to this new focus.

I’m not 100% sold on this, but it does seem possible. It really would be sad to see the company move away from their roots. Perhaps, if it is true though, we could see franchises like Metal Gear and Silent Hill leased out to other developers. That would be ideal.

Report Claims Konami Is Stopping All AAA Game Production Except For PES