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04/07/16 @ 9:45 am EST
A Writer’s Commentary: Corinna Bechko on Miss Fury #1, on sale today from Dynamite. Interior art is by Jonathan Lau.  Page 1It was important to me that we meet Marla at work, because so much of the story is about her various identities, and what she does for a living is a very important to her. As a writer, I’m always fascinated by that aspect of people’s lives. How you approach your work, and the kind of work you wish you were doing, says a lot about you.I also wanted to make sure and get right into the story, which kicks off with a break-in. Why waste time when you can get to know someone through action instead?I need to take a moment right away to mention Jonathan Lau’s art here, thought. I’m thrilled we got to work together, and I think you get a sense of Marla right from the start here, before she says a word, thanks to the way he handles her movements and expressions. Page 2Enter Miss Fury! Like I said, right into the action. Marla’s life is divided. That’s the most important thing to know about her. And here we get introduced to the second part of her life. Page 3Here we see that the thieves are focusing on something non-traditional. They’re not after money or art, they’re stealing plans. This will be important later, and I really like how Jonathan emphasizes that in the last panel. Page 4A lot more action, as Miss Fury shows these creeps what she’s made of. I’m a big fan of using the environment to tell the story, so we learn a bit about Marla’s workplace through the items that are being smashed. There goes a drafting table, and a stool… Hopefully Marla’s firm has good insurance.  Page 5Meanwhile, the stolen documents are getting away! Hopefully, since we met Marla working late at her office, the reader will already feel like this is personal for her, and that losing these will hurt. Having known the pain of a computer crash eating a ton of hard work, it was easy for me to imagine how hard Marla would try to recapture the plans. Page 6No such luck, though. The thief gets away. I love how Jonathan shows us New York here. The details are wonderful. And I’m especially happy with how the last panel on this page turned out. Miss Fury looks so disheveled as she finally calls the police. Fighting criminals is hard. It wouldn’t leave you looking glamorous. Page 7Back to normal life, where no one knows that Marla Drake is Miss Fury. You can tell from this page that I love old films and have watched a lot of them. The fact that this story is set in the 40s allowed me to finally use my storehouse of period slang.Keep your eye on Clive though. There’s a reason he gets a two-panel entrance. Page 8Here, we finally learn what was stolen, but we still don’t know why. There’s a lot of dialogue on this page compared to any previous page, because this is the first place we get a breather from all the action. This is also setting up the central mystery and most of the key players, so I tried to slow the pace down a bit. Page 9And here we get a bit more background about what Marla’s work really is. We also learn about the stickiness of drafting dots, something that will be important later. And in case you are wondering, yes I did do my research, and I learned that drafting dots were used this early. One of the biggest problems with writing period stories for me is my tendency to fall down research holes and learn many too many useless facts and details beyond what is needed to tell the story.More important than even those dots, we find out that Mr. Corey seems to know more about Marla than she knows about herself… Page 10Which leads into a flashback, so that we can learn something about why Marla leads a double life.We also see a bit of how hard it was to be a woman with a job in the 40s. Many women had careers then, of course, but it was even harder then to work in a male-dominated field than it is now. Casual prejudice was rampant.  Page 11So is it any wonder that Marla has some pent up aggression? I hoped to show with this sequence that she is type of person you could imagine becoming Miss Fury – that her crusading persona didn’t spring out of nothing. Page 12I really like what Jonathan did with this page. It’s just two people sitting at a bar, but he elevated it into a fully realized scene. Page 13And we’re back from the flashback, as Marla has trouble integrating the two sides of her life. Even as she protests that she isn’t Miss Fury, she’s already following up clues that will lead her right back into the fray. Page 14Bonus fact: there really was a Blossom Restaurant on the Bowery. One of my favorite hobbies is reading about the history of NYC, so putting some of that into this book was fun for me. You don’t need to know which parts are historical references to understand the story, of course, but hopefully some of my affection for the city comes across. Extra bonus fact: one of my favorite current places to eat in NYC is also called Blossom. They make a great vegan Caesar salad, something you probably wouldn’t have found in the 40s era Blossom. Page 15It’s the return of the wayward drafting dot! After I did all that drafting dot research, I wasn’t about to not let them be a story point. Page 16And we’re back to action! Just so you know, “Woman of the Year” really was playing at Radio City at this time. That coincidence was just too good to pass up. Page 17But what’s this? Could such a patriotic spectacle really hide a nefarious plot? I figured Marla wouldn’t hesitate to find out. I think that if you decide to become a costumed hero, you are probably the kind of person who pursues a lead doggedly, no matter what. Easily dissuaded people probably don’t become caped crime fighters.  Page 18We’ve already had a fight and some action in this issue, so I wanted to take this encounter in a different direction so things wouldn’t get repetitive. And so the weapon used against Miss Fury here is exposure, the very thing she least wants to face. Page 19I always try to include scenes about friendship whenever I can, especially friendships between women. This is an important part of life, and one that can get easily overlooked when writing a book that’s about action. Happily, the original Miss Fury had a good friend as well as a cat. To understand Marla as a character I wanted to show her home life, and introduce the two characters that help her keep her equilibrium when she’s not working or fighting crime.Of course, any quiet, dialogue-heavy page had better be doing a couple of things at once, so here we have a couple of new ideas introduced that send Marla back out into the city. Good thing Peri is such a patient cat. Page 20Miss Fury’s back on the job, seeing yet another facet of NYC. We had a bit of downtime, so it’s time to ramp back up to some action… Page 21And some scares… Page 22Until we reveal the twist at the end! Ending on a cliffhanger is always good, but in this case it’s less of a “how will she live through this?” ending and more of a “how is that possible?” ending. Hopefully readers will want to return next month and find out the answer… For more on Miss Fury Vol 2 #1, click here. 06/06/26 @ 2:40 pm EST
DC Studios and their co-head James Gunn have talked about a lot of potential series and films with some of them being mentioned and then sort of forgotten about. One of those seemed to be Paradise Lost, a Wonder Woman prequel series showing life on Themyscira before the birth of Diana. Though after its initial mention, the project hadn’t been talked about in a while and someone asked Gunn its fate. Gunn insisted the project was still in the works and now we are seeing some possible confirmation. Back in 2024, two names were attached as writers on the series Kira Snyder and Janet Lin and now, according to the WGA website, both are set to work on Paradise Lost for 2027-2028. Snyder is known for writing and producing on The Handmaid’s Tale and The 100 while Lin has credits on Bridgerton, Cursed, and Bones. There has been talks recently about trying to fast track a new Wonder Woman film and while there is no confirmation, rumors persist that the character may debut in Man of Tomorrow, so seeing Paradise Lost finally moving forward would make a lot of sense.  05/30/26 @ 2:41 pm EST
Sony’s new Spider-Noir series has out done the MCU when it comes to fans. According to Forbes, the new Nicholas Cage lead series with him playing a 1930s variant of Spider-Man has garnered the highest audience score of all Marvel related television projects on Rotten Tomatoes. In the new series, Cage plays detective Ben Reilly who used to be the web-swinging hero called The Spider but hung up his mask after the death of his fiancée. Audience have really taken to the series that is available in both color and B&W, giving it a 93% (a point higher than when Forbes did their article) and even scored well with the critics at 92%. While the critic score is impressive, other Marvel projects have done better such as X-Men ’97 with a 99% score and Ms. Marvel with a 98% among critics. But on the audience side, 93% is tops beating out shows like Agents of SHIELD, Daredevil (Netflix) and WandaVision. While there has been no word on a second season, it would be hard for Amazon and Sony to ignore results like this.  05/30/26 @ 2:08 pm EST
James Gunn, co-head of DC Studios and writer/director of the upcoming Man of Tomorrow film, was back on social media this week answering questions and one in particular stood out. A Threads user named “boyturizmo” asked, “Will we ever see General Zod, Doomsday, Dr. Fate, Black Adam, Ultraman (with his Crime Syndicate) or Darkseid?” Gunn replied, “Two of them in not too long…” This of course led to a ton of speculation on which two and where? Now the obvious one is Darkseid, and while Gunn has said his DCU isn’t building toward a big Thanos like battle with Darkseid, the character is going to be appearing in the upcoming animated series Mr. Miracle. The series is in production with comic writer Tom King onboard as the showrunner and he recently showed off a clip to interviewer Brandon Davis, who did not share what he saw. Mr. Miracle is an escape artist raised on Darkseid’s planet Apokolips who falls in love with a warrior woman named Big Barda and they escape to Earth. Though no casting has been announced for the series, Gunn has stated that the animated series are cannon to the DCU and actors cast in the animated shows, like Frank Grillo as Rick Flag Sr., would carry over into live action like Grillo did in both Peacemaker and Superman. As for the second character we will see soon, it is possible that Gunn could bring back more characters from the DCEU and have Dwayne Johnson return as Black Adam or Pierce Brosnan don the helmet of Dr Fate once more. And Ultraman could return from the black hole he was sucked into… but I think the most likely possibility will be in flashbacks to Krypton, possibly in Supergirl, where we could see General Zod cameo in a scene with Jor-El ( Bradley Cooper) and Zor-El ( David Krumholtz) discussing the fate of the planet and how to handle it. This would be a great scene for world-building… though part of me really wants Brosnan back as Fate.  ...
05/24/26 @ 1:45 pm EST
With The Batman Part 2 going into early production, fans are eager for news, information and confirmations and we may just have one thanks to one of the newcomers to the franchise, Sebastian Stan. It’s been rumored for months that the actor who has played everything from Bucky Barnes to Donald Trump to Tommy Lee was moving to Gotham in the role of District Attorney Harvey Dent aka coin-flipping villain Two-Face, and while his casting was confirmed by director Matt Reeves a few days back, we have not had an official announcement on the part he will be playing. While speaking to Deadline about his film Fjord, Stan spoke a bit about his summer plans which include a trip to London to work with Reeves where he says he will be playing “many roles in this one”. The article states that he’s talking about the role of Dent and how the character transforms from D.A. to villain when acid is thrown in his face by mobster Salvadore Maroni. Stan goes on to say, ”I’m excited, I’m nervous and trying to keep surprising myself.” He also he has been working with hair and make-up already trying to figure out how his disfigurement will look. Stan doesn’t come out and say in the quotes that he’s playing Two-Face, but Deadline strongly implies it and are one of the sites that had been reporting that he had been cast in the role early on. The Batman Epic Crime Saga, as Reeves calls it, does have one hitch to overcome. During The Penguin series on HBO Max, Maroni was played by Clancy Brown and does not make it through the series. So, either the attack on Dent takes place prior to the events we’ve already seen portrayed or Reeves is going to change up who throws the acid. Not a huge problem but it will be interesting to see how the moment will be handled if we end up seeing it at all. The Batman Part 2 is beginning to film and is on track for an October 2027 release.  ... 05/16/26 @ 2:01 pm EST
Winter is coming to Gotham and Matt Reeves is heating up the internet with his social media posts. He started it off with a couple camera tests showing the Batmobile in the snow, letting us know that production had begun on the long-awaited sequel. Then he began letting fans know the cast for the upcoming The Batman Part II starting with a gif of Robert Pattinson as the caped crusader with the quote, “We meet again, my friend.” This led into a series of posts that welcomed back the Dark Knight’s to main allies, Andy Serkis as Alfred Pennyworth and Jeffrey Wright as Jim Gordon. Then we got the two sides of the city fighting for control represented by Jayme Lawson as newly elected Mayor Bella Real and Colin Farrell as crime boss Oz Cobb aka The Penguin. Then he welcomed back the true hero of the film, Gil Perez-Abraham as Officer Martinez. Martinez is the representation of how the GCPD views The Batman as he appears multiple times in the first film, each time becoming more comfortable with working with the vigilante. Reeves would return to posting the next day and introduce the new characters to the film, but through gifs from their previous projects and not officially naming characters. This would include three MCU veterans starting with Scarlett Johansson and Sebastian Stan. Then Game of Thrones patriarch Charles Dance, from A Good Day to Die Hard, Sebastian Koch and from Atlanta and the Eternals, Bryan Tyree Henry. Stan has been heavily linked to the role of Harvey Dent aka Two-Face with Dance likely playing his father Christopher. Johansson is believed to be playing Dent’s wife Gilda but that has never been confirmed and there had been no rumors at all about Koch and Henry, though Koch’s management posted a tweet about him helping rid Gotham of evil. Many on-line are speculating that Henry could be playing Detective Harvey Bullock. What is interesting are the names not mentioned in posts such as Con O’Neil as Chief Mackenzie Bock, Barry Keoghan as the Joker and Paul Dano as the Riddler. I wouldn’t assume that not being mentioned doesn’t mean they don’t show up in the film, just that the character may not have a lot of screen time. The assumption is that the film will focus on Dent working with Gordon and Batman to clean up Gotham, so there will be lots of room for other characters in this film. The film has started production and is on track to premiere in October of 2027.  ... 05/09/26 @ 3:03 pm EST
We are in the age of Matthew Lillard and everyone except Quentin Tarantino seems to be happy about it. The Scream and Scooby-Doo actor has been having a bit of a resurgence lately coming shortly after Tarantino made some disparaging comments about the actor with no provocation. Many in the industry stood up for Lillard and now the actor seems to be popping up everywhere including the latest Scream film, the second season of Cross and the second season of Daredevil: Born Again. The latest news reported by multiple sites has the actor joining the cast of Man of Tomorrow, the next DC Studios film written and directed by James Gunn. Gunn, who is good friends with Lillard and has worked with him previously on both Scooby-Doo movies, posted the below image of the pair together, commenting on the news reports as “pure speculation” and saying that they are just “casually hanging out”. Most took the posts to be sarcasm and assume that Lillard is now in the film as that is where Gunn is right now, filming the project. Fans on-line have begun even more speculation as to who Lillard could be playing including various heroes and characters with the most notable being Jim Gordon from Gotham and Plastic Man, a character that Gunn and Lillard once tried to pitch as a project to DC/Warner Bros. It’s my belief that he will be a more Superman centric character such as STAR Labs Professor Emil Hamilton or police detective Dan Turpin. But that also would be pure speculation.  05/09/26 @ 2:44 pm EST
Fans of Matt Reeves’ film The Batman got excited this week because of driving in the snow. The director posted images to his social media showing test footage of the Batmobile driving in winter conditions, which were the first signs that the long-awaited sequel had begun production. Though it has been postponed many times, it is set to be released in October of 2027 and will make the first time live-action Batman and Superman films will be released in the same year. The cold weather setting has long been assumed for the film based on the timeline created in both the first movie starting on Halloween and ending on Election Day and then The Penguin series on HBO Max which took place over a week or so immediately after the flooding of Gotham. The new film will pick up right after the award-winning series which places the time frame squarely in December. The plot for the film is still under wraps, but along with returning stars Robert Pattinson, Andy Serkis, Colin Farrell, Barry Keoghan and Jeffrey Wright, the project has reportedly added Scarlett Johannson, Sebastian Stan and Charles Dance. Stan is reported to be playing Gotham DA Harvey Dent aka Two-Face while Dance is said to be his father, Christopher. These castings have been reported by multiple reputable outlets but not confirmed by DC Studios or Reeves. With production having begun, the film is on track to keep its release date of October 2027.  05/02/26 @ 1:59 pm EST
James Gunn, co-head of DC Studios, has addressed the strange “partial reboot” of the DCEU and why he didn’t just start completely fresh. With the new DCU starting with the animated Creature Commandos series and the new Superman movie, certain elements from the previous regime carried over like Viola Davis as Amanda Waller and there were some questions about more recent projects like Gunn’s own The Suicide Squad and Blue Beetle. And Gunn’s first DC movie also had elements from previous films including Margot Robbie as Harley Qiunn. So why not just start over? Turns out a lot of it has to do with the John Cena lead Peacemaker series on HBO Max. According to a social media post by Gunn, “Peacemaker Season 2 deals were all in place when I became head of DC. It was either break everyone's contracts and pay out all that money and take away HBO Max's biggest show at the time or find a way to make it work. I chose the latter. Mostly tho because I love the character and the show and thought he/they could be an important part of the DCU.” Now, this has left quite a mess trying to figure out what is and isn’t cannon, and Gunn realizes this. He posted, “I've been thinking about this a lot in regards to The Suicide Squad & Blue Beetle and I've been meaning to rewatch both with an eye towards that knowing what I know now almost three years into the DCU (with a couple more years of scripts being actively filmed or created). Maybe after MoT Jenn & Steve & I can get together for a special couple podcasts to discuss. What do you guys think is potentially or definitely NOT canon from TSS & BB?” He is referring to Jennifer Holland, his wife and actress who plays Harcourt and Steve Agee who plays Economos. The three of them did the post-episode podcasts for Peacemaker season two. Doing The Suicide Squad film makes sense with its ties to Peacemaker, but the reason for the Blue Beetle is that there are talks of an animated Blue Beetle series based on the 2023 film with Xolo Maridueña continuing in the role of Jaime Reyes. The fact it’s included here confirms the animated series is still happening.  ...
04/18/26 @ 12:44 pm EST
David Harbour is heading into the jungle. The actor has joined the cast of John Rambo, an upcoming origin-story film set before the events of First Blood. Harbour will portray Major (also known in earlier films as Colonel) Sam Trautman, the tough-minded commander and mentor figure long associated with the franchise. The film stars Noah Centineo as a younger John Rambo and is directed by Jalmari Helander ( Sisu) from a screenplay by Rory Haines and Sohrab Noshirvani. The project is expected to explore the experiences that forged Rambo into one of action cinema’s most enduring figures—years before he returned home to the confrontation that launched the original 1982 film. John Rambo is backed by Lionsgate and Millennium Media, with Templeton Media and AGBO also involved, and has reportedly wrapped production in Thailand. Additional cast members include Yao, Jason Tobin, Quincy Isaiah, Jefferson White, and Tayme Thapthimthong. Sylvester Stallone—who originated the role across five films—is attached as an executive producer, alongside Anthony and Joe Russo and other producers tied to the project.  04/18/26 @ 12:24 pm EST
Deadline is reporting that Game of Thrones actor Charles Dance will be joining the cast of the upcoming The Batman Part 2, which is set to start filming in the next few weeks. While this is unconfirmed by DC Studios, Dance is believed to be playing Charles Dent, the father of Harvey Dent aka Two-Face played by fellow newcome to the franchise, Sebastian Stan. There had been many reports over the last few months of other actors turning down the role of the elder Dent which is believed to have some parallels with the role Dance is best known for, Tywin Lannister. He joins a cast that also returns Robert Pattinson, Andy Serkis, Colin Farrell and that has added Scarlett Johansson in an undisclosed part. Prior to joining the Matt Reeves’ sequel, Dance appeared recently in Guillermo Del Toro’s Frankenstein and the Peacock series Day of the Jackal. 
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