Chris Hardwick's Blog, page 1837

DOCTOR WHO Comics Reveal Thirteen Doctor’s All-Female Creative Team

Since 2014, Doctor Who in comics form has been the domain of UK publishers Titan Comics, who have consistently put out terrific science fiction stories, featuring ongoing adventures of various different Doctors from a bevy of amazingly talented people. And the team-ups. Oh, my, the team-ups. It would only make sense, then, that with a new Doctor hitting our screens this fall, that Jodie Whittaker‘s Thirteenth Doctor should make her comics debut around the same time. Titan announced on Wednesday the new creative team for the series and it’s made up entirely of female creators.

The series will be written by the Eisner-nominated Jody Houser, writer of such titles as the best-selling Orphan Black comic series, the adaptation of Star Wars: Rogue One, and Marvel’s Amazing Spider-Man: Renew Your Vows. She’s also no stranger to our sister site Geek & Sundry; you can watch her on this episode of Signal Boost right now.

The art will be done by Rachael Stott, who’s lent her amazing artwork to several of Titan’s Doctor Who titles, most notably her stint drawing the Twelfth Doctor comics. Check out this amazing page from Doctor Who: The Twelfth Doctor #2.15:

The colorist on the series will be Enrica Angiolini of such titles as Titan’s Warhammer: 40,000 and American Mythology’s Eternal Thirst of Dracula.

Now that is a terrific group of creators and we can’t wait until we can read the first adventures in comics form of the Thirteenth Doctor. But, we’re going to have to; currently there’s no release date set for Series 11 of Doctor Who on telly, though it’s expected this fall. Chris Chibnall’s first season as lead writer will find the new Doctor teaming up with new friends played by Bradley Walsh, Mandip Gill, and Tosin Cole. One can only assume they’ll also make their way to the comics, but we’ll have to wait and see.

Let us know your thoughts on Doctor Who‘s new comic team in the comments below!

Images: BBC/Titan Comics

Kyle Anderson is the Associate Editor and the resident Whovian for Nerdist. Follow him on Twitter!

More adventures in time and space

Jodie Whittaker stepped out of the TARDIS to make the day of some young Whovians
This exclusive Doctor Who deleted scene

shows Capaldi looking for Gallifrey much earlier
Our look at the highs and lows of the Steven Moffat era

of Doctor Who

Could MANDY Be Nicolas Cage’s Bizarre Magnum Opus?

One of the weirdest, wildest, and bloodiest films in ages, Mandy is a midnight movie to its core. Not only was it one of the best movies of the 2018 Sundance Film Festival, but it is destined to become an instant cult classic, thanks in no small part to Nicolas Cage‘s gleefully unhinged performance and the phantasmagoric orgy of violence he leaves in his wake. The film stars Cage as Red Miller, a man whose quiet, blissful life in the Shadow Mountains is burnt to the ground when a sinister cult leader (Linus Roache) commands his followers to murder his girlfriend Mandy (Andrea Riseborough). What follows is an Orphic journey into hell itself as Red slaughters his way through crazed zealots, abyssal horrors, and anyone and everyone who stands in his way. Hell, at one point he even smelts his own battleaxe!

While at Sundance, I sat down with director Panos Cosmatos and stars Nicolas Cage, Andrea Riseborough, and Linus Roache to pick their brains about their first reactions to reading Mandy‘s script, the scenes of which they are proudest, and how Nicolas Cage delivered a masterclass in acting in one scene in particular in which Red has a full-on vodka-fueled breakdown in the bathroom. Fulminating with fury and erupting in guttural yawps of agony, Cage commands the viewers’ attention and makes their skin crawl for what feels like an eternity–which is exactly what Cosmatos wanted. It is far more than just Cage Rage; rather it is a tour-de-force in a film that demands to be seen.

Read our full review of Mandy, then let us know what your favorite Nicolas Cage movie is in the comments below.

Images: SpectreVision

Dan Casey is the senior editor of Nerdist and the author of books about Star Wars and the Avengers. Follow him on Twitter (@DanCasey).

More from Sundance!

Our review of Robin Williams: Come Inside My Mind.
See the trailer for Hereditary.
What would you do if your loved one turned into a dog?

Marvel Celebrates Valentine’s Day with Some Very Special Messages

Happy Valentine’s Day, everyone! Marvel is getting in on the action with Valentines resembling the kind children give their classmates on the holiday. They’re so charming and amusing that we can almost forget almost every long term Marvel romance has ended badly. Almost.

That’s an old school Iron Man from Tony Stark’s swinging ’70s and his darker days in the ’80s. We may be his heart, but his heart is replaceable.

This is going to have to be one of those holding hands only relationships. Kissing is out when Ghost Rider‘s your BAE.

Oh sure, he says that now. But the next thing you know, you’ll be the single parent of a Baby Groot.

In Marvel’s comic book universe, Scarlet Witch recognized the humanity in Vision‘s soul and loved him even though he was an android.

Not to be left out, Marvel Studios released a few of its own Valentine’s Day messages inspired by Thor: Ragnarok.

He’s not over his ex, but we get it. We miss Jane Foster, too.

We think Valkyrie is still pinning for one of her fellow warriors.

Fake Valentine! As if Loki could love anyone other than himself. Still, that offer for mischief would definitely have some takers.

If Heimdall says it, you can believe it. The man sees everything! Also, Idris Elba could totally carry a Heimdall movie or TV series if Marvel ever gave him the chance. Just look into those eyes and try to tell us he’s not franchise material.

Deadpool got in on the action, too.

This Valentine’s Day let the Merc be your Muse. pic.twitter.com/BZgoXBc9eh

— Deadpool Movie (@deadpoolmovie) February 14, 2018

What do you think about Marvel’s Valentine’s Day messages? Share your hearts below.

Images: Marvel

Because love is in the air!

Brew some love potion.
9 horror movies that are also great love stories.
The best love songs from superhero movies.

Michelle Obama Made a Personal Valentine’s Day Playlist for Barack

When you’ve been with someone for a long time it can be hard to come up with new ways to do something special for them on Valentine’s Day, especially when you’re one of the most famous couples in the world. But that didn’t stop Michelle Obama from finding a sweet, simple way of letting her husband Barack know how much she still cares for him. Because this year she said it with song, by putting together a playlist just for him—which she also shared with all of us.

The former First Lady took to Twitter on this love-filled holiday to let old number 44 know how much she still cares about him after 25 years of marriage, and it reminded us why they are one of our favorite duos.

Happy #ValentinesDay to my one and only, @BarackObama. To celebrate the occasion, I’m dedicating a little Valentine’s Day playlist to you!

A Woman Found 14 Worms in Her Eyeball

If you’re a person who goes to an office job every day, you live in fear of getting sick. With so many people working in such close quarters, day in and day out, even a single person’s illness could spread to you so easily. Kinda makes you want to go work outside! The only catch: you might then have to contend with a bunch of parasitic worms living in your eyeball. That sounds far-fetched, doesn’t it? Well, it’s not; one woman in Oregon had irritation in her left eye and doctors eventually extracted 14 worms.

As The Washington Post reports, Abby Beckley had a red, itchy, irritated eye that wouldn’t go away. She noticed a foreign object that she thought was a stray eyelash or clear piece of fuzz. But when she pulled it out, it wriggled. It was a tiny parasitic worm, about half an inch long. Unlike what any of us (or, let’s be honest, me) would do, Beckley remained calm and reasoned that, since she was a deckhand on a commercial Alaskan salmon boat, maybe a common but harmless salmon worm had fallen into her eye. That alone would have sent me into a skin-crawling spiral… but it was worse.

After urgent care clinicians pulled out two more worms and an ophthalmologist yanked a further two, Beckley became increasingly alarmed. What was happening? Would she go blind? Would she, like I surely would, lose her cool and pull out her own eyeball with a pair of salad tongs? You don’t want worms to crawl into your brain, now do you? Well, as it turned out, after the Center for Disease Control got involved, they discovered the worms were of a species that had never been found in humans before; up to this case in 2016, Thelazia gulosa had only ever been found in cattle. The entire case study was published on Monday in the American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene.

By time it was all over, 14 worms total had been pulled out of Abby Beckley’s left eye.

Now before you start meticulously checking your corneas for hours before bed, you should know how these things work: flies eat worm larvae, then land on an animal’s eyes, where the flies feed on “tears and other secretions.” As this is going on, the flies deposit the larvae into the eyes of the animal, and the worms grow up to adulthood. I hasten to add, eye worms are very rare in humans, and only 10 cases have ever been counted in the U.S. However, knowing a cattle-only species can infect humanity doesn’t make me feel all that much better.

How many nightmares will you have about eyeball worms now? Let’s create a support group in the comments below.

Image: FX

Kyle Anderson is the Associate Editor for Nerdist. You can find his film and TV reviews here. Follow him on Twitter!

Maybe have some happy science stuff now…

Video of 42,000 matches burning at once is incredibly satisfying
This lung transplant recipient takes her first unobstructed breath
The Princess Bride‘s rodents of unusual size actually do exist

The Falcon Heavy Launch Made the Hot Wheels Tesla Roadster Skyrocket in Value

Earlier in February, Elon Musk‘s SpaceX successfully launched Falcon Heavy with the most powerful rocket to-date. Musk even included a cherry red Tesla Roadster at the top of the rocket, which is now floating somewhere between here and Mars. Naturally, there are already conspiracy theories that SpaceX faked the launch–one of our favorites is that Musk committed the perfect murder by sending a real person in the seat of his Roadster. But if we’re going all in with crazy speculation, then maybe we should say that what Musk really wanted to do was increase the value of his Hot Wheels collection.

According to Design Taxi, the Hot Wheels Tesla Roadster has seen a sharp increase in demand since the Falcon Heavy launch. The toy was released just a few years ago for about $1.00, but now, the price is reportedly going as high as $200 per replica Roadster. The spike in popularity came after it was pointed out that Musk included the Hot Wheels Tesla on the dashboard of his own space-soaring Roadster. SpaceX’s official Twitter account couldn’t resist touting its role in making the Hot Wheels Roadster rise in demand among collectors.

Elon Musk’s Roadster Launch Sparks Sales of Hot Wheels Toy Tesla https://t.co/VF5nYmPJhH pic.twitter.com/j1YYkqb46M

— SPACE.com (@SPACEdotcom) February 12, 2018

Is it too late to pick up a Hot Wheels Roadster for a reasonable price? It really depends on what you’re willing to pay, but some fans have been lucky enough to snag the Roadster replicas for around $50. If Musk ever decides to pull off this stunt again, keep an eye out for any collectibles he puts into the space. They just might go up in value, too.

What do you think about the spike in demand for the Hot Wheels Tesla Roadster? Ride off with us in the comment section below.

Images: SpaceX, Hot Wheels

More of Musk!

Internet’s best reactions to the Falcon Heavy launch.
Our biggest questions for Elon Musk in 2018.
Elon Musk finds a flamethrower shipping loophole.

STAR WARS EPISODE IX Hires BLADE RUNNER 2049 Art Director

There’s many an argument to be had about the relative merits or un-merits (demerits?) of the Star Wars films in the Disney years, but one thing at which they’ve all excelled is looking amazing. The Force Awakens, Rogue One, and The Last Jedi have all been visually striking, and the first trailer for Solo looks to be following suit. So this needs to continue for J.J. Abrams‘ Episode IX, surely, and they’ve wasted no time in hiring one of the best art directors in the game. Paul Inglis, who was most recently the supervising art director for Blade Runner 2049, has joined the crew of the final Skywalker family film.

Inglis has an impressive list of credits as art director (usually credited as Supervising Art Director or Senior Art Director) including Children of Men, Prometheus, Skyfall, and the entire first season of Game of Thrones. Blade Runner 2049 is perhaps his crowning achievement; it’s one of the best designed movies ever made, especially coupled with Roger Deakens’ Oscar-nominated cinematography. Though Inglis wasn’t given a nomination for his work on the brilliant sci-fi epic, each setting and future location is a masterpiece.

What Inglis also provides us, in terms of speculating about the next Star Wars film (something we deeply love to do), is get an idea for the kind of scenery we’re likely to see. The films and TV show listed above all have a certain sense of brutalism, featuring huge buildings and monoliths. Even Skyfall, which has the most “realistic” setting of the bunch, ends in a shootout in a massive old house that sits as a castle in the middle of the Scottish moors. So we might well see some colorful yet stony structures in the upcoming film. And let me tell you, a Star Wars movie looking like Blade Runner 2049 would be a cool-ass thing indeed.

Images: Warner Bros

Kyle Anderson is the Associate Editor for Nerdist. You can find his film and TV reviews here. Follow him on Twitter!

More beautiful, nerdy things for you

New James Bond novel will be a prequel too Casino Royale
Why we think you need to own Criterion’s Night of the Living Dead Blu-ray
A guide to the alien sci-fi horrors found in H.P. Lovecraft

Video of Lung Transplant Recipient’s First Unobstructed Breath Will Make You Cry

It isn’t always easy to be positive about life these days, not when we are inundated with awful new developments on a constant basis. But sometimes we come across a story that makes us cry for a good reason. Such stories remind us that no matter how bad things seem to get, there is still hope and beauty in the world–stories like the one that unfolds in this video of a lung transplant recipient taking her first unobstructed breath.

This video shows Jennifer Jones breathing entirely on her own after she received a successful double lung transplant. Good luck not tearing up watching her amazement at being able to do something most of us don’t give a second thought.



Jones was misdiagnosed as a child with allergies; she didn’t learn until she was 30 that she suffered from cystic fibrosis her whole life. When her condition worsened she was placed on oxygen full time, and while she was on the transplant waiting list her lung function dropped to around ten percent. Fortunately she found a match, leading to this uplifting video.

But just in case you need a double dose of a good cry, her fiance and father teamed up to give her something else to help her transition back to living a healthy life.



No, you’re crying! Yes, we are also crying. But it sure is nice these days to watch a news story and cry because it made us feel better about the world.

What’s another uplifting video you’ve recently watched that gave you hope or improved your outlook on life? Share it with us in the comments below.

Featured Image: Rob Ronnenberg

Be dazzled by more science and tech!

This robo-dog can open doors.
A robot that can destroy you in Scrabble.
The Doomsday Clock is inching closer to midnight.

A SPYRO THE DRAGON Trilogy Remaster May Hit Playstation 4 This Year

Last year, Activision’s Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy managed to impress fans and critics alike with its modern remaster of the original Playstation classics. This year, it might be Spyro the Dragon‘s turn, as Vicarious Visions—the studio behind the N. Sane Trilogy—is reportedly working on a remastered edition of Spyro the Dragon, Spyro 2: Ripto’s Rage!, and Spyro: Year of the Dragon.

Kotaku UK is reporting that the Spyro the Dragon Trilogy Remaster will be officially announced in March, but we don’t have official confirmation at this time. The current report indicates that it may launch in the third quarter of this year—just in time for the 20th anniversary of Spyro.

Back in 1998, Spyro was a breakout character on the original Playstation, as gamers were invited to take control of the adorable title character as he attempted to save his fellow dragons, recover treasures, and overcome Gnasty Gnorc. The ability to breath fire was definitely one of our favorite aspects of the game. It’s been a decade since the last Spyro title was released, and this remastered trilogy could help the series get a real revival. Because who doesn’t like playing with dragons, amirite?

According to Kotaku UK, the Spyro the Dragon Trilogy Remaster will be a Playstation 4 exclusive for one year, before it can be ported to other consoles like Xbox One or the Nintendo Switch. Presumably that means Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy will hit the other consoles at some point as well.

Are you excited about Spyro’s possible remastered trilogy? Let us know in the comment section below!

Don’t pause, read more about games!

The Pokémon theme song gets a metal cover.
A cute fan-made SEGA Genesis game.
Kingdom Hearts mashed with other video game worlds.

Images: Activision

The Best DRAGON BALL FIGHTERZ Mod Adds Nicolas Cage

Dragon Ball Z fans have been raving about the Dragon Ball FighterZ since its release in late January. It didn’t take long for PC gamers to start adding unique mods to allow new characters to play in the game. And naturally, people started mashing gaming universes together to see how iconic characters would fare against one another in no time.

As with anything on the internet, it started out innocently enough with bringing Sonic the Hedgehog into the Dragon Ball Z fold. For years, the debate has raged on whether or not Sonic or Frieza would win in a fight, and this mod brought to us by YouTuber Beatz finally seeks to answer that question. Maybe Frieza doesn’t offer much resistance in this video, but it’s still a delightfully fun showdown to watch. Our favorite blue hedgehog has shown up in several mods over the years, but getting to watch him kick ass in this one is a blast. We can only hope this mod will be playable someday.

But that wasn’t the only Dragon Ball FighterZ mod we saw. Kotaku tipped us off to one that really embodies the weird-yet-amazing vibe PC mods so frequently have. Instead of integrating a character from another video game universe, YouTuber SLOplays got creative creative, giving Frieza’s look an upgrade–actually, these modders gave Frieza the best upgrade that any creature could have asked for: integrating Nicolas Cage‘s face onto several spots of Frieza’s body.

Unfortunately, this mod doesn’t empower with Frieza any special Cage-bilities such as an advantage in attacks when holding a freshly-stolen copy of the Declaration of Independence, but it’s a hoot to watch. Frieza’s head looks like some creepy Nic Cage aquarium, and it’s just the kind of modding oddity we’re here for.

What are some of your favorite Dragon Ball FighterZ mods? Tell us about them in the comments!

Feature Image: SLOplays

Don’t pause, read more about games!

The Pokémon theme song gets a metal cover.
A cute fan-made SEGA Genesis game.
Kingdom Hearts mashed with other video game worlds.