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Preview ROGUE ONE’s Marvel Comic Book Adaptation

Hurry up, first week of April. Once we survive the pranks on April Fools’ Day, it’s all about Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. Tuesday, April 4 brings the home release of the Star Wars standalone, while April 5 marks the day Marvel‘s comic book adaptation of the film comes to shelves. Star Wars: Rogue One Adaptation #1 puts readers into hyperspace and takes them to a face-to-face meeting with the Rebel Alliance, and we have a preview.

Written by Jody Houser with art by Emilio Laiso and Oscar Bazaldua, the six issue Rogue One adaptation will follow the plot of the movie with Jyn and her new pals going after the Death Star plans. It’s not only about rehashing what we saw on screen. Using a different medium to approach the story means some new material and going deeper with characters. Some scenes from the novelization and cut moments from the film will find their way into the story. I hope this means Chirrut and K-2SO are in every single scene. That would make total sense, right?

I’ll keep my Chirrut and Kaytoo fanfic to myself. Let’s look at some art!

Rogue One #1 cover by Phil Noto

I will never say no to seeing more of Noto’s art–especially in Star Wars universe.

What’s that? You like variant covers? Here’s one:

Rogue One #1 action figure variant by John Tyler Christopher

Okay, covers of the comic are fine and dandy, but what about interiors? You’ll find four pages from Rogue One #1 in the gallery below, in addition to a couple more variant covers. The art isn’t necessarily final on the interiors, but it’s enough to see the likenesses and style happening in the comic. The pages show familiar scenes from the film: Jyn being rescued from Imperial imprisonment (I can’t help but hear Kaytoo’s voice in my head), Jyn’s arrival to Yavin IV, and her encounter with Saw Gerrera on Jedha. My little Stardust. I like that even without the dialogue on the page, I can see emotion happening in expressions and postures.

Will you be adding the Rogue One comic adaptation to your pull list? Let me know in the comments.

Images: Marvel

If Rogue One had a title crawl, this might be what it said…

A History of DOCTOR WHO’s Cybermen

On Monday, the BBC shared a Doctor Who photo of Peter Capaldi‘s Twelfth Doctor squaring off against Cybermen for the two-part finale, written by Steven Moffat and directed by Rachel Talalay. Seen it before, right? Well, these weren’t just any Cybermen, these were the Cybermen from Mondas, the titular celestial body from the 1966 story, “The Tenth Planet,” which was to be William Hartnell’s last hurrah. So, big deal; the Cybermen look different. Well, it’s actually much more complex than that. The Cybermen are always evolving, and their backstory is always evolving. It’s one of the most convoluted in the show’s long history.

“The Tenth Planet” was co-written by Gerry Davis (then the show’s script editor) and Kit Pedler (a friend of Davis’ who’d been the show’s scientific adviser). It suggested that there was a lost planet in our solar system, once the Earth’s sister planet—it looks like Earth but upside down—that split off from orbit billions of years ago. This planet is called Mondas, and its human-like inhabitants, in an effort to constantly make themselves better, began to upgrade their physiology using science and technology, thus making their lives longer. However, after time, the people began to be more machine than man, finally removing the emotional receptors of their brains, which got in the way of their version of harmonious progress. The Cybermen, as they call themselves, are attempting to siphon energy from Earth, which would destroy it. Obviously, the Doctor and them wouldn’t let that happen.

So it was established that the Cybermen came from the planet Mondas, and their plan was much more calculating and sinister than simply wishing to upgrade all of humanity. In their initial appearance, they spoke by opening their mouths wide and having jangly, garbly dialogue coming out like a radio speaker. But, true to their ethos, they didn’t stay the same for long. Later that same year, in Patrick Troughton’s third story “The Moonbase,” the Cybermen looked markedly different, with any “organic” portion still remaining replaced or covered by hard metal shells. The Doctor discovers a crypt containing dormant Cybermen on the moon, which led directly to possibly their most famous story, “The Tomb of the Cybermen,” which finds an Earth expedition to the planet Telos locating Egyptian-like tombs and ruins, containing several dormant Cybermen and their leader, the Cyber Controller.

This is where things start to get wonky. If the Cybermen are from Mondas, then how and why did they end up on Telos, and granted the TARDIS can travel in time, there’s not much indication as to why they adopted Telos as their new home. The Cybermen appear two more times in the ’60s, in “The Wheel in Space” and “The Invasion,” but in both of these, their plans have to do with them on and around Earth. Their lone appearance in the ’70s, against the Fourth Doctor, “Revenge of the Cybermen,” find the Cybermen on the run, having lost a Cyber-War against humanity, who found out the metal men have a natural allergy to gold. They attack the gold-rich asteroid of Voga in an effort to cut off Earth’s supply.

When the Cybermen returned in the ’80s, in “Earthshock,” opposite Peter Davison’s Fifth Doctor, it’s established that they’ve learned time travel and attempt to prevent the destruction of the dinosaurs, which means humanity’s whole trajectory would have changed. They appeared as the de-facto villains in 1983’s “The Five Doctors,” Doctor Who‘s 20th anniversary special, but there wasn’t much growth in terms of their backstory in that episode (with good reason).

Once the Sixth Doctor took over, script editor Eric Saward and uber-fan Ian Levine got together to finally tried to reconcile the disparate history of the Cybermen. Unfortunately, “Attack of the Cybermen” is one of the worst stories in history (fight me about it) and reads like the fan fiction it is. Basically, it tries to explain why Mondas was destroyed and why the Cybermen moved to Telos, but also large swaths of it don’t make any sense and the Doctor shoots laser guns and stuff. It’s a bad story, you guys. Similarly, the Seventh Doctor’s run-in with them (“Silver Nemesis”) is better left unwatched.

In the new series, the Cybermen mostly stem from the alternate universe the Doctor, Rose, and Mickey visit. The Cybus Industries Cybermen were not from Mondas, Telos, or any other planet besides Earth, but they also were effectively mindless, marching monsters without any of the cunning and planning of the earlier Cybermen. Even once they started being our universe Cybermen, they didn’t get much more intellectual or compelling, acting mostly as mindless upgrading machines or the literal zombie soldiers of Missy.

By returning to the Mondas version of the Cybermen, aside from fulfilling a long-held wish for Capaldi, we might actually get Cybermen in the new series with some personality that are more frightening because they still possess SOME semblance of humanity (just completely cold and unfeeling). The Cybermen in the new series have felt completely like robots, but as initially intended, they were a misguided version of us, which is something the Twelfth Doctor’s penultimate story could really make use of (hopefully in a Cybermen version on the Dalek two-parter from Series 9).

What iteration of the Cybermen are your favorite? Let us know in the comments below.

Images: BBC

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

Nerdist Podcast: Ben Acker and Ben Blacker Return

Ben Acker and Ben Blacker (Thrilling Adventure Hour, The Writers Panel) talk about being a writing duo, how to be a successful writer in entertainment, plus Acker makes Chris do some math. They also talk about their favorite shows, getting angry at TV show endings, and their new book Star Wars: Join the Resistance. And they take some “calls”!

Image: Maarten DeBoer

What Really Happened to All of the Mutants in LOGAN?

Last weekend, Logan arrived in theaters and delivered a powerful final turn for Hugh Jackman‘s Wolverine. It’s already such a huge success at the box office that we wouldn’t be shocked to see future X-Men sequels take the Rated-R approach to superheroes. However, Logan does leave the fate of the team somewhat uncertain, and there could be a very dark future waiting for them if the story remains in continuity. Today’s Nerdist News is popping our claws into the clues about the fate of the mutants in Logan.

There are spoilers ahead for Logan. If you haven’t seen it yet, this is your chance to remain unspoiled. You’ve been warned!

Join host, and latent mutant heroine, Jessica Chobot, as she pulls back the curtain on the Westchester incident that was referenced in Logan. Long time comic readers may recall that the Old Man Logan story by Mark Millar and Steve McNiven had a similar incident in which Wolverine was tricked into massacring the X-Men. This time, we think that the blame falls squarely on Patrick Stewart’s Professor Xavier. It seems clear to us that the Westchester incident was the first time that Xavier suffered a seizure, as seen in the film. But without Logan to sedate him in time, Xavier’s mental powers hurt or even killed some of their shared loved ones. Logan stays with Xavier out of a sense of loyalty, and because he may be the only one who could live through Xavier’s multiple seizures.

As things currently stand, Logan marks the end of the X-Men timeline that dates back to the ’60s in X-Men: First Class. Does that mean we’ll see the Westchester incident play out in a future film? As dark as that could be, we’re thinking that future X-Men directors will simply treat this story as a possible future. Deadpool exists outside of the rest of the mutant movies, so why can’t Logan do the same?

Where would you like to see the X-Men films go after Logan? Let’s discuss in the comment section below!

Cookie Monster Reviews 100 Years of Cookies with a Taste Test

When Bon Appétit’s YouTube channel needed someone to review cookies from the past 100 years they turned to the world’s leading expert in the field, the one and onlyCookie Monster. A recent post on the A.V. Club shared this tasty and educational treat and it’s just the excuse we needed to justify our own snacking habits. From now on, we aren’t just eating cookies. We’re doing important historical research.

Cookie Monster is joined by snack aficionados Megan and Billy as they sample cookie treats from the past hundred years. Throughout the video, Cookie Monster proves that he’s more of a cookie connoisseur than a monster by teaching the kids to appreciate each snack before he chows down on them in his distinct style. It even results in Megan changing her mind about a previous dislike of a cookie that will undoubtedly be a story she tells for the rest of her life. “No, really, I never thought I liked this kind of cookie until Cookie Monster had me give it another try!”

The video even taught us something new thanks to Cookie Monster’s expertise. For whatever reason, we would have guessed that the technology of putting chocolate chip to cookie would be an ancient snack innovation but we now know chocolate chip cookies came into culinary fruition in the 1930s, proving that even after 40 years on television, Cookie Monster is still able to take us to cookie school. [Note to self: Invent and subsequently attend “Cookie School”]

What kind of cookies would you want critiqued by Cookie Monster? Wine has sommeliers and beer has cicerones, what do you think a cookie expert should be called? Let’s discuss in the comments below!

Image: Bon Appétit

Scientists Capture First Footage of One of Earth’s Rarest Whales

There’s not a ton that we know about True’s beaked whale, one of the rarest whale species on Earth. They’re about 17 feet long, they might eat squid, we know their approximate habitat… and there’s little more than that. Googling images of the seldom-seen mammal brings up more illustrations and skeleton pictures than real-life representations. That’s what makes this all the more exciting: We now have the first-ever video footage of the animal, courtesy of a research team from the Centre for Research into Ecological and Environmental Modelling at the University of St. Andrew’s in Scotland.

As Gizmodo puts it, seeing a True’s beaked whale is so rare that experts who spend their lives studying whales are likely to never encounter one. A team in the Azores — 850 miles off the coast of Portugal, in the northern Atlantic Ocean — found the whales and published an accompanying paper, in which they highlight some new discoveries. Namely, they’ve found a new color pattern in the whales, and gained a better understanding of where their habitat is.

What is it that makes these whales so hard to research? Well, our lives don’t much overlap with theirs. The species spends 92 percent of its time underwater, and are often living their lives at depths of 9,800 feet. They’re also not attracted to boats, so most of the research we’ve been able to conduct on True’s beaked whale come from dead bodies or when they breach.

Humans first discovered the species in 1912, meaning that it’s taken us over 100 years to get it on video. So basically, if you’re playing team hide-and-seek, pick these chubby little whales for your side.

Featured image: PeerJ

This South Korean POWER RANGERS Spinoff Looks Explosive, Bizarre, and Fun

While Power Rangers seems like a distinct part of American 1990s nostalgia, the show was actually adapted from an original Japanese series called Super Sentai. Now, South Korean production company Daewon has its first original Super Sentai adaptation, and the first trailer for Power Rangers: Dino Force Brave looks pretty wild (via io9).

This is the first time that Daewon has shot its own footage with new actors. The plot isn’t a direct adaptation of the Japanese original, Zyuden Sentai Kyoryuger (which came to America as Power Rangers: Dino Force). It’s more of a “next generation” sort of thing, as io9 puts it. The aesthetic looks a lot like the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers we grew up with. Baddies still have awkward, bulky costumes, and while the giant robots have been updated to CGI (as opposed to people in funny suits fighting near scaled down buildings), they’re still super campy. Also, there are tons of explosions.

Our English-speaking brains can gather much about the characters from the trailer above, but they seem to fall into distinct and goofy archetypes. For instance, Tokunation says that Brave Red Dino is “described as a dragon child,” while his Blue and Green counterparts are “a handsome boy” and “a cute little brother,” respectively.

If you like your Power Rangers goofy, this looks like the solution for you. If you have the means to watch South Korean television, the 12-episode season premieres on April 1, and we just hope this isn’t an elaborate April Fool’s gag.

Featured image: DAEWON 대원미디어

Did Bryan Cranston confirm a major Power Rangers rumor?

The Writers Panel #321: Barbara Hall

Barbara Hall, the creator of Madam Secretary, Judging Amy, and Joan of Arcadia talks about tackling politics, writing about what’s important, what she’s learned from each experience, getting her start on Northern Exposure and I’ll Fly Away, her country rock band, and more.

Follow @BenBlacker and Like the show on Facebook!

WONDER WOMAN and How We Talk About Female Superheroes

Women aren’t looking for special treatment when it comes to our stories. We’re not looking for a safe space, or all-lady iterations of classically male stories—though they’re certainly welcome for the conversations they present. We simply want our characters to exist in the same, varied, multitudinous world and to be respected as equally valid and interesting. We do not want to have to categorize female identity as an alien thing that must be explained and rationalized to those who don’t identify as such. We don’t want to have to rationalize anything as a “universal” story in spite of its femininity. We just want to be and have that be enough. Director Patty Jenkins hopes Wonder Woman will represent a big step toward that—and it starts with how we talk about these things.

Speaking to a number of journalists in the Warner Brothers edit bays in London on Monday, February 27, Jenkins figured reception to Wonder Woman would be scrutinized beyond its merits—to her surprise and frustration. “I was raised by a very feminist single mother but, for whatever reason, I was totally shielded from the reality that [this sexism] wasn’t over a long time ago. So coming into my career I was like, ‘Yeah, whatever,’ but coming into this, [it’s a] very interesting time, because actually not that much has changed for all of us … It’s a hotbed topic regardless [of the political climate].”

“I went into it not making a movie about a woman at all;

I was just making a movie about Wonder Woman,

who is one of the greatest superheroes.”

– Patty Jenkins

This conversation about heroines and, perhaps more importantly, regular women in film has roots in insecurity. Perhaps there is a fear of empathy: what does it mean to be a man who relates to a woman and finds common ground in a shared struggle? But consider how female viewers are expected, without any hand-holding, to empathize with characters outside their gender, and the heightened scrutiny becomes absurd and often hilarious. To that end, the audacity of the sexism that’s long infiltrated (overtly or otherwise) how women not only existed in the past, but how they are perceived now, brought a lot of humor to Jenkins’ story.

After all, Wonder Woman isn’t exactly going to wilt and adhere to societal expectations in man’s world.

“It ends up being funny; the sexism comes to the fore because she’s walking into 1918 and she’s completely oblivious.’ … [and] she just keeps being completely confused [because] she would never know about [sexism], so there ends up being accidental comments about it.”

Because that’s how sexism should feel to anyone watching: pathetically, hilariously absurd—especially in 2017.

To emphasize this point, Jenkins didn’t belabor her point. “I went into it not making a movie about a woman at all,” Jenkins says. “I was making a movie about Wonder Woman who, to me, is one of the greatest superheroes, so I just treated her like her character and that, I think, is the next step.”

Ah yes, the next step. But while women have been climbing that ladder forever, we’ve had to drag some members of the male audience (or those that believe they know best what the male audience wants and is comfortable with) to put one foot on the next rung. Maybe Wonder Woman is the opportunity we needed to get them to take the leap. After all, you have to suspend disbelief that superhumans and gods are able to save the world with magical powers, so why not take a minor leap of imagination to see that a woman can front a successful, profitable, good superhero film?

“Of course it’s a bummer that

we’re going to be a ‘woman’s film made by a woman,’

but it’s important to talk about.”

Many of the complaints lofted against female superheroes relate to their believability in these scenarios given our heteronormative ideas about gender roles. Could showing a woman as this sort of hero be the opportunity we’ve be looking for to move on from that conversation? And if so, where do we go from here? On this, Jenkins has hope for what’s next: “What I want to be a part of is the next wave where … we can make universal movies about other kinds of people and not have it be an issue. Where we can say like, ‘Yeah, this is a universal movie about a person wanting to be a hero—this one happens to be a woman.’ That, I think is the real challenge.”

And she’s right: fighting for parity means demanding the same right to space previously (and exclusively) afforded to others.

Regardless of Jenkins’ progressive attitude on the matter, one that is necessary for a creator in this scenario to have in order to bridge that divide, the discussion lingers still. On set last year, Gadot discussed the universality of Diana Prince’s story regardless of gender, which is a natural talking point. But at this point, it’s also fucking exhausting. Of course this story is relatable to everyone; that is what hero stories are by design.

“I just want to be a part of never thinking about the fact it’s a woman.”

But at the same time, you have to ask the converse question: do you ever see anyone asking, say, Robert Downey Jr. about the universality of Iron Man’s story? Does it even matter? And, frankly, should it? And if it shouldn’t, why is universality even questioned when a female gets top billing?

The double-edge sword is real for Jenkins. “Of course it’s a bummer that we’re going to be a ‘woman’s film made by a woman,’ but on the other hand, it’s important to talk about because often it hasn’t been. It’s important to acknowledge, yet in making the film it’s important to tune out.”

These things should matter when the playing field is so grossly imbalanced. They should matter until they don’t have to anymore. “I just want to be a part of never thinking about the fact it’s a woman,” Jenkins explained. “When I made Monster I didn’t think about that it was a woman; I didn’t think about that she was a lesbian. I was telling a story about a specific person that was tragic and looking for love in the world. And the more I could make her you, the more [it’s] a victory.”

Ask any young girl who her heroes are, and she’s likely to list women AND men she’s looked up to—because heroes needn’t exist along a gender line. There’s great strength to be gained from seeing yourself and your story in those that do and do not look like you. Surely little boys do that too. Isn’t it equally as harmful to shame little boys for seeing themselves in Wonder Woman as it is to not afford little girls a chance to see themselves, for once, on screen?

Jenkins gets that: “Listen, I’m here because I saw Superman I as a kid it rocked my world and I was Superman. I was that little boy and I took that ride and that journey. I believed in myself as Superman, and that’s the beauty of film. It’s so old-school to think it matters. Like listen, man, I don’t relate at all about people in Greek times but we’re still telling stories about them. It doesn’t matter if it’s a dog or an elf—just pick your story and tell one that rings everybody’s bell.”

Wonder Woman hits theaters June 2, 2017. Are you looking forward to it? Let us know in the comments below!

Images: Warner Brothers

Alicia Lutes is the managing editor of Nerdist & creator/host of Fangirling. Find her on Twitter if you’re into that sorta thing!

And if you’re looking for more Wonder Woman scoopage from our time talking to Patty, watch this!

Our Birthday Wish? This Japanese Meat Cake

Meat? Good! Cake? Also good! But “meat cake?” What the hell is “meat cake?” and why would anyone want something called “meat cake”? Because, uh, the Japanese have figured out a way to make that phrase into a reality, and it looks like we’ll soon be moving to the other side of the Pacific to have all the meat cake we can get.

Seriously. Behold the meat cake:

「肉ケーキ」と「肉ブーケ」？牛角が放つお祝いメニューが見た目のインパクト抜群！ https://t.co/jvrQPLLWTZ pic.twitter.com/YFLqwZaJ9I

— おたくま経済新聞 (@otakumatch) March 3, 2017

The country’s newest fad, that we learned about at Kotaku, has yakiniku restaurants—which specialize in grilled meat, glorious grilled meat—serving the uncooked food in the shape of cakes, for the many customers who celebrate their birthdays there. Meat cake, or “niku keeki” as its known in Japanese, then gets deconstructed and cooked at the table.

これが…肉ケーキ… pic.twitter.com/jcfoG47fnN

— フレンゼ@モチ (@frenze_S) March 3, 2017

Apparently meat cakes first became a thing a few years ago, but they are now everywhere. NO EXPLANATION IS NEEDED.

So no, these aren’t traditional cakes made with meat, nor are they meat served with icing and sugar (well, we assume someone, somewhere, after a night of heavy drinking, has tried both of those things, but this has nothing to do with that), they are just big decorative ways to have your order brought to the table.

昨日の肉ケーキが忘れられない(笑)#肉会#肉ケーキ pic.twitter.com/tSTTASPl1i

— 新井雄大 印刷・WEBの販促屋 (@mryaraimdcs) February 24, 2017

If you remain skeptical, and think that this is just an unnecessary step in getting the meat into your belly, imagine how excited you’d be if you could order a “mountain of meat,” a phrase that slightly turns us on. Well, a “meat cake” is just a mountain of meat that’s been handled by an artist.

肉ケーキをたいらげた。優香お誕生日おめでとう( ˘ω˘ )♡ pic.twitter.com/L17JReVmSY

— なつ坊 (@ntmyc) January 27, 2017

What a way to celebrate your birthday.

Meat cake? GOOD!

What kind of meat would you want your cake to be made out of? Get grilling in our comments below with your birthday wish.

Featured Image: Dreamworks