Author: Randy Meeks

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The 5 rarest 'Pokémon' games in history (apart from 'Pokopia')

What Mario Kart World started and Donkey Kong Bananza smoothed out, Pokopia is taking advantage of: just when we thought Switch 2 was going to enter a dangerous valley without games before the inevitable Mario or Zelda, Pokémon has shown that it can revitalize anything: What was missing from Animal Crossing? Exactly: Pokémons. That, and an absolutely gigantic island where everything from Pikachus to Timburs come to greet your human Ditto protagonist. And if you think that’s a strange concept, you haven’t seen anything yet. Join us as we review the 5 weirdest games in the history of the franchise! After […]

What Mario Kart World started and Donkey Kong Bananza smoothed out, Pokopia is taking advantage of: just when we thought Switch 2 was going to enter a dangerous valley without games before the inevitable Mario or Zelda, Pokémon has shown that it can revitalize anything: What was missing from Animal Crossing? Exactly: Pokémons. That, and an absolutely gigantic island where everything from Pikachus to Timburs come to greet your human Ditto protagonist. And if you think that’s a strange concept, you haven’t seen anything yet. Review with us the 5 weirdest games in the history of the franchise! After this, Pokémon Red is going to feel small.

Pokémon: Catch The Numbers!

Did you think that all Pokémon games were released for Nintendo? You are very mistaken! Sega released three games from the saga on its educational console Pico, including an educational title to learn Hiragana and Katakana, another mini-games title (Pico for Everyone Pokémon Loud Battle!), and finally, the one that concerns us. Catch The Numbers! was never released outside Japan and was based on the anime: Team Rocket has stolen all the Pokémon from Ash, Misty, and Brock except Pikachu and Togepi, and the player must solve various math problems to recover them. Just what you wanted when playing Pokémon: a square root!

Magikarp Jump

With the arrival of mobile phones and apps, Nintendo was not quite sure what to do with one of its flagship franchises. Thus, after the unexpected success of Pokémon Go, it tried to replicate that with Magikarp Jump, which had notably less appeal. In the game, players had to train Magikarp to compete in various jumping contests, improving its height by training it and making it eat berries. In the end, it did not evolve into Gyarados and, honestly, no one cared too much about this strange spin-off. What can we do.

Pokémon Smile

Half game, half app for kids to brush their teeth, Pokémon Smile had a relative success when it was released in the middle of the pandemic, in June 2020. Using augmented reality, children (and not so children) can brush their teeth in front of the camera and start defeating the bacteria that kept the captured Pokémon in their teeth. By rescuing it, the player has the option to catch it and level it up. For what? Who knows, because there are no tooth brushing battles or anything like that. It was so popular that they ended up releasing another spin-off to learn self-care, Pokémon Sleep. Let’s see when we get a Pokémon Pay My Taxes.

Pokémon Café ReMix

If there are cat cafés, why shouldn’t there be Pokémon cafés? In this case, you will have a café that you have set up alongside Eevee, where Pokémon come in to ask for their daily meal. Your job will be to prepare it for them, but more in a puzzle style than in Overcooked, fortunately. Little by little, you will be able to get more creatures and even level them up, potentially having true legendary customers. Very cute, very cozy… And it continues to receive updates to this day. A poke-caffeinated, please?

The Thieves and the 1000 Pokémon

Probably even the biggest Pokémon fans raised an eyebrow thinking “What the hell is this?”. However, it is something that existed for Nintendo 3DS, which Japanese users could download for free and served as advertising for the seventeenth movie in the saga. The game consisted of simply choosing a stage to play, selecting the Pokémon that would play it, and putting them through a few mini-games where, normally, you would lose one or several of your creatures. It had 16 levels and 4 additional extras, because here, for being free and simple, nothing is done halfway. You either get them all or none at all, come on.

'The Bride!' reminds us of one of the biggest failures in film history: the Dark Universe

There is an Internet relic that seems to me as fascinating as it is incredible, because somehow it still stands and is the representation of the failure of an entire studio: the Twitter account of the Dark Universe, where on May 22, 2017, a star-filled photo was posted with the text “Witness the beginning of a #DarkUniverse” and from which we never heard again. They didn’t even use it to promote The Mummy, which ultimately was the only film in this meager cinematic universe. But almost ten years ago it made sense: everyone was […]

They didn’t even use it to promote The Mummy, which ultimately was the only film in this meager cinematic universe. But almost ten years ago it made sense: everyone was building their universe, after all. Why not aim big? The answer, sadly for them, was at the box office.

Make Mine Dark!

To understand the reason for the existence of this Dark Universe, we have to go back to 2008, when Marvel released Iron Man and, half knowing and half unintentionally, started a shared universe of movies and series that continues to this day with crossovers, references, nods, and the feeling of witnessing something truly cohesive.

Of course, everyone said, “Hey, if they can do it, we can too,” and all sorts of proposals emerged, each stranger than the last: the DC Extended Universe, the Robin Hood Universe, the Monsterverse… Seeing the trend, Universal did not hesitate to bring out their old monster movies, give them a facelift, and unite them all in a macro-saga: the Dark Universe was born, under the shadow of Marvel.

In that initial photo (which is debated whether it was made with Photoshop or by gathering all the talent in one room) were Tom Cruise, Russell Crowe, Sofia Boutella, Javier Bardem, and Johnny Depp. The first three starred in The Mummy, but they were already preparing for the future, with Bardem as the Monster of Frankenstein and Depp as The Invisible Man.

They even announced a good handful of movies, including The Bride of Frankenstein, Van Helsing, The Wolf Man, Dracula, The Phantom of the Opera, and The Creature from the Black Lagoon. Do you know how many we actually got to see? Exactly: none.

Apparently, there was so much chaos in the writers’ room where the master plots for this universe were decided that someone actually said “Let’s build the plane while we learn to fly it” (one of the worst analogies in history), in response to valid questions like “Should all monsters be villains or can they be heroes?”. They clearly didn’t have a grasp on even the most basic concepts.

The curious thing is that they could have moved forward, because The Mummy was a resounding success, grossing 410 million, but the critics mocked it so much that they decided to leave all the plots about Doctor Jekyll or the future of Tom Cruise’s character hanging, and nothing was ever heard again. A failed universe by all accounts.

In the end, it must be said, some of these movies were indeed released, but not in their original vision. The Invisible Man replaced Johnny Depp with Elisabeth Moss to deliver a powerful film about abuse in 2020, and The Bride of Frankenstein became, of course, The Bride!, which has just been released in theaters with a public reaction that, being generous, is lukewarm. Being very generous.

However, since they had the brand, they decided to take advantage of it for their theme parks: as part of the Epic Universe at Universal parks, one can take a ride through the Dark Universe, a dark world filled with terrifying creatures and monstrous experiments.

And while you’re at it, hop on a couple of attractions that are supposed to be really scary… Although, really, what is scarier than a business failure that leaves you with a half-open Twitter account? Chills.

Why is it not good news that 'The K-Pop Warriors' is going to win the Oscar

Yes, yes. I know. You have danced to Golden to the point of exhaustion, your sons, daughters, nephews, or nieces know it by heart and have even taught you the choreography of the moment: after all, it is the most-watched movie in Netflix history and, to everyone’s surprise, it doesn’t even belong to a franchise: The K-Pop Warriors has marked an era to the point where it is clearly on track to win the Oscar for Best Animated Feature without any problem. And yet, I am convinced that it is not good news. Up, up, up, is […]

Yes, yes. I know. You have danced to Golden to your heart’s content, your sons, daughters, nephews, or nieces know it by heart and have even taught you the latest choreography: after all, it is the most-watched movie in Netflix history and, surprisingly, it is not even part of a franchise: The K-Pop Warriors has made history to the point where it is clearly on track to win the Oscar for Best Animated Feature without any problem. And yet, I am convinced that this is not good news.

Up, up, up, is our moment!

Since 2021, none of the major American animation studios have won the Oscar in the category. At that time, it was Encanto that took the prize over better options like The Mitchells vs. the Machines or Luca. However, it was the film that broke a 10-year streak in which the winning films were invariably from Pixar, Disney or (in the case of Spider-man) from Sony. From one of the big players, at all times. With the change of voters in the Academy, changes came in all the awards, and animation was no exception.

In 2022, Netflix hit the jackpot with Pinocchio, an absolutely stunning stop-motion film that demonstrates how animation is much more than CGI and 3D puppets. In 2023, it was time to head to Japan to honor master Hayao Miyazaki and his latest masterpiece (so far), The Boy and the Heron, which underscored a constant in recent years: the world becomes much larger when you peek over the subtitle barrier. Last year, experimentation reached its peak with Flow, a Latvian film with no dialogue whatsoever that amazed audiences worldwide. And I can’t be the only one who thinks that if K-Pop Warriors wins, it will be a step backward.

An American production (upholstered, yes, with nods to South Korea, as if trying to give it an exotic touch but without getting too involved), from Sony and Netflix, with curious animation that still repeats some tics we have seen in the studio’s previous films. Against the mainstream (perhaps not sought after, but mainstream after all), two works of pure resistance that strive to move forward: the vibrant Arco and the unbeatable Little Amelie, which truly demonstrate how animation can be used to tell all kinds of stories that go beyond “good versus evil” and without anyone later announcing a sequel, a franchise, an amusement park, and a collaboration with a Chupa Chups brand.

I’m not against The K-Pop Warriors, mind you: it’s a movie that works, it’s constantly entertaining, and its songs stick like glue. But it’s undeniable that with the award, the Academy is going to fall into the obstacle it managed to evade years ago: awarding the most famous movie. It could be Zootopia 2, it could be this one, it doesn’t matter. It’s giving money to the millionaire and love to the beloved. It doesn’t need it at all, and it can tarnish the best animated feature category, leaving it adrift again and giving popular awards by default.

Was Toy Story 4 really better than Where Is My Body? or Klaus? Why Zootopia and not My Life as a Zucchini or The Red Turtle? Did Big Hero 6 deserve it more than The Tale of the Princess Kaguya? We cannot (and should not) allow ourselves to return to that dark era where animation was automatically given to the famous movie of the moment because from there to nominating Avatar for best picture by default is just one step.

I think it's inevitable that all consoles will raise their prices, but also that we will have to go along with it (for now)

This week has been absolutely brutal for upcoming tech announcements: Nintendo has acknowledged that it is likely to raise the price of Switch 2 this year, Steam has stopped manufacturing one of its Steam Deck models and announced that the other two will be released intermittently, Sony has indefinitely delayed PS6 (probably until after 2029)… And we haven’t even started to see the worst, a completely wild price increase almost exclusively due to AI companies wanting to hoard all the RAM to feed their centers […]

This week has been absolutely brutal for upcoming tech announcements: Nintendo has acknowledged that it is likely to raise the price of Switch 2 this year, Steam has stopped manufacturing one of its Steam Deck models and announced that the other two will be released intermittently, Sony has indefinitely delayed PS6 (probably until later in 2029)… And we haven’t even started to see the worst yet, an absolutely wild price increase due, almost exclusively, to AI companies wanting to hoard all the RAM to feed their data centers. The future, they said.

Without RAM and without video games, Homer loses his mind

The future that is being presented to us is, at the very least, delirious: data centers filled with RAM and hard drives consuming water and resources to provide “slop” to an Internet that, if the price trend continues, will become increasingly restrictive. Moreover, some believe that this is just the first step towards making nothing owned by anyone, everything in the cloud and, therefore, being able to better control what each user does in exchange for paying a monthly fee. No, it’s not madness: in fact, it’s what Jeff Bezos said just a few days ago.

“Everyone has their own data center and that won’t last, it doesn’t make sense. You’ll buy computing power in the cloud.” In other words: pay us in comfortable monthly installments to not own something that you currently do own. This is the future of computing, apparently (because of course, who wants computers when you can have AI?), and the future of video games isn’t going to be very different. With the prices of Switch 2 and video games, Nintendo has already started to stretch to see how far the consumer is willing to go: €75? €80? And when GTA VI comes out, how much will people be willing to pay? While we’re at it, why not extrapolate it to consoles?

The days when the PS2 cost $299 and then dropped in price as new versions arrived are long gone. Now it no longer makes sense to wait to see if prices will drop, because prices are only going to rise. If components are becoming more expensive and less common, the market logic is that everything will go up and turn into a luxury product: the “democratization” that those advocating for AI talk about is going to destroy the “democratization” that low prices had marked in computing. And no matter how pleased the bigwigs are to see their coffers filled with revenue, we cannot (or should not) accept the end of an era as if nothing has happened.

“It’s not that big of a deal”, some will comment. “After all, for less money we can have the same thing, and we won’t run out of video games, we just have to pay a little more for them.” But it is a big deal: when the millionaires of the world are all rowing in favor of something, you can be sure that this something is not a Valhalla or a goal to pursue, but a grim destination that is going to turn us upside down to squeeze out every last bill.

Paying for what we already have in exchange for offering us something we don’t need (or want): the great lie that we will have to swallow for the next few decades and that has the power to cause incalculable harm to society. Not having the PS6 or paying 50 euros more for the Switch 2 is just the first step towards not recognizing today’s world in the dystopia of tomorrow.

The PS3 and Spider-man are connected by something beyond fiction: their font

If I ask you to create the PlayStation logo, you could probably do it even if you have no idea about marketing. After all, it is a perfectly recognizable font, the SST, which Monotype created for Sony in 2013, coinciding with the launch of PS4. In fact, Sony uses that same font for its websites, the menus of its televisions, and even the Xperia smartphone… although, in the past, other crazy ideas they had to unify the brand didn’t turn out as well. Or do we not remember the chaos of PS3? Spidey Station When the first PlayStation came out to the […]

If I ask you to create the logo for PlayStation, you could probably do it even if you have no idea about marketing. After all, it is a perfectly recognizable font, the SST, which Monotype created for Sony in 2013, coinciding with the launch of PS4. In fact, Sony uses that same font for its websites, the menus of its televisions, and even the Xperia smartphone… although, in the past, other crazy ideas they had to unify the brand didn’t turn out as well. Or do we not remember the chaos of PS3?

Spidey Station

When the first PlayStation was released in 1994, everyone recognized it by its simple yet effective logo: a P over an S that simulated a three-dimensional effect, clearly indicating the console’s purpose. However, with PS2 things had changed: the logo was almost exclusively made up of straight lines, created by Teiyu Goto. Until now, each of the consoles had been notable for its own merits. And then, PS3 arrived.

Surely you remember it (at least if you’re of a certain age): PlayStation 3 set aside its iconic logos to adopt… the font from Spider-man, the Sam Raimi movie, which had come out five years earlier than its launch (in fact, it was released just in time to “celebrate” the premiere of Spider-man 3). Nobody understood anything. What was the point of using a font that was already associated with another franchise to promote the most important console in the world? Well, the story has more depth than it seems and is not exclusively summarized in “Both were properties of Sony.” Fortunately.

In the PlayStation 3 advertisement, which showcased its power and ability to play Blu-Rays, they did so by displaying images of Spider-man. But that wasn’t even the reason for the strange crossover: Teiyu Goto, chief designer of Sony Computer Entertainment, passionately defended that it was the right decision because it perfectly matched the curvature and appearance of the device. He was not alone, as Goto himself stated some time later.

“Instead of creating a typography with all the risks it entails, it was wiser to use the one from Spider-man, for which Sony had the rights. This is also what President Kutaragi wanted, who insisted that it be used. In fact, the logo was one of the first elements he decided on and was the motivational force behind the shape of the PS3″. So, whether you like it more or less, it was a decision that came from above. However, two years later they completely changed it and forgot about the Spider-man logo, which lasted only two years on the market.

The reason was not the memes or that people had realized the trick, but, as Kaz Hirai stated, for a practical reason: “When you spell out PlayStation 3, it took up so much space that if you wanted to put it on a billboard, it became tiny. It didn’t work because of visibility“. Thus, PS3 Slim abandoned the uppercase letters of the original logo and completely rebooted its own concept. Since then, as we live in much more boring times and less prone to craziness, Sony has unified all its fonts and concepts, and nothing will surprise us anymore. We know what the PS6 logo will be even before we see it… Unless, suddenly, they decide to use the font from Spider-man: Brand New Day. Well, so what? It would be a nice tribute.

The Marvel character that was supposed to appear as a supporting role in the Netflix series. They ended up giving him his own movie and grossing 1.1 billion

At the beginning of 1977, Marvel was a bit worried: most of their heroes were men and only a handful of heroines like the Invisible Woman or the Wasp were making an appearance. They needed more if they wanted to keep the female audience from leaving them behind, and Stan Lee wondered, “Well, can we come up with a female character for which we can use the name Marvel?” Yes, as uncreative as it sounds. Digging through the comics, they decided that the chosen one would be a supporting character of Captain Marvel, a certain Carol Danvers who had been seriously injured. With a plot excuse the […]

In early 1977, Marvel was a bit worried: most of their heroes were men and only a handful of heroines like the Invisible Woman or the Wasp were making an appearance. They needed more if they wanted to keep the female audience from leaving them behind, and Stan Lee wondered “Well, can we come up with a female character for which we can use the name Marvel?”. Yes, as uncreative as it sounds. Digging through the comics, they decided that the chosen one would be a secondary character of Captain Marvel, a certain Carol Danvers who had been seriously injured. With a plot excuse, they resurrected her in full force and called her Ms. Marvel. A star was born.

From Jessica Jones to Carol Danvers

Although at the time Ms. Marvel was one of the most progressive characters of her time, the truth is that in the 80s she was put into a terrifying plot where, in an alternate reality, she was raped by Marcus, the son of Immortus, and gave birth… to Marcus himself, whom the Avengers believed she was in love with and sent back to that alternate reality. As you can imagine, it didn’t sit well with her, and over the years, it has been heavily criticized that someone allowed such harm to be done to a character with so much potential. She eventually managed to survive that ordeal, became more popular than ever, and even became, as she is now, Captain Marvel. Thank goodness.

However, when Netflix chose the heroes that would make up their own Marvel Universe, long before Disney+ existed, they obviously preferred to go for “street-level” characters rather than powerful cosmic beings, due to budget issues: thus, among the four chosen, there was only one woman: Jessica Jones, who had starred in the comic book series Alias in the early 2000s. It was an immediate success, the story was very good, and Netflix decided that it would focus on the legal cases of superheroes and being a colleague of, indeed, Carol Danvers.

The characters had already crossed paths in the comics, and their creator, Melissa Rosenberg, wanted to play the game again: “When I was making it for ABC, I used Carol Danvers. But when it ended up on Netflix, the MCU separated, and so did it from the comic universe.” And although she wanted to continue using the character, Marvel warned her that there was going to be a Captain Marvel movie and prohibited her from beating around the bush. Instead, and almost at the last minute, she changed it in the scripts to Patsy Walker, which ultimately worked better than anyone would have expected. After all, she was a character without superpowers who could serve better as a mirror for Jones… And yes, by the end of season 2, she not only acquired superpowers but also became the villain of the last batch of episodes. Better not to remember them.

In the end, Marvel took longer than expected to introduce its star heroine: she was originally supposed to appear in Age of Ultron, but its director, Joss Whedon, complained that they couldn’t introduce her properly with so many characters, and they had to change the script, inserting Scarlet Witch into some sequences that were originally meant for Danvers. When she was introduced in Captain Marvel, she earned 1.1 billion for the studio’s coffers.

The good part of all this is that, finally, after a bunch of chain changes and licenses and all that boring paperwork, it is official that both belong to the same universe (or it will be in season 2 of Daredevil: Born Again). Will we finally be able to have this superhero buddy movie, or is Brie Larson’s cache so high that it’s not worth trying?

Sometimes we forget, but Chris Pratt appeared in the same year in one of the best and one of the worst movies of the 21st century

Chris Pratt’s career is, why not say it openly, disappointing. He shot to fame as the funny Andy Dwyer from Parks and Recreation, only to end up hitting the gym, becoming a superman (literally) and leaving comedy aside, focusing exclusively on action and the most cheesy science fiction films. No, it’s not a randomly chosen adjective: I invite you to watch Electric State and No Mercy, to see if after the experience you can come up with another one. However, in 2013 his career was set to be very different. That year, […]

Chris Pratt’s career is, why not say it openly, disappointing. He shot to fame as the funny Andy Dwyer from Parks and Recreation, only to end up hitting the gym, becoming a superman (literally) and leaving comedy aside, focusing exclusively on the most cheesy action and science fiction films. No, it’s not a randomly chosen adjective: I invite you to watch Electric State and No Mercy, and see if after the experience you can come up with another one. However, in 2013 his career seemed to be heading in a very different direction. That year, in fact, he achieved something almost impossible: making one of the best and one of the worst movies of the century. That’s quite an achievement.

Stuck in the elevator

You may not remember Movie 43, and I won’t be the one to blame you. The film is a collection of the most grotesque sketches possible featuring all the big names in Hollywood, for some reason, from Hugh Jackman to Richard Gere, including Halle Berry and Kirsten Dunst, directed by up to 15 directors such as James Gunn or Bob Odenkirk. With this cast, one might imagine that it would be an incredible comedy… until you see Jackman with two testicles hanging from his chin or a woman being eaten by a shark while on her period. Things from 2013.

The sketch starring Chris Pratt alongside his then-wife Anna Faris was about a girl who reveals to her boyfriend that she is coprophilic and wants him to defecate on her in bed. He takes a laxative and wants to finish as soon as possible, which makes her angry and leave the house: he gets hit by a car and starts to… uh… “evacuate” everywhere. He, covered in his own feces, proposes to her, and she accepts, saying it’s the most beautiful thing she has ever seen. This is the level, wow. Ew.

Movie 43 was a box office success, but it went down in history as one of the most disgusting movies in cinema history. Interestingly, almost a year later (from January to December), another movie starring Chris Pratt was released that is, indeed, a true gem to highlight: Her. Yes, we all remember Joaquin Phoenix and Scarlett Johansson’s voice as the AI that his character fell in love with, but Pratt also had a good supporting role. The movie made less money than Movie 43 (that’s just how it is) but went down in history as a contemporary gem that, in the age of ChatGPT, is worth revisiting: what was once science fiction is now part of everyday life.

The following year, coinciding with the end of Parks and Rec, Pratt starred in Guardians of the Galaxy and voiced the main character in The LEGO Movie, immediately making him Hollywood’s golden boy. In 2015, Jurassic World ensured his face was everywhere. Few wanted to dig deeper and discover that two years earlier he had been covered in excrement in the wildest movie, probably, of the century. And it’s a shame, because the most interesting part of his filmography is at the beginning, when he dared to appear in things like Jennifer’s Body, Zero Dark Thirty, or Moneyball. Getting buff was the beginning of the end of his charisma… And many of us still miss him. Is it too late to stop making millions and care a little more about leaving a good legacy?

Movie theaters have their best box office since 2020, and it's the best possible news for streaming

When everyone thought movie theaters were dead, they suddenly rebelled with the best January since 2020: 620 million at the American box office (36 million more than the next record of 2023), in a phenomenon that is repeating in almost all countries. Low and medium-budget films have been piling up, achieving results of all kinds, from just enough to save the plates of Sin Piedad to the astronomical figures of La asistenta, which has already grossed 334 million worldwide, practically multiplying its budget by ten. And this is […]

When everyone thought movie theaters were dead, they suddenly rebelled with the best January since 2020: $620 million at the American box office (36 million more than the next record of 2023), in a phenomenon that is repeating in almost every country. Low and medium-budget films have been piling up, achieving all kinds of results, from just enough to save the plates of Sin Piedad to the stratospheric figures of La asistenta, which has already grossed $334 million worldwide, practically multiplying its budget by ten. And this is good news for movie theaters… but, above all, for streaming services.

Enjoy it as it should be: on TV

Let’s take the theatrical release of Sin Piedad, starring Chris Pratt, as a paradigmatic example. I don’t know if you’ve seen it, but its tone, script, and style are those of a movie made directly for streaming. It cost about 60 million dollars, and Prime Video is well aware that if it were released as an original on its platform, no one would watch it. The cinema no longer serves as the main exhibition window, but rather as a showcase of what is to come to your streaming. What matters is not that it makes enough to be profitable, but that it piques the viewer’s curiosity to keep paying for another month.

The 4.9 euros it costs in Spain (14.99 in the United States) monthly is more interesting for Amazon than the money it makes from ticket sales, because that has to be shared among too many intermediaries. The streaming revenue is all theirs. And, logically, more people will always watch a movie that was number 1 in theaters than one whose existence they are unaware of, no matter how much Chris Pratt is featured prominently. Thus, Sin Piedad has grossed 49 million and will not cover expenses in theaters, but it is more than enough: it was number 1 for an entire week and was talked about on social media. The sleight of hand could not have gone better. It will be profitable.

Years ago, the success of a movie was based on two distinct windows. The first and main one was the cinema. The second was the sales (and rentals) of VHS and DVD, which was much more powerful than believed. Now, it has diversified much more: theaters remain the first window in terms of time, but not in terms of importance. In fact, there are movies in the United States that earn more money for the producer through VOD (hence they release them earlier, even risking piracy) or that have their main life later, when they are offered to all users under subscription.

Of course Warner is interested in the fact that One Battle After Another has made money at the box office and received Oscar nominations, but don’t be fooled by reality: the 208 million it grossed (compared to a budget of 130-175 million) would have been considered a failure in the past, but fame has kept the audience subscribed to HBO Max and brought in new viewers. At $18.49 for the standard version, multiplied by 128 million subscribers worldwide, the result is 2.366 billion a month. A month! Are you already convinced that movie theaters are just the trailers for streaming?

It is the new normal, and the final station of this journey we started in 2020: the coexistence between movie theaters and streaming that has led to all of them taking a good slice. The only problem? What Netflix is going to do with Warner, which could disrupt everything again. I’m afraid only time will tell. Let’s keep our fingers crossed to continue like this.

The first Marvel video game was created by a nuclear engineer. We never heard from her again

We have Marvel everywhere. Not just in comics (in fact, perhaps less in comics than anywhere else), but in movies, series, amusement parks, and pop culture in general. There is no one who doesn’t know Iron Man, Spider-Man, or Hulk, and the proof of this is how well all their video games continue to perform, from Marvel Rivals to the well-known Spider-Man by Insomniac. However, this love story between superheroes and video games doesn’t come from now, but from a whopping 44 years ago, when Atari […]

We have Marvel everywhere. Not just in comics (in fact, perhaps less in comics than anywhere else), but in movies, series, theme parks, and pop culture in general. There is no one who doesn’t know Iron Man, Spider-Man, or Hulk, and the proof of this is how well all their video games continue to perform, from Marvel Rivals to the well-known Spider-Man by Insomniac. However, this love story between superheroes and video games does not come from now, but from a whopping 44 years ago, when Atari received the game of a certain web-slinger that became one of the most popular of the time… although we would never hear about its creator again.

Do what a spider does

You probably know Parker Brothers (now Hasbro) for their board games, such as Monopoly, Clue, Risk, Ouija, or Scrabble, but back in the day, trying not to fall behind, they also opened a branch dedicated exclusively to video games. And they were not exactly small: in the final half of 1982, they earned 74 million dollars thanks to their Star Wars games or this Spider-man, and somehow became giants in the industry, although they gradually abandoned it.

The challenge was not small: to take a character with 20 years of history (and quite a convoluted one, too) and turn him not only into a comic book hero but also into a pixelated one. For this, they enlisted the help of Marvel and created an alternative story in which Norman Osborn becomes the Green Goblin again and escapes from prison with the intention of blowing up the Empire State Building with a super bomb. Will he be able to catch him before he succeeds? Well, that’s where the player comes in: the whole game involves climbing a building, disarming bombs, and fighting against some enemies that appear randomly without falling.

Ah, yes: in addition, you had a fluid meter to make webs (with which you could move between different parts of the building), and if you ran out of it, you would fall to the ground and lose a life. The classic Parker luck. The curious thing is that the game’s director, Laura Nikolich had no intention of ending up making video games. In fact, she studied computer programming and ended up working at a nuclear plant programming the systems. In other words, a fully-fledged nuclear engineer… until Atari contacted her. Partly to meet a female quota, and partly because she was one of the few people at that time who really knew how to program.

In fact, he had absolute creative control, and even before his death in 2024, he claimed that this was the best stage of his life. However, he wasn’t necessarily a fan of comics: if the Green Goblin appeared in the game, it wasn’t because he was a Marvel fan, but because it was much easier to include him as a character, since he used the same algorithm as Spider-Man. Believe it or not, it was a huge success, and Atari 2600 fans still hold it dear in their hearts.

And so, if she managed to make it big, did Nikolich, our favorite gaming nuclear engineer, have a long career in video games? Well… As you might guess from the date, no. In 1983, E.T caused the industry crash, and she was one of the first to be let go from the offices, while working on a Care Bears game that would never see the light of day, according to her, because of marketing. We only heard from her once more, in 1984, when she directed the ColecoVision version of Frogger II. From there, she disappeared. Well, more or less: two of her children work in the industry, one at DICE and another at Bungie. In the end, the pixels as fists were worth something more than just a good memory.

Who is Wonder Man? The Marvel character that has changed everything on Disney+ compared to the comics

If you’re not interested in Marvel and the MCU, I guess “Wonder Man” sounds to you like a kind of parody of Wonder Woman. And in reality, his origin has a lot to do with the DC heroine, but over the years he has gained his own little space within the comics

If you’re not into Marvel and the MCU, I suppose “Wonder Man” sounds like a kind of parody of Wonder Woman. And in reality, his origin has a lot to do with the DC heroine, but over the years he has carved out his own niche in superhero comics. Now he debuts on Disney+ with an 8-episode series that will have a few people cheering with joy and the majority wondering, “Excuse me, what is this?”. More than 60 years illuminate a character you hadn’t heard of until now, but I assure you he has a more or less fascinating story. That said, it has little or nothing to do with the one Disney has invented.

Avengers, against the wonder!

In the early 1960s, Stan Lee and his loyal artists were trying to figure out what their new shared universe was all about, which began to differentiate itself from the competition with more adult plots (within reason) and characters that evolved over the issues instead of remaining fossilized in time, something that Superman and Batman had been experiencing for years. In just three years, since 1961, The House of Ideas created the Fantastic Four, Ant-Man, Iron Man, Hulk, Spider-Man, Thor, Wasp, Doctor Strange, and the X-Men. The creative torrent became so immense that in early 1964, they brought together five of these heroes to form a group, like a bargain version of the Justice League, which went down in history as the Avengers.

When Wonder Man faced the Avengers, they were barely a proper group: they had only had nine adventures, and Lee didn’t know what to do with them. In fact, in this first appearance as a villain, Simon Williams dies because no one believed he could have a future in the publisher. However, four years later we learned that the Avengers had stored his mind in a computer (it’s comics, just accept it) and another four years later he appeared in a coma.

The first pure and hard appearance of Wonder Man in the modern era of Marvel occurred in issue 131 of Avengers, when he was finally resurrected. A year later, he would regain all his powers and, in fact, he would become a member of the Avengers shortly after, in 1977. And do you know why it took 13 years for him to return? Well, of course, due to a complaint from DC, which accused Marvel of confusing people with Wonder Woman (whose first comic is from 1941) and threatened to sue them. Lee left him dead until DC did the same as they did a few years later, introducing Power Girl after Marvel did so with Power Man. Oops.

In any case, Simon Williams has been growing over the years. In fact, he has been part of three other teams of Avengers, he has become a Hollywood star (in that he is similar to the Wonder Man from Disney+), it was discovered that his brother was the supervillain known as Reaper, he fell in love with the Scarlet Witch, and even ended up fighting against the Avengers themselves, convinced that they do more harm than good in the world. Oh, yes! And he ended up fused with Rogue, allowing him to use her powers.

Come on, if you were looking for the mythical character from The Avengers in the new Marvel series, try again. However, you might find something unexpected: an alliance with the false Mandarin that is going to be quite the talk… before Avengers: Doomsday arrives and sends any other idea about the MCU to hell, of course.