ScreenCrush’s Comic Strip is a weekly roundup of the hottest superhero movie/TV news items. From Marvel to DC and points in between, if it pertains to costumed comic book heroes, we’re covering it here, bringing you our expert analysis. This week, we gleam some spoilers from Ant-Man toys, listen to a whole bunch of superheroes to be talk shop, and see how Lady Sif will fit into Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

A Quick Rundown on All of That Wolverine and Spidey Stuff

Chances are high that you are already incredibly familiar with the biggest superhero movie news of the past week: Sony and Marvel Studios reached a deal that will allow Spider-Man to appear in upcoming Marvel movies and let Kevin Feige have a creative hand in future Spidey solo movies. This is, of course, a huge deal and on that you have already exhausted yourself talking about. But just in case you missed anything, here are the necessary details:

However, this was also a pretty big week for another massively popular and never-not-present superhero. Although Kingsman: The Secret Service director Matthew Vaughn says that his version of X-Men: Days of Future Past would have featured a new, young Wolverine to replace Hugh Jackman, the original star of the superhero movie age has made it clear in the press that he’s not going anywhere. In fact, Jackman has spent the past week teasing X-Men: Apocalypse and the upcoming follow-up to The Wolverine.

First, Hugh Jackman says that Patrick Stewart will have a role in the upcoming sequel to The Wolverine, which implies that it will take place in the newly rebooted modern timeline seen at the end of Days of Future Past. This means Jackman will be playing the role in two different timelines now while two actors play Professor X.

Stewart chimed in on the subject in a different interview. It seems that yes, the next solo Wolverine movie will team him up with Hugh Jackman. He also confirms that he won’t be in X-Men: Apocalypse, but Ian McKellen will be. Hmm...

Ant-Man LEGOs Spill Spoilers and Other Marvel Studios Tidbits

As usual, another major superhero movie spoiler may have been revealed thanks to merchandising. If you don’t want to know anything about Marvel’s Ant-Man, this is your chance to skip the next few paragraphs.

Still with us? Okay. Let’s look at some LEGOs.

A few months ago, a LEGO set for Avengers: Age of Ultron seemingly revealed major details from the upcoming film. Now, the same thing is happening with Ant-Man. LEGO debuted their line of sets based on the upcoming movie at the 2015 Toy Fair in New York City this week, including one set called “Finale Battle.” Naturally, this Final Battle set features Paul Rudd’s Scott Lang/Ant-Man and Corey Stoll’s villainous Yellowjacket.

But it also features Hank Pym. In a completely different Ant-Man outfit. Yep, if this is any indication (and LEGO sets based on movies tend to borrow elements directly from those movies), then Michael Douglas’ retired superhero will enter the fray one last time to help save the day.

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But don’t take that as 100% confirmation, of course. We believe this is true, but we also believe that you should never believe anything that you see on packages intended for children.

While we’re on the subject of Marvel Studios movies coming out this summer, a new rumor has emerged, suggesting that you better not drink too much soda with Avengers: Age of Ultron ... since it’s apparently 160 minutes long. That would make it the longest movie in the Marvel cinematic universe so far, clocking in at 17 minutes longer than The Avengers. Considering how many characters are in the movie, we believe it.

And one of those characters is James Spader’s Ultron and thanks to a new toy (of course), we have our best look yet at his highly detailed “final form.” Feel free to ooh and aah all over Hot Toys’ really cool Ultron Prime toy below.

Hot Toys
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Dwayne Johnson, Sophie Turner and Everyone Else Talks a Whole Bunch

Did you know that Jeff Bridges’ Obidiah Stane was originally supposed to survive the events of Iron Man so he could show up in the sequels? And did you know that Bridges still sounds a little sore about that last-minute change? Here you go:

The Iron Monger falls into this big pit of whatever it is, some kind of acid or something, in his costume. They pull it up in the big crane and they open up his costume and he’s gone. And when we were shooting that film they said, “No we’re not going to do that. We’re just going to have you go.” And I said, “Oh shit, I was kind of disappointed.” Because I was thinking [I would] be in the sequels. But they said it’s a comic book maybe the Iron Monger will come back. I said “Yeah, right.”

When the Shazam movie was originally announced, there was plenty of debate over whether or not it would actually take place in the same DC universe as the upcoming Batman vs. Superman and Justice League. But according to Dwayne Johnson, who is set to play the villainous Black Adam, it definitely will ... because he wants to fight Batman and Superman:

It was all agreed that the worlds are all interconnected… One day you will see Black Adam go at it with Superman or Batman or any of the DC characters. But that said, there’s a great independence to Black Adam from the DC world, allowing us to inject, not only viciousness, but also winking humour.

Sophie Turner, AKA, Sansa from Game of Thrones, AKA part 2, the new Jean Grey in X-Men: Apocalypse, recently managed to talk about both of those major projects in one statement. She credits her role on the HBO drama for getting her the superhero gig (of course), but she thinks that the characters have a lot in common:

I think maybe one of the reasons that they chose me for [Jean] is because they saw the dark side of Sansa. Maybe they’re thinking, ‘Oh, Phoenix, Jean Grey.’ I definitely see a lot of parallels in there…..[Jean] struggles with her power… and not being accepted in the human world. I think in terms of [Game of Thrones], that’s kind of the way Sansa felt in that she really wanted to be a normal princess/queen and live a normal life — and she doesn’t, because of all this havoc happens. I think Jean, in a way, feels that.

Finally, we come to Will Smith, who chatted about playing Deadshot in the upcoming Suicide Squad. After years of saying no to darker roles (including, rather infamously, turning down Django Unchained), it seems that the biggest movie star in the world is ready to play a not-so-nice guy:

I guess I like the concept of dubious morals. I always liked to play in that area [...]. With Suicide Squad, we just started on that. I think I haven't explored the psychology enough of Deadshot, somebody who could take money to kill people; how he justifies that for himself. So, I still have a little bit of work to do on that, but in my life in general and in my career, those are the type of roles that I'm pushing more towards; those kinds of questions.

 

New Identities and Familiar Faces

Remember that nifty rumor that was floating around last week concerning the identity of David Ramsey’s Arrow character, John Diggle? Well, stop getting excited about it. According to the show’s executive producer, Marc Guggenheim, his real last name isn’t Stewart and he won’t become a Green Lantern any time soon.

However, he does say that DC has “other plans” for the character. Hmmm:

It’s funny, I’ve spoken to David quite a bit about this issue, I know it keeps coming up. I spoke to [writer] Geoff Johns at DC after that interview went viral. Basically, John Diggle is now a character in the comics… John Diggle is John Diggle. We’re not being coy and saying John Diggle is someone else, i.e. John Stewart. DC has other plans for that character. We love David, and we love the character of John Diggle that he’s created. We have really cool plans for him… they involve a wedding ring, but they don’t involve a power ring.

Meanwhile, Joel Kinnaman has joined the cast of Suicide Squad, filling in for Rick Flagg now that Tom Hardy has fled the project. Joel Kinnaman, eh? Take that, Marvel universe!

Speaking of casting, Gina Carano has joined the cast of Deadpool, playing a Mutant named Angel Dust. Carano is an exceptional physical actress who could literally beat up most leading men in their sleep. But, and there is no nice way to say this, we hope she’s been investing in some acting classes recently.

Finally, Jaimie Alexander’s Lady Sif is set to return to Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. this season in a plot that will involve the Asgardian warrior arriving on Earth without her memory or knowledge of her true identity. Says executive producer Jeffrey Bell:

Sif has no idea who Thor is or that she serves a king, and we’re going to have fun with that. It’ll give us some much-needed humor in a season that’s been full of betrayal and death. Sif can’t even recall who she came here from Asgard to stop, but Agent Coulson [Clark Gregg] and his team will try to help her figure all that out…We’ve been dealing a lot with space aliens and Inhumans in our last few episodes—things our Earth-bound heroes just don’t know much about. They need help understanding what’s really going on. Sif’s memory—what’s left of it—will come in very handy.

Everything Else

Today in very important news: a homeless peed and defecated on the set of Ant-Man.

We heard that Constantine may head to SyFy and get a title change for season two, but that turned out to not be true.

David Cronenberg commented on Josh Trank citing him as an influence on Fantastic Four.

Another piece of footage from that cancelled Justice League video game has surfaced online.

Yep, Gorilla Grodd is officially coming to The Flash.

 

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