Marvell News, Tips, Tricks & Ideas

Who are the X-Men for?

It’s a good time to be an X-Men fan. The stellar first season of X-Men ‘97just wrapped up, Insomniac Games is working on a Wolverine game for PlayStation 5, and the mutants are (someday) coming to the MCU.

Into the Breach, the acclaimed 2018 turn-based strategy game from Subset Games, is getting some high praise from XCOM and Marvel's Midnight Suns director Jake Solomon.

When Marvel’s Midnight Suns was released in 2022, some were disappointed that players were unable to romance any of the superhero characters in the game. While players have wondered whether or not that was Marvel or Firaxis’ decision, Midnight Suns‘ Creative Director Jake Solomon has now affirmed to Digital Trends in an interview that he truly never considered romance for the game.

Screenshots of a hero shooter said to be in development at Valve, have leaked. This comes shortly after the first details on the game were shared online, potentially revealing its name: Deadlock.

The announcement that Jake Solomon, first amongst the legendary Sid Meier's pupils, had left Firaxis to start his studio, Midsummer Studios, comes as a surprise, especially with the switch from strategy to the life sim genre. Looking towards the opportunity to create something entirely different, Soloman reflected on where his last game, Marvel's Midnight Suns, went wrong.

Reaching the top of ranked ladder requires some creative deckbuilding and is a true test of skill for any player. Second Dinner’s Marvel-themed card battler features dozens of excellent cards and powerful deck archetypes, all contributing to a fast-changing and flexible metagame. There are many great deck builds for reaching the game’s coveted Infinite rank, accessible to new and veteran players alike.

The 13-inch M4 iPad Pro measures just 5.1mm in thickness and is marketed as Apple’s thinnest product yet. However, the obvious concern that potential buyers would have is how durable it would be over long-term use, and while Apple’s executives have attempted to put people’s worries to rest by stating that a protective cowling provides structural rigidity to the latest tablet, a new bend test reveals a different story. However, what is interesting to note is that the larger iPad Pro breaks from the charging position, not from the center, as Apple added the ‘central spine’ there to increase the slate’s durability.

The finale of X-Men ‘97 aired this week, and it’s making me reflect on just how important these mutants are. Ever since their emergence in the 1960s, this superhero team has served as a cultural touchstone, providing a fictional world where issues of social oppression can be explored. And on top of all that, they’re still superheroes with radical powers. X-Men ’97 has doubled down on that to create the best Marvel series on Disney+ yet. That’s exciting, but it’s made a certain void all the more tangible: Where are all the X-Men games?

X-Men ’97 closed out its first season in the glorious, traditional way of its forebear, X-Men: The Animated Series. That is to say, with a wild cliffhanger.

Marvel has spent the last 16 years bringing some of its most iconic comic book characters to life, introducing them to millions more people than ever knew of them in the comics through the MCU's movies and TV shows. Odds are you'd not heard much, if anything, about characters like Ant-Man, Captain Marvel, and Drax before the MCU. Particularly Drax and the rest of the Guardians of the Galaxy who shot to stardom thanks to their first movie. Fast forward a decade and Groot is now well-loved enough to have an entire range of his own Funko Pops drop all at the same time.

Cameos: They’re not just videos that actors do in their living rooms for money! In its excellent first season, the X-Men ’97 writers have had a lot of fun giving viewers little views into the Marvel Universe beyond the X-Mansion. A quick glimpse of Spider-Man here, a conversation between Rogue and Captain America there — it’s a thrilling old-school approach to comic book cameos that signals the scale of what’s happening instead of teasing the potential for spinoffs.

The latest 11-inch and 13-inch M4 iPad Pro models measure 5.3mm and 5.1mm, respectively, making them the thinnest Apple products ever. The company likely attained this by switching over to Tandem OLED technology, which does not need its own backlighting and has individual pixels, allowing Apple to reduce the overall thickness. However, while there is no question that the latest iPad Pro models are design marvels, their extra sleekness can result in another ‘bendgate’ controversy, but a company executive has assured potential buyers that they have little to worry about.

Intel has ended the deployment of its Ponte Vecchio GPU, marking the end of the road for a chip that is considered to be a technical marvel.

Two former Firaxis developers have founded a new studio, Midsummer. The former director of the XCOM series, Jake Soloman, is CEO of the new studio, having left Firaxis last year.

It's only been out three months, but Sony has revealed that everyone's favorite extraction shooter has become the fastest-selling PlayStation game ever.

Chinese games giant NetEase has found itself in hot water after a streamer revealed the contents of a contract the firm was asking creators sign to play the alpha of Marvel Rivals.

The team behind Marvel Rivals has apologised for seeking to restrict negative coverage of the game from content creators.

After spending a weekend with the Marvel Rivals alpha test, I discovered that I had almost completely forgotten it was a Marvel game.

The Marvel Rivals team has issued a statement on the recent controversy surrounding its content creator program. This comes after the contract that creators were asked to sign to access the game leaked, revealing that it prevented them from providing "subjective negative reviews", and even from comparing Marvel Rivals to its competitors.

The developer of Marvel Rivals has apologized for having a clause in its content creator contract that blocked streamers from criticizing the game.

Marvel Rivals dataminers have managed to find evidence within the closed beta test's files that suggest it'll be released on PS5 and Xbox Series in the future.

Content creators who were offered access to Marvel Rivals were reportedly made to sign a contract forbidding them from making "subjective negative reviews of the game". The contract also says that the creator cannot "engage in discussions that are detrimental to the reputation of the game", or compare it to its competitors.

The last few weeks have seen a rare admission from Team Marvel Studios: Maybe, just maybe, it overloaded the market and the last few movies and shows kinda stunk and even a behemoth, culture-warping, mega-property needs to slow down and take a breath every once in a while. Maybe.

A reliable Marvel Rivals insider has shared evidence from the closed beta test's files that hints at 20 unannounced characters coming to the game, including all of the Fantastic Four members, Squirrel Girl, and Venom.

Microsoft's decision to close several development studios, such as Tango Gameworks, Arkane Austin, and more, has generally been met with a big thumbs-down online. Tango was responsible for break-out hit Hi-Fi Rush in 2023, a game considered one of the best on Xbox in recent years, and went on to win a BAFTA for Animation.

There is no end to the X-Men ’97’s nostalgia streak: If simply reviving a Saturday morning favorite from the 1990s wasn’t enough, the creative team behind the Disney Plus series has littered each episode with even more in-jokes, from retro side-scroller references to connections to other Marvel animated properties. This week’s episode, “Tolerance Is Extinction — Part 2” contains a whopper for those around in 2000 for the release of the first-ever X-Men movie – a perfect dig that also works as a pithy callback.

Carrying on the legacy of its predecessor, X-Men ’97 leaves no stone unturned when it comes to adapting and remixing the great X-Men comics of the 1980s and ’90s. And the final moments of this week’s episode, “Tolerance is Extinction — Part 2,” are no exception.

There is no end to the X-Men ’97’s nostalgia streak: If simply reviving a Saturday morning favorite from the 1990s wasn’t enough, the creative team behind the Disney Plus series has littered each episode with even more in-jokes, from retro side-scroller references to connections to other Marvel animated properties. This week’s episode, “Tolerance Is Extinction — Part 2” contains a whopper for those around in 2000 for the release of the first-ever X-Men movie – a perfect dig that also works as a pithy callback.

Ten years ago, writer Drew McWeeny posed a question in the headline of his latest column: “Has life in the age of casual magic made moviegoers numb to the amazing?” Frustrated by news of what would be 2016’s Alice Through the Looking Glass, which he considered an unnecessary sequel to a film everyone saw and no one really loved, McWeeny revisited the film’s predecessor, Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland. He concluded that it was both a terrible movie and a technical marvel. McWeeny’s column articulated an existential crisis in both moviemaking and moviegoing: In a cinematic world without limits, the combination of extraordinary technical innovation and the lack of narrative ambition to match was making moviegoers numb.

's latest season is delving into the multiverse with the introduction of an X-Men character that's often underrepresented in the gaming space. Since its launch in October 2022, Second Dinner's free-to-play, deck-builder title has seen the addition of many characters from across the Marvel Universe, from more well-known teams such as the Avengers or the X-Men, through to the Thunderbolts, a team comprised of reformed supervillains that is due to get its first movie in the in 2025 after the latest change-up in scheduling.

Earlier today, it was announced that Xbox will be closing multiple studios under its umbrella, including Tango Gameworks and Arkane Austin. Despite having made several high-profile titles between them, including Hi-Fi Rush, Ghostwire: Tokyo, The Evil Within series, Prey (2018), and Redfall, Xbox explained that it will be shutting the studios to funnel more cash into "high-impact" titles from Bethesda.

The video game industry has reacted with shock and anger after Microsoft shut down several game studios today, May 7, 2024 including Arkane Austin and Tango Gameworks, the developers of Redfall and Hi-Fi Rush respectively.

Up until very recently, it has felt like the X-Men were lying dormant. Right up there alongside Spider-Man for a while during the early 2000s, Marvel's resident mutants have been overlooked for a while due to them not being included in the MCU. That all changes this summer via Deadpool & Wolverine, and thanks to the combination of that movie and X-Men '97, the X-Men are back, and yet another Wolverine Funko Pop! to celebrate that is being released today.

I've been wishing I could be Spider-Man for as long as I can remember, but the closest I've come to replicating that fictional feeling is by swinging around New York as the web-slinger in Insomniac's Spidey games. The idea of actually being able to fire webs from my wrists was an unattainable goal since, well, radioactive spiders aren't a thing, and if they were, being bitten by one probably wouldn't result in the development of superpowers. Kids today won't need to rely on that impossibility as Hasbro has created real-life Web Blasters, no radioactive spider bite needed.

My Hero Academia returns this Saturday with the highly anticipated premiere of its seventh season. The latest season of the mega-popular superhero action anime is set to adapt the “Star and Stripe” arc of Kōhei Horikoshi’s original manga. That means the arrival of America’s No. 1 Hero, Star and Stripe, in Japan to aid Izuku Midoriya and his classmates in their battle against Tomura Shigaraki and the Paranormal Liberation Front.

Marvel vs. Capcom Infinite had more than a few problems when it launched back in 2017. It was fun enough to play, but it has a less than stellar story, it was updated with DRM years after launch, and it's missing popular characters such as the X-Men. However, the biggest problem that faces the title is how badly it's aging, as despite only being seven years old, it's art style and graphics leave an awful lot to be desired.

Prior to Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite’s release in the fall of 2017, the crossover fighting game faced an uphill battle with newbies and longtime fans alike because of its abrasively shiny and underlit art style. Now, seven years later, a popular fighting game Twitch streamer announced he is working on a fan project that will give the game a facelift and, hopefully, encourage players who passed on it to give it a second chance.

Silas Darkmoon and the Darkmoon Faire will be creating chaos again on May 1. Tap the Darkmoon Faire icon in the center of the map to complete challenges, earn prize tickets for you and your guild, and then exchange tickets for marvelous rewards of your choice.

Movie theaters, and the studios that provide their content, have been clawing their way out of a financial crater ever since the COVID-19 pandemic began. After Avengers: Endgame, the live-action Lion King, and Todd Phillips’ Joker helped fuel record-breaking box-office returns in 2019, the pandemic-era lockdowns froze theaters in their tracks, and the subsequent thaw has been slow and difficult for every industry that touches cinema.

Ever since Square Enix announced Kingdom Hearts 4, fans have been pouring over their favourite Disney movies, imagining Sora in Star Wars and even the MCU, but today, they're doing something a bit different. Now, the community is trying to put together the worst possible KH4.

Iman Vellani is the kind of movie star whose enthusiasm, humor, and openness radiates off the screen and feels positively incandescent in person. The 21-year-old actress, best known for her role as Kamala Khan in 2022’s Ms. Marvel and 2023’s The Marvels,is unabashedly open in sharing her love of all things MCU-related, from playfully debating the finer points of canonical continuity with Marvel Studios head Kevin Feige to co-writing a Ms. Marvellimited series with Sabir Pirzada.

Marvel vs. Capcom fans have been pointing out some of the big similarities between Hunter x Hunter: Nen x Impact and MVC3 and Infinite, which makes sense since they share a developer.

Modern technology has opened up new avenues for entertainment, and large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT and Gemini are leading the way. These AI marvels have the ability to engage in natural conversations, offering not just productivity assistance but also delightful gaming experiences.

It's fair to say that Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League's post-launch plans probably aren't going the way that Rocksteady and Warner Bros. wanted them to. Its player count has been dropping ever since launch, despite a small bump from the release of the Joker in Season 1, and it's now dropped so low though that more players are actually playing a game that's been pronounced dead for months.

The first gameplay footage for Hunter x Hunter: Nen Impact has been revealed from a demo version of the game, although some fans don't seem to be too impressed with the graphics.

Magic: The Gathering’s recent set of Fallout-themed cards is the franchise’s “best-performing Commander set ever” said Hasbro CEO Chris Cocks. The announcement, made Wednesday during an earnings call with investors, brings attention to the potential of the trading card games’ ambitious Universes Beyond initiative. But it also highlights the risks of working with IP licensed from other companies.

After months of controversy and discourse, the Stellar Blade reviews are finally in. As of writing, it has an aggregate score of 85 on OpenCritic, earning it the 'Mighty' badge. Critics praise its "fast-paced combat", "beautiful" visuals, and "captivating story", and some even argue that it's one of the best PS5 exclusives on the market.

Baldur's Gate 3 fans who still haven't gotten their fill of everybody's favourite vampiric sadist, Astarion, can now look forward to an all-new adventure alongside Neil Newbon. The actor portrays the ultimate evil antagonist, Vecna, in a one-shot tabletop adventure, putting in an appropriately imposing vocal performance as one of the setting's big-bads.

A new Deadpool & Wolverine trailer has been released by Marvel Studios ahead of the Ryan Reynolds-led sequel’s release exclusively in theaters on July 26. After teasing his appearance in the first trailer, the new Deadpool & Wolverine trailer features plenty of face time for Hugh Jackman as both the actor and Wolverine make their Marvel Cinematic Universe debuts.

With each new Fortnite season comes a slew of new cosmetics to earn through the Battle Pass or to purchase in the item shop. With the game being out for nearly six years, the number of skins in the game has grown to absurd levels. No longer will you run into a match of solo players wearing similar skins. Between regular releases of skins and special event skins involving IPs like Star Wars, Street Fighter, Marvel, and more, every player has a very unique locker full of cosmetics to bust out in a given match.

April 17's Roxxon Presents: Thor #1 is a tongue-in-cheek satire that offers up an exacting look at what the absolute worst case scenario of corporate comics can be, with the evil Roxxon Corporation, led by the vicious minotaur Dario Agger and powered by the Asgardian villain the Enchantress, having bought and warped all of Thor's adventures into the corporate synergy comic to end all corporate synergy comics.

Insomniac Games has deployed Spider-Man 2 Patch 1.002.003 for PlayStation 5, offering fixes for various encountered issues within the game.

Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania star Michael Douglas wanted to be killed off in the Marvel movie – and he even had an idea of how he wanted his character to go out. 

In case you'd forgotten, EA and its studio Cliffhanger Games is working on a Black Panther game. The announcement was one of those that's more of a recruitment drive than anything else, so it's likely still years away from release. In fact, the team is still growing; interestingly, one recent job opening confirms the game's structure will be that of an open world title.

Publisher Marvelous and developer Voracious Games have unveiled a console port of their well-received shopkeeping sim, Potionomics. Coming to PS5 this autumn as Potionomics: Masterwork Edition, this is a souped-up version of the game that adds various new features to the experience.

Capes is a turn-based superhero tactics game set in a world where the villains have already won. We've had our eye on this one for a little while now, as it looks like it could be quite special. Here's hoping it won't be received as tragically as Firaxis' excellent Marvel's Midnight Suns when it hits on 29th May on PS5 and PS4.

Streaming is taking yet another step toward cable. Just weeks after combining its Hulu and Disney Plus services, Disney Plus is adding streaming channels, according to a report from The Information. This marks the latest push toward the old model of TV-watching from one of the world’s biggest streaming companies, and while that may sound like a step backwards, it’s probably a good thing in the long run.

Becoming Marvel’s strongest villain isn’t easy. There are tons of scary enemies in the comic book world that strike fear everywhere. Let’s end the debate. These are the Marvel villains who rise above the others.

People constantly debate who the strongest and weakest Avengers are, both by those in the Marvel Universe and by fans trying to argue their favourite character’s case. But, of course, every Avenger has strengths and weaknesses. While some may be physically stronger, others find their strength in their intelligence or sarcasm. So, who is the strongest Avenger?

A couple of years back, VIZ Media and Marvel Comics joined forces to put a fresh manga spin on some of the superhero giant's most popular characters. Now those stories have found a permanent home on the VIZ Manga digital service.

Somehow it's been 13 years since Tom Hiddleston first stepped into the shoes of Loki, his beloved character in the MCU. But where did he look to for inspiration, when taking on the iconic role over a decade ago? It turns out, one of the answers is none other than Alan Rickman's dastardly villain Hans Gruber from the legendary 1988 Bruce Willis action movie Die Hard (which yes, is one of the best Christmas movies of all time).

The finale of Amazing Spider-Man: Blood Hunt arrives this July, and it could be spelling curtains for none other than Morbius. That's right, the just revealed solicit and cover for Amazing Spider-Man: Blood Hunt #3 could be teasing that the so-called 'Living Vampire' could soon become very dead.

The Steam Deck OLED is a marvel of a PC gaming handheld that manages to improve on the base model. However, recent reports from handheld owners have been coming in, stating that the transparent casing has been cracking.

In a move that's sure to be familiar to all you Marvel's Spider-Man 2 and Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth fans, Bandai Namco is telling Elden Ring fans to "treat" themselves to 18 inches of Messmer the Impaler by picking up the Shadow of the Erdtree Collector's Edition. Quiet in the back, now.

With Marvel’s Daredevil: Born Again wrapping up production, one fuzzy unknown is the future of another character in the street-level saga’s orbit: Echo. Alaqua Cox tells Polygon she is in the dark, too; unlike some of her peers who got their start on Disney Plus shows, Marvel hasn’t mentioned to the 27-year-old actor when or if Maya Lopez will reappear in the MCU.

A sequel to Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings is still on the way, says star Simu Liu. The actor took to Threads to respond to a fan about Marvel's lack of news on the sequel. 

EA's upcoming game could let players explore Wakanda in a way no other Marvel game has. Very little has been revealed surrounding the title since its announcement in July 2023 other than the fact it is being developed by a new AAA development studio based in Seattle, Cliffhanger Games, which consists of a team of,,, and veterans.

Since its release almost five years ago, Marvel Champions has put out a near-constant stream of new content. As of this list, there are a whopping forty-one different scenarios among the core set, campaign expansions, and one-off scenario packs, with another five to be released in the upcoming Age of Apocalypse box. Impressively, almost all these scenarios are good—some are better than others, but I would happily play almost all of them. With so much available content, I thought it would be fun to rank my favorite scenarios in the game, from the core set to the latest campaign release (NeXt Evolution at the time of writing this article).

Deadpool's whole thing is poking fun at pop culture, from the 2018 movie's post-credits scene where he went back in time to stop Ryan Reynolds from signing up for Green Lantern, to what looks like a jibe at the Disney/Fox merger in the Deadpool 3 trailer. 

Deadpool is gearing up for his MCU debut, and the latest look at the threequel gave us more of what we really want: Wolverine. Nine minutes of Deadpool & Wolverine was shown during Disney’s CinemaCon 2024 presentation on Thursday, which also included the first trailer for Marvel’s Captain America: Brave New World (slick, small-ish spy movie) and an update on Thunderbolts*, which now has an asterisks in the title. But on to Deadpool 3.

Displate is the industry leader in metal posters, officially partnering with the likes of Marvel and Star Wars to create artwork fans can proudly display on their walls. Displate has now added a collection to its metal poster options that takes its posters up yet another level. It has been dubbed Textra, and much like the name suggests, it adds texture to some of its pre-existing designs, giving the posters a three-dimensional effect when the light bounces off them as well as adding touch to the senses its products can appeal to.

Ah, the Sega Genesis days. A simpler time when you didn’t need to purchase a season pass or coordinate time zones with your friend in Japan. No, if you wanted to play, you’d fire up your console and get to it. Back then, the superhero genre, or the superhero game genre, wasn’t as massive as it is now. Sure, people knew all about Batman, Spider-Man and all the rest of them, but it wasn’t the mania we have now. There was still a plethora of superpowered video games to play. Truth be told, most of them were okay, while only a handful stood out. So, let’s take a look at those Marvel and DC superhero games on the Sega Genesis that deserve to be revisited.