Jason Momoa

Faster than a speeding bullet, Comic-Con is upon once again. The biggest, nerdiest party in the world kicks off on Wednesday in San Diego and, yes, ScreenCrush and ComicsAlliance will be on hand to cover it all. With Marvel, Sony, and Paramount, all sitting out this year’s big geek bash, the clear #1 panel to anticipate is Warner Bros.’ Saturday morning showcase of their upcoming slate. The presentation will include clips from the new live-action Pan starring Hugh Jackman, and the movie version of the ’60s spy series The Man From U.N.C.L.E. But the star attraction is unquestionably an appearance by Zack Snyder and the stars of next spring’s hotly anticipated Batman vs. Superman.Faster than a speeding bullet, Comic-Con is upon once again. The biggest, nerdiest party in the world kicks off on Wednesday in San Diego and, yes, ScreenCrush and ComicsAlliance will be on hand to cover it all. With Marvel, Sony, and Paramount, all sitting out this year’s big geek bash, the clear #1 panel to anticipate is Warner Bros.’ Saturday morning showcase of their upcoming slate. The presentation will include clips from the new live-action Pan starring Hugh Jackman, and the movie version of the ’60s spy series The Man From U.N.C.L.E. But the star attraction is unquestionably an appearance by Zack Snyder and the stars of next spring’s hotly anticipated Batman vs. Superman.

It’s no secret that Zack Snyder’s Batman vs. Superman is the big stepping stone that will take audiences into the larger DC superhero movie universe. After all, that title promises a fight between the two most popular superhero movies of all time and a dawn of justice. This is going to be the movie that introduces the Justice League and cameo appearances by Jason Momoa’s Aquaman and Ezra Miller’s Flash have been poorly kept secrets for months now. However, the details of how the two heroes figure into the plot have been revealed and it is probably not what you think.

Furious 7 is the fourth highest grossing movie of all time. Ever. In film history. Number four, after Avatar, Titanic, and The Avengers. $1.5 billion at the box office and counting. A lot of the credit for that success goes to its longtime stars and creators who’ve kept the franchise running for 15 years through highs and lows. But some of the credit also goes to James Wan, who stepped in to direct the film after longtime franchise steward Justin Lin left the series, and who managed to keep the movie and its crew together following the tragic death of star Paul Walker. He delivered a really satisfying Fast & Furious that simultaneously served as a lovely tribute to Walker. It was an incredibly difficult job, and Wan nailed it.

Arthur Curry has never looked finer. Late Thursday night, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice director Zack Snyder tweeted a first look at actor Jason Momoa in the role of Aquaman, a member of the big screen Justice League making his debut in next year's Bat/Supes throwdown.

The rumors that ‘Game of Thrones’ star Jason Momoa would be joining the DC Cinematic Universe as Aquaman flooded the Internet long before Ben Affleck was cast as Batman. When Momoa’s casting was made official through an announcement a few months, the news was greeted with a shrug. We already knew the worst kept secret in superhero moviedom! However, the announcement did mean that Momoa was allowed to stop dodging questioning (or outright lying) and chat about the character. And he has just revealed a few more interesting nuggets of information.

For anyone who remembers the days when just one Spider-Man movie seemed an impossible dream, the above infographic is an astonishing representation of how comic book superheroes now dominate popular entertainment. ComicsAlliance’s own graphics maestro Dylan Todd put together this timeline that reveals what the next six years of superhero movies look like, with some dates and titles still to be announced. The graphic will be updated as new information is released.

"Whitewashing," the practice of casting of white actors to play characters who were other ethnicities in the source material, has been a highly controversial Hollywood practice over the past several years. But what about when the reverse happens, and someone who isn't white is cast to play a character who has long been portrayed as white? Well, at minimum it can help correct an historic imbalance in superhero comics; in the specific case of Aquaman, it may also make him a lot cooler. The actor who plays Aquaman in DC's upcoming slate of superhero movies is Jason Momoa, who was born in Hawaii and is of partly Polynesian descent -- and Momoa fully intends to embrace his Polynesian heritage in his portrayal of the character.

The Warner Bros. announcement on Wednesday of ten upcoming movies based on DC Comics properties neatly fills in a calendar of dates that the studio previously provided -- and help flesh out an extraordinary timetable of DC and Marvel superhero movies over the next six years from Warner Bros, Marvel Studios, Fox, and Sony Columbia. ComicsAlliance's own graphics maestro Dylan Todd put together a timeline that reveals what those six years look like, including 29 confirmed release dates between now and the end of 2020, with several dates and titles still to be announced. For anyone who remembers the days when just one Spider-Man movie seemed an impossible dream, it's an astonishing representation of how comic book superheroes now dominate popular entertainment.

Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice director Zack Snyder apparently has a superpower: The ability to know when radio DJs are talking smack about Aquaman. Last week, after the on-air personalities on Detroit's sports-talk radio station The Ticket spoke somewhat disparagingly about the character, who will reportedly be played by Jason Momoa in the upcoming Batman V Superman, Snyder called in to school them about Aquaman's "cool abilities."

Changing the racial identity of characters has become a contentious issue amongst fans of superhero comics and their adaptations in other media. The awful practices of casting white actors to play people of color, or of turning previously non-white characters into white characters, is all too common in movie adaptations of books, cartoons, TV shows, or even real life stories -- but rather surprisingly, superhero comics and their adaptations have mostly avoided this problem. In comics, the controversy takes a different direction. Several white characters have become non-white, mostly in movies, and sometimes in reboots. Michael B. Jordan as Johnny Storm in the new Fantastic Four; Helena Bertinelli aka the Huntress in the New 52; Nick Fury in the Ultimate Comics line and on screen. These are changes that agitate some readers -- but realistically, the changes don't go far enough. Superhero comics have a cultural bias towards white characters that has everything to do with their institutional history and nothing to do with what makes sense to the stories.