Who is the strongest Avenger in the MCU?

In a hilarious moment in Thor: Ragnarok, Thor attempts to pilot a S.H.I.E.L.D. quinjet, but first he has to say his team codename as a password. Although he’s sure it’s “Strongest Avenger,” Tony Stark has actually set it to “Point Break.”

The Asgardian is certain of his status as the biggest gun out of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, but is that really the case? Sure, it’s pretty easy to argue that’s a fact based on the original six founding members of the team, but the MCU has grown exponentially in the decade plus change since the Avengers first assembled, with the franchise’s roster of heroes now encompassing many more characters who could make strong claims to steal Thor’s preferred title.

Of course, a few of these might never have actually been card-carrying members of the Avengers in the MCU to date, so they’re disqualified. But out of those who have served on the team at some point, who are the top 5 strongest Avengers of them all?

5. Hulk

Image via Marvel Studios

There’s no denying that the Hulk is one of the strongest Avengers. We all saw him fling Loki around Stark Tower like he was a rag doll in 2012.

Bruce Banner has given us small details throughout his MCU appearances that explain just how truly strong the Hulk is. Remember, the Hulk was made in an attempt gone bad at a super soldier serum recreation, and that the Green Guy is almost 100% gamma radiation. The transformation, or “incidents” as Banner calls them, happen when he is made exceptionally angry (until he learns to “always be angry”). Anger is an incredible power in the Hulk’s hands for both good and bad. All that needs to be mentioned are the stairs in Avengers: Endgame. Banner had a temper tantrum because he couldn’t take the elevator, which ended up not only blowing out a wall and further injuring civilians, but also made him to blame for Loki escaping.  

In The Avengers, there’s a brief, but important scene where Banner tells Fury that the Hulk can’t be killed. “I know, I’ve tried,” he says, which brings the tone to something darker that isn’t usually talked about in regards to Banner or the Hulk: Banner’s torturous existence as both monster and man, “I put a bullet in my mouth and the other guy spit it out,” Banner revealed.

The Hulk is unkillable. He is the epitome of brute strength, which is one of the only reasons the Hulk isn’t higher on this list. While he’s beyond powerful, he sheer strength and capability is not a controlled power like the rest of the Avengers.

4. Vision

Image via Marvel Studios

The Infinity Stones are shown in the MCU as the strongest forces in the Universe. Considering Vision’s life is granted by the Mind Stone, that means he’s 1/6th as powerful as the Stones combined.

While he partially started out as Tony Stark’s AI assistant, Vision later became sentient after battling it out with Ultron and being left in fragments across the internet. Vision claimed he was neither Ultron or Jarvis, but a new sentient being that vowed to protect humanity. While we usually see Vision remain relatively peaceful, he’s obviously very strong as well as intelligent. We don’t see how he kills Ultron, but we see a flash of light that the threat’s been dealt with.

Because Vision is a synthezoid, he possesses abilities and powers most of the other Avengers couldn’t even dream of. From being a master in combat, as shown in his fight sequences with Clint and the White Vision, to all of his superhuman abilities, there’s not much Vision can’t do. Just ask Ant-Man: During the airport scene in Captain America: Civil War, we get to see more of Vision’s fighting when he takes down an oversized version of the size-changing hero, treating him as if he were a paper-weight. And once WandaVision aired, we glimpsed a whole new side of Vision. The version of Vision was far more humane, which also meant he was quicker to react with emotions, and he was able to manipulate the density of his body with ease.

Above all else though, Vision is the Mind Stone, which gives him a set of powers comparable only to Wanda or Doctor Strange (who narrowly missed out on a place in this ranking).

3. Thor

Image via Marvel Studios

Sorry, Thor! We love you, but you’ve only made it to number three. That may seem controversial, but things will make sense soon enough. Not that this is to suggest Thor is a pipsqueak. He’s a 1500 year deity, for crying out loud.

The best place to start is him being worthy enough to lift Mjolnir, even after his drunken antics got him kicked out of Asgard in his first movie. Flash forward seven years to Avengers: Infinity War’s release, and he’s like a brand new hero, one who is nearly as loyal as Captain America. In Infinity War, we see Thor in space trying to forge a new weapon after the destruction of his hammer. Since Thanos has already demolished Nidavellir, it is Thor who holds open the mechanism and takes the full power of a star through him. He’s a literal god, not many characters can compete with that.  

If there was any doubt though, seeing him face Thanos at the end of Infinity War and into Endgame only proves his strength. Thanos even sees and fears it when he calmly tells Thor, “Should’ve gone for the head” after the god landed a blow that did actual damage. This quote comes full circle in Endgame when they find Thanos in The Garden and Thor uses Stormbreaker to cut his head off with little to no hesitation.

Sure, there can be an argument made for Thanos being weaker without the stones, but he is still a Titan and Thor still chopped his head off.

2. Captain Marvel

Screenshot via Marvel Studios

Introduced in 2019’s Captain Marvel, Brie Larson’s heroine has been widely regarded as the most powerful Avenger currently in the MCU and for good reason. Captain Marvel’s energy powers come from the Tesseract itself and grants her both incredible speed and the ability to fire blasts of energy at her foes.

Alongside this acquired strength, Carol Danvers also has Kree blood running through her veins gifting, her extreme durability and strength that is on full display during her altercation with Thanos at the conclusion of Endgame. Where a headbutt sent many Avengers flying back, Captain Marvel was able to withstand this attack and continue dueling with the Mad Titan fairly evenly. Memorably, she even left Thanos quaking in his boots when she shot through his mothership like a comet and brought it down single-handed.

Don’t believe me that Carol is stronger than Thor? Then take it up with the highest authority there is on the subject. Marvel Studios chief Kevin Feige specifically, without any doubt, labelled Captain Marvel as “the most powerful character in the Marvel Cinematic Universe” back in 2019. At the time of her introduction this was unequivocally true. However, Carol has since been outranked by a certain competitor on a power-level, even if her emotional strength and overall capabilities remain top tier.

1. Scarlet Witch

Image via Marvel Studios

Wanda Maximoff is without a doubt the most powerful Avenger in the MCU right now. From Infinity War onward, she has continued to display immeasurable power. Her first impressive feat came when she destroyed the Mind Stone from the head of Vision while holding back Thanos with her energy. Destroying an Infinity Stone is a task most characters wouldn’t even dream of, and yet she was able to do so while holding off the universe’s greatest threat.

The next time we see Scarlet Witch unleash her power is in the battle against Thanos at the end of Endgame. In this fight, she is able to duel with him to the point of forcing him to send down an airstrike allowing him to get out of danger.

However, the best argument for Scarlet Witch being the most powerful Avenger comes from the strength she showcased during WandaVision. At the conclusion of this series, she is able to fully embrace her persona as the Scarlet Witch using her chaos magic to take out Agatha Harkness while still maintaining her spell over Westview so that her children and Vision may remain alive.

This feat was only topped when we saw Wanda fully embrace the Darkhold during Doctor Strange in the Mutliverse of Madness. When and if we see Wanda again in the MCU its likely her power will have either grown or maintained from this point so she rightfully takes the number one spot on this list.

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What happened to ‘The Breakfast Club’ cast members?

Ah, The Breakfast Club – the quintessential 80s teen film. Almost four decades after its release, John Hughes’ masterpiece continues to win new fans with its whip-smart punchlines and tender stories of a group of school friends coming of age, while for those who saw it the first time around, John Hughes’ masterpiece evokes heady nostalgia for days gone by.

But what about the cast? What exactly happened to Claire, Andrew, and the other soon-to-be graduates of Shermer High School? Here’s the lowdown.

Molly Ringwald (Claire)

Molly Ringwald quickly found herself in demand after The Breakfast Club’s success, with Howard Deutch tapping her for Pretty in Pink (1986), which was also written by John Hughes. A slew of coming-of-age comedy dramas of varying quality followed, though Ringwald struck out against the typecasting, turning in a creditable performance as Cordelia in Jean-Luce Godard’s idiosyncratic adaptation of King Lear (1987) and playing the star role in the TV film about AIDS activist Alison Gertz, Something To Live For: The Alison Gertz Story (1992).

Ringwald stepped away from acting around the turn of the 2000s, but returned a few years later, taking a starring role in ABC’s long-running teen drama The Secret Life of the American Teenager (2008-13). Ringwald continues to work steadily in Hollywood; recent appearances include supporting roles in Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story and Single Drunk Female.

Emilio Estevez (Andrew)

Though Estevez followed The Breakfast Club with a couple of misfires – 1986’s box office bomb, the Stephen King-directed Maximum Overdrive, is a case in point – his career went stratospheric in the late 1980s, with huge hits in the shape of cop comedy Stakeout (1987), a glorious turn as Billy The Kid in Young Guns (1988) and its sequel Young Guns II (1990), and commercial successes in Men At Work (1990) and Loaded Weapon 1 (1993). For Tom Cruise fans, however, his most recognizable role is as the ill-fated operative Jack in Mission: Impossible (1997).

Since the late 1990s, Estevez has increasingly transitioned to directing. Since directing his debut feature in 1986, Estevez has helmed no less than eight films; the picks of the bunch are 2010’s The Way (in which Estevez directed his father, Martin Sheen, as a pilgrim en route to Spain’s Santiago de Compostela), and 2018’s drama The Public, starring Alec Baldwin and Christian Slater.

Ally Sheedy (Allison)

Teen audiences already knew Sheedy as the friend of Matthew Broderick in 1983’s WarGames. Sheedy worked regularly in film for the rest of the 1980s, and scored a big commercial success in Short Circuit (1986). Sheedy reunited with The Breakfast Club castmate Molly Ringwald for 1990’s Betsy’s Wedding, and – playing against type – in the well-received horror-thriller Fear (1990).

Sheedy went much of the 1990s and 2000s acting in TV and low-budget films; notable credits include guest spots on the 1990s version of The Outer Limits, The Red Shoe Diaries, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, and HBO prison drama Oz. Like Ringwald, Sheedy was also a regular on Freeform’s comedy series Single Drunk Female, which ended earlier this year.

Anthony Michael Hall (Brian)

The “brains” of the Breakfast Club, Brian was played by Hall in only his fourth film appearance. John Hughes tapped Hall again later in 1985 for Weird Science, and Hall also appeared as a regular in Saturday Night Live the same year. Hall secured leading roles in a variety of comedies throughout the 1980s and 1990s, as well as a supporting role in Tim Burton’s Edward Scissorhands (1990) as Jim, the stuck-up boyfriend of Winona Ryder’s Kim. Hall spent much of the 2000s in the lead role of Paramount’s long-running Stephen King scifi drama The Dead Zone.

More recently, Hall has appeared in a wide variety of TV and film, with a supporting role in The Dark Knight (2007), a starring role opposite Brad Pitt in war satire War Machine (2017), and guest spots in Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. and The Blacklist.

Paul Gleason (Vernon)

Playing the high school principal was Paul Gleason, who was at the time a recognized character actor. Gleason followed The Breakfast Club with regular guest appearances in hit TV shows such as The A-Team, Miami Vice, The Equalizer, and 21 Jump Street, largely specializing in authority, detective and cop roles. It was in this guise that he appeared in Die Hard (1988) and – less seriously – in Loaded Weapon 1 (1993). Gleason died of lung cancer aged 67 in 2006.

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Marvel is fixing a toxic trait with ‘Deadpool 3’ and it means only bad things for 2025

Lately, Marvel has been sinking into plotholes of its own making and it is planning to temporarily shift (not fix or resolve) one of its errors with Deadpool 3’s release in 2024.

Like the many levels of hype Deadpool 3 has crossed — with it joining the MCU to bringing Hugh Jackman in as Wolverine to giving him a comic book-accurate costume — its release date has shuffled around just as much. But both the writers’ strike and the SAG-AFTRA strike are now over, allowing the film to complete its production without compromising on the extra layer of wonder glitter Ryan Reynolds loves to add to his films’ scripts.

But as per a recent rumor, the studio is heavily relying on the film being an absolute success at the box office and saving Marvel’s grace in 2024 single-handedly. Evidently, that’s the reason behind it being next year’s only MCU film.

Marvel Studios reportedly decided to have ‘DEADPOOL 3’ as the only film that will release next year due to them being extremely confident in it.

They expect the film to deliver at the box office, with critics and make fans excited for the MCU again.

(via: @DanielRPK) pic.twitter.com/OfoClE4GMo

— Deadpool Updates (@DeadpoolUpdate) November 26, 2023

Now, that’s an enormous responsibility where the upcoming Deadpool sequel is like the non-toxic, kind boyfriend left with healing the trauma he didn’t cause in the first place. But that dark personal introspection aside and the connection it shares with Marvel’s steady decline of late, expecting Reynolds and Jackman to be the franchise’s lifeline ain’t that much of a stretch. The first two films were stellar and the combined force of the two actors, whom MCU fans have been desperately hoping to see together as the foul-mouthed mercenary and the clawed mutant, is bound to be a box office winner even if Marvel Quantumanias the hell out of Deadpool 3.

Reportedly this is the reason the previously officially (Captain America 4 and Fantastic Four) confirmed releases have been shifted. And that what has us — and eventually the rest of the MCU — in a pickle is what it would mean for 2025.

Marvel has been called out for being greedy and churning out content faster than the fandom can digest while paying no heed to maintain quality in its race to amp up the quantity. But keeping its releases to a minimum in 2024 — the already expected-to-fail Echo and the mildly interesting Agatha being the only major shows — the studio is temporarily halting its breakneck speed, only to dump it all on 2025.

Unless there is yet another reshuffle of release dates, 2025 will see four Marvel films — Captain America: Brave New World, Fantastic Four, Thunderbolts, and Blade — set to release within months of each other’s theatrical debut. This means no time for the studio to properly hype a film or promote it. Add any last-minute reshoots — which have become inevitable these days — and we better get ready for haphazardly put-together conclusions and more minion buttocks frolicking across the silver screen.

While we know that “absence makes the heart grow fonder,” Marvel has actively experienced how its over-saturated presence has made formerly trusting hearts cynical and critical. As for Wade Wilson’s next appearance — in the hands of the PG-13 Marvel, Deadpool 3 was already running the risk of not letting its foul-mouthed antihero employ the freedom he previously enjoyed. As the expectations of the studio and the fans from the film keep soaring, it will probably have to outmatch the entirety of Phase 4 and what we have seen of Phase 5 so far to make a noticeable dent. And on the off chance that it doesn’t, guess who will be left to reap the consequences of the after-effects — yep, 2025.

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What happened to Josephine Bonaparte? The ‘Napoleon’ fictional character’s real-life inspiration, explained

By all accounts, Napoleon Bonaparte liked Marie Josèphe Rose Tascher de La Pagerie very much. Not enough to let her keep her name instead of changing it to Josephine, but hey. Love looks different to different people.

Marie, who served as the broad-strokes inspiration for the character Josephine played by Vanessa Kirby in Ridley Scott’s Napoleon, was born June 23, 1763, to the owners of a sugar plantation. The family business changed her life in a number of ways – for one, the market for sugar in the late 1700s was a lot like the NFT market six weeks after people started making NFTs, in that everyone was making too much product, and there wasn’t any money in it. Additionally, with a functionally limitless supply of sugar and a collection of toothbrushes somewhere in the “none at all” range, young Marie’s teeth reportedly looked like a series of tiny, high-value dominos. 

But that didn’t stop her from marrying her aunt’s lover’s son, Alexandre François Marie, after his first choice (her older sister) died and his second choice (her younger sister) was, irreconcilably, 12 years old. The pair had two children, as well as a contentious disunion due to Alexandre’s numerous affairs, and decided to go their separate ways on a permanent basis when Alexandre had his head chopped off by a guillotine on July 23, 1794.

In 1795, she met Napoleon Bonaparte, a military man six years her junior who, judging by his letters, was deeply besotted with Marie’s mouth full of still-decaying teeth. He started calling her “Josephine,” and the name stuck. They were engaged in January of 1796 and married two months later, fudging the numbers on the licenses to make the age difference seem less pronounced. 

The occasionally happy life and wife of Napoleon Bonaparte

Image via Sony Pictures

Which brings us back to where we started: Napoleon really liked his wife. He talked about it a lot. What he didn’t like was the fact that she couldn’t seem to provide him with an heir, a fact that became a bigger deal as the young commander gathered more and more power. He named his wife Empress of France when he took over as Emperor in 1804, even after both he and Josephine had carried out loud, illicit affairs – including one between Napoleon and Josephine’s lady-in-waiting, which ended in Josephine catching Napoleon in the act and Napoleon retorting “Well then why don’t you make me a baby?” We are, of course, paraphrasing.

A continuing lack of bouncing baby Napoleons drove his majesty to take drastic action. In November 1809, he took his wife out for a nice dinner and gently explained that he really, really wanted to get someone pregnant. Josephine tearfully understood, and the couple threw a divorce party – not the kind that your aunt keeps throwing at the same dive bar whenever she winds up single, more of a funeral for their marriage. The two read statements of devotion to one another. It honestly sounds like it was probably a bummer.

Napoleon got remarried two months later to Marie-Louise of Austria, but spoke openly about how he was basically just getting hitched to a baby oven. It wasn’t particularly romantic. In 1811, his son, Napoleon II, was born.

By 1814, Josephine had been living comfortably in a chateau outside of Paris, enjoying the luxuries afforded her by her titles. With Napoleon in exile, she reached out to the emperor of Russia, asking for permission to live with her ex-husband on the island of Elba. Shortly after making the request, Josephine died of pneumonia at age 50. 

When Napoleon got word of Josephine’s death, he was beyond dismayed, reportedly locking himself in his room for two days without food, companionship, or a fresh oversized hat. He lamented that he had loved his first wife, but not respected her. He was so devastated that he went nearly five years without escaping from exile and trying to overthrow the French government which, if you know about Napoleon, you’ll understand was a pretty dramatic stretch for the guy. 

It’s apparent that the French king and military mastermind continued to think about his first wife for the remainder of his relatively short life, up to the very moment of his passing. Lying in bed on May 5, 1821, the deposed leader said roughly “France, the army, head of the army, Josephine,” then died. 

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Who is the Abyss in Marvel? ‘Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse’ alleged villain, explained

The highly-anticipated Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse just keeps getting anticipated more and more highly. 

And why wouldn’t it? It’s the follow-up to a pair of movies with over 50 major filmmaking awards between them, promising a reality-bending conclusion to the Empire Strikes Back-ian ending of Across the Spider-Verse. Old favorites like Spider-Ham and Spider-Man Noir make their returns. Donald Glover, if there’s any justice in this world, finally gets to be a Spider-Man.

And maybe we’ll tie a bow on the story of The Spot, the C-tier villain brought into Across the Spider-Verse with unexpected results. Last we saw him, the monochrome multiverse-hopper was ratcheting his abilities up to a new level, promising terrible things to come. 

Then along came Twitter user @CanWeGetSomeToast, who posted purported concept art for Beyond the Spider-Verse featuring The Spot, tall as a skyscraper and doing that thing with his hands that villains do when they say stuff like “behold my unfathomable power.”

First look at official storyboards featuring Gwen Stacy and The Spot from ‘BEYOND THE SPIDER-VERSE’.

And I can exclusively share that The Spot will become The Abyss after augmenting his powers in ATSV. pic.twitter.com/H271NagFsk

— CanWeGetSomeToast (@CanWeGetToast) November 20, 2023

According to the post, The Spot is set to use his newfound abilities to transform into a villain called The Abyss. So who is “The Abyss?” Depends! Could be a couple of people. Let’s run down the list.

Abyss (the space demon)

Image via Marvel Comics

The smart money says that the Spot’s new Abyss persona comes to us by way of Death Metal, a very extreme 1993 miniseries featuring more Alpha Flight than you’re probably imagining. It was a point in Marvel history when everyone was trying to be Todd McFarlane or Rob Liefeld — all the muscles were huge, all the teeth were uncountable, and every square inch of space on a body that didn’t have a pouch attached to it got docked from the artists’ pay. 

The Abyss introduced in the story is an interdimensional demon creature with a bad habit of destroying the realities that he traipses through, which has The Spot’s brand of clueless power drunkenness written all over it. Big on consuming energy and mass into his insatiable glowy chest bits, he’s even in the same aesthetic ballpark as the even spottier Spot we saw at the end of Across the Spider-Verse.

Abyss (the mutant)

Image via Marvel/Activision

Recall the 1990s. The options for new comic book characters were many but less than unique: Anabolic Nightmare (Cable, Savage Dragon), furious warrior woman with an 11-inch waistline (Domino, every female character Liefeld ever drew), and Freaky Weirdo. 

The mutant who went by the name Abyss was a Freaky Weirdo. He had a cell-shaded face and arms and legs made out of springy ribbons and he transported people to the Brimstone Dimension through a portal in his Teletubby gut. In a world populated by people who could move stuff with their brains and shoot transdimensional kinetic energy out of their eye sockets, Abyss really strained the credibility of the whole “next natural step in the evolutionary process” gimmick. Today, he’s mostly remembered for that time when he showed up as a miniboss in X-Men Legends II.

Abyss (the elder god mind control thing)

Image via Marvel Comics

First appearing in the pages of Nova, this Abyss is as powerful and cool-looking as he is uncomplicated. He’s a mean elder god thing from space, and he loves doing evil mind control — the kind that turns people’s eyes black and makes them fight their buddies. Also, he might destroy the universe.

Abyss (the Marvel vs Capcom 2 villain)

Screengrab via YouTube

You know how sometimes a great and terrible wind will sweep across the world, destroying all plant life as it goes? And you know how the natural response to that is generally to get a whole bunch of characters together to beat each other up until the problem resolves itself? Furthermore, have you experienced how the story modes in fighting games tend to make you feel like you’re reading your dream journal from that week when you had a concussion from falling off a roof?

This is the tale of Abyss, the final boss in Marvel vs Capcom 2. Ill-defined, unknowable, and able to take as many as three separate forms, he’d be a gutsy addition to Spider-Verse continuity.

Abyss (the way-too-high-concept Jonathan Hickman character)

Image via Marvel Comics

This one’s a long-odds bet, but who knows? Fans of writer Jonathan Hickman know that he can generally be counted on to do one of two things: Write compelling new characters or confuse every single reader.

In 2012, he did both, introducing Abyss. One of a matching set of avatars of creation, she was sort of a living Star Trek Genesis Device, hell-bent on creating new worlds by upcycling old ones. Her abilities caught a few eyes on Earth when she tried to give the planet a facelift, and she was invited to join the Avengers as sort of a Captain Universe-invoked cosmic parole agreement. Bonus: This Abyss comes with an extra Abyss, as a character with the same name and look but completely different powers showed up in the Disney series Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur.

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Susan Sarandon’s 10 best movies, ranked

Susan Sarandon may be most often in the news these days for her trenchant political views, but her extraordinarily broad body of work stands as a testament to her remarkable acting skills. With nine Golden Globe nominations and five Academy Award nominations (including one win) under her belt, there’s no doubting Sarandon’s ability to serve quality.

But in case time has blurred the memories and all your memory can conjure is her excellent villain in Blue Beetle, here are ten of her finest performances.

10. The Rocky Horror Picture Show

Long since superseded in terms of shocks and innuendo, the 1970s’ favorite midnight movie has not however lost its entertainment quotient. Although the focus is largely on Tim Curry’s outrageous performance as Frank-N-Furter, Sarandon offers invaluable support as Janet Weiss, playing it straight alongside Barry Bostwick as the whiter-than-white, all-American couple who unexpectedly find themselves in a particularly lurid den of iniquity.

9. Cloud Atlas

Unjustly maligned for its length and narrative complexity, the Wachowski sisters’ 2012 adaptation of David Mitchell’s award-winning, centuries-spanning novel is a tour de force, and impresses on rewatch. Sarandon takes her place in a star-studded cast that includes Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, Hugh Grant, Jim Broadbent, and a young Ben Whishaw. Like most of her castmates, she takes on multiple roles, but it’s as the serene Abbess of the far future that she really shines.

8. Ice Bound: A Woman’s Survival at the South Pole

This 2003 telefilm was largely overlooked at the time, but Sarandon does solid work as Dr. Jerri Nielsen, a physician who, in real life, discovered she was suffering from cancer while stationed at the South Pole with no hope of evacuation, and had to administer herself with a course of treatment using medicines flown in at great risk.

7. Bull Durham

Sarandon earned a Golden Globe nomination for this 1988 baseball movie, which also starred Kevin Costner. Soon overshadowed by Costner’s follow-up, which also took baseball as its theme — the 1989 classic Field of Dreams — Bull Durham nevertheless remains an impeccable piece of work, and Sarandon doesn’t put a foot wrong as an obsessed baseball fan.

6. Igby Goes Down

This 2003 comedy-drama tells the story of Igby (Kieran Culkin), a privileged teenager who tries to escape from the constraints of his nouveau riche family. Sarandon plays his mother Mimi — a singularly self-obsessed alcoholic. The portrayal was witty and pity-inducing in equal measure, and garnered Sarandon a Golden Globe nomination.

5. Stepmom

This 1999 comedy-drama may be sentimental in outlook, but Sarandon still knocks it out of the park as Jackie, a divorced mother diagnosed with terminal cancer who has to reckon with the fact that her ex-husband’s new, younger lover will soon become stepmother to her children. Ed Harris and Julia Roberts are compelling as Jackie’s ex and his girlfriend respectively, but Sarandon’s by turns smug, agitated, and anguished performance is the highlight.

4. Lorenzo’s Oil

One of the most touching movies of the 1990s, this slow-burning drama stars Sarandon and Nick Nolte as the Odones, a married couple whose son is diagnosed with an extremely rare illness with no known cure. Undaunted, they set out to find one, sponsoring cutting-edge research that ultimately bears fruit. Based on a true story, the tearjerker bombed at the box office, but Sarandon is compelling as Lorenzo’s never-give-up mother, and earned her third Academy Award nomination for the role.

3. Atlantic City

This 1980 crime film won Sarandon her first Academy Award nomination. The actress plays Sally, a young woman from small-town Canada who dreams of becoming a blackjack dealer in the casino in which she works. Also starring Burt Lancaster as a retired gangster who exchanges his small-time hustle for one more shot at big money, the film was a critical success and brought Sarandon to wider attention in Hollywood.

2. Thelma and Louise

Ridley Scott’s 1991 road trip film hit hard, with its uncompromising tale of two abused women, one of whom fatally shoots a man who was trying to sexually assault her. The resultant road chase is both compelling and tragic, and while Scott never returned to this particular brand of comedy drama again, the film was critically acclaimed, earning Scott, Sarandon, and co-star Geena Davis Academy Award nominations.

1. Dead Man Walking

Sarandon’s sole Academy Award win was for this 1995 crime thriller. Sean Penn stars as a murderer on death row who protests his innocence; Sarandon plays a nun who visits him, becomes convinced of his innocence, and arranges for an appeal. A beautifully shot film with a vicious twist in the tail, Dead Man Walking is based on a true story, and Sarandon, as Sister Helen Prejean, has never been more exceptional.

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Is Disney Plus shutting down?

Here we are, eagerly waiting for Doctor Who’s new season to make Disney Plus its new home, only to come across the alarming discussion about Bob Iger ending the streamer’s existence for good. Has being Marvel’s permanent home finally taken its toll?

It all started with Disney announcing that it will be soon merging Disney Plus with Hulu to roll out the “one app experience” Bob Iger talked about back in May 2023. This is expected to hit the floor next month, with both streamers and their content getting unified under one streaming service.

So, is Disney Plus really going away? Or is Hulu marked for slaughter?

Marvel’s continued streaming miscalculations (except Loki and maybe Moon Knight) and its eyesores like Thor: Love and Thunder being a permanent fixture on Disney Plus have not been a good look for the streamer. And even though it lost a lot less in 2023’s Q4 than the $1.4 billion in 2022’s last quarter, the losses still crossed $300 million. But despite the fluctuation, the Mouse has no plans to shut down the streamer if the current official proceedings are taken into account.

The planned merged experience is yet to worm its way into reality as Disney is yet to finalize its deal with Comcast to buy out its one-third stake in Hulu — it is offering over $8 billion to seal the same and become the only owner of the streamer’s content.

The combined app will be first launched in a beta capacity in the United States in December 2023, followed by a proper, official launch next year in spring. In preparation for the same, Disney has already debuted the new dual bundle of Disney Plus and Hulu (that needs the download of two separate apps), whose ad-supported version costs $9.99/month while the one not testing your patience with advertisements comes at $19.99/ month.

So, the ones purchasing the above-mentioned bundle will be getting the offer to subscribe to the unified app first, which will just be an updated version of the existing Disney Plus app — no new app will be replacing it. For now, the “one-app experience” will only house the two streaming services in one place, allowing you access to both at the same time. Though some titles (like Marvel’s Echo) will be overlapping between the two, the streamers will have separate libraries.

For now, there are no plans in place to erase either streaming service from existence and the new version will only exist to allow viewers to toggle between the two with ease and of course, to let Disney expand its advertising revenue.

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MCU’s success is its failure — Jonathan Majors, James Gunn, or ‘The Marvels’ isn’t the problem

“Jonathan Majors’ assault case is getting Marvel bad press,” “James Gunn’s departure and the emergence of DCU has weakened the MCU,” or “The Marvels negated the good Loki did.” We can keep blaming a new point every time for Marvel’s speedy decline, but its ability to grab success and keep it for 10 long years is the kindling stoking up this particular fire.

After many failed attempts, Marvel found the beginning of the formally elusive fame with Iron Man in 2008 and it stuck around until Avengers: Endgame and Far From Home. Even the mild hiccups — The Incredible Hulk and Thor: The Dark World — did little to derail it. In fact, Endgame catapulted the MCU to unexpected heights and of course, the studio was going to be emboldened by this, motivated to take risks it feared to touch before.

But no one expected Marvel to lose its marbles and self-create a long list of issues diligently hollowing it out from within.

It gave up on logically connecting the dots or well, connecting them at all

Photo via Marvel Studios

The Nick Fury we met at the end of No Way Home was brimming with confidence, complete with his iconic eyepatch, completely chill, and working with Skrulls. But just mere months later (as per the MCU timeline) he was a dejected broken man in Secret Invasion, without his eyepatch. What new happened that shattered his bold exterior to that extent? Also, The Marvels see him on the space station sans a single Skrull in sight or his wife, who boards the ship with him at the end of the Marvel series.

We still don’t know if Kamala is an inhuman or a mutant; though her bangle now has a name and a twin their history remains unknown; events in The Eternals have had no repercussions so far, with a dead body of a giant eternal sticking out of the Indian Ocean somehow not getting noticed by the rest of the world; how does forgetting Peter but remembering Spider-Man work and why does Doctor Stranger remember helping the latter when it was the former sans the superhero suit who came asking for aid… should I go on?

Yes, it was not knowing what miracles Iron Man’s suits could do or the hell the Infinity Stones could unleash combined that made the revelations jaw-dropping. But if Tony’s suit suddenly changed into a turtleneck in his second appearance without any explanation, Thor became buddies with a revived Hela after she did her best to kill him, or if the Stones had just materialized into existence, you would have been scratching your head since Phase 1. Mysteries are good until their remaining unresolved makes sense.

Believing that fans’ existing faith in Marvel and star power can carry a project forward

Photo via Marvel Studios

I am not saying casting actors whose careers got the life they needed thanks to their Marvel roles is the only way to fix the MCU again. But only relying on big names to carry a project to success and/or depending on the trust fans have put in the fandom to ensure the victory of a half-baked storyline? The studio can cast all the Angelina Jolies, Christian Bales, and Gemma Chans it wants, but hoping to blind fans with all the glitter will only produce results if these exceptionally talented individuals play a well-written character in a properly penned script.

Incorrect methods of trying to impress Marvel comic book enthusiasts

Photo via Marvel Studios

Past Marvel projects also had hidden Easter eggs, comic book references, and arcs that accurately depicted particular comic book moments — the additional spice greatly appreciated and anticipated by comic book fans. So, the studio decided to take it up a notch — bombard such viewers with so many references and Easter eggs that they feel like teasers of things to come and then turn around to fulfill none of the apparent promises. I am still hung up on WandaVision hinting at Mephisto, Marvel’s very own version of the Devil, throughout the show, only to say “Hah! It was just Wanda all along.”

The result? Even the very obviously flaunted “X” in The Marvels trailer was met with skepticism — was the studio really going to usher in the X-Men or was it just another marketing ploy? It wasn’t but the shaky trust remains.

Success has made Marvel greedy — the studio believes quantity trumps quality

Image via Marvel Studios

Brie Larson’s weird CGI face in space just before the other Earth portal closed on Monica, M.O.D.O.K.’s minion ass that had us reaching for a knife to gouge our eyes out, Doctor Starnge’s third eye; Jane’s painful one-liners in Thor: Love and Thunder and its plot’s drive to be a parody; The Marvels being nothing but a filler film with plot points haphazardly lumped together that seriously wasted its talented cast; the badly written villains of Ms. Marvel and She-Hulk; the need to scrap the halfway done Daredevil series and start it from scratch, and so many more blunders.

And the root cause? Marvel’s greed to pump out more content to cash in on the existing hype around the franchise without paying heed to how everything that made the MCU great is getting severely compromised in the process.

We can argue that superhero fatigue is the problem — and it is to some extent — but what we are really tired of is sub-par content being dumped on us with the confidence that Marvel’s golden past and its flashy presentations will successfully blind us. As a Marvel loyalist, I hope the studio doesn’t have to commit more mistakes to learn from them.

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Latest Marvel News: An MCU reboot that needs to earn over $803 million steals from the X-Men as Iman Vellani guns for Kevin Feige’s job

The MCU needs to shake things up over the coming years or else the Multiverse Saga will go down as mostly a dud. But luckily Marvel has two aces up its sleeves: the Fantastic Four and Iman Vellani.

Alongside the X-Men, Marvel’s First Family is one of the lucrative upcoming properties that could turn the MCU’s fate around — provided everything goes right, that is — while Iman Vellani is being entrusted to lead the next generation of Avengers. But, maybe she deserves to be let loose behind the camera as well.

Fantastic Four must make as much as an entire franchise in one go, so it might be poaching talent from the X-Men

Photo via Victor Boyko/Getty Images/Image via 20th Century Fox

2025’s Fantastic Four must launch Phase Six off in the exact opposite way to how Quantumania launched Phase Five this year. In short, it needs to gross the total of Fox’s three FF films in one go to match up to Marvel’s demands. Well, the studio is certainly going the right way about getting eyes on the movie, according to the latest casting rumors. Anya Taylor-Joy is believed to be in talks for a female villain role, which many are taking as a gender-switched Silver Surfer. Taylor-Joy was, of course, previously part of Fox’s X-Men universe instead, as Magik in The New Mutants (but don’t hold that against her).

Iman Vellani’s simple solve for Avengers: Secret Wars‘ problems proves Kevin Feige might want to watch out

Image via Marvel Studios

Iman Vellani has got to be the biggest Marvel nerd to actually star in the MCU, as we’ve seen many times over that the line between the actress and her on-screen alter ego, Kamala Khan, is virtually non-existent. Vellani’s even recently started writing for Marvel Comics, proving that she has a strong hold on superhero storytelling. Her pitch on how to reimagine Secret Wars for the MCU, however, is so spot-on that we can’t help but wonder: should Kevin Feige just take Iman on as his protege right now and train her up to take over from him in a few years’ time? She’s already the leader of the Young Avengers and the first mutant on Earth-616 (sorry, Earth-19999!), could the Marvel head honcho job be in her future too?

Blade casting and plot details reveal the villain Marvel hired then fired

Images courtesy of Marvel

We’ve been waiting forever to lift the lid on what Marvel has planned for Blade, so it’s interesting to know exactly who had been cast as the reboot’s villain and who they were playing… Even if the movie has gone back to the drawing board and won’t feature them anymore. According to scooper MyTimeToShineHello, Aaron Pierre was set to face off against Mahershala Ali’s Daywalker as vampire lord Aaron Thorne. However, this was in the version of the film before Mia Goth was cast, probably as new villain Lilith, so don’t expect Pierre to show up in the finished film. Remember, that’s coming on Nov. 7, 2025, with its budget severely slashed.

The Marvel news machine is just getting crazier as we near the end of 2023, so be back soon for the next unexpected twist in the tale.

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Where can I play every old ‘Mortal Kombat’ game?

The Mortal Kombat fighters have been ripping spines out, bisecting opponents with razor hats, and tearing out hearts for 31 years now. Over that time, the venerable fighting franchise has had its ups and downs, though has once again gone stratospheric with the release of Mortal Kombat 1.

This reboot of the series substantially reworks the kombat, adds some fun new mechanics, and pushes graphical boundaries to become the best-looking fighting game to date. But with such a rich history, perhaps you might want to take a trip back in time to check out where it all began.

Sadly this isn’t as easy as you might think. NetherRealm Studios has resisted putting together a modern retro compilation bringing them all together, so you’re going to have to put in some effort if you want to play ’em all. Admittedly, there’s a catch-all answer to this question in emulation, but here are your options if you want to play them legit.

Mortal Kombat to Mortal Kombat Trilogy

Image via NetherRealm Studios

Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat II, Mortal Kombat 3, Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, and Mortal Kombat Trilogy are where it all began. These games, particularly Mortal Kombat and Mortal Kombat II, were a bona fide pop culture phenomenon, shocking prudes and delighting gamers with a bloody cocktail of magical ninjas, cross-dimensional monsters, and special forces experts.

Throughout the 1990s these were ported to every home console under the sun, with versions available on:

• Genesis
• Super Nintendo
• Sega CD
• Game Boy
• Game Gear
• 32X
• Master System
• Amiga
• Sega Saturn
• PSOne.

But even the best of these didn’t quite capture the full-blooded arcade experience. That said, many ’90s kids will have warm memories of the 16-bit ports (particularly the Genesis ones) and there are worse ways to play these games.

So, where can you enjoy them now? In 2011, NetherRealm released the Mortal Kombat Arcade Kollection on PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and PC, featuring ports of the arcade versions of Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat II, and Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3. Purists have gripes with the emulation of this collection, though it’s a moot point as the Kollection was delisted from all platforms in 2015. That said, a bit of rummaging around Steam key resale sites can turn up a code (I got it for a couple of bucks as late as 2020).

Image via NetherRealm Studios

The current best bet is probably GOG.com’s DOS ports of the first three games and Mortal Kombat Trilogy. ’90s DOS ports don’t exactly have a great reputation, but user reviews indicate these are a cut above the rest and the DOSBox wrapper lets you use a modern controller (albeit with some fiddling).

A more obscure (yet possible) option is hunting for the Midway Arcade Treasures: Extended Play compilation on PlayStation Portable UMD, which includes the first three games. The premium edition of 2004’s Mortal Kombat: Deception on PlayStation 2 and Xbox also included the first Mortal Kombat as a bonus feature, though at this point there are far easier options.

It’s also worth bearing in mind that these games were humungous arcade hits, with around 20,000 – 25,000 cabinets sold for each game. As such, various Mortal Kombat titles are a common sight in modern retro arcades / arcade bars — even if they don’t have the original cabinets they’ll probably have a MAME cabinet with them included on it.

Mortal Kombat 4 and Mortal Kombat Gold

Image via NetherRealm Studios

With 1997’s Mortal Kombat 4, Midway ditched digitized sprites and moved into full 3D. The results were… questionable. But though the gameplay may not be a patch on the 2D games, this is still an important title, introducing characters like Shinnok, Quan-Chi, and Fujin.

Options for playing this nowadays are limited. It was released on Nintendo 64 and PlayStation, though also got a PC port. This is now available to buy on GOG.com and has received a decent scrub-up. A 3DFX mod is fully implemented and you can play it in 4K in full widescreen.

Mortal Kombat Gold, essentially an expanded revision containing several additional characters, new stages and additional mechanics, was a Dreamcast launch title in 1999, though has not been re-released on any subsequent platform.

Deadly Alliance, Deception, Shaolin Monks and Armageddon

Image via NetherRealm Studios

Mortal Kombat may have stumbled in taking its first steps into 3D but soon found its footing with a fine series of sixth-gen console releases between 2002 and 2006. All four were released on PlayStation 2 and competing consoles:

• Deadly Alliance on GameCube
• Deception on GameCube and Xbox
• Shaolin Monks on Xbox
• Armageddon on Xbox and Wii

Sadly, there were no PC ports and there’s currently no legal way to play them other than on their original consoles. If you’re into retro gaming, none of these are particularly expensive to track down, though we feel that an official compilation of these beloved 2000s titles for modern hardware would be a great way to preserve them.

Mortal Kombat vs DC Universe

Image via NetherRealm Studios

Eyebrows were raised in 2008 when the gory Mortal Kombat franchise announced a crossover with the decidedly more family-friendly DC Universe. The result was Mortal Kombat vs DC Universe (technically Mortal Kombat 8), a fun fighting game with an adorably goofy story about their universes colliding, with the gameplay laying the backbone for both future Mortal Kombat titles and the Injustice series.

Sadly, this title was delisted from the PlayStation, Xbox and Steam stores years ago and spent a long time in the wilderness. Then, in 2021, there was an unexpected ray of light when the Xbox celebrated its 20th anniversary and this was made fully backwards compatible with Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S consoles. Sadly the digital version remains delisted, but if you can track down a physical copy of the 360 release, it’ll play perfectly on modern Xbox consoles.

We have a soft spot for the truly bonkers story that brings these characters together and, impressively, as of Mortal Kombat 11, it’s still canon to the over-arching story. In 11, Joker references the events of this game, so if you want the full story, you’re going to have to get deep into some Superman vs Scorpion action.

Mortal Kombat 9

Image via NetherRealm Studios

Despite the series’ enduring popularity, the fighting game community had never taken Mortal Kombat particularly seriously. That changed with 2011’s Mortal Kombat (aka Mortal Kombat 9 to avoid confusion), which revamped and polished the game’s systems to make it viable in the competitive scene. It also has a very fun story mode and a ton of cool features.

So it was with a weary groan from players when it unexpectedly disappeared from sale on PlayStation, Xbox, and PC in 2020. Theories range from Warner Bros. Interactive wanting to shut the online servers down and not wanting to sell an incomplete game, to rights issues with the Freddy Krueger DLC and Wes Craven’s estate.

Whatever the real reason, in 2023, it’s now much more difficult to play. PC players can venture into the murky waters of key resellers to pick up a Steam code (it’s currently in the region of $20 for the Komplete Kollection but as always with these sites, buyer beware).

But, thankfully, Mortal Kombat 9 is at least backwards compatible on Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S and physical 360 copies aren’t too hard to find. This story would go on to inform both Mortal Kombat X and Mortal Kombat 11, so it’s disappointing that it’s now so hard to access.

Where to play the other ‘Mortal Kombat’ games

Image via NetherRealm Studios

After Mortal Kombat 9, it’s smooth sailing, with 2015’s Mortal Kombat X and 2019’s Mortal Kombat 11 available for sale on all modern platforms (often at deep discount). But the Mortal Kombat franchise has taken some strange turns over the years and there are two other titles outside the mainline series for completionists only.

For example, there were two single-player Mortal Kombat adventures in 1997’s Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero on N64 and 2000’s Mortal Kombat: Special Forces on PSOne. But buyer beware, as both of these games are absolutely terrible and, understandably, have never been re-released or ported.

So, if you want to play the full Mortal Kombat series, it’s going to be tricky to do so legally, though where there’s a will, there’s a way.

We would love to see a polished museum-style retro kollection that brings the older games together in one release, ideally with concept art, developer interviews, and behind-the-scenes images and video of the sprite photography sessions (and maybe even a few of the home console ports to let us compare versions).

The older Mortal Kombat titles might feel clunky and rigid to younger gamers, though their enduring popularity in retro arcades indicates there are many out there with those iconic Mortal Kombat 2D fatalities burned into their muscle memory. Here’s hoping this retro dream eventually becomes a reality.

Mortal Kombat 1 is available on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, Switch, and PC.

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