DANGEROUS HABITS 012: "Angels and Ministers of Grace" is Up!

"I want to tell you something about me that nobody knows.  I wake up every morning, and for the first five minutes of the day, I imagine that everyone I care about is dead.  I lie there, and...I meditate on that.  So that when it inevitably happens, then, uh... it lessens the blow."

My friend and co-host Karen Lindsay and I are back with another episode of Dangerous Habits: The Constantine Podcast!

We give our thoughts on "Angels and Ministers of Grace," the possibly penultimate episode of NBC's Constantine, including things like Hamlet by way of Star Trek, heroin vs. crystal meth, Chas' injuries counting as his 47 lives, Karen's icky file folder face, signing up your enemies for Penthouse magazine, John Constantine on the beach, breaking the fourth wall, getting rid of that damn scrying map, aspiring writer tips, how to distract someone with a screwdriver, Schwarzenegger tumor resets, the Prime Directive for angels, Torchwood: Miracle Day, Sloth from The Goonies, DC Comics supervillain Eclipso, the real Dr. Galen, that Cinelinx rumor about Constantine moving to Syfy and being renamed Hellblazer, upcoming DC Comics series Constantine: The Hellblazer, listener support for Karen taking more pain meds, important advice for Karen's podcast crushes, and more!

You can check out the episode HERE and for those of you who use iTunes, we're already available HERE, so please subscribe and rate us! If direct download MP3s are more your thing, you can find those HERE as well. In addition, we have our Dangerous Habits show page on Facebook, which you can check out HERE. And we're also on Twitter using the account @DangerousHabit5 because some bloody arse already claimed @DangerousHabits.

Be sure to share these with all of your friends, enemies, demons, angels, sorcerers, ghosts, whomever, and help build our new podcast into something special. Oh, and send us your thoughts about the show or the podcast via Twitter and Facebook. As soon as we get some more, we'll be reading them on the podcast.

Don't forget to watch the season (hopefully not series) finale, "Waiting for the Man," this Friday on NBC, then keep checking iTunes, Libsyn and the Southgate Media Group website for our next Constantine review!

Sony & Marvel Agree to Share Spider-Man, Andrew Garfield Out

Now, if only Marvel can rescue the Fantastic Four and the X-Men from Fox...

After weeks of speculation, Marvel Studios and Sony Pictures have reached a deal to bring Spider-Man into the Marvel Cinematic Universe.  According to the official press release from Marvel, Spider-Man will first appear in an upcoming Marvel film, followed by a new Spider-Man movie from Sony now scheduled for July 28, 2017 that will be co-produced by Marvel's Kevin Feige along with Sony's Amy Pascal.

The new deal also affects four of Marvel's upcoming films, with Thor: Ragnarok, originally scheduled for the same date as the new Spider-Man movie, has moved to November 3, 2017.  Black Panther will now be released on July 6, 2018, Captain Marvel moves to November 2, 2018, and Inhumans is bumped to July 12, 2019.  Both Avengers: Infinity War films will remain at their respective dates of May 4, 2018 and May 3, 2019.

In addition, The Wrap reports that Andrew Garfield, who starred in the two Amazing Spider-Man films directed by Marc Webb, will not reprise the role of Spider-Man/Peter Parker.

This news seems to hint heavily that Spider-Man will first appear in Captain America: Civil War, slated for May 6, 2016, since the character features so prominently in the Civil War limited series by Mark Millar and Steve McNiven.  In the series, Spider-Man was originally convinced by Iron Man to join the pro-superhero registration side before quitting and joining Captain America's underground movement.

Here's the original press release from Marvel...

Marvel's Kevin Feige to Produce Next Installment of the Spider-Man Franchise with Amy Pascal

(Culver City, California, and Burbank, California February 09, 2015) – Sony Pictures Entertainment and Marvel Studios announced today that Sony is bringing Marvel into the amazing world of Spider-Man. 

Under the deal, the new Spider-Man will first appear in a Marvel film from Marvel's Cinematic Universe (MCU). Sony Pictures will thereafter release the next installment of its $4 billion Spider-Man franchise, on July 28, 2017, in a film that will be co-produced by Kevin Feige and his expert team at Marvel and Amy Pascal, who oversaw the franchise launch for the studio 13 years ago. Together, they will collaborate on a new creative direction for the web slinger. Sony Pictures will continue to finance, distribute, own and have final creative control of the Spider-Man films.

Marvel and Sony Pictures are also exploring opportunities to integrate characters from the MCU into future Spider-Man films.

The new relationship follows a decade of speculation among fans about whether Spider-Man – who has always been an integral and important part of the larger Marvel Universe in the comic books – could become part of the Marvel Universe on the big screen. Spider-Man has more than 50 years of history in Marvel's world, and with this deal, fans will be able to experience Spider-Man taking his rightful place among other Super Heroes in the MCU.

Bob Iger, Chairman and CEO, The Walt Disney Company said: "Spider-Man is one of Marvel's great characters, beloved around the world. We're thrilled to work with Sony Pictures to bring the iconic web-slinger into the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which opens up fantastic new opportunities for storytelling and franchise building."

"We always want to collaborate with the best and most successful filmmakers to grow our franchises and develop our characters. Marvel, Kevin Feige and Amy, who helped orchestrate this deal, are the perfect team to help produce the next chapter of Spider-Man," said Michael Lynton, Chairman and CEO of Sony Pictures Entertainment. "This is the right decision for the franchise, for our business, for Marvel, and for the fans."

"Sony Pictures and Marvel Studios share a love for the characters in the Spider-Man universe and have a long, successful history of working together. This new level of collaboration is the perfect way to take Peter Parker's story into the future," added Doug Belgrad, president, Sony Pictures Entertainment Motion Picture Group.

"I am thrilled to team with my friends at Sony Pictures along with Amy Pascal to produce the next Spider-Man movie," said Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige. "Amy has been deeply involved in the realization on film of one of the world’s most beloved characters. Marvel's involvement will hopefully deliver the creative continuity and authenticity that fans demand from the MCU. I am equally excited for the opportunity to have Spider-Man appear in the MCU, something which both we at Marvel, and fans alike, have been looking forward to for years."

Spider-Man, embraced all over the world, is the most successful franchise in the history of Sony Pictures, with the five films having taken in more than $4 billion worldwide.

ABOUT SONY PICTURES ENTERTAINMENT

Sony Pictures Entertainment (SPE) is a subsidiary of Sony Entertainment Inc., a subsidiary of Tokyo-based Sony Corporation. SPE's global operations encompass motion picture production, acquisition and distribution; television production, acquisition and distribution; television networks; digital content creation and distribution; operation of studio facilities; and development of new entertainment products, services and technologies. For additional information, go to http://www.sonypictures.com/.

ABOUT MARVEL ENTERTAINMENT

Marvel Entertainment, LLC, a wholly-owned subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company, is one of the world's most prominent character-based entertainment companies, built on a proven library of more than 8,000 characters featured in a variety of media over seventy-five years.  Marvel utilizes its character franchises in entertainment, licensing and publishing.  For more information visit marvel.com. © 2015 MARVEL

THE FLASH Casts Emily Kinney as The Bug-Eyed Bandit

So much for the sweet little songbird...

VixenVarsity is reporting that the CW series The Flash has cast Emily Kinney as Brie Larvan, a female version of obscure DC Comics supervillain The Bug-Eyed Bandit.  Kinney will appear in the series' eighteen episode "All-Star Team Up," which also features guest appearances by Ray Palmer (Brandon Routh) and Felicity Smoak (Emily Bett Rickards), who head to Central City to get S.T.A.R. Labs' help working on Ray's A.T.O.M. Exosuit.

The article cites Instagram photos of Kinney flying out to Canada five days ago taken from PunkdImages, with the caption "#WalkingDead’s Beth.. @EmmyKinney arrives in VanCity to be #TheFlash’s new Bug Eyed Villian #BrieLarvan @SpoilerTV #YVRShoots @olv #HeardItHere1st"

Kinney, 29, is best known as Beth Greene on the AMC series The Walking Dead and this will be her first role since leaving the series.  In addition, she has appeared in episodes of Forever, The Following, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, The Big C, The Good Wife, and Law & Order: Criminal Intent.

Created in 1966 by Gardner Fox and Gil Kane, the Bug-Eyed Bandit first appeared in The Atom #26 as an inventor named Bertram Larvan who designed a mechanical insect to control insect pests but had no financial support to develop his invention.  So naturally, he turned to crime to steal money for his invention and developed an army of mechanical insects before being defeated by The Atom.

After fighting The Atom a number of times, the Bug-Eyed Bandit was killed during the landmark limited series Crisis on Infinite Earths before being briefly resurrected as a member of the Black Lantern Corps during the Blackest Night event.

Kinney will be the first actor to portray the Bug-Eyed Bandit in live action, although the character did appear in the animated series Batman: The Brave and the Bold, voiced by Dee Bradley Baker.

The Flash airs Tuesday nights on The CW at 8 p.m. EST.

DANGEROUS HABITS 011: "A Whole World Out There" is Up!

"Well, you know me.  I'm well-versed in the art of pretending to be a gentleman."

Getting back on track somewhat, my friend and co-host Karen Lindsay and I are back with the next episode of Dangerous Habits: The Constantine Podcast!

We give our thoughts on "A Whole World Out There," the eleventh episode of NBC's Constantine, including things like the impressive resume of director Thomas J. Wright, Karen's big secret wish, what would happen if Disney bought DC Comics, the fictional DC Comics city Ivy Town and Ivy University, the mini Lost reunion, drinking alone to Warren Zevon, what the hell happened to Johnny Depp's career, the deepness of transcendence and enlightenment, the Outlander book and television series' connection to Doctor Who, Jeremy Davies' Matthew McConaughey impression, shoutouts to Hellblazer #7, the a-ha music video for "Take On Me," Ritchie Simpson becoming The One, casting Matt Ryan in Guillermo del Toro's upcoming Dark Universe, The comic strip Bloom County and Karen's crush on Steve Dallas, the arrival of @Predator_Cat on the Twitter masheen, my depressingly low amount of Twitter followers, and more!

You can check out the episode HERE and for those of you who use iTunes, we're already available HERE, so please subscribe and rate us! If direct download MP3s are more your thing, you can find those HERE as well. In addition, we have our Dangerous Habits show page on Facebook, which you can check out HERE. And we're also on Twitter using the account @DangerousHabit5 because some bloody arse already claimed @DangerousHabits.

Be sure to share these with all of your friends, enemies, demons, angels, sorcerers, ghosts, whomever, and help build our new podcast into something special. Oh, and send us your thoughts about the show or the podcast via Twitter and Facebook. As soon as we get some more, we'll be reading them on the podcast.

Don't forget to watch the next episode, "Angels and Ministers of Grace," this Friday on NBC, then keep checking iTunes, Libsyn and the Southgate Media Group website for our next Constantine review!

Full DAREDEVIL Teaser Trailer Debuts Without Fear

Those of you not buying into the whole "teaser for a teaser" nonsense can relax.

IGN has released the full 90-second trailer for the upcoming Netflix series Daredevil, based on the Marvel Comics superhero.  Apart from Charlie Cox's Daredevil/Matt Murdock, we get our first glimpses of Franklin "Foggy" Nelson, Karen Page, Stick and the The Kingpin.

The trailer opens with a voiceover from Matt, who is taking confession with a Catholic priest.  "Bless me, father, for I have sinned," he begins.  "It's been too long since my last confession.  I've been preoccupied of late with questions of morality..."

We see Karen Page (Deborah Ann Woll) being held in police custody with Foggy Nelson (Elden Henson) meeting with her as her lawyer, presumably because she's been accused of murdering someone with a knife.  We then see Scott Glenn as Stick as elevator doors close.

"...of right and wrong," Matt continues.  "...good and evil."

Next we see the back of The Kingpin/Wilson Fisk (Vincent D'Onofrio), who is staring at an empty white and grey painting before him.

"Perhaps this will be easier if you tell me what you've done," suggests the priest.

"I'm not seeking forgiveness for what I've done, father," Matt says as images of him donning a black, ninja-like outfit similar to the costume he wears in the Daredevil: The Man Without Fear limited series by Frank Miller and John Romita, Jr.  "I'm asking forgiveness for what I'm about to do."

Action scenes of explosions, gunshots and Daredevil fighting criminals follow, with a final remark from Matt -- "I'm just trying to make my city a better place."

If you'd like to check out the trailer, you can view it below thanks to IGN's official YouTube account...



All thirteen episodes of Daredevil Season One will be available on Netflix on April 10, 2015.

STAR TREK 3 to Feature New Female Characters and Villain

And the human adventure continues...

Film Divider has some interesting new details concerning Justin Lin's upcoming Star Trek sequel for 2016.  According to the the article, the film (written by Doug Jung and Star Trek actor Simon Pegg) will feature three new female characters and a new male villain.

Although Alice Eve's character Carol Marcus was introduced in the previous film, Star Trek Into Darkness, a rather pointless scene showing Carol in her underwear resulted in much criticism about how female characters are portrayed in Star Trek.  So with that in mind, here are the new female characters described...

1)  The President of the United Federation of Planets -- Although there's been a male human UFP President in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, and male alien UFP Presidents in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, this will be the Star Trek's first female President.

2)  A Captain of a Federation starship -- While there have been various female starship captains, primarily Kate Mulgrew's Captain Kathryn Janeway in Star Trek: Voyager, this one will be the first in the new continuity timeline.  The article mentions that this captain is "being set up as Kirk's match" and the producers are "looking for somebody with the energy and vitality of Chris Pine."

3)  Bones' Ex-Wife (Jocelyn Darnell?) -- Getting a brief mention in Star Trek (2009), Dr. Leonard McCoy's ex-wife who supposedly left him with nothing but his bones will finally make her appearance on screen.  The character was created as Jocelyn Darnell Treadway in the Star Trek novel Shadows on the Sun, but may be someone completely new in Star Trek 3.  If nothing else, pairing Bones with his ex-wife should give Karl Urban far more to do than his previous outing in Star Trek Into Darkness.

As for Star Trek's latest Big Bad, the article states that the villain is "supposed to be Bryan Cranston-like, to the point that Cranston himself has had words with the studio about taking the role."  This is no indication that Cranston will actually take the role, however, since he's been rumored in just about everything since his AMC series Breaking Bad ended.  But if you're familiar with Cranston's TV character Walter White, you probably have some idea of what the producers have in mind.

Star Trek 3 is currently scheduled to arrive in theaters on July 8, 2016.

TITANS Roster Revealed for TNT TV Series Pilot

Titans together!

As we wait for casting news for TNT's pilot for The Titans, based on the DC Comics' superteam, Nerdist has managed to get a hold of the pilot script and posted some new details on which of members have made the cut for the team roster.

Here's the rundown from the article...

NIGHTWING

Dick Grayson is actually Robin in this iteration (at least at the start), but has left working alongside the Batman. Now a young adult, he is working as a detective in Boston. This is strikingly similar to the original Nightwing solo comic from the early ’90s from writer Chuck Dixon, in which Dick Grayson became a police officer in Gotham’s neighboring city of Bludhaven. The character of Dick Grayson, either as Robin or Nightwing, is one of the most iconic in all of comics, and has been very ill-served by recent live action incarnations. His portrayal in the Joel SchumacherBatman films was dismal, and he wasn’t even mentioned in the Christopher Nolan films (no, John “Robin” Blake doesn’t count). This could be a great opportunity for Dick Grayson to finally get some proper attention.

BARBARA GORDON

Although never a member of any incarnation of the Teen Titans in the comics, she did have a long-standing romantic relationship with Dick Grayson, which makes her inclusion here make sense. In this version, she was once known as Batgirl, but now finds herself in a wheelchair. She’s the team’s resident computer hacker, reflecting the character’s time as Oracle in the comics. (That being said, she’s not referred to as Oracle in the pilot, but that could change.) There were many, many fans of this version of the character, who was unceremoniously sent away to limbo after the New 52 restored Barbara Gordon as Batgirl, so there should be many fans who are happy this version of Barbara will continue to exist somewhere.

HAWK AND DOVE

There have been several incarnations of the duo known as Hawk and Dove, who both have a long-standing tradition of being members of the Titans in the comics. The original Hawk and Dove were brothers Don and Hank Hall. Each brother was gifted with powers from the Lord of Order and Chaos. Don died during the Crisis on Infinite Earths, and was replaced with Dawn Granger as the new Dove, and eventually started dating Hawk. This seems to be the version they’re going with for the new series, as Hawk and Dove are set to be a romantic pairing. Also expect these two to have the biggest change from their classic comic book looks.

RAVEN

In the comics, it was Raven, daughter of the inter-dimensional demon Trigon, who brought the New Teen Titans together to fight her father. An empath as well as a teleporter, Raven always had to keep her emotions in check, or else she could accidentally unleash her demonic side. In the Geoff Johns’ run of Teen Titans in the early 2000s, he gave her the name Rachel Roth, which is how she is referred to in this pilot script.

STARFIRE

The alien princess Koriand’r from the planet Tamaran was one of the most popular characters introduced in the New Teen Titans comics of the ’80s, as well as on the Teen Titans animated series from the early 2000’s. She (as well as Raven) only appear as buttons at the very end of the episode, but considering her romance with Dick Grayson in the comics was a big part of it, expect some kind of love triangle with Nightwing and Barbara Gordon should the series go forward.

Popular Titans members Beast Boy/Changeling and Cyborg are missing from the script, but could certainly appear later provided the series is picked up by TNT, although Ray Fisher appearing as Cyborg in upcoming DC Comics movies could prohibit his inclusion.

Also, if the series exists in the same shared television universe as Arrow and The Flash, it's possible that Arsenal/Roy Harper and perhaps Wally West or Jesse Quick could appear as well.