In late March, Epic Games cut more than 1,000 employees, roughly 23 percent of the company, and announced the permanent shutdown of three Fortnite game modes: Rocket Racing, Ballistic, and Festival Battle Stage. CEO Tim Sweeney told staff the company had spent more than it earned for too long. He also announced $500 million in cuts to contracts, marketing, and open roles. Laid-off employees received four months base pay plus severance tied to tenure.

To understand why this stings, you need the numbers behind Fortnite.

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The Sun Eater novelist Christopher Ruocchio has explained why he believes that science fiction authors ignoring religion does the genre a disservice.

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In an interview on the 2 To Ramble YouTube show, Ruocchio discussed how his reversion to his Catholic faith influenced the series and how the books integrate religion.

At one point in the discussion he shared, “I think science fiction has done religion a disservice by pretending it will just go away. Human beings are, I think, intrinsically spiritual whether or not we want to be. And so that’s a dimension of human life that’s not going anywhere even if the nature of the worship or the object of it changes.”

“My science fiction has a strong religious element to it. It’s not a Christian element explicitly. There’s a couple characters who are. But they do not dominate the narrative in any way. It’s not like that.”

Ruocchio is not alone in making such comments. Foundation writer Isaac Asimov made similar comments in his essay “Religion and Science Fiction.”

Asimov stated, “It is impossible to write science fiction and really ignore religion. What if we find intelligent beings on other worlds. Do they have a religion? Is our God universal, and is he/she/it their God as well? What do we do about it? What do they do about?”

“This point is almost never taken up but, since it would certainly arise if such beings were discovered in actual fact, science fiction loses touch with reality in taking the easy way out and pretending religion doesn’t exist,” he added.

Ruocchio is simply stating the obvious. Human beings have always been spiritual, and pretending that advanced technology or some enlightened future will magically erase that fundamental part of who we are is lazy, dishonest, and bad storytelling.

Great science fiction explores truth about humanity, not ideological fantasies where religion conveniently vanishes so the author can push whatever message is trendy this week.

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Dive into Space Fleet Academy: Year One, the bold, unapologetic sci-fi epic that’s the real answer to woke Starfleet Academy nonsense! Humanity’s future hangs by a thread and Earth’s elite Space Fleet Academy trains the next generation of officers to defend civilization against cosmic threats, alien dangers, and internal decay. The book explores high-stakes space battles, rigorous training, and timeless values of duty, honor, and human excellence.

If you’re tired of sanitized reboots and craving a fresh, no-holds-barred academy adventure that actually respects heroism and exploration, grab this book now.

NEXT: Former Disney Lead Software Engineer Claims Company Toned Down Its DEI Policies Since President Trump’s Election: “The Vibe Shift Is Real”

Warner Bros. dropped the full cast for The Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum during its CinemaCon presentation in Las Vegas Tuesday, settling months of speculation. The film arrives December 17, 2027. Production begins in May.

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Andy Serkis returns to direct and play Gollum and his alter ego Sméagol. Ian McKellen is back as Gandalf the Grey. Elijah Wood returns as Frodo Baggins. Lee Pace reprises Thranduil, the Elvenking of Mirkwood, from the Hobbit films. Kate Winslet joins as Marigol, a new character believed by fans to be Sméagol’s mother. Jamie Dornan takes the role of Strider, the Dúnedain ranger who will eventually be crowned King Elessar, but here is still operating in the shadows under his ranger name. Leo Woodall plays Halvard, a second Dúnedain companion on the hunt. Peter Jackson is producing alongside Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens.

Serkis released a statement with the announcement: “Across two trilogies, a mark of a Middle-earth film has always been the formidable array of talent brought to bear in every role. The Hunt for Gollum continues in that tradition, and I am delighted to announce the return of two of Middle-earth’s most beloved performers, alongside some exceptionally talented new additions to Tolkien’s world.”

There is also a second film in development. Stephen Colbert is co-writing The Lord of the Rings: Shadow of the Past alongside Boyens and Peter McGee, with the title drawn from the first chapter of The Fellowship of the Ring. No director is attached.

But there’s problems with the idea for The Hunt For Gollum even before getting to Colber.

The source material for The Hunt for Gollum is a few pages in Tolkien’s appendices. Gandalf sends Strider to track Gollum before Sauron can torture the location of Bilbo’s ring out of him. That is the whole story. There is no act structure waiting to be discovered, no untold saga buried in the footnotes. What Tolkien wrote down is what Tolkien wrote down. Everything else is invention wearing Tolkien’s clothes, and the people writing this film have already told the public exactly how they feel about invention wearing Tolkien’s clothes.

Boyens, during the press run for The War of the Rohirrim, explained her approach to the franchise’s mythology this way: “We can’t do anything to those books. Those books are going to stand as these masterpieces... We can’t ruin them.” She also said that “sometimes the most compelling story is the untold story.” That film built a girlboss original character named Héra out of a two-word reference in Tolkien to “Helm’s daughter,” dropped her into anime-style action sequences, and had a character at the end of the film tell the audience not to bother looking for Héra in the old songs. The reason she is not in the old songs is that Tolkien did not write her. The film did not feel like Tolkien. It felt like someone who has read Tolkien but disagrees with his instincts.

Boyens is back as a co-writer on The Hunt for Gollum. That record matters.

Then there is Colbert. The Shadow of the Past film, which comes after this one, is being co-written by the host of a late-night television show whose primary qualification for the job appears to be that he is a famous Tolkien enthusiast. Tolkien’s legendarium is one of the most carefully constructed mythological systems in literary history. “He’s a fan” is not a writing credit that is going to make speculative fans comfortable.

Replacing Viggo Mortensen as Aragorn is the other issue nobody wants to name directly. Mortensen’s performance was one of the defining performances of early 2000s cinema. Jamie Dornan is a capable actor, known for Belfast and The Fall. He is not obviously wrong for the role. But the role is 24 years old in audience memory, and Mortensen set the bar at a height that has nothing to do with talent and everything to do with presence.

The original trilogy grossed nearly $3 billion and won 17 Academy Awards, including Best Picture for The Return of the King, which tied the all-time record with 11 wins in a single night. The last live-action Middle-earth film hit theaters in 2014. Amazon spent three seasons on Rings of Power and handed the franchise’s critics more ammunition than anyone could have anticipated.

This film has the right producing team and some of the right returning faces. Whether that is enough to compensate for a screenplay built on material two pages long, a co-writer who called fan criticism dismissible, and a second film co-written by a late-night host, is a question December 2027 will answer.

Are you going in with hope or with your guard up?

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Epic Fantasy hasn’t been this hard-hitting since Tolkien. In a world where humanity is akin to a Roman legion, a great darkness arises. Read A Throne Of Bones today.

NEXT: Daniel Vavra Attempts To Explain How ‘Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2’ Is Not Woke While Bragging About Receiving A LGBTQ+ Award Nomination

Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 Game Director Daniel Vavra attempted to explain how the game is not woke while at the same time bragging about receiving a LGBTQ+ award nomination from Gayming Magazine.

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The original game includes a graphic depiction of sodomy between the player character, Henry, and the underage Hans Capon. Developer Warhorse Studios would eventually patch the game to age up Hans Capon to 20 years-old.

In the first game, the codex entry for the character clearly described him as “the underage son of Jan Jesek Ptacek and Hedvika of Dauba.”

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A lot of news is going on with CinemaCon. We are doing our best to cover it. I ended up with a pretty bad fever yesterday, forgot to send out the Daily Briefing as a result, but that doubles up the stories for you to look at today!

In other news, we started a news X account called Trad Values News to cover the more direct politics in the same hard-hitting fashion we do with Fandom Pulse. Go give us a follow over there!

Fandom Pulse costs money to operate with our awesome contributors, and we need your support. We’re about 40 paid subscribers away from being solvent! Please support our journalism and grab a subscription for what it costs for a Starbucks cup of coffee a month. We appreciate you!

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Star Trek: Resurgence is gone. The narrative adventure game from former Telltale developers has been pulled from Steam and Xbox with less than 24 hours notice, the victim of an expired license that neither Paramount nor publisher Bruner House moved to renew.

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The announcement came on April 14 via a brief Steam community post. “Our license to distribute Star Trek: Resurgence has come to an end, so the game will no longer be offered for sale,” the statement read. “Existing customers can continue to access the game via their Steam library. Thanks to everyone who was able to enjoy the game!” The game vanished from Steam within hours. The Xbox Store followed. As of April 15, it remains available on the Epic Games Store, Nintendo eShop, and PlayStation Store, but those storefronts are expected to follow.

The timing made it worse. Star Trek: Resurgence had been part of an active Steam sale when the delisting notice went up. Players who bought the game at a discount one day found it gone the next. Fans noted that Bruner House and Dramatic Labs almost certainly knew the license end date well in advance. They said nothing.

The game itself earned its audience. On OpenCritic, it sits at a 71 average from critics. On Steam, it held a “Very Positive” rating from more than 3,000 user reviews. The studio behind it, Dramatic Labs, was founded by over 20 former Telltale employees after that company’s sudden 2018 collapse. They built a game that reviewers consistently praised for its authentic Trek feel, its character writing, and its narrative structure. It sold between 50,000 and 100,000 copies on Steam alone, after launching as an Epic exclusive.

Resurgence launched in May 2023. It lived on storefronts for less than three years before Paramount let the deal expire.

Reports from the GamingOnLinux community suggest Paramount and Skydance raised Star Trek licensing costs by 2,000% for renewal negotiations, a number that would explain why a small studio and boutique publisher had no path to a new deal. Paramount has not confirmed or denied those figures.

This lands at an already low moment for the franchise. Paramount canceled Star Trek: Starfleet Academy before its second season could air. Strange New Worlds is being wound down after Season 5. For the first time in years, no Trek television series is in active development. The Kurtzman era, which promised a streaming-era expansion of the franchise, produced shows that failed to build a durable audience and a licensing regime that is now pricing out the developers who tried to fill the gap.

The game does have physical media discs, but those are selling out rapidly and going for exorbitant prices on eBay already.

A franchise that should be generating additional products and audience goodwill at its 60th anniversary is instead contracting on every front.

What do you think of how Paramount has managed the Star Trek brand? Let us know in the comments.

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When genetic engineering nearly doomed the species, humanity made a desperate bargain: let the frontier do what nature intended. In a harsh universe, these cadets have to make impossible decisions. Read Space Fleet Academy today.

NEXT: Kane’s Games Just Dropped A 2-hour Review On ‘Resident Evil Requiem’

Disney cut roughly 1,000 employees across the company today. Marvel took some of the deepest hits.

Both Marvel Entertainment in New York and Marvel Studios in Burbank lost staff, with layoffs confirmed across film and TV production, comics, franchise, finance, and legal. According to Deadline, approximately 8% of Marvel’s total workforce is gone.

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The visual development cuts tell the real story. Marvel Studios eliminated most of its in-house visual development team and will replace them with outside contractors hired project by project. That is not a restructuring. That is a studio that no longer trusts its own pipeline enough to staff it permanently.

Disney CEO Josh D’Amaro confirmed the cuts, framing them as part of a push toward a more streamlined marketing and brand organization. The Wrap reported the Marvel reductions follow directly from the studio’s artificially inflated production slate, which ballooned during the Disney+ era as the streamer demanded fresh content regardless of whether audiences showed up. They largely did not.

Marvel went through a smaller round of layoffs in 2024. That round was quiet, whereas this one is not. Eight percent across nearly every department signals that Disney has finally accepted what critics have been saying for three years: the machine was producing too much product of too little quality, and the bill has arrived.

This round included several individuals at Marvel Comics. Senior editors Lauren Bisom, Devin Lewis, and Darren Shan are among those let go this week. Timothy Cheng, Marvel’s Executive Director of Communications, is also leaving after years with Marvel.

The comics division being included is worth noting for the right reasons. Marvel’s print operation has run as a largely separate concern from the studio side, but the same ideological capture that damaged the films ran through the comics just as thoroughly, with legacy characters replaced, messaging prioritized over story, and the existing fanbase treated as an obstacle. Whether the layoffs reach the editorial decisions that drove that direction is a different question. Studios rarely cut from the top.

What is clear is that the version of Marvel that treated Disney+ as a content factory, that greenlit She-Hulk and Secret Invasion and Ms. Marvel and assumed the brand would carry them, is being dismantled today. The question now is whether the people making the cuts understand why those shows failed, or whether they believe the problem was volume rather than quality.

Independent publishers and creators have been building audiences while Marvel spent years alienating its core readers. The market was never gone. It went elsewhere.

Is Marvel cutting the right people, or will the same creative direction survive the layoffs intact?

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Three free books. No spam. Just new releases, deals, and the occasional update from the front lines of independent publishing. Sign up for the Jon Del Arroz newsletter and start reading today.

Lucasfilm has a standing rule against bringing Mara Jade into Star Wars canon, and no one has been able to break it. Not Claudia Gray, one of the most prolific Star Wars authors working today, nor Timothy Zahn, the man who created Mara Jade in the first place.

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YouTuber, Kane's Games, recently dropped a 2-hour review of Resident Evil Requiem, an excellent work and a work of genuine effort given the constraints of regular work alongside doing YouTube as a hobby.

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Unlike so many soulless golems and tourists riding the Resdient Evil hype train and praising the game unobtrusively without a lick of critical analysis, Kane has graced YouTube with a heaping's worth of thoughts and feelings to chew on that you'll never find from the "post first" echochambering among the top influencers that reminds me of how great it feels to be niche.

Kane pulls no punches, mentioning the ubiquitous member berries, the confusing plot, and even retcons? What's astounding about today's consumer is that anyone who played the original games should be engaged in this kind of analysis due to their love of the franchise. But of course, the same people who are out and about social media touting this slop as a masterpiece are probably the same type of people who demand even more modern remakes of great games which, inevitably, turns everything into a generic Gears of War style over-the-shoulder third person shooters.

And don't assume, even for a moment, that the claim that tourists are mucking things up is without basis. According to Kane, Requiem boasted three times the amount of max players as any of the other Resident Evil games on Steam to date.

RE9 is about half of a good game, according to Kane, which he means to say that he didn't hate everything about the game. As a Resident Evil fan, he was genuinely looking forward to the game and even he couldn't help but feel hyped that he would get to play as Leon Kennedy. It is important he notes this because the distinct lack of critical thought and analysis on YouTube has far too many people engaging in content from a standpoint of hot or cold. Kane's mindset takes pattern recognition into account. Yes, pattern recognition, which is in very short supply in any industry nowadays because none of these companies want you thinking about how thoroughly their products have degenerated over the past ten or twenty years.

Capcom was once a company known for its quality in video games which contributes greatly to Kane's perspective about how badly Requiem was implemented. That being said, despite spending a long time ranting about the game’s many flaws, he makes it clear that he does not hate Resident Evil Requiem. In fact, he liked it more than Resident Evil 7 and 8, and even says that if it had released last year, it probably would have cracked his personal top five games of the year. Kane still sees real potential in the game, saying it is a step back in the right direction for the franchise compared to the more recent entries.

What makes him so critical, and what other critics ought to take note of, is that Kane is a genuine fan of both Resident Evil and Capcom. He is tired of watching the company repeatedly drop the ball on successful IPs they’ve already proven they can handle well (citing Dragon’s Dogma 2 and Monster Hunter as other recent disappointments) and he’s now worried about what they might do with Devil May Cry 6. He argues that RE9 could have been so much better with just a few smarter, more obvious decisions.

Kane’s core criticism is that the game feels like a game of extremes: it tries to mash together the over-the-top action of something like Resident Evil 6 with the slow, tense horror of RE7, but without splitting them into separate campaigns. The constant back-and-forth between Grace and Leon creates schizophrenic pacing, damages re-playability (a huge part of what makes Resident Evil special), and makes large portions of Leon’s sections feel tacked-on. Yet even with all those issues, the game still has that classic Resident Evil charm in spots, some genuinely high highs, and moments that made him reminisce about the older games.

Because of everything he covered Kane lands on a 7/10 which, in his estimation, is a slightly above-average game: worth playing for fans, but not worth $70 at full price given its short length (8–10 hours) and lack of extra modes like Mercenaries or Fourth Survivor. He recommends waiting for a sale (he picked it up on G2A for $40–50) or buying it discounted, rather than paying full price on launch. He hopes Capcom actually listens to feedback and fixes the obvious issues for the next game, but given the company’s recent track record, he’s not holding his breath.

Lastly, he also calls out the extreme “Astroturf” culture in gaming discourse, where every game is either complete garbage or an untouchable masterpiece, with no room for nuanced takes like his.

Overall, this closing perfectly sums up Kane’s feelings: the game has clear strengths and real potential, but it’s held back by a bunch of frustrating, avoidable problems that prevent it from being great. It’s “half of a good game,” and that’s exactly why he’s tough on it.

Fandom Pulse is reader-supported independent journalism. Paid subscribers get exclusive scoops and investigative reporting daily.

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In a shattered world where vampires have seized control of governments, media, and finance after a global collapse, humanity’s last hope emerges from the shadows: the Knights of Saint Michael. These twelve faithful warriors, armed with unyielding belief and blood that spells death to the undead, launch a desperate crusade against the immortal lords who treat mankind as livestock.

From legendary writer Chuck Dixon and visionary Vox Day, Midnight’s War delivers pulse-pounding action, dark intrigue, and raw defiance in a stunningly illustrated graphic novel that reimagines vampire lore with crusader intensity.

If you crave uncompromising heroes battling true evil, grab your copy today— the midnight world is waiting.

NEXT: NexusMods Removes Marvel Rivals Cloak and Dagger Elf Mod Over Race, Tells Designer to Stop Asking Questions

Josh Daws, a former Lead Software Engineer at the Walt Disney Company, who was just laid off, shared that the company has toned down its DEI policies and initiatives since the election of President Donald Trump in 2024.

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After being laid off, Daws conducted an impromptu Ask Me Anything on X, where he was first asked about how hard the company pushed the LGBTQ+ agenda internally and if it slowed down in 2025.

Daws answered, “2018-2024 was pretty bad. It peaked in 2020 and almost completely disappeared when Trump won.”

Additionally, he later shared that the people pushing this agenda are a “very small and vocal minority of the company. Most folks just want to make cool stuff.”

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Tim Russ, best known as Tuvok on Star Trek: Voyager, sat down with Trek Culture to discuss the cancellation of Starfleet Academy, and his analysis landed everywhere except on the actual problem. Rather than acknowledging that audiences rejected the show, Russ floated political theories about Paramount’s new ownership while calling the incoming CEO a “Trump MAGA freak.”

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ElfQuest is one of the most remarkable achievements in independent comics history, and it has never looked better than in Dark Horse’s new deluxe hardcover edition.

Created by Wendy and Richard Pini, a married couple who built something extraordinary together, ElfQuest launched in 1978 through their own company WaRP Graphics. Self-publishing was genuinely difficult then, and the direct comics market was still finding its footing. The Pinis produced one of the most beloved fantasy comics ever created regardless. They’re still the creative force behind it decades later. Wendy draws. Richard writes and produces. They never went away.

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What ElfQuest Is

For the uninitiated: ElfQuest follows the Wolfriders, a tribe of elves who live in deep symbiosis with wolves, bonding with them almost telepathically, riding them, thinking like them. Their chief is Cutter, a young and fierce leader whose world is upended when humans burn down his forest home and drive the Wolfriders into flight.

The mythology is rich from the first pages. Elves in this world are not Tolkien’s immortal, stately beings. They’re small, fierce, earthy creatures who have been on this planet so long they’ve forgotten where they came from. The humans they encounter are primitive, terrified of magic, and dangerous. The trolls who were supposed to be their allies betray them. Everything the Wolfriders know is destroyed in a single night.

What follows is the Quest: a journey across a desert landscape leading to another elf tribe, the Sun Folk, who are more Persian in character, dwelling in an oasis civilization unlike anything in the Wolfriders’ forest existence. The culture clash, the romance, the politics, and the mystery of where elves actually came from all unfold across what is genuinely one of fantasy’s great stories.

The concept that the high elves of old arrived on this world in something like a spaceship, a fairy tale castle that crashed, and have been slowly adapting to and forgetting their origins across millennia is a stunning piece of world-building. Science fiction and fantasy fused, long before that was fashionable.

The Story in Volume One

This deluxe edition collects the first five issues of the Original Quest, the foundational story that launched the entire series. The pacing is remarkable by modern standards. Within the first issue, the forest burns, the Wolfriders flee, they navigate troll caves, get betrayed, and emerge into a desert world unlike anything they’ve known.

Cutter’s meeting with Leetah, the Sun Folk healer who becomes his Recognition (ElfQuest’s term for a soul-deep, fated bond between two elves), drives the emotional core of the volume. Leetah resists. She has agency and choice. Cutter insists it’s destiny. The tension between them is genuinely compelling, a romance that doesn’t shortcut the conflict with easy resolution.

Skywise, Cutter’s “soul brother,” not blood family but something deeper, provides balance and humor. His interest in the stars, in where elves truly came from, plants seeds that the larger mythology will eventually pay off magnificently.

The Hardcover Presentation

Dark Horse’s deluxe hardcover is a substantial upgrade over every previous edition. The original ElfQuest was published in black and white for most of its run. Color editions existed, but the remastered coloring in these new hardcovers is the definitive visual presentation of Wendy Pini’s artwork.

That artwork rewards the upgrade. Pini’s style is often called cartoony, in the tradition of animation-influenced comics emerging in the late 1970s, but the label undersells it. Her character expressions are extraordinary. The range of emotion she conveys through faces and body language equals any comic artist working in any era. In color, with the reproduction quality a hardcover provides, every page breathes in a way that cheaper editions never captured.

The book itself is a beautiful object. The spine is solid. The paper stock handles the color reproduction well. The size gives Pini’s pages room to expand. Previous omnibus editions are now going out of print and becoming expensive on the secondary market. They were functional, not elegant. This is elegant.

It’s Online Too!

The Pinis have made the original ElfQuest available to read for free at elfquest.com. The entire Original Quest, along with most of the subsequent stories, is there for anyone who wants it. Making their life’s work freely accessible is characteristic of how the Pinis have always treated their readers.

Reading it free online and owning this hardcover are different experiences. The screen version gives you the story. The hardcover gives you the story as artifact, something to hold, to return to, to hand to someone else and say “read this.”

For a series that deserves to sit on shelves next to the finest fantasy literature ever produced, that distinction matters.

Why Now Is the Time

A Hollywood film adaptation was recently killed when studios attempted to change the storyline, doing what Hollywood always does to source material it doesn’t fully understand. The Pinis reportedly walked away rather than accept compromises that would have betrayed what ElfQuest is.

That integrity has defined ElfQuest for nearly fifty years. The Pinis built something on their own terms, maintained it on their own terms, and have never allowed it to be reduced to something lesser for commercial convenience. The Dark Horse deluxe editions are the proper home for that legacy: beautiful, permanent, respectful of the source material.

Four volumes will cover the complete Original Quest. Siege at Blue Mountain and Kings of the Broken Wheel are coming in 2027. The complete story of where the Wolfriders came from, what happened to the high elves, and what it means to be an elf on a world that was never yours is all coming in this format.

Volume one is the beginning of that journey. Taken alone, it is one of the finest fantasy comics ever published, finally presented the way it always deserved to be.

For anyone who has never read ElfQuest: start here. For longtime fans who experienced it in black and white or in editions that didn’t do the artwork justice: this is the upgrade you’ve been waiting for.

Rating: 10/10

What do you think? Is ElfQuest the most underrated fantasy epic in comics history, or does its devoted fanbase suggest it’s always gotten the recognition it deserves?

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Epic Fantasy hasn’t been this hard-hitting since Tolkien. In a world where humanity is akin to a Roman legion, a great darkness arises. Read A Throne Of Bones today.

NEXT: Force Works Co-Creator Tom Tenney Faces Medical Crisis as Comics Industry’s Broken Safety Net Fails Another Veteran Artist

Camilla Mendes, who plays Teela in Amazon MGM Studios upcoming Masters of the Universe, film affirmed that the film will explore “toxic masculinity.”

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Speaking to Entertainment Weekly, Mendes discussed her character and her relationship with her father, the race-swapped Man-At-Arms played by Idris Elba, “It's hard to talk about Teela without talking about her relationship to her father, because I feel like so much of who she is has to do with how she was, I guess, let down as a kid. And I feel like that really built this outer wall around her that's sort of like shielding this inner sensitivity.”

“She's affected by toxic masculinity just as much as the men in the film,” she continued. “And I think she's sort of adopted masculinity to protect herself in this very masculine world. It's how she survives. She's in survival mode, and has been for a very long time.”

Mendes was not the only one to discuss masculinity in the film with Entertainment Weekly. The film’s director Travis Knight also compared the film’s depiction of He-Man to the original animated series, “He was talking about kindness. He was talking about friendship and compassion. He was somebody who cared. And he was essentially like a bronzed empathy coach in furry underpants.”

“It was unique. It was different. And certainly for a kid like me — I was a sensitive kid. I was an artist. I was kind of a weird guy, you might say, and I made friends slowly when I made them at all…. I was comfortable with my own company, and I had deep thoughts and deep feelings, but I had a hard time making those types of deep connections easily with others. And so that very notion that strength and sensitivity could commingle, it was seismic. It was like discovering you could own both a tank and a diary,” he explained.

Actor Nicholas Galitzine, who plays He-Man, also shared, “This was like playing two characters, in a lot of ways. We're not reinventing the wheel necessarily, but the arc was so powerful. And I think as someone who grew up in a very masculine sphere of rugby but always felt like a really sensitive, emotionally intuitive person, I really did see myself in this character.”

As for what that arc will be, he shared, “[His life on Earth] is a little soulless, it's a little mundane, it's devoid of color and life.”

“It's frustrating, because Adam feels like he sees the best in people, he wants the best for people, but it doesn't feel like any of that is reciprocated for him,” he continued. “What is it like to be a pariah from such a young age, and always be gaslit into thinking that there's something wrong with you, but also the feeling that you weren't really at home on your home planet either? So it's this feeling of not really belonging anywhere.”

Finally, he concluded that Adam forms a “cocoon to remove [himself] from the possibility of feeling and being disappointed and hoping. Eventually, after 15 years, he's really a shadow of a person. He's lost hope. And so we meet him in quite a depressive sort of place.”

This is not the first time, the individuals involved in this film have talked about masculinity being a theme of the film.

Knight previously told Empire, “Skeletor’s kind of the embodiment of toxic masculinity.”

Gallitine also informed ScreenRant, “Without spoiling too much, I think there is a modernity to him that is really interesting. It feels like who he is as a person is a handshake between what traditional masculinity and femininity are, and I think it is very exciting to be able to play that in such a huge studio movie.”

“Obviously, the action and the set pieces are incredible, but there's a really human story in there as well. I think if I'm going to do something with that level of spectacle, I have to have that as well,” he concluded.

Fandom Pulse is reader-supported independent journalism. Paid subscribers get exclusive scoops and investigative reporting daily.

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Step into the dying deserts of Barsoom like never before. In Guns of Mars by Chuck Dixon, a thousand years after John Carter’s legendary arrival, a hard-bitten survivor named Kal fights for his life across a savage, crumbling Mars, where honor clashes with betrayal, ancient weapons meet desperate grit, and every step could be your last.

If you crave classic Edgar Rice Burroughs adventure with a raw, unflinching edge straight from the master of action comics, this pulse-pounding tale is your next must-read. Grab your copy today and ride the red sands!

NEXT: ‘Supergirl’ Actress Milly Alcock On Why She Wants The Film To Be Seen By Young Women: “The Message Is To Be Good You Have To Be A Bit Bad”

Supergirl actress Milly Alcock recently shared why she wants young women to watch the film.

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Speaking to Entertainment Tonight at CinemaCon, Alcock said, “I just really want this film to be seen by as many young women, specifically, as possible because I think the message is like: To be good you have to be a bit bad.”

“Like it’s okay to be flawed,” she continued. “It’s okay to be messy as long as your heart is in the right place.”

“She’s a bad [expletive] with a heart of gold. She is. That is the tagline,” she concluded.

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John Trent is back! Welcome him back - and also welcome contributor Paul Hair, who wrote the first article below the line here. He worked with us at Bounding Into Comics back in the day, and he’s a great writer who does fantastic journalism. We’re pleased to add him to the team.

Fandom Pulse costs money to operate with our awesome contributors, and we need your support. Please support our journalism and grab a subscription for what it costs for a Starbucks cup of coffee a month. We appreciate you!

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Supergirl’s Milly Alcock reportedly insinuated that fans treat actresses in major franchises harshly simply because they are women. Perhaps other cast and crew will make similar remarks about the film’s potential audience. Even if they don’t, it’s the latest incident showing that Hollywood doesn’t want to change. And that’s just fine. It has created a massive opening for others to craft new tales—ones filled with shocking ideas and situations that Hollywood would never dare touch.

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Vanity Fair asked Alcock if acting in House of the Dragon readied her for fan backlash over the upcoming Supergirl movie. “It definitely made me aware that simply existing as a woman in that space is something that people comment on,” she supposedly replied.

Hollywood telling people what it thinks of them is quite welcome at this point. It also serves as a reminder that it doesn’t own storytelling. People can create new superheroines and feature them in new stories that would be both massively fun and completely horrifying to the legacy entertainment industry. As an example, instead of a girlboss superheroine who’s the toughest and roughest one there is, let’s imagine a perky and bumbling superheroine who manages to foil villains through clumsiness and sheer ineptitude.

The Magnificent Magnifi-Girl, Episode 1

Daphne Woods is a freshman at Evans State College in Broadton, New York in the mid-1960s. On her first day of classes, she’s walking on campus and notices someone who has slipped and fallen. She rushes to help her. As she assists, wind kicks up strewn paper and she lunges to grab it. In doing so, she trips a passing student, who falls into another, starting a chain reaction of pratfalls and culminating in someone dumping food on the prized car of the upperclassman jock, infuriating him. Daphne brightly blushes.

A bit later and Daphne is again walking through the campus. As she passes some swell chums gathered around a table and listening to the hot new portable radio developed by industrialist James Rock, she overhears a news bulletin about a fire raging in nearby Harbor City. Daphne Woods may not be having a good day! she thinks. But, golly, Magnifi-Girl sure can help on this!

Magnifi-Girl flies to the fire, noticing that it has fully engulfed a three-story building. Despite the incident commander assuring her that it’s under control, she takes a hose, flies to the top of the building, and begins spraying water. She eventually extends it too far, ripping it out of a fire hydrant, causing water to gush everywhere on the street. “Without another hose, the fire’s going to engulf the rest of the block!” the incident commander advises her. “Then we’ll just have to take drastic measures!” she replies, zipping away. “No, wait! You didn’t let me finish!” he yells back. But she is not paying attention to him.

The peppy superheroine uses her super strength to punch away brick walls of the adjacent building’s ground floor until a loss of structural integrity causes it to collapse. She returns to the incident commander with an enormous smile on her face and boasts about her feat. The incident commander looks at her while other firemen surround him with another hose. “We had another hose on the way,” he replies. She apologizes and inquires as to how it started. He mentions that a supervillainess named Queen Janine has taken credit for it. The block of buildings belong to James Rock, whom Queen Janine has denounced as being arrogant and a menace to the city.

Embarrassed by the mistake but still upbeat, Magnifi-Girl zips back to college and changes into Daphne Woods. She realizes she’s about to be late for her first class and hurries to it, rushing to it and directly into her professor, knocking her onto the floor. Students laugh. The professor is furious.

Elsewhere, Queen Janine is in her secret headquarters, raging to her minions about how Magnifi-Girl stopped the fire. She then makes a public announcement about how she is launching a campaign against Harbor City, promising to inflict millions of dollars in damages unless it pays her a ransom and removes Rock’s influence from it. Her minions have launched an attack on a large warehouse at that very moment.

Magnifi-Girl rushes to the attack and disrupts it through her clumsy ways. She learns about another attack going on at another property owned by Rock.

Rock is using his private security to fend off Queen Janine’s minions. Magnifi-Girl arrives and he observes her clumsiness and buffoonery, with it at first irritating him. But he changes his mind, eventually sees it as an opportunity when he observes her incompetence ends up foiling the bad guys. He devises a plan on how to use her to draw out Queen Janine to face him in person.

Queen Janine takes the bait, but is surprised to find Magnifi-Girl with Rock, with the superheroine repeatedly disrupting her attacks through her maladroitness. To make matters worse, Magnifi-Girl rebuffs Queen Janine’s calls to switch sides and join her. Rock watches with amusement as Magnifi-Girl’s perky awkwardness leads her to victory. Queen Janine melts down into impotent fury at being defeated by sheer ineptitude. Rock congratulates Magnifi-Girl and offers her a deal.

Daphne returns to Evans State College, with excitement in her eyes. She goes to the registrar’s office where she drops out of school. As she departs, distracted by her own giddiness, she wanders into the midst of a protest against “American imperialism,” which she manages to completely shut down when she accidentally steps on a sign, causing its wooden handle to pop up and strike a student protester in the jaw. That sets off a chain of events that ends with the leader of the protest being knocked off a soapbox and falling head first into a trash can, causing everyone to laugh at him.

The comic book issue ends with Daphne at Rock’s headquarters, showing the deal he made with her. Daphne will now work as his personal secretary and he will use his resources to find problems for Magnifi-Girl to solve. Rock and Magnifi-Girl make a public announcement about their “partnership.” Queen Janine witnesses this news while in prison and loses her mind over it.

In future issues, Magnifi-Girl’s rogues gallery will include a significant number of people she and/or Daphne accidentally embarrass and/or offend with her clumsiness—including the jock, professor, and student activist she humiliated in issue number one. Hijinks will ensue, and the tales will be a complete change from the girlboss superheroine stories that Hollywood can’t help but tell.

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Thor vs. the Valkyries by Paul Hair delivers a fast, action-packed Norse mythology short read that hits like a thunderbolt.

When a band of treacherous Valkyries storms Thor’s palace, launches a coup against Asgard, and takes his beloved Lady Sif hostage as a slave, the God of Thunder has no allies left and no time to waste. With nothing but raw strength, defiance, and his legendary hammer, Thor charges headlong into battle in a tale of betrayal, brutal retribution, and a satisfying twist ending that’ll leave you grinning.

Short enough to finish in one sitting (under 15 minutes), this fun, no-nonsense story is perfect for fans of classic mythology who want a quick escape with plenty of muscle and zero modern preaching.

NEXT: 'Project Hail Mary' Novelist Andy Weir Explains How His Main Character Is Inspired By The Gospel

Andy Weir shared how the character of his novel and the film adaptation, Dr. Ryland Grace, is inspired by the Gospel.

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In a discussion with Neil deGrasse Tyson on his StarTalk YouTube channel, Weir brought up the subject. He said, “Did you notice that the name of the ship is The Hail Mary and it’s full of grace. The main character’s name is Dr. Ryland Grace. The Hail Mary is full of grace. I could not resist it.”

In Luke 1:28, the angel Gabriel addresses the Virgin Mary, “And coming to her, he said, ‘Hail, favored one! The Lord is with you.’”

However, in the Douay-Rheims translation it states, “And the angel being come in, said unto her: Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women.”

Additionally, it is the opening line of The Hail Mary prayer, which is obviously derived from the Gospel of Luke, “Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee.”

This revelation by Weir appears to add even more credence to how the movie is indeed a Christian film. LOOR TV co-founder Marcus Pittman previously shared his analysis noting how Dr. Ryland Grace was a Christ-like figure noting that he meets the alien creature named Rocky and the two to become best friends and this is similar to Christ choosing St. Peter to build his Church, “In deep space, Grace meets an alien creature, Rocky, who is also trying to figure out how to save the world, and the two become best friends. In Scripture, Jesus says to Peter, ‘On this rock, I will build my church.’ The film reaches its climax when Grace, the Christ figure, willingly sacrifices himself to save Rocky, the proverbial church, and all of creation.”

Additionally, Pittman noted, “I am just beginning to scratch the surface of all the biblical parallels. But here’s just one more. At the end of the film, after creation is saved, the question remains: Will Grace return to Earth? We don’t get a definitive answer, but it is implied that someday soon, he will return.”

Fandom Pulse is reader-supported independent journalism. Paid subscribers get exclusive scoops and investigative reporting daily.

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Tired of woke sci-fi that preaches at you? Templar Drin wields deadly nanotech for a galactic empire—until he crash-lands on a brutal desert world ruled by a tyrannical alien overlord. Now, armed with faith and firepower, one rogue warrior must fight for justice, free the oppressed, and save souls in a war that spans stars and eternity.

If you crave old-school military sci-fi like Star Wars and Warhammer 40K with unapologetic Christian heart, Justified is your next addiction. Grab it now before the empire strikes back!”

NEXT: Mark Hamill Responds To Activists Wanting Luke Skywalker To Be Gay

NexusMods removed a Marvel Rivals retexture mod turning Cloak and Dagger into fantasy elves, citing the designer’s alleged alteration of a racially marginalized character’s skin tone. The incident adds another chapter to the platform’s growing history of ideologically motivated moderation that increasingly contradicts the entire purpose of a modding community.

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The mod in question was titled “Cloak and Dagger Daring Duo - Albion,” a retexture inspired by elven folklore aesthetics. The designer’s intent was straightforward creative expression - reimagining the characters through a fantasy lens. NexusMods moderator Myrddin pulled the mod on April 14, 2026, issuing the following removal notice:

“This is not a fantasy race situation; this is you changing the race of a character from a marginalized group in the USA. The intention is to prevent divisiveness or hostility within the community.”

The designer, Tendo, pushed back on that characterization in Discord, pointing out the obvious: Cloak wasn’t whitewashed but depicted as made of birch wood, consistent with the elf folklore aesthetic the mod was built around.

Myrddin’s response ended any possibility of reasonable discussion: “We’re not talking about your moderation actions in here. Stop pushing it.”

That exchange tells you everything about how NexusMods handles dissent. The moderator issued a ruling, the designer asked a legitimate question about the reasoning, and the platform shut down the conversation entirely rather than defend its own decision.

The designer ultimately complied with the platform’s unspoken racial requirements, reposting the mod with explicit acknowledgment of the changes made to satisfy moderation. The new listing reads: “A retexture for Daring Duo inspired by elves and folklore. Now with a darker skin for Cloak.”

The artistic vision was compromised not because of quality issues or technical violations but because a moderator decided the character’s skin appeared too light.

For those unfamiliar, Marvel Rivals is NetEase Games’ free-to-play 6v6 hero shooter launched globally in late 2024. The game features 46+ Marvel characters battling across multiversal locations with team-up abilities and destructible environments. It became one of the most-played games of its launch window, drawing direct comparisons to Overwatch and generating a massive modding community almost immediately.

Cloak and Dagger are Tyrone Johnson and Tandy Bowen, Marvel characters created by Bill Mantlo and Ed Hannigan in 1982. Tyrone is Black, Tandy is white - the duo’s contrasting appearances are fundamental to their visual identity and symbolic relationship, representing darkness and light. Their Marvel Rivals appearance, titled “Daring Duo,” brings both characters into the game as a paired hero unit.

NexusMods is the largest PC modding repository in the world, hosting millions of mods across thousands of games. The platform built its reputation as the definitive destination for user-created game modifications - a place where creative freedom theoretically reigns because mods exist outside official development channels. That reputation has taken consistent damage from the platform’s moderation decisions.

The Captain America Trump mod removal in early January 2025 is the most publicized example. NexusMods pulled the Marvel Rivals mod replacing Captain America’s likeness with Donald Trump, citing a 2020 policy banning American political content. Biden and Obama mods were also removed under the same policy - a fact the platform loudly emphasized to deflect accusations of selective targeting.

But the Cyberpunk 2077 incident revealed more obvious ideological bias. NexusMods deleted a mod making Judy Alvarez romanceable by male characters while leaving a comparable mod for Panam and female characters untouched. The asymmetric enforcement drew immediate criticism.

The Oblivion remaster controversy cut even deeper. A mod changing character body type labels from “Type 1/Type 2” back to “Male/Female” was removed multiple times. NexusMods claimed the mod didn’t technically violate guidelines, then banned the uploaders anyway for “posting an intentionally antagonistic mod with intention to evade rules” - all without issuing prior warnings. Critics noted the platform effectively invented a rule to ban a mod it found ideologically objectionable.

The pattern across these incidents is consistent: NexusMods applies moderation selectively based on the ideological direction of changes rather than enforcing neutral content standards. Mods that move characters toward progressive representation survive. Mods that move in any other direction face removal.

This directly contradicts the philosophical foundation of modding culture. Mods exist because players want creative control over their gaming experience that developers don’t provide. The freedom to reskin characters, change appearances, alter gameplay mechanics, and reimagine fictional worlds is the entire point.

The Cloak and Dagger situation is particularly indefensible because the designer’s premise was pure fantasy aesthetics with zero racial intent. Elves in fantasy fiction have light features as a genre convention stretching back decades through Tolkien and beyond. Applying that aesthetic to characters in a birchwood-inspired elf retexture isn’t a statement about race.

NexusMods decided otherwise. A moderator applied a racial standard to fictional character appearances, shut down questions about that decision, and forced the designer to publicly acknowledge they’d added darker skin to comply. The platform turned a folklore-inspired creative project into a racial compliance exercise.

What do you think about modding platforms enforcing racial appearance standards on fictional character retextures?

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When genetic engineering nearly doomed the species, humanity made a desperate bargain: let the frontier do what nature intended. In a harsh universe, these cadets have to make impossible decisions. Read Space Fleet Academy today.

NEXT: Marathon Is Bleeding Out In An Unprecedented Failure For AAA Gaming

We started a retrospective on Tolkien’s rise to superstardom, which began with a left-wing movement in the 1970s appropriating his work, and has slowly migrated over time to people realizing how right-wing and Christian Lord of the Rings is. Now, we continue.

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Actor Mark Hamill, who portrays Luke Skywalker in the Star Wars franchise, recently addressed activists who want Luke Skywalker to be gay.

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Hamill told Polygon, “So if you want him to be gay, he is. If you don't want him to be, he's not. It's whatever you want.”

Activists have been attempting to make Luke Skywalker a homosexual for years now. One of their most recent big pushes came back in 2023 when the Star Wars fan encyclopedia Wookieepedia labeled the character as LGBTQ+ based on a short story written by activist writer Sam Maggs.

That short story was titled “Luke on the Bright Side” and was published in Stories of Jedi and Sith, an anthology marketed towards children ages 9-12.

The story follows Luke while he’s on Hoth as he attempts to aid the Rebel Alliance by using the Force to dig given their radar equipment is not functioning. Luke and a Sergeant Reyé Hollis fall victim to an ice worm attack and end up buried beneath the base. Luke has to use the Force to find the weak points in the ice so the two can dig themselves out.

In order to do so, Luke uses the Force to create heat that allows him and Hollis to tunnel through the ice. Maggs writes, “I look down at our faintly glowing hands and then back up at Reyé I wouldn’t say he looks happy; I don’t think the guy has looked happy a day in his life. There’s still some doubt in his eyes. But I will say—if I’m going easy on myself—that he looks impressed. I flash the same big grin I gave him the first time I saw him. ‘See? Jedi aren’t all bad.'”

After the two dig themselves out, Maggs concludes the story, “And when we start to dig, it isn’t long before the light breaks through, just like I saw in my mind’s eye. The Force has never steered me wrong. I know it never will.”

The story did not depict Luke Skywalker engaging in any romantic relationship with Hollis despite Wookieepedia activists attempting to use it to label Luke as LGBTQ+.

Additionally, in the Expanded Universe Luke Skywalker ends up married to Mara Jade and the two have a son, Ben Skywalker, together.

Furthermore, as Archbishop Lazar Puahlo noted in his review of Return of the Jedi back in 1984, “The hero of the series is Luke Skywalker, a pure, highly moral young man who is a true hero, rather than the modern anti-hero image so often lauded in contemporary films. He remains a virgin throughout the film and his growth in spiritual leadership and strength is directly linked with this.”

He later added in his review, “It is one of the only movies I know of from the last two or three decades where we witness an actual triumph of virginity and morality over the dark forces of the passions.”

Clearly, trying to make Luke Skywalker undermines the entirety of the character. He is no longer the pure, highly moral young man, but instead highly immoral and enslaved to the dark forces of his passions.

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Tired of woke sci-fi that preaches at you? Templar Drin wields deadly nanotech for a galactic empire—until he crash-lands on a brutal desert world ruled by a tyrannical alien overlord. Now, armed with faith and firepower, one rogue warrior must fight for justice, free the oppressed, and save souls in a war that spans stars and eternity.

If you crave old-school military sci-fi like Star Wars and Warhammer 40K with unapologetic Christian heart, Justified is your next addiction. Grab it now before the empire strikes back!”

NEXT: Brian Jacques’ ‘Redwall’ Series No Longer In Development At Netflix