Another day, another bit of drama involving the Fast & Furious movie franchise. Tyrese Gibson, who has starred as Roman Pearce in five of the eight movies released thus far, is threatening to quit Fast & Furious 9.
His ultimatum is simple: If Dwayne Johnson is in it, he wants out. It’s the latest in a long one-sided war of Instagram posts between the two actors, which stems back to Gibson’s anger over Johnson and co-star Jason Statham getting a spin-off movie. That project, Hobbs & Shaw, pushed back the release of Fast & Furious 9 by a year, which Tyrese wasn’t pleased about.
Now, in his newest rant about Johnson, which is riddled with spelling and grammatical errors, Gibson says, “I’m sorry to announce that if Dewayne is in Fast9 there will no more Roman Peirce.” Accompanying the threat is a photo of the actor, alongside Johnson and Vin Diesel. “You mess with family and my daughters survival I mess with yours,” he continues.
He also seemingly alleges that Johnson takes steroids, writing, “folks that GP to the gym and get big naturally #NoJuice #NoOJ spin off huh?” Naturally, Johnson has yet to respond to this or any other shot Gibson has sent his way over the last several months.
In the end, when it comes down to it, it’s hard to believe that Gibson would call it quits on the profitable franchise over a squabble with a fellow actor–the latter of whom may not even realize it’s happening. That said, unless this is all one very bad marketing idea or manages to get settled before it goes too far, things are going to be very awkward on the set of the next movie once it goes into production.
The ninth Fast & Furious movie will arrive on April 10, 2020–almost a year after the spinoff starring Johnson and Statham premieres on July 26, 2019.
Thor teams up with some familiar faces in order to stop the evil Hela from destroying their world, Asgard, in Thor: Ragnarok. However, many fans of Marvel comics have come to realize that the inclusion of Jeff Goldblum’s character Grandmaster means there’s yet another character part of the group Elders of the Universe now in the cinematic universe. Who is Grandmaster and what are his origins? We’re diving into the comics to figure it out.
Grandmaster is the second member of the Elders of the Universe to appear in a Marvel film, with Benicio Del Toro’s The Collector–who appeared in Thor: The Dark World and Guardians of the Galaxy–being the first. Both of these characters are extremely powerful, potentially immortal cosmic beings, and Grandmaster made his comic book debut in The Avengers #69 back in 1969. The character known for playing games and pitting heroes against each other was created by Roy Thomas and Sal Buscema. Because he’s one of the oldest characters in the Marvel universe, his origin has been lost to time, but we do know a lot about him outside of his early days.
The Grandmaster’s comic book debut was a strange one, as he made a bargain with Kang: The Conqueror. If Kang could beat him in a game of strategy, the Grandmaster would bring his lover out of her comatose state. The Avengers help Kang out, but the whole story is a bit bizarre. The game Grandmaster has the Avengers engage in is a fight against the super-powered team Squadron Sinister, 2,000 years in the future. Obviously, the Avengers won and Kang’s significant other’s life was restored. Grandmaster was the first of many Marvel villains who enjoyed making superheroes fight each other, sometimes to the death.
The most well-known story of Grandmaster comes from the story Contest of Champions. His brother Collector is dead, and Grandmaster devices a plot to play Death in a game in order to get him back. Both opponents choose heroes from Earth to battle for them. Grandmaster won but had to sacrifice his own life to get back Collector. While he did so, Collector found a way to bring him back later, which in turn banished all of the Elders from death. Now, they were truly immortal, after an interesting yet completely convoluted story.
While the Elders are some of the older beings in the universe, there is one thing older than they are: Galactus, a being who was born in the universe prior to ours, and yes, even comic fans find his origins confusing. During a story in the late-’80s, the Elders of the Universe teamed up with a plan to kill Galactus, using the Infinity Stones, which resulted in all of them being eaten by Galactus himself. Funnily enough, they all survived within Galactus and made him ill from the inside. Eventually, they were all released and had to work with Galactus in order to beat the being known as In-Betweener.
In yet another instance of recycled storylines with a big hook, Grandmaster battled the immortal being known as Krona, who is from DC Comics and a Green Lantern villain. Krona was planning on destroying the Marvel universe, so both he and Grandmaster decided to play a game pitting the Avengers against the Justice League, where they had to find 12 items of power scattered between the DC and Marvel worlds. The battle didn’t go as planned for Krona, as a over-powered Superman–joined by Flash and Hawkeye–got Krona sucked into an item known as the Cosmic egg. To this date, the Cosmic Egg is the only item both currently in the Marvel and DC Universes.
Grandmaster met his end, for a second time, in 2008, as his team of Hulk and the Defenders found Red Hulk’s Offenders. At the end of the storyline, Red Hulk beat Grandmaster to death, which is confusing, since he can’t die. However, the character reappeared a few years later after Secret Wars, as part of the comic series Contest of Champions, based on the phone app.
As for this character’s powers, well, he has them all. He’s immortal and has residual energy inside of him, left over from the Big Bang, which created the universe. This allows him to have a plethora of powers and abilities–like super-strength, energy manipulation, psionics, and a whole lot more–making him a tremendous foe for anyone he faces. During his first few appearances, it was revealed that he did have a weakness: his life and vitality were dependent on his obsession with gaming. If he gave up on that obsession, he could die. However, that weakness was taken away after he was banished by Death.
Looking for more on the Grandmaster? Check out these storylines.
Squadron Sinister: Grandmaster has the Avengers fight the Squadron Sinister in the year 4000 A.D. Takes place in Avengers #69-71.
Contest of Champions: The Collector is dead, and Grandmaster has a plan to bring him back to life: play Death in a game and win. Both Death and Grandmaster pick heroes and force them to fight in a series of battles. Takes place in the 1982 volume of Contest of Champions #1-3.
Death to Galactus: The Elders team up and try to kill Galactus, but ultimately, they have to work with him to take down the In-Betweener. Takes place in Silver Surfer #9-10, #16-17.
JLA/Avengers: Grandmaster and Krona play a game and force the Justice League and Avengers fight each other. Takes place in JLA/Avengers #1-4.
Death of Grandmaster: Rulk–that’s Red Hulk–beats Grandmaster to death because Rulk was an over-powered character who had the capability of killing cosmic beings. Takes place in Hulk #10-12.
If you want to know more about the upcoming film, check out our Thor: Ragnarok review. In it, GameSpot’s Mike Rougeau said, “Thor: Ragnarok shines when it’s allowed to stray from the formula set by a decade of predecessors in the MCU, and it seems Waititi is to thank for most of what feels fresh and new here. By the movie’s end, Thor and co. have left much of their past behind, ensuring the future is exciting in its potential, especially as we approach the Infinity War storyline.”
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Owlboy is coming to Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4 on February 13, 2018.
In a video celebrating the one year anniversary of Owlboy’s release on PC, developer D-Pad Studios announced the game will be released for consoles digitally first. Details about a forthcoming physical edition will be revealed sometime in the future.
The game features a young mute protagonist owl named Otus in a sprawling 2D Metroid-style world. Otus travels with a number of charming companions that grant him additional skills or access to new areas, even helping him in aerial combat.
Owlboy was released last year on November 1 for PC. In our Owlboy review we called it “an exciting adventure with tons of heart.”
FIFA 18 is currently the only EA-developed game on Nintendo Switch. It’s going to stay that way for a while longer, according to CFO Blake Jorgensen. He told The Wall Street Journal that EA is taking a wait-and-see approach to the Switch as it relates to bringing more games to the hybrid console.
Sports games are big business for EA, but Jorgensen would not say if FIFA 18 for Switch was a success for EA. The executive went on to state that EA is looking to “fully understand what the demand is” widely for the Switch before it considers bringing more games to it.
EA does have one more announced game for the Switch game in the works. The gorgeous-looking adventure game Fe is landing on Switch (along with PS4, Xbox One, and PC) in early 2018, but EA is only publishing it.
In August this year, EA VP Patrick Soderlund said the company will bring its games to any platform that has players. “We believe that we want to be a part of the Switch, and help Nintendo grow that installed base,” he said at the time.
A representative for EA’s FIFA franchise told GameSpot that the company is considering bringing more FIFA games to Switch. It’s no big surprise that EA would kick off its Switch releases with FIFA, considering it’s one of the most popular gaming franchises on the planet. If any game could appeal to a wide audience, it’s probably that one.
Leviathan, the first and currently only Raid for Destiny 2, has launched on PC. It’s the most difficult challenge available to players, and you’ll need to be well-prepared and have an organized group of six to stand a chance at completing it.
There’s more to the Raid at launch on PC than there was initially on PS4 and Xbox One. That’s because Challenge mode, which was enabled earlier this week on consoles, is available from the get-go on PC. This allows players to fulfill a more difficult requirement during one encounter–this week, it’s the Royal Pools–to receive additional rewards. If you’d prefer to just play through the standard Raid, though, you’re free to do that.
For this week, you’ll need to assemble a group of six on your own or resort to finding people outside of the game. Next week will see the introduction of Guided Games, a feature that allows clans to be matched up with solo players looking to complete the Raid. (This is already available on PC for the Nightfall Strike.) That feature will be enabled on November 7, the same day that Prestige mode for the Raid is released. This is essentially a harder version of the Raid with tweaked mechanics and more difficult encounters.
Whether or not you’ve done a Raid in Destiny before, Leviathan poses a challenge; it’s not as simple as shooting everything that comes your way. You can check out our Destiny 2 Leviathan Raid guide for a basic walkthrough of each area. And even if you aren’t ready to participate, at least you can see Leviathan up in the sky.
Following a PC-only patch earlier this week, a new Destiny 2 update arrives tomorrow, November 2, on all platforms. It will be preceded by server maintenance that will take the game offline for a few hours.
Razer has announced the company’s first smartphone, which is coming out November 17 in North America and Europe.
Called the Razer Phone, the device features two phone firsts, according to the company. The smartphone sports a 120Hz Ultramotion display (with a 5.72-inch LCD screen) and Qualcomm QuickCharge 4.0+.
The Razer Phone boasts an 8-millimeter-thin aluminum body. The operating system is Android Nougat, with Razer noting that the phone will get the Android Oreo upgrade next year.
On top of that, the Razer Phone has a Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 processor, 8 gigabytes of DDR4 RAM and 64 gigabytes of internal storage. You can expand that to 2 terabytes with a microSD card.
