From WWE:

STAMFORD, CONN. – Professional football will be reimagined when the new XFL kicks off in early 2020, Vince McMahon announced in a live stream event today.

The XFL will deliver a fan-centric, innovative experience, including shorter, fast-paced games and a family-friendly environment, complemented by cross-platform viewing options and real-time fan engagement.

Plans for the XFL at launch include eight teams, 40-man active rosters and a 10-week regular-season schedule, with a postseason consisting of two semifinal playoff games and a championship game.

Everyone crying that there's no incentive to play Destiny 2, just got a swift kick in the codpiece.

The End-Game just got real.

Over the course of the next 45 days, players have the chance to register and compete for REAL prizes by playing Crucible. With a leaderboard that features the top 50 players across 3 platforms (XBOX, Playstation, and PC), the challenge is on.

Prizes include a Destiny 2 themed Husqvarna motorcycle, ALIENWARE merchandise, and the collector's edition of the game featuring a wearable frontier bag.

How is a movie that features a female director, and lead role, get snubbed by the very vocal Hollywood which recently crusaded for women's voices to be heard?

Just a few short days ago, women took to the streets all across America shouting claims of being treated unfairly. Just a few short weeks ago, the men and women who make up the Hollywood elite spoke to a national audience, during the Golden Globes, to praise women who have suffered abuse, just to make it in the industry.

It appears that the noise didn't equal results. How could it be that with all of the rabble rousing and table banging, the voices still weren't heard? Especially with an empowering movie such as WONDER WOMAN staring the committee down.

You can't judge a comic by its cover -- but you can certainly have the story spoiled by it.

Case in point: FLASH #39 -- or FLASH #700, if you are a purist and eschew all this "Let's start over from number 1 again" business. I opted for the variant cover by Tony Daniel, with the granite 700 behind Barry, because it goes so well with all those other variant milestone issue covers he's done. The other cover was certainly attractive, showing Flash recoiling from an attack by Gorilla Grodd with the explosive caption, "Grodd Is Back!"

Got an interesting press release from CBS today...

“MURPHY BROWN” RETURNS TO CBS

CANDICE BERGEN REPRISES STARRING ROLE

NETWORK GIVES WARNER BROS. TELEVISION-PRODUCED COMEDY

13-EPISODE SERIES PRODUCTION COMMITMENT

The first part of "Zod's Will" takes place here, as Hal Jordan and Kyle Rayner investigate a planet that should be at a stone-age level but which has been observed being targeted by high-tech miners. However, what they didn't expect to find was the renegade Kryptonian, General Zod. And he's not alone: with him is the Eradicator, Ursa, and his son, Lor. That's four Superman-level beings against two Green Lanterns.

The good news? Both Hal and Kyle are equipped with the most powerful weapon in the universe.

The bad news? That's not even nearly enough. Hal attacks Zod on sight, and the battle is quickly engaged. The end result is that both Lanterns get their hind quarters handed to them and are taken captive, as Zod determines that whatever plans he had in mind must now be accelerated before the rest of the Green Lantern Corps arrive.

Where we are:

Gotham City, after Ozymandias and Rorschach II have taken Earth-Watchmen villains Mime and Marionette on board the Owlship to seek out Doctor Manhattan. Looking to confide with the two smartest men on this new Earth, Ozymandias went to consult with Lex Luthor while Rorschach II went to see Bruce Wayne. While at Lexcorp, Ozymandias is confronted by the deceased Comedian, who shoots Lex. And Rorschach II finds the Batcave after having eaten Bruce's pancakes.

Now:

It would appear that when Ozymandias threw Edward Blake, aka The Comedian, through his apartment window, his body was teleported before the impact with the sidewalk and replaced with an exact duplicate -- both things within Doctor Manhattan's capabilities. Blake's actual body landed in the water outside of Metropolis, where Doctor Manhattan gave him instructions.

Having rescued his daughters from the clutches of The 100, Jefferson Pierce (CRESS WILLIAMS) thinks his re-emergence as Black Lightning is a one-and-done. That's certainly the hope of his ex-wife, Lynn (CHRISTINE ADAMS), even though she's the one who urged him to proceed with the rescue mission, and who fears that returning to superheroing might mean a return to Jefferson's addiction to his powers (if he ever was addicted in the first place).

With Barry passing time in Iron Heights Prison, the city is without its hero, The Flash. Inside, Barry (GRANT GUSTIN) runs into Axel Walker (DEVON GRAYE), the son of the original Trickster. The meeting is brief, because later that night Axel is taken to the infirmary, as part of a plan to bust him out of prison by his mother, Zoey Clark (CORINNE BOHRER, reprising her role as Prank from the 1990 THE FLASH series).

But Zoey's plans do not include Axel resuming his life of crime as The Trickster as he continues his attempts to garner his father's attention. But when she's unable to stop him, he runs afoul of the city's newest superhero -- the stretchy man! Ralph (HARTLEY SAWYER) thinks he's indestructible, having already stopped bullets and bombs with his elastic body. But when Trickster pulls out his special acid, he discovers Ralph's kryptonite: he can be melted!

Welcome back to Critical Blast’s long-running weekly look at what new comics you should check out each week.   Just a warning, I make these picks pretty much a week BEFORE I actually get to read any of these comics, so if something is a stinker, I take no blame on that.  Let's get to it!

Ever since the beginning of this season, when Lucifer (TOM ELLIS) awoke in the desert to find his wings had grown back, he's been raising Cain about it.

But Cain says he had nothing to do with it.

That's right, the literal biblical Cain, the world's first murderer, is immortal because of the mark God placed upon him that no man could touch him. You might recognize him by his current identity, Lt. Marcus Pierce (TOM WELLING). Yes, he did arrange for Lucifer to be kidnapped and dragged away to the desert, but only to get him out of the way so that Cain could get close to Chloe (LAUREN GERMAN) to achieve his ultimate goal: to die.

Which means God gave Lucifer his wings back to interfere in Cain's plan, and they've both been pawns of the Almighty.

PROJECT: SUPERPOWERS was one of those cool ideas that had tons of potential: take all those superheroes who've been allowed to lapse into the public domain and pile them together into one cohesive universe. So you'd have the Black Terror, Captain Batle, The Owl -- even Blue Beetle and Daredevil, carefully referred to as "Big Blue" and "Death-Defying Devil" because other companies now hold the trademark on those names if not the characters, and why court a lawsuit, right?

In HERO KILLERS, the PROECT: SUPERPOWERS universe gets satirized in an over-the-top gross-out comedic way. The setting is that the city is overpopulated with supeheroes, having been put on the payroll to put a stop to crime. It worked, but now the heroes have little to do, and are in strained competition with each other for the bounties they collect.

I actually had no plans on picking up ICE CREAM MAN.  Image does put out a lot of cool, quirky books, but my comic budget is already stretched to its limit.  Plus, this book flew completely under my radar.  But, they had put a preview after last week’s YOUNGBLOOD, and I ended up reading it.  We see a young kid buying ice cream from an ice cream truck, while the narration starts talking about the world’s most deadly spider.  The kid gets home, puts a clothespin on his nose and the preview stops abruptly.

GEOSTORM is one of those films that released in theaters and then found its way onto Blu-ray quickly thereafter. Which is a shame, because despite that the trailers had it looking like another DAY AFTER TOMORROW or (shudder) ICETASTROPHE), GEOSTORM, helmed by veteran director and producer DEAN DEVLIN, has some really good special effects that deserved a big-screen viewing as well as some real nail-biting suspense that retains its tension throughout the film.

Jake Lawson (GERARD BUTLER) is a scientist who developed a satellite network that sends corrective pulses into the atmosphere where needed to stave off extreme events of climate change. Shortly after setting up the system, nicknamed DUTCH BOY, he was fired by his brother, Max (JIM STURGESS).

Avengers #676 - No Surrender Part 2

Written by: Mark Waid, Al Ewing, and Jim Zub
Art by: Pepe Larraz
Colored by: David Curiel
Lettered by: VC’s Cory Petiit

Published by: Marvel
Cover Price: $3.99

Warning! This review contains quite a few spoilers!

Adapt or die. It’s a maxim that means something different in Hollywood, where movies are adapted from television shows, books, comics, and even older movies.

But adapting a game to a film is an entirely different beast. A book or a television show has an accepted path. It can be shifted or seen from a different angle, but the audience knows what it’s getting going in. A game, by its very nature, is fluid, changing, never the same thing twice. So, when Hollywood goes to adapting a game into a film, they have both a blessing and a curse – a blessing, because they have such a wide array of choices, and a curse, because those choices can so easily lead writers away from producing something that carries the feel of the game.

What did we talk about on Critical Blast this week?

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Starting off with unknown voices and shackled wrists, DAMAGE #1 breaks free from the chains of whats expected from a powerhouse rage monster.

Without being provided with too much backstory, DAMAGE #1 gives us insight into the major players with a few hints at the story which will develop in later issues. It's easy to look at this book on the surface and assume DC is ripping off its marvelous rival, in an attempt to have their own character whose strength comes from rage.

Throw those thoughts in the trash, because it's so much more than that.

Has anybody nicknamed Director DENIS VILLENEUVE "Blade Ruiner" yet? Can I be the first?

After having sat through BLADE RUNNER 2049, I'm at a loss to tell you what it was really about, other than that it was about three hours where I sat wondering what was going on. Was it supposed to confuse me? (In cells interlinked. Respond.) Was I supposed to feel depressed? (In cells interlinked.) Was anyone in the show actually a human being with actual emotions?