Battle Vans + Ghost Mentors + Marvel's Toy Aisle Dreams

FRIDAY. Made it. Barely. I’m held together by coffee and that weird energy you get when you've transcended tired and entered another dimension. Someone asked if I have "big weekend plans" and I said "yeah surviving" and they did that uncomfortable laugh where they're not sure if you're okay. I'm not but that's not the point.

IN THIS ISSUE:

ComicBook.com has new set photos from Spider-Man: Brand New Day showing our friendly neighborhood whatever riding on the hood of the Punisher's Battle Van. While chasing some six-wheeled tank through Glasgow.

The Punisher's Battle Van. In a Spider-Man movie.

You can already see the toy aisle, can't you? Little Timmy's gonna want the Punisher Murder Van™ with spring-loaded missile launchers and Spider-Man hood ornament sold separately. Don't forget the six-wheeled enemy vehicle that definitely won't be called the Death Tank but something kid-friendly like "Scorpion's Stinger Mobile" or whatever focus group approved nonsense they come up with.

Kevin Feige calls it a "street-level story." Street level with a battle van, a tank, and the Hulk. That's like calling my credit card debt "a minor financial hiccup."

I can't wait to see what other vehicles they're gonna cram in here. Hulk's gonna need something to smash. Scorpion probably gets a tail-copter. Give every character a signature vehicle at this point. Maximum toy potential.

July 31, 2026. Start saving for all the die-cast vehicles now.

DC announced Batman/Deadpool #1 is happening. Grant Morrison and Dan Mora are giving us 64 pages of—and I'm not making this up—"a reality-bending saga that's equal parts cosmic horror, slapstick noir, and metafictional therapy session."

You know when writers just start throwing words together hoping something sticks? This is that.

Metafictional therapy session. I had to read that three times and I still don't know what it means but I'm probably going to buy it anyway because I have the impulse control of a toddler in a candy store.

November 19th is when this fever dream drops. Plus bonus stories with Constantine/Doctor Strange (magic boys!), Nightwing/Wolverine (leather boys!), Harley Quinn/Hulk (chaos!), and Static/Ms. Marvel (the youth!).

This all kicks off with Marvel's Deadpool/Batman #1 in September because apparently one crossover wasn't enough. It's like when you eat an entire pizza and then remember you ordered breadsticks. Regret? Maybe. But you're committed now.

Collider says Marvel Zombies got moved up to September 24 on Disney+.

Disney+.

Where my niece watches Encanto seventeen times a day.

Bryan Andrews revealed it was supposed to be a movie but they chopped it into "a four-episode mini-event" because apparently even zombie apocalypses need episode breaks. It's TV-MA rated for violence, not language. So we can watch people get torn apart but God forbid someone says s*** while it happens. That makes total sense.

Elizabeth Olsen, Awkwafina, David Harbour, Simu Liu, and Iman Vellani are all confirmed, which means we're watching everyone we love turn into flesh-eating monsters.

Cool. Can't wait to explain to my therapist why I'm having night terrors about zombie Wanda eating Vision's face while singing the hot dog song from Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. That's a conversation that's gonna require the good insurance.

So this scooper person @MyTimeToShineH claims that when Steve went back to be with Peggy, he "created the Incursions" and now Doctor Doom wants him super dead.

Let me get this straight. Captain America's wholesome "I finally got my dance" moment? Apparently that destroyed the multiverse.

This is the plot? This is what Marvel's going with? Even the Reddit theory boards didn't bother posting this one because it's so painfully obvious. "What if going back in time was... bad?" Wow. Revolutionary. Never seen that before. Definitely didn't watch twelve seasons of The Flash already do this exact storyline into the ground.

The plot of Avengers: Doomsday (December 18, 2026) is basically "time travel has consequences" which is literally the first thing anyone writes when they're brainstorming multiverse stories. My nephew came up with this plot when he was seven. He also said Spider-Man should have a dinosaur. Honestly, the dinosaur would be more creative at this point.

Remember when the biggest problem was a purple guy collecting rocks? At least that was weird enough to be interesting.

The trailer shows Rick Flag Sr. saying Peacemaker has "some kind of dimension portal" like Lex Luthor.

Peacemaker.

The guy who has full conversations with an eagle and eats cereal for every meal.

Has the same tech as Lex Luthor.

This is the same as finding out your weird neighbor who collects action figures also has nuclear launch codes. Apparently there's at least 100 parallel DC universes now which feels like someone just making up numbers but okay.

August 21, 2025 on HBO Max. I'll be hate-watching.

HBO Max ordered "Stuart Fails to Save the Universe." The premise? Stuart accidentally breaks a device and causes "a multiverse Armageddon."

The sad comic book store owner who couldn't sell water in a desert.

Is responsible for saving all existence.

Kevin Sussman, Lauren Lapkus, Brian Posehn, and John Ross Bowie return to watch Stuart have anxiety attacks across infinite realities. You know what would be truly apocalyptic? If they had the balls to air this without a laugh track. Just let those Big Bang Theory jokes sit there in dead silence like they deserve. Really let us marinate in the "Bazinga-less" void.

But they won't. Because even HBO Max isn't that cruel.

Netflix dropped a trailer showing Gwendoline Christie's Principal Weems returning as Wednesday's ghost mentor. She literally says "Did you really think Nevermore would let me go so easily?"

No, actually, I thought death meant something. My bad.

Tyler's Hyde is running around doing Hyde things, Lady Gaga's apparently in this somehow. Part 2 drops September 3, 2025.

Look, just give us another viral dance scene. That's literally all anyone remembers from season one anyway. Wednesday doing that dance to that goo goo song. We all watched it seventeen times. Everything else is just filler between potential TikTok moments at this point.