BlizzCon 2026 handed out a StarCraft open world shooter that does not land until 2030, a Diablo 5 release window in spring 2029, and a plan to turn World of Warcraft Classic into something called World of Warcraft Forever. Frank and Squeaks were both on the floor for all of it, and they came back with announcement reactions, three hour lines, a Todd McFarlane signature, and Matt Mercer running an Overwatch tabletop game in front of 8,000 people.

The Warcraft talk takes up most of the hour, and for good reason. World of Warcraft Forever adds new races, new zones, dungeons and raids to the Classic version of Azeroth, including undead paladins for the Horde, with a beta starting next Thursday ahead of a November 4 launch. Frank played the five man dungeon demo on the show floor and came out talking about how much real communication a slower pace forces back into a group, while Squeaks, who has never touched Classic, walked away planning a warlock. On the retail side, the Eclipse patch and the language Blizzard kept using about closing out twenty years of story push the two of them into a long argument about whether the next expansion ends World of Warcraft and starts World of Warcraft 2 on a modern engine. Elsewhere: Diablo 4 gets Hell's Legacy with Deckard Cain back as the storyteller, a Diablo animated series is coming to Netflix with Overwatch and Warcraft adaptations teased behind it, Overwatch introduces a vampire healer whose backstory and voice were built around the actor playing him, and Wrath of the Lich King Remix only got revealed if you sat through the deep dive panel. The crowd is the one sore spot, with Frank putting attendance near 75,000 against the 40,000 to 50,000 of past years and both hosts stuck in two and three hour lines for the store and the Darkmoon Faire.

• 0:00 Intro and BlizzCon 2026 First Impressions
• 3:36 Meeting Todd McFarlane and Watching Matt Mercer Run Overwatch
• 6:08 Oversold Crowds, Three Hour Lines, and a Dry BlizzCon
• 10:06 StarCraft Returns as an Open World Shooter
• 14:22 Diablo 5 in 2029, Hell's Legacy, and Deckard Cain
• 19:52 The Diablo Animated Series on Netflix
• 21:28 World of Warcraft Forever and the Classic Overhaul
• 29:07 Eclipse, the Titans, and the Case for World of Warcraft 2
• 38:12 Overwatch's Newest Hero and the Wrath Remix Reveal
• 41:31 Final Day Highlights, T-Pain, and the Arena Championship
• 48:37 Recommendations, the Patreon Statue Vote, and the Forever Guild

Key takeaways

• World of Warcraft Forever launches November 4 with a beta starting next Thursday, adding new races, zones, dungeons and raids to Classic, plus undead paladins for the Horde.
• StarCraft is back as an open world shooter set 100 years after StarCraft 2, but the 2030 date landed hard in the room, and both hosts worry about a Warhammer style game with no Protoss or Zerg to play.
• Diablo 5 arrives spring 2029, with Hell's Legacy bridging the gap in Diablo 4 and Deckard Cain returning to bring old bosses back for another fight.
• The Diablo animated series at Netflix is the adaptation Frank is most confident in, with Castlevania and Cyberpunk Edgerunners as the track record, and Overwatch and Warcraft projects teased after it.
• Blizzard's repeated framing about the culmination of twenty years has both hosts betting the next expansion closes the current story, with Frank arguing a true sequel is the only way past a 2004 engine.
• Attendance was the weekend's biggest problem, with two hour waits just to enter the convention center on Saturday and three hour waits for the store and the Darkmoon Faire.

"When they put that 2030 on the screen, the air went out of the room." - Frank

"I got to meet my dream comic book creator. I could be gone tomorrow and I would feel like life was fulfilled." - Squeaks, on meeting Todd McFarlane

"That kind of communication is peak Warcraft, and that stuff is not said in World of Warcraft today." - Frank, on the Forever dungeon demo

"We are reaching the limits of what this engine can do." - Frank, on why he thinks World of Warcraft 2 has to happen

"There is a blood knight in Diablo Immortal and I love the hell out of it. I named him Squeaks Belmont." - Squeaks

Every story covered in this episode comes from GeekFreaksPodcast.com, the source for all news discussed on the show.

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Got a BlizzCon take we missed, a WoW Forever class you are locking in, or a prediction about World of Warcraft 2? Send us your questions, reactions, and topic ideas, and we will get to them on a future episode. We are also forming a guild for World of Warcraft Forever in both Classic and retail, so reach out if you want in.

Dungeons & Dragons 2 has a finished script, and the studio that made the first one already passed on it. Avengers Doomsday is deep in edits, the Russo brothers just called their script a living organism, and everyone lost their minds about it.

Squeaks opens the show with a full report from the Pokémon World Championships in San Francisco, where the Moscone Center got taken over by TCG, Pokémon Go, Unite, and the new Pokémon Champions app, and where buying a single piece of exclusive merch turned into a timed-entry website that crashed on everybody. Then Allen Dunford joins Frank to talk about The Samurai Redneck Zombie Killer #1, the Comic Soup book he co-wrote with Kit Wallis that funded its previous record in a single day. Allen gets into the grindhouse and manga influences, why the story stays locked on two survivors instead of a community, and the Geek Freaks variant cover on the Kickstarter. Frank closes with the first News Quickfire, a tighter news segment built on listener feedback.

The news run covers D&D 2's script and where the project could land, Netflix developing a live action Ravenloft while Forgotten Realms gets canceled, HBO's Baldur's Gate series with Craig Mazin, the real reasons Honor Among Thieves underperformed, the Avengers Doomsday improv conversation, Jim Cummings losing Darkwing Duck to a recast, and a full status check on Gargoyles, Hey Arnold, Doug, and the 90s reboot slate.

Chapters

• 0:00 Intro: Patreon Upgrades, SideQuest Relaunch, and Show Changes
• 1:34 Squeaks at Pokémon Worlds: Moscone Center, Pokémon XP, and the Tournaments
• 5:21 The Merch Problem: Pokémon Center Lines, Resellers, and Scalpers
• 10:12 Guest: Allen Dunford on The Samurai Redneck Zombie Killer
• 21:37 Seven Years Indie, the Comic Soup Slate, and the Geek Freaks Variant
• 27:30 News Quickfire: D&D 2's Finished Script, Ravenloft, and Baldur's Gate
• 34:14 Avengers Doomsday, the Russos, and the Improv Panic
• 40:52 Darkwing Duck Recasts Jim Cummings, Plus the 90s Reboot Roundup
• 48:10 Wrap-Up and Listener Feedback

Key Takeaways

• Pokémon Worlds was an incredible event wrapped around a broken buying experience. The Pokémon Center on site required a timed booking through a site that crashed, the second merch area turned out to be reseller tables selling singles for hundreds, and Squeaks walked out having spent twenty dollars and bought his Worlds backpack online later at roughly four times the price.
• Next year's Worlds moves to Singapore, so US fans have no idea when it comes back.
• The Samurai Redneck Zombie Killer started as a title and a cover. Kit Wallis brought Allen the name and the first five pages, posted the cover to Instagram, and the response was so far outside his normal engagement that they fast tracked the whole book. It beat Comic Soup's previous best campaign total in a single day.
• Allen and Kit built the book around two people instead of a community, borrowing the Leon and Mathilda dynamic from The Professional, right down to naming the samurai Lee. The art uses a manga inspired color scheme with the first five pages in full color before shifting to black, white, and splashes of red.
• Paramount Skydance passed on Dungeons & Dragons 2 as financially unviable, but Hasbro is shopping it. Honor Among Thieves earned around $205 million on a roughly $150 million budget split with Hasbro's E1, opened four days before The Super Mario Bros. Movie, landed a month after the OGL boycott, and never told non fans it was a family comedy.
• The Avengers Doomsday improv worry is overblown. The Russos worked the same way on Infinity War and Endgame, their visual reference is Once Upon a Time in the West, and Robert Downey Jr. said he would not have come back without them. Improv on a movie this size gets spent on one on one character scenes, not on Sentinels and VFX plates.
• Jim Cummings and Terry McGovern are both being recast in the Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg Darkwing Duck reboot, seven years after Cummings recorded the pilot that got it greenlit. The 2017 DuckTales storyline he voiced was about an actor destroyed by a Darkwing Duck recast.
• Gargoyles' live action version is dead but the animated one is alive, Hey Arnold is in conversations, an adult Doug has concept art out, and King of the Hill is the template everyone is pointing to.

Quotes

• "Twenty bucks, because it was a horrible experience when it comes to purchasing anything." - Squeaks
• "It is a black mark on the Pokémon brand right now." - Frank
• "He had the title already. It does what it says on the label." - Allen Dunford
• "We're not focusing on a community. We're just focusing on two people trying to survive this thing." - Allen Dunford
• "In the indie sphere, you're not just the writer. The book doesn't stop at the script." - Allen Dunford
• "Improv works better when it's scaled down. It doesn't work super well when it scales up." - Frank

All news discussed on this episode comes from GeekFreaksPodcast.com.

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Frank asked for it directly on this one, so tell him how the shorter News Quickfire segment is landing. Send your questions, reactions, and topic ideas, and let us know what you want more of and less of going forward.

Lanterns just aired the episode; showrunner Chris Mundy has been calling his Emmy episode, and Frank and Thomas spend the first half of the show pulling it apart. The John Stewart flashback rewrites his origin, leaves Hal Jordan looking like a jerk, and puts fear, race, and family expectation at the center of what it takes to carry a ring.

Then the guys move to the GTA 6 gameplay reveal that Rockstar dropped on Netflix before YouTube. Ten years of development, a two billion dollar budget, an 80 hour campaign, and a map three times the size of Red Dead Redemption 2, plus relationship and fitness systems that quietly punish you for neglecting them. Frank and Thomas also read listener comments on the Lanterns episode, run through network news, compare notes on where they are in Dungeon Crawler Carl, and close with picks of the week.

CHAPTERS

• 00:00 Which Avenger Would Make the Best Green Lantern
• 02:42 Lanterns Episode 3 and the John Stewart Origin
• 09:00 Willpower, Fear, and the Question the Show Keeps Asking Wrong
• 17:41 Listener Comments on the Lanterns Episode
• 24:18 GTA 6 Reveal: Two Billion Dollars, 80 Hours, and a Map Three Times Red Dead 2
• 30:09 Car Alarms, Surveillance, and 600,000 NPC Animations
• 34:25 Network News and Dungeon Crawler Carl Book Five
• 41:07 Picks of the Week: Geoff Johns Green Lantern and Dimension 20

WHAT WE COVER

• Both hosts rate the Lanterns flashback near perfect on writing and performances, and both admit it changed how they read Hal Jordan. Frank says the episode was not aimed at him, and that watching Black viewers respond to it told him more than the episode alone did.

• The show asks recruits whether they are afraid. The comics, going back to Geoff Johns' 2005 run, ask whether your will can overcome the fear you already have. Frank and Thomas think the show is asking the wrong version on purpose, and that the season is retelling the Rebirth era transition in a grounded way.

• Jonathan's theory, relayed by Frank: the Guardians are breeding the humanity out of their Lanterns, which is the exact mistake that produced the Manhunters. Thomas ties that to the wiping of sector 666 and to how detached the Guardians are from life on a planet like Earth.

• The show changed John's military discharge from honorable in the comics to dishonorable, a choice Thomas did not like even though he understands what it adds to the character.

• GTA 6 arrives November 19 after more than ten years and roughly two billion dollars. The campaign runs about 80 hours before side content, the map is three times the size of Red Dead Redemption 2, and NPC animations jump from 55,000 in GTA 5 to 300,000 in Red Dead 2 to 600,000 here. Rockstar kept the satire but avoided current politics, memes, and trends to keep the game evergreen, and stealing a car now means dealing with alarms, trackers, and block cameras.

• Geek Freaks is doing a dedicated GTA 6 episode at launch and streaming for charity for the first time since 2021.

QUOTES

• "The question has never been, are you afraid. The question is, if you're afraid, can your will overcome that fear?" Thomas

• "He's pushed everything out of his life that could possibly give him fear. That doesn't mean he doesn't have it. It just means he's given himself less excuse." Thomas on Hal Jordan

• "They're trying to turn the Green Lanterns back into the Manhunters, no emotions, only listen to orders. But that's not what you actually want." Frank

• "GTA is going to teach us to be better people, which is not the game you'd expect that from." Frank

• "In the beginning it was all about being in your boxers and punching goblins, and now there's class warfare, corporations, sabotage and spying." Frank on Dungeon Crawler Carl

SOURCE

Every story covered on this episode comes from GeekFreaksPodcast.com, the source for all news discussed on the Geek Freaks Podcast.

FOLLOW AND SUPPORT

Follow Geek Freaks on Apple Podcasts and Spotify so new episodes land automatically, and leave a review if the Lanterns breakdown gave you something to argue with. Share the episode with the friend who would spend all night deciding which Avenger deserves a ring. #GeekFreaksPodcast

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TALK BACK

Tell us which Avenger you would hand a Green Lantern ring to, whether you think Hal is lying about fear, and how much of your November you are giving up to GTA 6. Send questions, reactions, and topic ideas to [email protected] or drop them in the comments on any of our socials.

The Avengers: Doomsday trailer has fans convinced there are two Doctor Dooms in this movie, and that one of them might not be Robert Downey Jr. at all. Frank and Squeaks break down the eye color, the two suits, and the Cillian Murphy voice theory, then look at what happens to Marvel when Kevin Feige's contract runs out in 2027.

From there it turns into a full state of the franchises. The Feige succession list runs from Brad Winderbaum to Louis D'Esposito to one genuine wild card pick, before Star Wars gets put on the table: the Ahsoka trailer, Thrawn's return, Starfighter, and whether the Rey movie ever actually happens. Then Pirates of the Caribbean, where Disney is reportedly writing two competing scripts, and Frank pitches the real seventeenth century pirate queen whose story would beat both of them. Plus a Dungeon Crawler Carl check-in and a Question of the Week about how you would prove someone is an alien.

• 0:00 Intro and BlizzCon Countdown
• 1:34 Question of the Week: How Do You Test for an Alien
• 3:16 The Two Doctor Dooms Theory
• 11:05 Who Replaces Kevin Feige in 2027
• 22:36 Star Wars Without the Skywalker Name
• 29:33 Ahsoka, Thrawn, and the Sequel Era Gaps
• 34:15 Pirates of the Caribbean and Its Two Competing Scripts
• 46:22 Dungeon Crawler Carl Check-In

Key takeaways:

• The two Doom theory rests on three small trailer details: the eyes reading green in one shot and closer to blue in another, two distinct suits, and a voice some fans think sounds more like Cillian Murphy than RDJ. There is precedent too, since dueling Dooms from different universes is the current main story in Marvel Rivals.
• Frank's argument for a recast is about longevity. RDJ's betrayal only works once as a surprise, so if Doom is meant to carry the MCU past Secret Wars, you need an actor you can keep around.
• The Feige succession shortlist: Brad Winderbaum brings television experience and would likely greenlight Midnight Sons immediately, Louis D'Esposito is the operations veteran who would need a creative partner like the Russos, and Frank's wild card is Iman Vellani, who is now writing comics for Marvel and Image.
• Both hosts want Star Wars to break from the Skywalker name completely, with Dave Filoni doing for the sequels what The Clone Wars did for the prequels. Frank also makes the case that Ahsoka, not Rey, is the real heir to the Anakin lineage.
• Disney has two Pirates scripts in play, one led by Margot Robbie as Red and one featuring younger versions of the original cast. Squeaks calls the Red version predictable, and Frank counters with Zheng Yi Sao, a real pirate commander the Chinese government eventually had to negotiate with instead of fight.

Frank: "I'd actually respect Marvel for keeping a secret for once."

Frank: "I've been hurt too many times by Kevin Feige."

Squeaks: "It's time to go away from the Skywalker in total."

Frank: "The true descendant to Anakin is not Rey. It's not even Luke. Frankly, it is Ahsoka."

Squeaks: "That's the same thing we see everywhere. Find something new."

All news discussed on this episode comes from GeekFreaksPodcast.com.

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Got a question, a counter theory, or a topic you want covered? Send it in and it may end up on a future episode. We want to hear who you would put in charge of Marvel after Feige, and whether you would actually watch a Zheng Yi Sao pirate movie.

Marvel finally put the MCU X-Men cast on stage at D23, and Adam Driver as Mister Sinister might not even be the most interesting name on the list. Frank and Thomas break down the new Avengers: Doomsday trailer, the full X-Men lineup, the X-Men '97 season 2 finale, and the Lanterns premiere on HBO.

The Doomsday conversation starts where most fan reactions did, with Robert Downey Jr.'s voice under the Doom mask, and moves into power scaling against Thor, the Reed and Victor history the trailer is quietly setting up, and which legacy characters are unlikely to survive December 18. From there it's the casting reveals: Christopher Abbott as a much younger Professor X, a Magneto without the Holocaust backstory, Inde Navarrette stepping into a role Lenore Zann has owned for three decades, and Maya Boyd going from Broadway to Storm with no screen credits at all. The back half turns critical. X-Men '97 season 2 lands an 8 out of 10 from both hosts, with a long argument about why the resurrection plotting undercut Nightcrawler's sacrifice and why the middle stretch never matched the Egypt episodes. Then it's full spoilers on Lanterns, including the ending, the Watchmen and True Detective fingerprints all over it, and predictions about the 2016 timeline and where Guy Gardner fits.

• 0:00 December 18 plans, Dune vs. Avengers Doomsday
• 2:20 Avengers Doomsday trailer, Doom's voice and power scaling
• 9:15 The MCU X-Men cast reveal from D23
• 22:50 Vision Quest first look and the case for bringing Ultron back
• 26:23 Star Wars Starfighter and the rest of the D23 slate
• 27:55 X-Men '97 season 2 finale review and grades
• 38:41 Lanterns series premiere, full spoilers
• 55:33 Weekly recommendations

Key takeaways

• The Doomsday trailer sold Doom as a real successor to Thanos, largely on the strength of one shot stopping Stormbreaker and throwing Thor back.
• Marvel is casting the X-Men young on purpose. Magneto reportedly loses the Holocaust background entirely because of it, which Thomas calls pivotal enough to worry about.
• Inde Navarrette reads as an early, guarded Rogue rather than the fully powered version from the comics or X-Men '97, and the real question is how she sounds next to Lenore Zann's voice.
• Adam Driver as Mister Sinister lines up with the gene manipulation groundwork already laid in Spider-Man: Brand New Day.
• X-Men '97 season 2 gets an 8 from both hosts. The voice work, especially A.J. LoCascio's shift once Gambit takes back control, holds up even where the pacing does not.
• Lanterns plays like prestige HBO rather than DCU house style, and its best material is the pilot's first five minutes and the jailhouse interrogation, not the constructs.

Quotes

• "How many times can you kill Patrick Stewart?" (Thomas, on the Doomsday casualty list)
• "This one felt like, oh, all hands on deck." (Thomas, on the Doomsday trailer)
• "The idea of resurrecting somebody needs to feel impossible to you." (Frank, on X-Men '97 season 2)
• "There's this cognitive dissonance for me with this season." (Thomas, on grading X-Men '97)
• "Both these men are living false perspectives of what it means to be a hero." (Frank, on Hal and John in Lanterns)

All news covered on this episode comes from GeekFreaksPodcast.com, including the full D23 announcement roundup and the footage that never got an official release.

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Got a question, a counterargument, or a topic you want covered? Send it in. Who do you think dies first in Doomsday, and does Lanterns hold the landing after that ending? Questions and reactions get read on air.

House of the Dragon Season 3 ended with Sunfyre back from the dead and Rhaenyra executing the High Septon inside his own sept, and Spider-Man: Brand New Day gave the MCU its darkest Jean Grey yet. Frank, Thomas, and Jonathan break down both, plus the Marvel Hall H panel from San Diego Comic-Con and why Ghost Rider got announced with nothing behind it.

On the House of the Dragon side: the Episode 7 resurrection that flipped the board, Helaena's tapestry and what it was quietly spoiling all along, where the show splits from Fire and Blood on her death, why Rhaenyra was never built to sit on a throne in the first place, and a final score for the season from each of them. Then a full spoiler conversation on Spider-Man: Brand New Day covering Sadie Sink's Jean Grey and the road to Dark Phoenix, the Hulk and the Punisher as mirrors for where Peter Parker could end up, the ending that made a handshake hit harder than a kiss, and whether Marvel has its footing back going into Doomsday, Secret Wars, and X-Men. Network news and picks of the week close it out.

• 00:00 Intro: Three Weeks Off, Alaska, and Missing Comic-Con
• 03:11 San Diego Comic-Con and the Marvel Hall H Fallout
• 05:53 Project Hail Mary Is the Movie of the Year
• 07:02 House of the Dragon Season 3: Rhaenyra's Turn and the Finale
• 18:53 Sunfyre, Helaena's Tapestry, and Book vs Show Changes
• 25:02 Season 3 Final Thoughts and Scores
• 28:00 Spider-Man: Brand New Day Spoiler Talk
• 33:00 Sadie Sink's Jean Grey and the Road to Dark Phoenix
• 41:02 What It Means for the MCU: Doomsday, Secret Wars, and X-Men
• 50:16 Network News and Picks of the Week

All news discussed comes from GeekFreaksPodcast.com.

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Got a take on the finale, a theory about what Jean Grey becomes next, or a show you want covered? Send it in. We read listener questions and topic suggestions on air.

• Rhaenyra spent three seasons trying to be her father and the finale is the moment she stops. Frank frames it as her Anakin-to-Vader turn, right down to killing the realm's holy man and walking back out to claim she is the savior.
• Episode 7 and the return of Sunfyre lands as the season's biggest swing. Jonathan calls it a genuine plot twist with no setup, and it resets who is actually holding power going into Season 4.
• Helaena's knitting was spoiling the show in plain sight. Her tapestry lays out everything she has seen, and nobody in the story looks at it until it is too late.
• Both Frank and Jonathan score Season 3 an eight, with the caveat that Episodes 4 through 6 drag badly. Thomas, who bailed on the season early, gets talked into going back and finishing it.
• Spider-Man: Brand New Day works as a character study more than a clean three-act movie. The guys argue it is structurally strange on purpose, closer to picking up a random issue mid-run than a typical MCU installment.
• Jean Grey's power set is used in a much more specific and much darker way than expected, which the guys read as deliberate setup for Professor X's mental blocks and the eventual Dark Phoenix story.

• "She's now in her Darth Vader era." (Frank)
• "She was never meant to actually sit on the Iron Throne. She was always meant to capture it." (Frank)
• "The dragon fire ripping through a city is going to kill the good and the bad alike. It's not justice. It's just suffering." (Jonathan)
• "So many parts of this shouldn't work. But it does." (Thomas, on Spider-Man: Brand New Day)
• "I can't believe how much relief I suddenly felt from a damn handshake." (Frank)

House of the Dragon, House of the Dragon Season 3, House of the Dragon finale, Game of Thrones, HBO, Rhaenyra Targaryen, Sunfyre, Helaena Targaryen, Targaryen, Fire and Blood, Spider-Man, Spider-Man Brand New Day, Marvel, MCU, Tom Holland, Jean Grey, Sadie Sink, Dark Phoenix, X-Men, Punisher, Jon Bernthal, Avengers Doomsday, Secret Wars, San Diego Comic-Con, Hall H, Ghost Rider, Ryan Gosling, Project Hail Mary, The Long Walk, comic books, movie review, TV review, pop culture, geek culture

Frank and Jonathan are on vacation, so they dumped out a jar of ten random prompts and let the conversation run wherever it wanted. The result is a loose, funny grab-bag that swings from tabletop confessions to actual streaming news. They open by asking whether their D&D characters could survive a single day in the real world, which turns into a live rescue plan for Jonathan's volatile, faith-questioning gunslinger and a great story about the priest who quietly let a party member die.

From there it is physical media versus streaming (with a Netflix boycott and a terabyte of movies packed for a cruise), the most toxic fandom corners (Pokemon card scalping, weighed packs, and Star Wars media literacy), the games everyone owns but never finishes, retro comebacks worth reviving, and the classics they think are a little overrated. The back half gets newsier with Good Mythical Morning heading to Netflix as a daily show, a debate about Emmy legitimacy versus chasing a new algorithm, and a closing round on which fictional universe would actually be miserable to live in.

• 00:00 Intro and Vacation Filler Setup
• 00:24 Would Your D&D Character Survive Real Life?
• 07:03 Physical Media vs. Streaming
• 10:32 The Most Toxic Fandom Corners
• 17:11 Games You Own but Never Finished, Plus Retro Comebacks
• 22:05 Overrated Classics and Villain Redemption Arcs
• 27:07 Casting the D&D Campaign
• 29:11 Good Mythical Morning Heads to Netflix
• 34:36 The Fictional Universe That Would Actually Suck

• Instead of retiring a chaotic character, Frank pitches turning Jonathan's crisis-of-faith gunslinger into someone actively fighting a chaos god, a reminder that a table can repair a character rather than shelve it.
• The physical media conversation lands on owning your favorites, fueled by climbing Netflix prices, Christmas movies that vanish from streaming, and a stack of downloads big enough to survive a stranded cruise ship.
• Pokemon card culture gets named the most toxic fandom corner, from pack-weighing and resale fights to Target reportedly cutting boxes open to kill the scalper market.
• Media literacy is the throughline for the Star Wars and Dungeon Crawler Carl "too woke" complaints, since both were anti-fascist and anti-capitalist from the start.
• Gaming talk hits the Oblivion remaster, cautious hope for Elder Scrolls VI amid Xbox layoffs and Bethesda leaning on proven IP, and one very honest Elden Ring skill check.
• Good Mythical Morning moving to Netflix drives the biggest debate: fresh cash and Emmy legitimacy on one side, the risk of chasing a new algorithm and turning away from YouTube on the other.

• "If you think it's too woke, it's been that way from the beginning."
• "We have to make our point with our wallet."
• "I return and tell him he was already dead."
• "I got my ass handed to me so hard I returned it within two hours."
• "Don't turn your back on YouTube after you literally built your success."

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Got a hot take, a reaction, or a topic you want us to draw next time? Send us your questions, arguments, and future episode ideas. We read them, and the best ones make it onto the show.

The Batman fans, brace yourselves: Part II just slid all the way to February 2028, and the guys have thoughts on whether it should even happen. Before Frank ships out for a two-week cruise, he and Jonathan clear the week's biggest geek headlines, from a live-action Princess Tiana penned by Colman Domingo, to a major God of War series recast, to Steve Buscemi joining the Far Cry show and a quick DC and Marvel roundup covering Blue Beetle, Supergirl, and Nova.

Then the episode shifts gears for a standout interview with writer and director Stephanie Hubbard, the creative force behind the new fantasy comedy A Fairy Tale. She breaks down her leap from hairstylist to filmmaker, how Pure Magic Pictures built a fully connected nine-film universe on indie budgets, the real trading card game (Dino Guru) her cast learned to play on set, and why a thriving Discord community beats chasing Netflix. It is a genuinely fun look at building fandom from the ground up.

• 0:00 Intro and Frank's Vacation Catch-Up
• 1:01 Colman Domingo's Live-Action Princess Tiana
• 6:08 God of War Series Recasts Kratos
• 10:27 Far Cry Series Adds Steve Buscemi
• 16:05 The Batman Part II Delayed to 2028
• 23:18 DC and Marvel Roundup: Blue Beetle, Supergirl, Nova
• 33:11 Guest Interview: Stephanie Hubbard on "A Fairy Tale"
• 1:07:46 Weekly Picks and Wrap-Up

• The Batman Part II is delayed to February 18, 2028, and the hosts debate whether the six-year gap makes the sequel worth finishing at all, especially with a separate DCU Batman on the way.
• The God of War series is recasting Kratos after actor Ryan Hurst suffered a torn bicep. With two seasons filming back to back, four already-shot episodes will need a full reshoot.
• Colman Domingo is writing a live-action Princess Tiana that tells a new New Orleans story rather than remaking The Princess and the Frog, which the guys see as a smarter path than the recent one-for-one remakes.
• Noah Hawley and Rob McElhenney's Far Cry series lands its first big villain casting in Steve Buscemi, with the hosts riffing on possible settings and story angles.
• Stephanie Hubbard's A Fairy Tale is the ninth feature in Pure Magic Pictures' fully connected cinematic universe, premiering July 23 at 7:30 PM Eastern, with the studio on track for four films in 2026.
• Pure Magic built real fan infrastructure around the movies: an actual trading card game (Dino Guru) the cast learned on set, a Discord community that names things like their coffee blend, and a heavy convention presence.

• "Not all fairies are good at their job." (Stephanie Hubbard, on the premise of A Fairy Tale)
• "When I try to be someone's savior, it doesn't go very well. I'm just a person." (Stephanie Hubbard, on the film's message)
• "No excuses. The cavalry isn't coming." (Stephanie Hubbard, on the Robert Rodriguez mindset that pushed her into filmmaking)
• "We make movies, but we're truly artists first, and this is our art." (Stephanie Hubbard, on community and creating)
• "Maybe in 30 years, we will make Time Pit." (Stephanie Hubbard, on the running in-universe reference in every Pure Magic film)

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• A Fairy Tale premieres July 23 at 7:30 PM Eastern through the Pure Magic Pictures season pass

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Got a hot take on The Batman getting pushed to 2028, a dream Far Cry setting, or a question for a future guest? Send us your questions, reactions, and topic ideas. We love working listener picks into upcoming episodes.

Geek culture, pop culture podcast, movie news, comic book news, The Batman, God of War, DC Universe, Marvel, Princess Tiana, Colman Domingo, indie film, filmmaking, Pure Magic Pictures, Stephanie Hubbard, A Fairy Tale, trading card games, Far Cry, Steve Buscemi, Robert Pattinson, Blue Beetle, Supergirl, Nova, nerd podcast, fandom

Dune Part Three just dropped its IMAX trailer, Naruto is finally getting a big-budget live-action movie, and Freddy Krueger is coming back in a full Nightmare on Elm Street reboot. Frank and Squeaks break down a stacked week of trailers, teasers, and franchise news to figure out which of these actually have a shot.

Along the way they react to the Shrek 5 trailer and its new animation style, size up the Crystal Lake teaser and its Pamela Voorhees focus, get hyped for the canon 1994 Ghostbusters animated series with Dan Aykroyd and Jack Quaid attached, and debate whether DC's Mr. Terrific series proves James Gunn is playing the long game after Supergirl. Plus a spoiler-friendly Dungeon Crawler Carl book club check-in and this week's recommendations, from Death Stranding 2 to the Predator Badlands comic mini-series. And the question of the week: if the X-Men ran the government, who gets the White House?

• 0:00 Intro and Question of the Week: Which X-Men Should Run the Government?
• 5:18 Dune Part Three IMAX Trailer Reaction
• 12:36 Shrek 5 Trailer and the New Animation Style
• 16:16 Crystal Lake Teaser: The Friday the 13th Prequel Series
• 19:35 Naruto Live-Action Movie News and Casting
• 24:46 Nightmare on Elm Street Reboot at Paramount
• 28:49 Ghostbusters Animated Series Coming to Netflix
• 32:06 DC News: Mr. Terrific Series, Supergirl Thoughts, and Lobo's Future
• 41:49 Dungeon Crawler Carl Book Club Corner
• 50:04 Network Updates and Recommendations of the Week

• The Dune Part Three trailer suggests the movie is expanding small moments from the book, like the worm heist, into major action set pieces, and it may be the biggest departure from the source material yet.
• Naruto's live-action movie has real momentum: director Destin Daniel Cretton is attached, creator Masashi Kishimoto has given his blessing, and a global casting search is underway for Team 7.
• The Nightmare on Elm Street reboot lands at Paramount with the Wes Craven estate involved and the team behind Barbarian and Weapons attached, and the premise holds up better in a modern setting than most 80s slashers.
• The new Ghostbusters animated series is set in 1994 New York, is canon, and has Dan Aykroyd producing, with Jack Quaid in the voice cast.
• DC greenlighting a Mr. Terrific series after Supergirl's soft box office signals James Gunn is prioritizing long-term world building over chasing safe bets.
• The Crystal Lake teaser centers Pamela Voorhees, played by Linda Cardellini, raising the question of whether a Friday the 13th story can work with Jason mostly offscreen.

• "You go to sleep, Freddy's in your mind. Nightmare on Elm Street is one of those stories that actually could work today just fine."
• "If I were a Naruto fan, these are all the stars lining up that I'd want to line up."
• "I think this is going to be the Clone Wars of Ghostbusters."
• "If you were to cut every part of Lobo out of this movie, you would not feel his absence in the slightest. That being said, Jason Momoa as Lobo nailed it."
• "Everything that's ever mentioned or anything that's put into his bag, you can assume will be used."

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Which X-Men would you put in the White House? Send us your cabinet picks, reactions, and future topic ideas on social media or in the comments on Spotify. We read everything and your question might make it into a future episode.

X-Men '97 Season 2 is here, and Frank and Thomas break down the first three episodes with the kind of comic book receipts only a guy who has read nearly every 90s X-Men run can bring. From Mother Askani and the Summers family timeline chaos to Storm's god-tier power up, X-Force's return, and the Rise of Apocalypse, they dig into what the show nails, where episode two stumbles, and whether Kang is being set up as the season's secret villain.

Then Frank sits down with Bill Bernhardt, author of over 60 books, to talk about The Superman Wars, his narrative nonfiction account of Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster's decades-long fight with DC over the rights to Superman. Bill shares stories from his interviews with Siegel's daughter, the heartbreaking letters Jerry wrote in the 1950s, why Clark Kent is really just a taller Jerry, and hard-won advice for writers protecting their work today.

• 00:00 Intro and What's on This Episode
• 01:43 X-Men '97 Season 2 Review Begins: Episode 1, Days of Future Past
• 13:11 Episode 2: A Force to Be Reckoned With
• 23:13 Episode 3: Rise of Apocalypse Part One
• 24:57 Kang Theories and MCU Connections
• 34:31 Interview: Bill Bernhardt, Author of The Superman Wars
• 55:06 Rapid Fire Superman Questions with Bill
• 01:02:24 Wrap-Up, Network News, and What's Coming to Patreon

• X-Men '97 Season 2 juggles three timelines and decades of convoluted comic lore, yet keeps the emotional core clear, especially Jean's relationship with Nathan and the Summers family dynamic.
• Storm's solar-powered upgrade and the synergy-style team attacks are standout moments, with animation and editing that continue to elevate the series.
• The Kang-style technology in episode three hints at a bigger villain reveal, and the hosts suspect the season was written while Jonathan Majors was still central to the MCU's plans.
• Bill Bernhardt's The Superman Wars tells the true story of Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster's fight for Superman, drawn from court records, family interviews, and a 100-page autobiographical fragment Siegel typed himself.
• DC removed Siegel and Shuster's credits from Superman stories after the 1947 lawsuit, and the 1975 pension deal was only the middle of a legal battle that stretched decades further.
• Bill's advice for new writers: build a community, get a second opinion before signing anything, and stay alert, because the predators that took advantage of Siegel still exist in new forms.

• "Our old man bodies said no, but our heart said yes." – Thomas, on staying up for the premiere
• "The X-Men created Apocalypse. He's a leader because of the influence the X-Men put on him." – Frank
• "It's a taller, slender Jerry, but it's Jerry." – Bill Bernhardt, on Clark Kent
• "His origin story is basically Moses in outer space." – Bill Bernhardt, on Superman
• "Taking somebody's name off their work, that's immoral." – Bill Bernhardt

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• Check out the WriterCon Podcast
• Weekly X-Men '97 episode reviews on the Geek Freaks YouTube channel

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Got a hot take on X-Men '97 Season 2, a question for a future guest, or a topic you want us to cover? Send your questions, reactions, and ideas to [email protected] and we might feature them on a future episode.