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https://nerdist.com/article/which-character-deaths-are-most-likely-in-the-mcu-phase-5/

The Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Phase 4 saw some notable deaths of longtime characters. We lost Wanda Maximoff (maybe?), Jane Foster (sort of?), and Aunt May in this phase. That last one was definitely for real and maybe was the one that hurt the most. But with Phase 5 soon upon us, which MCU characters will meet their deaths this time? We’d say that there are a few notable characters with sizable targets on their back. In today’s Nerdist News, we break down who we think are good candidates for taking a dirt nap in the next couple of years. Here are the Marvel heroes most likely to die in the MCU’s Phase 5.

Some MCU characters obviously have greater odds of meeting the Grim Reaper than others. Right now, we’d wager that Dave Bautista’s Drax the Destroyer doesn’t make it out of Guardians of the Galaxy: Volume 3 alive. He has publicly stated that the third Guardians film is the end for him when it comes to playing Drax. And now that Thanos is dead, Drax just might be comfortable joining his wife and family in the afterlife. Since the movie focuses so much on Rocket, we bet he doesn’t make it out alive either. (Just please, leave Groot alone!)

Outside of the Guardians’ realm, with Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania effectively ending that trilogy, we could see OG Ant-Man Hank Pym making some kind of noble sacrifice. After all, Michael Douglas is a veteran actor and may feel ready to move on from a supporting role in the MCU. It would make sense for the MCU’s Hank Pym die heroically in Phase 5. An even bigger curveball would be to end the Ant-Man trilogy with Scott Lang’s death. Although, if he died, we bet that a variant of his would pop up in Avengers: Secret Wars.

And then, there’s the Thunderbolts. A team that is often compared to DC Comics’ highly expendable group of antiheroes, the Suicide Squad. We think pretty much everyone on this team could lose their lives on the mission. Especially if that mission is to fight the Marvel Universe’s “mad Superman,” the Sentry. As long as they let Yelena Belova live, we can accept those deaths as part of the MCU’s Phase 5. Also, it might be time for Bucky Barnes, a.k.a. the Winter Soldier, to go out in a blaze of glory. Much like Scott Lang, though, if he dies, we bet variant Bucky shows up in Secret Wars too. Who knows, maybe Deadpool surprises everyone and shows up a bit earlier than expected, and just flat-out kills everyone remaining. To quote Pietro Maximoff in Age of Ultron, “you didn’t see that coming.”

The post Which Marvel Character Is Most Likely to Die in MCU Phase 5? appeared first on Nerdist.

https://blackgirlnerds.com/season-2-of-harlem-trailer-is-available-now/

Today, Prime Video released the official trailer of the highly anticipated second season of Harlem. The second season will consist of eight episodes, with two episodes premiering every week, starting February 3 in more than 240 countries and territories worldwide.
 
From writer Tracy Oliver (Girls Trip), in Season Two, after blowing up her career and disrupting her love life, Camille (Meagan Good) has to figure out how to put the pieces back together; Tye (Jerrie Johnson) considers her future; Quinn (Grace Byers) goes on a journey of self-discovery; and Angie’s (Shoniqua Shandai) career takes a promising turn.

Harlem Season Two is produced by Amazon Studios and Universal Television, a division of Universal Studio Group, in association with Paper Kite Productions. In addition to creator, writer, and executive producer Tracy Oliver, Paper Kite’s Amy Poehler (Russian Doll) and Kim Lessing (Moxie) serve as executive producers, alongside 3 Arts’ Dave Becky (True Story), Britt Matt (First Wives Club), Scott King (Difficult People), Linda Mendoza (Survival of the Thickest), and 13-time Grammy Award winner Pharrell Williams (Hidden Figures) and Mimi Valdés (Roxanne Roxanne) from i am OTHER.

https://blackgirlnerds.com/queenie-godmother-of-harlem-shines-a-light-on-an-unsung-heroine/

Looking for a graphic novel that shines light on an unsung heroine of Black Harlem? Queenie: Godmother of Harlem is the perfect pick and has thoughtful facts throughout. 

In the intro for Hachette’s Queenie: Godmother of Harlem, the latest graphic novel from Elizabeth Colomba and Aurelie Levy, there’s a section about the megascope. The current form of megascope is featured in The Witcher and it also exists as a publishing house that focuses primarily on speculative works of science fiction, fantasy, and magical realism that feature people of color. It was named after a fictional device invented by the legendary W.E.B. Du Bois that can peer through time and space. 

It’s a fantastic house that showcases the innovation and creativity of peoples of the diaspora. Legends are created from old wives tales and shape our history in new and exciting ways. Queenie: Godmother of Harlem sheds light on a different type of hero for the Black community. The intro by Columba and Levy says “Freedom has a price, freedom is priceless. History depends on whose version is told. Here is ours.”

Then begins the story of Stephanie St. Clair, a Martinique native who ran numbers in Harlem. The mafia and other organizations thought she was an easy target, but the tale of St. Clair shows she’s not so easily overtaken. Over 152 intricately illustrated pages, St. Clair’s or Queenie’s story is told in loving detail. 

There’s even a glossary and list of historical figures in the book that were lost to history. Colomba is a painter living in Harlem. She’s also of Martinican descent and was born and raised in France. She has collaborated with Tom Ford and Baz Luhrmann, and her panels have a fashion forward quality to them. Levy is a French writer and filmmaker. She was born and raised in Paris and met Columba at UCLA where the two would form a creative collaboration. 

The novel starts with Queenie — at times respectfully known as “Miss St. Clair” — getting out of prison in 1933. To celebrate her night out, they go to a party of Black American painter Charles Alston. There she talks about promoting the likes of Thelonius Monk and being in cahoots with Lucky Luciano.  

It’s interesting to see a narrative around a renaissance figure who was considered an anti-hero of the time. During her generation, Queenie was dedicated to bettering, educating, and uplifting her community, and the support for this endeavor came from illegal activity. Interestingly enough, the practice itself is akin to crowdfunding we see today; the real infraction came in keeping others hands out of the pot. 

In March 2022, The Outfit was released featuring a Chicago based madame with a similar story. Portrayed by Nikki Amuka-Bird, Madame Violet LaFontaine ran a numbers game in Chicago and was prosperous for years until white mafia came in. Underestimating the Black woman who ran the outfit, the mafia ended up having a much tougher time ousting them. They took more hits than anticipated due to her smart strategy and loyal allies. 

In that narrative, LaFontaine walked so Queenie could run. After prohibition ended, the mafia was no longer making as much running illegal liquor and decided to pivot to numbers. What they weren’t prepared for was a) there already was a successful numbers game and b) the head of that game was a Black woman in Harlem. For years Queenie resisted the mafia’s interests and control and spoke out against corrupt police. She was known for placing ads in the local papers that informed the Black community of their rights. She was a precursor to Bumpy Johnson who was her enforcer originally. He was also at the forefront of most of the violence while Queenie was the brains behind the operations. 

In the graphic novel we begin with her release from a prison stay and experience her life through flashbacks and meaningful interactions. As a graphic novel, the book has something minimalist about the presentation that allows the subject to be the star. Colomba’s illustrations are reminiscent of the old school Chick tracts with detailed shading and lines but with a pared-down style that works even in black and white. 

The story is portrayed interestingly, but there is a bit of disjointedness with the flow. Scenes turn on a dime and suddenly end. There are flashbacks that are introduced and then dropped without forging the connection completely to the main narrative. That said, for a project that is as educational as this, it’s extremely entertaining. Queenie’s cunning, prowess, and ruthlessness in the face of her enemies is shown beautifully — and so is her humor. 

There is a brutality, and its origins are portrayed beautifully through flashbacks, but in the same vein there is fierce loyalty and a determination to better her community. Sadly (or luckily depending on how you look at it), Queenie died with little fanfare. It wasn’t reported in any newspapers, and the news broke in waves over the years. On one hand, it’s nice she was able to live the rest of her life in wealth and prosperity, on the other hand it was one more Black hero that the community didn’t have access to. It’s one of the many reasons this collection is so important. 

Queenie: Godmother of Harlem will come out January 17, 2023, and will be available at all major booksellers. 

https://blackgirlnerds.com/review-amcs-immortal-universe-expands-with-anne-rices-mayfair-witches/

AMC expands the cinematic universe of late author Anne Rice, officially called the Immortal Universe, with an episodic adaptation of the 1990s novel trilogy Lives of the Mayfair Witches. Written and created by Esta Spalding and Michelle Ashford, both known for Showtime’s Masters of Sex, the supernatural drama follows the titular Mayfair family’s 300-year legacy of powerful, oft-doomed women. The eight-episode first season primarily focuses on The Witching Hour, the first novel in the trilogy, which is over 1,000 pages or 50+ hours on audiobook. 

“The Witching Hour,” the aptly named first episode, introduces us to Dr. Rowan Fielding (Alexandra Daddario), a successful neurosurgeon working in San Francisco. She’s good at what she does and deeply cares about her patients. However, the doctor in charge still questions her abilities. When people start collapsing and/or dying around her, Rowan thinks there’s something seriously wrong with her. 

After the tragic passing of her adoptive mother Ellie (Erica Gimpel), Rowan looks into her biological family, whom Ellie kept a secret. With all the weird and terrifying things she’s experienced and seemingly caused, she goes to her birthplace of Louisiana to search for her mother, discovering that she’s inherited the wealth of being a Mayfair, which comes with supernatural abilities.

She’s also in the early days of realizing a man is penetrating her mind. Lasher (Jack Huston) is a seductive shape-shifting demon who dresses well and has a penchant for tempting Mayfair women. In the first five episodes available to screen, we don’t learn much about his character other than his dark influence and devil-on-your-shoulder behavior. 

Meanwhile, the secret society of paranormal researchers, as seen in Queen of the Damned and the rest of Rice’s The Vampire Chronicles series, the Talamasca has kept tabs on the unexplained events surrounding Rowan. Ciprien Grieve (Tongayi Chirisa) enters Rowan’s life as her newly appointed Talamascan protector, stalking her until they have an intense confrontation in San Fran. 

Ciprien, an original character created for the series as a composite of the novel’s Michael Curry and Aaron Lightner, is an interesting character with a generous amount of screen time. I’d watch a series just following him investigating the dark history of the Mayfair clan.

As Rowan’s protector/observer, he’s empathetic and determined to keep her safe — and it doesn’t hurt that he’s attractive and has the most soothing voice. Although their first meeting is chaotic, when she gets to NOLA, they form more of a bond despite her guarded personality. Naturally, he becomes her love interest, and things get messy. 

Rowan is a hard character to pin down at first but grows with each episode, which is largely due to the captivating Daddario. But while Rowan struggles to understand who she is, the audience is just as uncertain. Though she’s confident in her knowledge and abilities as a doctor, she’s also noticeably anxious, fidgety, and frazzled. She’s fiercely independent, a bit hardened at times, and emotionally unavailable to anything more than a casual hookup. 

There’s a big shift between bluish and clinical San Francisco and the warm, golden-hued New Orleans. Ironically, the city that celebrates death as a joyous gathering and not a bleak day of somber mourning has much more life to it. In one episode, we see a New Orleans ritual funeral procession, essentially a parade of music, dancing, and high spirits. The makeup, costumes, and details are all fascinating. Easily my favorite scene in all five episodes. 

Even Rowan opens up more when she’s in the city, though her mind alternates between confused, disoriented, uneasy, or in shock. To be fair, she has a lot going on and her family is a lot. She meets her manipulative great aunt Carlotta Mayfair (Beth Grant), who kept Rowan’s mother, Deirdre Mayfair (Annabeth Gish), in a drug-induced daze for years. Rowan doesn’t take a liking to her great uncle Cortland Mayfair (Harry Hamlin) either. However, the family patriarch with a taste for luxury and influence is much more pleasant than Carlotta, though hiding something. 

The series also briefly takes us back to the 17th century when women work as healers and midwives in the town of Donnelaith, Scotland, who I presume are Mayfair ancestors. However, the series has yet to establish the relation between the two timelines more than halfway into the season, though it does deepen the series’ overarching theme: female oppression in a male-dominated world afraid of powerful women, particularly healers and doctors. 

Like its main character, the tone of Mayfair Witches seems uncertain of itself. It gets off to a slow start but becomes a more intriguing story with each episode. With its impressive cast, lively (and spooky) New Orleans setting, and intriguing story, I’d say it’s a worthy addition to the “Immortal Universe.” 

Anne Rice’s Mayfair Witches premieres on January 8, 2022, on AMC and AMC+. The companion documentary All of Them Witches premiered on December 21 (“Winter Solstice”) on AMC, and began streaming on January 2.