One of the projects Lazlow and Houser are working on together is American Caper, an upcoming comic book series by Absurd Ventures and Dark Horse Comics. This marks the first appearance of a new crime-fiction drama by the duo.

“Making video games is really hard,” Lazlow tells Nerd Reactor. “Making comic books is really, really hard as well. It’s a completely different kind of storytelling. When Dan and I started Absurd Ventures, we wanted to work on some new open-world games and do adult comedy animation. Dan and I are both fans of comic books. So, he came up with this idea of this sprawling crime caper set in Wyoming. Which is a place that we’ve never set any of our stories in.”

They reached out to comic book editor Shelly Bond, who helped with bringing in artists like David Lapham (Cross, Stray Bullets), with Chris Anderson on finishes, and Lee Loughridge on colors.

“When Dan came up with these characters, he did the first pass on the script, and then I took it and edited it and get together with them,” Lazlow said. “I’m like, ‘I think we should add some scenes with this character and add this dialogue.’ And then we collaborate with the editor and the artists, and they throw in their ideas.

“I had this idea with comics that someone would just write a script and hand it to the artist, but it’s very much a back-and-forth collaborative effort. It’s a lot of work, but it’s fun. I grew up every Wednesday going to the comic book shop and blowing any money that I had from taking out the trash and mowing the lawn. And to actually be working on a comic with this gang, it’s amazing.”

Houser and Lazlow have been working together for decades, and their working relationship is still the same after all these years.

“It’s exactly the same,” the writer explained. “Dan comes up with the characters. He’s responsible for all those iconic characters that you remember from GTA 3, 4, San Andreas, Red Dead, Bully, and… So he comes up with the characters and the storyline and then we collaborate and we send the scripts back and forth to each other And I add stuff and send it to him and he adds stuff.

“But you know, a lot of our process is I’ll come up with an idea at 11 o’clock at night and text him. And he does the same thing. I have to cut and paste all the text threads and email them to myself and put them in the scripts because whenever an idea pops into his head, he’ll just shoot me a quick email or a text or give me a call. We’ve been creative partners now since 2001, and it was exciting to start Absurd Ventures with him and be making new stuff.”

Expect the same for American Caper with the comedic satire and violence that people know from the games.

About American Caper

Synopsis: Verona, Wyoming. A small town like any other. A land of hunter and hunted. Apex predators… and regulations just waiting to be broken. Culture has become a war, everyone has everything they need yet are miserable, and American life is still dominated by real estate, violence and snake oil. From the tax-avoiders in the manicured wilderness of Wyoming, to the thought police of Brooklyn, to the confused political battlegrounds of Florida, one thing is certain: This tragedy is someone else’s fault.

American Caper issue #1 debuts on November 12, 2025.

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In the third season, we have two Nathans, and it was revealed at the end of the season that one of the Nathans was killed.

“A little sillier, a little more aloof,” Amell said about playing two versions of Nathan during a roundtable interview at SDCC. “It was really more than anything, like, ‘Okay, how can I separate these guys a little bit?’ And it was like, ‘Alright, the one who’s with Nora has been through a lot and is kind of in a pretty serious place. And the one who’s getting rebooted is just kind of like, happier, a little dumber.’

Amell does tease what’s in store for the final season.

“As far as the new season, without giving you any spoilers, it’s like, everybody gets their moment, which is so awesome,” he added. “And I mean, a lot of that is knowing that it was the final season, and Greg and Maxwell and the rest of the writers, really giving everybody their shot and giving them all their time. Even though we only have four episodes, they’re very big episodes. They are very fast. They’re kind of nonstop and we pack a ton into them and it’s like a two and a half hour movie to end the show.”

The fourth and final season of Upload premieres on August 25, 2025, on Prime Video.

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Higuchi was present to promote the upcoming 4K remaster of Shin Godzilla, which will stomp into North American theaters on August 14, 2025.

“It’s hard to believe that ten years have passed,” the director said during the panel. “When we were filming, it was more than ten years ago. We did spend a lot of money cleaning it up in 4K, so it’s like it’s fresh, but I do think it is still very relevant. So hopefully you guys who didn’t have the opportunity to go ten years ago can go see it in theaters.”

IDW Publishing stole the spotlight with exciting reveals about their expanding Godzilla comic universe. Editor Jake Williams announced the upcoming Godzilla x Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Justice League vs. Godzilla vs. Kong 2 crossover series. Fans were also treated to previews of Starship Godzilla by Chris Gooch and Oliver Ono, and Godzilla: Escape the DeadZone by Ethan Parker, Griffin Sheridan, and Pablo Tunica, both explore a shared universe. The panel showcased new art and teased plot twists that promise to expand Godzilla’s mythos in bold, new creative ways.

Beyond comics, the panel highlighted an array of exclusive merchandise and fan experiences. This included Super7’s pop-up shop at their Gaslamp store with movie props, cosplayers, and exclusive items like the Toho ULTIMATES! Godzilla: Minus One figure and a Toho Kaiju Response Team T-shirt.

Mondo offered daily exclusives, including a Godzilla and Hedorah Soft Vinyl Figure Set and a Godzilla #1 poster of Herbe Trimpe’s classic 1977 Marvel cover.

The panel capped off with a surprise appearance by O’Shea Jackson Jr., star of 2019’s Godzilla: King of the Monsters. He emerged from behind the curtain just as the moderator opened the floor for questions. The actor shared that his favorite Godzilla film was the 2019 flick he starred in because he did not die in the movie.

When Jackson Jr. asked the panelists about their favorite Godzilla movies, Shinji Higuchi cited the 1973 cult classic, Godzilla vs. Megalon, while others mentioned Shin Godzilla, Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla, and even the Matthew Broderick 1998 Godzilla.

Jackson’s unexpected appearance and how he constantly brought up the fact that his character is not dead have many fans speculating that he may be involved in the next Legendary Godzilla project.

The panel concluded with Mondo giving away unreleased figures to fans who answered Godzilla trivia questions.

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“This is where we’re supposed to do this,” Cena told fans, proudly donning his Peacemaker outfit once more. “I had to borrow this again. This one is not mine. This is a rental.” As always, Cena brought the laughs — but one behind-the-scenes tidbit had the crowd rolling. “James Gunn hates the ‘You can’t see me’ jokes,” Cena admitted, holding his helmet next to Gunn and mimicking the gag. “I love them. Nobody is next to James Gunn, it’s just a floating helmet! He’s so frustrated.”

Despite the jokes, Gunn had nothing but praise for his leading man. “For one of the most famous people in the world, he has no ego,” Gunn said. “He gets very silly on stage, but the truth is, John Cena turns in an amazing performance this season. I couldn’t believe how much he’s grown as an actor in two years. It’s really something to see.”

Season 2 picks up just a month after the events of Superman and leans even harder into Gunn’s newly unified DC Universe. The trailer, which debuted during the panel, shows Peacemaker discovering an inter-dimensional portal in his home — one that leads to a parallel Earth where they actually celebrate instead of mock him.

“Peacemaker’s going through a rough patch in life and thinks the grass might be greener on the other side,” Cena said. “That’s something people can relate to.”

Gunn echoed that sentiment, noting that he prefers characters who evolve — or fall apart — in interesting ways. “I don’t like when TV characters return the same every season. There’s growth, there’s regression. Peacemaker uncovered some of his demons in Season 1, and now the world still isn’t accepting him the way he is.”

Season 2 also turns up the dial on the weird and the wild. “It’s definitely not for kids,” Gunn warned. One scene was so outrageous that Steve Agee joked, “It’s insane we’re showing it on cable.” Cena gave a special shout-out to his character’s upgraded ride: “It’s a lumbering piece of machinery. It’s got torpedoes, speakers, and a cool paint job.”

The DCU connections are stacking up. The first episode features cameos from Guy Gardner (Nathan Fillion), Hawkgirl (Isabela Merced), and their very wealthy backer, Maxwell Lord (Sean Gunn). “But there’s a lot more as we go down the line,” Gunn teased. “We’re definitely a part of the DCU now.”

Frank Grillo returns as Rick Flag Sr. — this time, not just as a side character but as the main villain. Now leading A.R.G.U.S., the metahuman-monitoring agency, Flag is hunting down Peacemaker to avenge his son’s death. “He’s finally in a position to get his hands on him,” says Grillo.

And yes, the musical intro is back. Season 2 features an all-new opening number, new dance moves, and a brand-new track. Jennifer Holland got to live out a movie fantasy: “I did the lift from Dirty Dancing, and it was amazing,” she said. Even Grillo — reluctant dancer and resident tough guy — got in on the fun. “When I showed up, people thought it’d be funny to put my old soap opera face on T-shirts. Dancing was something I very reluctantly did, but it turned into me being the best dancer on stage.”

The second season of Peacemaker hits HBO Max on August 21st.

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That creative gamble works exceptionally well with the format. Unlike a two-hour survival movie, Hawley now has eight episodes in Alien: Earth to stretch out the suspense. “Each hour has to build and have its horror elements,” he said. “But my feeling is that it really just has to work as a drama, and then all the genre elements can be built on top of that.” It’s not just about jumpscares—it’s about tension, unease, and dreading who might die next. “A television show has to be more than that. It has to be a character journey, thematically rich, and in which you really start to worry that I might kill some of these people—and I might. You’ll have to tune in and see.”

Set on Earth in the year 2120, the series drops us into a future ruled by five competing corporations: Prodigy, Weyland-Yutani, Lynch, Dynamic, and Threshold. But everything begins to unravel when Prodigy unveils a new hybrid—human consciousness fused into synthetic androids. Just as it seems like this tech will upend the power balance, a Weyland-Yutani ship crashes into Prodigy City. And if you’ve seen an Alien movie before, you know what usually comes crawling out of those.

Babou Ceesay plays a cyborg tasked with protecting the alien species at all costs. He’s more than a glorified bodyguard—he has a Swiss Army knife-like arm and spent over 60 years away from Earth. “He’s coming back to a planet where he’s essentially an iPhone 1 in an iPhone 20 world,” Ceesay joked.

Sydney Chandler stars as a new kind of lifeform. Wendy is a human-synthetic hybrid adult with the consciousness of a young girl, augmented with superhuman strength and speed. When asked how it felt to face the franchise’s most famous monster in person, she lit up: “I almost peed. I became a kid again. A Xenomorph was in my night terrors as a kid.”

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Fifteen years after Tron: Legacy, Ares marks a new beginning—one that finally breaks free of the Grid. For the first time in the series, the action spills into the real world. Jared Leto plays Ares, a digital soldier who’s pulled from the virtual realm into reality by Julian Dillinger, a slick tech bro played by Evan Peters. That last name should sound familiar—he’s the youngest son of the original Tron villain, Edward Dillinger. And yes, Jeff Bridges is back as Flynn, though the panel kept quiet on how exactly his character fits into this new story.

Leto, who also produces the film and joined the project in 2017, proudly declared himself “an official Tron superfan.” He admitted, “If I wasn’t on the stage, I would be in the audience.” He described filming a scene with Bridges as a surreal experience. “I just can’t stop smiling, because I’m working with this guy,” he recalled telling the first AD after calling “cut” mid-scene. “Everyone was surprised, because I don’t often do that.”

Bridges, who helped launch this digital universe back in 1982, marveled at the fact that he’s still part of it. “’82? 43 years ago? Come on, man!” he laughed. That said, he admitted to being a little wary at first. “I remember spending the first day wondering how things would go,” he said, poking fun at Leto’s well-known method acting. “I heard Jared only wants to be called by his character. Everybody’s got different methods and modes. It’s a tough part, man, to play a program!” Bridges got a laugh when he revealed that instead of just calling him “Ares,” he asked if he could go with “Ar.”

Greta Lee, beaming at her first Comic-Con appearance, said she told her agents one thing. She asked, “find me something where I can ride a lightcycle.” Mission accomplished. One of the extended scenes sees her driving a lightcycle after stealing it from Athena (Jodie Turner-Smith). Arturo Castro and Hasan Minhaj, who play Encom executives, brought their comedic timing to the panel, drawing parallels between the fictional megacorp and the studio that made the film. “It was like walking into Disneyland every day,” Castro joked. “And I’m not just saying that because they signed my checks—because they have my family.” Minhaj added, “Let this film bring as much shareholder value to the company as possible this quarter. Really, what this is about is Encom and its earnings, which is a metaphor for the Walt Disney Corporation, one of the best corporations.”

Tron: Ares hits theaters on October 10th.

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For starters, Badlands is the first Predator movie where there are no humans. Not a single one. But don’t mistake that for a lack of heart. “It has so much heart and emotion,” said Elle Fanning. “Prey definitely had that, but what made [Badlands] unique is there are no humans in this film. I play a synthetic android. Dimitrius is a Predator. There’s an unlikely friendship among these two characters. I will say, I do play two parts in the film. There are two characters that I play.”

In addition, Trachtenberg explained that the core idea came from wanting to flip the usual Predator formula. “Predators are the greatest killers in the galaxy, and yet they have always lost to humans,” he said. “I wanted to create a movie where the Predator wins.” That mindset led him to remove the typical human protagonist altogether. “I worried that audiences would start to get tempted by that human and their story,” he said. “Eventually, I decided to make the character a robot instead. The next thought was, wait a minute, I know a company that makes robots. And that led to the Weyland-Yutani synth of it all.”

Schuster-Koloamatangi plays Dek, a young Predator who wants to prove himself by navigating a brutal alien wilderness. He underwent intense physical training to wear the Predator suit. He even learned the Yautja language, which was created specifically for the film. “It’s a full language,” he said. “Not just growls and clicks. There’s a structure to it.”

Also, joining them on stage was FX legend Alec Gillis, who has worked with Trachtenberg on all his Predator projects and was a mentee of the late Stan Winston. Gillis and Trachtenberg revealed that they made a bold first for the franchise: rendering the Predator’s face digitally—a choice they didn’t take lightly. “This time we wanted to make sure we could go to emotional places,” said Trachtenberg. “So we developed a unique system.” The solution: a hybrid of practical suits and facial work by Wētā Workshop, allowing the Predator to carry the emotional weight of the story.

The filmmakers shot the movie in New Zealand, but they designed the planet Kalisk to feel more like Australia cranked up to 11. “The grass, the trees, the creatures—everything is trying to kill him,” said Trachtenberg. “He’s essentially being hunted; he’s like Dutch in the original movie.”

Predator: Badlands hits theaters on November 7th.

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Once you arrive, the group is tasked with collecting gems via participating in various carnival games. Each game earns you a gem, which you trade in after completing all four events in exchange for a bag of goodies. In addition, successfully completing 2 of the activities earns you an extra prize from a wheel spin, which includes posters, pins, and even Brawl Star themed floafers.

The four games played were:

Piper’s Pie Shop – Choose a cupcake flavor on a spinning wheel and try to land on it. This booth also hands out cupcakes and feastables as additional goodies

Dynamikes’s Mine – Light the fuse on some dynamite to trigger an explosion

Frank’s Hammer Drop – Test your might with this classic high striker

Frontier World Round Up – Two chances to hit on the ring toss

The activation ran about 30 minutes and provided a nice quirky, slightly twisted immersive experience.

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From Manga Lines to Moving Frames

Kicking off the panel, Sotozaki revealed how meticulous the process was in translating the manga to the screen. “I paid very close attention to the lines, the thickness of the lines. I wanted to make sure that information was preserved when we adapted the manga to the anime,” he said.

That painstaking attention to detail also extended to the show’s signature elemental techniques. “The water breathing technique, we drew inspiration from ancient Japanese ukiyo-e style artwork,” Sotozaki explained. “We first made the waves using 3D models, but then we had to translate that and add some 2D key frames on top of it to ultimately land on the type of visual expression you see.”

Yuichi Terao broke down his essential role as director of photography, likening himself to a visual assembler. “We get all these different materials from different team members—character animation, the background, the effects—and they’ll all land on my desk. I take all of these different elements and then compile them into a single shot,” he said.

Of course, that pursuit of visual beauty comes with its own hurdles. “We’re going for the most epic and gorgeous anime you can get,” says Terao. “Nevertheless, when you try to make the imagery too gorgeous… some of the original lines that the animators had drawn get kind of blended into the background, and they don’t stand out. And then that’s when Sotozaki-san and [Akira] Matsushima-san, our chief animation director, came to my desk and said, ‘Hey, where did all of our lines go? We can’t see them.’” Sotozaki chimed in with a deadpan response: “Yes.”

A Battle for the Ages

A new key visual featuring Tanjiro and Giyu squaring off against Akaza premiered during the panel, too. Sotozaki shared, “We drew a lot of inspiration from the movie itself to come up with the composition.” As for what that image might be teasing, Tanjiro’s voice actor Natsuki Hanae played coy: “I can’t really tell you what’s gonna happen in the movie, but perhaps that visual gave us a few hints, you know, maybe Tanjiro is gonna go up against Akaza. I know in Mugen Train, Tanjiro couldn’t do anything, so it’s gonna be a spectacle to see how much Tanjiro has grown since the last film.”

Aleks Le, the English voice of Zenitsu, teased an emotional evolution for his character. “He’s very extreme on all ends… but something that we haven’t seen yet is his more vulnerable side, and I feel that this film is gonna bring out a whole new version of him that nobody’s prepared for.”

If this panel was any indication, Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba Infinity Castle isn’t just raising the stakes—it’s redefining what anime finales can be.

Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba Infinity Castle hits U.S. theaters on September 12th.

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The hotel ballroom was transformed into a vibrant homage to Spider-Man’s New York City neighborhood, complete with comic book-inspired decor, and immersive experiences. Fans in attendance were able to get their hands on welcome decks and explore the new cards featuring iconic characters like Peter Parker, Miles Morales, Spider Gwen, Spider-Man 20999, and Venom. But the night’s highlight was undoubtedly DMC’s surprise performance, which brought a wave of nostalgia and energy to the packed venue.

DMC, one-third of the pioneering hip-hop group Run-DMC, is no stranger to blending music with comic book culture. A self-professed comic book fan, McDaniels has long celebrated his love for superheroes, even launching his own comic book series, DMC, through his publishing company, Darryl Makes Comics.
During his performance, D.M.C. played hits like Tricky and Walk This Way, and spoke about his love for superheroes. Even know at the age 61, he still believes in superheroes and encouraged the crowd to continue to follow their dreams.

For those who missed the preview night, the Hard Rock Hotel activation runs through the weekend, offering more chances to dive into the Marvel x Magic universe. Marvel’s Spider-Man | Magic: The Gathering set, is slated for global release on September 26, 2025.

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