It’s a brand new episode of The Flickcast. We’re still doing this! High fives all around.

Joe is off this week so Chris, and special guest Rick Marshall of Digital Trends, get deep into all-things movies, television and pop culture with discussions ranging from Zack Snyder’s Justice League to parenting during a pandemic to toxic fandom, the future of movies and movie theaters, their first “adult” movie experiences, what they’re watching and looking forward to and a whole lot more.

No really, they talk about a lot of stuff . . . and most of it’s pretty damn interesting. Why not give it a listen?

WARNING: This episode contains discussions about COVID-19, mental health, toxic fandom and quarantine. We understand not everyone is in a place to talk about or hear discussions surrounding these issues. Please do what’s best for you. Stay safe everyone.

As always, if you have comments, questions, critiques, offers of sponsorship or whatever, feel free to hit us up in the comments, on Twitter, Instagram or, yes, even Facebook. Or shoot us an email. We don’t mind.

Also, here’s that Patreon Link again, just in case you missed it the first thousand times. Thanks!

We’re back baby!

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With Batman: Arkham Origins just around the corner, it was kind of a shock to hear about a season pass for the title. Traditionally, the format of the Arkham games didn’t lend themselves to enough DLC to warrant a season pass. When you finally read what you get for this $20 price tag and is also claimed to be a $30 value, it really doesn’t feel worth investing another 50% of the game’s original price for this extra content.

As we previewed early yesterday morning, the team behind Batman: Arkham Origins at Warner Bros. Games Montreal revealed an almost five minute long CGI trailer for the game yesterday afternoon. With it came the reveal of pre-order information, two new major characters and some interesting news on the voice actors.

From the initial teaser, it was already confirmed that Deathstroke would find his way into the game. It was announced today that those who preorder Batman: Arkham Origins would be able to play as Deathstroke. It will be in similar fashion to the Joker or Catwoman challenge maps of Arkham games past as well as contain two additional costumes for Deathstroke.

Additionally, the trailer reveals two characters. Black Mask makes his return to the series after a brief cameo in Arkham City. It should be noted that it is revealed in Arkham City that Black Mask was the only man to ever escape. In addition, Deadshot will be making a return to the series as well.

This past weekend at Dallas Comic Con, the voice of Batman, Kevin Conroy, confirmed he would be returning to the Batman: Arkham series in the upcoming prequel, Batman: Arkham Origins. After a rumor surfaced in April that Conroy was done with the series, there was a lot of hesitance from series’ fans that someone else may be voicing the Dark Knight (because they have heard what happens when Christian Bale does it).

Early in the video below, Kevin discusses his involvement in the project and how he has been working on it for more than nine months. There is tons of hype right now around Batman: Arkham Origins as teaser trailer featuring Deathstroke going toe to toe with Batman from last week revealed a longer version would be premiering later today. So far, we’ve seen a healthy number of Batman villains represented in the two previous Arkham titles but there is a lot of excitement as to who will make their Arkham debut this time.

If you loved Batman: Arkham Asylum and the sequel, Arkham City (and we’re pretty sure you did), get ready for some more awesome Batman action. That’s right, there’s another installment of the game franchise on the way.

Recently, Warner Bros. Interactive announced the game and it’s called Batman: Arkham Origins. And now, there’s a new teaser trailer highlighting just how great it’s gonna be.

Check out all the action after the break. Look for Batman: Arkham Origins to arrive in stores on October 23.

Want to see the teaser? Sure you do.

After Scribblenauts Unlimited came to the Wii U with a fairly soft launch, a lot of people wondered what might be next, if at all, for the series. Aside from new puzzles, what was there really left you could do for Scribblenauts that hadn’t already been done with the customizability of Scribblenauts Unlimited? I mean, it has “unlimited” in the title. The answer of course is rather fitting, a comic book crossover.

Whenever publishers in comics are in a sales dip, they crossover a more popular character into another series to give it a sales boost. But why stop at just a Batman Scribblenauts or a Scribblenauts Metropolis? WB Games and 5th Cell took the whole DC Universe and brought it over to the Scribblenauts world in Scribblenauts Unmasked: A DC Comics Adventure. In addition to giving the powers of various DC heroes and villains to Maxell, the trailer below indicates that players will be able to actually play as various DC characters in the game as well in the puzzle solving adventure.

Hey all! As I am sure some of the regular readers of The Flickcast have noticed, my favorite part of the Con season is taking pics at them. Unfortunately, due to some professional responsibilities, I was only able to get down to one day of WonderCon this year.

But because my time was limited, I didn’t waste it on panels and the like. Instead I hit the floor with camera in hand and got as many pics of the Wondercon sights as I could.

While WonderCon doesn’t have the size of San Diego or New York Comic Con, the fans there weren’t any less fervent with their cosplay love. This year I saw a lot of new and original costumes I had not seen before. While a pimped out Boba Fett was present, I also saw for the first time Paper Mario as well as a group of female X-Man villains. Alongside the working R2 units, there was a life sized Wall-E that sadly the picture doesn’t do justice as it captured all of the personality of the movie and brought it to life in front of us all.

Well one thing you have always got to give DC credit for is they are willing to give everything a shot with their gaming properties. From action titles like Superman 64 and Aquaman (which let’s be honest meant that they could only go up from there) to DC Universe Online and the upcoming Injustice: Gods Among Us, they seem to have no problem trying to figure out which genre their games fit into best. Now, less than a month before the release of Injustice: Gods Among Us, they have announced that they are stepping into the Multiplayer Online Battle Arena with Infinite Crisis for the PC.

As you’ll see in the trailer below, Infinite Crisis isn’t your ordinary DC game. With alternate worlds and the ability to control both heroes and villains, Infinite Crisis is going to lend itself to some creative matchups and hopefully and even more creative art style. Batman, Flash, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, Zatanna and alternate versions of themselves will face off against the likes of the Joker, Doomsday, Poison Ivy and their dopplegangers in a five on five MOBA style game. I mean, it was a good fit for Lord of the Rings so why not have DC make a go at it as well?

The name itself is somewhat deceptive. LEGO Batman combined with the DC Super Heroes. Is it another entrant into the LEGO Batman franchise or the start of a new series focusing on more of the greater DC universe? And with trailers featuring members of the Justice League, why didn’t they go with LEGO Justice League or at least LEGO Batman 2: Justice League? LEGO Batman 2: DC Super Heroes gives a lot of what is expected as well as some interesting gameplay and story design choices as well.

Gameplay:

At its core, LEGO Batman 2: DC Super Heroes is a puzzle solving game with light combat elements. Players must figure out how to traverse from point A to point B in a room using the special techniques and powers of the game’s heroes. Both Batman and Robin have multiple suits, each with different power sets, to aid in this and are aided by Superman’s unique abilities later on. Superman can’t walk through electric fields, but Batman has a suit that can. Robin can’t melt gold beams but Superman can shoot his heat vision to accomplish the task. And for some reason, Robin has both a hazard suit to clean up toxic waste and a snow suit which lets him freeze stuff.

Interspersed between puzzles is light combat. Enemies can often be taken out in a single hit and multiple targets can go down quickly with a quick shot from the batarang. Combat is also one of the fundamentals that hurts the gameplay. During the levels where players can be both Superman and Batman or in a later level where players can be Wonder Woman, both characters are essentially invincible. There is no threat as they have steel health hearts and cannot take damage. And because both can fly as well, there is no fear of them falling during platforming sections. The second players realize this, the excitement of the combat sections is lost.

When we revealed the LEGO Batman 2: DC Super Heroes “Open World” trailer, we also heard the first glimpse of the newly voiced LEGO Batman and Superman. Now, with their latest trailer, Traveler’s Tales lets us take a peek at more of the LEGO DC Super Hero family in action with voices for the first time.

In the video after the jump, Batman, Superman, the Joker and the Riddler are all finally seen in their full LEGO glory. Instead of being restricted to physical humor, an additional layer of depth is added to the LEGO games franchises by allowing characters to be voiced for the first time. Batman does a try hard gritty imitation of Christian Bale from the recent Nolan trilogy.

Superman seems like more of an airhead than ever. And the combination of the two has the makings of comedy gold. Just from the two interactions between the two stars from the trailer, there are already so many more potential character building set ups now available to the duo. Add in voice to the rest of the cast and this could very well be the best LEGO game yet.

Take a look at the full LEGO Batman 2: DC Super Heroes trailer below and stick to the Flickcast for more as LEGO Batman 2: DC Super Heroes hits all major gaming platforms next week on June 19th.

Since their inception, the LEGO licensed games have followed a pretty standard formula. Players start off in a central hub where they can select missions to enter, check their progress and buy more characters to play as. After years of this between Star Wars, Batman, Indiana Jones and Harry Potter, the franchise was due for a change.

Not only is LEGO Batman 2: DC Super Heroes the first LEGO game to feature voice acting for the characters, but it will be an open world format. How this will impact gameplay will be interesting as this has never been attempted by any of the LEGO franchise games before. It may be a structure similar to a GTA game where players meet up with NPCs and receive missions or maybe even an Arkham City style where Batman receives updates from Alfred or Oracle, which would make sense using both the Batman franchise as well as the new voiceover being added to the game.

Take a peek below at the trailer and screen shots for LEGO Batman 2: DC Super Heroes to see Batman, Superman, the Flash, the rest of the Justice League and all the villains in action. You even get a brief glimpse of the friendly antagonism between Batman and Superman as well. LEGO Batman 2: DC Super Heroes is coming to all major consoles and handhelds on June 19th.

Remember back before we had multi-billion dollar movies in theaters showcasing our favorite heroes doing the things we had them doing with action figures in your garage decades ago? Just me? Probably, but that doesn’t mean most of you didn’t want to do the same, and now DC and LEGO are giving you the chance to do it in style with their brand new app, LEGO Super Heroes Movie Maker.

The app is to celebrate the new marriage of LEGO and Warner Bros.’ famed DC list of characters, in the DC Super Heroes line of toys and video games. The app works pretty simply, but is also perfect for those with a good amount of time and patience. Here’s how they break it down.

Bring the LEGO DC Universe Super Heroes to life with the LEGO DC Super Heroes Movie Maker. The free app lets you bring your blocks to life using simple tools and guides that make it easy to shoot, edit, even score your movie with music. Add one of the customizable title cards and share your directorial debut online.

You can get the app now for free in the iTunes App Store, or just wait for it to hit your non-iPhone sometimes soon. In the meantime, check out their trailer for the app after the jump.