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⚡ Quick Take

• Marvel head Kevin Feige and X-Men movie director Jake Schreier have agreed on Samara Weaving to play aristocratic telepath Emma Frost.

A few years ago, when people started talking about who would be good casting for the MCU’s version of the X-Men, I thought Vanessa Kirby would be perfect casting for Emma Frost. After her performance as the con artist the White Widow (!!), I thought her icy demeanor would make her an ideal choice for the mutants’ white-clad telepath. She’s a fine Sue Storm, but that meant who would be left to be Emma? Well, only the other perfect choice. As Deadline reports, Australian actress Samara Weaving will join the Marvel Cinematic Universe in the role of Emma Frost.

Searchlight/Marvel

Weaving has turned into one of Hollywood’s best offbeat leads with turns in the Ready Or Not films, Carolina Caroline, and Over Your Dead Body. According to the Deadline piece, Emma Frost was one of the roles director Jake Schreier took the most time trying to get right. Weaving’s audition was “too good to beat,” the piece said.

Emma is definitely a very specific kind of character. On the one hand a typical scantily clad ultra-b, on the other a powerful leader and devoted teacher (in more recent books anyway). First appearing in Uncanny X-Men #129 from 1980, Frost was at first the White Queen, one of the upper echelon of the secret society of mutants called the Hellfire Club. She would go on to start her own rival school to Xavier’s School where she’d train the next generation of evil mutants, the Hellions.

Paramount Pictures

However, beginning in 1994’s Generation X, Emma brought her aristocratic snark to train the new class of good guy mutants. Through the years, she’d even become a full-fledged member of the X-Men in the early 2000s. Always the messy bench who loves drama, Emma also tried to (often succeeding) drive a wedge between Cyclops and Jean Grey. Emma remains a fan favorite and, if written properly, is one of the most interesting characters in the X-Men canon.

Weaving is incredible casting for this, and I’m hoping we get some more X-Men movie casting news in the near future. I mean, we now have two…

Kyle Anderson is the Senior Editor for Nerdist. He hosts the weekly pop culture deep-dive podcast Laser Focus. You can find his film and TV reviews here. Follow him on Letterboxd.

The post Marvel Casts Samara Weaving as MCU’s Emma Frost appeared first on Nerdist.

While Americans suffer from the effects of his tariff policy, President Donald Trump has been handing out tariff exemptions for industries that offer him gifts and political donations. The New York Times reported on Thursday that in the latest round of Trump’s tariffs, he continued an ongoing exemption for natural diamonds. Conveniently, a few weeks before those tariffs were announced…

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After years of pushing full speed ahead on AI, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman says maybe it’s time for the AI industry to “pace” itself. The comments came just days after one of OpenAI’s own models broke out of its test environment and got tangled up in a breach at Hugging Face — though as Equity’s hosts point out, sloppy security seems to have […]

President Donald Trump baselessly claimed Friday that Minnesota had committed a cyber attack against itself.

Speaking at a Cabinet meeting at Camp David, Trump dismissed officials’ concerns that a cyberattack on municipal water systems in Minnesota was the work of Iranian hackers.

“I don’t think so. I think I blame it on Minnesota, because they’re grossly incompetent,” Trump said.

“I would blame it on Minnesota and the governor, the corrupt governor of Minnesota,” Trump continued, referring to Governor Tim Walz. “They like to say, ‘Oh, it’s Iran!’ Iran should be so lucky. Iran’s got bigger problems than worrying about Minnesota.”

Trump: "We heard in Minnesota there was a cyberattack and they blame it on Iran. I don't think so. I blame it on Minnesota because they're grossly incompetent. Iran's got bigger problems than worrying about Minnesota." pic.twitter.com/y1Mr6jjgaY

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) July 31, 2026

But Trump offered no evidence to support his claim, apparently motivated not by facts, but by sheer pettiness.

Federal and state officials said earlier this week that the cyberattack was probably the work of Iranian hackers, but they have not definitively determined who is responsible. They also cautioned that the hackers could simply be posing as Iranians in order to escalate the conflict between the two countries, though former intelligence officials said this was unlikely.

If the hackers were hoping to ratchet up the tensions between the U.S. and Iran, they failed by picking a state that Trump has designated as an outlet for his blatant islamophobia.

As reporters moved to exit the Cabinet meeting, Trump resumed his ranting about Minnesota.

“I think that Minnesota is behind it!” he declared.

“You know who’s behind it? Minnesota. Because they’re grossly incompetent. I think the governor’s behind it. I don’t think there was an Iranian cyberattack,” Trump continued. “I think that Minnesota ought to get its act together. It’s one of the worst-run states.”

The president teased that his administration was planning “massive future things having to do with corruption” in Minnesota. The Trump administration has continued to pursue fraud allegations against Minnesota officials in a transparent effort to punish Democrats and antagonize immigrants.

Snapchat has adjusted it recommendation systems to ensure that only videos created by real people are eligible for Spotlight recommendations, taking a stance against AI slop.

Now that we’re through the bulk of the changeover, I’m going to be writing updates less frequently (transparently, we aren’t going to be changing things as much or as quickly anymore). I’ll try to write one at least monthly, though, so there’s a public place for feedback. Having a consolidated place to look has been very helpful for the tech team. July: What We Changed and…

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The Trump administration is not making its case against Anthropic.

A federal judge flamed the government during a hearing Thursday, noting that Justice Department attorneys had failed to provide evidence “justifying” the Defense Department’s decision to class the AI company as a national security risk, or Donald Trump’s subsequent order barring federal agencies from utilizing the company’s services.

California-based U.S. District Judge Rita Lin literally spelled out the questions she would ask the government’s attorneys via a legal notice earlier this week, but the DOJ still failed to impress. Lin remarked at the outset of the hearing that, “if anything, it seems like the record in some ways has gotten worse for the government,” according to the Law & Crime network.

In May, Lin blasted the government for the “Orwellian” way that Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth attempted to sever ties with the AI contractor after Anthropic refused to grant the Pentagon unrestricted use of its AI bot, Claude, for military purposes.

At the time, the president and Hegseth claimed that Anthropic had gone “WOKE” for arguing that Claude could not safely or reliably be used for “autonomous lethal warfare and mass surveillance of Americans.”

“Having reviewed the record that the parties have submitted on the cross motions for summary judgment, it appears to me to be largely the same as the record that I assessed at the preliminary injunction stage,” Lin said Thursday. “I don’t see additional evidence from the government really justifying what it did.”

She added that she found it “really troubling” that the Trump administration was taking a position that “seems at odds to me with the First Amendment,” in “threatening to take away contracts from anyone who might do business with them” by “labeling them as subversive.”

Lin even posed a hypothetical question: whether it would be constitutional for the government to terminate “every defense contract with anyone who’s ever publicly criticized President Trump.”

When DOJ lawyers hedged, Lin said, “I’m surprised that you can’t give a yes to what seems to be an easy question.”

The State Department has set a $20,000 bond for some tourists and business visitors who seek a visa to enter the U.S.

The finalized plan, published by the State Department on Friday, requires visitors from a select list of countries to put up a bond of $10,000, $15,000, or $20,000, which would be paid back when their B1 or B2 visa expires. The pilot program for the bonds was introduced last year, and affected 50 countries.

Most of the affected visas last about three months, but some of them are for 10 years, meaning that visa holders wouldn’t get their money back for a decade, American Immigration Council senior fellow Aaron Reichlin-Melnick noted. The move is guaranteed to further hurt the U.S. tourism industry at a time when it is already struggling thanks to Trump administration policies.

During the World Cup this summer, the Trump administration suspended the bonds for anyone who had a ticket to one of the games. But many fans still were unable to attend, including the relatives of some of the players, thanks to a separate travel ban and other visa restrictions.

Trump’s immigration policies have cost the country billions of dollars in tourism and also caused prices of goods and services to go up for Americans. U.S. visa policies have also hurt international student enrollment and in turn led to a big drop in revenue for universities and colleges. Now that this visa bond program is being finalized, the U.S. is set to only further suffer economically.

Conservatives were hyped to get their mitts on Dr. Anthony Fauci’s diary and release it to the world, certain it would show something nefarious, like how he personally talked to China’s president and they co-invented COVID-19 to hurt President Donald Trump. But it looks like, at least in the case of White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller and his wife, Katie, the diary pages were a bit…

Source

⚡ Quick Take

• PlayStation will stop making physical game discs.
• New games made after January 2028 will not have a physical option.
• Digital downloads account for 80% of PlayStation game purchases.

At the beginning of July, Sony announced it would cease producing physical discs for PlayStation games entirely by 2028. That all but guarantees the PS6, whenever it arrives, will be a digital-only machine with no option for a disc drive. This led to an almost immediate backlash from players who, like me, understand that actual ownership of media can only occur through a physical object. Digital media can go away like a puff of smoke at the whim of licensing deals.

Well, Sony has heard the outcry. They understand that fans are upset. And they’ve decided to go ahead and just do what they were gonna do anyway. This came to light after a question about the backlash on a recent earnings call.

PlayStation

“There are various reasons we made this decision, the biggest being that the digitalization of content overall has been progressing, that’s the big factor,” Sony chief financial officer Lin Tao said through an interpreter during a Q&A on July 31. “It’s not just for PlayStation, but for all kinds of content, digitalization is progressing.”

She continued, ““And so, when we think about the future, we put in a lot of thought and time, and we cautiously considered this, and we came to this conclusion, and we’re going to cautiously move this forward.”

Sony

This doesn’t surprise me in the least. It’s always been about market share and cost cutting. If it saves Sony money not to make physical discs—and certainly more gamers just download games—that’s what they’ll do. Still, it feels a bit like a “we know best, sorry you’re mad,” response to aggrieved consumers. Ah well.

Original Report Below

Now’s the time when Grandpa Kyle gives you a tale of the 1990s. Back then, if you were lucky enough to have a home video game console, you coveted your library of games. You’d have to keep them free of dust, you’d add new ones and make room on your shelf or cupboard. And renting a new game? Oh, it would make or break a weekend. If you didn’t have the game in your hands, you couldn’t play it. Cut to now when the rise of digital downloads has made owning a physical copy of a game rarer and rarer. Add the word “obsolete” when discussing physical games and that’s where we are now as PlayStation has announced it will no long produce physical game discs.

The news comes via a blog post on the PlayStation site. Physical copies will cease production beginning January 2028.

Sid Shuman, Senior Director of Sony Interactive said, in part:

In response to shifting trends in consumer preference, new games will be released on PlayStation Store and at retailers in digital formats only.

Shifting trends is right. Digital downloads of new games has completely overtaken physical, as a tweet from Daniel Ahmad illustrates. What started as roughly 10% of sales in the PS4 days has ballooned to 80% of total game sales, DLC not included.

It's no secret that digital captures a higher % of full game sales each year (no, this figure doesn't include DLC).

What started during the PS4 (less than 10% digital at the start), has evolved into 80% of full game sales being digital on an annual basis. pic.twitter.com/fn2bpDo5sB

— Daniel Ahmad (@ZhugeEX) July 1, 2026

Evidence and behind the scenes scuttle also indicates PlayStation 6 and Xbox’s Project Helix will not have a disc drive option. If you, like me, use your PlayStation has 4K disc player in addition to a way to play games, you’re SOL.

So, what does this all mean? If 80% of players already download their games rather than buy them physically, this doesn’t seem like that big of an issue, right? Well, it goes toward a growing trend of the ephemeral nature of media. Maybe not the huge, giant popular titles, but smaller games, indie games, or weird games might suddenly disappear from your library when Sony loses a license. This happens all the time. You can never actually own digital media. You merely rent it. A $70+ rental.

Originally published July 1, 2026.

Kyle Anderson is the Senior Editor for Nerdist. He hosts the weekly pop culture deep-dive podcast Laser Focus. You can find his film and TV reviews here. Follow him on Letterboxd.

The post Sony Sticking to Decision to Cease Physical Discs by 2028 appeared first on Nerdist.

A cartoon by Clay Bennett. Related | Even Republicans are growing tired of Trump…

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A leading name in home and business physical security, Brinks Home, recently said it identified unauthorized access to a portion of its IT systems, an intrusion ShinyHunters claims it carried out to steal millions of records from the security provider's Salesforce instance. Brinks Home hasn’t named the intruder or identified the affected system, but said the responsible party has threatened to leak information it claims to have taken. “Brinks Home is working diligently to determine what information was involved and who may be affected,” the company statement said. “If the Company determines that personal information has been affected, it will notify those individuals as required and as appropriate.” An FAQ page for the incident said that Brinks Home products and services weren’t affected, as far as the company knows at this point, so alarms and other security tools should be working without issue. While Brinks may not have been very forthcoming with information, and lacks any sort of official way for media to communicate with it outside of sending a LinkedIn message it didn’t answer, the party that’s claimed responsibility has gone public with some details, and it’s none other than ShinyHunters with another claimed Salesforce breach. According to leak site monitoring outfit Ransomware.live, ShinyHunters claimed to have obtained more than 4.9 million Salesforce records from Brinks Home “containing some PII.” The group threatened this week to leak the data along with causing “several annoying digital problems” if Brinks Home didn’t reach out by Thursday, July 30, to negotiate a ransom payment. It’s not clear if Brinks Home has contacted ShinyHunters; Brinks Home didn’t respond to messages, and contacts The Register has for ShinyHunters appear to have changed, causing message and email rejections. ShinyHunters has been a prolific Salesforce intruder of late, with the group claiming earlier this year to have stolen data from around 100 high-profile companies’ Salesforce instances. Salesforce has previously warned that an unnamed known threat actor group was actively scanning for public-facing Salesforce instances and abusing misconfigured guest accounts to break in. Brinks Home is no longer part of the larger Brinks brand, with The Brinks Company telling us it sold the home security arm in 2010. Brinks Home’s parent company, Monitronics, has filed for bankruptcy twice since 2019; for customers’ sake, we hope its physical security services are better than its financial management and infosec. ®

Apple CEO Tim Cook envisions users being able to buy more compute for Siri AI via Apple's existing iCloud+ subscriptions.

⚡ Quick Take

• Batman: Caped Crusader season two paints a bleak portrait of Gotham as a graveyard of broken dreams and dejected people.

Gotham City has always been a place where tragedy feels inevitable, a metropolis built on systemic corruption, street violence, and the ghosts of those who never found peace. But what makes Batman: Caped Crusader stand apart is its fundamental understanding of the city’s true tragedy: Gotham is not simply overrun by villains. It is inhabited by broken people.

Season one introduced audiences to a darker, more grounded interpretation of Gotham. This was not a world where good cleanly triumphs or where antagonists are evil simply for the sake of it. Instead, the series explored betrayal, death, moral compromises, and a Dark Knight who was more flawed than ever. Caped Crusader presented one of the most realistic versions of Gotham yet—a place where trauma is passed down through generations, institutions fail the vulnerable, and justice almost always arrives too late.

Season two continues that exploration by placing a firm lens on grief, redemption, and the tragic circumstances that forge monsters. While the season introduces iconic figures like Solomon Grundy, Mr. Freeze, Poison Ivy, and the Spectre, it actively avoids traditional comic book tropes. These are not megalomaniacs bent on mindless destruction. They are deeply humanized figures shaped by loss, manipulation, financial desperation, mental health struggles, and circumstances far beyond their control.

For years, critics have argued that Bruce Wayne could accomplish far more good by deploying his vast fortune toward social infrastructure rather than beating up muggers in a suit. While there is truth to that argument, this season of Batman: Caped Crusader demonstrates why Gotham’s rot runs deeper than capital alone can repair. Gotham does not merely need buildings repaired or programs funded; it needs psychological healing. It needs a society capable of recognizing trauma before citizens reach a catastrophic breaking point.

The Trauma That Built Gotham City

Death has always been the load-bearing pillar of Batman’s mythology. A young Bruce Wayne witnessing the murder of his parents in Crime Alley is the defining tragedy that transforms him into the Dark Knight. But Batman: Caped Crusader understands a crucial inverse truth. Death does not only create heroes. It can also create villains.

Grief is not experienced the same way by everyone. While some find acceptance and eventually move forward, others become permanently trapped in cycles of anger, guilt, and unresolved pain. In Gotham, grief takes many monstrous shapes, and Caped Crusader‘s second season demonstrates how the inability to process loss can fundamentally distort a person’s identity.

Psychological research strongly mirrors the series’ portrayal of childhood loss. A study published in the National Library of Medicine examining parental death during childhood found that losing a parent to sudden external causes—such as homicide or accidents—was heavily associated with elevated risks of psychiatric disorders later in life, with anxiety and depression ranking among the most common long-term outcomes.

Prime Video

The research does not suggest that tragedy automatically creates criminals. Millions of people experience devastating loss and continue to lead meaningful lives. However, it does highlight how unaddressed trauma severely impairs emotional regulation, decision-making, and interpersonal trust. Caped Crusader asks a haunting question: What happens when a population experiences profound pain without access to emotional support, mental health resources, or community safety nets?

Even Batman is not immune to this cycle. Bruce Wayne understands the pain driving these characters because he carries the same wound. But recognizing someone’s trauma does not mean you can pull them back from the ledge. Throughout season two, Batman identifies the human suffering behind the mask, often only after the collateral damage has already been done.

We see this tragedy unfold across every corner of Gotham. Harleen Quinzel’s journey is one of the clearest examples of how the city’s failures can transform even those dedicated to healing others. In the first season of Batman: Caped Crusader, Harleen is a brilliant, perceptive psychiatrist whose frustration with Gotham’s corrupt elite pushes her toward becoming Harley Quinn.

She isn’t driven by mindless chaos. Instead, she is someone who believes the system has failed the people it was supposed to protect. Her weapon is not brute force, but psychological manipulation—using her understanding of fear to expose the corruption around her. Season two expands that complexity by placing her alongside Batman, reminding us that the line between hero and villain in Gotham is rarely black and white.

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HOUSE OF THE DRAGON’s Matthew Needham to Voice Joker in BATMAN: CAPED CRUSADER

That same lingering trauma affects those fighting on the side of law and order. Barbara Gordon’s story in the first season reveals the steep civilian cost of living in a city consumed by violence. After nearly losing her life to Gotham’s dark underbelly, Barbara is forced to confront the emotional aftermath of a violent experience she never asked for. Like so many others, she becomes a survivor of a city where fear is always waiting around the corner. It is a reminder that surviving a moment of danger does not mean the damage simply disappears.

This dynamic prompts the core question of the series: What happens to a city when too many people are carrying wounds that were never allowed to heal?

Forgiveness Is the Only Way to Save Gotham

Behind Gotham’s supernatural threats and criminal masterminds are individuals who have lost something they can never recover: a loved one, a livelihood, a sense of justice, or the belief that someone would step in to save them. Caped Crusader season two embraces the classic thesis famously explored in The Killing Joke, that under the right pressure, a single devastating moment of total abandonment can set anyone down a dark path.

This is why forgiveness and empathy emerge as the season’s most vital thematic counterweights. While punitive justice can punish harm, only forgiveness and systemic empathy can break the cycle of it.

Batman inherently represents justice, apprehending criminals, protecting innocent lives, and demanding accountability. But Batman: Caped Crusader season two asks a deeper question: What happens after the sentence is served? What happens to the person left behind, still carrying the trauma that prompted the crime? Can justice alone heal a broken human being?

Forgiveness does not mean absolving harm or erasing accountability. Rather, it prevents pain from becoming a person’s entire identity. In Gotham, that distinction is a matter of life and death. Many of Batman’s greatest enemies were not born malicious. They simply allowed their unaddressed trauma to morph into their sole purpose.

One of the season’s most emotional storylines explores this idea in a way that longtime comic fans will deeply appreciate, proving that true redemption is not about ignoring someone’s actions—it is about recognizing the humanity that still exists beneath them.

Gotham: The Graveyard of Broken Dreams Prime Video

The world of Gotham may be fictional, but its core conflicts—poverty, inadequate mental healthcare, institutional corruption, and unchecked power—are intensely real. Batman: Caped Crusader season two serves as a warning of what happens when the wealthy and powerful choose to look away while their surrounding community rots.

A city does not collapse overnight. It erodes slowly as resources disappear, social programs are gutted, and vulnerable populations are ignored. When people lose hope, desperation fills the void. Someone who feels abandoned grows bitter; someone who feels powerless grasps for control; someone wronged demands vengeance over justice.

That desperation is where Caped Crusader finds the tragic humanity within its rogues. Solomon Grundy is not merely a hulking brute, but a physical manifestation of overwhelming, unspoken pain. Poison Ivy reflects the wrath of someone who believes society has utterly failed to protect what matters most. The Spectre embodies the terrifying reality of allowing blind vengeance to swallow mercy whole.

These characters may exist within animation, but their emotional wounds feel real. They represent what happens when people are pushed to the absolute edge and no one reaches out a hand before it is too late.

Ultimately, Batman: Caped Crusader season two shifts the fundamental conflict away from Batman simply fighting his rogues. The real struggle is whether Gotham’s forgotten citizens can still be convinced that they are worth saving. Even the Joker represents the darkest extreme of that equation, a reminder of what happens when a human being completely severs their connection to empathy, hope, and connection.

Saving Gotham has never been purely about capturing the monsters hiding in the shadows. It is about understanding the pain, trauma, and systemic failures that create them, long before they cross the point of no return.

The post BATMAN: CAPED CRUSADER Season 2: Gotham Is a Graveyard of Broken Dreams appeared first on Nerdist.

The leading U.S. automakers are mentioning EVs on their investor calls at pre-pandemic rates, according to new data from TechCrunch and Hudson Labs.

Senator Mitch McConnell has yet to show his face in the halls of Congress, and the deadline for Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear to call a special election is fast approaching.

The 84-year-old Republican senator has not made a public appearance in weeks, ever since he was rushed to the hospital after being found unconscious at his Washington, D.C., home on June 14. Since then, McConnell’s office has refused to provide any meaningful updates on the exact state of the senator’s health, the reason for his extended hospitalization, or if and when he plans to return to Capitol Hill.

Beshear has until this Monday, August 3, to call a special election so Kentucky voters can choose a new senator in time for the midterms. Under Section 152 of the Kentucky state Constitution, a special election to fill a vacant seat must be called at least three months ahead of the vote—and since the midterm elections are set for November 3, Monday is exactly that three-month cutoff.

Kentucky’s law on Senate vacancies, House Bill 622, which was passed in 2024, is still legally untested. It eliminated the governor’s ability to appoint interim replacements for vacant U.S. Senate seats and mandated that any vacancy be filled by a special election, but as there are several competing legal provisions, it’s not yet clear what would happen in the courts.

Although Kentucky traditionally votes Republican at the federal level, Beshear, a Democrat, has been elected twice as the state’s top dog. A special election might just give Democrats a chance to send another one of their own to the Senate.

Beshear has repeatedly called on McConnell to justify his absence from Congress or to step down in time for Kentucky voters to choose a replacement. If the senator does not retire earlier, he will leave the Senate at the end of his term in December.

“I am addressing this letter to Senator McConnell under the assumption that he is capable of reading and responding verbally, and not incapacitated by means of consciousness or cognition. If the Senator is unable to respond for either of those or other conditions, consider this letter a demand for his Senate staff to be honest and transparent with the people of Kentucky,” Beshear wrote Monday in a letter to McConnell obtained by CNN.

McConnell’s office has only released two unconvincing photos of the senator alongside his wife, Elaine Chao, since his hospitalization. The latest statement from the senator’s office, released on July 27, said that McConnell would not yet be returning to his legislative duties in Congress, but he was “looking forward to getting back to the Senate and to Kentucky.”

McConnell’s ongoing absence has caused a stir among D.C. lawmakers and political commentators alike—from rumors that the Kentucky senator was brain-dead to pointed questions from MAGA-aligned allies, to a missing-person poster taped outside the Russell Senate Office Building.

Would you trust a ransomware extortionist to delete the data they stole? One bank certainly wants you to. Well over a month into a ransomware cleanup job, River Financial Corporation tells regulators that it “took steps to attempt to suppress the affected data, including obtaining representations from the threat actor that it deleted the data in its possession.” For context, placing this kind of trust in this kind of individual has been proven to be a bad idea. When globo-cops took down LockBit in 2024, they found evidence that victim data was retained even after the victim had paid the extortion demands. In its Form 8-K filing with the SEC, River Bank did not explicitly state whether or not it paid any of the criminals’ ransom demands, although ransomware crooks are not commonly known to offer a victim data deletion for free. The Register asked the company for a more explicit comment on this matter, but it did not immediately respond. River Bank first disclosed its cyber woes to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on June 16, admitting from the outset that ransomware had been deployed across portions of its servers. In response, it took affected systems offline, disabled admin accounts, and brought in external incident responders to determine the full scope of the damage. Only July 6, messaging suggested it was aware that some data was “potentially impacted” by the attack, before admitting that certain data was removed from its environment four days later. By July 10, River was aware the data had been removed, and two class action lawsuits had been filed against it, to top things off. A week later, it told investors that an additional two class actions had been filed, bringing the total to four. River has not yet completed its investigation, per its most recent filing, and therefore has not confirmed the full scope or impact of the attack. ®

AI data center demand is fueling a multi-year chip shortage, pushing up component costs and retail device prices.

⚡ Quick Take

• The Criterion Channel is bringing several installments of Neon Genesis Evangelion to its streaming platform on September 1.

Neon Genesis Evangelion is one of the most beloved and influential anime of all-time. Debuting in 1995, the franchise is set in a post-apocalyptic universe with teens who pilot Multipurpose Humanoid Decisive Weapons–which are artificial humans known as Evangelions–and defend humanity from the not-so-good Angels. It is packed with action, trauma, and topics that truly touch your heart. Decades later, the Criterion Channel is bringing several installments of Neon Genesis Evangelion to its streaming platform on September 1.

TV Tokyo

It will include the original 26 episode series in both Japanese and English to satisfy all fans. Evangelion: Death (True)2 is also coming to the Criterion Channel. The film, which was released in 1998, is pretty much a recap of that series. And the third release is The End of Evangelion (1997), the finale of the original series. Both films and the original series are, as of July 2026, available to stream on Netflix.

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This NEON GENESIS EVANGELION-Inspired Hockey Team Intro Is Amazing

But we all know that streaming services will have things today and take them off tomorrow. The Criterion Channel is a beautiful way to engage with entertainment history, and we are so excited to see Neon Genesis Evangelion find a home there.

The post NEON GENESIS EVANGELION Is Coming to the Criterion Channel appeared first on Nerdist.

⚡ Quick Take

• Just as in the MCU, T’Challa has a son who becomes Black Panther in the comics.
• Azari T’Challa also has mutant powers, like his mother, Storm, and exists in a few timelines.
• The MCU’s T’Challa Jr. will be played by David Jonsson. Azari’s story may inform the MCU in some ways: including borrowing from Azari’s suit and a potential appearance of Azari down the line.

One of the big announcements coming from Marvel Studios’ Hall H panel at San Diego Comic-Con 2026 was the news that Ryan Coogler was returning to direct Black Panther 3, arriving in December of 2028. But even more importantly, it would feature the debut of Alien: Romulus star David Jonsson as our new Black Panther, a grown-up version of King T’Challa’s son, Prince T’Challa, or Toussaint, or T’Challa Jr. Last seen in Wakanda Forever as a little boy, Black Panther III will be T’Challa Jr.’s coming-of-age story, as he takes the throne. Will there be a big time-jump? Some Secret Wars-related timey-wimey stuff? Or something else altogether? We don’t know. But we do know that a multiversal variant of T’Challa had a son in Marvel’s Black Panther comics, and his story might inform the MCU version.

T’Challa’s Son Debuted in the Marvel Animated Film Next Avengers Marvel

In the main 616 timeline of the Marvel Universe, King T’Challa of Wakanda has no official heir. Yes, he married Storm of the X-Men, but that marriage ended in annulment, leaving no offspring. However, there are other Marvel timelines where King T’Challa and Queen Ororo did have a child, a son they named Azari. But T’Challa’s son didn’t have his first appearance in any of Marvel’s comics, Black Panther or otherwise; he actually came from animation. Marvel introduced him in the animated film Next Avengers: Heroes of Tomorrow, which came out in 2008. In that film, the villainous A.I. Ultron conquers the world and kills most of the Avengers. Only Iron Man survives, and Tony Stark takes the children of his teammates and raises them in secrecy. One of those kids is Azari Munroe, the son of Black Panther and Storm.

In the Marvel animated movie, Azari is close friends with the other children of the Avengers, who are like his siblings. T’Challa’s son inherits the enhanced speed, strength, endurance, and agility that his father gained from ingesting the heart-shaped herb to become the Black Panther. Usually, the power the heart-shaped herb grants to Wakanda rulers is not hereditary. A prospective ruler must take it themselves to receive the powers their ancestor had. But since Azari is a mutant with an X-gene, he inherited his father’s enhancements. T’Challa and Storm’s son didn’t inherit all of his mother’s weather-controlling powers, but he did inherit Storm’s electrokinesis, or her control of lightning. Azari can also create electric force fields, and has “energy vision,” which allows him to see the physical world as pure energy.

Azari T’Challa Becomes Marvel Comics Canon in 2010’s Avengers #1 Marvel Comics

In 2010, a slightly older version of T’Challa’s son, Azari, now named for his father, Azari T’Challa, appeared in the mainline Marvel Comics as Black Panther. T’Challa’s son first appeared in Marvel Comics in Avengers (vol.4) #1. Although he still only existed in an alternate future. Much like the animated film, Azari is part of a group of next-generation Avengers, who take up the fight against Ultron from their parents. Once Ultron is defeated, Azari T’Challa takes the throne of Wakanda, becoming the new Black Panther. The Earth this version of the character is from is alternately given as Earth-61616 or Earth-10943. It’s unclear if there are two Azaris in the comics, as he only made a handful of appearances. A different adult version of T’Challa’s son also appears as the Black Panther in the recent Aliens vs Avengers comic series.

Marvel Comics

We should note that there is another son of T’Challa, Ketema. He is the white-presenting adopted son of T’Challa in yet another alternate-future. But it’s safe to say MCU Prince T’Challa will not draw inspiration from that character, for obvious reasons.

Does Azari T’Challa Have an MCU Future as T’Challa Jr.? Or Is T’Challa’s Son Totally Different in Black Panther 3? Marvel Comics

So, will Marvel Comics’ Azari T’Challa inspire MCU’s T’Challa Jr. at all? Well, for starters, we know his mother is not Storm. The mother of T’Challa’s son in the MCU is Nakia, played by Lupita Nyong’o. So if T’Challa Jr. is a mutant and has electric powers, we would be genuinely surprised. Although we have heard Ryan Coogler wants to introduce mutants into Black Panther III, and so we suspect he means Storm herself will appear in the movie. Since Chadwick Boseman’s T’Challa never had a relationship with Storm in the Black Panther movies, they will likely pass that romance on to his son. So we think it’s more likely that Azari T’Challa will actually enter the MCU as the eventual son of T’Challa II and Storm. But that’s way down the line.

However, the adult Azari T’Challa has a very cool futuristic Black Panther suit in Marvel Comics, and we could see that informing T’Challa Jr.’s MCU look. So there may be some inspiration found in the comic book son of Black Panther yet. Kevin Feige recently said that they have a rough outline for the MCU up to 2042. Maybe we’ll see Azari T’Challa in live-action somewhere during the later part of that timeline. But we wouldn’t expect to see him before that in live-action. But when it comes to the MCU, who knows what the future may bring.

Who Plays T’Challa’s Son in Black Panther 3? Marvel Studios/Nerdist/Marvel Comics

As mentioned, David Jonsson will play T’Challa Jr. in Black Panther 3 when the film releases on December 15, 2028.

The post The Marvel History of Black Panther’s Son, Azari T’Challa (& How He Relates to T’Challa Jr.) appeared first on Nerdist.