Fanboys Anonymous

Fox will bring Gotham to life in a slightly different way than originally pitched: by focusing on a young Bruce Wayne and not a young Jim Gordon (although Gordon will still be a lead character). Kevin Reilly, Fox Chairman, described the series thus:

"The show will track Bruce from a child (around 12 years old) until he puts on a cape (in the finale)." (Whoa, spoiler alert, Kevin! Yeesh).

As soon as this show was announced, my biggest fear was that they would bring in some kid to be a young Bruce Wayne. Who likes brooding kids on TV? Nobody. Now he's not just going to pop up every now and again but be the STAR in every episode? I do not sense a "lighthearted" or "wacky" series here; it will be week after week of resentful child syndrome or of Bruce very, very slowly learning to control his anger or thirst for revenge.

"Should I start brooding now, or later....?"

Reilly also cited recurring characters you might recognize: Oswald Cobblepot (aka The Penguin), Edward Nigma (aka The Riddler), and Selina Kyle (aka Catwoman). They will obviously be in their younger forms as we "see how they get to become what they are as Gotham is teetering on the edge."

Am I the only one concerned about the longevity of this series? It is called Gotham and matches up with Smallville in the realm of titles but it really could be called We Need To Talk About Bruce.


What say you, fanboys and girls? Will this survive past season one on it's own merits? Or will it depend heavily on forced crossovers?

Chris Pratt, who will appear in this summer's Marvel movie, Guardians of the Galaxy, is set to star in Jurassic World, Universal Studio's upcoming fourth installment of the Jurassic Park franchise.

Chris Pratt/Jurassic World

Jeff Goldblum in Jurassic Park

Coming on March 5th as part of Marvel's second wave of relaunches and new stories—this time called All-New Marvel NOW! (à la DC's New 52)—is a brand new Moon Knight monthly ongoing comic book by all-star creative team Warren Ellis, Declan Shalvey, and Jordie Bellaire. Perhaps not one of the most well-known characters outside of the fandom, Moon Knight will be returning to his old stomping grounds in New York City's crime-ridden back alleys, and Ellis wants to aim a spotlight at the lunar crusader.

To prepare for the coming of what is sure to be the underdog of the All-New Marvel NOW! lineup, I (Dan) and my fellow Fanboys Anonymous writer and Moon Knight fan Orion Petitclerc will introduce new readers and veteran fans alike to Marvel's fist of vengeance and reminisce upon our favorite Moon Knight adventures. We'll also present our thoughts on the age-old stereotype that Moon Knight is Marvel's Batman. Because of the lengthiness of the topic, we at Fanboys Anonymous have divvied all of this up into a three-part series of articles, with parts two and three to be posted later this week. You can navigate to the other parts through hyperlinks at the bottom of each page.

First up is an introduction by yours truly!

Introduction
by Dan

If anything could describe the character of Moon Knight, he's that guy you meet at a high school reunion—the kid you always knew was going on to great things, because even if he didn't have high aspirations, he had everything it took to be successful. When you meet him again after all those years, you feel the burning need to ask, "Dude, what happened?" Take that any or every way you'd like. On one hand, I'd personally feel the need to ask why he couldn't have just bought a fluffy little kitten and taught it to make popular YouTube videos. Seriously, that's very therapeutic for people with mental traumas.

On the other hand, because he's outrageously mental in the most awesome fashion and might cut my face off for asking him that, I'd ask instead just why the hell Marvel has thrown him so many bum deals in the past. Back in 1975, when Spider-Man seemed to be meeting a new villain or hero every week of the year, there were, without a doubt, a hell of a lot of ridiculous-looking characters “gracing” the pages of Marvel. Moon Knight was quite the rarity. Rather than being loved or hated, he had something that could draw in fans of both Marvel and DC. From day one, he simultaneously appeared to be a dark menace and the sort of fantastical hero enjoyed by the greatest of fantasists. Not surprisingly, then, his overall personality is as ambiguous as his appearance.

The fact that he has three personalities outside of the Moon Knight persona (more on that in the next section) might put off readers who don't have the mind or patience to try to get their heads around that—or maybe I mean attempted readers—but Moon Knight is one of a fraction of Marvel characters whose writers not only dare to think outside the box, but who naturally exist there. That's my kind of read!

So if you still don't know why Moon Knight isn't as huge as he ought to be, you're probably a part of that minority who really appreciate him.

Origin: In the Beginning, There was Only One Man
by Orion

Moon Knight first appears in the pages of Werewolf by Night #32–33 (1975) as Jack Russell's villain-turned-ally, but we'll start with the character's actual origin, which debuted five years later in his first ongoing series. Moon Knight was Marc Spector before he became the grim specter in white that fans today know and love. Marc was born and raised in Chicago by his father Elias, a rabbi and Holocaust escapee who pressured him and his (presumably) older brother Randall toward nonviolence and religious devotion. Marc rejected his father's teachings, favoring the excitement of a life of adventure and violence.

After high school, Marc pursued a profitable career in prizefighting until he punched out his own father in the ring in front of a live audience. Elias had come to beg Marc to stop the senseless fighting. Marc enlisted with the marines the next morning, and after two tours of duty and a brief stint as a field agent for the CIA—which produced several story arcs concerning the people he worked with and against, including a titular battle against Randall—he quit to pursue a bloody career as a mercenary. Soon after, Marc joined up with Jean-Paul "Frenchie" Duchamp and Raoul Armand Bushman, forming a sort of "three musketeers" as soldiers of fortune.

It wasn't long before Marc and Frenchie realized they were working for a bona fide bloodthirsty madman, and they hatched a plan for leaving Bushman's company after they raided an archaeological dig in the Sudan (or Egypt, as per a later retcon). The site in question was a recently discovered tomb of Seti III (retconned to Seti II for historical accuracy), where the troupe found archaeologists Dr. Peter Alraune Sr. and his daughter Marlene hiding a cache of valuables. Knowing the mercenaries were after the treasure, Dr. Alraune attempted to stab Bushman in the back (literally, with a bejeweled dagger). Marc warned Bushman just in time, and to make an example for any resisters, Bushman killed Dr. Alraune by tearing out his throat with his sharpened metal teeth.


No longer able to stand Bushman's inhumane brutality, Marc chased Marlene into hiding and confronted the killer. Displeased with Marc's betrayal, Bushman beat Marc into unconsciousness and abandoned him in the middle of the desert to die in its harsh conditions, then made off with Frenchie and the treasures. Marc miraculously made his way back to the tomb's entrance, where he collapsed and died just as Marlene's assistants saw him and took him inside to safety from the raging nighttime sandstorm. Marlene realized that Marc wasn't the one who killed her father and that he tried to protect her from Bushman, thus (almost) forgiving him and mourning over his death.

In the light of the full moon and at the feet of an ancient statue, however, Marc was suddenly revived. He told Marlene that Khonshu, the Egyptian god of the moon and vengeance after whom the statue was fashioned, had resurrected him. Then, grabbing and putting on a white hooded cloak that was draped around the statue, he took off into the desert after Bushman. He found Bushman's camp, disarmed his hired soldiers by blowing up their weapons cache, and confronted the killer in hand-to-hand combat. Their fight was interrupted, however, and Bushman snuck away when Marc responded to Marlene's cry for help. Frenchie had grabbed Marlene, thinking she was going to shoot Marc with a gun she picked up, and apologized for abandoning his friend at a crucial moment.

Marc, Marlene, and Frenchie left the desert and returned to the states after that. Marc, with a new lease on life, strove to leave behind his dark days as a mercenary. He created three new identities for himself through which he began his vigilante career: Steven Grant, a millionaire philanthropist with informants in the highest places; Jake Lockley, a New York City cabbie with street-level informants; and Moon Knight, Marc's superhero persona.

Moon Knight's origin in Werewolf by Night was later included in the character's canon as a kind of false origin in the pages of Moon Knight #4 (Series 1, 1981), and his true origin received a mystical mini-retcon of sorts in the pages of Moon Knight: Fist of Khonshu #1 (1985, considered the second Moon Knight series). You can read all of this and more of Moon Knight's early, pre-modern adventures in the three Essential Moon Knight trade paperback omnibuses, which I shall cover next.

Review: Back to the Essentials
by Orion

I personally loved the Essential Moon Knight volumes, but for newer readers, getting past the few first stories may prove a bit daunting due to the dated content and classic storytelling. I actually wasn't introduced to Moon Knight through his early adventures as reprinted in glorious black-and-white in these books, and I feel that the way I was introduced to the character and story is a much better route for modern readers to get hooked into one of the most underrated comic book personas. If you want to skip ahead to the next article for my recommendation on where to start, I wouldn't blame you. However, if you're into older comics, classical storytelling, following a character from his/her bare roots, challenging reading material, or if you're still interested after having read the rest of this article, I invite you back to my little review of the Essential books.

When you pick up Essential Moon Knight Vol. 1, you're picking up the very beginning. Seriously. The first story you read is the aforementioned false origin in Werewolf by Night. After that, you get to see Moon Knight transform from a mysterious caped crusader into a flesh-and-blood schizophrenic through his spotlights and features in several other titles before he was given his own ongoing series in 1980. These stories are nothing to shake a stick at, either. Many of the stories included in this volume were written by Doug Moench, Moon Knight's co-creator and godfather, and drawn by Bill Sienkiewicz, who gave Moon Knight his definitive look. This creative team is perhaps one of the best and most renowned in the character's history. In this book, you'll be introduced to two of Moon Knight's most iconic villains: Bushman and Midnight Man—a glorified art thief who plays a huge role near the end of the volume in Marc's first of several psychotic breakdowns.

Essential Moon Knight Vol. 2 picks up where the first book left off and features nothing but twenty issues of the first Moon Knight series. Again, Moench and Sienkiewicz jointly authored the majority of these excellent stories, with a few exceptional guest writers and artists here and there. This volume really explores the issues that arise from Marc's schizophrenia as they affect the people around him. It also introduces a few more characters from his iconic rogues gallery, including Morpheus, Stained Glass Scarlet, the Black Spectre, and the return of the Werewolf by Night. In the upcoming Moon Knight series, Ellis highlights the weird crime aspect of his stories, and between Volumes 1 and 2, you'll find out exactly from where Ellis is drawing the weird crime influence.

In Essential Moon Knight Vol. 3, we see a brief exchange of artistic roles between Sienkiewicz and the talented Kevin Nowlan before the first Moon Knight series is brought to a close with issue #38 after a heartwarming story involving the passing of Marc's father. After that, a new, albeit short-lived series called Moon Knight: Fist of Khonshu takes center stage with an all-new creative team and a bold new direction. Things start to get supernatural for our hero as his mystical connection with Khonshu introduces him to three blind priests who play a vital, yet annoying role throughout the six-issue series. He also develops more refined supernatural abilities to replace his previous lunar phase-influenced strength and agility, which he had thought derived from injuries in his tussle with the Werewolf by Night.

I personally loved the first issue for adding another layer to Moon Knight's already rich origin story, but the structure the priests added to the stories became hokey and tiresome pretty quickly. After that, Moon Knight returns solely to appearances and features in other books to close out the volume. A couple of supporting characters were introduced in this book, including Marlene's first husband, Eric Jules Fontaine, and Spence, Marc's director of acquisitions for his oft-forgotten art trade company, Spector International Galleries. Not much stood out from this volume as opposed to its predecessors.

Overall, the Essential collections are a must-have for die-hard Moon Knight fans. Not only do you get a majority of the classic stories, but you also get a bunch of extras, including behind-the-scenes stuff such as unused covers, newsletters from the editors to the fans, character profiles, tech and gadget blueprints, and portfolios. You can get them cheap, too, for less that $20 per book online. Sadly, there hasn't been another Essential Moon Knight book to collect those series that came between the third volume and the next series in my review. That's a lot of Moon Knight uncollected, too—there are sixty issues of Marc Spector: Moon Knight, four issues of Moon Knight: Resurrection War, and four issues of Moon Knight: High Strangers completely uncollected. I've yet to obtain the individual books of these series, nor the trade collection of Avengers: West Coast, which chronicles Moon Knight's membership with the team, so I can't personally weigh in on those.

What do you guys and gals think so far of the mysterious Moon Knight? Still want more? Got any questions or opinions you'd like to share? Leave us a comment below and check out Part 2 here!

At the most recent Ghastly Awards, one legendary filmmaker strode past popular titles such as Dark Horse's BRPD and Vertigo's Coffin Hill to take the award for best ongoing title. It brought up a reoccurring theme regarding the noble comic book and its place in the world today!

Errm...

Before Marvel and DC started the superhero movie hype, it was considered that television and video games were ruining the movie industry. It's still a valid point. Marvel and DC have their own respective businesses to go back to at the end of the day and don't have to count on cinema goers alone. Some film studios, such as 20th Century Fox, also belong to multimedia conglomerate monsters for whom a $100 million budget is a drop in the ocean (probably why so many big projects are a steaming crock).

Being an 80s kid brought up with the best in cult horror and sci-fi, I really do miss the days when filmmakers weren't forced to cater to their producers' tastes in order to make a great movie. It's very hard to get funding for a movie these days without having to bend over backward (or any other way) and be a Yes-man.

Genre movies once had a great sense of working class spirit about them, unlike the vapid supermodel generation of films from the past decade whose cinema releases did no justice even by the original era of direct-to-video releases. Sure, they could have done with much better budgets, but whatever they lacked in looks, they made up for in unlimited reserves of character.

If there is any one contender with videogame and television, it's comics. Today you can have everything you want crammed within the pages of a comic book and have more quality and quantity for equal or less than the cost of a cinema ticket. Even better, some of the greatest minds of the best eras in cult cinema history are jumping on the bandwagon. So bend over, Hollywood!

I bring you five great modern comic books from the makers of cult classic cinema!

John Carpenter's ASYLUM

You will know his movies: Halloween, The Fog, Escape from New York, the wacky Big Trouble in Little China; they're all part of one of the most memorable runs in movie history when Carpenter was making one awesome movie for just about every year of the 80s. After that, he kind of burned out, and producers were investing less and less, and after Ghosts of Mars, he went into semi-retirement.

Between the 80s and mid-90s, Carpenter made three movies as part of an unofficial trilogy—much like Edgar Wright's "Three Flavours Cornetto"—known as the "Apocalypse Trilogy." These included The Thing, Prince of Darkness, and In the Mouth of Madness, all tied together by the theme Carpenter loved to play with the most: the inevitable losing battle of humanity versus extinction.

So when the legendary director, his wife Sandy King, and actor Thomas Ian Griffith (Karate Kid 3, Vampires) got together to create this monster of a series, that memorable theme came back with a few hints from Carpenter's memorable moments.

Based in Los Angeles, the ultimate battle between humanity and evil is set to begin. All over the city, in the dark alleys among the homeless and in the sewers among the rats, demons inhabit the shadows. The devil is preparing to open a portal into the city, which will prove to be the end for all of us. One man sees. Father Daniel Beckett has seen demons before. He's even spoken to the devil, but he's never seen an angel or spoken to God. So as the end nears, the one man that could end this, God's own warrior, stands at war with God himself!


Written for the page by Bruce Jones and beautifully pencilled by Leonardo Manco, Asylum's artwork literally burns up the pages like a hellish inferno, and it really does feel like Carpenter on a big budget. Read through any volume of the series, and it's just as though the Preacher Garth Ennis would have written, had he really wanted to make his fans feel like God hated them.

Colorful characters and even more colorful violence abound. This really does make up for Carpenter's absence from the big screen, and it's great to see him working with others, because he's a good writer alone, but a great writer on a team of likeminded people.

George A. Romero's EMPIRE OF THE DEAD

This series was meant to be released by Marvel by Halloween of last year, originally teased as Marvel of the Dead! However, as much as you can't keep an old legend like Romero down—the man who singlehandedly made the zombie horror subgenre one of the most terrifying of all time—he is a sucker for perfection when it comes to his own writing.

One of the many directors to suffer a long time for his art, Romero never wanted to make just horror films. More precisely, he never wanted to make just zombie movies. Yet his dramas didn't catch fire quite like his genre movies. Once upon a time, he would have told you he'd have liked to make a Batman or a Spider-Man movie, which makes you wonder why he never got into comics sooner. This godfather of horror shares many similarities to the godfather of comics, Stan Lee. Of course, he did make Creepshow and Tales from the Darkside.

With Empire of the Dead, Romero drops his usual formula of humanity versus zombie epidemic, but takes the basics and that reoccurring theme of old: zombies beginning to think for themselves. Only this time, New York City being the setting for this postapocalyptic horror, vampires are now in the mix, and their curse doesn't just pass onto humans.


Empire of the Dead is set for release early this year and will be a fifteen-issue miniseries exclusively for Marvel.

Guillermo Del Toro's THE STRAIN

Now, we all know that Guillermo Del Toro isn't one of your longest-standing legends, but the Hellboy and Pacific Rim creator and director has been one of the most consistently original, hardworking, and successful genre directors in a very long time. In fact, it's safe to say that he's revolutionized and redefined the genres he loves so much.

I mentioned a few months back that a TV series would be adapted from this comic by Del Toro himself, and so it had to be on the cards!

The Strain was released in comic book format some years ago now, adapted from Del Toro's novel (because some fools originally said no to his TV series pitch), and was a hit. So no surprise that the TV series is now going ahead.

When CDC agent Ephraim Goodweather is called to JFK airport to investigate a possible terrorist dirty bomb on board a blacked-out Boeing 747, he discovers something much worse that chills his blood and leads to events that threaten not just the city but the whole world.


An undying evil breaks an ancient truce. One elderly and seemingly crazy citizen of Spanish Harlem knows what awaits, and it is up to him, a survivor of the holocaust, to warn Dr Goodweather. As it happens, it may be too late before the vampire virus has completely destroyed the city.

I cannot recommend this series enough. Rather than just your average vampire feature, it views the victims of the plague as a parasitic race. Knowing Del Toro, it's got to make your skin crawl. Artist Mike Huddleston certainly delivers. Even within the pages of a comic, this series is suspenseful and atmospheric. This ought to be a comic fan's collector's item!

Lance Henriksen's TO HELL YOU RIDE

Probably the least expected is this oddity from one of the greatest character actors of our time, Lance Henriksen (Bishop from Aliens, Frank Black from Millennium)!

For those of you who like their stories a little/lot more old school, there is nobody like Henriksen for telling a story, and as a working class actor of many decades, he has traveled a lot and had many strange experiences on those travels. To Hell You Ride, a five-issue miniseries, was based on one such experience.

"I went to Telluride, Colorado, at one point, almost twenty years ago. When I got there, it wasn't the ski resort it is now. It had skiing, but not to the degree that it does now. I'm sitting in a bar there and I'm thinking, this is a box canyon, it's sort of the end of the world in terms of travel, and I looked around me and saw all these people and thought they were reincarnated miners and hookers. They didn't even know why they were there, but they were there.

What leaped into my mind was a line of a Dylan Thomas poem: 'The ball I threw while playing in the park has not yet reached the ground.' Which gave me almost the whole form of the prologue of our story.

I remember when I was sixteen, there was a Urok Indian that I met. At sixteen, I was kind of a wild kid, and this guy took me under his wing. His father had been an elder, a medicine man. He told me this story about something his grandfather had done. The cops came to this guy and said, 'a girl's gone missing, we can't find her, we need your help.'

And the guy walked out of his house backwards, down the road and through the town, and people were following him. He never turned around, he walked the whole thing backwards, and he ended up deep in the woods. He turned around and there was a flat rock there, and he said, 'she's here.' They flipped the rock over, and the girl was there, dead. That resonated with me and joined in with my thoughts about Telluride while I was there. This was a mining town, and it had all the old derricks and all that crap, and all the old mine tunnels, a lot of mercury in the ground at the edge of town toward the mountains. I thought, oh man, this is some story!"

Yeah, I'm just gonna let that work on your curiosity!

Clive Barker's THE NEXT TESTAMENT

I went and saved the most strange and profound until last. Clive Barker—Who knows horror films and doesn't know Clive Barker? Who knows novels and doesn't know Clive Barker? Who knows video games and doesn't know Clive Barker? Well, probably the odd one or two.

The Hellraiser writer and director has been at it for decades now. At what, I'm not sure I want to say. The writer, filmmaker, artist, and fetishist (from my fair city of Liverpool) has even created comic book characters before, andwritten for other peoples' characters, but The Next Testament is his debut original story featuring completely original characters.

And some gore!

All you have to do is watch any of his films—Candyman, Nightbreed, Lord of Illusions—to see what kind of sick and twisted joy you'll be exposed to. Or maybe it could be the other way around?

Next Testament is a sort of retelling of Genesis from the bible. Julian Demond, a captain of industry, has dropped his life and left everything behind to go on a mission from God. Out in the wasteland, he meets the strangest man named Wick, who believes that he is God. Together they go on a mission across the world, not to make an impression so much as to leave a scar!

Bet that works out well...

The Next Testament has only recently been released by BOOM! Studios!

So, tell me what you think. Have you read any of these yet, and what were your impressions? Comments below and thank you for reading.

Marvel officially announced today that they have cast Michael Douglas as Hank Pym in Ant-Man, in theaters July 2015. The award-winning actor will play opposite Paul Rudd, confirmed to play Scott Lang, joining director Edgar Wright in the upcoming film.

Marvel released on their website: "Michael Douglas has stepped into some of the biggest--or should that be the tiniest?--shoes of his career."

Douglas walked away from the 2014 Golden Globe Awards last night winning Best Actor in a TV Mini-series for his portrayal of Liberace in HBO's Behind the Candelabra. He also earned an Academy Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role for his portrayal of Gordon Gecko in Wall Street and the Academy Award for Best Picture for One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.

Marvel Studio's President Kevin Feige said in Marvel's announcement:

"With Hank Pym's rich history in the Marvel Universe, we knew we needed an actor capable of bringing the weight and stature to the role that the character deserves. We felt incredible relieved when Michael Douglas agreed to step into the part with the charm and fortitude he brings to ever character he inhabits, and couldn't be more excited to see what he will do to bring Hank Pym to life."

Hank Pym first appeared in 1962's Tales to Astonish #27, taking the Ant-Man persona in the original Avengers Team. Scott Lang later stole Pym's technology to become the shrinking superhero. Pym eventually married Janet van Dyne, better known as Wasp, and goes on to other superhero identities such as Giant-Man and Yellowjacket.

Director Edgar Wright said in an early interview on SuperheroHype.com that the film "basically is about Henry Pym and Scott Lang, so you actually do a prologue where you see Pym as Ant-Man in action in the 60's, in sort of Tales to Astonish mode basically, and then the contemporary, sort of flash-forward, is Scott Lang's story, and how he comes to acquire the suit, how he crosses paths with Henry Pym, and then, in an interesting sort of Machiavellian way, teams up with him."

Like recent superhero cast announcements (Gal Gadot as Wonder-Woman and Ben Affleck as Batman in DC's upcoming Man of Steel sequel), debates amongst fans on whether Douglas, at the age of 69, was rightfully cast have already sprung up. Does this mean we will not get to see Wasp?

Do you think this was a good casting choice? Comment below and let us know!

Addicted to Anime is a monthly radio show celebrating anime, manga, and all forms of Japanese culture. Join the power couple of Stephen and Johnna Wago as they pick a new series every month to review and riff.


Addicted to Anime returns for Episode 2. This time we check out the anime Sword Art Online. In the year 2022, players are trapped inside of a game, unable to log out; the only way to live is to win. Death in-game means death in the real world.

You can now subscribe to Addicted to Anime on iTunes. Coming soon to Stitcher Radio.

Peter Mayhew, famous for his portrayal of Chewbacca in the original Star Wars saga, released a collection of behind-the-scenes photos via his Twitter account January 7.

Over the past few days, Peter Mayhew shared over a hundred photos from his time on the set of the iconic film franchise. Accompanied in the photos by Mark Hamill (Luke Skywalker), Harrison Ford (Han Solo), Carrie Fisher (Princess Leia), and the rest of the gang, he takes us back to the making of the original films that have inspired prequels, sequels, cartoons, books, comics, and an immense fan base.

The photo frenzy followed nostalgia of his time on set, after he tweeted:

Mayhew's nostalgic kick started a spree late January 7 that, so far (thankfully), has not ended. He tweeted just after midnight on January 13, "Well, that's all friends. Thank you. Still about 1200 pics in the archive. I leave you w/ the second best hair in SW" along with a photo of Lando Calrissian, played by Billy Dee Williams. Among the 100+ photos was Carrie Fisher in her slave bikini from Return of the Jedi sunbathing with her stunt double, snowball fights on "Hoth," and C-3PO escaping the sun of "Tatooine" under an umbrella. Other photos revealed behind-the-scenes shots of filming and animation.

With the anticipation of Star Wars VII, directed by J.J. Abrams, lingering in the heads of thousands of fans, these hilarious and heartwarming photos will bring back good memories of the saga we all grew up watching.

Here is a look behind the camera from a long, long time ago, on a set far, far away…

Brace yourselves, season four of Game of Thrones is coming! Announced earlier this week was the season premiere date. If that hasn't gotten you excited for more sword-clanging, dragons, and full frontal nudity; then perhaps the official trailer released today can get your wolves howling.

Season four will be based mostly on the third installment of A Song of Ice & Fire by George R.R. Martin, A Storm of Swords. This is a spoiler free zone when it comes to GoT, but let's just say you can expect the proverbial shit to hit the fan this season. Look for it on HBO every Sunday at 9pm EST starting on April 6th.