Giant Freakin Robot

We’ve seen footage of a crazy ass battle from Avengers: Age of Ultron, where Iron Man and his Hulkbuster armor butt heads with the Hulk. That looks awesome, but we’ve also heard that’s not from even anywhere near the climax. And if you thought Earth’s Mightiest Heroes facing off against Loki’s Chitauri army at the end of the first film was nuts, according to Joss Whedon, we haven’t seen anything yet.

Avengers 2 looks to be bigger in every way than the first. The director says that wasn’t the intent, but it apparently didn’t stop him from going all out with Age of Ultron. Talking to Yahoo, he says, “I didn’t mean for it to get larger, but the climax that I pitched was completely unhinged and nobody said no, so that’s that.”

With all of the hype surrounding Avengers: Age of Ultron, Spider-Man coming home to Marvel, the laundry list of characters scheduled to appear in Captain America: Civil War, and the ever expanding world of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, it feels like Ant-Man is the forgotten step child. It’s one of two Marvel movies coming out this summer, but there isn’t much connection between them. Even though the Ultron promos make it pretty clear that Tony Stark creates Ultron, many of us expected Hank Pym, who creates him in the comics, to show up in that movie at least for a moment, but that’s apparently not happening, and Joss Whedon explains why.

And here is the most geektastic thing you will see all day (and yes, I hate myself a little for using that term, but nothing else seems to capture the precise nerdiness of this photograph). Just in case you forgot what huge dorks both Joss Whedon and Nathan Fillion actually are, here’s a photograph of the two of them fighting with lightsabers, just for the hell of it.

Sorry, Browncoats, no matter how much you wish it into being, you’re just not going to get anymore new Firefly (or I guess it could always happen like Star Trek, maybe there’s a Firefly: The Next Generation waiting somewhere in the future). After Serenity, probably the closest we’re going to get is the upcoming Firefly Online. I honestly have no idea when it’s coming out, as it was originally supposed to drop this past summer (it’s now slated for summer 2015), but the cast and crew unveiled some in-game footage at New York Comic Con the other day, and it looks pretty damn impressive.

This clip, which doesn’t show much aside from the environment and the character movement, is striking even though not much happens. But to reiterate, this is in-game footage. The YouTube clips takes great pains to point out that what you see here is what you will be able to play for yourself, and not a cinematic or a cut scene. What you see here is the 3D Environment Engine that the game uses in all of its glory, and, not having much knowledge in the way of videogames, I have to guess that this is going to make many fans very, very happy.

I’m pretty sure if Joss Whedon was a preacher for a particular religion, or was in fact a religion himself, he would have the most devout fellowship in all of the land, and the parishoners would have the most fabulous cosplay to wear. Alas, he’s just a man! But that doesn’t mean he can’t be shown vast amounts of humbled reverence, and one of the excellent Gallery 1988‘s recent exhibits is dedicated to Whedon, and the treasures that lie therein are out of this world! In an “outer space” kind of way, not a “Laugh-In slang” kind of way.

As you can see from the image above, Firefly was a major part of the exhibits entries, as it should be, given fans are the only ones keeping it alive. Okay, so there are the new games and comics and even Whedon’s own doodles, but you know what I mean. (Seriously, why aren’t there ice cream Jaynes?) There’s probably enough Firefly fan art out there to wallpaper the Empire State Building, and that’s the kind of baseless assumption that makes me want to enter a short-lived interior decorator phase of my life.

If there was any question that Joss Whedon is not only a masterful storyteller, but also a ninja-level troll, that uncertainty can be put to rest now. See, last week somebody on Twitter asked Joss for more Buffy the Vampire Slayer. And lo, their prayers were answered! Sort of. He posted the following, along with the message, “your wish is my command here ya go.”