Superhero Bits: The Making Of Eternals, The Batman's Hardcore PG-13 Rating & More

Legendary comic book creator George Perez, unfortunately, has terminal cancer, which he revealed earlier this year. Following the news, there were many calls for Marvel and DC to set aside their differences and get a print run of "JLA/Avengers" back on shelves with proceeds going to benefit Perez. That is finally happening, which is the good news. The bad news is that it is going to be an extremely limited run through Hero Initiative, which helps comic book creators in need — limited to the tune of just 7,000 copies, to be exact. "JLA/Avengers" will be available in March from participating comic book stores. The 288-page full color, softbound volume features the original 2003 four-issue co-publishing venture between DC and Marvel, written by Kurt Busiek with art by Perez. The book carries a retail price of $29.99.

We're getting into rumor time here, but there are also some potential spoilers ahead. So those who wish to avoid that, please skip to the next item! The folks at The Direct recently translated some copy from a French magazine that has to do with the upcoming "She-Hulk." The translation (and translation is not always perfect) leads us to believe that none other than Howard the Duck may have a role to play in the show.

"A webbed future? Howard the Duck seems to be part of Marvel's plans again: in the What If...? series, he got married to Darcy Lewis...Does the duck, elected in 2009 as one of the strangest characters in the Marvel team by 'Time' magazine, have a promising bright future? In any case, the She-Hulk series, which lands this year on Disney +, could reserve some 'what the duck' surprises! This should delight lovers of this turbulent duck, determined to do as he pleases."

So there we have it. Seth Green had a cameo as the character in "Guardians of the Galaxy," but he has yet to become a fixture of the MCU, despite making several small appearances here and there. Perhaps that's about to change.

"The Batman" hasn't even hit theaters yet, but there has already been much talk about a possible sequel, with director Matt Reeves building out a big world in Robert Pattinson's debut as our new Caped Crusader. In a recent interview with Collider, the filmmaker revealed that he would like to see Mr. Freeze in one of the potential sequels, but a grounded version of the character who, you know, freezes people.

"In my view, I just feel drawn to finding the grounded version of everything. So to me it would be a challenge in an interesting way to try and figure out how that could happen, even the idea of something like Mr. Freeze, that's such a great story, right? I think there's actually a grounded version of that story, which could be really powerful and could be really great. So, I love the fantastical side of Batman, but this iteration, obviously, while being, to me, I think it is very comics faithful, but I don't think that this one is necessarily, it doesn't lean as hard into the fantastical, I guess. But I think to me what would be interesting would be to try and unwind the fantastical and see, well, how could that make sense here? And so that's kind of my view, how I see it."

This would seemingly be a far cry from what we got with Arnold Schwarzenegger in 1997's "Batman & Robin." But could it really be as effective without all of the ice puns? If Warner Bros. pulls the trigger on a sequel, we may well find out. Fingers crossed.

Circling back to "The Batman," some folks out there wanted to see an R-rated movie in the franchise, but it was unlikely that Warner Bros. was ever going to let that happen. That said, speaking to Den of Geek, director Matt Reeves assured that the movie he has made is going to push the limits of that rating.

"In my mind, [The Batman] was always going to be a gritty, edgy, noir, thrilling spectacle that was PG-13. That was always what it was, but I always knew that we'd be pushing the limits of what that could be, and so we didn't really have to cut anything. The promotional materials that you're seeing, they're fully reflective of the tone of the movie."

It sounds like Battinson is going to get as hardcore as humanly possible without getting into "Logan" territory. We'll see what that looks like in practice on March 4, 2022.