Emperor

If you’re a Tom Hardy fan, you’ve always wanted to see him cause real havoc. Sure, across his career he’s manufactured mayhem, proffered pain, brought memorable muscle – but you’ve never seen him go really all-out. That’s about to change. Next year finally brings the release of HAVOC, the new film from The Raid legend Gareth Evans, returning from the high-octane small-screen antics of Gangs Of London, and ready to send Hardy into the hardman stratosphere.

The film has been a longtime coming – partly owing to additional photography that required a cast and crew of booked-and-busy brawlers to all be available. But as Evans promises, HAVOC is worth the wait. “It’s had a profound effect on the film,” he tells Empire of the extra shooting. “It allowed me to better streamline it, and make it what it was always intended to be, which is a blistering, fast-paced action-thriller with nods to the Hong Kong cinema that I grew up watching.” Sounds like a Gareth Evans film, then.

The Predator franchise has, over the years, given us all kinds of heroes. We got Arnie’s rippling muscles in the original; Danny Glover’s LA cop in the sequel; a gaggle of reprobates in Predators; and, most recently, Amber Midthunder’s Comanche warrior Naru in Dan Trachtenberg’s Prey. But for his next Predator outing, Trachtenberg has something very different planned. 2025 will see the release of Predator: Badlands (as well as another film in the franchise that he shot simultaneously in secret), which isn’t exactly a follow-up to Prey but a future-set tale taking place on an alien planet. And, most importantly, it brings a very different kind of Predator protagonist: the Predator itself.

“The creature is front and centre, leading the charge,” Trachtenberg grins, speaking to Empire in the Andor Season 2 issue. “He’s still badass, but there’s something there that touches you emotionally, too. Creating a character you connect with, but are also super-intimidated by, has been challenging. But exciting.” The idea, he says, came from a desire to “find another essential piece of cinema that does what Prey did spiritually — pushing the franchise’s boundaries, letting us root for a hero we rarely get to root for — but in a different way. And that transformed into this big idea of rooting for the Predator.” Finally, the ugly mother-effer’s day has come.

Tales of the Unexpected (1979–1988) started off with a foundation of Roald Dahl-based stories, but over time, this classic television anthology sought out other inspirations. One such source was Elizabeth Taylor, an esteemed English author whose short piece of fiction, “The Flypaper,” was adapted in 1980.

Fans of the show will often cite this episode as one of the best, not to mention the scariest. In the troubling episode, a schoolgirl is hounded by a stranger, only to then realize her peril is greater than first imagined. Now, Tales of the Unexpected did not always live up to its title; some stories were more foreseeable than others. “The Flypaper,” however, caught everyone off guard, including the young and unfortunate protagonist who, despite her efforts, could not escape harm.

An admiring Dahl wished he had written Taylor’s short story himself. And during the adaptation’s introduction, the host went on to tell viewers to watch carefully, for the episode does not give anything away until the very end. That preface, while enticing, is not quite true when comparing the two versions of “The Flypaper”; Taylor kept a tighter lip, whereas the teleplay, written by Unexpected regular Robin Chapman, was more forthcoming. The conclusion is identical in both forms, but the dramatization gives the audience a substantial preview of what awaits poor Sylvia (Lorna Yabsley).

!pubs@feddit.uk

It's about drinking establishments. We already have !tea@feddit.uk and !coffee@feddit.uk so it was about time we expanded the selection of available beverages.

Far-right groups are seeking to hijack a farmers’ protest in London against tax changes introduced by the chancellor, Rachel Reeves.

Extremists, including close associates of Tommy Robinson, have been using social media to urge supporters to turn up at the protest on Tuesday, as farming leaders sought to remind those attending of their responsibilities.

The event is being eyed as a major opportunity for exploitation by the far right, who are seeking to promote Jeremy Clarkson as a hero after he claimed the UK government had a “sinister plan” to “ethnically cleanse” farming communities.

The former presenter has become a meme on far-right social media accounts as activists and extremist influencers applauded his comments. Nick Griffin, the former leader of the British National party, posted a picture of himself in the broadcaster’s Oxfordshire pub.

“Jeremy Clarkson nails it,” said Griffin, as he shared Clarkson’s comments.

They are:

81. Denny O'Neil and Neal Adams' Green Lantern - 129 points (1 first place vote) [Green Lantern #76-87, 89, Flash #217-219 (as a backup story)]
82. Dan Slott's Spider-Man - 127 points (2 first place votes) [Amazing Spider-Man #648-700, Superior Spider-Man #1-31, Amazing Spider-Man (Vol.3) #1-18, Amazing Spider-Man (Vol.4) #1-32, Amazing Spider-Man #789-801]
83. John Byrne's Superman – 124 points (3 first place votes) [Man of Steel #1-6, Superman Vol. 2 #1-22, Action Comics #584-600, Adventures of Superman #436-442, 444, The World of Krypton #1-4, The World of Metropolis #1-4, and The World of Smallville #1-4.]
84. Bryan Lee O'Malley's Scott Pilgrim - 121 votes (1 first place vote) [Scott Pilgrim’s Precious Little Life, Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, Scott Pilgrim & The Infinite Sadness, Scott Pilgrim Gets It Together, Scott Pilgrim vs. The Universe and Scott Pilgrim’s Finest Hour]
85. John Ostrander's Suicide Squad - 119 points (3 first place votes) [Suicide Squad #1-66]

Previously:

• 100-96
• 95-91
• 90-86

They are:

86. Chip Zdarsky and Marco Checchetto's Daredevil – 118 points (2 first place votes) [Daredevil (2019) #1-36, Devil's Reign #1-6, Daredevil (2021) #1-14]
87. John Wagner's Judge Dredd – 115 points (3 first place votes)
88. Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill's League of Extraordinary Gentlemen - 111 points (2 first place votes)
89. Peter Bagge's Hate – 108 points (3 first place votes) [Hate #1-30, Hate Annual #1-9, Hate Revisited #1-4]
90. Alan Davis' Captain Britain – 107 points (1 first place vote) [Marvel Superheroes #377–388, The Daredevils #1-11, The Mighty World of Marvel (Vol. 2) #7-13, Captain Britain (Vol.2) #1-14]

Previously:

• 100-96
• 95-91

The Great Twitter Exodus of 2022 is still happening. It's just a little...fractured. A lot of X power users migrated to Bluesky early on, which paved the way for a flood of folks to join that service in 2024. Meanwhile, a lot of technically inclined individuals are still hanging out on Mastodon (at least, that's where I hang out).

Bluesky and Mastodon are both decentralized services, in theory, but users of one service can't really talk to users on the other—or it wasn't possible before Bridgy Fed, anyway. It's a beta service that makes it possible for Bluesky and Fediverse-compatible applications, such as Mastodon, to interact.

...

This is where Bridgy Fed comes in. With this service, individual users of either service can opt in to "bridging" their accounts. I tested this out with my friend and Lifehacker alumni Eric Ravenscraft, who hangs out on Bluesky more than me. It worked well—we can now see each other's posts, like each other's posts, and even talk to each other, cross-network.

...

While this solution works well, there are a few hangups. Chiefly, it only functions if both people bridge their accounts. This means I can't see any comments from Bluesky users unless they also are bridged, and vice versa: During our little test, a few other Mastodon users responded to my conversation with Eric, but Eric could not see those replies. This make sense if you know how the system works—only comments from bridged users are bridged—but it's hardly ideal, and can lead to asymmetrical conversations. Unfortunately, the opt-in nature of the bridging service makes this inevitable.

If you are already using Bridgy Fed, how is it working out for you?

The cost of the UK’s unhealthy food system amounts to £268 billion every year, according to a report.

The Food Farming and Countryside Commission (FFCC) report calculated the direct and indirect impact of diet-related ill health by combining the cost of healthcare and social care, welfare spending, productivity losses and the human consequences of chronic disease, and identifying what proportion relates to food.

The food-related cost of chronic disease in the UK includes £67.5 billion in healthcare, £14.3 billion in social care, £10.1 billion in welfare, productivity at £116.4 billion and £60 billion that can be linked to the chronic disease attributable to the current food ecosystem, the research states.

Prof Tim Jackson, the director of the Centre for the Understanding of Sustainable Prosperity at Surrey University, who carried out the analysis, said: “The connection between diet and health is often discussed, but the economics of that link are staggering.

“When we factor in the health impacts, we discover that the true cost of an unhealthy diet is more than three times what we think we’re paying for our food.

An anti-vaccination conspiracy theorist who encouraged violence against Prof Sir Chris Whitty on social media has been sentenced to five years in prison.

Patrick Ruane, 55, from Paddington, west London, was convicted of two charges of encouraging terrorism on social media in 2021, following a trial at the Old Bailey.

Ruane believed in conspiracy theories about the government having a "hidden agenda" to the coronavirus epidemic which he shared with thousands of users in Telegram groups, the trial heard.

His posts referred to "serious violence" including the use of explosives such as Semtex as well as criminal damage and the disruption of electronic communication systems, said the prosecution.

Ruane had suggested "whacking" the Chief Medical Officer for England, Prof Sir Chris Whitty, and referred to executing politicians.

In 2022, Bleeding Cool got the word that DC Comics had encouraged its talent pool to make accounts on the social media app Hive and to build their audience using the hashtag #comicstwitter rather than on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram, in the wake of Elon Musk taking over Twitter. Basically, no one listened. And Hive frittered away fast. Mastodon has stuck around a bit. Threads is basically Instagram and Facebook, and it may prove to be a contender. But newcomer Blue Sky or Bluesky seems to have taken the lead in Twitter/X alternatives in the last year or so. And with the recent election results and more changes to X regarding blocklists and the like, more people are looking for alternatives. We mentioned JH Williams III the other day, but Greg Pak has recently set out the state of play.

Greg Pak posted to X after a long time having not. He writes "this has been my Twitter profile image for months. Please feel free to use it yourself if you're locking down and walking away. And on his website, he writes, "Twitter is now run by someone who regularly platforms bigotry and transphobia and shares unconscionable lies and conspiracies. The site is also becoming less safe all the time, allowing harassers and even literal neo-Nazis to post and, most recently, promising to deprecate its block function. So almost exactly a year ago, I deleted most of my posts and stopped using the site for anything other than pointing folks to other, better sites to use instead. The best of those alternative sites? I don't generally love cheerleading for corporations and realize that any product can fall apart at any time. But after a couple of years of trying almost everything, I'm pretty sure the best Twitter alternative for me is Bluesky — by a long shot."

He also lists a number of prominent comic book creators, journalists and the like on BlueSky, and talks about the advantages the site has, such as the Nuclear Block.

The world’s most ferocious death metal band, Impaled Rektum, is back and ready to unleash hell in sequel Heavier Trip. The official trailer highlights some of the raucous heavy metal mayhem, and it also features….Babymetal?!

Bloody Disgusting and Doppelgänger Releasing joined forces back in 2018 to release Heavy Trip, a Finnish black metal comedy about a small-town heavy metal band that blasts its way out of the quiet countryside for a big debut gig in Norway.

Now, the sequel is set to arrive in theaters and on Digital on November 29, 2024.

In Heavier Trip, “Shackled by fate and locked up in a Norwegian prison, the band discovers their lead guitarist’s family reindeer slaughterhouse faces a financial storm. Turo, Lotvonen, Xytraxm and Oula hatch a daring escape plan to help. Desperate for the money, and the chance to perform at the ultimate battleground for metal warriors, Impaled Rektum takes a journey through northern Europe to the legendary Wacken music festival. But hot on their trail is a vengeful prison guard, thirsting for revenge, and a sketchy record label executive, weaving lies that could shatter their dreams and worse, compromise the integrity of the band. Amidst the chaos, the band must forge a bond stronger than the darkest riffs – forging alliances with the most unexpected compatriots, including an epic cameo from the Japanese Kawaii-metal band, Baby Metal. Only the raw power of metal can determine their fate! Prepare for a relentless odyssey of sound, fury, and the unbreakable spirit of true heavy metal in this sequel to cult classic Heavy Trip.”

Trailer