Superhero Bits: Thor: Love And Thunder's Rotten Tomatoes Score, The Boys Season 3 Finale Trailer & More

(Superhero Bits is a collection of stories, updates, and videos about anything and everything inspired by the comics of Marvel, DC, and more. For comic book movies, TV shows, merchandise, events, and whatever catches our eye, this is the place to find anything that falls through the cracks.)

In this edition of Superhero Bits:

• The first "Thor: Love and Thunder" reviews are in.

• "The Boys" season 3 finale gets a teaser trailer.

• "Batman" begins a new era in the pages of DC Comics.

• Could we see "The Flash" get spin-off shows?

• All that and more!

DC's main "Batman" series has had a kind of shaky run ever since Tom King departed as its writer. However, with the launch of issue #125, which is out today, a new era begins. Former "Batman" scribe Scott Snyder ("The Court of Owls") congratulated new writer Chip Zdarsky, who is said to be in this for the long haul, as well as artists Jorge Jiminez and Tomeu Morey. So what will this new era bring? The synopsis for the first issue in this new run reads as follows:

Bruce Wayne is at a turning point, haunted by dreams of a dark future, while Gotham City billionaires are being gruesomely murdered. With the discovery of an archenemy's involvement and a tragedy unfolding, the Dark Knight's nightmares are just beginning. Failsafe starts here.

"Batman" #125 is available in stores and through digital retailers now.

It is fully expected that "The Flash" season 9 is going to end the show, and with season 8 in the books, that end feels closer than ever. But will The CW look to keep the speedster train on the tracks with a spin-off? According to showrunner Eric Wallace, in a recent interview with Deadline, it doesn't sound like that's the case. However, Wallace did encourage vans to make their voices heard as the network might be paying attention. Wallace said:

"No, because you really don't start looking at spinoffs until you think you're not coming back, and I'm not thinking that way. Now, having said that, obviously...we've introduced a lot of characters over the last couple of seasons...I would say to the audience, if you have some characters that we have introduced in the last few years that you want to see in a spinoff, you should write to The CW. But I'm going to just stay focused on The Flash right now before I start focusing on anything else."

It's important to note that The CW axed a ton of shows this season and the Arrowverse (or The CW-verse) seems to be winding down, likely because the network is expected to be sold very soon. So spin-offs seem unlikely to happen there. But on HBO Max? Who knows!

As we can see above, some concept art for a Hawkgirl project of some kind recently surfaced online. It originated on ArtStation and was shared by artist Luca Nemolato ("Black Adam," "Swamp Thing"). In the post, Nemolato stated that this was, "Old concept for a Hawkgirl that never happened." Unfortunately, he declined to get any more specific than that. Was Hawkgirl going to be part of the "Black Adam" movie at any point? Maybe there were plans to bring the character to "Krypton" before it was canceled? Maybe there was a solo project in development at one point. It's tough to say without more context, but this was at least on the table somewhere within the DC multiverse semi-recently.

With the release of "Thor: Love and Thunder" mere days away, the Marvel doing some work to get fans ready. In this case, we have a video offering a quick history lesson on the Mighty Thor, aka Jane Foster's version of the character from the pages of Marvel Comics. Natalie Portman is returning to the MCU for the first time since "Thor: The Dark World" for this film, and she will be wielding Mjolnir this time around. For those who didn't read Jason Aaron's comic book run that inspired the film, this may well be worth the watch. Maybe it will be a nice little refresher even for those who did.

"The Dark Knight Rises" came out nearly a decade ago and wrapped up Christopher Nolan's "Dark Knight" trilogy with mixed results. It had the nearly impossible task of living up to "The Dark Knight" but has seemingly found a great deal of love in the years since its release (not to mention that it was the highest-grossing DC movie ever until "Aquaman" came along). Well, now the movie has arrived on Netflix, and it is doing quite well on the streaming service. As of this writing, it is currently number three in the top 10, behind only a pair of new releases: "Sing 2" and "The Man from Toronto." If you've been looking for an excuse to revisit Tom Hardy's Bane, now is the time.

The folks at Empire have shared a brand new image of Tatiana Maslany in the upcoming Disney+ Marvel series "She-Hulk: Attorney at Law." Admittedly, the first trailer for the show didn't do it any favors, as the CGI was pretty rough, amongst other things. But Maslany looks polished in this photo and, according to her, this will be "the antithesis of most superhero narratives," adding that "There's this great element of denial in her that's relatable. For me, it was about rejecting what's happened for as long as I could, as that's what causes the fun tension between Jennifer and She-Hulk." Additionally, Walters' day job as a lawyer is going to get interesting as a result of her transformation.

"She's in a career that's male-dominated and incredibly vicious and hierarchal. When she's heading this superhuman firm, that's where we get some really fun characters that she's either defending or in opposition of. It's like this really absurd take on a legal show."

"She-Hulk: Attorney at Law" is set to debut on Disney+ on August 17, 2022.

"Top Gun: Maverick" had itself another ridiculously good weekend at the box office and, as a result, it has passed one of the most beloved superhero movies of all time on the charts. The Tom Cruise sequel now stands at $570.7 million domestic, putting it past Christopher Nolan's "The Dark Knight," which earned $533.7 million in its day. Granted, this does not account for inflation, but it speaks to both how well "Maverick" is doing and how well "The Dark Knight" did back in 2008. Nolan's sequel is still the highest-grossing DC movie ever at the domestic box office, which certainly counts for something.

The folks at Prime Video have unveiled a little taste of what's to come this week as "The Boys" season 3 nears its end. We have made it through "Herogasm" and the rest of this season's craziness, but there is much left to come in the show's final episode of the season. While the trailer isn't long, the 30-second spot helps to set the stage for what's to come when the episode drops this Friday. Be sure to check out it, and keep an eye out for all of our coverage later in the week after the episode drops, as there will surely be much to discuss.

The critics have weighed in and "Thor: Love and Thunder" is not faring quite as well as "Thor: Ragnarok" at least not right out of the gate. As of this writing, director Taika Waititi's follow-up holds a 72% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes with 121 reviews counted. That is far lower than "Ragnarok" (93%) and just above "The Dark World" (66%). Ultimately, it will matter more what audiences think, but it appears as though Phase 4 of the MCU, in general, isn't doing as well with critics as Phase 3 did. What that means in the long run remains to be seen, but it's certainly something to think about as we press on.

Lastly, in more positive news as it relates to "Thor: Love and Thunder," a couple of new posters for the film have arrived online. First up, we have the above poster from Matt Ferguson which is both colorful and stylish, focusing heavily on Chris Hemsworth's God of Thunder and Natalie Portman's Mighty Thor. Below, we have a new poster that was debuted by the folks at Twitter Movies. It also focuses on the two characters mentioned above but, more specifically, their respective, godly weapons that will be on display in the film in the form of Mjolnir and Stormbreaker. "Thor: Love and Thunder" arrives later this week.

no Stormbreaker without Mjolnir
no love without thunder

here's your first look at the newest #ThorLoveAndThunder poster pic.twitter.com/ijv8YV4E8A

— Twitter Movies (@TwitterMovies) July 5, 2022