Excerpts Young Adult Read an Excerpt From Queen of Faces by Petra Lord A desperate girl at a cutthroat magical academy faces a choice between life and death: become an assassin or watch her decaying body slowly die. By Petra Lord | Published on January 8, 2026 Comment 0 Share New Share We’re thrilled to share an excerpt from Queen of Faces, a young adult fantasy by Petra Lord, out from Henry Holt & Co. on February 3. Anabelle Gage is trapped in a male body, and it’s rotting from the inside out. But Ana can’t afford to escape it, even as the wealthiest in Caimor buy and discard expensive designer bodies without a thought. When she fails to gain admittance to the prestigious Paragon Academy—and access to the healthy new forms the school provides its students—her final hope implodes. Now without options, Ana must use her illusion magic to try to steal a healthy chassis—before her own kills her.But Ana is caught by none other than the headmaster of Paragon Academy, who poses a brutal ultimatum: face execution for her crime or become a mercenary at his command. Revolt brews in Caimor’s smog-choked underworld, and the wealthy and powerful will stop at nothing to take down the rebels and the infamous dark witch at their helm, the Black Wraith.With no choice but to accept, Ana will steal, fight, and kill her way to salvation. But her survival depends on a dangerous band of renegades: an impulsive assassin, a brooding bombmaker, and an alluring exile who might just spell her ruin. As Ana is drawn into a tangled web of secrets, the line between villain and hero shatters—and Ana must decide which side is worth dying for.  “When you applied to Paragon. All”—he checked my letter—“three times. Were you striving to be an Exemplar?” I closed my eyes. “For a moment,” I mumbled, “yes.” “Splendid.” Carriwitch leaned forward. “In that case, I’d like to extend an offer to you.” “O-offer?” “I’ll be quick,” said Carriwitch. “Lose too much blood, and your brain will start to break. And if your brain breaks, well… your Pith does, too. Even swapping won’t heal it. You start to forget things. Lose a limb here and there.” He glanced at his pocket watch. “Have you ever heard of the Grey Coats?” I nodded. “They’re assistants at Paragon. They clean toilets and”—I coughed up blood—“deliver mail.” Their drab uniforms gave them their nickname. “An uncouth description, but not inaccurate. Every year, we select the best Paragon applicants who didn’t make the cut and allow them to take some non-magical classes. In exchange, they are assigned to a top-ranked fourth-year or a professor. They take notes for that individual, assist them in studying, and, yes, clean. At the end of the year, they can usually get admitted to any Humdrum university in the country. Or, on occasion, they can be promoted to Paragon student.” Grey Coats were dirt compared to real students, unpaid apprentices who emptied trash or scrubbed toilets at the most prestigious school in the world. They didn’t get a free body, didn’t sleep in the castle, and weren’t taught a scrap of magic. But if they did their job well, that grey jacket could turn into a blue one. They could become a real student. And full admission was what I’d wanted all along. It meant a free combat chassis. Meant living. “I can make you a Grey Coat this term,” said Carriwitch. “Give you a real shot at becoming a student. Call it a perk of what I’m offering. I’ll tell my colleagues you died on this bridge, and that I couldn’t find your original body.” “Don’t belong,” I mumbled. “N-not genius material.” Carriwitch looked again at my letter and shrugged. “Fifty-three years ago, the Eldritch Guard named me chief mage of their entire body. Care to guess why?” “Because you’re good with magic? With science?” Headmaster Carriwitch shook his head. “Not quite. That helped, of course, but why did they put me in charge? What did they see in me?” “I—” I coughed. “I don’t know.” Buy the Book Queen of Faces Petra Lord Buy Book Queen of Faces Petra Lord Buy this book from: AmazonBarnes and NobleiBooksIndieBoundTarget “Tonight, when you fought my students, I stayed back to watch. I guessed your Whisper Codex stopped working at twenty yards, when you ran away and Nell and Samuel started looking at you again. Then, when I could, I dealt you a fatal blow.” Carriwitch pointed at me. “Tactics. Creativity. A tranquil focus in a sea of blood. I possess all of these qualities. And so do you. Ninety-eight in strategy, ninety-seven in psychology. All of which led you to trounce two of my best, with next to no training. You showed marvelous talent for knife-work tonight, young lady. And you showed it on your first day on the job.” “Job?” Carriwitch floated a pitch-black envelope out of his pocket and set it down next to me. “I’d like you to work for me. To help protect our country as a witch of the coin.” I understood in an instant. He wanted me to become an illegal mercenary. A hired mage, like Clementine, who would kill whomever he wanted, and take the blame if things went wrong. If I made enough money, I could buy a new, healthy chassis. And, as a Grey Coat, I could become a real student and get a free body. If I took Carriwitch’s offer, both paths would be open. But they would come at a price. The pool of blood grew beneath me. The black letter floated on the surface, like a leaf on a river. “You want me to kill people.” Carriwitch stared at me. “Tell me what you know,” he said, “about Khaiovhe.” I flinched. A bitter wind howled across the bridge, and the night sky seemed to blacken. “A dark witch.” I swallowed. “The worst dark witch in history. She graduated from Paragon and joined the Eldritch Guard during the war against Shenten.” My mother’s homeland. Back when magic had been secret from the Humdrums. The headmaster nodded. “And then?” “She—” Pain twisted through my belly. “She went mad fighting the Shenti. The radio said—” My voice lowered to a whisper. “The radio said bamboo forests burned like matchsticks, that the sky turned red for a month. That mountains covered in snow turned black and dead as charcoal.” My mother had immigrated to Caimor years before, but many of her friends back home had not escaped the inferno. And in the witch’s slaughter, she’d exposed the hidden world of magic to the Humdrums. A brutal first impression. “The Guard sent Tybalt Ebbridge after her,” I said. Her old professor at Paragon, leading dozens of mages. I choked. “She sent their ashes back in a flour sack.” Carriwitch’s face darkened. “And after?” A familiar chill racked my body, and I shook away the memories darkening my mind. “She flew back to Caimor, far across the oceans. And she blew up a dam. Almost drowned a whole village in the south. And she took her own life in the process.” “Yes.” Carriwitch twirled his beard. “She blew herself up. That’s the story we told, isn’t it?” He cleared his throat. “I’m terribly sorry, but we lied.” My chest jolted. “What?” “The Black Wraith is very much alive. When she killed Professor Ebbridge and blew up that dam, the explosion did not kill her. In the aftermath, she vanished.” I stared at him. “You lied?” “The public was in quite the tizzy, learning that witches and wizards were living among them, wiping their memories and living in secret castles. Paragon was enduring its own sort of panic. If they’d all learned Khaiovhe was still out there, well.” He shrugged. “Chaos. Besides, the Shenti were continuing to invade. We still had a war to win.” “Why did she do it?” I said. “Why that dam? Why that village?” I swallowed. “Why make herself vanish?” “An excellent question,” said Carriwitch. “One that our brightest intellects have failed to answer.” Blood soaked my clothes, trickling into the puddle at my feet. “And what does a living nightmare have to do with me?” “You, dear Ana,” he said, “are going to hunt her for me.” Excerpted from Queen of Faces, copyright © 2025 by Petra Lord. The post Read an Excerpt From <i>Queen of Faces</i> by Petra Lord appeared first on Reactor.

News Star Wars: Starfighter Star Wars: Starfighter Will Feature a Lightsaber Battle Shot by Tom Cruise No word yet on whether Shawn Levy’s film will also feature fighting stars. By Vanessa Armstrong | Published on January 8, 2026 Credit: Lucasfilm Comment 0 Share New Share Credit: Lucasfilm Shawn Levy’s film, Star Wars: Starfighter, has been shrouded in secrecy. Here’s what we know so far: It stars Ryan Gosling in tight pants as well as the young actor, Flynn Gray; Mia Goth and Matt Smith are playing villains while Amy Adams has also joined the cast in an undisclosed role; and the film takes place five years after Rise of Skywalker. We’ve also gotten two official images from the film, which is scheduled to come out in 2027: an emo black-and-white shot of Gray and Gosling, and another Waterworld-esque photo pictured above of the two at sea. And that’s it… until today, when we received a couple of other tidbits of info. In a profile of Levy at The New York Times, we find out that Tom Cruise visited the set one day (Steven Spielberg did as well, but I digress), and took over shooting a scene of “a lightsaber duel in the water.” Cruise was so committed to the act, in fact, that he willingly waded into a muddy pond to help get the shots. That description confirms what many of us likely guessed: There will be lightsabers in Star Wars: Starfighter, which means there will likely be Jedi and, perhaps, the Sith in the film. Or maybe someone (a grown-up broom boy, perhaps?) found some sabers in an old broom closet and made them their own. What actors are wielding those sabers and where their characters stand in regard to the Force is unknown, though I’d put my money on Gosling getting his hands on one. We also got confirmation from Levy on something that those two images described above imply: Starfighter is built around a father-son dynamic, a recurring theme in Levy’s work. Other than that, what Star Wars: Starfighter is actually about remains unknown. We’ll all find out, however, when the film premieres in theaters on May 28, 2027. [end-mark] The post <i>Star Wars: Starfighter</i> Will Feature a Lightsaber Battle Shot by Tom Cruise appeared first on Reactor.

Books Teen Horror Time Machine Give Me an E-V-I-L! — R.L. Stine’s Cheerleaders Trilogy  Always make sure your evil spirit can be drowned BEFORE you try to dispose of it in a river. By Alissa Burger | Published on January 8, 2026 Comment 0 Share New Share There’s never a dull moment on Fear Street, from murderous teens to supernatural dangers like ghosts and werewolves. But for many ‘90s teen horror readers, few of these dangers loom as large in our memories as the evil spirit that terrorizes the Shadyside High cheerleading squad in R.L. Stine’s 1992 Cheerleaders trilogy, with The First Evil published in August, The Second Evil in September, and The Third Evil in October, just in time for some Halloween hijinks. Stine’s Cheerleaders trilogy combines a supernatural threat with mean girl sabotage, while simultaneously drawing the cheerleaders (and Stine’s readers) into Fear Street’s dark history with the legacy of Sarah Fear.  The First Evil begins as so many Fear Street books do: with a family new in town, moving into a house on Fear Street, and no idea what they’ve gotten themselves into. This time, it’s the Corcoran family, including teenage girls Bobbi and Corky, their pesky younger brother Sean, and their parents. Bobbi and Corky are superstar cheerleaders. and they’re hoping if they can make the Shadyside squad they’ll be able to make friends, climb the social ladder, and keep competing in the sport they love. Head cheerleader Jennifer Daly is welcoming and enthusiastic, gushing to her friend and fellow cheerleader Kimmy Bass that “They were all-state back in their old hometown … And you know that cheerleading competition that’s on ESPN every year? … Well, their cheerleading team won it last year. That’s how good the Corcorans are” (13). Bobbi and Corky have a lot to bring to the table and to the team, but the squad roster was set in the spring and the girls have been practicing together all summer. Couple that with the fact that spots on the team are limited—meaning that if the Corcorans make the squad, another cheerleader will lose her place—and it’s not surprising that the rest of the girls aren’t so sure about welcoming Bobbi and Corky with open arms, or even giving them the chance to try out. But Jennifer insists, the Corcoran sisters’ routine is undeniably impressive, and Bobbi and Corky are on the team … which means somebody else has to go. As the coach Miss Green explains to Jennifer, “The squad is supposed to be six … I suppose we can squeeze one more girl on. But not two. We don’t have the funds for eight cheerleaders” (21), and freshman Ronnie Mitchell is the odd girl out.  Chemistry on the squad is complicated, with Kimmy and her friend Debra Kern particularly resistant to welcoming Bobbi and Corky onto the team. On the way to the first football game of the season, the cheerleaders’ bus needs to make a detour to Fear Street to pick up Bobbi and Corky’s fire batons, which they took home to practice and forgot there. As is usually the case, a quick trip to Fear Street ends badly, with the bus skidding and overturning on the wet road. Jennifer is thrown clear of the crash… coming to rest at the base of Sarah Fear’s tombstone in the Fear Street cemetery. She’s not breathing, and even the paramedics can’t revive her, but as Bobbi and Corky look down at their friend’s body before she is taken away “Jennifer opened her eyes … Her lips trembled. Her dark eyes moved from side to side … Jennifer smiled up at them both” (42). Tragedy seems to be averted and though Jennifer’s injuries are serious, they’re all grateful it wasn’t worse, and the girls try to get back to some semblance of their usual routine.  Jennifer has to use a wheelchair as she recovers but she enthusiastically takes on the role of a cheerleader for the cheerleaders, providing moral support even though she can’t take up the pom poms herself. And the cheerleaders need lots of moral support, because everything starts going wrong: first, Miss Green names Bobbi the new captain instead of Kimmy, and the others register their displeasure through refusing to follow Bobbi’s instructions, resisting her leadership, and continuing to treat Bobbi and Corky as unwelcome outsiders who don’t belong. Kimmy gets even more upset when her ex-boyfriend Chip asks Bobbi out, which sows further dissent among the cheerleaders. Then one afternoon as the team is practicing a stunt, Bobbi is in position to catch Kimmy as she dismounts from the top of the pyramid, but Bobbi discovers that she is frozen in place, unable to lift her arms or cry out a warning: “She could see herself standing there, as if she had floated out of her own body … She could see herself looking up as Kimmy prepared to dive, looking up at her with her arms still at her sides … Unable to move them, to raise them … Unable to catch Kimmy” (101). Kimmy hits the ground hard. No one believes Bobbi’s explanation about being frozen in place and the other girls are elated when Bobbi is kicked off the squad, Kimmy is named captain, and everything is at least a step closer to being back to “normal.”  But there’s nothing “normal” about Bobbi’s post-practice shower, when the doors slam shut, the water from the shower heads begins to boil, and there’s no escape. When Corky finds her sister’s body in the showers, “Bobbi stared back at her with vacant, wide-eyed terror, her flesh swollen and red, her mouth locked open in a silent scream” (133). And “normal” slips even further away when Corky goes looking for Jennifer, only to find her dancing on Sarah Fear’s grave, with the startling confession that she’s not Jennifer at all. Sarah Fear was inhabited by an evil spirit and when she died, the spirit was trapped in the grave with her; when Jennifer’s body conveniently landed on Sarah Fear’s grave during the bus accident, the evil spirit found a new host, taking up residence in Jennifer’s body, concealing the fact that Jennifer has actually been dead since the accident. The evil spirit tries to entomb Corky in Sarah Fear’s grave, but the other cheerleaders show up and see undeniable proof of the supernatural threat that has been tormenting them all. When Corky prevails, the evil spirit is forced back into Sarah Fear’s coffin and Jennifer’s body deteriorates in one fell swoop, as her “skin dried and crumpled, flaking off in chunks. Her long hair fell off, strands blowing away in the breeze. Her eyes sank back into her skull, then rotted into dark pits” (164). This is gruesomely horrifying and they mourn Jennifer’s loss, but they also heave a big sigh of relief, believing that they have found, bested, and contained the evil.  But of course, that’s not the case. In The Second Evil, Kimmy, Debra, and the others are a lot kinder to Corky, trying to convince her to rejoin the cheerleading squad, which she quit after her sister Bobbi’s death and the horrors of the evil spirit. But as Corky’s thoughts turn back to cheerleading, danger looms once more. While boiling the kettle for cocoa, Corky finds her body falling under someone else’s control, unable to move her hand as she pours the boiling water over herself. Corky’s not sure who she can trust and she has a range of experiences that could be the result of post-traumatic stress or the influence of the evil spirit, such as when she tries to join the others in a cheer and is overcome with the sounds of a woman screaming and visual hallucinations as the gym begins to spin around her. Kimmy encourages Corky to lean on her fellow cheerleaders, telling her “If we’re going to find the evil, if we’re going to fight it, we have to work together. If you’re not on the squad, you’re not really with us. You’re alone” (102). This seems like an amplified version of the insularity and cliquish behavior that caused so much trouble in The First Evil, but Kimmy has a point: who else is going to believe Corky? Her fellow cheerleaders are all she has, but she has no idea whether or not she can trust them, suspecting that one of them may be the new host for the ancient evil.  The scope of the evil widens beyond the cheerleaders in The Second Evil. Corky is chased down the school hallway by a mysterious stranger, but at least he turns out to be a flesh and blood human: Jon Daly, the very angry brother of Jennifer, who doesn’t believe a word of what the cheerleaders have had to say about his sister’s death. While Jon doesn’t believe in the evil, Corky meets someone who does when she sees a young woman at Sarah Fear’s grave. The girl introduces herself as Sarah Beth Plummer, a local college student with an interest in history, who just happens to be in the Fear Street cemetery doing gravestone rubbings, though the truth (as the cheerleaders eventually discover) is deeper and more complicated than that. Sarah Beth is a descendent of the Fear family, and while she habitually uses her mother’s maiden name (and who could blame her?), her legal name is Sarah Fear, and this Sarah Fear has been digging into her ancestor’s complicated history and tragic death.  Sarah Beth is keeping secrets, Jon is angry, and one of the cheerleaders is likely being controlled by the evil spirit, which leaves Corky with nowhere to go and no one she can turn to. There is a redux of Kimmy’s accident from The First Evil, this time with Kimmy frozen in place when Corky jumps from the top of the pyramid, breaking her arm. When Corky gets home from the hospital and is ready to sink into a nice, hot bath, Kimmy is waiting for her in the bathroom, driven by the ancient evil and ready to finish the job. Corky overpowers Kimmy, holds her head under the water, and watches as the evil spirit leaves Kimmy’s body in a noxious ribbon of green goo, until “As it oozed down the drain, the thick green liquid made a disgusting sucking sound that grew louder and louder, echoing in Corky’s head, vibrating, vibrating until the walls appeared to shake” (163). When Kimmy comes back to her senses, she is wet, nearly drowned, and doesn’t have a single memory of anything that happened since the night the cheerleaders faced off against the evil at Sarah Fear’s grave the first time, revealing its clever bait and switch in which the evil spirit tricked Corky into believing it had been drawn back into Sarah Fear’s coffin, while taking up residence in Kimmy’s body. This time, the suspense about whether or not the evil has been defeated is short-lived, with Corky finding an anonymous note in the mail the next day, telling her that “IT CAN’T BE DROWNED” (167).  It doesn’t seem like the horror will ever end for the cheerleaders and in The Third Evil, not only are they vigilantly keeping watch for the evil, they also have a new cheerleader to contend with, a perky, know-it-all freshman named Hannah Miles. In The First Evil, Corky couldn’t figure out why the other cheerleaders were so resistant to her and Bobbi trying to show them how it’s done but now, the shoe is on the other foot. Corky’s used to being the best and Hannah gets on her nerves, as she thinks “We all know Hannah is good. Why does she have to show off all the time? … Then she had to admit to herself: I guess I’m a little jealous” (5). The team dynamics are as complicated as ever, with Hannah trying to cement her spot on the squad through over the top enthusiasm and unsolicited advice, and when Debra defends Hannah, Corky feels betrayed. The team goes to a week-long cheerleading camp at a nearby college and between the competition with the other squads and the disagreements between themselves, tensions are running high. And that’s all before the evil strikes again, with Corky having a horrifying vision of the floor melting to pull her down and someone cutting off Hannah’s long braid while she sleeps. Hannah is sharing a room with Corky and Kimmy, and Corky’s first suspicion is that the evil spirit has taken control of Kimmy’s body again.  But this time, Corky’s the one they all need to fear. The Cheerleaders trilogy is aligned with Corky’s point of view, which means that Corky’s possession in The Third Evil gives readers a closer look at the evil and its influence than in the previous two books. Corky feels herself being engulfed in a pool of blood, “Drowning in it. Drowning in the thick dark blood … thrashing her arms and legs … kicking frantically … trying to swim … but feeling herself pulled down, sucked down into the bubbling, dark ooze” (89). Corky cannot escape the evil inside her, which steps to the forefront and takes control of her body, using it to do things she would never otherwise do. When she is playing with her little brother, the evil nearly breaks his arms, and it forces Corky to call Debra, arrange a meeting, and then try to kill her. This interiority gives the reader a glimpse of subjective experience of the evil’s possession, including Corky’s valiant struggle to resist it and her ultimate powerlessness in the face of its strength. In The First Evil, Jennifer was dead while she was inhabited by the evil, and in The Second Evil, the spirit took over Kimmy so completely that she has no memories of what happened in the intervening months. There’s no explanation for why Corky’s experience of the evil is different, but this time, rather than being on the outside looking in, trying to figure out where the evil might be lurking, there’s no mystery on that front.The horror is instead grounded in Corky’s internal struggle, one which is invisible to those around her.  The evil’s presence within Corky’s mind and body also give her unparalleled access, which ultimately leads her to the answers she needs, courtesy of Sarah Fear. When Corky has a vision of being Sarah Fear in the moments before Sarah’s death, she realizes that the evil spirit “took over their minds. It possessed their minds. And that meant that it also possessed their memories … So somewhere deep within the mind of the ancient evil spirit, somewhere deep inside that sleeping evil, Sarah Fear’s memory remained” (118, emphasis original). When Corky taps into the memories of the last day of Sarah Fear’s life, she makes a horrifying discovery: the only way Sarah Fear was able to trap the evil was by dying with it inside her body and no way to get out, by drowning herself in Fear Lake. Corky struggles with this solution but finally decides that it’s the only way, driven by her love for and desire to protect her friends and family, just as Sarah Fear decided she would let the evil go no further when it threatened to jump into the bodies of her young niece and nephew. Corky and the evil have cross purposes when they head to the cliff overlooking the Cononoka River to meet Kimmy, with the evil bent on killing Kimmy and Corky determined to end her own life, taking the evil spirit with her. At first glance, they both seem to get what they want: Corky pushes Kimmy over the side of the cliff before she jumps herself, but Kimmy isn’t killed in the fall and she is able to pull Corky’s dead body from the river and revive her, sans evil spirit.  In the final page of The Third Evil, it’s not entirely clear what the cheerleaders think happened to the evil spirit. They might be hoping the spirit died when Corky’s body died, though given the fact that it survived just fine in the coffin with Sarah Fear’s corpse for almost a hundred years, this doesn’t seem likely. Corky is certain that the evil is no longer inside her, which just leaves the river, and since it can’t be drowned, this is presumably only a temporary fix, though with the swiftness of the current, maybe it will become the problem of someone downriver. But this is Shadyside and Fear Street, so odds are that it will just keep hanging around, waiting for the opportunity to claim another victim and make its horrifying return (which is exactly what happens in the 1994 Super Chiller Cheerleaders: The New Evil). On Fear Street, the more things change, the more they stay the same: Sarah Fear sacrificed herself to contain the evil spirit, but nearly a century later, its influence is as powerful, terrifying, and inescapable than ever. Abandon all hope, ye who enter Fear Street or join the cheerleading team.[end-mark]  The post Give Me an E-V-I-L! — R.L. Stine’s <em>Cheerleaders</em> Trilogy  appeared first on Reactor.

Column Superhero Movie Rewatch “People were going to die!” — Superman (2025) Finally, a Superman movie that truly gets Superman…and it’s glorious. By Keith R.A. DeCandido | Published on January 8, 2026 Credit: Warner Bros. / DC Studios Comment 0 Share New Share Credit: Warner Bros. / DC Studios From August 2017 – January 2020, Keith R.A. DeCandido took a weekly look at every live-action movie based on a superhero comic that had been made to date in the Superhero Movie Rewatch. He’s periodically revisited the feature to look back at new releases, as well as a few he missed the first time through. The DC Extended Universe never quite caught the zeitgeist the way the Marvel Cinematic Universe did at its height. In that, they were in good company, as several folks attempted to create a cinematic universe (Universal Monsters, Spider–Man, e.g.) without much success. But the DCEU in particular was notable for its controversies as much as its movies. When Disney let go of James Gunn after some old online postings came to light, DC snatched him up to take a mulligan on 2016’s Suicide Squad with 2021’s The Suicide Squad, which was much better received, and which also spawned a TV spinoff with the very successful Peacemaker on HBO Max. At Kevin Feige’s urging, Disney reinstated Gunn, and he did The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special and finished the movie trilogy with GotG Volume 3. However, the newly christened DC Studios wished to do a reboot of the DCEU into the DC Universe, and wanted Gunn to bring his Guardians and Suicide Squad magic to the rest of DC. While Gunn has said that aspects of the prior DCEU will be brought forward to the DCU—for example, both The Suicide Squad and Peacemaker are considered part of the new continuity, ditto Blue Beetle—other parts are being changed. (Continuity nerds can point to the time-travel shenanigans of the 2023 Flash movie to paper over the inconsistencies.) The biggest change is the re-casting and re-doing of DC’s flagship character of Superman, with a new movie starring the Man of Steel signaling the official start of the DCU. Originally titled Superman: Legacy at the start of production, it was eventually simplified to just Superman. David Corenswet was brought in to play the title character (as well as Ultraman, a clone of Superman created by Lex Luthor), with Rachel Brosnahan as Lois Lane, Nicholas Hoult (last seen in this rewatch as the Beast in the X-Men films First Class, Days of Future Past, Apocalypse, and Dark Phoenix) as Luthor, Pruitt Taylor Vince and Neva Howell as Jonathan and Martha Kent, and Bradley Cooper (previously seen in this rewatch in Gunn’s three GotG films and two Avengers films as the voice of Rocket) and Angela Sarafyan as Jor-El and Lara Lor-Van. We get the corporate-sponsored Justice Gang team (whose headquarters were filmed at the Cincinnati Museum Center at Union Terminal, which was the visual inspiration for the Hall of Justice, the headquarters of the heroes in the Super Friends cartoons in the 1970s, which is just fabulous). The team includes Nathan Fillion (previously seen in this rewatch in small roles in all of Gunn’s superhero movies, including all three GotG films and The Suicide Squad) as the Guy Gardner Green Lantern (Fillion apparently insisted that Gardner have the comics character’s Moe Howard bowl-cut hairstyle), Edi Gathegi (last seen in this rewatch as Darwin in X-Men: First Class) as Mr. Terrific, Isabela Merced as Hawkgirl, and Anthony Carrigan (who previously played Mist in the 2014 Flash TV series and Victor Szasz in Gotham) as Metamorpho. Sean Gunn has a cameo as the Justice Gang’s corporate sponsor Maxwell Lord, a new version of the character previously played by Peter Facinelli in Supergirl and Pedro Pascal in Wonder Woman 1984. There’s a full contingent of Daily Planet folk present beyond Clark Kent and Lois Lane: the great Wendell Pierce as Perry White, Skyler Gisondo as Jimmy Olsen, Beck Bennett as Steve Lombard, Mikaela Hoover as Cat Grant, and Christopher McDonald as Ron Troupe. Working with Luthor are Sara Sampaio as his girlfriend Eve Teschmacher (a version of the character originated by Valerie Perrine in the 1978 Superman), María Gabriela de Faría as the Engineer (a character from the team The Authority, who will be seen in the DCU in the future), Terence Rosemore as Otis Berg (a version of the character originated by the late great Ned Beatty in the ’78 film), Stephen Blackehart as Sydney Happersen, and Zlatko Burić as Boravian President Ghurkos. Rounding out the cast are Dinesh Thyagarajan as the falafel cart vendor Mali, Michael Ian Black as TV talk show host Cleavis Thornwaite, James Hiroyuki Liao as the secretary of defense, Frank Grillo back from Creature Commandos as Rick Flag Sr., Tinashe Kajese-Bolden back from The Suicide Squad as Flo Crawley (now the FBI Director), John Cena back from Peacemaker season one as Peacemaker, Milly Alcock as Supergirl, and Alan Tudyk, Michael Rooker, Pom Klementieff, Grace Chan, and Jennifer Holland as the voices of the Fortress of Solitude’s robots. Corenswet and Alcock (at the very least) will return in Supergirl next year, with Corenswet, Brosnahan, and Hoult, among others, set to return in Man of Tomorrow in 2027. SupermanWritten and directed by James GunnProduced by Peter Safran, James GunnOriginal release date: July 11, 2025 “You are not punk rock” Credit: Warner Bros. / DC Studios Scrolled text brings us up to date: Three centuries ago, metahumans first started appearing in the world. Three decades ago, an alien baby was sent to Earth and raised by Kansas farmers. Three years ago, that baby was all grow’d up and announced himself as Superman, a very powerful metahuman. Three weeks ago, Superman stopped the nation of Boravia from invading its neighboring country Jarhanpur. Three hours ago, a metahuman called the Hammer of Boravia attacked Metropolis. And three minutes ago, Superman had his ass handed to him by the Hammer. He lands in Antarctica, bleeding and broken. He manages to scrape together the energy to whistle for Krypto the Superdog. Krypto bounces around on Superman and licks his face, and after a minute of that finally pays attention to Superman’s request to take him home. Krypto drags him by the cape through the snow to the Fortress of Solitude, which pops up from under the ice on his approach, keyed to Superman’s DNA. A bunch of robots care for Superman, infusing him with magnified rays from the yellow sun, which will heal and revitalize him. They also play the footage from the ship that brought him to Earth—a message from his biological parents, recorded on Krypton before its destruction. Only the beginning of the message is intact, the rest was damaged in transit, but it speaks of how much they love their son and sent him to Earth to thrive. As Four, one of the robots, says, it soothes him as that message inspires him to do what he does. Once Superman is 83% healed—and after rebuking Krypto for trashing parts of the Fortress, while the robots attempt to advise him against leaving so soon—he flies back to Metropolis. While he is unable to defeat the Hammer of Boravia, he does distract him and keep him away from harming bystanders. At one point, he’s thrown to the ground, and a falafel cart vendor named Mali—who gave him free falafel once after he saved someone’s life—helps him out of the hole. We also see that the Hammer is being directed by Lex Luthor and a cadre of computer operators (many of whom appear to be gamers) from a control room that’s located on the connector between the two towers of LuthorCorp’s office building. After defeating Superman a second time, Hammer buggers off. Another of Luthor’s operatives, the Engineer, is in Antarctica, having tracked where Superman landed. But by the time she reaches the Fortress, it has already sunk into the ice, which explains how the thing has been there without anybody knowing about it. The Engineer returns to base, as does the Hammer, who goes through a portal that takes him to a pocket universe and then through another portal to the LuthorCorp control room, where he’s revealed to be Ultraman, another of Luthor’s operatives. The next day, Clark Kent reports to work at the Daily Planet, having written a front-page piece on the Hammer’s attack which also includes an “interview” with Superman. Kent gets a phone call from his adoptive parents, and he also banters with sportswriter Steve Lombard, who makes fun of Kent’s writing. Jimmy Olsen celebrates his making the front page, while Lois Lane also makes fun of his writing. That night, Lane goes home and finds an intruder in her apartment—who turns out to be Kent. He’s cooking her breakfast for dinner, which he says is her favorite, but is really his favorite. It turns out they’re secretly dating, and she also knows he’s really Superman. He compliments her on their fake arguing, and she says it wasn’t entirely fake, and she also gives him shit about interviewing himself. So he offers to let her interview him, she whips out a digital recorder, and they wind up facing off right there. Credit: Warner Bros. / DC Studios Lane asks some hard-hitting questions about his stopping the Boravian invasion of Jarhanpur without any consultation with government officials or any thought to the consequences, and the back-and-forth comes to a rather heated conclusion when Kent says, rather loudly, “People were going to die!” Which is the only thing that matters to him. The evening ends with Kent deciding to leave and Lane saying she knew this wouldn’t work. Luthor, the Engineer, and Ultraman go to the Fortress, which rises from the ice on their approach. Between them, the Engineer and Ultraman take care of Krypto and the robots and the Engineer is also able to user her nanotech to reconstruct the entire message from Jor-El and Lara. To keep Superman busy while Luthor invades the Fortress, his henchmen Otis Berg and Sydney Happersen let loose a tiny kaiju that grows into a massive monster in a few hours. Superman tries to stop it humanely, but then the Justice Gang—Green Lantern, Mr. Terrific, and Hawkgirl—show up, at which point the amount of collateral damage increases and the creature is killed. Right after the battle, Luthor appears on Cleavis Thornwaite’s show, presenting a translation of the full message from Krypton: his parents sent Kal-el to Earth specifically because he would be powerful there and would be able to rule humans, as they are weak and confused and easily conquered. His parents specifically say that he should take many wives to spread Krypton’s genetic seed. Luthor assures Thornwaite that he used a team of top linguists and computer forensic scientists to verify this. Luthor speaks directly to the camera about how scared he is of this alien invader and his secret harem. President Ghurkos goes on television and decries Superman, speculating that he finds Boravian women particularly attractive, which is why he interfered in their invasion, so he could procure women for his secret harem. Ghurkos then goes to his office and locks the door and reveals that he has a portal in his office to Luthor’s pocket universe, where he meets with Luthor, congratulating him on that fake footage. Luthor surprises Ghurkos by saying it’s all completely real. He also mentions in passing that he will be getting half of Jarhanpur after the invasion. Superman retreats into a Stagg Industries office building to be alone, but the Justice Gang joins him. Green Lantern wants to know why he didn’t mention his secret harem before, and Superman angrily assures him that there’s no such thing. Mr. Terrific assures Superman that he knows the people Luthor used—they wouldn’t have said it was genuine if it wasn’t. Then Superman realizes how Luthor must have gotten his hands on the recording, and he flies to Antarctica. He finds the Fortress trashed, the robots all badly damaged, and Krypto missing. Credit: Warner Bros. / DC Studios Luthor meets with the secretary of defense, as well as the directors of the FBI and A.R.G.U.S. (the latter being Rick Flag Sr.). Luthor wants the U.S. government to authorize his people—Ultraman, the Engineer, and his armored army the Raptors—to protect the planet, starting with arresting Superman. The secretary is unwilling to authorize that, as the optics would be terrible. Superman flies to Luthor’s office to confront him. (Surprisingly, this is the first time the two of them have met face to face.) Superman demands to know where the dog is. Luthor claims ignorance, though it’s obvious he has Krypto. Returning home, Superman finds Lane waiting for him in his apartment. “You have a dog?” Superman explains that it’s more like a foster situation. They discuss their earlier argument, with Lane saying that they’re too different. He’s an optimist who sees the best in people, she’s a cynic. Since breaking into LuthorCorp, there’s a DOJ warrant out on him, so he’s decided to turn himself in, hoping that they’ll take him wherever they took Krypto. When Lane points out that he’s only a dog, Superman says, “And he’s not even a very good one, but he’s out there alone, and he’s probably scared.” Superman also tells Lane that he loves her. (While they’re talking, we see through the windows of the apartment that there’s a fight between the Justice Gang and a dimensional imp happening over the city, though Superman is unconcerned about it.) Superman turns himself in, with Ultraman putting the cuffs on him. Flag informs him that it’s been decided that, as a non-human, he doesn’t have any rights. They turn him over to Luthor. Ultraman brings him through one of the portals to the pocket universe, where he has a prison. Various governments have hired Luthor to imprison folks they want hidden as well as incarcerated, plus he’s also put his own personal enemies there, including an ex-girlfriend. Luthor puts Superman in a cell with Metamorpho, the Element Man, who can change his body into any substance—including Kryptonite. Luthor’s girlfriend, Eve Teschmacher, has the hots for Olsen, and they’ve seen each other on the sly occasionally. Teschmacher is afraid to break up with Luthor, and she sometimes wonders if Olsen only talks to her to get info on Luthor, which he unconvincingly denies. Olsen does learn from her that Superman is imprisoned in a pocket universe, which he tells Lane. Luthor questions Superman with Ghurkov watching, using another prisoner as leverage to force a confession: Mali. The falafel vendor insists that Superman not say anything. Luthor plays Russian roulette with Mali, who winds up being killed on the second shot. Luthor leaves, saying he’ll keep bringing people Superman cares about to kill. He muses that his next victim might be that reporter who writes all the stories about him, Clark Kent. (Superman is in too much agony to appreciate the irony.) Lane goes to the Justice Gang to try to convince them to free Superman, but they refuse, as his arrest was legitimate. Mr. Terrific, however, decides to help out, though he admits it’s mainly to annoy Green Lantern. Terrific has put nanobots in Superman’s blood so he can track him (which he’s apparently done to all his friends). The trail ends at an abandoned military fort. He’s not dead—the nanobots would still be trackable. They just disappear, which tracks with the pocket universe notion. They fly to the fort, where Terrific makes short work of the Raptors and other personnel on site, while Lane watches, impressed, protected by a force field. Terrific opens the portal to the pocket universe, bitching and moaning about how dangerous and stupid it is to do that, as it’s incredibly unstable and could wipe out all life on Earth. Credit: Warner Bros. / DC Studios Metamorpho is horrified by what Luthor did to Mali and agrees to help Superman. But Luthor’s hold over Metamorpho is that he’s holding his infant son. If Metamorpho frees him, Superman has to free his son. However, it’s not enough for him to simply stop replicating Kryptonite; Superman needs sunlight to heal and get his strength back. Metamorpho is able to simulate sunlight, which powers Superman up enough to break through the cell and free Metamorpho’s son, as well as rescuing Krypto. The Raptors try to stop them, and Superman defeats them with the help of both Metamorpho and Krypto, but he then gets stuck in an anti-proton river and needs their help again to escape it. Terrific and Lane enter the pocket universe, and Terrific’s drones find Superman and the others. Krypto, unfortunately, thinks the drones are chew toys, to Terrific’s frustration. They’re freed, but Superman is still in bad shape. Terrific lends Lane his ship, telling her to go take Superman somewhere to recuperate. Terrific needs to deal with the pocket universe. Luthor is livid that Superman has been freed, and so he figures out a way to draw Superman out: he destabilizes the pocket universe, which will create a nasty interdimensional rift. He also screams at Teschmacher, throwing a pencil at her. She immediately hides in a closet and contacts Olsen, saying she’ll send him everything, including lots of incriminating stuff about Luthor. She does so, but Ultraman overhears her in the closet and grabs her. Luthor sends her to his prison, but not before she’s sent Olsen her entire collection of selfies. Lane takes Superman to Smallville and meets Jonathan and Martha. Lane is amused to see posters from the bands he mentioned liking earlier decorating his childhood bedroom. The next morning, Superman is feeling better—he wakes up with Krypto on his chest. Jonathan gives him a pep talk, and then they check the news to discover that Boravia is invading Jarhanpur once again, with the Jarhanpurian people chanting Superman’s name. However, Terrific contacts Superman needing his help with the rift—if they don’t stop it, there won’t be a Boravia, a Jarhanpur, or an Earth left to save. Superman convinces Green Lantern, Hawkgirl, and Metamorpho to stop the Boravian invasion (which they do, the mission culminating with Hawkgirl killing Ghurkov), while Lane flies back to Metropolis in Terrific’s ship. She looks at Olsen’s pictures and realizes that there’s all kinds of incriminating evidence in the background of Tess’s selfies, including proof of the fact that Ghrukov plans to give half of Jarhanpur to Luthor. In addition, Lane has turned up information showing that Luthor pretty much just gave Boravia billions of dollars’ worth of weapons—getting half of Jarhanpur is likely the pro quo for that quid. The rift is about to tear Metropolis apart, so the city has to be evacuated. Perry White, Lane, Olsen, Lombard, Cat Grant, and Ron Thorpe evacuate in Terrific’s ship, with Lane dictating a story to Olsen while she pilots the ship. White gives his approval as editor and Olsen uploads it. Superman and Krypto try to stop the rift, but are instead menaced by the Engineer and Ultraman, the latter of whom is revealed to be a clone of Superman. As the fight continues, Luthor explains why he hates Superman so much. He also corrects a misapprehension: Luthor didn’t try to kill Superman to pave the way for the Boravian invasion, he created the Boravian invasion so he would be given carte blanche by the government to kill Superman. As the fight goes on, and the Engineer is defeated by Superman flying into orbit and then flying back down to Earth, Superman realizes that there are drones following them around. He tells Krypto to “get the toy,” at which point Krypto goes after every drone the way he did Terrific’s drones earlier, chewing them to pieces. Superman is able to defeat his doppelgänger after that. He then goes to Luthor’s control room, which is flying independently, the rift having destroyed the rest of LuthorCorp’s tower. Superman explains to Luthor that he’s just as human as anyone—he gets up each day not sure of himself or if he’ll do any good, but he does the best he can. Krypto then kicks the crap out of Luthor, to everyone’s horror. Superman calls the dog off, but then every news service carries the story just uploaded to the Planet’s website revealing that Luthor is in cahoots with Ghurkov. Everyone is freed from Luthor’s pocket universe prison (including Teschmacher, who jumps into Olsen’s arms) while Luthor himself is sent to Belle Reve Prison. Superman approaches Lane and says he’ll give her an interview. They go into an office building at which point they smooch and Lane says she loves him too. Outside, White asks Olsen how long they’ve been hooking up, and Olsen says, “About three months.” Superman returns to the Fortress, as he’s not completely recovered. The robots have all reconstructed themselves, and Four (who announces that he’d rather be called “Gary,” a request that Superman accedes to) starts to plays the footage of his parents in order to soothe him while he recuperates. But it’s no longer Jor-el and Lara—now it’s Kent family videos from throughout Clark Kent’s childhood. Superman’s cousin Kara returns from her offworld trip, taking back her dog. Superman sets up her upcoming movie by noting that she goes to planets with red suns to party, since Kryptonians can’t get drunk on a world with a yellow sun. “I’m not messing around, I’m doing important stuff” Credit: Warner Bros. / DC Studios This movie came out the same year that marked the forty-fifth anniversary of the release of Superman II, which also means that it’s been forty-five years since there was a good theatrically released Superman movie. While the character has generally been well-served by television (Superboy, Smallville, Lois & Clark, Superman & Lois, the 1990s animated series starring Tim Daly and Dana Delany, and the Justice League/Justice League Unlimited animated series) and by direct-to-home-video animated films, the live-action Super-films following Christopher Reeves’ first two outings are, frankly, awful, from Reeves’ wretched Superman III and Superman IV: The Quest for Peace, to Bryan Singer’s Richard Donner fanfic masquerading as a movie, Superman Returns, to Zack Snyder’s completely wrongheaded nonsense in Man of Steel, Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice, and both versions of Justice League. So this movie is a breath of fresh air. This feels in every possible way like a Superman movie, even more so than the first two Reeves movies, which, it must be said, were deeply flawed, and came from creators who did not take the source material particularly seriously. Gunn, however, treats the source material with affection and love, and embraces the entirety of Superman. We get the 1970s retcon that Superman helps keep his identity secret via Clark Kent’s glasses, which enable him to use “super-hypnotism” to alter the perception of his face. We get Krypto, who acts like an actual dog would with super-powers and it’s a delight. We get the Fortress of Solitude and the robot servants. We get made-up nations going to war with each other. More to the point, we don’t get Superman’s origin retold for the billionth time. At this point, the mainstream audience is used to superhero stories after twenty-five years of good, successful comic book movies. So Gunn can open his film in medias res and just start the story three years after Superman first shows up. Lane already knows Superman is really Clark Kent, and the two reporters are already in a relationship. Instead of having all the set-up, we instead get a straight-up superhero story, and it’s glorious. David Corenswet manages the same trick that Reeves pulled off in 1978 (and that Chris Evans pulled off in 2011): he’s earnest and noble without ever once being goofy or silly. It helps that he has a screenwriter who actually understands the character. There are two moments in particular that show that Gunn gets Superman in a way that Zack Snyder never, ever, ever did. The first is the plaintive justification for why he stopped the Boravian invasion: “People were going to die!” To Superman, that’s the only yardstick that matters. The second is much quieter, also in conversation with Lane, when he says that he’s turning himself in, not because he wants to capitulate to the government, but because it’s the only way he can think of to save Krypto. And yes, he’s not even a very good dog, but he’s alone and scared and needs to be rescued. That is Superman. That’s a hero. One thing I noticed in particular upon rewatching is the fight choreography. When Superman fights, he works very hard to minimize the damage. He doesn’t just save the people, he makes sure they’re okay, and he goes out of his way to limit the property damage. Heck, he even saves a squirrel! This is brought into sharp relief when he’s fighting the kaiju. As soon as the Justice Gang shows up, there’s a lot more collateral damage, all of it caused by the newly arrived trio. The casting is letter-perfect all up and down the movie, too. Rachel Brosnahan is definitely in the top tier of screen Lois Lanes. She’s smart, sassy, clever, snarky, and brilliant, everything Lane should be and more. I particularly love her going to the Justice Gang and trying to bully them into freeing their friend. And her interview of Superman is a masterpiece of characterization and dialogue. Credit: Warner Bros. / DC Studios Matching her is Nicholas Hoult, who may be the best live-action Luthor. He masterfully encompasses the character’s sociopathy and brilliance, but also his charisma. You get why a whole room full of people go along with his shenanigans, and why most of Metropolis probably views him as a philanthropist. There’s the great Edi Gathegi, who is magnificence itself as the cynical, above-it-all Mr. Terrific. There’s Nathan Fillion perfectly embodying Guy Gardner’s asshole of a Green Lantern, right down to the bowl cut. There’s Zlatko Burić’s spectacular sleaze as Ghurkov, Sara Sampaio’s ditzy goofiness as Teschmacher, Skyler Gisondo’s youthful charm as Olsen, Wendell Pierce’s cigar-chewing gruffness as White, Anthony Carrigan’s heartbreaking portrayal of Metamorpho, and Pruitt Taylor Vince and Neva Howell, who are very much the people who raised a hero as Jonathan and Martha Kent (which is who and what the Kents should be). And there’s the eternal Alan Tudyk, once again providing magnificent voice work as Four—or, rather, Gary. The pacing is superb, mercifully free of Gunn’s tendency to let scenes go on too long. There’s a lot happening here, but you never lose track of anyone or anything. The movie is not perfect. Public opinion alters a bit too quickly, both when the full recording from Jor-el and Lara is revealed and again at the end when Luthor’s mendacity is revealed. Hell, we go from the Engineer restoring the footage in Antarctica to Luthor going on Cleavis Thornwaite to reveal the translation in what seems like an hour or two, when that would take days to translate and verify, if not weeks. Still and all, this is a delightful superhero movie, a Superman movie that feels like the character that we’ve seen in the comics for almost 90 years, and an encouraging start to the DCU. One final touch I adored: at the end of the movie, we see a front-page story in the Daily Planet by Clark Kent, but it’s not about Superman or Boravia or Lex Luthor or the Justice Gang or the dimensional rift. No, it’s a human-interest piece on Mali the falafel guy. And that was just beautiful. Next week, it’s the (fittingly) fourth major attempt to bring Marvel’s flagship characters to the big screen, this time as part of the MCU, as we look at Fantastic Four: First Steps.[end-mark] The post “People were going to die!” — <i>Superman</i> (2025) appeared first on Reactor.

Featured Essays aliens Where to Look for Evidence of Alien Visitors to Our Solar System Scientifically speaking, here’s where we should start digging… By James Davis Nicoll | Published on January 8, 2026 Comment 0 Share New Share I occasionally wonder if the Solar System has ever been visited by extraterrestrials. If so, would sufficient evidence remain to prove it? It wouldn’t need to be technological: no need for a busted radio or a fully-functioning interstellar drive. Even something akin to a busted Folsom point would have fascinating implications. The most convenient place for such an artifact to turn up would be on Earth. That’s not likely, for reasons of scale. Without going into tedious detail, the earliest that life-bearing planets could have formed was long before the Earth actually formed. Any visiting ETs could have shown up any time during the whole 4.5 billion years of the Solar System’s history—shown up, faffed about, and then buggered off. To get a rough idea of what the age distribution might look like, assume a dozen aliens have swung by in the last 4.5 billion years. Rolling a forty-five-sided die, we get visit times of (in chronological order, in billions of years before present, AKA BYBP) 0.1, 1.1, 1.2, 1.7, 2.7, 2.9, 3.1, 3.5, 3.7, 3.8, and two at 4.0 BYBP. All but one of those predate complex life on Earth. The Earth is a dynamic world. This is excellent news from the perspective of continued habitability (vital elements are not getting locked away forever) but it’s not so good for preserving evidence. In fact, there’s a vast span of time, up to a billion years of the first years of our planet, where little to no geological evidence would survive. Evidence of those visits in 1.1, 1.2, and maybe 1.7 BYBP could be victims of the Great Unconformity. As for the older visits, possibly in 2.7 to 4.0 BYBP, there was ample opportunity for any artifacts to be subducted, consumed by chemical reactions, or simply buried under a kilometer of lava during a flood basalt event1. Much the same objections apply to other planets and minor planets. Even the Moon, generally spoken of as a dead, eternally static world, is thoroughly “gardened” by a constant hail of micrometeors slamming into regolith at interplanetary speeds. Estimates of how long human artifacts will survive on the Lunar surface range up to 100 million years. That’s a very long time in human terms, but do note that evidence of all but the very latest of the hypothetical visitors would have been gardened away. Nevertheless, the Moon is conveniently next door and there is a logical place to look for artifacts. The permanently shadowed craters at the Lunar poles sequester light elements visitors might want to exploit2. Even better, those craters have been shadowed for billions of years. Shackleton crater, for example, has been at the pole for at least two billion years. If the artifacts of the most recent four visitors were buried deep enough to escape gardening, they might survive. What we need is somewhere artifacts can plausibly survive for billions of years. The asteroid belt might be a decent bet, since its continued existence argues that objects can remain there for billions of years. It wouldn’t be terribly surprising if the first alien artifact to turn up turned up in the main belt. Ideally, we need some sort of Solar oubliette, where crap accumulates without being destroyed in the process and has done so for most of the Solar System’s history. Happily, as you might guess from the fact this essay was written at all, the Solar System does have at least one of those. Two, actually. From an artifact preservation perspective, Jupiter might seem a dismal prospect. Jupiter itself is insanely dynamic, not to mention being bereft of any solid surfaces. Its moons are likewise subject to history-erasing processes. Surely, maybe some alien wrench got lucky and didn’t aerobrake into Jupiter, lithobrake on a moon, or get ejected, but how would you find it amid all the crap orbiting Jupiter? To quote Wikipedia, “the Lagrange points (/ləˈɡrɑːndʒ/), also called the Lagrangian points or libration points, are points of equilibrium for small-mass objects under the gravitational influence of two massive orbiting bodies.” Jupiter is massive. The Sun is massive. It follows that there should be Sun-Jupiter Lagrange points, which there are. It also follows that objects perturbed into the Sun-Jupiter L4 or L5 could stay there for a very long time. Unsurprisingly, both the L4 and L5 regions3 are populated. There are 9,694 known Jupiter trojans4 at L4 and 5,628 at L5, but estimates suggest there could be a million 1 km+ diameter trojans. Even more intriguingly, some estimates suggest that some of those trojans have been trojans for a very, very long time. As in billions of years. As in, Jupiter’s trojans have been hoovering up garbage from across the Solar System for most of the life of the Solar System. As you know, middens are a great place to commit archaeology and here we have a cosmic midden. Two cosmic middens. Of course, both the main belt and Jupiter’s trojans occupy vast volumes. Poking through them would be expensive and time-consuming, but quite possibly rewarding. Even negative results would have interesting implications. All we need is a hundred billion dollars or so to fund a thorough search. Is it Kickstarter time? Or would BackerKit be better?5 Assuming that “artifact” is the correct word. If the evidence is biological, if say the aliens were careless while dumping their toilets, then its descendants could be with us today. They could be us. Imagine the honour of being descended from a galaxy-spanning civilization’s fecal bacteria! ︎“But what about all the Lunar helium-three?” some might ask. My response is too vulgar to be printed. Beings stupid enough to fall for the helium-three nonsense won’t build starships. ︎They’re only points in an ideal three-body situation. Once you add more bodies, Lagrange points become more like volumes. ︎L4 and L5 asteroids are named for heroes of the Trojan war. ︎Can I buy space probes on Etsy? ︎The post Where to Look for Evidence of Alien Visitors to Our Solar System appeared first on Reactor.