Hot D
Chance: 40%
House of the Dragon is a currently running series on HBO Max. Based on Fire and Blood, it's a prequel series to the juggernaut that is Game of Thrones. It centers around the Targaryen family, centuries before the events of GoT, during a period of peace and uncertainty regarding the successor of King Viserys, who has no sons but one daughter, Rhaenyra.
The show debuted in late August and instantly became a sensation. If there were any doubts that the controversial finale of Thrones drove fans away, they were put to rest by HotD's record breaking debut. A second season was immediately greenlit. Streaming ratings are always a murky matter, but it's been reported that viewership has grown for each episode, even with a Lord of the Rings show competing for attention. Average viewership has been pegged at one comparable to GoT's Season 7. And, crucially, it was incredibly well received by fans, being seen as a return to form for the franchise, and already minting some fan favorites.
Leadership at Warner Bros. is happy about this. Zaslav himself sang the praises of the show, and gave it a massive marketing budget. So there was clearly a lot of faith and very high expectations for the show's performance. And if they're doing tie-ins (which Black Adam shows is a thing they're doing) this is one of their biggest franchises, making it a bit of a no-brainer.
However, one thing working against this is that the OG Game of Thrones is full of iconic, battle-ready characters, of which we have precisely 1. The likes of Daenerys, Jon Snow, the Hound, and Brienne are strong competitors, especially Daenerys who would look and play very similar to her kin. Also, HotD is six (soon to be seven) episodes into its ten episode season. The window is closing on when it would make sense to even announce a tie-in fighter. But with a second season incoming they could just be working on that instead.
If there were a fighter from this show, I think it would be between two (mind you: I haven't read the source material so I don't know who ends up being important. This is just based on the show so far). One is Rhaenyra, who is kind of the central character the plot revolves around. The other is her uncle Daemon, played by the biggest star on the cast, Matt Smith (of Doctor Who and The Crown fame). As Targaryens, both are dragon riders. Daemon has a bit of an edge in that he's also an accomplished fighter, and wouldn't be made redundant by Daenerys' inclusion, but never underestimate Rhaenyra's fan favorite status.
Want: 100%
This is a fantastic show. The spirit of Thrones is firmly in it, quickly establishing a large cast of characters with complex motivations that eschew being simply good or bad, and which you switch between rooting for and despising within a single episode. Every Sunday night I'm there for it.
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Punch-Out, featuring Mr. Dream
Chance: 20%
Dream of the Endless, AKA Morpheus, AKA The Sandman, is the protagonist of Neil Gaiman's acclaimed comic book The Sandman, published by Vertigo (a subsidiary of DC Comics, in case you didn't know). Dream is, well, the lord of Dreams, crafting the dreams and nightmares that shape humanity's sleep, and is one of many siblings that rule over their own domains (such as Death, Desire, Destiny... you get the idea). There are several story arcs but the gist of it is that the comic is a medium to explore different genres, styles, and philosophical themes. It is frequently considered one of the greatest comic books ever.
As for why we're rating him today: The Sandman received a series adaptation on Netflix. It also received much praise, being seen as an incredible show in its own right and as a fantastically accurate adaptation of a work commonly seen as unfilmable. Viewership for it was high, being the top watched Netflix show for 3 weeks, and remaining in the top 10 for 7 weeks. So The Sandman is more relevant than ever and has found itself a new batch of fans.
Granted, there are things working against Dream. For one, like most of Gaiman's works, this has never been - nor was intended to be - mainstream. Yes, having a high quality, high budget show on Netflix clearly helped (and we're getting the likes of Gremlins and Ted Lasso, hardly the Avengers), but still. The second problem is that despite the undisputed success of the show, Netflix still hasn't renewed it for a second season. It's commonly speculated that the reason for this is that it's a very expensive show (it's one of the only Netflix original shows I've seen that has actually good cinematography, production design and special effects, none of which come cheap) and Netflix is in full-on panic mode after losing subscribers and needing to start making fiscal sense soon. Gaiman reassured fans that if Netflix doesn't pick up the show for a second season, they can shop it to other networks, and HBO would be insane not to snatch it, but still. It's all in flux, and without the show to make it relevant, The Sandman is far behind in terms of DC character priorities.
Want: 100%
I read the comic book a few years back. I liked it! But I didn't love it. I enjoyed the characters, and the themes, and the art, but the narrative was too, well, oneiric for my taste. I much preferred the clearer political and psychological symbolism of Watchmen and the pulpy sensibilities of Swamp Thing. Watching the show, though, really made it click for me. Tom Sturridge is perfectly cast as Dream, balancing his otherworldly, freaky nature with his ultimately human qualities like arrogance and desire for self-improvement. The rest of the cast is also top-notch, as is the direction. The anthology/arc driven nature translates to television better than it has any right to, even producing a few episodes that I would describe as flawless (24/7 and The Sound of Her Wings). It made me consider going back and rereading the comic to see if maybe I just wasn't at the place I had to be to really appreciate it, which is probably the highest praise you can give an adaptation.
Dream would also just be... super cool in MultiVersus. Dream in general is a cool character, a godlike entity who takes no **** and looks like an emo dude and wears a wicked helmet that looks like a gas mask designed by H.R. Giger. And for his moveset he could use his sand, ravens, and have a sleep mechanic. Or just go wild since he can kind of shape reality and create living, thinking entities. Yeah.
Noms: Spear and Fang