(1) THE FULL HULK PALETTE. Gizmodo offers readers “A Field Guide to Marvel’s Multicolored Hulks”.

We all know the Incredible Hulk. He’s big, we won’t like it when he’s angry, and, of course, he’s very, very green. But that’s not the only hue Bruce Banner, or several other characters to take on the irradiated moniker of Hulk, has been over the years. As the MCU prepares for Captain America: Brave New World to add the latest splash to its Hulk palette in Thaddeus Ross’ crimson carnage causer, here’s a brief run down of the rainbow of Hulks from the comics and beyond.

Despite the color this version is not very Smurfy.

Blue

Many heroes over the years have harbored the cosmic, god-like force that transforms a host into Captain Universe, Hulk included—albeit only briefly. Although originally green when he first encountered it, the Enigma Force enhanced Bruce’s abilities to give him a strength boost across the board, but also transformed him into a shade of blue the first time he tried to use the power. Realizing is wildly increased strength, the Hulk declared his new form the strongest he’d ever been, only for the Enigma Force to vacate and search for a new host.

First Appearance: 2005

Reason for color: The Enigma Force transforms all of its hosts with an astral-themed makeover when they bond.

(2) THE RED HULK IS EXPENSIVE ENOUGH.  The Cinemark Shop is taking pre-orders for the “Captain America: Brave New World Red Hulk Popcorn Bucket” for a mere $47.95. I’d hate to think what other Hulk designer colors would cost!

Experience movie snacking like never before with the Captain America: Brave New World Red Hulk Popcorn Bucket! Featuring a bold design inspired by Red Hulk, this limited edition bucket is perfect for fans looking to enjoy their favorite snacks with a heroic twist. Durable and eye-catching, it’s the ultimate way to celebrate Cap’s thrilling new chapter!

(3) CUTE IDEA CANCELLED. Polygon finds “D&D’s traditional 5th edition Easter eggs have been discontinued”, and does a roundup of their recent favorite faux legal disclaimers.

When 5th edition Dungeons & Dragons first rolled off the assembly line with the original Player’s Handbook (2014), it arrived with a very special Easter egg. It’s a goof that’s been repeated dozens of times, one that’s been included in every single hardcover rulebook, sourcebook, and campaign book published over the last decade. And with the release of the Monster Manual (2025), the franchise’s third revised core rulebook, publisher Wizards of the Coast tells Polygon that this little moment of jocularity is officially coming to an end. Pour one out, dear reader, for the fantasy legal disclaimer…

“Disclaimer: Wizards of the Coast is not responsible for the consequence of splitting up the party, sticking appendages in the mouth of a leering green devil face, accepting a dinner invitation from bugbears, storming the feast hall of a hill giant steading, angering a dragon of any variety, or saying yes when the DM asks, ‘Are you really sure?’”

… Reached for comment, Wizards sent word back from none other than D&D lead designer Jeremy Crawford. He let me know that I wasn’t imagining things, and that fantasy legal disclaimers are no more. Other, slightly more overt Easter eggs can be found throughout the latest D&D books, he said, including things like cameos from the characters in the original Saturday morning cartoon show from the 1980s. But these in-fiction snippets of fantasy legalese have gone the way of THAC0.

So, in honor of these comedic little morsels — and the anonymous folks at Wizards who helped them make their way into every game book for 10 solid years — here are the last five 5th edition D&D books and their fictional disclaimers….

(4) NOT ALONE – PLASTICS. [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] In the SF novel Not Alone   Sarah Jackson presents a near-future apocalyptic world in which plastic pollution kills people… Meanwhile, back in the real world there is concern as to how plastics ending up in human brain’s is impacting them as an item in this week’s this week’s Nature explores.

Plastics have infiltrated every recess of the planet, including your lungs, kidneys and other sensitive organs. Scientists are scrambling to understand their effects on health.

On average, microplastic levels were about 50% higher in brain samples from 2024 than in 2016 samples. And brain samples contained up to 30 times more microplastics than samples from a person’s liver and kidneys.

(5) EATING THE FANTASTIC. Scott Edelman invites listeners to “Chat and chew with Shannon Robinson” in Episode 247 of the Eating the Fantastic podcast.

My guest this episode is Shannon Robinson, whose short story collection, The Ill-Fitting Skin, was released last year. Robinson’s work has appeared in Gettysburg Review, Iowa Review, Water-Stone Review, Nimrod, Joyland, and elsewhere. She has an MFA in fiction from Washington University in St. Louis, and in 2011 she was the Writer-in-Residence at Interlochen Center for the Arts.

Other honors include the Katherine Anne Porter Prize for Fiction, grants from the Elizabeth George Foundation and the Canada Council for the Arts, a Hedgebrook Fellowship, a Sewanee Scholarship, and an Independent Artist Award from the Maryland Arts Council. Currently, she teaches creative writing and pedagogy at Johns Hopkins University and lives in Baltimore with her husband and son.

We discussed how best to deal with rejection, the way our opinions about print vs. electronic publication have changed over the courses of our careers, when an untrustworthy narrator can be a feature, not a bug, the many ways readers can be misreaders of stories, how she realized she’d reached short story critical mass and it was time to assemble a collection, the way the genres in which we write are often defined by those who publish us rather than the words on the page, what she tells her students is the only rule in writing, our contrasting experiences with simultaneous submissions, the ways in which she’ll apply everything she’s learned in writing short stories to her upcoming novel, and much more.

(6) NOT EXACTLY SNUBBED. Entertainment Weekly listens in as “Lin-Manuel Miranda reveals why he wasn’t cast in ‘Wicked’”.

Lin-Manuel Miranda is breaking his silence on why he wasn’t cast in Wicked. 

During Monday’s episode of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, the Hamilton creator and star was asked why he didn’t make an appearance in the Jon M. Chu-directed movie musical — especially since the pair had previously worked together on the 2021 film adaptation of his musical, In the Heights. 

“This has gotten blown away out of proportion,” Miranda declared, prompting host Stephen Colbert to reply, “And we’re going to continue to do that right now.” 

The Grammy winner then explained that he was gunning for a very specific part in the musical. 

“In the opening number of the show, this one munchkin runs out and goes, ‘Is it true you were her friend?’ Because, man, I don’t know if you’ve seen a live production of Wicked, but sometimes they really put some sauce on the ball when they deliver that line,” Miranda explained. “It’s where the story starts. So I was like, ‘I really wanted to do that line, Jon.’ And I was not cast.”

He completely understands why, though. “It would’ve been distracting!” Miranda acknowledged. His coveted role ultimately went to Kirsty Anne Shaw, who is credited as “Skeptical Munchkin” on the film’s IMDb page….

(7) MEMORY LANE.

[Written by Cat Eldridge.]

Fantasy Island (1977)

Forty-eight years ago, the original version of Fantasy Island aired its premiere episode on ABC. The series starred Ricardo Montalbán who was previously best known to television viewers for his Chrysler Cordoba commercials (which Dan Aykroyd parodied on Saturday Night Live) with their tagline of Fine Corinthian Leather, as Mr. Roarke, the Host, and Hervé Villechaize as his dwarf assistant, Tattoo. 

It was created by Gene Levitt who had very little previous genre experience. 

The critics were unanimous in their utter loathing of it. Newsday was typical of the comments about: “Given the premise, the [pilot] movie could have been fun, but it’s not. It drips with Meaning, but there is none. Actually, it’s quite dumb.” Tell me, did you consider it dumb? 

Now it was however absolutely critic-proof as it had an amazing run lasting seven seasons of one hundred fifty-two episodes, plus two films called Fantasy Island and Return to Fantasy Island. 

A two-season revival of the series with Malcolm McDowell and Mädchen Amick in the two roles aired fourteen years later while a re-imagined horror film version was released recently. I’ve seen the Malcolm McDowell and Mädchen Amick series and think it’s excellent. The horror film I’ve not seen.  I do remember the original series and remember rather liking it. Am I imagining there’s an another, much more recent series as well?

Chrysler Cordoba commercial (proof almost nothing vanishes on the net) is here.

If you’re feeling adventurous, it’s streaming on ad-supported Tubi as is the Malcolm McDowell and Mädchen Amick version.

(8) COMICS SECTION.

• Brevity’s requirements sound familiar at first.  
• Dinosaur Comics remarks on clothes of the future.
• Phoebe and Her Unicorn has a Peter Beagle reference.

(9) NO MAAS. “’A Court Of Thorns And Roses’ Fantasy Series Dead At Hulu & 20th TV” reports Deadline.

It’s a done deal — Hulu and 20th Television will not be proceeding with a TV adaptation of Sarah J. Maas’ bestselling fantasy book series A Court Of Thorns And Roses.

Word came out four years ago that Ron Moore had teamed with Maas for A Court Of Thorns And Roses TV series at 20th Television where Moore was under an overall deal. The project was set up at Hulu with a script commitment plus significant penalty.

Rumors that the adaptation may be getting scrapped at Hulu first started circulating in early 2024, with speculation intensifying after Moore left 20th TV to return to Sony Pictures Television a couple of months later. There was talk at the time that Disney siblings 20th TV and Hulu may try to pursue the IP with another writer. Ultimately, they won’t be going forward with the title….

(10) WARM-UP ACT. “The Origins of the ‘Dinosaur Renaissance’” at JSTOR Daily.

At the end of a summer day in 1964, John Ostrom and his team of paleontologists found a set of claws buried in the hills of Montana. They returned the next morning to find a fierce talon connected to the well-preserved foot bones of a new dinosaur. Ostrom called the site “The Shrine,” and his fieldwork there would help reshape the way the world thought about dinosaurs.

Ostrom named the creature Deinonychus antirrhopus, meaning “counterbalancing terrible claw.” He believed that the talon implied a hunting style incompatible with the common view of dinosaurs, explains Jon Axline. Most paleontologists believed that dinosaurs were cold-blooded, slow reptiles. But to Ostrom, Deinonychus seemed like an “agile carnivore” that was “built for speed,” writes Axline.

This would have meant a high metabolism, leading Ostrom to compare Deinonychus to modern animals with similar traits, such as emus and ostriches. Robert T. Bakker was an undergraduate on Ostrom’s team in Montana. Writing in 1975, he noted that mounting evidence was creating a paradigm shift that was dubbed the “Dinosaur Renaissance.” Bakker believed that rather than being cold-blooded reptiles, dinosaurs were the warm-blooded ancestors of modern birds.

Ostrom had noticed similarities between Deinonychus and Archaeopteryx (a feathered ancestor of birds) and thought they might be related. These speculations gained support from fossil evidence over time, Bakker explained….

(11) EVA EQUIPMENT NICKNAMES. “Meet ‘Tansuo’ and ‘Wangyu,’ China’s next moon rover and astronaut spacesuit” at Space.com.

China’s human spaceflight agency has unveiled official names for a spacesuit and rover to be used in the country’s moon landing mission before the end of the decade.

The China Manned Space Agency (CMSA) announced on Wednesday (Feb. 12) that the lunar extravehicular suit is named “Wangyu”, which means “gazing into the cosmos.” It echoes the name for the “Feitain” suit—meaning “flying into space”—currently used by Chinese astronauts to venture outside of the Tiangong space station in low Earth orbit.

Meanwhile, the unpressurized rover designed to carry two astronauts has been dubbed “Tansuo”, meaning “to explore.” The name reflects the lunar rover’s mission and practical value in aiding the Chinese people to uncover the mysteries of the moon, which is in line with China’s yearning to explore the vast cosmos, develop the space industry and build itself into a space power, CMSA said in a statement….

(12) JUMANJI 4 TRAILER. “Jumanji 4 : The Final Game” is coming in 2026.

Get ready for an epic conclusion to the beloved Jumanji series with Jumanji 4: The Final Game. This thrilling adventure reunites the iconic cast from Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle and Jumanji: The Next Level, including Dwayne Johnson as Dr. Smolder Bravestone, Kevin Hart as Franklin “Mouse” Finbar, Karen Gillan as Ruby Roundhouse, Jack Black as Professor Shelly Oberon, and Awkwafina as Ming Fleetfoot. Fans can also expect Nick Jonas as Seaplane McDonough, alongside Alex Wolff, Madison Iseman, Ser’Darius Blain, and Morgan Turner reprising their roles as the real-world teens drawn into the game. The plot picks up from The Next Level’s cliffhanger, with the boundaries between the game world and reality shattering—bringing chaos to both dimensions.

[Thanks to Chris Barkley, Cat Eldridge, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Jim Janney, Steven French, Kathy Sullivan, Teddy Harvia, Mike Kennedy, Andrew Porter, and John King Tarpinian for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Cat Eldridge.]