title: Naltrexone

text: The closely related medication, methylnaltrexone ("N"-methylnaltrexone), is used to treat opioid-induced constipation, but does not treat addiction as it does not cross the blood–brain barrier. Nalmefene (6-desoxy-6-methylenenaltrexone) is similar to naltrexone and is used for the same purposes as naltrexone. Naltrexone should not be confused with naloxone ("N"-allylnoroxymorphone), which is used in emergency cases of opioid overdose. Other opioid antagonists related to naltrexone include 6β-naltrexol (6β-hydroxynaltrexone), samidorphan (3-carboxamido-4-hydroxynaltrexone), β-funaltrexamine (naltrexone fumarate methyl ester), nalodeine ("N"-allylnorcodeine), nalorphine ("N"-allylnormorphine), and nalbuphine ("N"-cyclobutylmethyl-14-hydroxydihydronormorphine).


title: Naltrexone

text: Naltrexone was first synthesized in 1963 by Metossian at Endo Laboratories, a small pharmaceutical company in New York City. It was characterized by Blumberg, Dayton, and Wolf in 1965 and was found to be an orally active, long-acting, and very potent opioid antagonist. The drug showed advantages over earlier opioid antagonists such as cyclazocine, nalorphine, and naloxone, including its oral activity, a long duration of action allowing for once-daily administration, and a lack of dysphoria, and was selected for further development. It was patented by Endo Laboratories in 1967 under the developmental code name EN-1639A and Endo Laboratories was acquired by DuPont in 1969. Clinical trials for opioid dependence began in 1973, and a developmental collaboration of DuPont with the National Institute on Drug Abuse for this indication started the next year in 1974. The drug was approved by the FDA for the oral treatment of opioid dependence in 1984, with the brand name Trexan, and for the oral treatment of alcohol dependence in 1995, when the brand name was changed by DuPont to Revia. A depot formulation for intramuscular injection was approved by the FDA under the brand name Vivitrol for alcohol dependence in 2006 and opioid dependence in 2010.


title: Naltrexone

text: Naltrexone is the generic name of the drug and its , , , , and , while naltrexone hydrochloride is its and .


title: Naltrexone

text: Naltrexone is or has been sold under a variety of brand names, including Adepend, Antaxone, Celupan, Depade, Nalorex, Narcoral, Nemexin, Nodict, Revia, Trexan, Vivitrex, and Vivitrol. It is also marketed in combination with bupropion (naltrexone/bupropion) as Contrave, and was marketed with morphine (morphine/naltrexone) as Embeda. A combination of naltrexone with buprenorphine (buprenorphine/naltrexone) has been developed, but has not been marketed.


title: Naltrexone

text: The FDA authorized use of injectable naltrexone (Vivitrol) for opioid addiction using a single study that was led by Evgeny Krupitsky at Bekhterev Research Psychoneurological Institute, St Petersburg State Pavlov Medical University, St Petersburg, Russia, a country where opioid agonists such as methadone and buprenorphine are not available. The study was a "double-blind, placebo-controlled, randomized", 24-week trial running "from July 3, 2008, through October 5, 2009" with "250 patients with opioid dependence disorder" at "13 clinical sites in Russia" on the use of injectable naltrexone (XR-NTX) for opioid dependence. The study was funded by the Boston-based biotech Alkermes firm which produces and markets naltrexone in the United States. Critics charged that the study violated ethical guidelines, since it compared the formulation of naltrexone not to the best available, evidence-based treatment (methadone or buprenorphine), but to a placebo. Further, the trial did not follow patients who dropped out of the trial to evaluate subsequent risk of fatal overdose, a major health concern . Subsequent trials in Norway and the US did compare injectable naltrexone to buprenorphine and found them to be similar in outcomes for patients willing to undergo the withdrawal symptoms required prior to naltrexone administration. Nearly 30% of patients in the US trial did not complete induction. In real world settings, a review of more than 40,000 patient records found that while methadone and buprenorphine reduced risk of fatal overdose, naltrexone administration showed no greater effect on overdose or subsequent emergency care than counseling alone.


title: Naltrexone

text: Despite these findings, naltrexone's manufacturer and some health authorities have promoted the medicine as superior to methadone and buprenorphine since it is not an opioid and does not induce dependence. The manufacturer has also marketed directly to law enforcement and criminal justice officials, spending millions of dollars on lobbying and providing thousands of free doses to jails and prisons. The technique has been successful, with the criminal justice system in 43 states now incorporating long-acting naltrexone. Many do this through Vivitrol courts that offer only this option, leading some to characterize this as "an offer that cannot be refused." The company's marketing techiques have led to a Congressional investigation, and warning from the FDA about failure to adequately state risks of fatal overdose to patients receiving the medicine.


title: Naltrexone

text: In May 2017, United States Secretary of Health and Human Services Tom Price praised [Vivitrol] as the future of opioid addiction treatment after visiting the company's plant in Ohio. His remarks set off sharp criticism with almost 700 experts in the field of substance use submitting a letter to Price cautioning him about Vivitrol's "marketing tactics" and warning him that his comments "ignore widely accepted science". The experts pointed out that Vivitrol's competitors, buprenorphine and methadone, are "less expensive", "more widely used", and have been "rigorously studied". Price had claimed that buprenorphine and methadone were "simply substitute[s]" for "illicit drugs" whereas according to the letter, "the substantial body of research evidence supporting these treatments is summarized in guidance from within your own agency, including the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, the US Surgeon General, the National Institute on Drug Abuse, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Buprenorphine and methadone have been demonstrated to be highly effective in managing the core symptoms of opioid use disorder, reducing the risk of relapse and fatal overdose, and encouraging long-term recovery."


title: Naltrexone

text: Naltrexone is sometimes used in the treatment of dissociative symptoms such as depersonalization and derealization. Some studies suggest it might help. Other small, preliminary studies have also shown benefit. Blockade of the KOR by naltrexone and naloxone is thought to be responsible for their effectiveness in ameliorating depersonalization and derealization. Since these drugs are less efficacious in blocking the KOR relative to the MOR, higher doses than typically used seem to be necessary.


title: Naltrexone

text: "Low-dose naltrexone" (LDN) describes the off-label use of naltrexone at low doses for diseases not related to chemical dependency or intoxication, such as multiple sclerosis. Evidence for recommending such use is lacking. This treatment has received attention on the Internet. In 2022, 4 studies with a few hundred patients are experimenting using the drug for the treatment of Long COVID.


title: Naltrexone

text: One study suggests that self-injurious behaviors present in persons with developmental disabilities (including autism) can sometimes be remedied with naltrexone.


title: Naltrexone

text: In these cases, the self-injury is believed to be done to release beta-endorphin, which binds to the same receptors as heroin and morphine. If the "rush" generated by self-injury is removed, the behavior may stop.


title: Naltrexone

text: Some indications exist that naltrexone might be beneficial in the treatment of impulse-control disorders such as kleptomania, compulsive gambling, or trichotillomania (compulsive hair pulling), but evidence of its effectiveness for gambling is conflicting. A 2008 case study reported successful use of naltrexone in suppressing and treating an internet pornography addiction.


title: Naltrexone

text: Naltrexone is effective in suppressing the cytokine-mediated adverse neuropsychiatric effects of interferon alpha therapy.


title: Naltrexone

text: Some historians and sociologists have suggested that the meanings and uses attributed to anti-craving medicine, such as naltrexone, is context-dependent. Studies have suggested the use of naltrexone in drug courts or healthcare rehabs is a form of "post-social control," or "post-disciplinary control," whereby control strategies for managing offenders and addicts shift from imprisonment and supervision toward more direct control over biological processes.


title: Naltrexone

text: Small studies have shown a reduction of sexual addiction and problematic sexual behaviours from naltrexone.


title: WarGames

text: WarGames is a 1983 American science fiction techno-thriller film written by Lawrence Lasker and Walter F. Parkes and directed by John Badham. The film, which stars Matthew Broderick, Dabney Coleman, John Wood, and Ally Sheedy, follows David Lightman (Broderick), a young hacker who unwittingly accesses a United States military supercomputer programmed to simulate, predict and execute nuclear war against the Soviet Union.


title: WarGames

text: "WarGames" was a critical and box-office success, costing $12 million and grossing $125 million worldwide. The film was nominated for three Academy Awards.


title: WarGames

text: During a surprise nuclear attack drill, many United States Air Force Strategic Missile Wing controllers prove unwilling to turn the keys required to launch a missile strike. Such refusals convince John McKittrick and other NORAD systems engineers that missile launch control centers must be automated, without human intervention. Control is given to a NORAD supercomputer known as WOPR (War Operation Plan Response, pronounced "whopper"), programmed to continuously run war simulations and learn over time.


title: WarGames

text: David Lightman, a bright but unmotivated Seattle high school student and hacker, uses his IMSAI 8080 computer to access the school district's computer system and change his grades. He does the same for his friend and classmate Jennifer Mack. Later, while war dialing numbers in Sunnyvale, California, to find a computer game company, he connects with a system that does not identify itself. Asking for games, he finds a list that starts with chess, checkers, backgammon, and poker, as well as titles such as "Theaterwide Biotoxic and Chemical Warfare" and "Global Thermonuclear War", but cannot proceed further. Two hacker friends explain the concept of a backdoor password and suggest tracking down the Falken referenced in "Falken's Maze", the first game listed. David discovers that Stephen Falken was an early artificial-intelligence researcher, and David guesses correctly that the name of Falken's deceased son (Joshua) is the password.


title: WarGames

text: Unaware that the Sunnyvale phone number connects to WOPR at the Cheyenne Mountain Complex, David initiates a game of Global Thermonuclear War, playing as the Soviet Union and begins targeting American cities. The computer starts a simulation that briefly convinces NORAD military personnel that actual Soviet nuclear missiles are inbound. While they defuse the situation, WOPR nonetheless continues the simulation to trigger the scenario and win the game, as it does not understand the difference between reality and simulation. It continuously feeds false data such as Soviet bomber incursions and submarine deployments to NORAD, pushing them to increase the DEFCON level toward a retaliation that will start World War III.


title: WarGames

text: David learns the true nature of his actions from a news broadcast, and FBI special agents arrest him and take him to NORAD. He realizes that WOPR is behind the NORAD alerts, but he fails to convince McKittrick (who believes David is working for the Soviets) and is charged with espionage. David escapes NORAD by joining a tourist group and, with Jennifer's help, travels to the Oregon island where Falken lives under the alias "Robert Hume". David and Jennifer find that Falken has become despondent, believing that nuclear war is inevitable and as futile as a game of tic-tac-toe between two experienced players. The teenagers convince Falken that he should return to NORAD to stop WOPR.


title: WarGames

text: WOPR stages a massive Soviet first strike with hundreds of missiles, submarines, and bombers. Believing the attack to be genuine, NORAD prepares to retaliate. Falken, David, and Jennifer convince military officials to cancel the second strike and ride out the attack. When the targeted American bases report that everything's fine and they are unharmed, NORAD prepares to cancel the retaliatory second strike. WOPR tries to launch the missiles itself using a brute-force attack to obtain the launch codes. Without humans in the control centers as a safeguard using the two-man rule, the computer will trigger a mass launch. All attempts to log in and order WOPR to cancel the countdown fail. Disconnecting the computer is discussed and dismissed, as a failsafe will launch all weapons if the computer is disabled, acting like a fail-deadly ignition to World War III.


title: WarGames

text: Falken and David direct the computer to play tic-tac-toe against itself. This results in a long string of draws, forcing the computer to learn the concept of futility and no-win scenarios. WOPR obtains the launch codes, but before launching, it cycles through all the nuclear war scenarios it has devised, finding that they all result in draws as well. Having discovered the concept of mutual assured destruction ("WINNER: NONE"), the computer tells Falken it has concluded that nuclear war is "a strange game" in which "the only winning move is not to play." WOPR relinquishes control of NORAD and the missiles and offers to play "a nice game of chess".


title: WarGames

text: Development on "WarGames" began in 1979, when writers Walter F. Parkes and Lawrence Lasker developed an idea for a script called "The Genius", about "a dying scientist and the only person in the world who understands him—a rebellious kid who's too smart for his own good". Lasker was inspired by a television special presented by Peter Ustinov on several geniuses, including Stephen Hawking. Lasker said, "I found the predicament Hawking was in fascinating—that he might one day figure out the unified field theory and not be able to tell anyone, because of his progressive ALS. So there was this idea that he'd need a successor. And who would that be? Maybe this kid, a juvenile delinquent whose problem was that nobody realized he was too smart for his environment." The concept of computers and hacking as part of the film was not yet present.


title: WarGames

text: "The Genius" began its transformation into "WarGames" when Parkes and Lasker met Peter Schwartz from the Stanford Research Institute. "There was a new subculture of extremely bright kids developing into what would become known as hackers," said Schwartz. Schwartz made the connection between youth, computers, gaming, and the military. Parkes and Lasker also met with computer-security expert Willis Ware of RAND Corporation, who assured them that even a secure military computer might have remote access enabling remote work on weekends, encouraging the screenwriters to continue with the project.


title: WarGames

text: Parkes and Lasker came up with several military-themed plotlines before the final story. One version of the script had an early version of the WOPR named "Uncle Ollie", or Omnipresent Laser Interceptor (OLI), a space-based defensive laser run by an intelligent program, but this idea was discarded because it was too speculative. Director John Badham coined the name "WOPR", feeling that the name of NORAD's Single Integrated Operational Plan was "boring, and told you nothing". The name "WOPR" played off the Whopper hamburger, and a general sense of something going "whop".


title: WarGames

text: The WOPR computer, as seen in the film, was a prop created in Culver City, California, by members of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees Local 44. It was designed by production designer (credited as a visual consultant) Geoffrey Kirkland based on some pictures he had of early tabulating machines, and metal furniture, consoles, and cabinets used particularly in the U.S. military in the 1940s and '50s. Art director Angelo P. Graham adapted them in drawings and concepts. The WOPR was operated by a crewmember sitting inside the computer, entering commands into an Apple II at the director's instruction. The prop was broken up for scrap after production was completed. A replica was built for a 2006 AT&T commercial.


title: WarGames

text: David Lightman was modeled on David Scott Lewis, a hacking enthusiast Parkes and Lasker met. Falken was inspired by and named after Stephen Hawking, with the appearance of John Lennon, who was interested in the role, but was murdered in New York while the script was in development. General Beringer was based on General James V. Hartinger (USAF), the then-commander-in-chief of NORAD, whom Parkes and Lasker met while visiting the base, and who, like Beringer, favored keeping humans in the decision loop.


title: WarGames

text: Martin Brest was originally hired as the director but was fired after 12 days of shooting because of a disagreement with the producers, and replaced with John Badham. Several of the scenes shot by Brest remain in the final film. Badham said that Brest had "taken a somewhat dark approach to the story and the way it was shot. It was like [Broderick and Sheedy] were doing some Nazi undercover thing, so it was my job to make it seem like they were having fun, and that it was exciting." According to Badham, Broderick and Sheedy were "stiff as boards" when they came onto the sound stage, having both Brest's dark vision and the idea that they would soon be fired. Badham did 12 to 14 takes of the first shot to loosen the actors up. At one point, Badham decided to race with the two actors around the sound stage, with the one who came last having to sing a song to the crew. Badham lost and sang "The Happy Wanderer", the silliest song he could think of. He invited what "Wired" described as "a small army of computer whizzes on set" to advise on accuracy.


title: WarGames

text: "WarGames" did well at the box office, grossing $79,567,667, the fifth-highest of 1983 in the United States and Canada. It grossed $45 million internationally for a worldwide total of $124.6 million.


title: WarGames

text: On Rotten Tomatoes, "WarGames" received an approval rating of 93% based on 44 reviews, with an average rating of 7.60/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Part delightfully tense techno-thriller, part refreshingly unpatronizing teen drama, "WarGames" is one of the more inventive—and genuinely suspenseful—Cold War movies of the 1980s." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 77 out of 100 based on 15 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".


title: WarGames

text: Roger Ebert gave "WarGames" four out of four stars, calling it "an amazingly entertaining thriller" and "one of the best films so far this year", with a "wonderful" ending. Leonard Maltin gave it a mixed review calling it ""Fail Safe" for the Pac-Man Generation" and "Entertaining to a point". He concluded, "Incidentally, it's easy to see why this was so popular with kids: most of the adults in the film are boobs."


title: WarGames

text: Colin Greenland reviewed "WarGames" for "Imagine" magazine, and stated that "Wargames is a tense, tight film, sharply acted, funny, sane, and with a plot twist for every chilling sub-routine in WOPR's scenarios for World War III."


title: WarGames

text: "Computer Gaming World" stated that ""Wargames" is plausible enough to intrigue and terrifying enough to excite ... [it] makes one think, as well as feel, all the way", raised several moral questions about technology and society, and recommended the film to "Computer hobbyists of all kinds". "Softline" described the film as being "completely original"; unlike other computer-related films like "Tron" that "could (and do) exist in substantially the same form with some other plot", "WarGames" "could not exist if the microcomputer did not exist ... It takes the micro and telecommunications as a given—part of the middle-class American landscape". The magazine praised the film as "Very funny, excruciatingly suspenseful, and endlessly inventive, this movie is right on the mark; authentic even when highly improbable". Christopher John reviewed "WarGames" in "Ares Magazine" #15 and commented that "The movie cloaked itself in a standard message, but then set out to take something we have seen many times before and retell it in a new, interesting fashion. "War Games" is highly entertaining, fast-moving, colorful, and mentally stimulating".


title: WarGames

text: "WarGames" was nominated for three Academy Awards: Best Cinematography (William A. Fraker), Sound (Michael J. Kohut, Carlos Delarios, Aaron Rochin, Willie D. Burton), and Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen (Lawrence Lasker, Walter F. Parkes). The company that provided the large screens used to display the tactical situations seen in the NORAD set employed a new design that was super-bright enabling the displays to be filmed live. (The set was more visually impressive than the actual NORAD facilities at the time.) The animations seen on the NORAD displays, produced by Colin Cantwell, were created using Hewlett Packard HP 9845C computers driving monochrome HP 1345A vector displays, which were still-filmed through successive color-filters. Each frame took approximately one minute to produce, and 50,000 feet of negatives were produced over seven months. The animations were projected "live" onto the screens from behind using 16-mm film, so they were visible to the actors and no post-production work was needed. For this, the company was awarded an Academy Scientific and Technical Award.


title: WarGames

text: "WarGames" was the first mass-consumed, visual media with the central theme of remote computing as well as hacking, and it served as both an amplifier vehicle and framework for America's earliest discussion of information technology. In the wake of the film, major news media focused on the potential for the ""WarGames" scenario" to exist in reality. This focus contributed to the creation of the first U.S. federal internet policy, the Counterfeit Access Device and Computer Fraud and Abuse Act of 1984.


title: WarGames

text: Bulletin board system (BBS) operators reported an unusual rise in activity in 1984, which at least one sysop attributed to "WarGames" introducing viewers to modems. The scenes showing Lightman's computer dialing every number in Sunnyvale led to the term "war dialing" (earlier known as "demon dialing"), a technique of using a modem to scan a list of telephone numbers in search of unknown computers, and indirectly to the newer term "wardriving".


title: WarGames

text: President Ronald Reagan, a family friend of Lasker's, watched the film and discussed the plot with members of Congress, his advisers, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Reagan's interest in the film is credited with leading to the enactment 18 months later of NSDD-145, the first Presidential directive on computer security.


title: WarGames

text: A video game, "WarGames", was released for the ColecoVision in 1983 and ported to the Atari 8-bit family and Commodore 64 in 1984. It played similarly to the NORAD side of the "Global Thermonuclear War" game, where the United States had to be defended from a Soviet strike by placing bases and weapons at strategic points. "", a real-time strategy game only loosely related to the film, was released for the PlayStation and PC in 1998.


title: WarGames

text: A game inspired by the film, called "Computer War" from Thorn EMI, in which the player must track and shoot down intercontinental ballistic missiles, as well as crack a computer code, was released for the Atari 8-bit family, TI-99/4A, and VIC-20.


title: WarGames

text: The Nintendo Entertainment System video game "" featured an homage to the movie's ending in which the player must challenge a large supercomputer to a game similar to tic-tac-toe and force a stalemate, thereby preventing a missile launch via countdown which would ultimately have led to full-scale nuclear war. The computer takes control and simulates various world war scenarios based on the game itself. After concluding that there's no way to win, the machine gives up and cancels the missile launch.


title: WarGames

text: Be-Rad Entertainment released a tile-matching video game, "WarGames: WOPR", for iOS and Android devices in 2012.


title: WarGames

text: The film's music was composed and conducted by Arthur B. Rubinstein. A soundtrack album including songs and dialogue excerpts was released by Polydor Records. Intrada Records issued an expanded release in 2008 with the complete score, with expanded horn sections and without the film dialogue. In 2018, Quartet Records issued a 35th anniversary expanded 2-CD edition containing the score as presented in the film, and the 1983 Polydor album on disc 2.


title: WarGames

text: In November 2006, preproduction began on a sequel, titled "WarGames: The Dead Code". It was directed by Stuart Gillard, and starred Matt Lanter as a hacker named Will Farmer facing off with a government supercomputer called RIPLEY. MGM released the sequel directly to DVD on July 29, 2008, along with the 25th Anniversary Edition DVD of "WarGames". To promote the sequel, the original film returned to selected theaters as a one-night-only 25th-anniversary event on July 24, 2008.


title: WarGames

text: An interactive media reboot of "WarGames" was announced by MGM in 2015, with Interlude serving as its co-production company. The project was described as an "audience-driven story experience", with anticipated launch in 2016. In March 2016, Sam Barlow announced he has joined Interlude and would be serving as a creative lead in the series, based on his work from his video game, "Her Story", which required the player to piece together a mystery based on a series of video clips. Interlude rebranded itself as Eko in December 2016, and the six-episode series was released in March 2018.


title: WarGames

text: Critics have cited the film as an influence on Mamoru Hosoda's 2000 short film "", with critic Geoffrey G. Thew, writing in "Anime Impact: The Movies and Shows that Changed the World of Japanese Animation," noting that both films share a title and a plot of "a rogue AI hijacking the Internet to spread chaos and potentially destroy the world, only to be stopped by some kids on their computers." Hosoda later stated that "Our War Game" "kind of started my idea for [his 2009 film] "Summer Wars"," noting that "Summer Wars" "became the feature-length version of that idea" and allowed him to explore material he was unable to in "Our War Game"'s 40 minute runtime.


title: Jon Watts

text: Jonathan Watts (born June 28, 1981) is an American filmmaker. His credits include directing the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) superhero films "", "", and "". He was additionally signed to direct the upcoming Marvel Studios-produced "Fantastic Four" film only to exit the project in April 2022. He also directed and co-wrote the horror film "Clown" and thriller film "Cop Car" as well as directing numerous episodes of the parody television news series "Onion News Network". In terms of creating music videos, Watts has collaborated with electronic music artists such as Fatboy Slim and Swedish House Mafia among other musicians.


title: Jon Watts

text: Watts was born on June 28, 1981 and raised in Fountain, Colorado, where he attended Fountain-Fort Carson High School. He studied film at New York University.


title: Jon Watts

text: Watts' film career started with the short "Clay Pride: Being Clay in America". A claymation film, it is a satire of films about gay issues, with the main character, Steve Thompson, coming out as "clay". Over the next decade, Watts would continue to work in short films, as well as directing several music videos for various artists including Fatboy Slim, Death Cab for Cutie, Relient K, Sleigh Bells, Head Automatica, and TV on the Radio.


title: Jon Watts

text: Watts' feature directorial debut was the 2014 horror film, "Clown". Watts and his friend Christopher Ford had made a fake trailer for a film about a father turning into a killer clown after trying on an old costume he finds in his basement. After uploading the trailer to YouTube, Watts was approached by Eli Roth with an offer to produce a feature version.


title: Jon Watts

text: Watts' next film was the 2015 thriller, "Cop Car". The film is about two young boys who steal an abandoned police car and are pursued by its murderous owner, a Sheriff played by Kevin Bacon. In an interview, Watts revealed that the idea for the film came from a dream he had when he was a child.


title: Jon Watts

text: Watts then directed "". Watts was so determined to be the director of the film that he admitted that he had "bothered" Marvel by sending them clips of a fake trailer he made for a Spider-Man movie. He admits that he was very surprised and did not know he was going to get the job until the last moment.


title: Jon Watts

text: Watts directed the film's 2019 sequel "". He reportedly became increasingly devoted to the franchise, even starting his own extensive collection of rare spiders.


title: Jon Watts

text: Watts has also directed "", which was released on December 17, 2021, where he also provided the motion-capture for Sandman while Thomas Haden Church reprised the voice of the character. He was confirmed to be directing the third theatrical iteration of the Fantastic Four, which will be set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe but exited the project in April 2022. Watts also directed the mid-credits scene of "", a tie-in to "No Way Home", which was released two months earlier on October 1, 2021. The scene was shot during the filming of "No Way Home".


title: Jon Watts

text: In September 2021, it was revealed that Watts will write and direct a thriller film starring George Clooney and Brad Pitt. He will also produce the project along with the two actors. By the end of the month, the project had been acquired by Apple Studios, and was expected to receive a "robust theatrical release".


title: Jon Watts

text: In January 2022, Watts and his wife were announced to be joining the sixth installment of the "Final Destination" series as co-producers. Watts also wrote a film treatment as well, to be adapted by Lori Evans Taylor and Guy Busick.


title: Jon Watts

text: In May 2022, it was revealed that Watts will create and executive produce an Amblin inspired "Star Wars" TV series for Disney+ that is set after the events of "Return of the Jedi". This series was soon revealed as "", scheduled to premiere in 2023.


title: Gena Rowlands

text: Virginia Cathryn "Gena" Rowlands (born June 19, 1930) is an American retired actress, whose career in film, stage, and television has spanned seven decades. A four-time Emmy and two-time Golden Globe winner, she is known for her collaborations with her late actor-director husband John Cassavetes in ten films, including "A Woman Under the Influence" (1974) and "Gloria" (1980), which earned her nominations for the Academy Award for Best Actress. She also won the Silver Bear for Best Actress for "Opening Night" (1977). She is also known for her performances in Woody Allen's "Another Woman" (1988), and her son, Nick Cassavetes's film, "The Notebook" (2004). In 2021, Richard Brody of "The New Yorker" said, “The most important and original movie actor of the past half century-plus is Gena Rowlands.” In November 2015, Rowlands received an Honorary Academy Award in recognition of her unique screen performances.


title: Gena Rowlands

text: Rowlands was born on June 19, 1930, in Cambria, Wisconsin. Her mother, Mary Allen (Neal), was a housewife who later worked as an actress under the stage name Lady Rowlands. Her father, Edwin Myrwyn Rowlands, was a banker and state legislator. He was a member of the Wisconsin Progressive Party, and was of Welsh descent. She had an elder brother, David Rowlands.


title: Gena Rowlands

text: Her family moved to Washington, D.C., in 1939, when Edwin was appointed to a position in the United States Department of Agriculture; moved to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in 1942, when he was appointed as branch manager of the Office of Price Administration; and later moved to Minneapolis, Minnesota. From 1947–50, she attended the University of Wisconsin, where she was a popular student already renowned for her beauty. While in college, she was a member of Kappa Kappa Gamma. She left for New York City to study drama at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts.


title: Gena Rowlands

text: In the early 1950s, Rowlands performed with repertory theatre companies and at the Provincetown Playhouse. She made her Broadway debut in "The Seven Year Itch" and toured in a national production of the play. In 1956, she starred in the Broadway play "Middle of the Night" opposite Edward G. Robinson.


title: Gena Rowlands

text: Rowlands costarred with Paul Stewart in the 26-episode syndicated TV series "Top Secret" (1954–55). She guest-starred on such anthology television series as "Robert Montgomery Presents", "Armstrong Circle Theatre", "Studio One", "Appointment with Adventure", "The United States Steel Hour" and "Goodyear Television Playhouse", all in 1955. In 1959, Rowlands appeared in the western series "Laramie", alongside her husband John Cassavetes in the detective series "Johnny Staccato", and in the western series "Riverboat", starring Darren McGavin. In 1961, she appeared in the adventure series "The Islanders", set in the South Pacific, and in "", starring Stephen McNally. She guest-starred in "The Lloyd Bridges Show", the detective series "77 Sunset Strip", the westerns "Bonanza" and "The Virginian", and "Breaking Point", all in 1963. In 1964, she guest-starred in the medical drama "Dr. Kildare" and in two episodes of "Burke's Law". She appeared in four episodes of "Alfred Hitchcock Presents", three of which were after the series had been renamed "The Alfred Hitchcock Hour". In 1967, she was cast as socialite Adrienne Van Leyden in the prime-time ABC soap opera "Peyton Place".


title: Gena Rowlands

text: Rowlands made her film debut in "The High Cost of Loving" in 1958. In 1962, she starred in director David Miller's "Lonely Are the Brave", with Kirk Douglas and Walter Matthau. She played the former lover of the Kirk Douglas character, now the wife of the Douglas character's best friend.


title: Gena Rowlands

text: Rowlands and Cassavetes made ten films together: "A Child Is Waiting" (1963), "Faces" (1968), "Machine Gun McCain" (1969), "Minnie and Moskowitz" (1971), "A Woman Under the Influence" (1974; nomination for Academy Award for Best Actress), "Two-Minute Warning" (1976), "Opening Night" (1977), "Gloria" (1980; nomination for Academy Award for Best Actress), "Tempest" (1982), and "Love Streams" (1984).


title: Gena Rowlands

text: According to Boston University film scholar Ray Carney, Rowlands sought to suppress an early version of Cassavetes's first film, "Shadows", that Carney says he rediscovered after decades of searching. Rowlands also became involved in the screenings of "Husbands" and "Love Streams", according to Carney. The UCLA Film and Television Archive mounted a restoration of "Husbands", as it was pruned down (without Cassavetes's consent, and in violation of his contract) by Columbia Pictures several months after its release, in an attempt to restore as much of the removed content as possible. At Rowlands's request, UCLA created an alternative print with almost ten minutes of content edited out, as Rowlands felt that these scenes were in poor taste. The alternative print is the only one that has been made available for rental.


title: Gena Rowlands

text: In 1985, Rowlands played the mother in the critically acclaimed made-for-TV movie "An Early Frost". She won an Emmy for her portrayal of former First Lady of the United States Betty Ford in the 1987 made-for-TV movie "The Betty Ford Story".


title: Gena Rowlands

text: In 1988, Rowlands starred in Woody Allen's dramatic film "Another Woman". She played Marion Post, a middle-aged professor who is prompted to a journey of self-discovery when she overhears the therapy sessions of another woman (Mia Farrow). The review in "Time Out" described the character's trajectory: "Marion gets to thinking, and is appalled to realise that so many assumptions about her own life and marriage are largely unfounded: in her desire for a controlled existence, she has evaded the emotional truth about relationships with her best friend (Sandy Dennis), brother (Harris Yulin) and husband (Ian Holm)." "Time Out" praised the "marvellous" performances in the film, adding, "Rowlands' perfectly pitched approach to a demanding role is particularly stunning." Film4 called her performance "sublime", while Roger Ebert noted that it marked a considerable change in tone from her work with Cassavetes, thus showing "how good an actress Rowlands has been all along."


title: Gena Rowlands

text: In 2002, Rowlands appeared in Mira Nair's HBO movie "Hysterical Blindness", for which she won her third Emmy. Next year she appeared as Mrs. Hellman an episode from the third season of "Numb3rs". She played a Nazi survivor whose whole family was killed. The family owned a painting that the Nazis confiscated. Later on the painting reappeared. The new owner lent the painting to an art gallery in Los Angeles but while on display it was stolen. F.B.I. agent Don Eppes, played by Rob Morrow, tries to figure out what really happened. Rowlands received rave reviews for this role. She has been a spokesperson for people who were persecuted by the Nazis so this role was a perfect match for her.


title: Gena Rowlands

text: She was later seen in "The Notebook" (2004), which was directed by her son Nick Cassavetes. The same year, she won her first Daytime Emmy for her role as Mrs. Evelyn Ritchie in "The Incredible Mrs. Ritchie". In 2005, she appeared opposite Kate Hudson, Peter Sarsgaard, and John Hurt in the gothic thriller "The Skeleton Key".


title: Gena Rowlands

text: In 2007, she played a supporting role opposite Parker Posey and Melvil Poupaud in "Broken English", an independent American feature written and directed by her daughter Zoe Cassavetes. In 2009, she appeared on an episode of "Monk" ("Mr. Monk and the Lady Next Door"). On March 2, 2010, she appeared on an episode of "NCIS" as lead character Leroy Jethro Gibbs's former mother-in-law, who is embroiled in a murder investigation. In 2014, she starred in the film adaptation of "Six Dance Lessons in Six Weeks".


title: Gena Rowlands

text: Rowlands was married to John Cassavetes from April 9, 1954, until his death on February 3, 1989. They met at the American Academy at Carnegie Hall, where they were both students. They had three children, all actor-directors: Nick, Alexandra, and Zoe. Rowlands married retired businessman Robert Forrest in 2012.


title: Gena Rowlands

text: Rowlands has stated that she was a fan of actress Bette Davis while growing up. She played Davis's daughter in the 1979 made-for-TV film "".


title: Gena Rowlands

text: Rowlands has been nominated for two Academy Awards, eight Primetime Emmy Awards, one Daytime Emmy Award, eight Golden Globe Awards, three Satellite Awards, and two SAG Awards. Some of her notable wins are a Silver Bear for Best Actress, three Primetime Emmy Awards and one Daytime Emmy Award, two Golden Globe Awards, two National Board of Review Awards, and two Satellite Awards.


title: Gena Rowlands

text: In January 2015, Rowlands was presented with a lifetime achievement award by the Los Angeles Film Critics Association. She was also chosen by the Academy Awards board of governors to receive an Honorary Academy Award that same year. At the Governors Awards ceremony, she was honored by Laura Linney and Cate Blanchett who offered up tributes; and Rowland's son Nick Cassavetes presented the award to her. The press release described Rowlands as "an original talent" whose "devotion to her craft has earned her worldwide recognition as an independent film icon".


title: As Good as It Gets

text: As Good as It Gets is a 1997 American romantic comedy-drama film directed by James L. Brooks, who co-wrote it with Mark Andrus. The film stars Jack Nicholson as a misanthropic, bigoted, and obsessive–compulsive novelist, Helen Hunt as a single mother with a chronically ill son, and Greg Kinnear as an artist who is gay. The film premiered in Regency Village Theatre on December 6, 1997, and was released in theaters on December 25, 1997, and was a box office hit, grossing $314.1 million on a $50 million budget.


title: As Good as It Gets

text: Nicholson and Hunt won the Academy Award for Best Actor and Best Actress, respectively, making "As Good as It Gets" the most recent film to win both of the lead acting awards, and the first since 1991's "The Silence of the Lambs". It was also nominated for Best Picture but ultimately lost to "Titanic". It is ranked 140th on "Empire" magazine's "The 500 Greatest Movies of All Time" list.


title: As Good as It Gets

text: Misanthropic New York City best-selling romance novelist Melvin Udall has obsessive–compulsive disorder; he uses soap bars to wash his hands only once, dislikes touching pets, avoids stepping on sidewalk cracks while walking through the city, and eats his breakfast at the same table in the same restaurant. He takes an interest in his waitress, Carol Connelly, the only server at the restaurant who can tolerate his uncouth behavior.


title: As Good as It Gets

text: One day, Melvin's apartment neighbor, gay artist Simon Bishop, is assaulted and nearly killed during a robbery. Simon's agent, Frank Sachs, intimidates Melvin into caring for Simon's Griffon Bruxellois, Verdell, while he is hospitalized. Although he initially does not enjoy caring for the dog, Melvin becomes emotionally attached to it, simultaneously receiving more attention from Carol. When Simon is released from the hospital, Melvin is unable to cope emotionally with returning the dog. Melvin's life is further altered when Carol decides to work closer to her home in Brooklyn so she can care for her acutely asthmatic son Spencer. Unable to adjust to a different waitress, Melvin arranges through his publisher (whose husband is a doctor) to pay for her son's considerable medical expenses as long as Carol agrees to return to work. She is overwhelmed but doubts his generosity.


title: As Good as It Gets

text: Meanwhile, Simon's assault and rehabilitation, coupled with Verdell's preference for Melvin, causes Simon to lose his creative muse and fall into a depression. With no medical insurance, he is approaching bankruptcy due to his medical bills. Frank persuades him to go to Baltimore to ask his estranged parents for money. Because Frank is too busy to take the injured Simon to Baltimore himself, Melvin reluctantly agrees to do so; Frank lends Melvin the use of his Saab 900 convertible for the trip. Melvin invites Carol to accompany them on the trip to lessen the awkwardness. She reluctantly accepts, and relationships among the three develop.


title: As Good as It Gets

text: Once in Baltimore, Carol persuades Melvin to take her out for dinner. Melvin's comments during the dinner greatly flatter—and subsequently upset—Carol, and she abruptly leaves. Upon seeing her, frustrated, Simon begins to sketch her, semi-nude, in his hotel room, which rekindles his creativity, and he once more feels a desire to paint. He briefly reconnects with his mother, but is able to tell her that he will be fine.


title: As Good as It Gets

text: After returning to New York, Carol tells Melvin that she does not want him in her life anymore, but later regrets her statement and calls to apologize. The relationship between Melvin and Carol remains complicated, until Simon (whom Melvin has allowed to move in with him, as his apartment has been sublet) persuades Melvin to declare his love for her. Melvin goes to see Carol, who hesitantly agrees to try and establish a relationship with him. The film ends with Melvin and Carol walking together. As he opens the door at an early morning pastry shop for Carol, he realizes that he has stepped on a crack in the pavement, but does not seem to mind.


title: As Good as It Gets

text: In 1996, James L. Brooks flew Geoffrey Rush from Sydney to Los Angeles to audition for the part of Simon Bishop, and offered him the role, but Rush declined it. Betty White was offered a role in the film but she declined, due to a scene in the film where a dog is thrown into a trash chute.


title: As Good as It Gets

text: Nicholson and Brooks clashed on set regarding Nicholson's performance of Melvin, leading to a production halt for the two to find the correct tone for the character.


title: As Good as It Gets

text: The soundtrack features instrumental pieces composed by Hans Zimmer and songs by various artists. Zimmer's work was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Score – Musical or Comedy.


title: As Good as It Gets

text: "As Good as It Gets" was a box office hit, opening at number three at the box office (behind "Titanic" and "Tomorrow Never Dies") with $12.6 million, and eventually earning over $148 million domestically and $314 million worldwide. It is Jack Nicholson's second highest earning film, behind "Batman".


title: As Good as It Gets

text: The film has been released widely on VHS, LaserDisc and DVD. It was released on Blu-ray in the United States on June 12, 2012 as part of Twilight Time's Screen Archives collection. The set was limited to 3,000 units and sold out quickly. It was released more widely in European countries.


title: As Good as It Gets

text: Sony Pictures released the film on 4K UHD Blu-ray on October 25, 2022 as part of its Columbia Classics 4K Ultra HD Collection Volume 3, along with "It Happened One Night", "From Here To Eternity", "To Sir, With Love", "The Last Picture Show" and "Annie". It contains exclusive never-before-seen bonus features.


title: As Good as It Gets

text: "Chicago Reader" film critic Jonathan Rosenbaum wrote that what director James L. Brooks "manages to do with [the characters] as they struggle mightily to connect with one another is funny, painful, beautiful, and basically truthful—a triumph for everyone involved."


title: As Good as It Gets

text: Praise for the film was not uniform among critics. While Roger Ebert gave the film three stars (out of four), he called the film a "compromise, a film that forces a smile onto material that doesn't wear one easily," writing that the film drew "back to story formulas," but had good dialogue and performances. "The Washington Post" critic Desson Howe gave a generally negative review of the film, writing that it "gets bogged down in sentimentality, while its wheels spin futilely in life-solving overdrive."


title: As Good as It Gets

text: Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reports that 85% of professional critics gave the film a positive review based on 79 reviews, with an average rating of 7.30/10. The consensus states: "James L. Brooks and Jack Nicholson, doing what they do best, combine smart dialogue and flawless acting to squeeze fresh entertainment value out of the romantic-comedy genre." Metacritic gave the film a score of 67 out of 100, based on reviews from 30 critics, indicating generally favorable reviews.


title: Second Coming

text: The Second Coming (sometimes called the Second Advent or the Parousia) is a Christian (as well as Islamic and Baha'i) belief that Jesus will return again after his ascension to heaven about two thousand years ago. The idea is based on messianic prophecies and is part of most Christian eschatologies.


title: Second Coming

text: In the New Testament, the Greek word ἐπιφάνεια ("epiphaneia", appearing) is used five times to refer to the return of Christ.


title: Second Coming

text: The Greek New Testament uses the Greek term "parousia" (παρουσία, meaning "arrival", "coming", or "presence") twenty-four times, seventeen of them concerning Christ. However, parousia has the distinct reference to a period of time rather than an instance in time. At parousia is used to clearly describe the period of time that Noah lived. The Greek word "eleusi"s which means "coming" is not interchangeable with parousia. So this parousia or "presence" would be unique and distinct from anything that had occurred before. The word is also used six times referring to individuals (Stephanas, Fortunatus and Achaicus, Titus, and Paul the Apostle ) and one time referring to the "coming of the lawless one".


title: Second Coming

text: Gustav Adolf Deissmann (1908) showed that the Greek word "parousia" occurred as early as the 3rd century BC to describe the visit of a king or dignitary to a city – a visit arranged in order to show the visitor's magnificence to the people.


title: Second Coming

text: In Islam, the term Rajʽa () refers to the Second Coming. The term is most commonly used by Shia Muslims.


title: Second Coming

text: Views about the nature of the Second Coming vary among Christian denominations and among individual Christians. Many specific dates have been predicted for the Second Coming, some now in the distant past, others still in the future.


title: Second Coming

text: A 2010 survey showed that about 40% of Americans believe that Jesus is likely to return by 2050. This varies from 58% of white evangelical Christians, through 32% of Catholics to 27% of white mainline Protestants. Belief in the Second Coming was popularised in the US in the late nineteenth century by the evangelist Dwight L. Moody and the premillennial interpretation became one of the core components of Christian fundamentalism in the 1920s.


title: Second Coming

text: The most common English translation of "genea" is "generation", which lead some to conclude that the Second Coming was to be witnessed by the people living in the same generation as Jesus. For instance, according to historian Charles Freeman, early Christians expected Jesus to return within a generation of his death and the non-occurrence of the second coming really surprised the early Christian communities.


title: Second Coming

text: In most German Bibles, "genea" is instead translated as "family/lineage" (geschlecht). Likewise for Danish, Swedish and Norwegian (slægt, släkte and slekt, respectively). The Danish linguist Iver Larsen argues that the word "generation" as it was used in the King James Version of the Bible (1611) had a much wider meaning than it has today, and that the correct translation of "genea" in the context of the second coming is "kind of people." (specifically the "good" kind of people; the disciple's kind of people, who, like the words of Jesus, will endure through all the tribulations). In Psalm 14, the King James version uses "generation" in this wide and outdated sense, when it declares that "God is in the generation of the righteous." According to Larsen, the Oxford Universal Dictionary states that the latest attested use of "genea" in the sense of "class, kind or set of persons" took place in 1727. Larsen concludes that the meaning of "generation" in the English language has narrowed considerably since then.


title: Second Coming

text: Bible scholar Philip La Grange du Toit argues that "genea" is mostly used to describe a timeless and spiritual family/lineage of good or bad people in The New Testament, and that this is the case also for the second coming discourse in Matthew 24. In contrast to Larsen however, he argues that the word "genea" here denotes the "bad" kind of people," because Jesus had used the word in that pejorative sense in the preceding context (chapter 23.) He also lists the main competing translation alternatives, and some of the scholars that supports the different views:


title: Second Coming

text: He makes similar predictions in five other places in the Gospels; , , , , In religious sceptic Victor J. Stenger's view, when the coming did not happen within the life-times of his disciples, Christianity changed its emphasis to the resurrection and promise of eternal life. A competing view is that it is Jesus' coming in power on the mountain that provides the correct interpretative frame for the "not taste death" statement. The author of Second Peter describes the event:


title: Second Coming

text: The position associating the Second Coming with 1st century events such as the destruction of Jerusalem and of the Jewish Temple in AD 70 is known as Preterism.


title: Second Coming

text: Some Preterists see this "coming of the Son of Man in glory" primarily fulfilled in Jesus' death on the cross. They believe the apocalyptic signs are already fulfilled including "the sun will be dark" (cf. ), the "powers ... will be shaken," (cf. ) and "then they will see" (cf. ). Yet some critics note that many are missing, such as "But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night, in which the heavens will pass away with a great noise, and the elements will melt with fervent heat; both the earth and the works that are in it will be burned up." (). And "Then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory." ()


title: Second Coming

text: According to the Catholic Church, the second coming will happen in a single moment, suddenly and unexpectedly (not even the angels, saints, or demons know when it will occur). It will cause the fullness of the reign of God and the consummation of the universe and mankind.


title: Second Coming

text: The fullness of the reign of God means God fully manifests the victory he won over his enemies (sin, suffering, and Satan) on the Cross. Just as God gradually revealed himself to Israel until the birth of Jesus, so God gradually manifests his victory through the church's sacraments (baptism forgiving sin and exorcising Satan, holy unction relieving suffering, etc.), until the moment when he will fully manifest his victory through the consummation of the universe and mankind, e.g., by granting the universe and mankind a share in Jesus' resurrection (the universe being transfigured and the dead being resurrected, judged, and recompensed).


title: Second Coming

text: The church does not believe the second coming will happen via a catastrophe (such as a nuclear war or extinction event), reincarnation (such as someone claiming to be Jesus), social or technological progress (such as mankind abolishing slavery or curing disease) or ascendancy (such as the church having political power). Nor does the church believe in double predestination.


title: Second Coming

text: At the moment of Jesus' arrival, three events will happen all at once in an instant, in the blink of an eye: the living will die, the universe will be transfigured, and the dead will be resurrected, judged, and recomepnsed. After this single instant or moment, the church does not know what will happen for the rest of eternity - only that the damned will continue to be in hell and the saved will continue to experience the beatific vision.


title: Second Coming

text: The second coming is suspended until Jesus is recognized by "all of Israel," and it will be proceeded by a final and ultimate temptation to sin - in this case, apostasy - caused by the antichrist. Yet there are three things that hasten the second coming: the celebration of the Eucharist; Christians living with the mind of Jesus; and Christians praying for the Second Coming.


title: Second Coming

text: Like many Christian denominations, the church considers this second coming of Christ to be the final and eternal judgment by God of the people in every nation resulting in the glorification of some and the punishment of others. The concept is found in all the Canonical gospels, particularly the Gospel of Matthew.


title: Second Coming

text: A decisive factor in this Last Judgement during the second coming of Christ will be the question, if the corporal and spiritual works of mercy were practiced or not during lifetime. They rate as important acts of mercy, charity and justice. Therefore, and according to the Biblical sources (–), the conjunction of the Last Judgement and the works of mercy is very frequent in the pictorial tradition of Christian art.


title: Second Coming

text: It is the traditional view of Orthodox Christians, preserved from the early Church, that the Second Coming will be a sudden and unmistakable incident, like "a flash of lightning". They hold the general view that Jesus will not spend any time on the earth in ministry or preaching, but come to judge mankind. They teach that the ministry of the Antichrist will take place right before the Second Coming.


title: Second Coming

text: The Ethiopian Orthodox Church, a part of the Oriental Orthodox communion of churches, teaches that the second coming of Jesus will be radically different than his first coming, which "was to save the lost world".


title: Second Coming

text: Orthodox layman Alexander Kalomiros explains the original Church's position regarding the Second Coming in "River of Fire" and "Against False Union", stating that those who contend that Christ will reign on earth for a thousand years "do not wait for Christ, but for the Antichrist." The idea of Jesus returning to this earth as a king is a heretical concept to the Church, equated to "the expectations of the Jews who wanted the Messiah to be an earthly King." The Church instead teaches that which it has taught since the beginning.


title: Second Coming

text: A reference to the second coming is contained in the Nicene Creed and Apostles Creed, which is recited during the Lutheran and Anglican liturgies: "He [Jesus] shall come again in glory to judge the living and the dead; and His kingdom shall have no end." An analogous statement is also in the biblical Pauline Creed ().


title: Second Coming

text: The Lutheran and Anglican churches proclaim the Mystery of Faith in their liturgies: "Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again."


title: Second Coming

text: Some Methodist denominations teach that the Second Coming is connected with the Last Judgement. The Emmanuel Association, a Methodist denomination in the conservative holiness movement teaches:


title: Second Coming

text: The standard works of the largest denomination in the Latter Day Saint movement, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church), say that Christ will return, as stated in the Bible. They also teach that The LDS Church and its leaders do not make predictions of the actual date of the Second Coming.


title: Second Coming

text: Latter-day Saints have particularly distinct and specific interpretations of what are considered to be signs stated in the Book of Revelation.


title: Second Coming

text: According to LDS Church teachings, the restored gospel will be taught in all parts of the world prior to the Second Coming. Church members believe that there will be increasingly severe wars, earthquakes, hurricanes, and other man-made and natural disasters prior to the Second Coming.


title: Second Coming

text: Jehovah's Witnesses rarely use the term "second coming", preferring the term "presence" as a translation of "parousia". They believe that Jesus' comparison of ""the presence of the Son of man"" with ""the days of Noah"" at and suggests a duration rather than a moment of arrival. They also believe that biblical chronology points to 1914 as the start of Christ's "presence", which continues until the final battle of Armageddon. Other biblical expressions they correlate with this period include "the time of the end" (), "the conclusion of the system of things" (,; ) and "the last days" (; ). Witnesses believe Christ's millennial reign begins after Armageddon.


title: Second Coming

text: Emanuel Swedenborg, an 18th century scientist turned theologian, taught that his time (that historians have called the Age of Enlightenment) was an age of darkness and doubt for the Christian church. Historian Marguerite Beck Block writes,


title: Second Coming

text: In Max Heindel's teaching, there is a distinction between the cosmic Christ, or Christ without, and the Christ within. According to this tradition, the Christ within is regarded as the true Saviour who needs to be born within each individual in order to evolve toward the future Sixth Epoch in the Earth's etheric plane, that is, toward the "new heavens and a new earth": the "New Galilee." The Second Coming or Advent of the Christ is not in a physical body, but in the new "soul body" of each individual in the etheric plane of the planet where man "shall be caught up in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air." The "day and hour" of this event is not known. The esoteric Christian tradition teaches that first there will be a preparatory period as the Sun enters Aquarius, an astrological concept, by precession: the coming Age of Aquarius.


title: Second Coming

text: In Islam, Jesus (or Isa; ) is considered to be a Messenger of God and the "masih" (messiah) who was sent to guide "banī isrā'īl" (the Israelites) with a new scripture, the "Injīl" (Gospel). The belief in Jesus (and all other messengers of God) is required in Islam, and a requirement of being a Muslim. However, Muslims do not recognize Jesus as the Son of God, as they believe God has no equals, but instead as a prophet. The Quran states that Jesus was born of the Virgin Mary. Muslims believe that Jesus performed all the miracles in the Gospels (with God's permission), but do not believe that Jesus was crucified. The pertinent verses in Sura An-Nisa 4:157 reads “And for their saying, ‘Indeed, we have killed the Messiah, Jesus, the son of Mary, the messenger of Allah.’ And they did not kill him, nor did they crucify him; but another was made to resemble him to them. And indeed, those who differ over it are in doubt about it. They have no knowledge of it except the following of assumption. And they did not kill him, for certain.” 4:158 continues “rather, Allah raised him to Himself. And ever is Allah Exalted in Might and Wise.”


title: Second Coming

text: The Quran refers to a conversation between Jesus and God on judgement day in Sura Al-Ma'idah 5:116, 5:117. Jesus is questioned 5:116 "Did you ever ask the people to worship you and your mother as gods besides Allah?". To which Jesus replies 5:117 "I never told them anything except what You ordered me to say: “Worship Allah—my Lord and your Lord!” And I was witness over them as long as I remained among them."


title: Second Coming

text: In the Quran, the second coming of Jesus is heralded in Sura Az-Zukhruf as a sign of the Day of Judgment.


title: Second Coming

text: Ibn Kathir presents this verse as proof of Jesus' second coming in the Quran in his exegesis "Tafsir al-Qur'an al-Azim".


title: Second Coming

text: There are also hadiths that foretell Jesus' future return such as: "Sahih al-Bukhari", Volume 3, Book 43: "Kitab-ul-`Ilm" (Book of Knowledge), Hadith Number 656:


title: Second Coming

text: According to Islamic tradition, Jesus' descent will be in the midst of wars fought by the Mahdi ("lit". "the rightly guided one"), known in Islamic eschatology as the redeemer of Islam, against the al-Masih ad-Dajjal (literally "the false messiah", synonymous with the Antichrist) and his followers. Jesus will descend at the point of a white arcade, east of Damascus, dressed in saffron robes — his head anointed. He will then join the Mahdi in his war against the Dajjal. Jesus, considered in Islam as a Muslim (one who submits to God) and one of God's messengers, will abide by the Islamic teachings. Eventually, Jesus will slay the Antichrist Dajjal, and then everyone from the People of the Book ("ahl al-kitāb", referring to Jews and Christians) will believe in him. Thus, there will be one community, that of Islam.


title: Second Coming

text: After the death of the Mahdi, Jesus will assume leadership. This is a time associated in Islamic narrative with universal peace and justice. Islamic texts also allude to the appearance of Ya'juj and Ma'juj (Gog and Magog), ancient tribes that will disperse and cause disturbance on earth. God, in response to Jesus' prayers, will kill them by sending a type of worm in the napes of their necks. Jesus' rule is said to be around forty years, after which he will die, (according to Islam Jesus did not die on the cross but was taken up to heaven and continues to live until his return in the second coming). Muslims will then perform the "Salat al-Janazah" (funeral prayer) for him and bury him in the city of Medina in a grave left vacant beside Muhammad.


title: Second Coming

text: The Ahmadiyya movement believe that the promised Mahdi and Messiah arrived in the person of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad (1835–1908). This is widely rejected by other Muslims, who do not regard Ahmadis as a legitimate sect of Islam.


title: Second Coming

text: The "hadith" (sayings of the Islamic prophet Muhammad) and the Bible indicated that Jesus would return during the latter days. Islamic tradition commonly depicts that Jesus, upon his second coming, would be an "Ummati" (Muslim) and a follower of Muhammad and that he would revive the truth of Islam rather than fostering a new religion.


title: Second Coming

text: The Ahmadiyya movement interpret the Second Coming of Jesus prophesied as being that of a person "similar to Jesus" ("mathīl-i ʿIsā") and not his physical return, in the same way as John the Baptist resembled the character of the biblical prophet Elijah in Christianity. Ahmadis believe that Mirza Ghulam Ahmad (the founder of the movement) demonstrated that the prophecy in Muslim and Christian religious texts were traditionally misunderstood to suggest that Jesus of Nazareth himself would return, and hold that Jesus survived the crucifixion and later died a natural death. Ahmadis consider Ghulam Ahmad, in both his character and teachings, to be representative of Jesus, and that he attained the same spiritual rank of Prophethood as Jesus. Thus, Ahmadis believe this prediction was fulfilled and continued by his movement.


title: Second Coming

text: According to the Baháʼí Faith, the Second Coming is a gradual process that coincides with the advancement of human civilization from the beginning of humanity. It teaches that the founders of the major world religions each represent a return of the Word and Spirit of God as a new, unique personification sent by God, who introduces new teachings, laws and revelations, such that all major religions are part of a progressive revelation. Each Coming is said to build upon the major world religions emerging from earlier ages, verifying previous spiritual truths, and fulfilling its prophesies regarding a future return or coming. In this context, the Second Coming is depicted as a continuation of God's will in one continuous faith, with different names as presented by the founders of each religion as the voice of God at different times in history.


title: Second Coming

text: Bahá'u'lláh announced that he was a manifestation of the returned Christ, understood as a reappearance of the Word and Spirit of God: He wrote to Pope Pius IX, He referred to himself as the "Ancient of Days" and the "Pen of Glory", and also claimed: Baha'u'llah also wrote,


title: Second Coming

text: Followers of the Baháʼí Faith believe that prophecies of the second coming of Jesus (along with prophecies from other religions) were fulfilled by his forerunner the Báb in 1844 and then by the events occurring during the days of Bahá'u'lláh. They believe that the fulfillment of Christian prophecies by Baha'u'llah is similar to Jesus' fulfillment of Jewish prophecies, where in both cases people were expecting the literal fulfillment of apocalyptic statements that led to rejections of the Return, instead of accepting fulfillment in symbolic and spiritual ways. Baháʼís understand that the return of the Christ with a new name was intended by Jesus to be a Return in a spiritual sense, due to Jesus explaining in the Gospels that the return of Elijah in John the Baptist was a return in a spiritual sense.


title: Second Coming

text: Judaism teaches that Jesus is one of the false Jewish Messiah claimants because he failed to fulfill any Messianic prophecies, which include:


title: Second Coming

text: In the early developments of the Rastafari religion, Haile Selassie (the Ethiopian Emperor) was regarded as a member of the House of David, is worshipped as God incarnate, and is thought to be the "black Jesus" and "black messiah" – the second coming of Christ. It was claimed that Marcus Garvey preached the coming of the black messiah on the eve of Selassie's coronation. Due to this prophecy, Selassie was the source of inspiration of the poor and uneducated Christian populations of Jamaica, who believed that the Emperor would liberate the black people from the subjugation of European colonists.


title: Second Coming

text: In modern times some traditional Indian religious leaders have moved to embrace Jesus as an avatar, or incarnation, of God. In light of this, the Indian guru Paramahansa Yogananda, author of "Autobiography of a Yogi", wrote an extensive commentary on the Gospels published in 2004 in the two-volume set "The Second Coming of Christ: The Resurrection of the Christ Within You". The book offers a mystical interpretation of the Second Coming in which it is understood to be an inner experience, something that takes place within the individual heart. In the introduction of this book, Yogananda wrote that the true Second Coming is the resurrection within you of the Infinite Christ Consciousness. Also stated in the Book of Luke – "Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you." ()


title: Second Coming

text: Daya Mata wrote in the preface of "The Second Coming of Christ" that the "two-volume scriptural treatise thus represents the inclusive culmination of Paramahansa Yogananda's divine commission to make manifest to the world the essence of original Christianity as taught by Jesus Christ." In sharing her memories of when she wrote down his words, she shares – "the great Guru, his face radiantly enraptured, as he records for the world the inspired exposition of the Gospel teachings imparted to him through direct, personal communion with Jesus of Nazareth." Larry Dossey, M.D., wrote that "Paramahansa Yogananda’s "The Second Coming of Christ" is one of the most important analyses of Jesus’ teachings that exists...Many interpretations of Jesus’ words divide peoples, cultures, and nations; these foster unity and healing, and that is why they are vital for today’s world."


title: Teen Titans

text: The Teen Titans are a superhero team appearing in American comic books published by DC Comics, frequently in eponymous monthly series. As the group's name indicates, the members are teenage superheroes, many of whom have acted as sidekicks to DC's premier superheroes in the Justice League. The original team later becomes known as the Titans when the members age out of their teenage years, while the Teen Titans name is continued by subsequent generations of young heroes. First appearing in 1964 in "The Brave and the Bold" #54, the team was formed by Kid Flash (Wally West), Robin (Dick Grayson), and Aqualad (Garth) before adopting the name Teen Titans in issue 60 with the addition of Wonder Girl (Donna Troy) to their ranks.


title: Teen Titans

text: Over the decades, DC has cancelled and relaunched "Teen Titans" many times, and a variety of characters have been featured heroes in its pages. Significant early additions to the initial quartet of Titans were Speedy (Roy Harper), Aquagirl (Tula), Bumblebee (Karen Beecher), Hawk (Hank Hall), Dove (Don Hall), Harlequin (Duela Dent), and three non-costumed heroes: boxer Mal Duncan, psychic Lilith, and caveman Gnarrk. The series would not become a genuine hit until its 1980s revival as "The New Teen Titans" under writer Marv Wolfman and artist George Pérez. This run depicted the original Titans now as young adults and introduced new characters Cyborg (Victor Stone), Starfire (Koriand'r), and Raven (Rachel Roth), as well as the former Doom Patrol member Beast Boy (Garfield Logan) under his new alias of Changeling, who would all become enduring fan favorites. A high point for the series both critically and commercially was its "The Judas Contract" storyline, where the Teen Titans are betrayed by their teammate Terra (Tara Markov).


title: Teen Titans

text: The 1990s featured a Teen Titans team composed entirely of new members before the previous members returned in the series "Titans", which ran from the late 1990s to the early 2000s. Subsequent stories in the 2000s introduced a radically different Teen Titans team made up of newer DC Comics sidekicks such as Robin III (Tim Drake), Wonder Girl II (Cassie Sandsmark), and Impulse / Kid Flash II (Bart Allen), as well as Superboy (Kon-El), some of whom had previously featured in the similar title "Young Justice". Later prominent additions from this era included Miss Martian (M'gann M'orzz), Ravager (Rose Wilson), Supergirl (Kara Zor-El), Kid Devil, and Blue Beetle III (Jaime Reyes). Concurrently, DC also published "Titans", which featured some of the original and 1980s members now as adults, led by Dick Grayson in his adult persona of Nightwing. DC's "The New 52" reboot in 2011 later brought new characters to the founding roster, including Solstice (Kiran Singh), Bunker (Miguel Jose Barragan), and Skitter (Celine Patterson), although this volume proved commercially and critically disappointing for DC. In 2016, DC used the "Titans Hunt" and "DC Rebirth" storylines to re-establish the group's original founding members and history, reuniting these classic heroes as the Titans, while introducing a new generation of Teen Titans led by Robin V (Damian Wayne) with Aqualad II (Jackson Hyde) and Kid Flash III (Wallace West) as the team's latest members alongside team mainstays Starfire, Raven and Beast Boy.


title: Teen Titans

text: The Teen Titans have been adapted to other media numerous times, and have enjoyed a higher profile since Cartoon Network's animated series in the early-to-mid 2000s and its DC Nation spin-off "Teen Titans Go!", both of which featured Robin, Starfire, Cyborg, Raven, and Beast Boy as the primary members of the team. A live action series premiered on DC Universe in 2018. Its characters and stories were also adapted into the 2010s animated series "Young Justice". Within DC Comics, the Teen Titans have been an influential group of characters taking prominent roles in all of the publisher's major company-wide crossover stories. Many villains who face the Titans have since taken on a larger role within the publisher's fictional universe, such as the assassin Deathstroke, the demon Trigon, and the evil organization H.I.V.E.


title: Teen Titans

text: Robin (Dick Grayson), Kid Flash (Wally West) and Aqualad (Garth) team up to defeat a weather-controlling villain known as Mister Twister in "The Brave and the Bold" #54 (July 1964) by writer Bob Haney and artist Bruno Premiani. They appeared under the name "Teen Titans" in "The Brave and the Bold" #60 (July 1965), joined by Wonder Woman's younger sister Wonder Girl (Donna Troy). After being featured in "Showcase" #59 (December 1965), the Teen Titans were spun off into their own series with "Teen Titans" #1 by Haney and artist Nick Cardy.


title: Teen Titans

text: The series' original premise had the Teen Titans helping teenagers and answering calls. Comics historian Les Daniels noted that Haney "took some ribbing for the writing style that described the Teen Titans as 'the Cool Quartet' or 'the Fab Foursome'. The attempt to reach the youth culture then embracing performers like The Beatles and Bob Dylan impressed some observers." Green Arrow's sidekick Speedy makes guest appearances before officially joining the team in "Teen Titans" #19. Aqualad takes a leave of absence from the group in the same issue, but makes several later guest appearances, sometimes with girlfriend Aquagirl. Neal Adams was called upon to rewrite and redraw a "Teen Titans" story which had been written by Len Wein and Marv Wolfman. The story, titled "Titans Fit the Battle of Jericho!", would have introduced DC's first African American superhero, but was rejected by publisher Carmine Infantino. The revised story appeared in "Teen Titans" #20 (March–April 1969). Wolfman and Gil Kane created an origin for Wonder Girl in "Teen Titans" #22 (July–Aug. 1969) and introduced her new costume. Psychic Lilith Clay and Mal Duncan also join the group. Beast Boy of the Doom Patrol makes a guest appearance seeking membership, but was rejected as too young at the time; existing heroes Hawk and Dove, a duo of teenaged superpowered brothers, appear in issue #21; and time-displaced caveman Gnarrk aids the team in two issues.


title: Teen Titans

text: The series explored events such as inner-city racial tension and protests against the Vietnam War. One storyline beginning in issue #25 (February 1970) saw the Titans deal with the accidental death of a peace activist, leading them to reconsider their methods. As a result, the Teen Titans briefly abandoned their identities to work as ordinary civilians, but the effort was quickly abandoned. Along the way, Aqualad left the series and the character of Mr. Jupiter, who was Lilith's mentor and employer, was introduced. He financially backed the Titans for a brief period. The series was canceled with #43 (January–February 1973).


title: Teen Titans

text: The series resumed with issue #44 (November 1976). The stories included the introductions of African American superheroine Bumblebee and former supervillainess-turned-superheroine Harlequin in issue #48 and the introduction of the "Teen Titans West" team in issues #50–52 consisting of a number of other teen heroes, including Bat-Girl (Betty Kane) and Golden Eagle. The revival was short-lived and the series was cancelled as of issue #53 (February 1978), which featured an origin story. At the end, the heroes realized that, now that they were in their early 20s, they had outgrown the name the "Teen" Titans. In the last panel, without speaking, they all go their separate ways.


title: Teen Titans

text: The title appeared again in 1999 for "Giant Teen Titans Annual" #1 (1967 issue) (), a one-shot special that reprinted selected Silver Age stories in the 1960s-style "80-Page Giant" format.


title: Teen Titans

text: "DC Comics Presents" #26 (October 1980) introduced a new team of Titans, anchored by Robin, Wonder Girl, and Kid Flash and soon followed by "The New Teen Titans" #1 (November 1980). The series, created by writer Marv Wolfman and artist George Pérez, re-introduced Beast Boy as Changeling and introduced the machine man Cyborg, the alien Starfire, and the dark empath Raven. Raven, an expert manipulator, forms the group to fight her demonic father Trigon the Terrible and the team remains together.


title: Teen Titans

text: Wolfman and Pérez's working relationship quickly evolved to the point where they were plotting the series jointly. Wolfman recalled that "once George moved to the same town I lived in, only five blocks or so away, we usually got together for lunch and would work out a story over the next few hours. In many cases I would then go home and write up a plot based on it, or sometimes George would take the verbal plotting we did and take it from there."


title: Teen Titans

text: The team's adversaries included Deathstroke the Terminator, a mercenary who takes a contract to kill the Titans to fulfill a job his son had been unable to complete. This led to perhaps the most notable Titans storyline of the era. 1984's "The Judas Contract", in "Tales of the Teen Titans" #42–44 and "Tales of the Teen Titans Annual" #3, featured a psychopathic girl named Terra with the power to manipulate Earth and all Earth-related materials. She infiltrates the Titans in order to destroy them. "The Judas Contract" won the Comics Buyer's Guide Fan Award for "Favorite Comic Book Story" of 1984 and was later reprinted as a standalone trade paperback in 1988. Robin adopts the identity of Nightwing, while Wally West gives up his Kid Flash persona and quits the Titans. It also featured the introduction of a new member in Jericho, Deathstroke's other son.


title: Teen Titans

text: Other notable "New Teen Titans" stories included "A Day in the Lives...", presenting a day in the team members' personal lives; "Who is Donna Troy?", depicting Robin investigating Wonder Girl's origins; and "We Are Gathered Here Today...", telling the story of Wonder Girl's wedding. "Tales of the New Teen Titans", a four-part limited series by Wolfman and Pérez, was published in 1982, detailing the back-stories of Cyborg, Raven, Changeling, and Starfire. Wolfman wrote a series of "New Teen Titans" drug awareness comic books which were published in cooperation with The President's Drug Awareness Campaign in 1983–1984. The first was pencilled by Pérez and sponsored by the Keebler Company, the second was illustrated by Ross Andru and underwritten by the American Soft Drink Industry, and the third was drawn by Adrian Gonzales and financed by IBM.


title: Teen Titans

text: The "New Teen Titans" relaunched with a new #1 issue in August 1984 as part of a new initiative at DC informally referred to as "hardcover/softcover". "The New Teen Titans" along with "Legion of Super-Heroes" and "Batman and the Outsiders" were the first and only titles included in this program. The same stories were published twice, first in a more expensive edition with higher-quality printing and paper distributed exclusively to comic book specialty stores, then republished a year later in the original format, distributed to newsstands. The title was renamed "Tales of the Teen Titans" with issue #41, while a new concurrently published series named "The New Teen Titans" (vol. 2) launched with a new #1 following the release of "Tales of the Teen Titans" #44 and "Annual" #3, the conclusion of the "Judas Contract" storyline. After both titles ran new stories for one year, with "Tales of the Teen Titans" #45–58 taking place prior to the events of "The New Teen Titans" (vol. 2) #1, and a filler issue reprinting a digest-only story and the original preview story from "DC Comics Presents" #26, the series began reprinting the first 31 issues of the "hardcover" series (sans several back-up stories focusing on Tamaran that ran in "New Teen Titans" #14–18), the first "Annual", and the lead story from the second "Annual", before being cancelled with issue #91.


title: Teen Titans

text: Issue #1 of "The New Teen Titans" (vol. 2) created controversy when Grayson and Starfire were depicted in bed together, although it had been established for some time that they were a couple. The initial storyline, "The Terror of Trigon", featured Raven's demon father attempting to take over Earth and Raven's own struggle to remain good despite Trigon's demonic blood inside her. Pérez left the series after issue #5. José Luis García-López followed Pérez as the title's artist and Eduardo Barreto followed García-López. Paul Levitz scripted and wrote several issues of the Brother Blood saga when Wolfman briefly left.


title: Teen Titans

text: Pérez temporarily returned with issue #50, when the series took the name "The New Titans" without the "Teen" prefix, as the characters were no longer teenagers.


title: Teen Titans

text: Issue #50 told a new origin story for Wonder Girl, her link to Wonder Woman having been severed due to retcons created in the aftermath of "Crisis on Infinite Earths". Pérez sketched through issues #55, 57 and 60, while only providing layouts for issues #58–59 and 61, with artist Tom Grummett finishing pencils and Bob McLeod as inker. Pérez remained as cover inker to issues #62–67. He would return for the series finale #130 (Feb. 1996) providing cover art. Issues #60 and #61 were part of a five-part crossover with Batman, "A Lonely Place of Dying" and along with issue #65, featured the debut of Tim Drake as the third Robin.


title: Teen Titans

text: The brief return of Perez and the addition of Tom Grummett failed to move sales for the book, which were starting to decline. Furthermore, the addition of Danny Chase (a teenage psychic) drew negative fan response due to his abusive attitude towards the rest of the team. Believing Wolfman had grown stagnant, DC assigned Wolfman a new editor, Jonathan Peterson, and gave Peterson authority to override Wolfman over the direction of the book.


title: Teen Titans

text: With Peterson controlling the book's direction, the series was rapidly overhauled. The Wildebeest, a villain who used proxies and surrogates to hide his true identity while vexing the Titans, was expanded to a full army of villains and revealed to be a front for the remaining members of the supervillain group the H.I.V.E. The group fell under the control of Titan Jericho, who in turn was being possessed by the corrupted souls of Azarath. During the "Titans Hunt" storyline that followed (#71–84), Cyborg was destroyed and rebuilt, along with being lobotomized; Danny Chase and Arella (Raven's mother) were killed and resurrected as the "gestalt" being Phantasm (an identity created by Chase early in the series); while Raven, Jericho, and obscure Titans ally Golden Eagle were killed. New character Pantha (based on plans for a female Wildcat character Wolfman conceived in the mid-'80s) joined the team, along with Deathstroke and Red Star. Deathstroke was also given his own solo book and the team received its first crossover tie-in since "Millennium", with "The New Titans" #81 being part of the "War of the Gods" storyline.


title: Teen Titans

text: Peterson also saw the launch of "Team Titans", which featured a new genetically modified (and heroic) doppelganger of Terra and Donna Troy, who was depowered in the "Total Chaos" crossover. Peterson left the book before "Total Chaos" concluded, leaving Wolfman to deal with the fallout from Peterson's editorially mandated storylines, including the final break-up between Starfire and Nightwing as a couple, the return of Speedy as Arsenal, and the resurrection of Raven as a villain.


title: Teen Titans

text: Following "Zero Hour: Crisis in Time!", the series saw a revamp: Nightwing was removed from the series by Batman editorial and a roster of new young heroes such as Damage and Impulse were inserted into the team to try and renew interest, along with Team Titan survivors Mirage and Terra II. New Green Lantern Kyle Rayner was also brought onto the title and given a prominent romance with Donna Troy, whose marriage with Terry Long had collapsed in the pages of "Team Titans" before the book's cancellation. Sales saw a collapse and despite several crossovers with other books ("Damage", "Green Lantern", "Darkstars", and "Deathstroke"), the series was cancelled with issue #130. The series finale saw the return of Blackfire as an ally, as the Titans purged Raven of evil once again in order to prevent Raven and the revived Citadel Empire from reconquering the Vega star system.


title: Teen Titans

text: "The New Teen Titans" was widely thought of as DC's answer to the increasingly popular "Uncanny X-Men" from Marvel Comics, as both series featured all-new members and depicted young heroes from disparate backgrounds whose internal conflicts were as integral to the series as was their combat against villains. The two teams met in the 1982 crossover one-shot entitled "Apokolips... Now", which teamed Darkseid, Deathstroke and Dark Phoenix against both teams. The story was written by Chris Claremont and drawn by Walt Simonson and Terry Austin.


title: Teen Titans

text: In 1989, Marv Wolfman and George Perez began planning a prestige format special, their first work together on the franchise since Perez left after "The New Teen Titans" (vol. 2) #5. The project was put on hold when it was decided instead to have Perez return to the main book as artist and for their first project back together to be "Who Is Wonder Girl?" instead.


title: Teen Titans

text: Over the course of 1989 and 1990, George Perez and Marv Wolfman continued to work on "Games" with over half the project being completed. But the ascension of Jonathan Peterson as editor of the series and Perez moving off of New Titans in order to work on "The Infinity Gauntlet" for Marvel led to the book being shelved.


title: Teen Titans

text: In the early '00s, Marv Wolfman and George Perez approached DC about completing the book as a stand-alone graphic novel. The book was completed in 2010 and published in 2011.


title: Teen Titans

text: The plot had the New Titans be forced by King Faraday to go after a mysterious mastermind who forces his victims to play deadly "games" for his amusement. The story features several major events (the deaths of King Faraday and Cyborg's longtime love interest Sarah Simms and Danny Chase being maimed) that make it impossible to fit into canon, reducing it to an alternate universe side story in Teen Titans lore.


title: Teen Titans

text: Due to fan backlash over the hardcover/softcover move to the direct market with the main title, a new newsstand Titans book was launched in August 1986 called "Teen Titans Spotlight". The series was an anthology series and featured individual members of the Titans in solo stories, often spanning multiple issues. The series also focused on former members of the group (such as Hawk and Aqualad) and the Brotherhood of Evil, detailing the formation of the second version of the group. As the move to the direct market effectively limited "The New Teen Titans" ability to be part of company-wide crossovers, two issues of "Spotlight" tied into the "Millennium" crossover event, with the second issue being the coda for the event.


title: Teen Titans

text: The Team Titans were one of 100 groups sent back through time to prevent the birth of Lord Chaos, the son of Donna Troy and Terry Long. Their mission was to kill the pregnant Troy before she could give birth. Mirage, Killowat, Redwing, Terra, Nightrider, Prestor Jon and Battalion made up the team.


title: Teen Titans

text: "Teen Titans" was written and penciled by Dan Jurgens. It began in 1996 with a new #1 (October 1996), with Pérez as inker for the first 15 issues. Atom, who had become a teenager following the events of "Zero Hour", leads the brand-new team (of Prysm, Joto, Risk and Argent). Arsenal became a mentor about halfway through. The series ended in September 1998.


title: Teen Titans

text: A contest was held in the letters pages to determine who would join the team. Robin (Tim Drake), won the vote, but editors on the Batman titles banned his appearance, forcing Jurgens to use Captain Marvel Jr. instead. His inclusion failed to boost sales and the series was then cancelled.


title: Teen Titans

text: The team returned in a three-issue miniseries, "JLA/Titans: The Technis Imperative", featuring nearly every Titan and showcasing the return of Cyborg. This led into "Titans", written by Devin K. Grayson, starting with "Titans Secret Files and Origins" #1 (March 1999).


title: Teen Titans

text: This team consisted of Nightwing, Troia, Arsenal, Tempest, the Flash, Starfire, Cyborg, Changeling, Damage and Argent. One new member, Jesse Quick, joined. This team lasted until issue #50 (2002). The West Coast branch of the team, Titans L.A., appeared once, in the pages of "Titans Secret Files and Origins" #2.


title: Teen Titans

text: Between "Teen Titans" and "Titans", a new generation of young heroes formed a team in "Young Justice", consisting of Superboy, Robin, Impulse, Wonder Girl, Secret and Arrowette. The two series concluded with the three-issue miniseries "", which led to two new series: "Teen Titans" and "Outsiders".


title: Teen Titans

text: Writer Geoff Johns' "Teen Titans" series began in 2003, after a three issue miniseries entitled "Titans/Young Justice: Graduation Day", which saw Lilith's death and Donna Troy sent to another world after seemingly dying, along with the disbanding of the 1998–2002 Titans roster and the Young Justice team. The relaunch came on the heels of the debut of the "Teen Titans" cartoon on Cartoon Network and reflected DC Comics chief executive Dan DiDio's desire to rehabilitate the Titans as one of DC's top franchises. Launched at the same time was a companion series, a revived version of "The Outsiders" which featured Nightwing and Arsenal, along with several other Titans members (Captain Marvel Jr. and Starfire).


title: Teen Titans

text: The series featured several of the main teenage heroes from the Young Justice roster (Robin, Superboy, Wonder Girl, Impulse) and Starfire, Cyborg and Changeling (now rebranded Beast Boy to reflect the cartoon). Raven later returned to the team, reborn in a new teenage body while Jericho was brought back, having escaped death by possessing and laying dormant inside his father Deathstroke's mind.


title: Teen Titans

text: The series renewed interest in the Titans, but drew sharp complaints due to shifts in the personalities of the various Young Justice characters. Most notably, the decision to have Impulse rebrand himself Kid Flash and the decision to jettison his happy-go-lucky person in favor of a more serious personality. The series, under Geoff Johns, also dramatically retconned Superboy's origin with the revelation that he was a hybrid clone based on the combined DNA of Superman and Lex Luthor (a possibility Johns had first suggested in a fan letter published in the Superboy comic book several years before he was employed by DC).


title: Teen Titans

text: Under Geoff Johns, the Teen Titans were front and center during the build-up and events of the Infinite Crisis crossover. During the lead-in of the crossover, Donna Troy came back in a four-part crossover miniseries with The Outsiders called "The Return of Donna Troy" while Superboy and Cassie Sandsmark became a couple. During Infinite Crisis, Superboy was killed by his evil doppelganger Superboy Prime, Cyborg was severely damaged by cosmic forces unleashed by Alexander Luthor Jr., Starfire was lost in space with several other heroes, while Kid Flash became lost in the Speed Force, re-emerging in the Flash uniform and having aged to adulthood after a failed attempt to stop Superboy Prime.


title: Teen Titans

text: Following the events of "Infinite Crisis", the Teen Titans fell into a state of chaos. Wonder Girl quit the group to join a cult she believed could resurrect Superboy, while Robin took a leave of absence to travel the globe with Batman and Nightwing. Changeling and Raven attempted to keep the Titans going, resulting in a massive open call membership drive that saw a large number of heroes come and join the roster, which was anchored by Beast Boy and Raven. New members include Miss Martian, Kid Devil, Zachary Zatara, Ravager, Bombshell (who like Terra I, was a traitor working for Deathstroke), Young Frankenstein, and Osiris.


title: Teen Titans

text: During this period, Osiris was driven from the team due to a smear campaign launched by Amanda Waller after she manipulated him into killing a super-villain. The smear campaign against Osiris, along with the war between Black Adam and Intergang, led to Black Adam declaring war on the world. In the ensuing series of battles against the super-hero community, the Titans fought and lost a bloody battle with the villain, culminating in the deaths of Terra II and Young Frankenstein. The deaths led to Beast Boy resigning from the team to join the Doom Patrol along with Herald and Bumblebee, while Raven took a leave of absence in order to purge Jericho of the dark forces that were corrupting him.


title: Teen Titans

text: Robin and Wonder Girl eventually rejoined the Titans (now located in San Francisco, California) and helped foil Bombshell's plan to frame Miss Martian as Deathstroke's latest mole in the team and allowed Raven to cleanse Jericho of the Azarathian corruption that had turned him evil. Geoff John's final arc on the series would introduce a new villainous "Titans East" team, led by Deathstroke and Batgirl Cassandra Cain.


title: Teen Titans

text: Soon after, events related to the "Countdown" story arc impacted the Titans. Duela Dent and Bart Allen are killed; Cyborg leaves, and Supergirl joins and Blue Beetle is invited to train, but the two eventually leave, with the members joining the Justice League of America and Justice League International, respectively. The Titans fight the future, evil adult versions of the group (Titans Tomorrow) and Clock King and the Terror Titans, who are part of Darkseid's underground fight club for metahumans.


title: Teen Titans

text: After the "Batman R.I.P" storyline, Robin leaves and Wonder Girl leads the team. Red Devil loses his powers after Brother Blood absorbs them. Miss Martian returns with several teen heroes liberated from the Dark Side Club. A new team is formed: Wonder Girl, Blue Beetle and the now-powerless Red Devil are joined by Kid Eternity and Static, with the new Aquagirl, Miss Martian and a reformed Bombshell signing up.


title: Teen Titans

text: During the events of the "Blackest Night" crossover, some dead Titans are resurrected as members of the Black Lantern Corps. In the "Titans: Blackest Night" miniseries, an emergency team consisting of Donna Troy, Cyborg, Wonder Girl, Starfire, Beast Boy, Kid Flash and the new Hawk and Dove, is formed to defend the Tower. In the ensuing battle, the Hawk is killed after her predecessor Hank Hall tears her heart out. At the end of the "Blackest Knight" crossover, Hank Hall is resurrected and resumes his partnership with Dove. In the main series, Ravager and Jericho fight their father Deathstroke and the dead members of the Wilson family, resurrected as Black Lanterns.


title: Teen Titans

text: During this time, several back-up stories begin to run in the series: one called "The Coven", starring Black Alice, Zachary Zatara and Traci 13 and later, one starring Ravager.


title: Teen Titans

text: Later storylines involve the corruption of Wonder Girl at the hands of various factors (designed to address complaints about the character's abusive attitudes towards her teammates post-"Infinite Crisis"), Kid Devil is killed in battle, while Kid Eternity is revealed to have been beaten to death by the Calculator after being kidnapped by him.