Last Week In Nerd News: time travel, monsters, and monocles

Okay folks, in my eternal quest to find a regular format for Sundays, here are my thoughts on need news from the last week. Considering these long on opinion, short on facts. Like any other Sunday columnist :)

The new series of Doctor Who

It premièred last night, and I seem to be one of maybe four people whom didn't like it. Why? Well, it was full of the sort of thing I didn't like about last year, it felt like a series finale with no build up, and ended with the doctor seemingly about to shoot a child in a minefield. Not an image I want in my head. The fact that this child is Davros, future space Hitler and Darlek creator, doesn't excuse it. It just adds a grandfather paradox. What's more, this two-parter is will resolve almost certainly resolve in a Reset Button. Clara is alive, Missy isn't dead again, and the TARDIS is intact. There will be no consequences.

Still, at least Michelle Gomez is fun to watch.


Pacific Rim sequel in doubt
News broke via The Hollywood Reporter earlier this week Pacific Rim 2 was cancelled/indefinitely-delayed due to movie politics. While Guillermo del Toro has said he's stillworking on it, Pacific Rim 2 may have been shelved in favour of some King Kong movies and a King Kong versus Godzilla film. I am conflicted. I do love a good monster mash, but the last Godzilla film really wasn't one. It somehow managed to put undue focus on the human characters and waste Byran Cranston. What? You enjoyed it? You do remember how it handled the first fight?

Don't pretend that wasn't an anti-climax. Maybe this new film won't be boring, but it would have be a lot more forthcoming with the smashy-smashy. It has to match this.

And if you go serious, can anyone do better with King Kong than Peter Jackson?

X-Men being Put On A Bus, then hit with a Bridge
In more film aggro related news, the ongoing spat between Fox and Marvel over movies hit a new low this week. Fox has the rights to the hundreds of X-Men characters, and Marvel wants its toys back. It would be easy to take Marvel's side on this, they could only do better films, but as with Fantastic Four, Marvel is effectively writing them out of the comics as part of its continuity shake-up. In favour of the functionally similar, but still in Marvel hands, Inhumans. Comics Alliance reports that the Terrigen Bomb responsible for suddenly increasing the Inhuman population, is also poisoning and sterilising mutants, while preventing their abilities from manifesting. Existing characters seem okay, but are being shuffled to other places. I find this to be very distasteful act of spite, especially given the themes and topics X-Men comics often feature. Magneto is a holocaust survivor, remember. Mind you, this isn't the first time Marvel did something horrible to mutants in the name of drama.

Bill Finger given credit as Batman Co-Creator

In happier comics news, The HollywoodReporter also revealed that the late Bill Finger is being recognised as the Co-creator of Batman by DC. Bill Finger was unfairly cut out of history in favour of Bob Kane, and Comics Alliance has a good, if now outdated, write up on the matter. Seems Bob Kane was not a nice man.

And finally: Armada Demolishor to join Combiner Wars?
While I'd say Combiner Wars was a great line, each toy seems fated to be reused at least three times, so its getting samey. That very well may be about to change, as a testshot of Onslaught has revealed an alternate head that looks a lot like Demolishor from Transformers Armada, source TFormers.

Yay!