When You Hear the Air Attack Warning

The school holidays have commenced and I'm leaving shortly to go home to Glasgow for a while. My most recent tenant has left me in the lurch and out of pocket so I have to attend to that situation. Also, my birthday falls this weekend and although I'm not fifty yet (as my work colleagues had assumed), I'm still inclined to mark it somehow.


I also hope to revisit some of my childhood haunts: Lendalfoot, near Girvan and the Rhins of Galloway again. But that may have to wait for a few weeks and drier weather.


In the meantime, here are my thoughts on an article on Newsarama which I read yesterday. There seems to be a groundswell of opinion that Marvel will follow DC's New 52 with a "soft reboot" of its own. I think this is a sensible, if predictable, move. 
Avengers, or Avengers Assemble, has made an incredible amount of money. Yet the comics that served as its source material are mired in decades of impenetrable continuity, dating back to WWII. These comics, if you can even get them, are rendered with muddy, photorealistic art ( which I like but I'm a fanman and hardwired to respond to it.) The Ultimate comics imprint really had its day a couple of years ago and with the launch of the tv-inspired Season One line of hardbacks, it would seem prudent to launch a digital-platform, collectable wave of Marvel Universe titles, aimed at the widest possible audience. 

 
If the Marvel superhero comic is to survive at all, as I've said before, I would promote an all-ages line devoted to the iconic characters whom I know from personal experience little kids like: Spidey, Hulk, The X-Men. There are people out there who can do this: Byrne, Stern, Busiek, Parker, Van Lente. Get them.
I'd also suggest an "edgier" line for teen readers: Daredevil; Ghost Rider; Elektra, etc. Furthermore, Marvel has an extensive back catalogue of vampires, werewolves and zombies which would also appeal to a broad audience. Throw in a few quirky titles- Devil Dinosaur, Caleb Hammer. I wouldn't advocate a slavish copy of DC's model: launch a dozen titles, maximum. What is there to lose?

While the term has been winding down, I've been listening to these Dr. Who audios. Cradle of the Snake by Marc Platt is both a Fifth Doctor story and a sequel to the Mara Tales (as packaged on dvd). The Tardis returns to a planet (visited in 1983's Snakedance) at the height of its civilization. After an unintentionally- comic hallucinatory sequence involving sheep in the first episode, the serpentine Mara attempts to manifest itself through a reality television show. The story feels overlong and meandering and with its lack of alien atmosphere, the planet Manussa might as well be 21st- century Earth.

The high point is Peter Davison's performance as the possessed Doctor, whose manic unpredictability is unsettling and engaging. Given her long-standing resistance to working for Big Finish, it's pleasing to hear Janet Fielding's Tegan making a valuable and dynamic addition to the cast. Four out of ten Talmars for a plodding, sometimes silly story buoyed up by strong performances.

 
AudioGo's latest Eleventh Doctor reading is Day of the Cockroach by Steve Lyons. It's interesting that an upcoming Seventh Doctor audio play is entitled Protect and Survive, also tapping into the nuclear fears of the early Eighties. Lyons' story is in the sixties Base Under Siege mould as the current Tardis team are trapped in a nuclear bunker with giant carnivorous insects. Giant carnivorous insects with mind-control powers to boot. There's no explanation that I can recall for their abilities and the whole story is wrapped up abruptly by, er, opening the door and going outside.
Arthur Darvill (Rory Wiliams) reads with pace and is quite engaging. Like Matt Smith, however, he employs the flat, Midlands vowels (" wawn" for "one") that the BBC seems intent on promoting. STV's continuity announcer also annoys me with her tortured vowels ("Ite" for "eight") but that's born out of insecurity and notions of speaking posh.
Cockroach is undemanding stuff, pretty par for the course for AudioGo. Lyons does create a frisson with his hissing, slavering insects and a claustrophobic setting but the writing is colourless and the characters are stereotypes. Five out of ten Talmars.


Next: What we did on our holidays 2012.


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