Yes, its the subject title that’ll be gracing many-a-blog at the moment.

Despite many months of Paterson Joseph, Sean Pertwee, Marc Warren and Chiwetel Ejiofor shaped rumours, at the last minute everyone was blind-sided by the casting of 26 year-old Matt Smith.

I must admit, today I’d been dilligently avoiding the Doctor Who Forum just incase there was a last-minute surprise, and surprised I was. I must admit to getting pretty pensive during the buildup and all the “youngest ever actor in the role” and “only 26″ type hints. And then when it suddenly cut to Matt himself, I was sitting there thinking “Gah! Too young!”

However, over the next few minutes I sat and watched him being interviewed, and the way he talked in front of the camera, I could start to see what (presumably) Steven Moffat had seen in him. And then when they started showing the clips of the various shows he’d been in, I became interested indeed, as he looks very good in them (I’ve now ordered a copy of Party Animals and will be watching it closely).

So yes, he’s young, and with no disrespect, that will be a hurdle he’ll have to overcome in terms of convincing the audience. He’s also got some very big shoes to fill, as David Tennant has been outstanding whether onscreen as the Doctor, or off-screen championing the show in interviews or in public (and incase we forget, many people said at the time they thought David Tennant was too young for the part). However I’ve got utmost faith that Steven Moffat and co won’t have cast anyone that can’t do the job, and as I say, I was being quickly won over by Matt in the interview, and from the clips, so I look forward to seeing what he makes of the role.

Good luck Matt, and I’m looking forward to your first season in 2010.

Yay!  A big surprise this week where, alongside Green Lantern #36 the missing issue of Green Lantern Corps turned up in Forbidden Planet.

Green Lantern continues the Red Lanterns storyarc started in the Final Crisis special. We find Sinestro captured and imprisoned on Ysmault where Atrocious lords over him that this is his own doing, as Atrocious and his Red Lanterns were born out of the actions of Sinestro and his Corps.

Meanwhile, Hal is surprised by the appearance of Saint Walker, the Blue Lantern. Walker explains that he’s been sent by Ganthet, and displays his powers when attacked by John and Kilowog, both still under the influence of the red flame caused by the red lanterns. Here we see that the blue lanterns do not control their constructs in the same way as Green Lanterns do, but rather their constructs are manifest by those around them to spark their hope, in John’s case, Katma (after which John notes to Kilowog that he’s going to see Katma again - Black Lantern anyone?).

Hal is taken to the Blue Lantern homeworld where he meets Ganthet how explains that Hal must trust him, and that they need Sinestro alive. Hal’s not big on this idea, but goes along with the rescue mission, joining Walker and his fellow Blue Lantern.

In this issue, its really Ivan Reis who shines. Unsurprisingly really. The guy has been producing fantastic art for GL since he came onboard the title, and for me, he’s probably my favourite GL artist. But here his splash pages of Ysmault, which is then contrasted with Odym, the Blue Lantern homeworld. These are just staggering pages.

The focus is definitely on the Blue Lanterns in this issue, and there’s definitely something brewing with these guys. We see them display staggering feats of power, however Walker does hint that there’s some sort of price to be paid for being a blue lantern. The way their power blocks GL communications as well is sure to be a problem. I’m sure there’s some kind of dark secret brewing with this new Corps of Ganthet’s. As for them trying to recruit Hal? Not going to happen. He’s probably going to realise that there’s something fishy going on, not to mention, being a Blue Lantern is obviously a very different deal in terms of powers to being a Green Lantern.

And, of course, I personally believe the four musketeers aren’t going to be broken up, and will serve as a focus point in the war of light, with their Green Lantern rings serving as a contrast to the various other powers. We know that the green is the centre and the balance of the emotional spectrum, and I suspect that’s going to be vital.

The final talking point is the appearance of Fatality, newly converted as a Star Saphire. We saw the seeds of this being sown in Green Lantern Corps, so its really nice to see this kind of linking plot thread between the two books.

Green Lantern Corps meanwhile is continuing the Sins of the Star Saphires arc, while we also see Kyle and company’s attack on the Sinestro Lantern Kryb go horribly wrong, as Kryb manages to gain control of most of Kyle’s team.

To be honest, after all the buildup of trying to find this issue, I found this to be very much a middle-of-the-arc book.  Aside from the brief segment with the new Star Saphire (odds on her turning up to help defeat Kryb anyone), it felt like this issue was just moving the story along, rather than bringing much new and exciting to the table.  We saw the Guardians agreeing to the new (and most stupid) third law, however this was the big surprise from last issue.

One aspect I did love though, was Gleason drawing Kyle with some crazy robot constructs during the opening fight.  It was great seeing some of those old-school Kyle constructs again, something that’s been missing from a lot of his appearances since Hal came back.   We also get Tomasi edging along Kyle’s character, showing him determined not to lose any more Lanterns.  Obviously his stint as Parallax has left some deep scars that Peter Tomasi isn’t ignoring, which is nice to see since a lot of that stuff from Hal’s tenure has been skipped past, aside from other Lanterns distrusting him (in fairness though, Hal spent time as the Spectre to atone, not to mention there’s the One Year Later jump, so that isn’t a criticism of Geoff Johns’ handling of the character.  In fact, the very fact that a franchise relaunch isn’t sitting on Kyle’s shoulders, is probably what’s allowing Tomasi to explore this side of the character).

I’m very much looking forward to the next issue of this arc, where we should hopefully see the Lantern’s reactions to the third law, and the Star Saphire joining the fray against Kryb.

Oh, and Natu for Sinestro’s daughter?  Seems obvious, but also puts his actions towards her in the Sinestro Corps War in a new light.

It was with a tinge of sadness that I watched The Next Doctor on Christmas Day. With David Tennant in fine form (as usual), I couldn’t help thinking about how much I’m going to miss him in the role when he leaves at the end of these specials.

And with that gotten over, I then got on with just enjoying the show

Voyage of the Damned came under a fair amount of flack last year, and understandably so. While I enjoyed it, there’s definitely an element of it being about the spectacle, and elements didn’t quite work. There seems to be little doubt from what I’ve been reading that The Next Doctor is being considered a much stronger story, and I really enjoyed it.

One thing that surprised me, was how quickly the mystery of David Morrisey’s character was unravelled. RTD admits on the commentary track (available from the BBC website in podcast form) that he’s not really into writing mysteries, and to an extent it shows, however I think the story was stronger for it. Once it had been mentioned that Jackson Lake’s body had never been found, and the infospheres turned up, I thought it was pretty obvious what had happened, so I was pleased that there was no attempt to drag that mystery out.

The relationship between Jackson and The Doctor was key to this story, and the two Davids played it well.  However there were also great moments of fun, be it the two Doctors being dragged around by a Cybershade, or the giant Cyberking laying waste to Victorian London.   That was brilliant

Oh, and how my fanboy heart was warmed by the footage of all 10 Doctors from the infosphere.  Brilliant.

Here’s to Planet of Death.  Its a pity we’ve only got the specials to look forward to next year, but if they’re all as good as this, we’ll be happy indeed

Long before Geoff Johns started the “Thy Kingdom Come” storyline over in JSA, original Kingdom Come writer Mark Waid revisited the world of Kingdom Come with a sequel tale, The Kingdom (interestingly, Alex Ross does get credited for his part of creating Kingdom Come here, but I don’t recall seeing Mark Waid’s name in any of the JSA issues. Must double-check that).

Set some years after Kingdom Come, events revolve around William, the last survivor of the Kansas disaster who is rescued by Superman.   This shapes William’s life and he creates a church worshipping Superman, doing good deeds in his name.

Until the day when Superman himself visits William once again and tells him that he is responsible for the Kansas disaster, through his inaction in turning his back on humanity.   Superman shatters William’s world.

At the same time, the Quintessance decide (for reasons I admit I can’t quite remember) that the Kansas disaster needs to be accelerated to happen sooner.  They decide to empower William to carry out their mission.

However, the cosmic power and knowledge they give him, only drives him further over the edge.  Renaming himself Gog, he uses his powers to travel back in time, one day at a time, killing Superman in every day he arrives in.

Needless to say, this kind of temporal chaos doesn’t go un-noticed, and Rup Hunter manages to intercept Gog on the day of the birth of Clark and Diana’s child.  But not however, before Gog manages to kidnap their newly-born son.

Realising that the only way to stop Gog is to travel back in time with Rip Hunter, Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman leave with him, knowing that their very prescence in the past will likely alter the timeline and prevent their future from ever being.

What follows is a two-fold tale.  Firstly dealing with the attempt to stop Gog, but also with the reactions of the descendants of the modern day heroes to the idea that this may be their last day on Earth before their timeline is erased.

I’d heard dodgy things about this sequel to Kingdom Come.   And while, its not as good as the original tale, to be honest Kingdom Come is one of those stories that there are very few comics better than it, so that’s no real criticism.    I really enjoyed seeing the Kingdom Come universe fleshed out, and especially the look at the children of the modern day heroes.  The Kid Flash in particular has always been a favourite story of mine.

This was also the story that started to break down the post-Crisis on Infinite Earths world.  It introduces the idea of Hypertime, which gave alternate universes back to the DCU for the first time, just not the specific named ones that tend to come with the full multiverse.  And it also featured a cameo from the Earth-2 Superman.

Its definitely worth checking out, for fans of Kingdom Come and its Universe.  Despite its lackluster reputation I still found it really enjoyable.

Happy New Year to both my readers. Hope 2009 is a good one

As regular readers will know, I’m very partial to Battlefield 2142. However lately whenever I’d logged in, I was getting strange graphics corruptions. I’d gotten it to the point where it was playable, but any EMP or explosions really messed me up.

I got round to doing a quick search on the forums tonight, and it turns out its an issue with anti-aliasing and the current NVIDIA drivers. The fix is to turn off AA in the game, and re-enable it via the NVIDIA control panel. I’m happily now back getting shot at and jumping off of Titans

Details of the problem and fix can be found here.

It was a really quiet comics week this week, which was a bit of a relief after 2 weeks of monster pull lists consisting of Bat-titles, Dark Reign and New Krypton. Still no sign of GLC #31 in my local shop annoyingly, so I may make the trek to the other shop this afternoon and brave the shoppers.

Highlight of my very light pile this week was probably the conclusion to Rann-Thanagar Holy War. It was nice to see Adam get back into his Planet Heist outfit a couple of issues back, and the conclusion to the war surprised me, with the people of Rann faking their own deaths, and relocating to the decimated Throneworld (now called New Rann) to escape the Thanagarians. The lingering love of Lady Styx is quickly lost once they see her in person (well, over a monitor screen) and realise the monster she truely is.

The only thing that really rang false for me was that, after Adam and Prince Gavyn’s big speeches about how the people of Rann have a lot of rebuilding ahead of them, all the other characters upped and left. A bit better explanation was needed there I think (although thanks to the solicits we know that at least some of them will be meeting up again in next year’s Strange Adventures title, also by Starlin).

I’ve enjoyed this series on the whole, and over the last few years, DC have done a great job of bringing more focus to their stable of cosmic non-GL characters. If anything though, it might be nice to see a bit of GL intervention in the next series. Given their prescence in the DCU, it did seem odd the way they were completely absent from all the Synar/Lady Styx stuff. Especially the way Lady Styx’s fleet decimated Throneworld without the GL’s intervening. Although I guess that’s a concession that has to be made to allow these characters to be built up.

Perhaps including a new GL character in the next series could be an idea. You presume the sector GLs would be slightly baffled as to how Throneworld is populated despite the kicking it took.

I’m also slightly surprised that no one twigged that Comet is the original. I guess that’ll be a plot point for a future series.

Overall though, this was fun.   I’m really enjoying these various mini-series focusing on the various space characters.

I think they’re going to need a bigger Mustang…

This has not been Tony Stark’s best year ever. When the Skrulls invaded, they brought with them a virus designed to shutdown all Stark Tech. And not in that “Have you tried switching it off then on again?” kind of way. All affected Stark Tech across the globe is completely toast, including Tony’s Extremis enhancements, which is making controlling his armour a tricky prospect.

Then to cap it all off he’s sacked and his job is handed to Norman Osbourn.

This issue kickstarts the arc which sees Tony Stark as the World’s Most Wanted. Its a great start to the story as well, focusing on the day Tony hands over the reigns of power to Norman. And like Bendis in last week’s Dark Reign special, here writer Matt Fraction has some fun with the fact that Norman’s unstable. Its obvious to Tony that Norman’s appointment is going to go badly wrong, and he’s under no illusions as to just how evil Norman is.

The reprocussions of Norman’s appointment are quickly made apparent when he starts asking Tony for access to the Superhero Registration Database. I hadn’t even twigged to this aspect of Osbourn’s new job, and Tony is quick to point out that Norman isn’t allowed to access the database with proper authorisation and court approval.

Of course, this doesn’t stop Norman, who promptly brings up what he thinks is the database and types in “Spider-Man” (is Spider-Man unregistered now? I’m confused by the impact of One More Day, but I’m pretty certain that wouldn’t have worked even on the real database). Tony is naturally two steps ahead of Norman though, and the database is a trojan, designed to cripple HAMMER’s computer systems if its accessed without proper authorisation.

This nicely explains to me exactly how Tony ends up the World’s Most Wanted. We’d been discussing it in the comments section, but its clear now that as the possessor of the only copy of the registration database (Tony’s Extremis abilities allowed him to keep all the information in his own head, safe from anyone trying to find it) Norman’s going to be gunning for Tony bigstyle. Crippling the computer systems of the US’s main intelligence agency is probably enough to ensure Tony makes the most wanted list.

Its a cracking start to the story, and I’m definitely on for picking up Iron Man monthly again. I’m very interested by the fallout from the virus completely knocking out Tony’s Extremis enhancements, and its made clear that as a result, we’re going to be seeing a new suit of armour in the near future. Tony’s been wearing his current suit for a while now, so it’ll be interesting to see what they’ve got in mind. And I wonder just how similar to the movie suit it’ll be

(On a related note, looking at War Machine’s recent appearances, its interesting how his current armour is very obviously a silver and grey copy of the movie suit, with extra firepower strapped on).

Incase anyone’s wondering, the reason I haven’t done my usual gushing review of GLC this month is because my local comic shop didn’t get in their order.

I’d hoped it’d turn up with this week’s shipment, but unfortunately its still absent. A real shame, as I was really enjoying the Star Saphire Arc.

I’ll still pick up the next issue but missing this part stings. The Christmas shoppers make getting to any other comic shops a dodgy prospect, but hopefully I’ll be able to find a copy once things die down.

This summer’s shaping up to be a good time for movies, with the delayed Star Trek and Harry Potter, Transformers 2 and now Wolverine’s solo film.   Newarama have the trailer up:

http://www.newsarama.com/common/media/video/player.php?videoRef=NA_121508_xmen

I must admit, while I knew the film was in the works, I hadn’t realised it was this far along, so I was surprised to see the trailer.  But I think it looks brilliant.  Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine has always been spot on (if a bit tall, but that’s forgivable) and this looks like a lot of fun.  Its very tantalising seeing those brief shots clearly inspired by the Origin series, with the young James Hewlett and his bone claws.

That’s Star Trek and this had very strong trailers.   It’s nice to have something to look forward to movie-wise this year, as frankly I think this Christmas has been a real letdown.   There’s nothing out I want to see (especially the Day the Earth Stood Still - being a fan of the original story I think this looks absolutely atrocious) and those films I was looking forward to (Quantum of Solace) were a bit dissappointing.