Greg Tocchini (main artist on the Ion maxi-series) has updated his blog with some of the pencils from the recent Search for Ray Palmer (Gotham By Gaslight) issue that he did.

Good stuff. I love seeing raw pencil-work like this.

The first teaser for the new Knight Rider just aired in the states. Enjoy

Well, that was rather good.

Docto Who’s had a good run with the Christmas specials, and the decision to base this one around a Disaster movie was a great move by RTD I thought. The effects were excellent, giving the Titanic a real “big screen” feel, and Tennant and Kylie really clicked as Doctor and Companion.

If I had a complaint, it would probably be that “plummetting to their” death became quite a cliche in the last 15 minutes. At least the Bannakaffalatta had the decency to be a bit different and explode in EMP awesomeness, but other than that a good run around, with Kylie’s death being a genuine shock.

The new theme really took me by surprise though. I must admit to a “What??!!!” reaction when the credits blared onto the screen, but I withheld judgement until I’d listened to it a few times. Now, I think that I do like it as a “rockier” version of the theme. But I still think the original version was the better theme. I’m also inclined to think that this version doesn’t suit the current opening credits, so I’m hoping that season 4 will introduce some new opening titles as well, to better match the new music.

There’s supposed to be an “easter egg” download being made available to people who bought the season 3 soundtrack, so hopefully I’ll have a full-length version to bung on the iPod and get used to in time for season 4 starting

The season 4 teaser looked interesting, and I now find myself genuinely looking forward to the return of Donna as a companion. I rewatched the Runaway Bride recently (God bless Tesco online’s cheap deal on the season 3 DVDs), and I think the way she stands up to Tennant’s zany-ness as the Doctor is a real tonic after every other companion falling for him. I’ve never been a huge Rose fan, and I did really like Martha, but on reflection I can’t help but think that Donna’s actually the best match for the tenth Doctor. I suspect she’ll keep him grounded in a way neither Rose nor Martha did. Its a pity Tate’s already spoiled the fact she’s only doing 1 season.

Oh, and nice Torchwood teaser. Season 1 had a lot of potential (albeit very rough potential), so I’ve got high hopes for season 2. James Marsters as Captain John definitely sounds like a good start to the new season.

Fresh from Newsarama, we have this look at things to come in Green Lantern.

This looks really interesting to me. We of course saw Mongul nabbing a Sinestro ring at the end of the latest issue of GLC, but the idea that he’s going to be out there, bumping off members of each Corps to harness the power of all the types of ring is really interesting. I’m looking forward to see where they go with this story.

Well, there was the official announcement by the studio the other day. Officially this is going to be a 2 hour movie/pilot, with a season planned assuming the ratings are good and the writers strike resolved.

The coolest thing though, was the unveiling of the three different cars used in the show. A stock “hero” version, used for most of the day-to-day stuff. The “attack” mode for when chasing bad guys (sounds very “Viper” to me, which was basically Knight Rider for the 90s). But most impressively, the third car.

The third version is fully remote controlled. No more dodgy shots of a driver trying to hide in the back seats

You can see the video here

Moose Baumann’s posted the final version of an upcoming GL cover on his blog (I’ve lost the link sadly) which gives us our first proper look at the Alpha Lanterns.

That’s gotta hurt. With the embedded Power Batteries, are the Guardians trying to create (effectively) more Ions for the Corps?

Ok, I’ve caught up a bit more on my reading.

Green Lantern Corps #19 provides another great epilogue to the Sinestro Corps War, and also gives us the first proper taste of new writer Peter Tomasi’s take on the title. I was really impressed with this, and it was an enjoyable read. I must admit, while the previous writer (Dave Gibbons), did some good stories (especially once the war kicked off), on the basis of this issue, I think we may be in for a stronger run here.

We see a lot of the aftermath of the war. Kyle is dealing with what he did while possessed by Parallax, and the other Lanterns are all remembering the dead, and trying to move on with their lives. Itsa big cast to juggle, and as such most characters only get a page or so to themselves, but in this issue its a format that works well. We really needed to see this aftermath, and especially with the wall-to-wall action of GL #25 this issue provides a great counterpoint, showing everyone coming to terms with what’s happened.

I especially like the glimpses of the GL’s “home lives”. This is something which has been missing from the title (again, the perils of having a large cast to juggle) and it felt really welcome to me and added a lot of depth, seeing the characters “off duty”. I hope this is something Peter Tomasi manages to slot into the title now and again.

While I felt that Countdown this week was a bit of a let down (after the highs of the Superman Prime issues, returning to some of the original plots hasn’t done this title any favours I fear), Countdown Arena continued to provide a fun read. Monarch still proves the master of his domain, easily undermining any attempt by the heroes to escape from his clutches, and the fights themselves prove interesting. I must admit,the victor in the GL battle was a surprise to me.

I (like writer Keith Champagne) figured GL-Batman was a shoe-in to win this, but I found the Earth-5 GL a more interesting prospect as he seemed like more of an unknown, and I thought there’d be interest in seeing if his powers were Shazam-based, or more traditional. However, it was the Hal from the Batman Beyond Earth that…well won isn’t quite appropriate.

I’m still waiting to see if there’s a twist with the whole Monarch/Captain Atom thing, but in the meantime this title’s a great ride. I’m looking forward to part 3 next week.

Another of my findings on Youtube. The creator’s done a cracking job putting this together. Gave me a good laugh

So I’ve just finished reading the finale to the Sinestro Corps.

Wow.

There’s a heck of a lot of action in this finale. On one front we’ve got Kyle and Hal in Coast City facing off against Sinestro, while John and Guy join the main conflict in New York, as seen in the GLC title, facing off against Prime and the Anti-Monitor.

Geoff Johns had a lot to juggle in this book, and he’s pulled it off beautifully. There’s a lot of splash pages throughout to help convey the scope of the conflict, and Ivan Reis and Ethan Van Skiver really shine, packing in loads of detail into them. After reading this, its no wonder that Ivan’s taking the next arc off. Presumably to encase his hands in ice.

All the major plot points are dealt with really well. Most of the major threats are removed from the game, with the Sinestro Corps now leaderless, and minus their main power battery.

There’s some nice epilogue stuff as well, hinting at what’s to come. The final fate of the Anti-Monitor is a big surprise. Ever since he got involved, it was assumed that it would be a setup for Final Crisis. Now it looks like he might’ve been a red-herring in that department.

Then we’ve got the first of the epilogues. Ron Marz returns to wrap up the loose ends from his Ion series, and with some neat lines of dialogue, he manages to tie up a lot of the chaos caused by the rug being pulled from under him in that series. Jade’s power is mentioned, but to my mind is still a bit of a dangling plot thread. If another writer wanted to explore the idea of Kyle still possessing Starheart energy, there’s nothing here to stop it, but for now I’m happy to assume its dormant within him.

Kyle still gets his due from the Guardians, which is nice, and there’s a great scene with the 4 Earth GL’s which re-establishes the Kyle/Guy banter which we’ll hopefully see more of in the GLC monthly.

I’ve still got GLC #19 to read, but I must admit, so far this has been an excellent week for Green Lantern fans (if an expensive one).

I got an email last night from the merry Marvel marketing machine pointing me in the direction of their latest online venture, Marvel Digital Comics Unlimited.

Essentially its an online archive of their comics, currently containing around 2500 comics, accessible via paid subscription and a flash-based reader.

Having had a quick look last night at some of the free samples, I must admit, I’m tempted to go the whole hog and take out the $60 annual subscription. That’s not a lot of money for a year’s worth to a lot of comics, and it looks like they’ve got a good mixture of older, and more modern stuff up there.

With illegal downloading of comics a hot topic, I can see this kind of idea really taking off. iTunes has done wonders to revolutionise online purchasing of music, so its about time someone did the same for comics.

I really hope this takes off, and that DC implement something similar. Sure, they may want to avoid putting any of the major story arcs likely to be trade-collected in it, but that still leaves an awful lot of comics sitting in their vaults gathering them no cash.