This was mentioned in this week’s WhoCast, its an online comic strip telling a 10 Doctors story, which may, or may not be wrapped up in the Time War.

Its great fun to read.  The creator captures the characters really well, and the interplay between some of the Doctor’s companions, and his various incarnations is a great laugh.

You can start reading from the beginning here.  Its currently at page 90, so there’s a fair bit of catching up, but its worth it.

Has it been a month already?  Doesn’t feel like it.

Anyway, this week brought us both the second issue of Secret Invasion, and the new issue of The Mighty Avengers.  I’m really enjoying how both the Avengers titles are showing us different aspects of this invasion, with New Avengers giving us an interesting look at the Skrull side of things, showing the events prior to the invasion, while Mighty Avengers shows us what Nick Fury was up to after discovering the Invasion for himself, gathering together a team of new characters he knows he can trust, as only he knows about them.

Secret Invasion #2 lacked the big shocks of issue 1, but still delivered.   The issue focuses entirely on events in the Savage land, as the modern day Marvel heroes confront their retro selves, fresh from a Skrull ship.   It was interesting to see how some characters from the ship are quickly revealed as Skrulls.  Spider-Man and Hawkeye from the ship are revealed to be Skrulls in short order.  Of course, I suppose this doesn’t mean that the current versions aren’t Skrulls (double bluff), but it looks unlikely.  However, we’re also presented with the idea that this Mockingbird is the real deal, and she is reunited with our Hawkeye, finally giving the character a moment of happiness after the last couple of years (something he himself touches on at one point).

We’re also shown Tony flown to safety by Miss Marvel, and he promptly starts work on a new (presumably temporary) suit of armour (which suits me fine.  I’m not a fan of the Extremis suit - I far prefer the variation of it used in the movie).

Good second issue.  While lacking the gut-punch moments of the first, it keeps the story moving along nicely.  I’m looking forward to the next issue, which promises to widen the scope a bit, going back to the other Skrull attacks from the first issue.

Quite a big comics week this week for me, and strangely the first comics week in years where the Marvel stuff has vastly outnumbered the DC stuff.

So, I’ll probably do a couple of comics posts this week, but first up is the first issue of Rann-Thanagar Holy War.

I loved the Mystery in Space and Countdown to Adventure series, so picking up this title is a bit of a no-brainer. It surprised me how much it was a direct continuation of both series. Obviously I was expecting to see the fallout from the Countdown to Adventure series factor in heavily, but I was surprised to see the return of the Church of Eternal Light, having setup shop on Thanagar with the Deacon still clearly smarting from his defeat by Captain Comet’s hands.

We also see the space team getting back together. The residents of Rann are still worshipping Lady Styx, despite being cured of the plague back in Countdown to Adventure the other month. They’re refusing to listen to reason about her true motives, so Adam Strange (still sporting his classic look - a pity as I really liked the Planet Heist update) travels back to Earth to recruit Starfire and Animal Man, while trying to hire Captain Comet to broadcast their true memories of Lady Styx to the population of Rann.

Unfortunately, since his miniseries, Captain Comet has decided to play things safe. Determined not to go through dying again (in a really nice scene he tells Tyrone that de-aging 40 years and a new set of superpowers didn’t make up for the horrific experience of his death) he’s sticking to low-risk jobs. Sadly these jobs don’t pay well and his finances are dwindling, much to Tyrone’s concern.

Its a great opening issue. I wasn’t too excited about this series, and while there are minor gripes (Rann’s population worshipping Lady Styx is a fairly negative portrayal of worship - although this could be a plot point, Adam Strange not getting back his Planet Heist gear, and Captain Comet still trying to drop the “Captain” from his name - although again this could be a plot point, we learn here he’s trying to hide the fact he’s the original Captain from people) the story has grabbed me straight away. Ron Lim’s art is great as well (I’m glad I picked up his cover, I far prefer it to the Starlin one shown on the right).

Great first issue. So far it feels like the Mystery in Space magic is back.

DC have provided EW with a 5 page preview of Final Crisis. You can see it here.  The story looks intriguing with Orion turning up after killing Darkseid (and talking about how he’s not dead), and a nice bit of action for John, who receives a mysterious code 1011 from his ring, and is unable to contact Hal.

I’m really loving the art though.  It looks really nice.  And the red skies are back.

There’s a look at Darkseid’s redesign as well.  I’m not a huge fan of the character (or the New Gods stuff in general), but I quite like Darkseid’s head redesign (very Darth Malak).   Not sure about the giant Omega symbol on his outfit although I can see what they’re going for with it.  Also the idea that he has problems walking due to being in constant pain doesn’t particularly sound God-like.   However we’ll see it properly fleshed out in the coming months.

Well, last night I decided to muck about with a few things.

A couple of my categories have been bugging me for a while. I always felt the line between the Computing and Technology categories got a bit grey quite a lot. With tagging coming in, I thought the distinction was even less necessary (with my idea being that the category should provide an overall feel for the topic, and then the tagging provides more detail). Out of the two, the Computing was more used, however I figured Technology provided more of a “catch-all”, so unfortunately it meant more work for me, as I’ve removed the computing category and moved all those posts under Technology.

I also thought I’d spruce up the links. I’ve tried to add in most of my favourite sites, and sub-divide them into appropriate categories. I’ve also added some of the podcasts I listen to. I do listen to quite a few of the BBC and Guardian podcasts, but I thought it’d be more interesting to list the ones I listen to which don’t come from a big company (as much as I enjoy Digital Planet, Tech Weekly etc).

The guys at the Linux Action Show have launched a couple of new podcasts.   As part of their new Jupiter Broadcasting launch, they’ve got a new podcast “Radio Revolver”, in which they’ll present an old radio play, digitially remastered, with some discussion about that play.

I’ve downloaded the first couple of episodes to listen to, and as they’re currently running through the old Shadow broadcasts, I’m really excited to listen to them.   It sounds like its a great idea, and as I’ve never heard the old Shadow radioplays, I’m really glad that’s where they’ve started.