Ash vs. Evil Dead “Bait” Review S1E2

After the first episode, where Ash’s stupidity shows – reading the Necronomicon while stoned and trying to impress a woman – we get near double the violence and about ten times the blood this episode! Also, I will give you fair warning to leave before SPOILERS here as they will start right after this sentence – which was written especially long and boring and filled with way too many words to make sure you leave if you don’t want the episode SPOILED. OK, here it goes! In this episode we start off seeing Kelly run off to get to her parents after seeing her dead mom in a video with her dad last episode, and she has absconded with the Necronomicon! So Ash and Pablo head off after her to her parents house to get back that damned book of the dead and to hopefully save Kelly. Who is ready for another bloody, and perhaps possessed, good time this week?

Pros:

Plenty of great Deadite action!: This episode, from the start, has enough stress and fear you expect from these evil Deadites; it carries onto to just about the last second, and man oh man are the fights intense.

A bit more of Jill Marie Jones: This episode gave us a bit more of Jill Marie Jones’ character, Detective Fisher, and what she will bring to the ultimate story. As I said last week, the more we see of her the better her character will get, and after this episode, I imagine Fisher will become quite the character – yet another great female force for the franchise!

Oceans of Blood: This episode has quite possibly the bloodiest death of a demon/Zombie in all of cinema, and all thanks to a broken beer bottle. Holy crap, does it make the blood pour? Unfortunately, it doesn’t cause that much damage. The scene with Kelly’s parents was also intense and very bloody. We can only expect it to get better (worse?) since it is only two episodes in and more Evil Dead style deaths are sure to be in store.

Ash’s One Liners: Ash has plenty of quick-witted quips and one-liners this episode, from the instant classic, “Thanks for the heads up!” followed by a Deadite head being splattered, and the line, “You’re kind of like a young me; Deadites ruined your life and you’re hot as hell.” Definitely going to be hearing Evil Dead fans quote these for many years!

Pablo and Kelly continue to be great additions: When it was announced that Ash would have traveling companions for the series, it left some Evil Dead fans wondering, “But Ash is a lone wolf and the king needs no peasants!” But every second Ray Santiago and Dana DeLorenzo are on screen as Pablo and Kelly, you get a very Ash feeling from them both, although they are both much nicer people. These two, as Pablo said about himself in the first episode, “Have seen some shit!” Now that they both have a basic understanding of what the Necronomicon brings, and what the power of a Deadite truly is, I feel they will be on full badass mode – even if they are only carrying a broken bottle as protection. But really, can we talk about Pablo and his Knife?? And the head attack on Kelly’s Deadite mom? Yeah… Like I said, Badass!

Cons:

No Lucy Lawless: The biggest disappointment this episode was the lack of Lucy Lawless’s character Ruby, but by the looks of next week’s preview, we will likely see her in a much larger role, which makes her absence tolerable… for now.

Why must they only be 30 minutes?: I promise it will be the last review that I complain about this, but man this show needs to be an hour. The thirty minute intervals work and makes each episode insanely epic, but when you think of other shows along the same caliber and entertainment wise, they all tend to be an hour long. Again though, with 5 hours of Evil Dead (with 10 half an hour episodes) and a second season already green-lit, I am sure binge-watching the series will become the norm.

Predictions:

Detective Fisher will both help and hurt Ash’s Journey: It is looking like both Detective Fisher and Ruby, who is likely to come into play next week, will be pursuing Ash because of how he started the Deadite mess, but just like Ash, they want to stop it. I am guessing Detective Fisher and maybe even Ruby will become anti-heroes by the end and actually may end up with the Necronomicon to prevent Ash from releasing evil once again. However, since there will be a second season, they may not do too well of a job protecting it, either.

Pablo is to broken bottle/knife as Ash is to chainsaw hand: This week’s scenes with the broken beer bottle and Pablo’s back of the head stabbing with a kitchen knife may prove to make Pablo with a bottle or knife nearly as iconic as Ash and his chainsaw hand and broomstick. I may be way off base and Pablo could become more and more powerful as far as weapons go, but he sure wields these tools well.

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Hush Comics gives “Bait” 10 out of 10 broken beer bottles, or an A+, for continuing to keep up the pace from episode one. Although it is an A+, the bottles are broken for the lack of Lucy Lawless, but like Ash and the car fight with his former manager, this episode was just sharpening the bottles for use later.

All images belong to Starz.

Ash vs. Evil Dead Series Premiere Review S1E1

It has been 34 years since the first Evil Dead hit us with a whole new genre of filmmaking, made our Achilles tendons hurt and showed us that when you have Candarian demons at your door, the only way to escape is to be Ash or join them. Along that 34 year journey, we got a sequel – which was actually more of a reboot with added comedy – and another sequel to finish the trilogy involving time travel and King Arthur, and even a dark gritty reboot not involving Ash at all, despite still being fun and with a great after credits scene! Enough about the past and what it took to get here; we are in the present and Ash is back in all of his glory. Well, Ash doesn’t have much glory, but yeah, you get the point. Also, this will be filled with tons of SPOILERS, I mean, of course it will. Ash would spoil the whole series for you already if it were up to him. I hope you have watched the episode and if you have any interest and have not seen it you must be on the phone ordering Starz now so you can watch it on Starz Play ASAP.

Pros:

ASH IS BACK!: For many years, fans have been pining for another film with Ash Williams and to see Bruce Campbell take his chainsaw hand on another adventure, and not only do we get five hours worth of Ash (thirty-minute episodes and a ten-episode season, but it was just renewed for a second season before it even premiered! Which means we get more Ash than we could have ever hoped for with just a fourth Evil Dead film.

The whole cast is outstanding: We got to see a lot of the new characters with Pablo played by Ray Santiago, Kelly played by Dana DeLorenzo, a little less of character Detective Amanda Fisher played by Jill Marie Jones, and very little of Ruby played by Lucy Lawless. This cast did an amazing job with the first episode and were implanted into my mind as mainstays in Evil Dead alongside Ash for the whole ride that is this show. Ray Santiago and Dana DeLorenzo compliment Bruce Campbell’s Ash perfectly as both have very unique character styles that will likely help inspire and help Ash tremendously in his journey against evil. The story line with Detective Fisher and Ruby did not get too far in this first episode, but can guarantee they will both shine incredibly once Jones and Lawless’s characters get more screen time.

The plot is actually right on par: This entire episode felt just like an adventure you would expect Ash to be in from him mistakenly reciting some of the Necronomicon while high and trying to hook up with a woman, to his horrible lies about his hand and how he saved an eight year old from being hit by an oncoming train in order to, well, hook up with another woman. The story centered so much on the egotistical and pure asshole behavior we expect from Ash. It is definitely believable as far as having the Candarian demons return. Actually, I am baffled Ash did not do something like this years ago to awaken the dead again, but thirty-some years seems like a good time for him to forget just enough to do something insanely stupid.

New types of Deadite’s: We have seen previews of what is to come in new forms but this episode in particular we saw one of the first attacks on Ash come from a cute doll in the stock room of Value Stop. Although quite terrifying, it also made sure to be very comedic. For example, Ash can hardly fight this doll, so how will he ever end up defeating the Deadite army this time around? Then, “SPLAT!” Pedro comes in with a shovel and shows us exactly why Pedro and Kelly will be so useful to Ash in this adventure to finally rid the world of the Candarian demons.

The 1973 Oldsmobile Delta 88 is back as well: If having Ash, his chainsaw, and boomstick wasn’t enough, we get to see his classic Oldsmobile return in tip-top shape. This Oldsmobile has been in every Evil Dead film and is actually Sam Raimi’s car in which he has found a way to stick into just about every one of the films or shows he has directed. The car beautifully named “The Classic” is a staple for Raimi much like Stan Lee Cameos are to Marvel films and would be sorely missed without being the main car in which our heroes travel in. Always good to see a ’73 Olds still in working shape even with it being shipped to New Zealand to film this series.

Sam Raimi directed the first episode: Who else would be better to start of this series than the original director and brilliant filmmaker Sam Raimi. Raimi’s style is very iconic to any film fan and seeing him use his classic camera moves brought chills to any die-hard Raimi and Evil Dead fan.

Perfect mix of gore and comedy: Right from the start, we see Ash being his normal debacle of a self and lying to seduce a woman in a bar, and almost jump straight into the gore from there seeing Detective Fisher be stabbed in hand with scissors by a Deadite only to have her partner blow half the Deadites face off and then subsequently be knocked into the air onto a pair of elk horns. Within the first ten minutes, we see this show will likely get to be more gruesome than some of the worst Walking Dead moments and even if not, there will be a lot more blood. But we can not forget the comedy aspect that has made Evil Dead 2 and Army of Darkness so famous and we get a ton of that from Ash’s bar trip and especially once we see him in his new workplace, Value Stop, where we see him drop a while box of light bulb’s in a grand slapstick fashion.

Cons:

C.G.I.: To be honest, it didn’t bother me too much because you expect it frequently in modern times, but I will say sometimes the special effects seemed blatantly obvious and sub-par to the other very practical effects they had going as well.

Just 30-45 minutes? : I really wanted this series to be full of hour-long episodes each week and had been expecting it to be that since it was announced. Maybe an hour of Ash a week is too much for some people, but I say, bring on the hour episodes for season two!

Army of Darkness not mentioned: This is definitely a studio issue and how Army of Darkness is owned by Universal, so although we all would have liked to have seen Ash with his robotic armor hand, or still working for S-Mart, these aspects from the trilogy may never make an appearance dues to the same damn studio issues that keeps the X-Men from ever meeting the Avengers.

Predictions:

Lucy Lawless’s Ruby will be a major pain in Ash’s behind: It has already been reported these two will not get along and that Ruby is on the hunt for Ash and blames him for everything happening. Her blame is actually spot on since he did start this whole mess, but he is also the only one who can stop it, and I expect Ruby will not understand the latter of that predicament since she will be a badass who thinks she can stop it herself.

Pablo and Kelly will be become heroes just as much as Ash: Even from some of the first moment of Pablo on screen saving Ash from the possessed doll, to his actions during the fight in the trailer, I imagine he will become a hero more suited to the title than even Ash. Plus we all know from the second Kelly grabbed Ash’s arm and held him against the counter that she would end up a HUGE badass.

Don’t expect the demons to all get vanquished: After all we know there will be a second season already and we know the second season won’t just be a new family vacation to Cabo with Ash and the gang where they get drunk every night and have hangovers. Wait… They could probably do that and I would still watch it every week.

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Hush Comics gives “El Jefe” one thumb up plus a whole chainsaw hand – in other words an A+ for being exactly what fans have wanted for 20+ years while also adding new aspects that make what seemed to be a perfect franchise even better..

All images belong to Starz.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #50 Review

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #50 – A+
Writers: Bobby Curnow, Tom Waltz, Kevin Eastman
Artists: Mateus Santolouco, Cory Smith

This issue is jam-packed with action, flashbacks, great quips and is executed absolutely perfectly by the creative team. As a long-time TMNT fan, this issue was everything I have loved about TMNT, as well as everything I have wanted to see from a TMNT comic.

With this being a double-sized issue, it makes it quite simple to see all the steps among this series that led the turtles here and how every story has brought them to this point – even the most forgotten issues among the series. But this issue has just about every element that makes TMNT so great in it with major game-changing elements that will leave some readers dragging their jaw around the ground for days.

To get into the story a bit, which is done with near perfection by Kevin Eastman, Bobby Curnow and Tom Waltz, we see the Turtles in an epic battle with Shredder and all his forces. With the turtles up against Shredder’s minions – Bebop, Rocksteady, Koya and Bludgeon – Splinter is in a deep state of meditation to prepare for his battle with Shredder. While we see Splinter in meditation, we get some informative flashbacks thanks to artist Cory Smith doing a great job with the dreamy colors for the flashbacks. It does a wonderful job of matching Mateus Santolouco’s art; the books flowed extremely well with no extreme art changes between the two separate stories.

The whole issue is basically one giant battle ending with a surprise reappearance from Donnie, a rather brutal death and huge surprise that the Turtles may now be a band of three… It all leaves to reader on the edge of their seat insanely excited, deeply saddened, extremely satisfied, and with such a large amount of surprise you MUST talk to others about it even if that means talking into a sewer hoping a turtle is there to hear you… no matter how insane you may look… not admitting I did this… 

To sum it up, this issue packs a wallop of a story with an insane amount of game-changing elements for the reader, leaving us wanting needing to read it again just to make sure the shock of some elements didn’t make you miss something. I can’t say I have enjoyed TMNT this much before, and can honestly say I feel this is TMNT in its prime!

See all of this week’s reviews here.

Fan favorites The Lone Gunmen are Set to Return for New X-Files miniseries

Lone Gunmen (X-Files spin-off) starring Bruce Hardwood as John Fitzgerald Byers, Tom Braidwood as Melvin Frohike, Dean Haglund as Richard ‘Ringo’ Langly, Zuleikha Robinson as Yves Adele Harlow and Stephen Snedden as Jimmy Bond

It seems all the people you may think are dead are returning for this new season of X-Files! If you have not been keeping up with the in-canon X-Files season 10 comics, you may be a bit confused at all the X-Files resurrections happening for the new mini-series. However, if you have been reading you would already known how so many characters have or will escape death for this new series. So, if you are confused, picking those up might be a good idea to prepare for the show next year. The season 11 comic series will be starting next month to lead us into the show.

The news of the horribly killed off (in an episode called Jump the Shark no less) Lone Gunmen’s return came directly from the star Dean Haglund’s (Richard ‘Ringo’ Langly) Twitter page where he responded to a fan asking about their return. “Yep, it’s true,” he said.

yep, it's true. https://t.co/w718E0y6i8

— DEAN HAGLUND (@dhaglund) July 22, 2015

Haglund previously had hinted he had a casting call from a certain sci-fi show two weeks ago on his podcast, Chillpak Hollywood Hour, and eager fans have been waiting for the announcement ever since. They will appear in at least one episode, but no other details have been released yet. We can only hope it is more than just a brief appearance. In the mean time, keep staying tuned for more X-Files news in the coming months. In honor Langly, never forget the memory of Joey Ramone. The Truth is Out There!

Source: Hollywood Reporter

Graphic Novel Review – Secret Wars

Collecting: Secret Wars # 1-12

Original Release Date: 1984-1985

Publisher: Marvel Comics

Character(s): The Avengers, X-Men, Spider-Man, Galactus, Dr. Doom

Writer: Jim Shooter (The Avengers, Harbinger, Secret Wars II)

Art: Mike Zeck (The Punisher, Master of Kung-Fu) and Bob Layton (Iron Man, The Amazing Spider-Man)

SCORECARD (each category ranked on a 10-point scale):

Storyline – 6

Art – 6

Captivity and Length – 6

Identity – 8

Use of Medium – 8

Depth – 7

Fluidity – 7

Intrigue/Originality – 9

The Little Things – 6

Overall awesomeness – 7

Going into both the classic and current Secret Wars series, I had no idea what to expect other than the normal rather cheesy and campy Marvel crossover we see so often these days; special events in comics have become when a comic from the big two can go five issues without a tie-in to a major event going on at the time. Crossovers although mean well, usually never come out the way anyone wanted them too, and even though Secret Wars has been remembered as one of the top Marvel Events in history, it did happen all because Marvel wanted to sell a new action figure line from Mattel featuring all their heroes. This was so obvious that there are variant covers to current Secret Wars titles, featuring what the original action figure boxes looked like with characters not included within the original story line i.e. Deadpool and Star-Lord.

The actual graphic novel is a collection of issues 1-12 – the original run of Secret Wars. And let me tell you, it is quite the beast of a book to get through. With the age of these books, we can assume the style and writing is very different to current books and, man, can I attest to that.

The writing from Jim Shooter here is great, and we are given a very original and well thought out idea. But it also suffers from being very wordy at times and often sounds a little like a kid wrote a two-page paper and found out it needed to be three pages, so he quickly threw in filler comments and words to make it longer but not any better. I think most of the writing problem came up because this sort of thing had not been done at all. Mixing two teams together, The Avengers and The X-Men,  seems like an incredibly easy task when you figure this current Secret Wars encompasses all of Marvel as well as a second universe with the same heroes.

I feel for the time this book was released, Jim Shooter was likely doing really well by Marvel and Mattel, and the writing had not been nearly as wordy back then, so as far as writing goes, time was not too kind on it, but the overall idea and plot definitely shine through to make this a special event.

As far as the actual story, it jumps around a lot at what is exactly going on; basically, you have the Avengers and the X-Men, who are allies but very separate teams all against a main foe. During the 12 issues, it jumps from an actual group of villains to Doctor Doom to the Beyonder, back to Doctor Doom, with random sampling of Magneto and Galactus thrown in there. They never last long and then usually the fight ends up being stupid and they stop. All and all, though, it is about everyone fighting each other while also trying to figure out how in the name of Uatu they will get off this planet. The story melds well, and overall flows much better than the current run of Secret Wars, but this original reminds me a little too much of the stupid stories I would make while playing with all my toys on my desk as a child, just with much larger words. That’s not to say the story isn’t enjoyable; it did bring us some pretty iconic images and changes to the Marvel universe including a new Spider-Woman, the debut of Spider-Man’s black suit and a major change in the Fantastic Four.

Secret Wars didn’t just bring us a 12 issue epic and toys that inspired the whole thing, but it gave us the black suit Spider-Man, which brought us a major change and one of the if not the most popular arc in Spider-Man with him dealing with the symbiote and it eventually becoming Venom. Initially, it seemed like a cheap ploy, especially when we are introduced to the black-suited Spider-Woman not that far ahead of this costume change – Spider-Man even jokes about it on the novel. But with the new additions to spidey alone, we knew somethings would have to change and with that within the last few pages, we learn that Ben Grimm is going to stay in Battleworld, as it has given him the power to change back and forth from The Thing by choice. Consequentially, Ben recruits She-Hulk to replace him in the Fantastic Four for awhile and this was a change a bit hard for me to take as a massive Thing fan. It is fortunate I also happen to be a huge She-Hulk fan, so it works out.

The art of this series is really what sold it for me, and if you read the updated digital versions for the TPB and hardcover collections of this, they look fantastic. Mike Zeck and Bob Layton did a fantastic job of making sure the series stay fluid as far as art went and although overlapping in which they work with Mike taking issues #1-3 & #6-12 and Bob only doing issues #4 & #5. But the switch is seamless which, although it takes drawing a character in their style away from them, for major events like this, it was nice to have the art not drastically change each issue. With this series, we get a one of the last good looks at how Marvel was before the major shift in the 90’s which brought about a ton of new costumes, teams, characters and changes to the ones we love. Much like Secret Wars seems a good place as any to travel to for a major relaunch involving everything popular from Marvel since the original Secret Wars, So far, I would say the original was planned out better and more fluid despite also never really finding it’s place. Ultimately, Secret Wars Vol. 1 is an enjoyable read and can give you small hints of what is happening or why in the current Secret Wars, but, like so many other Marvel events, it falls flat and lacks any real substance; any danger is easily brushed off and forgotten which made for way to many conflicts with not much results. Secret Wars is a great piece of historical literature, but Marvel has offered many more and much better stories through the years that should get as much recognition as this.

All media credited to Marvel Comics

Top 10 Aspects of X-Men: The Animated Series We Love

In commemoration of the X-Men ’92 series hitting stands today, we’ve taken some time to share our Top 10 list of things we loved about the original animated series that inspired the book:

1. Serious plot points and continuity among shows that had none.

X-Men: The Animated Series was one of the first shows to hold plot continutity for nearly the whole series. Due to production taking place in multiple studios, and some episodes being finished before others, in later seasons episodes were shown in the order they were finished instead of how they were written, but thankfully we have the power of DVD today, where everything fits together much better as one full story.

2. The series is heavily inspired by the comics

This series covered almost every major X-Men event up to the time the series started, giving up 1/4 to almost half of a season to cover certain stories. This happened most heavily with The Phoenix Saga, but we also got to see Days of Future Past, The Phalanx Covenant, The Legacy Virus, and Episode 3 is an adaption of X-Men #1 where we first saw our heroes.

3. The use of the most obscure characters of all X-Men and Marvel

This series had small camoes, from big names like Spider-Man and War Machine, and then a whole episode of Wolverine and Captain America, but Beast was seen wearing a Howard the Duck shirt in an episode. Even some of the most obscure X-Men show up, like: Longshot, Domino, Shadow King and Alpha Flight!

4. Tackling heavy subjects while not shoving them into your face constantly

This series covered a lot of heavy topics – not just for kids, but adults, too. There was an episode focused on religion that showed viewers conflicting views of both belief and non-belief. There were multiple episodes based on duty, friendship, family, social, economic and even heavy political issues. Then there’s the one issue we are humans still haven’t gotten the hang of – equality.

5. Plot points started from episode 1 end in episode 76

This stems from the character of Morph “dying” in the first few episodes, only to show up later, resurrected by Mr. Sinister as his evil henchman. He later rejoins the X-Men, but after realizing that he is affected by some crippling PSTD, leaves the team to be alone. His reappearance near the end of the whole series as a current student of Xavier’s School leaves Morph fans from episode one pleasantly pleased at his story by the end, despite seeing him seemingly die before we even got to a second episode.

6. The complete Phoenix Saga is 9 episodes long – over 10% of the whole series!

The Phoenix Saga is a massive story within X-Men lore and quite possibly the most iconic. The amount of episodes definitely is smaller than the amount of comic issues, but this is the closet adaptation we will ever get of this story in any cinematic form… we all saw how they worked it into the movies; it didn’t end up well.

7. Delving into Professor X and Magneto’s friendship.

Professor X and Magneto get some side stories together that really give you the impression that these two revolutionaries are friends, first and foremost; even the darkest forces could not split up the best of friends. That is not to say Magneto is not a antagonistic adversary for most of the series, but seeing how close these two are gave kids the first glimpse into that anyone can be a good person, even the maddest of men.

8. Not afraid to make viewers dislike our heroes and give them faults.

The series made sure our heroes were not one-dimensional, exploring the wrong had done in the past. From delving into Wolverine killing Lady Deathstrike’s father, Gambit and his thief past, Rogue conflicting with curing herself, Angel’s fall to the dark side (thanks to Apocalypse) where he becomes Archangel; many others have their faults as well. It was great for kids to see that even with mistakes and wrong doings, anyone can be a hero.

9. One could almost say X-Men: The Last Stand is loosely X-Men: The Animated Series, the movie.

The third film of the X-Men franchise heavily explores The Phoenix Saga, a sizable part of this series, but this series also was the first time we saw the mutant cure as a viable option. Despite being very different (Rogue wanting the cure? Really), we got to see Leech a lot, who was the catalyst for the cure in the film. So much of the important plots for X-Men: The Last Stand are what made this series great. Too bad those amazing stories didn’t keep the film from sucking.

10. A kid’s show filled with diversity and meaning.

Science-Fiction and fantasy are usually well-known for diversity, but the X-Men are the team in comics and cinema that pioneered it. Storm, who is second in command after Cyclops in most incarnations, was one of the first main members of any team to be African-American, let alone a female African American. The X-Men saw people of all backgrounds across the entire United States; not only this, but with the addition of Colossus, Nightcrawler, Banshee, Shadow King, Silver Samurai, and many more, fans got to see all parts of the world represented in a mere 47 episodes. While some of these characters may be evil, this series never strayed from this fact: we are all equal no matter what our differences. If that isn’t the best message for an action cartoon, I don’t know what is.

Bonus: The X-Men Theme Song

Of all the classic TV show theme songs to make it out of the 90’s, there are few that have had the longevity of the X-Men series. If ringtone’s were a thing in 1992, this jam would have set the record. It’s probably stuck in your head right now, isn’t it? Diddly-diddly-DOO-do-do-do, Diddly-diddly-DOO-do-do-doon, DEE doon- Doot-DO. Or something like that… Anyway, you can thank Ron Wasserman for that. Wasserman is also responsible for the Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers‘ theme, and a ton of other Power Rangers, Dragon Ball Z, and VR Troopers stuff. If you had two ears connected to a brain in the 90’s, you know his work.

Graphic Novel Review – Old Man Logan

Original Release Date: 2008-2009
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Characters: Wolverine, Hawkeye, Hulk, Red Skull
Writer: Mark Millar (Kick-Ass, Civil War, Ultimate Fantastic Four, Marvel Knights: Spider-Man)
Art: Steve McNiven (Death of Wolverine, Civil War, Meridan)

Scorecard (Each category ranked on a 10-point scale)

Storyline – 9
Art – 9
Captivity and Length – 8
Identity – 8
Use of Medium – 9
Depth – 8
Fluidity – 9
Intrigue/Originality – 10
The Little Things – 9
Overall Awesomeness – 9

With the multitude of Marvel and DC events that happen each year, I have found it is actually quite rare that a story comes along like Old Man Logan that completely encompasses nearly everything I love about superhero comics. This series was just one short story among the long-running Wolverine Volume 3 comics, but it was by far the most iconic arc of its run – so much so, it got a second volume for the recent Secret Wars event. Both volumes have very iconic writers helming the stories, with the original volume being written by Mark Millar of Kick-Ass fame. This story follows an old Wolverine who seemingly has not SNIKT’ed his claws in over 50 years, and now lives on a farm with a wife and kids. Lucky for us, the story does not follow a domesticated Logan. Despite Wolverine vowing to not fight for most of the novel, the action within is intense; it’s one of the more violent Marvel stories in recent years. It also happens to be one of my favorite graphic novels of all time – and definitely my favorite Wolverine story ever.

Mark Millar’s story for Old Man Logan is a very heavy undertaking; it’s dark, violent, and extremely original with an outstanding identity that shines above a lot of Wolverine’s past, present, future – even his death, which we saw not long ago, was illustrated by the same artist as this series, Steve McNiven. This may have been why I enjoyed Death of Wolverine much more than most readers. For most of the book, McNiven’s art is easy on the eye and has such intense detail, it feels more like a film than a comic. So with the story and the art both being outstanding, the only thing to dislike about this series is how horrible the villains are in it, and there are a lot.

This series sees Logan and Hawkeye traversing the United States with a mystery package and along the way they encounter almost every villain who has gained control of the United States. This is all thanks to one night where every villain teamed up and wiped out almost every hero, leaving the world hopeless and free for the taking, leading to villains killing villains for control. It’s not a future anyone wants to be in, let alone Logan, who has let his Wolverine lay dead in the past. Along this journey, we see Logan continually struggle with whether fighting is good or not, ultimately leading him to the realization of who he is and, despite being the best at something not very nice, it is needed and the world is a much better place with Wolverine around.

When you learn exactly why Logan has not SNIKT’ed his claws in over fifty years, your hearts drops and gives you a very empty feeling inside. There’s a certain two-page spread that’s enough to make any Wolverine or X-Men fan have nightmares for years. This bombshell was one that instantly made you realize what was making Logan hesitate to pop those claws again, and why Logan seemingly killed off his Wolverine persona.

When you learn this, you almost don’t want to see Logan be the Wolverine again and hope they can avoid conflict at all costs, but along the way, you learn that Hawkeye’s daughter has been kidnapped by Kingpin. They take a detour from their trip to Washington D.C. to save his daughter, who has taken up the mantel of Spider-Girl. Logan reached a point where he must enter the fight during this interaction as when they arrive, and break in to save Spider-Girl.

After a very long trip, Some Moloids, a Venom T-Rex (Seriously, it is terrifying!), and a chance encounter with Emma Frost who has married Doctor Doom in an attempt to preserve some mutants. Hawkeye and Logan seem to reach their destination with their cargo. This cargo, which we are led to believe is drugs this whole time, is actually vials of super soldier serum. Things don’t go according to plan and Logan ends up being riddled with bullets.

The bodies are then delivered to the president who happen to be Red Skull, and before anyone with a brain realizes Logan can heal he shoots up out of his body bag and takes out the guards and is left there with Red Skull in his trophy room of hero relics. Logan get punched a couple times until he gets knocked into the trophy case and right by Captain America’s old shield. The battle doesn’t last very long, but Logan’s escape from the facility is amazing. With no exit in sight, he dons parts of Iron Man’s armor blows the place to shit, grabs a suitcase of money and swiftly flies home to deliver the rent to the hulks, only to find the Hulks got there first and killed his whole family… SNIKT!

Now we get to the grand bloody affair, and as Wolverine heads to confront his old frenemy, he takes out just about everything green along the way. After some quick montages of Hulks losing limbs and lives, Wolverine finally reaches the Hulk and as old curmudgeonly Bruce Banner comes out, he smacks Wolverine in the face. Wolverine returns that with a stab to the gut, but sadly Hulk shows up thanks to the stab and actually grabs and eats Wolverine in a couple huge bites. With Wolverine seemingly dead, the last remaining Hulk family member shows up just in time to make Hulk realize what everyone seems to forget in this series – Wolverine has a healing factor! This leads to Hulk having his spine explode and just as fast as Bullwinkle can pull a rabbit out of a hat, Wolverine shows up. After this Wolverine realizes there is a baby and the last thing one of the Hulk’s see is Logan grabbing this baby and taking off to burry his own family and raise this hulk as his own.

This mini-series reached into some dark places I never wanted to know about but am so glad I did;  it can make even the most die-hard Hulk fan kind of hate the green guy. The story is mind-blowing on every page and further cements Mark Millar’s validity in the comic book world. This novel is a must-read for everybody who calls themselves a comic book reader. The only downside I saw in the story is that reading it in collected form made the jumps in time from issue to issue seem much more noticeable than reading them in single-issue format. I am glad I got to also experience this series month to month off a fluke of buying a cheap comic at a gas station on a road trip. Thanks to that stop, I experienced one of the best stories Marvel has delivered in recent years and one that seems to be a major factor in the future of Marvel with recent reveals of the future and Old Man Logan #2 coming out this Wednesday. So dust off your walkers, color you hair if you don’t like the gray, and sharpen your claws and dig into this novel so you can make sure and be in the loop for events now and post Secret Wars.

Sir Christopher Lee’s Best 10 Roles

Sir Christopher Lee was a legend, a master of his many crafts, and a true gentlemen. The man was not only an actor, a heavy metal vocalist in which he made an album about Charlemagne (to whom he was related to), and a humanitarian – but he also served in WWII as an intelligence officer and was later promoted to Special Operations Executive.

Sir Christopher Lee is well known for being a guy you wouldn’t want to come across in war, even telling Peter Jackson at one point during the shooting of his death scene as Sarumon that he didn’t need direction to know what a man being stabbed in the back sounded like; he had witnessed it enough to know. Besides the many other brilliant aspects of the man, we take a look back at some of his most iconic works within film and television.

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10. Count Dooku

Count Dooku may seem like the weakest Sith and didn’t even go by his sith name Darth Tyranus, but this role proved to become much more than we saw from Lee in the main Star Wars films. Lee provided his voice for Dooku in the animated film, The Clone Wars, that spawned the show of the same name, but Corey Burton replaced Lee for the animated series. The show provided much more back story to Dooku and made him a much more formidable villain than what Lee got to portray, sadly. Still, he was by far the scariest human looking being in Star Wars and was a terrifying villain to a whole new generation of Star Wars fans and his face and talent was very welcome in the prequels most people dislike, but he also is one of very few Jedis or Siths to have a genuinely unique looking lightsaber that can easily be identified just by the handle.

 

 

9. Saruman

The wise white wizard Sarumon turned powerful ally to the evil Sauron is one of Christopher Lee’s most memorable roles, especially from recent years. We not only got to see him portray the character of Saurmon in all three LOTR movies (albeit his scenes from Return of the King were only in the extended version), but we were even lucky enough to see him play the role a couple more times in the recent Hobbit film trilogy. This role was always one of my favorites; it was spectacular seeing Christopher Lee as part of this world and now it seems as if there never was or will be another Sarumon. Ultimately, this role was monumental in me getting back into reading books, and especially made me fall in love with fantasy novels even more, which just so happened to introduce me to Discworld novels by Terry Prachett, which brings me to his next role of…

 

8. Death

Christopher Lee was the only person imaginable with the voice fitting enough to portray Terry Pratchett’s Death, and he did so in a short animated film which led to the production of two animated Discworld films, Wyrd Sisters and Soul Music. Then, he reprised the role in the live action film, The Color of Magic, which covered the first two Discworld books (the one of the same title and The Light Fantastic). This role was probably my favorite of Lee’s as Terry Pratchett’s Death is probably my favorite character in all of literature, One of my favorite things about the character is that he speaks in all capital letters. This makes total sense why they would cast Lee for the role; there are only two beings who can speak in all caps and one of them portrayed the other in Discworld films.

 

7. Francisco Scaramanga

Not only is it cool enough that Christopher Lee was the step-cousin of Ian Fleming, but he once was one Flemings first choices to be Bond. But we all know he never got that role, but he did get the role of one of Bond’s most iconic villains in the film The Man With the Golden Gun, Francisco Scaramanga. This film was not seen as one of the best Bond film’s as it added a bit of comedic twist to it, but no one has ever denied Christopher Lee’s performance is what made this Bond film. His role in this sticks with me a lot as the Golden Gun was always so iconic and I even tried coloring a gun gold with a sharpie as a kid… all that I ended up with was gold hands… But we all remember trying to find the golden gun in Goldeneye 64 to completely destroy the competition right?

 

6. Tim Burton roles

It is a bit difficult to choose one of the many roles Christopher Lee played within Tim Burton’s catalogue, and he is known to be very proud of them all, so I thought I would count them as one role. Theses roles, and the fact Lee was so proud of them is another big reason I had such respect for this man. I love Tim Burton, but the people and the settings of his movies are what made them have that great Burtonesque feel to them. Christopher Lee had six roles within Tim Burton’s films and, each time, he commanded the scene and showed us he has a permanent place in Burton’s psyche. Burton’s adaptations of two of my favorite books of all time, Alice in Wonderland and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, hold a special place in my heart, so Lee’s involvement marked a memorable time in cinematic history for me. Lee has portrayed: Burgomaster in Sleepy Hollow, Dr. Wilbur Wonka in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Pastor Galswell in Corpse Bride, the Jabberwocky in Alice in Wonderland, Clarney in Dark Shadows, and Burton even added archive footage of him as Dracula into Frankenweenie, which leads me to…

 

 

5. Dracula

One of Christopher Lee’s most iconic roles to the masses was as Dracula;  he played the role ten different times throughout his run as the classic monster. Christopher Lee is thought to be the man who made Dracula, or at least made him darker and a much more interesting character. The most interesting thing about this role to me is Lee got tired of these stories and scripts as they dwindled creatively over the years, so at one point, Christopher Lee retired the character. The studio convinced him to come back as they guilt-tripped him into thinking tons of people would loose their jobs if he didn’t star in the film and bring in revenue. So Lee abided them and came back to film, Dracula: Prince of Darkness, where it is said Lee thought the lines of Dracula’s were so terribly-written that he decided to play the character silent in that film with just minor groans, hisses and screams. After this film, he continued to play the role for five more strictly Dracula films. Previously, he also has played The Mummy in the 1959 film The Mummy, and Frankenstein’s Monster in the 1957 film, The Curse of Frankenstein, which likely got him the role of Dracula and cemented a horror film relationship between Lee and the famous Frankenstein film actor Peter Cushing.

 

 

4. Frankenstein’s Monster

Although Lee only portrayed the monster in one of Peter Cushing’s seven Frankenstein films, he still is as legendary to the role to me as Boris Karloff. Lee’s monster role looked and felt a bit darker than the original, much like his Dracula, and although it seems tame by our standards now, this film was one of the first to show red blood on screen, as well as gore and violence, which made for a huge impact for the screen and advancement of storytelling in film. This role was great to me because he made the monster a monster and even if you had sympathy for him in this role – as you should with every Frankenstein’s monster – you knew you would much rather prefer hanging out with Karloff’s Monster than Lee’s based off looks alone.

 

3. Diz/Ansem the Wise

Christopher Lee also provided his voice to a couple video games through the years but none were as important or as influential to myself than his role of Diz/Ansem in Kingdom Hearts 2 and Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days. This character was extremely important to the story and was a welcome ally in a war we thought we were waging against Ansem in the first place (See Kingdom Hearts 1). These games were what made me a modern gamer, and are arguably my favorite video games since this new millennium started. No one knew Disney and Final Fantasy would meld so well, let alone the added characters like Lee’s Diz/Ansem. Plus, any cartoon/video game that has his voice instantly becomes ten times better when you hear it.

2. King Haggard

Here is another great villain made by Christopher Lee and one that is insanely iconic to me as a child. I remember watching The Last Unicorn many times as a kid and always being enthralled in that crazy and almost like a drug trip sort of world at times. But King Haggard was the main antagonist of the story and is the reason why our main character, the Unicorn, is the last one of her species since he kidnapped the rest. As a kid, this movie was one of my favorites. My first toy, sadly lost and forgotten a long time ago, was a unicorn puppet, so identified with this movie most my life and despite being iconic, for those who don’t know it I might as well say I love the straight to dvd Barbie movies. The film is very good and very much a legend among my films, whether it be the amazing cast which also included Alan Arkin, Jeff Bridges, and Angela Lansbury, or the classic hand drawn animation. This role was one of my favorites of his, even if I wanted to punch him in the face.

 

1. Flay

 

This role from the film Gormenghast is relatively unknown to most and is not one many people would consider his best, but this role meant a lot to me.

As a kid, I grew up around the Gormenghast books since my mother was a huge fan and despite not reading the books yet (for shame me…) I still hold the fact that Lee even participated in this as a huge factor to why I love him so much. But it is not hard to realize why he did; Lee was the only person involved in this production that actually knew Mervyn Peake, the author of the Gormenghast series and actually met with him over coffee many times. Lee not only executed his role spectacularly but knew the world and characters almost as much as he did Middle Earth (he read LOTR once or more every year). Although the live-action series only covered the first two books in a series of five, it still is the best we have ever gotten for a Gormenghast film and it may be that way for a while. But take comfort in knowing Lee did a spectacular job as his character of Mr. Flay and that this mini series happened at all. I only wish all the books could have been adapted so we had yet another epic Christopher Lee series of films.

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Well those are my favorite roles of Christopher Lee’s. Many are very personal to me. The man was a master of all crafts.  If these 10 roles were not enough for you, as of 2007, he held the world record for the most credits in films, not to mention the record for tallest leading actor. If you even wanted more Christopher Lee, please go check out his heavy metal albums, a Christmas album, and his Man of La Mancha song done in heavy metal — just like the man himself those albums are one of a kind.

The Fowl Life of Howard the Duck

Howard the Duck started out in the pages of the comic titled Adventure into Fear #19, which was released in 1973, as just a small cameo in the larger story about the character Man-Thing. In fact Howard would only be known for being in Man-Thing books for the next couple years because after the Adventure into Fear series ended, Howard got his own back up feature in Giant-Size Man-Thing.

During this short run, Howard usually faced off against horror parody characters who most of the time were even more ridiculous than Howard himself, including another favorite of mine, Man-Frog. You got to try and make an alien duck not feel too weird, so why not throw him in with the weirder guys to make him look … normal? After all, Howard may have had humor but he was not just some throw away character because soon after the Giant-Size Man-Thing ended, Howard got his own series that got rid of the horror parody characters and focused much more on making him a substantial character for Marvel Comics.

It was 1976 when Howard finally graduated from the ranks of Man-Thing and got his own running series. This self-titled series ran for 33 issues and one king size annual, and most of this series was actually written by Steve Gerber who is one of the original co-creators of Howard, although the artist Val Mayerik did not return and Gene Colon took his place for most of this series.

This initial run saw Howard battle depression and suicide, rescue sexy women, defeat dinosaurs and living statues, and even team-up with Spider–Man and all that is only within the first issue! A lot of small and yet iconic things came from this short series – especially Howard’s adventures into politics and his run for President. Across many Marvel mediums you can see “Howard for President” ads. Marvel even produced “Howard for President” pins for fans. Howard even got on the cover of Foom Magazine during this time in a wrap around cover with people like Nick Fury, The Thing, and J. Jonah Jameson showing their support.

But this series also went through quite a rough time; Steve Gerber had difficulties writing, and there were a couple of huge legal battles over creative control between Marvel and Steve Gerber and Disney complaining Howard looked too much like Donald Duck.

The writing difficulties were apparent in issue #16 a, “Special once in a lifetime album issue” that did not have any plot to it and was just musings about writing from Gerber. This issue did gain a popular following, because it was something never done before, but true Howard fans felt a little ripped off. The lawsuits were what ultimately destroyed Howard, leaving the series in hiatus for 6 years between 1980- and 1986 for it to return for just two more issues but without Steve Gerber and with the addition of pants, thanks to Disney.

The return of the comic in 1986 was released in anticipation for the one thing that has cursed Howard as being known as plain foul instead of just a waterfowl for years – the Howard the Duck film. This 1986 film, produced by George Lucas, seemed to have all the right ingredients but suffered from the recipe being written wrong in the first place. Even with stars like Lea Thompson, Jeffrey Jones, and Tim Robbins, the film couldn’t find its footing and never made it past anything but cult status. Although, even now, most people don’t admit liking the flop. Marvel loved Howard during this time and really thought he could be huge, so this was the first real Marvel Comics character to be put on the big screen with this capacity.

While the fiasco of a film was going, Steve Gerber was off doing his new thing for Image Comics and had created a character among his legal difficulties for them called Destroyer Duck. This caused even more controversy for Howard because Destroyer Duck was just Howard with guns. But this character would actually become part of a major crossover event with Savage Dragon from Image and Spider-Man and Gambit for Marvel. During this, Gerber was brought on to write because Howard was going to make an appearance and Marvel told him they wanted him to be the only writer for Howard at the time. But it turns out Howard had a couple other appearances in comics at the time that Gerber had not been invited to write, which left Gerber feeling rather betrayed. This decision brought on a whole different side to this series and made it more of a study of the behind-the-scenes drama of comics than a comic itself. In the Image Comics issue for this crossover, it was written that Howard actually stayed in the Image Comics universe and a “soulless” clone was taken back to be Howard in the Marvel universe, which was Gerber’s big “up yours” to Marvel. After this it led to Howard and his partner Beverly changing their names to Leonard the Duck and Rhonda and then dying their feathers/hair and entering the witness protection program in their new universe. This did ultimately give these “new” characters a home, as they were different enough that Marvel let Gerber keep them to appear in Image and Vertigo comics

Howard did not appear very much for many years until Marvel decided to launch an adult comic line titled MAX Comics. This series actually saw Gerber return to Marvel to write Howard, but this time there was quite the twist, as he was now turned into a mouse, which was likely a dig at Disney for the previous lawsuit. This series delved into more violent and graphic themes while also staying true to the pop culture clashing Howard we saw before. This was only a six-issue limited series and didn’t gain much popularity. Oddly enough, the next Howard project was the exact opposite of this; Marvel decided to make a very kid-friendly Howard series that ran for four-issues and did not help him recover at all from the travesty of his film and the burning piles of feathers it left behind.

Marvel even gave Howard a cameo in She-Hulk #9 where he tries to sue George Lucas over the film and what Howard was promised from it during this time, showing that even Howard knew he was better than his own movie. After She-Hulk #9 and some sporadic years of cameos and short lived series, Howard had a short adventure with Generation X where he ended up saving them from the villain Black Tom by lighting him on fire with his cigar. Afterwards, he went on to have a much larger adventure with the team The Daydreamers where they traveled together through the dimensional by-ways, where they battled a Doctor Doom look alike who was really Franklin Richards repressed emotions. The latter though saw Howard get to return home to Duckworld for just a small amount of time to see he is a hero among his people and also see his parents, before it is revealed it is an illusion, sadly leaving Howard and the Daydreamers back where they started the adventure and Howard feeling a little bit more like a fish out of water when they get back to Earth.

From here, it was shorter adventures for Howard but some with a lot more meaning as he found himself involved in a lot of the major events in recent years including Fear Itself, Civil War, and is involved in multiple ways in Marvel Zombies. For Fear Itself, Howard put together a team of Himself, She-Hulk, Frankenstein’s Monster, and Nighthawk to track down Man-Thing who freaked out and went into a uncontrollable rage because of the immense amount of fear across the world. Howard’s team (The Fearsome Four) got to Man-Thing and subdued him in time to save the whole world, making Howard incredibly important once again.

In Civil War, Howard was attempting to register under the Superhuman Registration Act, but in doing so, learned that he had actually caused lots of trouble for the government with his lowlife style, so the government doesn’t even register him as a person. This overjoys Howard since it means no taxes, jury duty, or other obligations the government brings with having you as its citizen, but then in other places Howard is seen saying he was pro-registration until they said he had to quit smoking cigars, and he obviously went and joined the anti-registration side immediately.

Last but not least for these events is Marvel Zombies and the immense amount of stories spawning from that. Howard appeared in multiple stories for Marvel Zombies including eating the Bruce Campbell’s Ash in Marvel Zombies vs Army of Darkness and most notably becoming an agent of A.R.M.O.R. and teaming up with Machine-Man in Marvel Zombies 5 aka Marvel Zombies Destroy! to travel across the multiverse killing zombies and bringing back samples to Morbius the Living Vampire. Which brings us to modern times and where Howard stands now…

This last year saw a huge boost in Howard’s popularity as we finally saw his triumphant return to the big screen, even if it was just of couple seconds, in Guardians of the Galaxy. It was originally just a cool cameo thrown in because the director James Gunn loved the character. Now it has become one of the most iconic post credit sequences the Marvel cinematic universe has given us. The short cameo brought about only the second Howard figure ever to be produced with the Funko! POP figures.

And now Howard is getting a new series starting this week, written by Chip Zdarsky and art done by Joe Quinones. In the first issue, we  see a sequel of sorts to the post credits sequence in Guardians of the Galaxy, as well as establish him as a private investigator here on the good old Earth—616. So now that you know Howard’s past, go to your comic shop, pick up Howard the Duck #1 and hold his future in your hands Wings!

Howard the Duck #1 is available now at your local comic shop!

All images belong to Marvel Comics.

Doctor Who Recap and Review – “Time Heist”

Spoiler City Ahead!

Who doesn’t love a good heist story? This Doctor Who episode, “Time Heist,” is stylistically a lot like the Ocean’s film franchise.  In a behind-the-scenes clip during the episode, Jenna-Louise Coleman said it was Oceans Eleven in space. This episode pretty much jumps right into the adventure without much time to realize it started. Clara is about to go on a date, so she refuses to go with The Doctor.  It sure seems like Danny Pink is getting set up to be a tragic loss or the reason Clara leaves. She is heading out the door until the Tardis phone rings. Both Clara and the Doctor stop dead in their tracks and ponder who it could be, since very few people in the universe have the Tardis phone number. As the Doctor goes to answer the phone, we are immediately transferred to a dark room where we have Clara, The Doctor, and two unknown people all screaming and holding memory worms.

We then jump right into things as they are given the plans to rob the bank and, alerted, the bank has already sent security to bring them to the incinerator. Quickly, we learn who the other two people are: Sabina and Psi. Saibra, who can change shape, as her face changes right as they let go of the worms. We learn she thinks it is a curse because she changes shape whenever she touches another living being preventing her from having any kind of romantic relationship. Then we have Psi, who is a Cyborg and is also an expert bank robber. We learn he has wiped his mind completely in the past to save his loved ones when he was incarcerated in the past. After the short intros, Psi downloads the heist plans and they run! They make it into the main bank with Saibra help posing as a bank customer and as they are making their way in and whole force of men run out, surrounding a man while a huge alien is escorted in in chains and a straitjacket. Ms. Delphox tells the man his guilt has been detected and as he yells at her that he is innocent she just bats and eye and has the alien, whom she calls The Teller, scan his brain for guilt and since he finds it Ms. Delphox orders his mind wiped, which makes the mans head cave in which for a show that is meant to be able to be watched by children was a bit gruesome.

The team make it past the main room undetected and get into an elevator; it is here where they are detected and find a case filled with a helpful tool put there by the man who orchestrated the whole heist, “The Architect”. They open the case and find an odd tool. The Doctor finally figures out how to use the device and it ends up cutting a hole in the bottom of the elevator then immediately replaces it for an awfully easy escape plan. They continue their way through the bank until they have to pass by a room that has The Teller locked up in a cage. While security is searching the whole bank for them and literally running right by them the team struggle to maintain composure in trying to keep their minds blank so The Teller can’t scan them. As they finally are able to make a run for it Saibra gets caught by The Tellers psychic powers and can’t move. As they discuss how they have no idea how to have her escape the doctor remember these six devices given to the team that seemed small at the time but he figures they are suicide pills basically and throws one to Saibra as she does not want to become like the man who’s head got caved in. Saibra uses it and is immediately disintegrated. As the team makes it to the next room we find it is the hallway leading straight to the vault and in the mean time, Ms. Delphox is tracking the team and decides to let The Teller loose and roam the halls trying to scan and find the last three members of our team.

The conflict between the team starts to really fly here as Clara and Psi cannot believe the Doctor just let Saibra die, helped and now doesn’t seem to care. Psi has a great line against The Doctor saying, “Is that why you call yourself The Doctor huh? Occupational hazards?” Although things get a bit heated, they still have a job to do; since the vault is right there and so are the three of them, the Doctor figures The Teller would be able to detect three minds in one place better than three separate minds. So he and Clara run off leaving Psi to hack into the vault and open it. Psi says he would be happy to be one of The Doctors Occupational hazards and then the Doctor hands him another one of the fancy little suicide pens he gave to Saibra. The Teller ends up finding Clara and trying hard to scan her mind, but she holds on long enough to have Psi finish hacking the vault and have him hatch his own plan to upload the memories of every thief and robber in history which entices The Teller and makes him leave Clara to chase down Psi. Once they meet Psi tells Clara that he must do it because when her life flashes before her eyes she sees family and friends, but he sees nothing and then he injects himself/stabs himself or whatever those suicide things do… (Damn Doctor Who… We just meet these two people and you kill them off right after to make me love them!) The Doctor and Clara hurry to the vault only to find out Psi’s hack didn’t work and that there is one more lock in place. All of a sudden, a solar flare hits the bank, we figure out a whole solar storm is coming, that is when the Doctor realizes they were not sent there to rob a bank but actually sent back in time to fix something at the bank and the only way they could do is during the solar storm because it would lower security to the bank. Then right as this realization comes to fruition the bank vault opens.

The Doctor and Clara look through the vault to find the three different items Psi, Saibra and The Doctor were sent to retrieve. They get to Psi’s first, which is an item to reboot a system and restore all files which would give Psi all his memory’s back. Then they get to Saibra’s item, which is a formula to stabilize her genetics. Then right as they start to head to the private vaults to find the Doctors Item they turn a corner and there stands The Teller. We then flash to Clara and The Doctor, captured by Ms. Delphox, in which she reveals The Teller is the last of his kind. The Doctor argues with Ms. Delphox’s actions and she send them both to the incinerator. But right when we feel all hope is lost one of the guards assures us it isn’t and changes form to reveal it as Saibra and the other guard takes off his helmet and it is Psi! The Atom disintegrators or so the Doctor thought were actually just teleporters which sent them to the ships hull where they find the Tardis and figured a way into the private vault. The team heads out to the final destination and as they enter the vault they find unlimited amounts of treasure from across the galaxy and one woman at a desk – Madame Karabraxos, the owner of the bank. The Doctor threatens her until she turns around to reveal it to be Ms. Delphox. Or rather, Ms. Delphox is just a clone of Madame Karabraxos whom she has killed for letting The Doctor get into the private vault. We then get to the point that the solar storm is going to destroy the bank which makes Karabraxos panic and grab all the treasure she can, The Doctor starts acting a bit silly, telling everyone he hates “The Architect” who orchestrated this and then he figures out he actually is the Architect himself and he sent himself back to rob the bank. While he is going on this tirade, he writes down the Tardis Phone Number and writes, “I am a Time Traveller” on it and give it to Karabraxos, whom then leaves. Everyone now is really confused and asks the Doctor is he remembered why he was there and he says well, there is only one way to remember and the doors open to reveal The Teller. The Doctor want him to scan his thoughts and as The Teller does the Doctor over powers him as he remembers why they are there, which is for The Teller himself because he is not the last of his kind, as Madame Karabraxos had a female of his species locked up.

The team then heads to the Tardis where The Doctor sets both of the alien species free on their homeworld to continue their species. After this we are treated to a happy ending with everyone eating chinese food talking about how awesome the heist was and confirming relationships which are left open for either Psi, or Saibra to return at a later date. We then of course have the Doctor drop off Clara for her date with Danny and as she runs out of the Tardis, the doctor says, “Rob a bank…Rob an entire bank…Some date…” Which leads to some interesting questions of why he cares…

This episode was definitely one that I feel may not count a lot toward the major plot going on this season, despite the Doctor basically thinking he was killing these two people and despite him giving himself the teleporters to begin with. As Clara stated at one point, “He isn’t really like that all the time” and as much as this season had made us question that, this episode showed he still is the hero we know and would more so save a life than spare one for convenience. While this episode was very high quality and a bit more of a smaller stylistic type of episode very much wanting to have The Doctor be the new Frank Sinatra or George Clooney in this sci-fi take on a heist story. I liked The Teller the whole time, but I really liked the idea of having the menacing terrifying creature whom all we see is him destroy actually be the victim and the whole reason they were there. I felt this was a great point because it was more than a heist and more than even a time-travel heist; it was a rescue mission first and foremost.

Overall this episode was somewhere in the middle for me for this season, as it seemed more that Stephen Moffat just wanted to do a heist story more than progress the overall story of Doctor Who, much like last year’s episode a Town Called Mercy where it was just a reason to do a spaghetti western and not much to offer as a good Doctor Who. I would give this episode a good B- mostly because it was a very fun and enjoyable episode, and Doctor Who always makes me fall in love with characters even if they are in only one episode. Only if the story had as much heart as the style I feel this episode would have received a higher score, but at least The Teller is free!

All pictures of Doctor Who are owned by the BBC.