The Marvel Universe has been put through the blender in the past decade or so, causing many readers to abandon it in the process. Spider Man's had his secret identity revealed and his marriage annuled. Captain America, Thor, Hawkeye and the Wasp were all killed off. The Hulk was blasted off the planet, and had his comic taken over, first by a red doppelganger and then Hercules. Nick Fury was ousted as head of Shield, and said organisation was turned into HAMMER, with Norman Osborn as director. Iron Man became the most powerful man in the world, and then the weakest. All but 199 of the mutants had their powers erased. The Avengers Mansion was destroyed and it's former occupants turned into a guerilla army led by Bucky...superheroes were forced to register... it goes on and on! It's definately not the place we used to know and love. Many of the constants of that world, which have largely been left unchanged since the sixties, have been swept away, seemingly forever. Not surprisingly, a lot of readers are frustrated by this topsy-turvey state of affairs and have jumped the good ship Marvel-- but not me. I've always seen this dissolution as a long game, and I've long suspected that the grand plan has been to dissolve the cosy familiarities of the Marvel canon--- and then gradually restore them.

It's been happening for years:

Spider Man, after having his identity revealed, a supernatural aspect to his powers added (along with a subsequent power boost) and a bunch of other stuff that would be impossible to reverse... has been restored to his sixties and seventies heyday by dint of a reality-warping deus ex machina.
Thor's come back from the dead along with his fellow Asgardians. Better yet, he's been deposed as king and exiled, so presumably issues of his comic will now involve more ass-kicking and yelling 'have at thee villain!' rather than dealing with complex trade negotiations in Asgard. Thor the exile was pretty much how his story began-- his alter ego Dr Donald Blake has even been given back his gammy leg, just like in the old days.
Captain America is currently undergoing a wholly expected resurrection and Hawkeye has already been brought back from the dead too. The Hulk is back on Earth, and though he's currently stuck as Bruce Banner, it's expected that his powers will return soon. Iron Man, even though he's sold almost everyone down the river and been responsible for most of the mess-- not to mention most of the death-- in the MU for the past seven years, will probably redeem himself in the upcoming Siege four parter. In turn, the events of that story will very likely restore Nick Fury and Sheild.

So basically, to cut a long story short, the cosy old Marvel universe-- with everything in it's rightful place, looks like it's coming back. It's been pretty bleak out there at times for my favourite characters, so it'll be nice to glow in some nostalgia for a while. But here are a few of the changes made over the past ten years that I'd like to have stick:

1) Keep J Jonah Jameson as Mayor. And make him run for President! The idea that a local newspaper can turn the tide of public opinion isn't really valid in the digital age. JJJ is a much more effective thorn in Spidey's side as Mayor than as publisher. Also the fact that he and Peter are now stepbrothers? Genius.

2) Don't give the mutants their powers back. What I liked about the X Men in the early days was that there weren't that many mutants, which made the characters more caustic and questioning of themselves. In later years the X titles became too bogged down in the politics of human/mutant relations-- it was much more fun when they were seeking out others of their kind across the globe. It makes their struggle to survive in a society that hates and fears them more urgent, and it makes the books less confusing.

3) Don't bring back the Wasp. I loved Jan, but the restoration of the cosy old MU should come at a price. Which brings me to:

4) Keep the registration act. Amend it, dilute it, but keep it there-- there's much mileage in it yet as a narrative device I feel.

5) Form a new team called the Doppelgangers and have it be comprised of Captain Bucky, Reds Hulk and She Hulk, Spider Woman and Daken! Kidding.

Next up (apologies to those who are now thinking TLDR): What should come next.

1) Let MJ and Peter get back together... but don't marry them. Yet.

2) Make Dr Doom the next big, big bad a-la Norman Osborn or the Skrulls. He's been around a lot, but has rarely been directly involved in any of the proceedings. That said, he's been lurking in the background during most of the big events of the past decade in the Marvelverse, so he's obviously got some kind of agenda. Let's see what that agenda is!

3) For the love of God, drop Norman Osborn off a building ... or have him turn back into the Green Goblin.

4) Once the Avengers are returned to the mansion and normality restored, give Kurt Busiek and George Perez another run on the title. Or give them Thor... I'd love to see Perez do for Asgard what he did for Themyscira in Wonder Woman. Not going to happen, but it'd be nice.

5) MOAR She Hulk! MOAR Frank Cho! MOAR Frank Cho drawing She Hulk!

That is all!

I know there are a more than a few of you here who live outside the UK, and that means you won't be seeing the newest Doctor Who episode until at least next month. Or, uh, until a few hours from now when somebody inevitably rips it onto the net for downloading. So anyway, if you haven't seen it yet, please do not read the following! In fact, don't look for any spoilers on this amazing episode!
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*Insidious things , spoilers. I've really got to give them up, because I spent most of tonight's Doctor Who special just waiting to see where the bits I'd already seen fitted in! What a story though-- Every one of these specials just seems to get bigger and bolder! The scenes of the Martian landscape and Bowie Base 1 were breathtaking. The monsters were genuinely disturbing-- I liked the homage to 28 Days Later at the end there as well. Slight quibble though-- skin is waterproof (isn't it?) and the droplet lands on Roman's cheek. How could it have infected him? It's good also to see the Doctor pitted against a foe whose nature is kept deliberately mysterious-- just like the Swarm in POTD and the Midnight Entity. This leaves fertile ground for future sequels to all the aforementioned stories, which is good-- Doctor Who needs more recurring monsters that aren't from the classic series. Don't get me wrong-- I love to see Daleks, Cybermen and Sontarans in Nu-Who, but we haven't seen a really strong baddie that can come back as often as the old enemies. Lots of monsters that work brilliantly in one story, but few that can keep coming back. The Flood, the Swarm and Midnight all deserve to return though.

I was surprised by the way a classic 'base under siege' story was secondary to the Doctor's anguish, though it was absolutely the right thing. First his curiosity got the better of him... then his compassion... but finally, it was his arrogance that drove him over the edge. It's funny, but I watched 'The Caves of Androzani' again today-- that other great dark Doctor Who story, where the Doctor also questions himself and the life he leads. We don't get this enough in the show I think-- the only thing that irks me a bit when I hear RTD or SM talk about the Doctor are the limitations they place on the character. You know the kind of thing. They mean well by it, but they keep saying stuff like 'ooh, you'll never see the Doctor do this' or 'he would never say that' or 'he would never go there'. Rubbish! The Doctor is as complex and as falible as anyone and it's good to show this from time to time. The show thrives on throwing us curveballs like the one at the end of tonight's episode. The most tense moment in the whole thing ---in the whole history of the show-- was when Adelaide faced off against the Doctor, and just for a few moments it was the Doctor who became the monster! Seeing that mania in his face...hearing him shout about how time WILL serve him... that was the scariest moment in Doctor Who history. Valeyard, anyone? I remember when I was a kid watching Colin Baker that it wasn't just the monsters that scared me... it was the Doctor! He just seemed so mad and unpredictable. Who knows what he might do if pushed the wrong way? Paul McGann said the same of the Doctor in an interview a while back.

My only criticism is that the writer should have kept this momentum going, and not have had the Doctor pull himself back from over the brink. How amazing would it have been to have an episode of the Doctor just going on an insane powertrip through time and space? But then I guess there would be no coming back from that, and no matter how far he goes, the Doctor should always essentially be good. Cannot, cannot, cannot wait for the next episode.

We have reached 50,000 pageviews! That means a lot of you have been breaking the first rule of Fight Club...

No, seriously I'm pretty humbled that so many of you have dropped by over the years. Actually for all I know 50,000 may not even be all that remarkable for a DA page-- but it feels remarkable to me. I should probably put up some art to commemorate this or something!

M

With season 5 being filmed and details of what's in store for next year slowly being revealed, I find myself thinking what kind of writers I'd like to see working on Doctor Who. Luckily, my top choice Stephen Moffat is a no brainer as he will be taking RTD's place at the helm of chief writer/producer for the show. But for those other episodes, it'd be great if we could see:

Paul Cornell: Five seasons and only three episodes? This man is one of the best writers Doctor Who has ever had! He was paying his dues with the novels, comics and audio dramas years before the show came back and he deserves more from the show. Particularly as all his episodes are regarded as some of the best in DW's entire history, not least by me.

Paul Magrs: He throws his hands up and says that he doesn't write for television but come on, if you can tempt Tom Baker back into playing the Doctor ( [link] ) you must be something special. Another writer who has earned his worth many times over with his striking originality and wit. He called one of his audio dramas 'the Horror of Glam Rock'. The Horror of Glam Rock! Brilliant!

Charlie Brooker: I'm not joking! I genuinely think Charlie is one of the most gifted writers alive with a savage wit and a fantastically skewed imagination. He and Doctor Who are clearly made for each other-- he's a fan, he's high profile, he's done (and still does) TV and he knows the difference between good and bad telly. So what he's a comedy writer? So's Richard Curtis! ( [link] ) And besides, great comedy writers seem to be able to reach a kind of pathos in their work that 'serious' dramatists struggle to achieve. Think about the last episode of Blackadder, or Steptoe and Son, or The Office...

Warren Ellis: Because he's one of Britain's best SF writers and he'll do it for beer money.

Matt Jones: 'The Impossible Planet' and 'The Satan Pit' may very well be my favourite episodes of Doctor Who ever, across all series. Word has it that he didn't get on with Russell T Davies, and that his scripts were rewritten extensively, but maybe now there's been regime change at Who towers a comeback is possible? This guy clearly has a lot more to offer.

As somebody who spent a not inconsiderable part of his youth running around a playground making the crunchy transforming noise with my mouth, I was of course looking forward to Transformers 2. It's a symbol of my disdain to call it 'Transformers 2' because I know it makes Michael Bay apopleptic with rage when anyone does. And quite frankly-- good, because Bay is someone who deserves to be annoyed, browbeaten and cajoled until the end of time for his appalling films.

Even though the rest of the film was garbage, the general scenes of robot on robot violence content were sublime. But that cannot compensate for the unlikeable/useless characters, boneheaded stereotypes and military tech fetishism that I had to suffer inbetween the cool bits. I can't remember seeing another film that flipped me from eye-felating awe to eye-gouging awful in such rapid sucession. It was like riding a roller coaster that showers you with chocolate strawberries before dunking you in a lake of shit.

I feel polluted by it, and ashamed to have paid to watch this trash. I think there was better characterisation and more innovative plotting in the childrens cartoons, and that's saying something. The experience of watching this movie is akin to being in the presence of a drunken, idiotic thug who you know will punch you in the face if you don't laugh at his awful dick jokes. In other words, it's like having dinner with Michael Bay. How dare he take the characters I love and put them in this repugnant film.