Author: Martyn

Record crowds join the stars at MCM London Comic Con

Record numbers of visitors flocked to Britain’s leading pop culture event MCM London Comic Con this weekend. The three day show saw 130,560 pass through the doors of Excel London, eclipsing the record-breaking 122,600 attendees at May’s Comic Con and the 110,200 at last October’s event.

 

Essentially this cements MCM London Comic Con’s position as the third largest Comic Con on the planet — just behind illustrious US rivals in New York and San Diego. To add some UK context it’s also around 10,000 more people than attended both the Man United v Man City and Sunderland vs Newcastle matches this weekend — two of premier league football’s biggest derby matches.

 

Visitors to MCM London Comic Con enjoyed a whole host of sci-fi, film, television, comic book, videogame, anime, manga and cosplay content. Featured panels and Q&As included Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss on Sherlock and Doctor Who; Alan Tudyk and Nolan North on new comedy Con Man; Noah Wyle on Librarians; Charlie Higson on Jekyll and Hyde; and Gareth Evans on his acclaimed martial arts movie The Raid.

 

Comic Con also hosted panels by cast and crew from zombie phenomenon The Walking Dead, hit sci-fi series Humans, historical fantasy Da Vinci’s Demons, re-imagined classic Thunderbirds Are Go, Dark Age epic Beowulf: Return to the Shieldlands; upcoming horror drama Outcast and CBBC sci-fi show Eve, not to mention screenings of Amazon Original’s The Man in the High Castle and Mr. Robot.

 

Other special guests meeting fans at the show included Arrow‘s Cynthia Addai-Robinson; The Flash’s Candice Patton; Breaking Bad‘s RJ Mitte; Game of Thrones’ Ian McElhinney, Ian Beattie and Eugene Simon; Continuum‘s Victor Webster; Warehouse 13‘s Saul Rubinek; Under The Dome‘s Alexander Koch and Colin Ford; Doctor Who‘s Colin Baker and Sylvester McCoy; Red Dwarf’s Robert Llewellyn and Danny John-Jules; Adventure Time’s Jessica DiCicco and Anime Guest of Honour Shigeto Koyama (Big Hero 6, Kill la Kill).

 

Meanwhile, the Comic Village was home to more than 200 talented comic book artists and writers including Bob Layton, John McCrea and Tony Lee; Vidfest’s gathering of online video talent featured The Yogscast, Rooster Teeth and The Hillywood Show amongst many others; and the games zone played host to publishers such as Ubisoft, Bandai Namco, Koei Tecmo, NisA Europe and Rising Star Games, as well the MCM eSports Arena.

 

For more information on the MCM Expo, look here.

Watch our MCM Interview with RJ Mitte here.

Episode 147:RJ Mitte MCM roundtable

Martyn and Gerrod joined the RJ Mitte roundtable at the MCM Expo this weekend.

RJ Mitte is an American actor, producer, and model. He is best known for his role as Walter “Flynn” White Jr. on the AMC series Breaking Bad (2008–13).

Like his character on the show, he has cerebral palsy. After moving to Hollywood in 2006, he began training with personal talent manager Addison Witt. They sought acting opportunities where his disability would serve to educate viewers, which led him to audition for the role in Breaking Bad.

Look here for more information about MCM.

The podcast can be accessed via different places, including Audioboom, Tunein, Miro, Stiticher, Blubrry, Player fm and Itunes.

Twitter:

RJ Mitte-@Rjmitte

Martyn – @BadWilf

Pete – @BeeblePete

Gerrod – @Nerdthro_P

Email:info@badwilf.com

David Tennant and Catherine Tate reprising their roles for Big Finish.

Audio production company, Big Finish announced today that both David Tennant and Catherine Tate will be reprising their roles as The Tenth Doctor and Donna Noble for a new series of audio adventures.
Doctor Who: The Tenth Doctor Adventures will be released in May 2016 and is comprised of three full cast audio adventures.

The series opens with Doctor Who – The Tenth Doctor Adventures: Technophobia by Matt Fitton, which is set in a London slightly in the future, where mankind is gradually losing its ability to use everyday technology. Could there be an evil force at work?

In Doctor Who – The Tenth Doctor Adventures: Time Reaver by Jenny T Colgan the Doctor and Donna arrive on Calibris – ‘An entirely mechanical planet. Catch, hitch, fuel, fix, buy, pretty much any kind of transportation in existence.’ It’s also a world full of scoundrels, where a deadly black market has opened up in a device known only as the Time Reaver.

Finally, in Doctor Who – The Tenth Doctor Adventures: Death and the Queen by James Goss, Donna is swept along in a fairytale romance and meets the man of her dreams in the beautiful land of Goritania. What can possibly go wrong? And why has the Doctor never heard of Goritania?

Find out more details at www.bigfinish.com

 

Review-Back to the future issue #1

We’re now in a position where all the films in the franchise take place entirely in the past. The last instalment came out in 1989, yet fans have constantly demanded more. Luckily for us, Bob Gale and IDW have teamed up to give us a four-issue mini-series set in the world of Hill Valley.

Bob Gale has been very outspoken about not returning to the franchise, as he explains in a note at the end of issue #1, he felt that anything more would just be repetitious, so he decided that the only way to expand on the universe would be to not focus on time travel. Instead, he opted to reveal more about the characters we fell in love with, all those years ago.

The Back to the Future comic is essentially the Untold Tales that fill in the narrative gaps from the films. The stories are set before and/or during the trilogy.


Issue #1 takes place after Marty leaves 1885, but before Doc takes his family to see him. Whilst building his time travel train, Doc explains to Clara and the kids, how he and Marty first met.


Doc and Marty first met, in 1982-three years prior to the events in the first film.
The issue is a lot of fun, as it riffs on the familiar tropes we saw throughout the trilogy. Writer John Barber is clearly a fan. Brent Schoonover’s pencilling is very cartoonish and basic, but it all works so well.

Episode 146:Noel Clarke interview

In this episode of the podcast, Martyn sits down with acclaimed actor, writer, and director Noel Clarke to talk about his latest creative venture – the comic book series, The Troop.

Noel takes us on a journey through the creation of The Troop, explaining how his love for comics began as a child and how he was inspired to bring his own story to life in this medium. He discusses the challenges of writing for comics and the differences between that and screenwriting, as well as his collaboration with illustrator Joshua Cassara.

We delve into the world of The Troop, a group of young people with extraordinary abilities who are tasked with saving the world from a mysterious threat. Noel shares with us the characters and their unique powers, as well as the overarching themes of the series.

Beyond The Troop, Noel reflects on his career in the entertainment industry, sharing his insights on the challenges and opportunities that come with being a writer, director, and actor. He also discusses his experiences with diversity and representation in the industry and the importance of creating opportunities for underrepresented voices.

Join us for a fascinating conversation with Noel Clarke about his creative journey and the exciting world of The Troop.

The Troop can be ordered from Titan Comics. Read our review here.

The podcast is available from all good podcast services, such as but not limited to; Amazon Music, Podchaser, Player FM, Stitcher, and Apple Podcasts.

If you’d like to support the show, then please shop via our Amazon link. A small percentage goes our way, at no extra cost to you.

Twitter:

Martyn – @BadWilf

Pete – @BeeblePete

Gerrod –@InGerrodsMind

Email:info@badwilf.com

Noel Clarke is @NoelClarke

Fox are developing two shows set in the X-Men Universe

Fox have long wanted to make a TV series set in the X-Men universe, now it seems that they’ve reached an agreement with Marvel, which will not only allow them to develop one TV series set in that universe, but two.

Fox producers Bryan Singer, Lauren Shuler Donner, and Simon Kinberg will colabirate with Marvel TV’s Jeph Loeb and Jim Chory to bring the shows to our screens.

The first series is called Legion. It’s being written and helmed by Fargo creator Noah Hawley. The second series, Hellfire is being developed by Evan Katz (24: Live Another Day), Manny Coto (24), Patrick McKay (Star Trek 3), and JD Payne (Star Trek 3).

Legion will  introduce us to the story of David Haller, David has battled with mental illness his whole life, he was diagnosed as schizophrenic in his teenage years,  he’s been in and out of various psychiatric facilities for years. After an encounter with a another patient, he’s confronted with the possibility that the voices he hears and the visions he sees might be real.

I loved Fargo, I thought it was a marvelous adaptation of the Cohen brothers movie. Hawley is a great choice to take on this project and I’m sure he will bring us something magical.

FX said:

“Legion is just the sort of ambitious story that Noah excels at. His adaption of Fargo for television was one of the most acclaimed television events in recent memory. It’s also an honor to partner with Marvel on Legion and to enlist such an accomplished team of Executive Producers to create this pilot.”

Hellfire will be set in the mid-late 1960s, and follows a young Special Agent who learns that a power-hungry woman with extraordinary abilities is working with a clandestine society of millionaires – known as ‘The Hellfire Club’ – to take over the world.

It’s unknown at this point if anyone from the film universe will appear.

I’m very interested to see how these projects turn out. It’s actually surprising that Fox and Marvel have made a deal together, it’s well documented that the two studios don’t see eye-to-eye. Marvel haven’t allowed Fox to release X-Men toys since 2003.

 

Blu Ray Review-San Andreas

San Andreas is the latest big-budget-natural-disaster-summer-movie-epic.

California is suffering from the largest earthquakes in history and the only person that can save mankind is The Rock, in a little boat.

Ray (Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson) is a helicopter rescue pilot, forced to abandon his mission in order to save his daughter.

Technically speaking, San Andreas is an impressive achievement. It realistically depicts various well-known Los Angeles and San Francisco landmarks, crumbling to the ground in the wake of destruction.

What prevents this from being an enjoyable film is that the screenplay takes itself too seriously, whist using cheesy clitches. It wastes the talent of Paul Giamatti, whose character only exists to provide exposition.

The film also squanderes the action-hero charisma Johnson presented in the fast and furious franchise. Had this been a film about a rouge helicopter pilot saving the people of San Andreas, this could have been an enjoyable popcorn movie. Instead it shifts all its focus on one family and never feels more than a big budget SyFy movie.

Is Miles Moreals in the new Spider-Man movie?

When it was announced that Sony and Marvel would be working together to bring Spider-Man into the MCU. As we know Tom Holland was ultimately cast as Peter Parker, but many fans had hoped Andrew Garfield would return and die heroically as Peter Parker, paving way for Miles Moreales to take over. 

In an interview with Yahoo, the new Spider-Man director Jon Watts was asked if there had been any thoughts about Miles taking over the mantle. What’s interesting is that he hinted that Miles may still be in the film:

“I can’t talk about that, because, you know, that will reveal too much. We’re still writing the story…we haven’t finished all the way through the story yet, so who knows.”

I admit, that isn’t much to go on. But I do suspect that we’ll see Miles pop up at some point. By the time the planned Spider-Man trilogy ends most of the current Marvel actors will be at the end of their contracts and looking to move on. The introduction of Miles Moreales would allow them to refresh the brand without having to completely reboot.

Sean Pertwee talks about playing the Third Doctor 

Doctor Who fans have long debated and demanded that Sean Pertwee pick up his dad’s cape, jump in Bessie and play his dad’s incarnation of The Doctor. Last Halloween we got a glimpse of it when he went to a party dressed in an improvised third Doctor costume. 

 
After that, a fan mocked up a very realistic image of Sean in the role.

  

Well, speaking to the radio times the question of playing the Doctor came up. 

Pertwee Jr. said:

“It would be an honour, but I think I would be completely terrified,“ he explained. “They’re large boots to fill. My dad would have absolutely split his sides if I did that, I’m laughing just thinking of his reaction.”

“Doctor Who was a huge thing in my life, but the thing is my father was just an actor. I was surrounded by extrodinary people all my life. The people he was interested in weren’t actors, they were artists, pirates, smugglers, butchers, florists, whatever. My recollection of being brought up by my dad was in Ibiza, so I remember this idyllic bohemian lifestyle.”

Read the full interview here.