Siskoid Radio: Geek Out! - March 3rd

"If you left a sonic screwdriver pen at my place last week, you might be a geek..."

Episode 7 and my 4000th post! As usual, two things: 1) #GeekOut is the hashtag on Twitter for the silliness of following a radio show live, and 2) if you couldn't listen or understand the French interventions, here's the episode's playlist, with You-Tube links where available.

Intro tune: Doctor Who IX - Murray Gold
Introductions
Man or Muppet - Jason Segel & the Muppets
Geek News: The headlines included legal news on the newest Tintin au Congo decision and MacFarlane vs. Gaiman, as well as obituaries for Golden Age artist Sheldon Moldoff, and Monkee front man Davy Jones.
The Monkees Theme - The Monkees
Comics round-up: What starts as a few of the week's tweeted comic book reviews turns into a rant about Justice League.
Henchman - Kirby Krackle
Comics recommendation: Robert Kirkman's Irredeemable Ant-Man (more in my most recent edition of Old 52)
Foux du Fafa - Flight of the Conchords
Film recommendation: Hirokazu Koreeda's After Life
The Fly - Les Mouches (not surprisingly, this indy Quebec song is not available on the 'Net)
Geek Band: William Shatner!
Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds - William Shatner
Real - William Shatner
Major Tom (Coming Home) - William Shatner
Kung Fu Dunk Theme - Jay Chou
Les Cryoliens arrivent en ville - L'Orbital Spoutnik (another indy song from Quebec, a short ska piece, that isn't on the web)
Geek 101: Audio plays, in particular, Big Finish's Doctor Who-related audio stories (I played a clip from Marc Platt's Spare Parts and the song following as examples)
Gallifreyan Buccaneer - Colin Baker (from the Big FInish audio Doctor Who and the Pirates by Jacqueline Rayner, somebody did a nice montage for it on You-Tube too!)
Psyché Rock - Pierre Henry (the original Futurama song!)
Astérix est là - Plastique Betrand (a druidic two-fer)
Le chant des druides - Manau
Goodbyes and your Doctor Who theme remix of the week:
Whorythmics - JeX

The show's on CKUM Radio every Saturday between 7 PM and 8:30 PM Atlantic Time (-4 GMT) on 93,5 FM in the Moncton area, or online, while capacity isn't exceeded, HERE.

Reign of the Supermen #415: The Blast

Source: Brilliant #2 (2012)
Type: Analog/TributeThe Action Comics #1 cover rides again! This time in a digital comic that inspires one of the kids from Brian Michael Bendis and Mark Bagley's Brilliant to use his powers to fight crime.

I'm highly critical of Bendis' Avengers comics (I find them tedious and unreadable), but Brilliant, about college geniuses who invent super-powers, is actually pretty cool. Yes, it's got his trademark conversational style, but the story actually moves along, with various kids doing different things with their powers. It's Chronicle without the angst with a good dose of comic book mad science. Check it out. A couple issues are already out under Marvel's Icon imprint.

Doctor Who #102: The Abandoned Planet

"Although we are all equal partners with the Daleks on this great conquest... some of us are more equal than others."TECHNICAL SPECS: Part 11 of the Daleks' Master Plan. Again, a missing episode, but we have reconstructions to keep us warm at night (Part 1, Part 2). First aired Jan.22 1966.

IN THIS ONE... Everybody's back on Kembel. The Daleks and Mavic Chen finally betray the delegates. Freed by Steven and Sara, they leave to hopefully turn their forces against the Daleks.

REVIEW: So we get back to Kembel and the story basically picks up from where it left off to do a sequel of The Chase (because that story was soooooo good). The Monk's directional unit burns out, so there's no gain for the heroes, though there is for Mavic Chen and the Daleks, now back in control of the teranium core. (Have them recapture the core before the Doctor makes a copy, and you've just about got a 4-episode story.) And though the A-plot reasserts itself, there STILL isn't a whole lot happening, mostly due to the Doctor being absent for most of it. So Sara and Steven focus on finding him, even of their plan to do so isn't very well thought out - call the Daleks to the control room with the loudspeaker and hopefully, they've got the Doctor in tow and then, what, jump the Dalek timeship and race to warn Earth of the impending invasion?

But this is an episode full of strange plots and plans that don't stand up very well to scrutiny. I continue to wonder what the Galactic Council is all about, acting like the Parliament and surprised Mavic Chen would draw a gun and kill one of them. Chen reassures them they will have control of their own galaxies, but will report to him and the Daleks. I thought they already HAD control of their own galaxies, so why join the Daleks at all? Or did the Daleks help them conquer their galaxies in the first place? But if they did, and the dialog don't confirm that, why is it such a pain to conquer the Earth system with their combined forces? Do they really need a time destructor? Can't conventional warfare, the element of surprise and an inside man at the very top do the job? And then why would the Daleks imprison the delegates? Why make an alliance with them at all if you're just going to betray them? Or indeed, why not kill them when you're done with them? Now they're all gonna go back to their fleets and turn on you...

As for Chen, dude's insane, so that's pretty much the only explanation I can find for his behavior. He gets trapped with the delegates after shooting one, pretends to feel betrayed by the Daleks, destroys his own ship to fake his death, and then shows up again on the Daleks' side minutes later. I hope it pays off for him.

REWATCHABILITY: Medium-Low - The show has been on Chase mode for so long now, it seems to have forgotten how to tell a coherent story. Just counting the minutes until Master Plan is over.

Kung Fu Friday Moments: The Invention of Tai Chi

Used to seeing senior citizens practice Tai Chi at the park? Looks pretty lame? Not when Jet Li INVENTED it in Tai Chi Master!

Exploding barrels of fun for the whole family!

Doctor Who #101: Escape Switch

"Will the Daleks never learn that all things do not work to a pattern - that flexibility can also lead to conquest?"TECHNICAL SPECS: Part 10 of the Daleks' Master Plan. This is the last of the three surviving episodes from this story, included on the Lost in Time DVD. First aired Jan.15 1966.

IN THIS ONE... In Ancient Egypt, the Monk delivers Sara and Steven to the Daleks, and the Doctor must trade the taranium for them.

REVIEW: It's nice that this episode exists in the archives so we can see the sets, props, costumes and models, but Ancient Egypt remains in the background for most of the story. The Egyptian point of view is presented in broad strokes - they question the divinity of all these advanced people running around and call the Daleks war machines (but not THOSE war machines) - before they commit to a well-timed attack that leads to their own massacre. Good to see them adapt and start blocking Dalek traction with rocks, but they're in over their heads. In the end, the continuing characters will leave the setting behind and the Egyptians' story, for what it was, will just end there. Otherwise, it's just a nice place for the Doctor to wear a hat, or for the Monk to get wrapped in cloth to make us think a mummy attack is pending.

The villains in this are really they're own biggest enemies, consistently passing the buck to one another, none of them conceding that another may be superior. The Monk's loyalties are especially supple, but it's hard to stay mad at him. His ultimate fate as another owner of a time-lost TARDIS is fitting and not over-harsh, and it's really too bad he never returned to the program. Mavic Chen, for his part, is a pale shadow of his former self, prone to bluster as a mouthpiece for the Daleks. His strength is as a political maneuverer, not as a traditional SF villain, clearly. Kevin Stoney does have his moments, such as when Chen delays telling the Daleks he recovered the taranium core, just to see them freak out a little more. The Daleks have one strong moment too, in which they say they don't mind the Doctor's hostage exchange conditions requiring a single Dalek to be present because "One Dalek is capable of exterminating all!" - shades of the new series Daleks - but they immediately undo this badassery by breaking the deal and showing up in numbers. Boo.

With so many villains in the picture, it's a wonder our heroes have any room to move at all. The Doctor, in fact, spends a good deal of time walking around the pyramid site far from the action, but I love his utter contempt of Mavic Chen, a man who would betray the human race to the Daleks. And while he loses the taranium core, he does rescue his friends and defeats the Monk. Not a bad day's work. Sara Kingdom has become completely integrated into the TARDIS crew, that is to say she's become an episodic cipher. She trusts Steven and the Doctor implicitly, and laughs at the absurd bits as if she hadn't just killed her brother Bret what must be hours ago from her perspective. Though Jean Marsh has said it was never the intention for her to be a "companion", that's how she's written. You wouldn't think she's part of the Year 4000 story being told. Steven, for his part, could use a good script right about now (spoiler: he gets it with the next story).

REWATCHABILITY: Medium - I'm no doubt more sympathetic to this episode because we can actually SEE it, and it has its moments, but it's still largely a set piece towards the end of The Chase II, with a disposable setting and characters that deserved better.

The Old 52: The Irredeemable Ant-Man

If you haven't read it, it's new to you. Every month I try to supplement the New 52 with a series from the Old 52. Series I've never read, but have always meant to.
When it was new: Running 12 issues between December 2006 and November 2007, this Marvel series was written by Robert Kirkman with art by Phil Hester for 10 of the 12, with Cory Walker subbing on issues 7 and 8.

Premise: Eric O'Grady is a rather bad SHIELD agent who steals Hank Pym's new Ant-Man suit and uses it, well, mostly to look at naked chicks in the shower.

A small package: I'm of course a fan of Robert Kirkman's Invincible, Super Dinosaur and, most recently, Thief of Thieves, but somehow, I'd completely missed that he was the writer of Irredeemable Ant-Man. I was initially attracted to it for the Old 52 Project by Phil Hester's art (and of course, its length), so... bonus! Though only 12 issues, Ant-Man does tell a complete and satisfying story, that of a less than scrupulous man's journey towards becoming a good superhero... and not sort of kind of making it. Because of Mark Waid's Irredeemable, one might imagine this Ant-Man to be some kind of killer, or extreme anti-hero, but he's not. He's a flawed human being, selfish, greedy, lascivious, scared of commitment, and maybe even friends with one of Spider-Man's less evil villains. Nevertheless, Eric O'Grady has some measure of bravery, is a masterful liar, and though he makes a lot of bad decisions, he really WANTS to do better.

The brilliant thing about Irredeemable Ant-Man is that it uses a lot of small, claustrophobic panels when it isn't doing bold superhero action. It makes for a dense reading experience - you get a lot of story for your buck - but it's also thematically perfect for a book about a tiny superhero. The "smallness" of Eric O'Grady as a man gives way to bigger splashes when he goes into action, contrasting his pettiness with the epic nature of his adventures. He's also a man trapped by circumstances, on the run and flying by the seat of his pants. Those tight panels work to the book's advantage in a number of ways. And as a small cog in the Marvel Universe's machine, this Ant-Man becomes the perfect guy to reflect on (and take the piss out of) Marvel's big crossover events, whether that's how "Civil War" was really more of a street fight, or having Ant-Man crawl into the Hulk's nose during the Green Goliath's fight with Iron Man in World War Hulk. No wonder Ant-Man becomes a member of Damage Control (which had a similar function).
And then there's the recap ant that begins every issue with an amusing rendition of what has gone before, each recap funnier than the next. Other than the ant, the book never feels like a spoof. People get hurt, we cheer Eric's ethical successes, and shake our heads at his failures. He's a great trickster archetype. As I was reading the series (neatly collected), O'Grady seemed to be killed in Secret Avengers. Though it would be a tragic and appropriate end to his journey, having just read its opening chapter, it makes me want to see it continue longer.

Trade in for one of the New52? If Blue Beetle is intent on retelling an already told story, why not go bug-for-bug and give Irredeemable Ant-Man a chance? It's also a "becoming a hero" story, but it zigs where others zag.

Doctor Who #100: Golden Death

"I have an old score to settle with him. But I'm sure yours is the prior claim."TECHNICAL SPECS: Part 9 of the Daleks' Master Plan. It is missing from the archives, and I've used a reconstruction (Part 1, Part 2). First aired Jan.8 1966.

IN THIS ONE... The Doctor and co., the Monk and Mavic Chen and the Daleks all find themselves in Ancient Egypt.

REVIEW: We finally stop running and stick to one setting for more than an episode - Ancient Egypt! It's a fantastic and evocative idea, and by all accounts well realized, though I can't help but feel it is a waste of its potential as a historical that could have been on par with The Aztecs. Though something cultural is made of the Egyptians' dragging of the TARDIS into the tomb, the time travelers could really be anywhere in space and time. The focus isn't on the setting, but on various confrontations between the various factions.

The Monk of course tries to sell the Doctor out to the Daleks, weasel that he is, though I suppose it's possible he was playing them for fools (this IS before the Daleks became the Time Lords' blood enemies though). No, the Monk vs. the Doctor is where it's really at, Hartnell and Butterworth once again getting a nice to play off each other, and the Doctor playing some tricks on the Monk, giving as good as (or better than) he got. His sabotage of the Monk's TARDIS, turning it into a police box (and a few random things along the way, different in the reconstruction than the script, though each has at least one weird thing that would make you wonder where the door is - a camel and a motorcycle) will only play a role in the next episode, but one can see where it's heading. The Monk's melting of the Doctor's lock (tediously still an issue in this episode) is comparatively lame. A medieval monk with modern sunglasses walking around a pyramid building site is incongruous, but with the Daleks also coasting around, that doesn't seem all that novel. The Doctor looks pretty dapper in his new hat though.

The Daleks make Mavic Chen responsible for retrieving the taranium, but then follow him around like an armed escort, so that part of the script could use work. Steven and Sara, meanwhile, are kept out of the main action, captured by Egyptians, though they do get to blow off some steam when they inevitably escape. What's fun is that Sara is a better fighter than Steven is, though the fact they're both physical characters might make them redundant in the long run. For now, it only makes them autonomous from the Doctor.

THEORIES: Whether you can still believe the Doctor and the Monk know each other of old depends on who you interpret the Monk's answer to that effect, "in a manner of speaking, yes... and again, in another manner of speaking, no". The most likely interpretation is that they met in "The Time Meddler", but they don't even know each other's true names. However, you could make a case for it meaning that they DO know each other of old, but the Monk has regenerated since then and is a "new man".

REWATCHABILITY: Medium - The setting makes a change from Dalek ships and savage planets, and the Doctor and the Monk are always good together. The Daleks' presence break the spell though.