The Pull List: 29 October 2014

Three years of story has paved a road to this: Wonder Woman #35, in which Brian Azzarello and Cliff Chiang's sprawling epic comes to its ultimate conclusion. It's a god-versus-god battle for the fate of Olympus, with Diana the God of War on one side and Zeus' Firstborn on the other.

This has been one of the single-best Wonder Woman storylines ever. Cliff Chiang has developed a wonderfully simple and powerful look for Diana, and extended his wonderful design skills to a whole host of new characters for the comic to exploit for decades to come. Brian Azzarello dragged the property back to its mythological roots, ruffling some feathers at first with his contentious changes to Diana's back story, but finding a lot more value in what he added than in what he had removed.

What has really benefited this book is how separate its remained, by-and-large, from the DC Universe proper. Over in Justice League and Superman/Wonder Woman, Diana has been pushed into a tortured and unconvincing romance with Superman, and it's been such a relief to never see that storyline rear its head in Wonder Woman proper. The isolation has allowed for this extensive, epic tale to be properly told in full - and I'm grateful to DC's editors for letting that happen. (5/5)

Next month the book shifts over to David and Meredith Finch. I'm not familiar with Meredith Finch's work as a writer, while I'm not a fan of David Finch as an artist. I'm still on the fence as to whether or not to give this new version a chance or to cut my losses here on a high.

DC Comics. Written by Brian Azzarello. Art by Cliff Chiang.

Under the cut: Aliens, Batman Eternal, Doctor Who, The Massive, Saga and Umbral. I also purchased Black Science but am running behind and haven't reviewed issue #9 or #10.

The Merchant of Venice (2004)

Did it really take 77 years for someone to make a talking picture out of The Merchant of Venice? There were about six made during the silent era, which I find oddly charming given that Shakespeare’s strength is the words his characters speak. Yet for all its popularity in the teens and twenties of the 20th century, it took until 2004 for someone to actually make Merchant as a talkie. This feels wrong. This feels perverse. No matter - at least a talking Merchant finally arrived, and at 138 minutes he talked quite a lot.

The Merchant of Venice is an excellent film, beautifully staged and well acted. Director Michael Radford treads a narrow and treacherous line here: the play is widely recognised as one that is, if not actively anti-Semetic, then certainly heavily informed by the anti-Semetic culture that produced its author. A lot has changed between 1596 and 2004. A lot of people have died. A lot have been persecuted. Most of us (but sadly not nearly enough of us) now know better.

Thankfully Radford has elected to meet the play half-way: he sets it in 1596, the year that Shakespeare likely wrote it, and he brings a self-aware 21st century sensibility to the now-objectionable behaviours of the 16th.

Doctor Who: "Dark Water"

Throughout Season 8 we've had glimpses of the mysterious "Missy" (Michelle Gomez), self-proclaimed "Guardian of the Nethersphere", as she's picked up murder victims from around the Doctor's life and transporting them to some kind of virtual afterlife. Now the Doctor and Clara's paths finally cross with her, under the most tragic of circumstances - and with some unexpected revelations.

It's season finale time, and this year we're getting a two-part serial with a mid-story cliffhanger and everything. I love cliffhangers: they always seemed to me to be an integral part of Doctor Who, and I was sad when the new series focused on self-contained episodes rather than serials because it meant that for these past 10 years we've seen so few of them. This episode features the first proper cliffhanger and proper two-parter since May 2011. It's overdue. It's very welcome and, thankfully, it takes the welcome and provides an absolutely stunning episode in return.

There are spoilers under the cut: and they're bigger spoilers than usual. If you haven't seen "Dark Water" yet, I strongly recommend you go watch it before reading further.

Doctor Who: "In the Forest of the Night"

The Doctor arrives in London to find a 12 year-old girl standing outside the TARDIS, and a massive forest overwhelming the city. Reunited with Danny and Clara - not to mention an entire class of Coal High School students - the Doctor races to work out what has caused the trees to sprout up around the world overnight.

I was quite keen to see "In the Forest of the Night" because it was written by Frank Cottrell Boyce, who has written two of my favourite screenplays of recent years: Michael Winterbottom's 24 Hour Party People and Danny Boyle's superb children's film Millions. If he could bring the quality and originality he brought to those films into Doctor Who we could really have been in for something special.

And he sort of brings it and he sort of doesn't. I'm on the fence about this episode. It's an episode I want to like more than I do. It's neat moments and its humour don't quite compensate for the fact that it's a pretty silly story that isn't told particularly well.

Doctor Who: "The Velvet Web"

It's teatime on Saturday 18 April 1964, and time for Doctor Who.

The TARDIS team have been dispatched, with the use of teleporting travel dials, to various points around the planet Marinus. Their mission is to collect the four keys to the Conscience of Marinus before the evil Voord invade and lay claim to the Conscience for themselves. The first stop: the idyllic city of Morphoton, where the Doctor, Ian, Barbara and Susan are invited to relax in the lap of luxury. Only something is wrong: Barbara can see the city for the decayed ruin it really is - even if her companions can not.

What we have in "The Keys of Marinus" is a six-part quest story, and as a result each instalment has the chance to tell its own self-contained 25-minute story. After a weak and derivative set-up in "The Sea of Death", "The Velvet Web" takes its premise and runs with it marvellously. The result is an episode that's much more inventive and engaging, and certainly the creepiest episode of Doctor Who thus far.

The Pull List: 22 October 2014

I always get mildly annoyed when one of the big two publishers - and it's usually Marvel - relaunches and renumbers a comic book every time it has a significant change in creative team or direction. In some cases, as with Daredevil, they don't even need those excuses: they just relaunch and renumber anyway. There used to be something nice about reading issue eight hundred and something of Detective Comics. It demonstrated a legacy and a rich history that Detective Comics issue twelve doesn't really express.

As a result I'm always happy when a book gets a fresh look, team and direction, yet keeps the current numbering. Next month DC do it with Wonder Woman #36, but this month they're doing it with Batgirl and now Catwoman #35. New creative team, a new narrative direction, but still the same comic and lead characters.

Catwoman #35 by writer Genevieve Valentine, artist Garry Brown (The Massive) and colourist Lee Loughridge, sees Selina Kyle assume control of one of Gotham City's most powerful crime syndicates and start to rebuild the city - both its physical infrastructure and criminal underworld - in the wake of Batman Eternal. Basically it's The Godfather, with Catwoman instead of Al Pacino and with both Batman and Black Mask lurking around in the background.

It's a very smooth transition to the new status quo, told with clarity and maturity, and thankfully without the fairly overt skeezy sexuality that has plagued this book since it relaunched in 2011. Garry Brown is a great artist; I've loved his work on The Massive and I'm very happy to see him applying his extensive talent here. Altogether it's an impressive package and, alongside Gotham Academy and the reworked Batgirl, is doing a great job of diversifying and energising DC's massive line of Batman-centric comics. (4/5)

DC Comics. Written by Genevieve Valentine. Art by Garry Brown.

Under the cut: reviews of Aquaman, Batman Eternal, Deathstroke, The Flash, He-Man, Infinity Man and the Forever People, The Multiversity, Predator, Revival, She-Hulk and The Wicked + the Divine.

Peggy Sue Got Married (1986)

At her 25th anniversary high school reunion separated mother-of-two Peggy Sue Bodell is momentarily overwhelmed and passes out on the stage. When she wakes, she finds herself transported to the Spring of 1960 and her final year of high school. Given the opportunity to re-live her adolescence, will Peggy Sue make all new choices or simply make the same mistakes again?

Peggy Sue Got Married is an odd fish of a movie. It came out a year after Back to the Future, a film with a fairly similar premise that was tighter, better paced and much, much funnier. At the same time, Peggy Sue is a distinctive enough film to really avoid comparisons upon a closer inspection. It travels a similar path, sure, but it stops at different points along the road and reaches a vastly different conclusion.

Most striking of all is the film's tone, which isn't really out-and-out comedic, but instead works as a sort of strange elevated fantasy with regular comedic moments. In some places it almost felt vaguely like a David Lynch film, and certainly not the work of its actual director Francis Ford Coppola. Certainly this is the creepiest comedy I've seen in a long time, and that creepiness does feel relatively intentional.

The Pull List: 15 October 2014

I'm in love with Wild's End, Dan Abnett and I.N.J Culbard's six-part miniseries from Boom Studios. It's basically The Wind in the Willows crossed with The War of the Worlds, as a small 1920s village of charming anthropomorphic animals are besieged by alien killing machines. As far as pitches go, that wins the year for me: I don't think I've heard anything funnier or more immediately attractive. It has me scratching my head. Why has nobody thought of this before?

What is impressing me the most, now that we're up to the 2nd issue, is that Abnett isn't just writing a superficial pastiche. These are interesting and well-rounded characters. They're based in archetype and tradition sure, but they've got agency and distinctive personalities. I already have my favourite characters, and I'm already invested enough in their lives that it's dramatic seeing any of them die. I'm only two issues into the series but I already want to read more adventures about the inhabitants of Crowchurch.

Culbard, who is also collaborating with Abnett on Dark Horse's Dark Ages, provides very attractive and clean artwork. It's elegant and simple, and matches the tone of the piece and the period setting extremely well. Culbard and Abnett make a great team. Hopefully there's more from them to come. (5/5)

Boom Studios. Written by Dan Abnett. Art by I.N.J Culbard.

Under the cut: reviews of Batman and Robin, Batman Eternal, Batwoman, Daredevil, Doctor Who, The Last Broadcast, Lumberjanes, Ms Marvel and Prometheus.