Black Test Car (1962)

Two rival car manufacturers are in a race to release their new sports cars. When the Tiger company's test vehicle crashes, photographers paid for by the rival Yamato corporation are there to shoot the accident and leak it to the press. Soon afterwards it becomes clear that Yamato has somehow stolen the blueprints to Tiger's forthcoming vehicle, setting off an escalating race of spies, bugs, subterfuge and lies as each company struggles to get its own car to market faster and cheaper than their competitor.

Black Test Car is a 1962 Japanese drama directed by Yasuzo Masumura. It is a surprisingly bleak and cynical film, in which characters progressively cross moral and ethical lines in order to get what they want. It begins with photographers sneaking around observing test drives. It ends with lives in ruins, friendships shattered, and for what? A more profitable sports car? One gets the impression that Masumura took a hard look at the growing consumerism of 1960s Japan and did not like what he saw.

The Pull List: 1 June 2016, Part 2

DC's Rebirth initiative looks to re-work their line of superhero comics to make them brighter, more upbeat, and with all of the elements lost in the New 52 reboot that readers really would much rather have kept. From this special one-shot it looks like Green Arrow may be one of the beneficiaries of this new program. I sampled Green Arrow when the New 52 launched, and found it to be a pretty ordinary book with its protagonist reworked in a manner that made him younger and blander. Oliver Queen's relationship with fellow superhero Black Canary was removed, which seemed particularly sad. It was not simply that the version of the character I liked had been changed. It was that the character that emerged was simply not as effective as its predecessor.

That looks pretty well set to reverse with this relaunch. Oliver is recognisably back to his old look and style, and the book makes some great material out of reuniting him with Black Canary - although of course in this rebooted continuity they have barely met before. Readers of the New 52 Black Canary comic - which really was an excellent take on the character - will be happy to see she makes the jump to this title pretty much unchanged. The two characters work incredibly well together. In particular it's great to see Canary provoking him so much ('How can you fight the man if you are the man?').

There is a great team-up adventure here, that wraps up satisfactorily while leaving a door open to a future story arc. The characters are strong and entertaining, and Otto Schmidt's artwork matches it all fabulously - it's more in the Batgirl/Black Canary area than a traditional DC look. I bought this issue on a whim, but it looks like Percy and Schmidt's work is going to pay off: I'm hooked into checking the regular series out in two weeks. (4/5)

DC Comics. Green Arrow Rebirth #1. Written by Benjamin Percy. Art by Otto Schmidt.

Under the cut: reviews of Doctor Who, Giant Days and Superman Rebirth.

Colditz: "Missing, Presumed Dead"

It is 26 October 1972, and time for another episode of Colditz.

Well at least it is titled Colditz. In turns out that, after failing to reach the titular German castle in the first episode, we do not get there in the second either. Instead we find ourselves in England, where Flight Lieutenant Simon Carter (David McCallum) prepares to set off on a bombing run over Germany. When his plane is shot down, he is stuck far behind enemy lines and is forced to make a run for neutral territory as quickly as possible.

It is immediately obvious what is going on here: just as the first episode spent an hour establishing Captain Pat Grant, and showing how he came to be sent to Colditz this second hour does the same thing with Lieutenant Carter. I would not be surprised to see the third episode follow someone else entirely. Sooner or later the series will reach Colditz Castle, but for now it is concentrating to character development. That is no bad thing - particularly when the episode is as strong as this one is.

The Pull List: 1 June 2016, Part 1

This week sees DC Comics move forward with it's "Rebirth" initiative, renumbering and relaunching most of its superhero titles with a remit to make them less grim and bleak and more like the energetic, upbeat storylines that the bulk of its fans seem to prefer. Starting that process with Batman, one of the few titles that probably should be fairly grim and dark, is possibly an odd choice.

This one-shot feels like a proper handover. It is co-written by Scott Snyder - who wrote Batman for the past five years - and Tom King - who takes over in two weeks' time. There are basically two things going on in this issue: firstly, Calendar Man is holding the city to ransom and threatening to kill thousands; secondly, We Are Robin protagonist Duke Thomas has turned up at Wayne Manor with a job offer from Batman.

Duke is a great character, who has slowly emerged from Scott Snyder's Batman run and now looks set to be another of Batman's numerous sidekicks and allies. Refreshingly, he is not being set up to become a new Robin, but rather a new identity that is hinted at but not fully explored here. It's a neat hook to drag readers into the twice-monthly book.

Calendar Man is rarely at the top of anybody's list of favourite villains, but here he gets re-imagined in the most disturbing sort of a way. He is like something out of The X-Files now: a man who grows older on an accelerated schedule as the seasons pass, and then literally climbs out of his own skin at the end of the year as an entirely new man. It is an outstanding change, and transforms a one-note gimmick villain into something really worth exploring in-depth in a future storyline.

So to a large extent it is business as usual for Batman. That's not a bad thing: Snyder's run was a wonderful one, and all that is really required from Tom King is to simply keen the momentum going and find his own voice and style as he goes. If you are looking to get back into Batman, then Rebirth is an excellent jumping-on point. (5/5)

Batman Rebirth #1. DC Comics. Written by Scott Snyder and Tom King. Art by Mikel Janin. Colours by June Chung.

Under the cut: reviews of Bebop and Rocksteady Destroy Everything, 4001 AD, and Satellite Falling.

Star Trek: Voyager: "Time and Again"

It is 30 January 1995 and time for the third episode of Star Trek: Voyager.

Voyager is caught in a shock wave that emanates from a nearby planet. The crew investigate, and discover some kind of explosion has just destroyed an entire alien civilization. Lieutenant Paris (Robert Duncan McNeill) and Captain Janeway (Kate Mulgrew) are caught by an after-effect of the explosion and thrown back two days in time - and headlong into the alien civilization that was just destroyed.

It may be worth keeping count of the number of times Voyager messes about with time travel and time paradoxes, because I seem to recall it happened quite a lot. One of the head writers of the series, Brannon Braga, seemed particularly fixated on time travel storylines. He personally wrote episodes of The Next Generation like "Timescape", "Cause and Effect" and "All Good Things", and he oversees an awful lot of time travel here. Let us put it this way: we are now three episodes into the first season of Voyager and two of those episodes have focused on time travel.

The X-Files: "Home Again"

It is 8 February 2016 and time for another episode of The X-Files.

A run-down part of Philadelphia is being redeveloped and gentrified, which means relocating all of the homeless people currently living on the streets. Mulder (David Duchovny) and Scully (Gillian Anderson) are called in when a Federal employee faciliating the removal is brutally murdered. While Mulder tracks down the mysterious killer, Scully receives upsetting news much closer to home.

"Home Again", which marks the series return of writer/director Glen Morgan - who use to co-write with James Wong ("Founder's Mutation") - is a weird blend of old-school monster-of-the-week thrills with weirdly awkward melodrama. The result does contain sufficient X-Files scares and weirdness to entertain the viewer, but due to Scully's personal sub-plot it is a pretty shaky experience.

Colditz: "The Undefeated"

It is 19 October 1972 and time for the first episode of Colditz.

Captain Pat Grant (Edward Hardwicke) is one of a group of British soldiers captured by the Germans following the evacuation of Dunkirk. Taken to a prisoner-of-war camp, he immediately sets about planning an escape.

Colditz was a huge hit for the BBC in the early 1970s. The series, which ran for two seasons between 1972 and 1974, was based on the 1955 film The Colditz Story as well as the memoir of Major Pat Reid - who escaped from the real-life Colditz prison during World War II and who acted as the series' technical advisor. While all of the names were changed, the day-to-day detail of life as a prisoner of war (or POW) was for its time remarkably accurate. While it was not the first World War II television series on the BBC - it was pre-dated by Escape (1957) and Dad's Army (1968) - Colditz was Britain's first major attempt at depicting part of the war as a high-profile television drama.

N64:20 #6: Space Station Silicon Valley (1998)

In 2016 the Nintendo 64 turns 20 years old. It was Nintendo's third videogame console, produced to succeed the enormously successful SNES. Upon its release in 1996 Time magazine claimed it was "machine of the year". While the N64 failed to best Sony's enormously popular PlayStation - a console in whose early development Nintendo had a key hand - it still sold almost 33 million units worldwide and hosted some of the greatest videogames ever made. To celebrate its anniversary I'm counting down my top 20 N64 videogames; not necessarily the best titles released on the format, but definitely my personal favourites.

In 1995 British game developer DMA Design signed a contract with distributor BMG Interactive to produce three videogames. One of these, the strategy game Tanktics, was fairly unsuccessful and sank without a trace. The second, Grand Theft Auto, sparked off one of the most successful videogame franchises of all time. The third was Space Station Silicon Valley which, like Tanktics, was a commercial failure. Unlike Tanktics, however, it was widely acclaimed by critics and has since become a strong cult favourite. There seems to be a special sub-set of Nintendo 64 players. They will start discussing their favourite games, one will mention Space Station Silicon Valley and the other player's eyes with just light up with delight - someone else who had the chance to play the game has been found.