The Pull List: 4 November 2015

This week Dynamite publish the first issue of their much-anticipated James Bond comic book, written by Warren Ellis with art by Jason Masters. It's a perfectly timed laugh, with Spectre unrolling into cinemas around the world over the next few weeks. What strikes me as unusual is that it seems to have taken this long for a proper James Bond comic book to exist at all. Sure there have been newspaper strips in the past, and a few miniseries adaptations of Roger Moore's films back in the 1970s and 1980s, but an original serialised comic book? I'm not sure there's ever been one before now. (Note: it turns out Dark Horse produced a few miniseries in the early 1990s.)

It's an odd issue, to be honest. Masters' artwork is great, and suits the material well with the sort of clean-line style I tend to prefer in comic books. Warren Ellis' script, however, seems to lean heavy on pastiche and stereotype, with Bond's own personality expressed in such an extreme fashion I felt inclined to check the cover to ensure I wasn't reading Archer instead. The action prologue is deftly handled. The subsequent scenes of Bond flirting with Moneypenny, getting a mission from M, and some equipment from Q, all feel remarkable old-fashioned and dreadfully creaky.

There's so much potential in a monthly James Bond comic book. The art is top-notch. The script needs a lot of work if it's going to stand out enough. One feels that in this case Ellis is taking the money and running. (3/5)

James Bond 007: Vargyr #1. Written by Warren Ellis. Art by Jason Masters. Colours by Guy Major.

Under the cut: reviews of two Doctor Whos, Detective Comics and Doctor Strange.

The Omega Factor: "Illusions"

It's 15 August 1979, and time for the series finale of The Omega Factor.

An East German scientist volunteers to defect to the West, only to be immediately kidnapped upon his arrival at a London safe house. Tom Crane (James Hazeldine) has moved too close to discovering Omega's motives, and soon finds himself kidnapped as well.

The growing conspiracy story arc hits its peak in "Illusions", originally intended to be a cliffhanger finale but which instead serves as an open-ended conclusion to the whole series. Complaints from a key lobby group, the National Viewers and Listeners Association, led to an internal review that found The Omega Factor had breached the BBC's standards on multiple occasions and broadcast adults-only scenes of violence and horror in a prime-time viewing slot. The series was abruptly cancelled, and its crew moved on to other projects. The circumstances make it a strange episode to view, since going in we know there's nothing else beyond it. All of the mysteries left behind remain unresolved.

Quantum of Solace (2008)

In the aftermath of Casino Royale, James Bond (Daniel Craig) goes rogue in an attempt to track down the criminal organisation that murdered Vesper Lynd. The trail leads from Italy to Haiti to Austria and finally to Bolivia, where he uncovers a secret plan to rob the nation of its government and its water.

Quantum of Solace was released two years after Casino Royale broke box office records for the James Bond franchise and re-invigorated the series after its well had seemed to run dry. At the time I thought Quantum of Solace was an excellent sequel and a highly enjoyable Bond film. Many others around me seemed to believe the opposite. The reverse happened four years later, when Skyfall was met by overwhelming praise and accolades from almost all quarters; I found it to be the worst Bond film since Die Another Day.

With the fourth of Daniel Craig's Bond films, Spectre, about to hit cinemas I felt it was worth giving Quantum of Solace another viewing. Did it hold up to my initial impressions, or were the majority of fans correct in criticising it?

The Omega Factor: "Double Vision"

It's 8 August 1979, and time for the penultimate episode of The Omega Factor.

Tom Crane (James Hazeldine) keeps seeing glimpses of his dead wife Julia (Joanna Tope). Is he having delusions, or was her death somehow faked by the same mysterious group he has been investigating. Martindale (John Carlyle) continues to behave suspiciously, while he introduces new scientist Vashrevsky (Philip Locke) to Department 7's operations.

The paranoia gets ramped up considerably in "Double Vision", as the episode keeps the audience guessing about what's actually going on. Is Julia alive? Is she a part of the mysterious "Omega" that Tom has been tracking? Is the entire experience some kind of ruse, either using a double or some kind of psychic influence? Or is Tom simply beginning to lose his mind? The paranoia doesn't stop there, either: not only does Martindale look increasingly treacherous, Tom's not even sure he can trust Anne (Louise Jameson) any more.

Inside Out (2015)

For about 15 years the title Pixar Animation Studios was effectively a synonym for quality in film. Animated hits like Monsters Inc, Finding Nemo, Wall-E and The Incredibles presented stunningly creative stories and characters. It's not simply that the animation was good and the design work beautiful either: the screenplays and storylines of Pixar's films were just perfectly sculpted and composed. It was an unparalleled run of movies, really only broken by Cars in 2006.

Then there came the Disney buyout, and the sudden new focus on making sequels to earlier hits. Cars 2 (2011) was Pixar's first - and thankfully only - all-out stinker, and Monsters University (2013) was a decidedly mediocre and unnecessary prequel. The one original Pixar film between 2010 and 2014 was Brave, and while it was a wonderfully enjoyable film it did seem considerably scrappier in terms of plot and structure than earlier classics.

All that in mind, it's a tremendous relief to watch Pete Docter's Inside Out. It's a fantastic film - one of the best I have seen this year - and it returns Pixar to doing precisely what it does best: making beautiful and imaginative all-ages films that use strange and fanciful ideas to explore very universal themes and emotions. This is a must-see film.

The Omega Factor: "Out of Body, Out of Mind"

It's 1 August 1979 and time for more of The Omega Factor.

Tom Crane (James Hazeldine) notices strange sleeping behaviour by his brother Michael (Nicholas Coppin), who claims to be having inexplicable out of body experiences. It all seems to match research being undertaken by Martindale (John Carlyle) at Department 7, which leads Tom to suspect that Martindale is not being honest with him.

After a shaky episode in "St Anthony's Fire", The Omega Factor returns to the sort of high quality paranormal thrillers that made it so distinctive. In this case it's a combination of out-of-body experiences and a sort of Manchurian Candidate thriller, as Tom races to prevent the assassination of an African Prime Minister.

Mission: Impossible: Rogue Nation (2015)

Mission: Impossible continues its march as Hollywood's slowest action movie franchise. The Fast and the Furious has managed seven films over 15 years. The Daniel Craig run of James Bond pictures has managed four in 11 years. Mission: Impossible has now reached its fifth instalment in the 20th year of its motion picture existence: an average of one film every four years. Tom Cruise was 33 years old when he first played Ethan Hunt. Now he's 53. It seems logical to assume the franchise would be pretty tired and desperate by now. Instead it feels as if it's the opposite. Since M:I III in 2006 each film has been better than the last. I think Rogue Nation may be the best Mission: Impossible so far.

As the CIA assumes control of the IMF, agent Ethan Hunt (Cruise) goes underground in his search for the mysterious Syndicate - a worldwide organisation of ex-spies dedicated to spreading chaos and unrest across the globe. Aided by a mysterious double agent (Rebecca Ferguson), Hunt sets off on a chase - escaping capture by his own government while hunting down the Syndicate's elusive master.

Doctor Who: "The Zygon Invasion"

When Doctor Who featured the Zygons as the villains of its 50th anniversary special it seemed an exciting and inspired choice. They'd only previously appeared once before, in the widely loved Tom Baker serial "Terror of the Zygons", yet had made such an enormous impression on general viewers and fans that they have never been forgotten. While "The Day of the Doctor" was a marvellous special it did seem to short-change the Zygons more than a little, disposing of their storyline with an abrupt forced peace negotiation so that the episode could instead focus on the Doctor himself and the Time War.

What a wonderful surprise, then, to return two years later and not only give the Zygons their own two-part storyline but to actually focus on the consequences of that hurried peace arrangement. Since the events of "The Day of the Doctor" there have been 20 million shape-shifting Zygons living in peace across the planet Earth. Now a rogue faction within their population has decided to reject the treaty and carve out a piece of Earth to call their own - unless the Doctor and UNIT can prevent them.