Omega The Unknown

ENIGMA THE FIRST: the lone survivor of an alien world, a nameless man of somber, impassive visage, garbed utterly inappropriately in garish blue-and-red. ENIGMA THE SECOND: James-Michael Starling, age twelve raised in near-isolation by parents who (he discovered on the day they “died”) were robots. ENIGMA THE THIRD: the link between the man and the boy, penetrating to the depths of the mind and body, causing each to question his very reality of self.

Acclaimed novelist Jonathan Lethem (The Fortress of Solitude) and independent comic book creator Farel Dalrymple (Pop Gun War, Caper) have joined forces in their re-imaging of Steve Gerber’s ‘Omega The Unknown.’

A bizarre and highly imaginative series first published by Marvel Comics in 1976, the series came to an abrupt end with a promise for a follow-up that sadly never happened. When series creator Gerber heard of the revival, he was outraged. Having been similarly mistreated over his creation Howard the Duck, he had good reason to be angry. However, a meeting with Lethem put his temper at ease as he discovered that the young writer had the best of intentions and a very good story to tell.

Interviewed by Newsarama’s Zack Smith, Lethem had the following to say about his relationship with comic books in general and Omega The Unknown specifically.

NRAMA: Do you currently read any comics?

JL: This and that. I haven’t managed to be caught up on this whole recent Captain America controversy or anything. I have to go back and acquire all the relevant issues and figure out what all that’s about. I’m reading more and more (comics) as a result of doing this work. It’s been interesting to get connected again.

NRAMA: Any favorites?

JL: Well, in different ways, there are things that have sparked my interest. I’ve found Y: The Last Man (to be a) very compulsive story, very enjoyable. It’s like a great…it’s like Lost, kind of mental chewing gum.

NRAMA: Well, you know, Brian K. Vaughan’s working on Lost now?

JL: Is he? I’m not surprised. That’s a very good fit. There’s all sorts of (comics) that I like. I just read a really great three-issue sequence of Adiran Tomine’s Optic Nerve. It was excellent.

NRAMA: I’d like to talk a little bit about your history growing up with Omega. The passage in The Fortress of Solitude (page 82 of the hardcover edition), where Dylan (one of the main characters) notices how James-Michael’s experiences reflect his own – I’m presuming that was similar to your own experience reading the book?

JL: Oh no, I was much more fond of Omega than that. Dylan is very tough on the comic, and if you look under the skin of his reaction to it, he’s very threatened by it. There’s something about the plight of the James-Michael character that’s getting under his skin. But that reaction is quite typical of that Dylan, and exemplifies his reaction to a lot of things. Dylan holds disturbing and stimulating material at arms’ length. He and I are very much different in that way. Though he’s an autobiographical character, the emotional armor that he wears isn’t so typical of me. I was much more emotionally wide-open and vulnerable. Omega floored me, but I didn’t resent it. I thought it was fantastic. Those first issues, when Gerber and Skrenes were really allowed to do what they wanted to do and were building this incredible story full of all sorts of weird implications and possibilities…I simply thought it was the best comic book I’d ever read. The problem for me as a reader, in the original experience, was of course that it was wrecked. The thing was totally derailed by circumstance, by sales expectations and corporate meddling. There wasn’t enough of a precedent for what the creators were doing, and no one trusted it, so they never really had a chance to realize the story they’d initiated. But that whisper of it – the first two issues above all, with all the possibilities inherent in what they’d begun, made it hugely meaningful to me. And though I’m not telling their story, not trying to continue or conclude their Omega in the least, part of my impulse was to bring a version of Omega to something like fruition.

(read the whole interview here)

So far the series has been a mind-bending visual feast the likes of which readers have not seen from Marvel Comics since… well… the original Omega The Unknown. Make sure to flip through an issue at the shop and keep an eye out for the collection to be released later this year.

The return of Blake’s 7?

Possibly the most well-done sci-fi series until the remake of Battlestar Galactica, Blake’s 7 ran from 1978-1981, gathering a cult following that is almost as surprising as the concept; a group of freedom fighters plotting the destruction of the universal government. Virtually unknown in the US, Blake’s 7 maintained a strong viewer base until it’s surprise ending in ‘81 that even shocked series creator Terry Nation (who had since distanced himself from the project).

There have been numerous rubmlings of a return for the series and this may only be the newest… but it could also be true.

Inspired by the successful revivals of DOCTOR WHO and BATTLESTAR GALACTICA (and because there are, evidently, no new concepts to be found in the tens-of-thousands of pitches conducted every year), Sky One is dusting off BLAKE’S 7 for a relaunch.

The original series (created by Terry Nation) ran on BBC for four seasons between 1978 and 1981.

Sky has commissioned two 60-minute scripts with the intention of creating a new sci-fi series of the hugely popular show, which followed the intergalactic tales of a small band of rebel fighters struggling to evade the dark forces of the Federation.

With so many failed re-imaginings of classic concepts, this ‘new Blake’s 7‘ could very well happen and fail all at once… or it could be incredible. Living in a world where global terrorism is in the daily press, I wonder where the audience for Blake’s 7 would be. I mean paint it however you like but… they are ’space terrorists.’

I’ll keep my fingers crossed that if it happens, the right people are involved in steering the good ship Liberator and it doesn’t turn into an ‘ironic’ program lampooning the more camp aspects of the show.

Spaced… American style

If you’re reading this in the United States and you are not a friend of mine or work at Galaxy Cinema (those aren’t two exclusive groups, mind you) chances are you have no idea what Spaced is.

Possibly the most brilliant comedy to come from the BBC, Spaced is a celebration of the awkward late 20’s geek-obsessed culture from 1999. A brilliant tour-de-force by Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg who went on to create Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz.

Well… Fox TV has bought the rights and hired the director of the ‘Wassup?’ Budweiser ads to helm the project. They have cast an Aussie hottie in Simon Pegg’s role and are ready to gear up the terrible sitcom tank to roll over the dreams and warm memories that Spaced fans still have.

Co-star of Spaced Jessica Hynes (nee Stevenson) has released a statement on the remake that I find quite beautiful:

Jessica’s Official statement on US Spaced.

Spaced in America by Jessica Hynes. March 4th 2008

Things have really hotted up in the last few days -
‘Simon Pegg vs Mc.G!’ ‘Mc.G is a fat douche bag!’
‘It’s a f***ing travesty!’ (that’s fucking). I felt
a tear come to my eye when I went on www.pinkraygun.com,
because she kind of said it for me. When someone else
fights your corner and feels your injustice for you it
rocks, let me tell you. So can I just say thank you
for that. You know who you are. x

It might make everyone feel better to know that I am
planning a counter attack; A British re-make of
‘Charlies Angels’ called ‘Charlies Angles’ - about three
female architects who love to design buildings make
biscuits, and wear button up cardigans. That’s gonna
hurt you Mc.G huh?- a remake of one of YOUR films
with no titties?? Huh??! HUH!!!

Anyway I’m going to keep it short - just wanted again
to reiterate that Simon, Edgar and I were not approached
- at any stage or consulted in anyway. In fact I approached
THEM in a very English way wondering if, you know
I’d been in the garden when they called, but have been
politely told that no official, meaningful involvement
( save wheeling us out to placate the fans) is possible.

So don’t watch it, don’t think about it - buy our
D.V.D coming out in America in the summer and
SAVE YOUR SOUL!!!!

Excuse her French, but that is a creator outraged at her work being turned into a travesty. To those not in the know (but a good region free DVD player lads), Spaced is a wholly British affair which will frankly not translate to American TV.

But if you look through the potty language in Hynes‘ post above you’ll see a silver lining to this cloud, a US DVD release? Apparently so. When I worked at Rykodisc I was told the project was just too pricey to release on DVD because of the royalties for the many pop songs included. So either the DVD will be butchered (see the Young Ones DVD release which omitted the music acts) or it will be a very expensive box set.

See- region free dvd player.

Phoo Action

The new BBC Three series based on characters designed by cartoonist extraordinaire Jamie Hewlett (Gorillaz, Tank Girl, etc) featured in the strip ‘Get The Freebies.’ In the program Whitey Action and Terry Foo team up to form an unlikely crime-fighting duo in order to thwart The Freebies Gang in a strange London of 2012 after the assassination of the Queen. I’m not sure if it’s a great show, but it is the most accurate attempt at re-creating the art and madness in Hewlett’s art thus far.

It’s a mish-mash of mixed up images and pop culture references (’all your base belong to us’ appears in a news broadcast) that has garnered a mixed reception from the press.

But it makes for a great trailer!

Torchwood Season 2

Beginning this week in the UK and Jan 26th in the US is the second season of Torchwood.

Last year the first season gathered the highest viewing figures ever seen on BBC America (admittedly not a really big deal given that a majority of the channel’s programing consists of home repair shows), which has resulted in the first near-simulcasting of a BBC sci-fi program since the 20th anniversary Doctor Who special The Five Doctors.

By far, a much better quality show in my opinion compared to the new Doctor Who, Torchwood consists mainly of rain-slicked streets and ‘beautiful people’ striking poses and facing off against strange aliens. This season looks like it will be taking the drama up a notch as well as introduce new characters including the too-charming for his own good James Marsters of Buffy the Vampire Slayer fame.

Ofcourse an added surprise is the addition of Martha Jones from season three of Doctor Who. 

Mighty Boosh Season 3

The third season of the incredibly funny series by Julian Barret and Noel Fielding just started on BBC3… and I’m missing it because I live in the US where King of Queens is hailed as genius.

In any case, visitors to the official site can find games and fun, while I have scoured youtube for clips of the latest season.

POW in Vietnam

Crimp-off

(more info here)

New Doctor Who companion revealed?

According to AMC’s the Sci Fi Scanner, this may be the face of the latest companion to serve alongside David Tennant in the hit BBC Wales revival show Doctor Who.

Dubbed the ‘chav queen’ by the press, pop singer Lily Allen could easily follow in the footsteps of other city dwelling companions Rose Tyler and Martha Jones. 

Daughter of film producer Alison Owen (Elizabeth) and comedian Keith Allen, Lily Allen (now only 22) began her career in music by working at a Plastic Fantastic record shop.

Her first foray into music was made thanks to her father’s connections at Warner Music, but the opportunity flopped when these same connections left the company lost interest in Allen. Yet another success thanks to the Internet, Allen only really found acceptance by posting her demos to her MySpace page and gaining a sizable following.  After The Observer Music Monthly reported on her online popularity, Warner Music decided to give her a second chance. Her first album, Alright, Still, saw remarkable success and earned her the attention that she had been working at for so long… and the label of ‘chav queen’ (to Americans, this is the rough equivalent to saying she is supreme white trash, not exactly a compliment). This ‘title’ is hardly unique in Allen’s brief career. Rated number 10 in BBC Three’s Most Annoying Person of 2006 and nominated in NME’s Worst Album of 2007, not all of her press has been positive.
Though I know it’s silly, I yearn for the days of a companion like Turlough, Ian Chesterton or Barbara Wright. Even Vicki was lots of fun though she was admittedly giggly. They all had a certain charm, screen presence and endurance that is necessary for the companion.

Well… maybe not Turlough, but still.

Doctor Who - Time Crash

11/16/07
Doctor Who - Time Crash
Peter Davison, the Fifth Doctor (1982-1984), returns to the role that made him famous to star opposite David Tennant, current Tenth Doctor, in a Children in Need Special.

Written by fan favorite writer and creator of Jeckyll, Stephen Moffat, I really expected more. This is hardly a real story. It’s more of a quick special for the fans… so why does it dig so much at fans in general (in a making of documentary Moffat remarked that all Doctor Who fans are sad men who live with their mothers… a negative stand that current producer Russell T Davies also holds) rather than tell a story… any story at all?

In any case, it was a pleasure to see Davison once again and give fans of the current series a peek at what once was… even if that peek consists of name-checking and Tennant and Moffat’s personal love for the Davison era that probably hooked each of them on the program as youths.

Good on you, Davo… you’ve still got it.

Tribute to Peter Davison
(to ‘Cricket’ by The Kinks)

Doctor Who - Peter Davison

Throughout it’s lifespan on the airwaves in its native United Kingdom and in many countries across the globe, Doctor Who has shown the hero triumph over many monsters from stars, from the bowels of the Earth, other dimensions and even living in the tear duct of the human body. Be that as it may, in 1978, Doctor Who had been beaten by one monster it had never anticipated as its ultimate foe.

Tom Baker’s ego.

The answer to a thousand prayers, Tom Baker brought an uncanny level of character and charisma to the part of the time-traveling stranger called the Doctor. A relative unknown, he exploded onto the screen in his first scene in the part and never stopped surprising viewers with his quirky behavior, boundless energy and non-stop flair. Be that as it may… six years on in the role and it seemed that Tom believed he was the Doctor… and nothing else mattered. He mugged to the camera, sleep-walked through scenes he didn’t like and bullied producers.

By his own admission many years later, Tom Baker had become impossible to work with.

Enter new Executive Producer John Nathan Turner. JNT (as he was called) was determined to reign Tom’s performance in and slowly fade his powerful glow to a glimmer in order to bring in a new star and restart the program that had frankly floundered from its original impetus. While the program in 1976 was a triumph, stories such as ‘The Horns of the Nimon’ were a chore to get through and looked far more enjoyable for Tom than anyone else, including the viewers.

29 year old Peter Davison was a household name to TV viewers as Tristam on ‘All Creatures Great and Small,’ a hit program for the BBC which JNT worked on as well.

Peter Davison brought something not seen on the program since its inception, innocence. While Pertwee was an authoritative entertainer, Troughton an accomplished character actor and Hartnell the hardest old man you’d ever come up against, baby-faced Davison was none of these things. Perhaps as a test to the strength of the character of the Doctor, the decision was made to make this fifth incarnation everything you’d never associate with the hero of the last 18 years.

Davison’s Doctor was fallible, distracted, blusterous, confused and even passionate about simple things like riding on a locomotive or enjoying a nice cup of tea. Surrounded by a youthful crew of misfits who flew into three separate direction at the earliest convenience, this Doctor was rarely helped by his companions and more often than not trying to keep them out of trouble or even apologizing for their behavior. From the irascible Tegan, the distant scientist Nyssa, arrogant Adric and shifty Turlough, he was forever wondering just where they ran off to and if he’d have to spring them from any number of traps they had stumbled into.

From 1980 until 1983, the Doctor encountered the one thing that had become alien to him in his journeys, failure. The Doctor failed to stop the Master, Cybermen, Daleks and the combined forces of the Sea Devils and Silurians from massacring hundreds of innocents as he stood by awestruck and powerless. Perhaps most tragically, he failed to save the life of his teenage assistant Adric as he collided with the planet Earth in a time-traveling craft causing the end of the dinosaurs and the beginning of the age of Man (it’s complicated).

Yet this Doctor dueled with the forces of creation, was responsible for the big bang, outwitted the evil Mara on two occasions and even stood toe-to-toe against the greatest Timelord of all, Omega. Never afraid to take arms against his enemies, this Doctor pulled guns, swords and even hat stands at his enemies (again, complicated).

While he was often out of breath, he was never out of conviction. In his final story, The Caves of Androzani, he saves the life of his assistant Peri. While they are both stricken with a strange sickness, he struggles to bring her the last of the cure and then collapses from the effort, ready to die. His last words, ‘Is this death’ struck a chord with viewers as they watched a bizarre display of computer graphics and colors play over his dormant face.

After facing so much death and destruction, this Doctor seemed to have aged before the eyes of his fans. While at first an upbeat debonair hero, he had become a frazzled and desperate man. Was his hour up?

It’s difficult to explain given that we’ve doubled the number of Doctors since this story, but at the time it seemed like it could be the end.

In a violent explosion of color, he finally sat up a changed man… but that’s another story altogether.

During the 1980’s Doctor Who enjoyed a boost in viewing figures and increased exposure overseas. With the Target line of novelizations (without VCR, this was the only way to relive many stories never replayed on TV), a role playing game by TSR and even a home computer game, it was a new golden age for the program.

Each Doctor clearly embodies the age in which he was on screen. Peter Davison’s fresh face and colorful attire represented the optimism of the 1980’s as the world hurdled toward the era of the personal computer, compact disc and electronic club music. In short, we were becoming more sci-fi. Bearing that in mind, I often wonder if this was why so many terrible things happened to the Fifth Doctor to mirror the shattered hopes and dreams of the 1980’s which rose to an alarming roar with Davison’s last season featuring the last survivors of the human race being turned into zombified workers for an alien race in Frontios, nuclear weapons being turned against humanity in Warriors of the Deep and the wholesale slaughter of Resurrection of the Daleks which featured the highest body count of any Doctor Who story seen up to that time.

Whatever the case, due to his age many viewers related to this new younger Doctor and proudly claimed him to be their Doctor over the outgoing tired Tom Baker. This is a common practice and no malice is ever meant by it.

In fact, many fans of one particular Doctor later realize that other Doctors are similar in certain ways and share qualities that drew them to whichever they chose to be their favorite.

In just a few days, Davison will be returning to the role to star opposite current Doctor #10 David Tennant in the November 16th Children in Need Special. It will be interesting to see how he plays the part after so long.

I have a feeling I’m not alone here.

The Vesuvius Club

Co-creator of the BBC comedy troupe The League of Gentlemen and contributer to the revamped Doctor Who, Mark Gatiss, is once more gracing the airwaves with his work.

The charismatic comedian has been incredibly prolific both on and off the screen. His series ‘The League of Gentlemen’ which ran for three years with a Christmas Special and a feature film, earning numerous awards including the Royal Television Society Award.

The series is more of a tragi-comedy than a sit-com with many of cringe-inducing moment featuring the most outlandish characters this side of Monty Python.The series began as a radio drama and was fleshed out into television with the final season constructed as an experimental drama that is both awe-inspiring and hilarious at the same time.

Inspired by Hammer Horror films, the series paid homage to many classic films from The Shining to Don’t Look Now with amazing alacrity.

In short, the League of Gentlemen are geniuses.

Currently, Mark’s series of Lucifer Box novels are being adapted by the BBC into TV dramas, beginning with The Vesuvius Club. The novels follow the adventures of rakish painter and secret agent Lucifer Box. Like his League work, it is strange, humorous and horrific all at once, with an Edwardian charm.

Hopes are high that if The Vesuvius Club is a hit, the follow-up The Devil in Amber will also be adapted with a third novel currently in the works by Mark which he calls a ‘neat trilogy.’

Word on the street is that Gatiss will play the lead, which will be a real treat given his acting chops.