doctor who – Mike Sterling's Progressive Ruin

I’ve had a long Sunday, and normally I’d just skip a day of posting, since I’m not doing the “update the site every day because I’m a crazy person” thing anymore, but I do like to have a little something up every Monday.

I did manage to see both the new Star Trek movie and the Doctor Who season ender this past weekend, and…well, I hope the Trek folks got their “callbacks to the original series” thing out of their system, because in the two or three films that are likely left in this particular iteration of the reboot, I’d like to see a story that’s, you know, its own animal. I mean, okay, I’ll give them one film where we see what happens in the new timeline when they encounter a familiar-to-us face (well, kinda sorta, work with me here) from the past, with The Ol’ Twisteroos on familiar-to-us situations, and all-too-familiar-to-us bits of dialogue. I did enjoy the film, but I hope I don’t wait three to four years for the next film, and it turns out to be Star Trekkin’ Around Looking for Whales in the Past, But with The New Guys.

Also, a dumb Trek joke I made on Twitter, inspired by the Trek rebootings, got retweeted by Rob Liefeld, so it was all worth it.

The Doctor Who season-ender, on the other hand, benefited by a backwards glance or two, with cameos by previous Doctors via repurposed footage and stand-ins rushing by cameras in the various Doctors’ outfits. I always like seeing references to the previous Doctors in the current series, and since we’re leading up to the 50th anniversary, it’s certainly fitting that they’re popping up about now. And it’s all tied into an explanation for a season-long mystery, in the middle of what I thought was a fun and relatively clever story, which has me anticipating November’s actual anniversary special even more.

Plus, I know this is a bad thing to say, I know they’re overdoing it with these characters, I know getting what I want in this case will ruin the very thing I’m wanting…but I do so enjoy Madame Vastra, Jenny, and Strax when they appear, and hope for more appearances. Particularly Strax.

Just look at that adorable little guy.

So the other night I saw that The Omen was on Netflix Watch Instantly, and I realized a couple of things. One, it had been years since I’ve seen it…in fact, I probably wasn’t any more than about 10 years old, and I probably only saw parts of it on whatever local pay-cable channel we had as a precursor to HBO at the time. Two, my memories of the movie were primarily of the Mad Magazine parody from issue #189 (March 1977):

Actually, that’s not the panel burned into my head, but the ones specifically concerned with the fate of David Warner’s character, which might be a bit much to hit you with without any warning, so I picked that panel above as being a little more representative of the parody as a whole.

I wonder how many more movies and TV shows with which I have passing familiarity mostly because of the Mad parodies, versus actually seeing the darned things. I keep meaning to get around to watching A Clockwork Orange, which, yeah, I know, I haven’t seen it yet, I’m a bad person, but I’ll tell you I still have images from the George Woodbridge-illustrated Mad parody stuck in my brain. And since it seems like I’ll never get around to actually watching Blade Runner, I should find its Mad parody and just settle for that.

Anyway, speaking of what happens to David Warner’s character, I thought I’d be a smart guy and post this to the Twitter the other night:

I thought I’d just remembered the images from the Mad parody involving this scene, but apparently I remembered the joke, too, since I apparently just up and stole it. (Not the “pageboy haircut is adorable” part, but the “losing your head” part. Though David Warner is adorable in this movie.)

Another thing I hadn’t remembered about the film is that Patrick Troughton, Doctor Who‘s Second Doctor, has a significant part:

…Which of course caused me to make Yet Another Obvious Twitter Joke™:

Yes, I think I’m hilarious.

…And this has been another installment of “What Mike Does in His Spare Time.”

• • •
A couple of you had more questions from the other day, re: Spawn and related merchandise:

Heli asks

“…Have you covered the ‘party Angela’ phenomenon?”

For those of you who aren’t familiar with this, I’m going to strip away your innocence forever: McFarlane Toys produced an action figure of Spawn supporting character Angela (the warrior angel character created by Neil Gaiman), but, alas, lacked the paint job beneath the figure’s loin-armor or whatever that is to give her warrior angel-appropriate undergarments. Thus, this figure, and, according to my brief-but-probably-getting-me-on-watch-lists Googling, other figures that have similarly gone commando are referred to as “party” figures. And in case you’re wondering, that term does seem more appalling the more you think about it. …I remember a brief hubbub about it at the time, but it seemed to die down once people realized they were getting overly excited about a toy not having paint-panties, and hopefully that nipped it in the bud. Well, except on eBay, where no bud is ever nipped.

Tim O’Neil asks

“What about modern sales of Spawn? Has the series picked up new readers since it entered its 20 year anniversary with all the variant covers and such?”

I haven’t seen any real boost in sales, no…I think we may have gained a new reader or two on the series, but otherwise sales have been very consistent as a low-to-mid range seller. During 2010, when only four issues were released, that may have…well, “put the nail in the coffin” is a bit strong. Maybe “pushed it down the stairs” is more like it.

• • •
COMING NEXT WEEK: Yes, I’ll probably talk about Swamp Thing #0, don’t nag me. Also, more comic book talk! Maybe! And not so much about the pogs!

Minor spoilers for Star Trek and Doctor Who in this post. This is your only warning.

There might be a minor spoiler or two for The Omen, which is nearly 40 years old, but you know someone would complain.

Special thanks to Bully the Little Stuffed Bull for providing the Mad image.