"The Doctor in the TARDIS doesn't know!"

CAUTION: SPOILERS ABOUT THE FINALE OF

DOCTOR WHO SERIES 31/5/FNARG AHEAD!

I was worried. Were you worried? I was. I mean I had trust in Stephen Moffat, he had written some of the best episodes of New Who. Then they released that first dodgy picture of Matt Smith. And that first look at his outfit didn't inspire confidence. A Bow tie? Nonsense. Finally I sat down to watch the new series and, my God, they had messed with the theme tune.

Five minutes and one portion of fish fingers with custard later and I was sold. Now we come to the finale, the traditional final two parter that wraps up the series. Back when Who was under Russell T. Davies, the finales were a bit maligned. All wrapped up a bit too easy with a fair amount of deux ex machina thrown in to get himself out of overwrought cliffhangers, so some say.

How does Moffat hold up? Well, in The Pandorica Opens, he shows that he can write a good cliffhanger. The final reveal of the true nature of The Pandorica itself was a great twist, very cleverly foreshadowed. Moffat nicely wracks up the tension, throwing in a ton of space ships and one of the great monologues from the Doctor. The final scene as well was a stand out moment. All of the Doctor's enemies in one room, an exploding TARDIS and the death of a companion.

The fact that all of these things are sorted out in the first five minutes of the next episode is a very Russell T. Davies trait. Here however it is carried out with such a flair that it doesn't matter. The structure of the first half of The Big Bang is an absolute joy, folding back in on itself, throwing in a lot of laughs at the same time.

All this is, let's be honest, due to the tour de force that has been Matt Smith's Doctor. That stiff first image has been blown away replaced by a whirling dervish of arms that has proved definitively that bow ties are cool. He captures the age and weight of the Doctor as well as the mischievous side. You see this in one of the final scenes of The Big Bang, telling his story to young Amy Pond. It's a great little scene that says a lot about the Doctor but also ties together the series as a whole, linking it back to the first shot of the first episode.

The last two episodes capture what has been so good about Moffat's Who as a whole. The great characters, the finely honed structure, the snappy dialog. Whilst not all the ends were tied up (I suspect that will be the focus of the next series) it was a great finale to a great great series.

I'm even starting to like the new music.

Phil Doyle is one of the creators of abadeducation.com and co-host of the sonicsring.compodcast. His real job is in insurance which he hopes won't be forever. He also has every issue of the 1990s Midnight Sons crossover and does not feel guilty about it.

Proud Lion Recommends Wonder Woman #600 and Superman #700

Last week saw the release of the landmark 700th issue of Superman. It's a bumper-sized anniversary issue containing three stories - one by outgoing writer James Robinson which serves as a nice bridge between his work on the War Of The Supermen miniseries and the new era that is about to be ushered in. It also worked well in it's own right, a story of Lois and Superman reunited after the past year's developments.

Next up Dan Jurgens, the writer of the classic Death Of Superman story, penning a story set 'back in the day' featuring a team-up of sorts between Dick Grayson when he was Robin and Superman. A fun and whimsical tale that emboldens the gravitas of the final story, a prelude to incoming writer J. Michael Straczynski's new story 'Grounded'.

JMS can be a writer who forgets that imagery in comics is as important as words, but here the balance is perfect and the hook - whilst not original in today's more introspective era of super heroics - is certainly one that has me eagerly awaiting issue #701.

This week we get the bumper sized issue #600 for Wonder Woman. Again, an anthology of stories form various creators. As of #601, JMS takes over on Wonder Woman as well and he hopes to reinvigorate the title that has been suffering from poor sales for many years.

Part of that plan includes a new costume designed by superstar artist and DC co-publisher Jim Lee. There's a sneak peak below. For more information, Comic Book Resources have a great interview with JMS here.

Wonder Woman #600 is out tomorrow.

Ben Fardon feels his tiara wearing days are behind him now.

First Walking Dead set visit!

Quint over at Aint It Cool has been lucky enough to visit the set of the Walking Dead TV production. Here's links to his two awesome reports. At the end of the second report there is a new zombie picture for you to enjoy.

Part One of Quint's day on the set of THE WALKING DEAD!

Part Two! Quint visits the set of The Walking Dead! Darabont chat! Fast vs slow zombies? Plus much more!

The Walking Dead Compendium pictured at the top will be back in stock in the next few months. Pre-order now. The standard graphic novels and hardcover collections are available now, and volume 12 comes out in July.

Ben Fardon is planning a zombie themed movie spectacular for this Halloween including Zombieland, Dead Snow and Doghouse.

New Beginnings - New Avengers #1

Continuing the theme of books without a clear reason to exist: New New Avengers! Because the Heroic Age marking the return to a traditional Avengers title doesn’t make New Avengers redundant. Apparently.

New Avengers was an experimental period that sought to update and redefine the Avengers concept, with mixed results. I didn’t like it much, but many did and it sold well. Trouble is, last month’s Avengers #1, also by Bendis, blended the lessons from New Avengers with more traditional Avengers sensibilities, with mixed results.

New² Avengers is just a trimmings and left-overs from the other title.

If you’re going to have more than one Avengers team, they should have different purposes. Secret Avengers distinguishes itself by being a pro-active black-ops team. New² Avengers distinguishes itself from Avengers by… being based in Avengers Mansion? Ok, if you’re not going to give them a different remit, at least a different cast will help to give a reason for existence. Oh hang on…

The New² Avengers is essentially “Luke Cage and Friends”, featuring Luke, Iron Fist, Jessica Jones, Spider-Man, Wolverine, Thing, Hawkeye, Mockingbird and Ms Marvel. Three of whom are on the other Avengers team. Wolverine’s in half a dozen other books already and Luke is working with the Thunderbolts. Given the similarities of the two teams’ purposes, sharing characters makes them seem even more repetitive.

Bendis feels the need to legitimise most of these characters as Avengers, which is fair enough, but having them set up a separate team isn’t the way to do it. Actually having them work with the Big Three traditional Avengers on the other team would. This just makes Luke Cage seem like an arbitrarily anti-authoritarian angry black man stereotype, refusing the offer to be a proper Avenger for no good reason. Having Wolverine, Hawkeye and Spider-Man on both teams just highlights the redundancy of the split.

The ultimate ‘what the hell’ factor is that this New² Avengers team (and Luke actually calls them the “New Avengers” for no discernable diegetic reason) is based in Avengers Mansion. If we’re really going to go back to the Mansion after all these years, surely it makes sense for the main Avengers team to go back there? You know, the one with actual history and connections to the building. Shoving Luke’s team in there isn’t going to further legitimise them. It just makes them seem like wannabes not allowed in the Tower.

The book just feels utterly pointless. “Luke Cage & Friends” works as a premise, but faced with logic and an actual Avengers book, it doesn’t qualify as Avengers.

This is to say nothing of the plot of this issue, which goes back to the upheaval of magic storyline Bendis was exploring before Siege. Which is relevant to none of the characters.

New² Avengers is a messy goulash of left-overs from Avengers, a Luke Cage book that never-was and an entirely unrelated magic story. And while it looks nice (thanks to Immonen), it’s certainly not tasty.

Martin S Smith is an author and blogger. He’s just released his first book, The Redundancy of Flightless Birds, and reviews stuff every week over at The Taste of Rising Bile.