Confessions of a Comic Book Guy is a weekly column by Steve Bennett of Super-Fly Comics and Games in Yellow Springs, Ohio. This week, Bennett looks at recent DC and Marvel announcements, Freeform’s plans to bring the New Warriors to TV, and the tone of the new season of Doctor Who.

The C2E2 Con in Chicago is over, and once again, I wasn’t there. For a change this year, I actually seemed to have missed some important announcements.  At the Diamond Retailer Summit, DC Comics announced it would be launching Dark Matter, a new line of titles by top creators featuring new characters (see “ ‘Dark Knights’ Introduces ‘Dark Matter’”). 

I’m all about what’s new and next, and while new titles are always a risk for both readers and retailers, I’m willing to take a chance on The Silencer by Dan Abnett and John Romita Jr., Immortal Men by James Tynion IV and Jim Lee, and especially New Challengers by Scott Snyder and Andy Kubert.  I keep hoping someone will finally figure out a way to do a modern version of the Challengers (here’s hoping Snyder and Kubert will be the team who will be able to finally do it.)

It hasn’t exactly been a secret that Marvel Comics would be bringing back their classic characters under the Marvel Legacy brand, but clearly  they didn’t think that was sufficient to bring back their base, and have resorted to what the Bleeding Cool has called “Weaponized Nostalgia.”  According to The Hollywood Reporter piece, “Marvel Comics Going Retro for ‘Legacy’ Relaunch,”  we’ll also be seeing the return of the Marvel fanzine F.O.O.M.. and Marvel Value Stamps (!?).  Which admittedly has an appeal for fans of a certain age, such as myself. However, as a retailer and reader, I’m more interested in the claim that we’ll be seeing a renewed focus on “hope, wonder, enjoyment and fun.”  Of course, that happens this fall; first we’ll have to endure the dubious ‘enjoyment’ of seeing America under the jackboot of a fascist regime in the pages of the upcoming Secret Empire event.

As a big Squirrel Girl fan, I was chuffed to bits* when I first heard she’d be a regular character in the upcoming live-action comedy series Marvel’s New Warriors (see “Unbeatable Squirrel Girl Comes To Freeform”).  Given that Kevin Biegel (Cougar Town, Scrubs) will serve as showrunner and executive producer of the show, I have at least some hope it won't just be a goof on a bunch of supposedly silly superheroes.  According to Marvel, the show is based on the 2005 New Warriors comic done by Zeb Wells and Skottie Young, which featured Night Thrasher, Speedball, Microbe and Debrii.  I have no idea why Great Lake Avenger Mr. Immortal has also been added to the roster, though if I had to guess, I’d say it was probably due to the fact that, like the other members of the team, his power (immortality) won’t break the special effects budget of a basic cable series.

I mean, Night Thrasher is a vigilante with a skateboard, Microbe (seriously) speaks to germs, Debrii is a “low level telekinetic, “ and according to the character descriptions found in the piece “Freeform Announces Characters For ‘Marvel’s New Warriors’,” Speedball has been downgraded to throwing around “kinetic balls of energy.”  Which makes Squirrel Girl probably the most expensive character to realize in live-action, seeing as how she’ll need a prosthetic tail as well as a squirrel wrangler, since according to her character  description “She also takes her pet squirrel, Tippy Toe, everywhere.”

The majority of last week’s column (“Confessions of a Comic Book Guy - A Look At New Looks”) was devoted to the debut of Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Return; but of course, another important science fiction franchise returned over Easter Weekend: Doctor Who.  For the last couple of years, the ratings in the UK have been in decline, which critics have blamed on the fact current Doctor Peter Capaldi is considerably older than previous ones, and the episodes have been frequently both laborious and lugubrious.  The question seemed to be, as Abigail Chandler put in the headline of her Guardian piece, “How can smug, stale Doctor Who get back to its glory days?”

If anyone had actually asked me, I would have said the problem wasn’t so much that Capaldi’s Doctor looks every bit the actor’s actual age, 59,  but that he often played him as an angry, disagreeable old man. There were definitely times when the producers seemed to forget they were doing a family show about a man who faces the monsters and not the dystopian SF anthology series Black Mirror.  And no one’s more surprised than me, but after seeing the first two episodes (The Pilot, Smile) it seems they’ve reached the same conclusions.  The Doctor is now more engaged and less actively unhappy as he reconnects with humanity through his new companion, Bill, and the plots once again feature the correct proportions of smart, scary and fun.

*Which is British slang for “really pleased.”  Thanks to the new Brit Bit app, a streaming service for very recent British TV I’ve been able to watch the UK soap opera Eastenders for the first time in years.

The opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the writer, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the editorial staff of ICv2.com.