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Transformers: Til All Are One - Compendium 3

The Transformers Civil War continues to rage on their homeworld of Cybertron and also Earth, which the Decepticons have identified as ripe for fuel exploitation. New reinforcements have arrived on both planets via the intermediary world of Nebulos, and the Autobots are rejoicing at the return of Optimus Prime, restored to life as a Powermaster. However, the threat of the time-travelling Decepticon warlord Galvatron remains and a new threat has been located in deep space: the mysterious Underbase.

I covered the first two compendium volumes (of four) of Transformers: Til All Are One previously, noting both that it's great that Skybound and Image Comics have brought the Marvel Transformers run back into print in four volumes, but it's also annoying that these unified volumes were only available in a Kickstarter campaign. The mass-market paperback editions split the UK and US stories apart from one another, an act of editorial madness that will long live in infamy. This should be the definitive way the comics are collected from now on. This volume collects together issues #45-80 of the monthly Transformers US Marvel comic, alongside issues #188-254 of the UK comic, for around 1,197 pages of Transformers action, originally published between October 1988 and May 1991.

This volume is pretty much all pay-off, with the storylines and characters established in the first five years of the comic reaching a series of massive climaxes that takes over two-and-a-half years to fully resolve. The early UK storylines in this edition are dedicated to resolving the "Galvatron Saga" that began near the end of Volume 1 with the classic Target: 2006. Having established himself as a threat to the rest of the Transformer species, Galvatron finds himself being hunted by no less than seven factions simultaneously: Optimus Prime, Shockwave and Scorponok's forces on present-day Earth, the Autobot Wreckers and Decepticon Mayhem Attack Squad on present-day Cybertron, and combat teams led by Rodimus Prime and Soundwave from future Earth. It turns out that the prolonged presence of Galvatron, Cyclonus and Scourge in the past and the resulting shifts in the timeline have heavily disrupted the space/time continuum, causing a rift to form in the fabric of the universe that threatens to destroy everything. After a few complications, the final battle takes place in Time Wars, where Simon Furman merrily lays waste to recently-delisted toys and some toys that were never released in the UK in the first place from years earlier (so both hello and goodbye to the Deluxe Insecticons in the space of a few pages).

What should have been the grand finale to over two years of plotting and build-up falls a bit flat. There are some major continuity glitches here, such as the modern-day Autobots completely forgetting about the "mass-displacement" process for time-travelling, leading them to assume Optimus Prime has been killed (again) when fairly obviously he hasn't. It's also a story without much nuance, with a huge running battle with numerous casualties but there isn't really much meat here. The characters have to survive and try to keep Galvatron contained until basically the plot resolves itself without much intervention by anyone (bar arguably Shockwave and Scourge). This means both the huge casualty list was completely unnecessary and Galvatron also ends up looking like a chump: his two years on Earth accomplished absolutely nothing. This may be more down to Furman bringing Galvatron back to present-day Earth because Target: 2006 was so awesome, but then not being able to have him win or take command of the Decepticons because that would have been ignored by Bob Budiansky in the American comics. Still, some good action sequences and the story does bring Ravage back into play after years of being MIA.

The US storyline then brings in its own epic with the "Underbase Saga," where the Decepticons create an island resort to improve their image with the humans (!) but it turns out to be a cover to research the impending arrival of the mysterious Underbase. Although Ratbat initially plots to seize the Underbase for himself, he is surprised - and absolutely nobody else is - when he is betrayed by Starscream, who sets out to seize the Underbase for himself. All of the Autobots and Decepticons on Earth have to join forces to try to stop him, but the result is a total massacre with the better part of fifty Transformers deactivated, some for good.

This is a bit of an oddball story, with Budiansky killing a whole bunch of Transformers but not in a very interesting way. There are some good character moments for Prime and Scorponok, and finally seeing Starscream get everything he ever wanted, only to find you can have too much of a good thing, is quite amusing. There are also some good character moments for the Transformers' long-time human ally Buster Witwicky. It's really also the last hurrah for Budiansky, who manages another five issues of mostly-stand-alone lightweight fare before finally retiring his writing pen. Budiansky created so much of the Transformers lore and characterisation that continues to hold try now, forty years later, that he deserves respect, but his stories were always very hit and miss, and sometimes even his really good ideas were let down by variable dialogue and pacing issues.

Budiansky's retirement means that Simon Furman gets to take over the American comic as well as carrying on his work for the British one, giving him UNLIMITED POWER (kind of). His UK stories from this era suffer from a shift in format in the UK comic, which switched to shorter, black-and-white stories with previously-planned 2-week arcs now unfolding over 4 or 5, completely disrupting both pacing and also his planned efforts to tie together the UK and US storylines more firmly. A new, dystopian future story arc depicting the fate of Rodimus Prime and his team from Time Wars as they return to a completely changed future where Galvatron and Unicron still endure is very promising, but underdeveloped. Another arc where scattered survivors of the Time Wars regroup as a new group that transcends the Autobot-Decepticon division is also intriguing, but again it feels like there's not enough time to do it justice. In the middle of this, Budiansky has to introduce the new Micromasters, which Furman then has to continue, meaning yet another set of interesting storylines is diluted by dozens of new characters suddenly showing up.

However, this chaotic period starts easing up as Furman sets in motion his master plan: a new epic saga spanning two full years of the comic and drawing on his UK time travel epics for inspiration that he can repackage for the US audience without violating UK continuity (which more or less works, if you squint a bit). This arc starts with the revelation that Megatron is alive and now in control of part of Cybertron. He kidnaps Ratchet to have him work on a new secret weapon. This sequence of events results in the resurrection of three classic Autobot warriors - Grimlock, Jazz and Bumblebee (Ratchet cheerfully admits to disliking Goldbug, so rebuilds him in his original form) - and the apparently for-real destruction of Megatron, resulting in the rise of the powerful Thunderwing as the new Decepticon leader. These mid-tier events take a turn for the epic when Grimlock, Jazz and Bumblebee are teleported to the centre of Cybertron to discover the face of Primus, the Transformers "god," etched on the side of its core. Furman gets to canonise his origin myth for the Transformers here (having previously established it in the UK future epic The Legacy of Unicron two years earlier) for the US audience. At the end of a pitched battle, Primus is briefly awoken, his scream of pain revealing the location of Cybertron to Unicron.

With the Chaos-Bringer on his way to destroy Cybertron, the Autobots launch a desperate search for the missing Creation Matrix, which was blasted in space with Optimus Prime's original body a long time earlier. In the Matrix Quest arc, multiple teams of Autobots have to search an entire star system for Prime's corpse and the missing Matrix, getting involved in various local problems along the way. This arc is superb, with some great one-off stories and ideas. One story is a Western, another is heavily influenced by The Maltese Falcon, and another by Moby Dick (with Longtooth as the whale-hunter). One story influenced by Aliens is a bit hamstrung by the level of violence and gore the comic can get away with showing, but the finale to the Quest, with all hell breaking loose on the Ark and an ending drenched in irony, is outstanding. This arc is also enhanced by the arrival of UK artist Geoff Senior, oft-regarded as the franchise's best-ever artist, who adds a lot of dynamism to the storyline.

The subsequent run of stories, with the Autobots and Decepticons preparing to defend Cybertron against Unicron, is also excellent, with Andy Wildman and Stephen Baskerville adding their distinctive techno-organic art style to the comic. Furman is having far too much fun here, with more scheming, more bringing characters back from the dead, and even having a truly disturbing excursion into body-horror. A subplot about G.B. Blackrock forming an anti-Decepticon superhero team known as the Neo-Knights is a bit wince-inducing (with Furman clearly setting up the Neo-Knights for a spin-off that never happens) but it's not the worst idea the comic has ever had, and allows it to bring Circuit Breaker back into the main story. A high point here is Optimus Prime offering Scorponok his surrender in return for uniting their forces against Unicron and Scorponok having to navigate internal Decepticon politics as he decides on whether to honour the deal or not, only to be interrupted by Shockwave trying to seize command from him (again). We also get Grimlock going on an insane solo mission to resurrect his fallen Dinobot companions using a mystical energy source called nucleon, which goes about as well as you'd expect. By this point Furman had been told the comic would be cancelled with its 75th issue, so he was clearly setting things up for a grand finale.

These events culminate in Unicron's final assault on Cybertron in issue #75 (of the US run), which unfolds rather differently to the movie (and with a far higher body count in known characters). From an action and character standpoint, this might be Furman's finest hour, with even some black comedy thrown in for good measure: Grimlock ramming the Ark into Unicron's face and then leading the entire nucleon-resurrected Autobot army of classic characters into battle over Prowl's frantic complaints is an all-timer franchise visual. If this had been where the comic ended, it would have been an undeniably awesome way to go out.

At the eleventh hour, the comic was given a five-month reprieve. Furman puts into motion a series of new, scaled-down plots revolving around the need to evacuate Cybertron (devastated apparently beyond repair by Unicron), whilst reluctant hero Spike Witwicky has to resurrect Fortress Maximus to defeat a renewed Decepticon incursion on Earth. The Autobot-Decepticon Alliance is also on shaky ground following its apparent victory (albeit at a sky-high cost), and there is a superb political storyline as Grimlock and new Decepticon commander Bludgeon realise they have the measure of one another and try to outsmart the other. The final issue is effective but rushed, with maybe a few too many ideas competing for limited page space. Given the business constraints here, the comic's ultimate end is surprisingly satisfying, even if a few loose ends are left aflap. Even that becomes a boon as Furman would later drawn on some of these dangling threads for the Generation 2 mini-series.

This is the strongest of the three collections containing the main Marvel storyline. Although Budiansky has his strengths and his achievements in creating so many characters for Hasbro is worthy of respect, his plotting and storytelling is a bit too variable in quality. Furman certainly isn't perfect - and his worst-ever story about the creation of Arcee is present in this volume and remains horribly cringey - but he has a much firmer grasp of longer-form storytelling, establishing the stakes and executing them well, with a defter touch at humour. His final two-year run on the American comic might be his best-ever sustained burst of storytelling in the franchise. In fact, that run is so highly regarded that Furman himself has twice tried to create a continuation/sequel to it with both the Generation 2 mini-series and, twenty years later, the Regeneration One series for IDW, and neither were successful.

The volume is also helped by a greater variety of stronger artists. The US comic is buoyed by the arrival of UK talent including Geoff Senior and Andy Wildman, and it feels like US mainstay Jose Delbo ups his game in response. With colouring techniques in American publishing improving at the time, these closing issues of the original run finally start looking almost as good as the UK comic did for most of its run.

With Compendium 3 wrapping up the original Marvel run, it falls to Compendium 4 to contain the odds-and-sods. The Transformers Universe mini-series of character profiles, Generation 2 and the errant Earthforce branch of continuity await.

Transformers: Til All Are One - Compendium 3 (****½) contains the strongest succession of stories in the original Marvel comic run, with a lot of inventive use of established lore and characters to bring this huge saga to a close. The art is at its best here, and it's easy to share Furman's frustration that the comic was cancelled whilst it was enjoying a renaissance of quality and still selling over 80,000 copies a month (figures any comic company would easily kill for today). If you can find a copy (or wait for a Kickstarter reprint), this is a very solid compilation of Transformers stories.

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DEADLANDS celebrates its 30th anniversary

The classic tabletop weird west roleplaying game Deadlands has celebrated its 30th anniversary. One of the most iconic tabletop roleplaying games of all time, the game has weathered changing financial fortunes and numerous failed adaptations to the screen to remain a mainstay of the TTRPG market.

Launched in October 1996 by Pinnacle Entertainment, Deadlands used a novel rules system built for fast, six-shootin' action mixed in with magic and weird science. The game combined different die types with cards for greater randomisation and a whole magic system built around deck-building (this was streamlined later on). The game was notable for its setting, which mixed Wild West action, Lovecraftian horror, steampunk science and black comedy. Think of Army of Darkness meets Unforgiven meets The Difference Engine with zombies and you're most of the way there. It's not for nothing that the legendary Bruce Campbell himself provided the introduction for the revised edition of the game in 1999.

The game had a revised edition in 1999, two sequel TTRPG games (Deadlands: Hell on Earth, set on post-apocalyptic Earth, and Deadlands: Lost Colony, set on another planet) and a spin-off miniatures game using a simplified version of the rules, The Great Rail Wars, but an attempt to pivot to the d20 rules system (derived from Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition) in 2002 backfired spectacularly and nearly drove the company out of business. Regrouping, the company used The Great Rail Wars rules as the basis for a new, universal rules system, Savage Worlds. The company then released new versions of Deadlands for Savage Worlds, namely Deadlands Reloaded in 2006 and Deadlands: The Weird West in 2020. Both have been successful.

Pinnacle funded a 30th Anniversary edition of the game via Kickstarter back in February, which will include a behind-the-scenes and art book and a new integrated rulebook which merges the current Savage Worlds Adventurers' Edition rules with the Deadlands-specific setting material, to make a much more approachable one-stop entry point to the franchise.

Hopefully we see the game expand further in the future, although the oft-mooted video game and TV adaptations remain elusive.

Thunderbirds 2086

In the year 2086, Earth and the Solar system are governed by the Federation, a supra-national organisation that evolved out of the United Nations. In a world of advanced robotics, artificial superintelligence, climactic disturbances and natural disasters, it falls to the International Rescue Organisation to fly to the rescue of anyone in trouble on or off the planet.

I think I can guess what you're thinking here: what the hell is Thunderbirds 2086? You've heard of Thunderbirds, the 1965 original puppet-and-explosions classic, and you've (probably) heard of Thunderbirds Are Go, the 2015 CGI-and-models reboot show from the Lord of the Rings effects team. You may have even heard of (and tried to forget) the ill-advised 2004 live-action movie directed by Jonathan Frakes. So what in the fresh heck of obscurity is this show?

Thunderbirds 2086 is an English-language dub of a Japanese anime called Scientific Rescue Team Technoboyger. The anime was developed by Jin Productions after a possible collaboration with Gerry Anderson on his new show Terrahawks fell through in the late 1970s. The team were huge fans of Anderson's work and, even after Gerry went back to the UK, they decided to honour his work with an animated "spiritual successor" to Thunderbirds. This successor featured the Scientific Rescue Team attending to disaster zones with their high-tech vehicles, the "Technovoygers." Amusingly the team deliberately mistranslated the name in English characters in the show as "Technoboygers," meaning the vehicles were dubbed "TB-1," "TB-2" etc as a further homage to Thunderbirds. More amusingly, this meant they could sell the show to ITC in the UK (the Thunderbirds IP holders) direct as a successor show, which ITC followed through on in its dub.

In this iteration of the franchise, the International Rescue Organisation (IRO) operates from the Arcology, a gigantic city-building rising out of an island in the South Pacific, as well as Thunderbird 6, a city-sized space station in orbit. The IRO has tens of thousands of people working for it and no less than seventeen major Thunderbird vehicles, alongside numerous less-impressive vehicles. The IRO was founded as a private enterprise by Commander Simpson, but now operates as an official arm of the Federation, the UN-descended government of Earth and its colonies across the Solar system. The IRO operates effectively as a space-age version of the US Coastguard, ensuring both the safety and security of people from natural disasters on and off Earth.

Despite the IRO's gargantuan size, the organisation is heavily dependent on a team of just five pilots: Dylan Beyda, the pilot of Thunderbird 1; Thunderbird 2 pilots Jesse Rigel and Jonathan Jordan Jr.; Thunderbird 3 and overall team commander Gran Hanson; and Thunderbird 4 aquanaut Kallan James. Commander Jared Simpson oversees their operations from the Arcology, and the commander's young nephew Skipper lends a hand as he prepares to apply as a Thunderbird cadet when he is older.

The vehicle roster is much larger than the original show. Thunderbird 1 is a large space shuttle which operates as a fast recon vessel and can more directly help in rescues than in the original show; Thunderbird 2 is still a huge transporter (though blue rather than green) which can bring other equipment to the danger zone in its various pods; Thunderbird 3 is a ground-control mobile command centre, basically a massive APC; Thunderbird 4 is still a submarine, but much larger than the original, and can carry smaller vessels inside it; TB5 is a firefighting vehicle which also has a large drill on the front; TB6 is the orbiting space city; TB7 and TB8 are fast interceptor vehicles stored on TB1 (and can also be used as drones); TB9 is a mech suit; TB10 is a spacecraft used for fast travel to other planets; TB11 is a high-speed ground vehicle carried inside TB3; TB12 is a large bulldozer carried by TB3; TB13 and TB14 are smaller underwater vessels (a flying mini-sub and bathysphere respectively) carried on TB4; TB15 is a ground drone and mobile computer; TB16 is basically the Mole from the original show; and TB17 is a huge spacecraft with an experimental near-light drive that can cross the inner Solar system in a matter of hours.

This massive and impressive vehicle roster is made a bit less impressive given that several vehicles never show up and almost every episode relies on TB1, 2 and 3, which can combine together into a larger vehicle capable of space travel. TB4 plays a major role in only a few episodes, so Kallan spends most of her time acting as a co-pilot on one of the other vehicles.

Like the original show, we have a mixture of natural disasters and problems caused by criminals. Unlike the original show, we also have something approaching a story arc as the sinister Shadow Axis - an alliance of asteroid settlements that want to break away from the Federation - launches various terrorist attacks on Earth to try to secure its independence. We even have a recurring villain, the Shadow Axis's unseen leader, General Starcrusher. Before you get too excited, this story arc is not very well-developed and left unresolved at the end of the show (though given the last half-dozen or so episodes don't even mention the Shadow Axis, this is not a major problem). More impressive is that the characters actually show some development and internal characterisation. Captain Hanson is the oldest and most experienced member of the team and the only one to have a wife and family. In at least one episode, he struggles to reconcile his calling to help people with the time it takes away from spending with his family. Dylan and Kallan have an unresolved mutual attraction, whilst Dylan also suffers from a clash of duties when his friends are put in danger and he has to choose between helping them or saving thousands from impending disasters. It's no big thing, but very different from the much more limited character arcs in the original.

Some of the disasters are very clever and well-portrayed. Arguably the best episode deals with a tidal wave striking the South Pacific after the weather control system goes haywire and has the four main Thunderbird vehicles having to work in concert to save thousands of lives across multiple islands. Another episode about a research station in danger of crashing into the Sun (a clear homage to an OG Thunderbirds episode) has a lot of superb tension given the limited running time. Most of the episodes are in fact pretty decent, with a strong sense of character and tension. The worst episodes are the ones that phone in some dodgy stock-SF plot, usually about aliens (Mindmeld and Trial are the worst offenders here) which are otherwise largely missing from the setting. The Shadow Axis/Starcrusher storyline is promising but doesn't really go anywhere, and without an on-screen face for the villains, it falls a bit flat. Starcrusher ends up being a less compelling villain than the Hood, which is really saying something. Other episodes are goofy but somehow pull it off: one episode about a dolphin joining the organisation ends up being surprisingly enjoyable, and an episode about a forest fire caused by the never-ending battle of wits and wills between a prize hunter and a cyborg stag (!!!) is one of the strongest episodes of the season.

The show is arguably a little darker than the original, even granting that the English dub pulls its punches way more than the Japanese original in terms of casualties, but the sense of worldbuilding and the scale of the Federation is really well-realised. There's a lot more work here in terms of scene-setting and continuity than the original show attempted.

The animation is mostly decent, especially by the standards of 1983, and the music is superb, with a mixture of themes from the original Japanese version and ITC's Barry Gray library. The use of themes from the original Thunderbirds and other Supermarionation shows is restrained and will raise a smile when they appear. The voice acting is mostly fine, especially from the regulars, but the guest cast can be hit or miss. The English-language dub has some very witty dialogue and pop culture references, though one episode where the redshirts who are about to die in the opening disaster refer to themselves as redshirts is a bit too on-the-nose. Some of the guest voices in the last couple of episodes are awful, possibly due to a budget crunch as they tried to finish the project on time.

As an alternative, Next Generation-style take on the classic premise, Thunderbirds 2086 (***½) is a decent show. It has some clever ideas and pretty entertaining episodes. It lacks the full charm of the original puppets, but the shorter running time means the show is much more dynamic and faster-paced, and the advantages of animation in portraying things the puppets and small sets could never even attempt are obvious. It definitely gets weaker towards the end of the run and the serialised elements never really take off, but you can do much worse than giving this curiosity a spin. The show has never been released on DVD or Blu-Ray, but a remastered version is available to watch for free on YouTube.

Thank you for reading The Wertzone. To help me provide better content, please consider contributing to my Patreon page and other funding methods.

New NARNIA movie gets its first trailer

The third attempt to adapt the entire Chronicles of Narnia book series by C.S. Lewis to film has received its first trailer.

For the first time, this attempt will adapt the seven books in chronological order rather than publishing order. Previous efforts always began with The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (1950), the first book written and released by Lewis. This new effort from Netflix starts instead with The Magician's Nephew (1955), the sixth-published book but the chronological oldest film in the series. The prequel acts as an origin story for the world of Narnia, the lion Aslan, the witch Jadis and even the wardrobe itself.

The first attempt to adapt the entire series was in the late 1980s, when the BBC adapted the first four books in the series - The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Prince Caspian (1951), The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (1952) and The Silver Chair (1953) - from 1988 to 1990. Declining ratings and increasing costs saw the project cancelled before reaching the later books in the series. More recently, Walden Media released three films based on the first three books from 2005 to 2010, but plans for further movies entered development hell and were cancelled when Netflix optioned the books instead in 2018.

The film stars David McKenna as Digory Kirke, Beatrice Campbell as Polly Plummer, Emma Mackey as Jadis, Carey Mulligan as Flora Kirke, Daniel Craig as Andrew Ketterley and Meryl Streep as the voice of Aslan. The film is written and directed by Greta Gerwig and is due for a widespread cinema and IMAX release on 12 February 2027. If successful, presumably adpatations would follow of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, The Horse and His Boy (1954), Prince Caspian, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, The Silver Chair and The Last Battle (1955).

WING COMMANDER III to get a surprise remaster after the discovery of the original source tapes

Wing Commander III: Heart of the Tiger is to get a surprise remaster and re-release. The space combat game was originally released in 1994 and remains one of the most popular and lauded games in the venerable franchise.

The remaster was apparently made possible during a project to digitise all of Electronic Arts' copious assets still on tape. During this process, it was discovered that most or even all of the FMV sequences shot for the Wing Commander franchise had survived intact, allowing it to be re-edited at a much higher resolution. The low-res nature of the original FMV, which made even an upscale very difficult, had made this project doubtful before. Now we should be able to enjoy Mark Hamill and John Rhys-Davies giving it their all in a cheesy action space opera.

Wing Commander III: Heart of the Tiger - 30th Anniversary Edition (actually 32nd, but okay) will also include upgraded textures and controller support, and will be available on Steam, GoG and the EA App. No release date has been confirmed.

More intriguing is the mention of the "Kilrathi Saga Integration," which reportedly includes upscaled re-releases of Wing Commander and Wing Commander II: Vengeance of the Kilrathi, along with their expansion packs. These games do not have the lavish FMV sequences of the later games, but are older, so are both easier and trickier to re-release.

Reportedly if this project is successful, remasters of Wing Commander IV: The Price of Freedom and Wing Commander: Prophecy may follow. It's unclear if Wing Commander: Privateer and Privateer 2 (starring Clive Owen as a hard-bitten space mercenary/trader!) are also in line for the treatment.

The original Wing Commander series was helmed by Chris Roberts, who is now orchestrating the release of ultra-ambitious spiritual successors Star Citizen and Squadron 42, the latter of which just got a Q2 2027 release window.

SQUADRON 42 gets a Q2 2027 launch date, after 16 years in development

The first part of the long-gestating Star Citizen video game project has finally gotten a firm release window, for the first time in its existence. The single-player campaign, Squadron 42, will be released in Q2 2027 (April-June) and has a Steam wishlist page, as well as a new trailer.

Early work began on Star Citizen in 2011, with the game hitting Kickstarter in 2012. The developers continued accepting donations via their own webpage after the Kickstarter ended, and as of today the game has raised over $1,051,189,523 in funding, making it the most expensive confirmed video game project ever made (although unofficial sources suggest that Grand Theft Auto VI may have spent comparable amount in development funds, and marketing will take it way, way over that). Although critics have called the game a white whale or marketing scam, an early access version of the game has been playable for some years.

Star Citizen will be a multiplayer extravaganza set across dozens of star systems with players able to pilot spaceships, use vehicles or engage in personal combat and exploration. Squadron 42 is a much more linear, story-based experience, casting the player as a new recruit as the Empire of Earth comes under attack by an alien species and has to fight back, helped by an all-star voice cast including Gary Oldman, Gillian Anderson, Mark Hamill, Henry Cavil, Mark Strong and Liam Cunningham.

Here's hoping Squadron 42 hits that launch window and is finally worth the long wait and immense cost. Star Citizen itself remains firmly undated.

Thunderbirds 60th Anniversary Edition

With humanity threatened by an ever-increasing array of technological, manmade and natural disasters, billionaire philanthropist Jeff Tracy has founded International Rescue. Operating from a secret base in the South Pacific, Tracy and his five sons take part in rescue missions around the globe using an impressive array of vehicles, the Thunderbirds. The organisation also finds itself the target of international criminals, so has a network of secret agents around the globe working to defend their interests.

Back in the 1960s, British television producer Gerry Anderson wanted to make ambitious, impressive TV shows mixing action, technology and stunts. Unfortunately, 1960s British TV was not swimming in cash and could not realise his vision. Anderson hit on a solution to save money by building very small sets, model vehicles and using puppets and a tiny number of voice actors to stand in for a much larger cast. This format proved successful through a number of projects: The Adventures of Twizzle (1957-58), Torchy the Battery Boy (1960), Four Feather Falls (1960), Supercar (1961-62), Fireball XL5 (1962-63) and, marking his move into colour, Stingray (1964-65).

Lew Grade, the head of ITC, was incredibly impressed by what Anderson was able to achieve on a limited budget, so for Anderson's next show, they went bigger, with more money and a more ambitious premise. Inspired by real-life disaster stories and his brother's experiences as a pilot in World War II, Gerry and his wife Sylvia created Thunderbirds. Whilst their previous shows had usually focused on two to four protagonists and a single notable vehicle, Thunderbirds had nine regular characters (not including recurring characters like Grandma Tracy and arch-villain "the Hood") and five main Thunderbird vehicles, augmented by a large number of different "pod" vehicles that Thunderbird 2 could carry into action, as well as recurring vehicles like Lady Penelope's FAB-1 and the Fireflash hypersonic aircraft. Filmed in colour at a time when most British homes still only had black-and-white, Thunderbirds was a visually sumptuous, astonishingly ambitious project.

Anderson would go on to make many shows after Thunderbirds, including additional puppet projects Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons (1967-68), Joe 90 (1968-69) and The Secret Service (1969), followed by live-action projects UFO (1970-71, infamously the inspiration for the XCOM video game franchise) and Space: 1999 (1975-76). Anderson's later career was spottier, with throwback project Terrahawks (1983-86) being well-regarded, the live-action Space Precinct (1994-95) less so.

But of all his works, many of them very good, it's arguably Thunderbirds which has withstood the test  of time the best, and has spawned the most successors. As well as two contemporary movies, an unauthorised Japanese anime quasi-sequel series (released in Europe and America as Thunderbirds 2086) was made in 1983, followed by a live-action movie directed by Jonathan Frakes in 2004 (reviled on release, though at least moderately more fondly remembered these days) and then a full-blown successor show, Thunderbirds Are Go, in 2015, which mixed model work and live sets with CGI. Thunderbirds was hugely influential in Japan (hence the unofficial sequel anime), but the show has ultimately sold to over 50 countries around the world.

The core appeal of Thunderbirds is that it's about an organisation that helps people in trouble. Some episodes have identifiable bad guys, but in many cases our heroes are up against the forces of nature or technology gone awry. Sometimes the Tracy boys have to engage in gunfights with villains, but this is rare. Thunderbirds has a very positive message about helping people and how to use technology responsibly to save lives, even as warning about how overreliance on or reckless use of new, untested technology can be very dangerous. It's a simple theme, as befits the intended audience of young children, but a powerful one through its repetition.

Watching the show in 2026, several things stand out. The first is the absence of much kind of serialisation. Occasionally our characters may recall a prior episode if its events are germane to the present one (such as after they save the Fireflash airliner in the pilot, it enters regular service and appears in several subsequent episodes, with even the same pilot and captain) but otherwise there are no long-running story arcs here. This is particularly notable with the appearance of the Hood. Given the rest of the show is realistic-ish-if-you-squint science fiction, the Hood's psychic powers and glowing eyes feel a bit out of place. The Hood's desperation to learn the secrets of International Rescue is never adequately explained, and the potentially explosive revelation that he is the brother of IR butler Kyrano and uncle of their ally Tin-Tin simply never comes up. IR in fact never really connects that their several confrontations with the Hood (usually in disguise) were encounters with the same guy. By modern standards this is all very odd - and successor show Thunderbirds Are Go enthusiastically embraces longer-form storytelling with gusto - but it does mean that each episode stands completely alone from the rest.

The main thing is the sheer artistry involved here. The miniature sets are a work of beauty, and the numerous vehicles are phenomenal pieces of visual design. Each Thunderbird vehicle has a readily-identifiable silhouette and function. The modelwork is impressive by modern standards, let alone 1965's. It also has to be said that no human being before or since has taken as much absolute pleasure in blowing the absolute ever-loving hell out of miniatures than Derek Meddings. This guy is an artist at blowing things up and watching how he manages to blow something up in each episode, even when it's not evident how, is a genuine joy. If explosions are your bag, Thunderbirds has you covered (there is even a series of massive explosions in the title sequence for no reason; Art). The puppets are also extremely impressive and charm, conveying a reasonable level of emotion when coupled with the accomplished voice cast.

The soundtrack is also exceptional: Barry Gray's music for the show is big, broad, bombastic and impressive. The "Thunderbird March" itself is arguably the single best-known British musical theme of the 1960s, only exceeded by the Doctor Who and James Bond themes. The only problem is that whilst Gray composed some amazing music for the show, he didn't compose a lot of it. Within a few episodes you'll have heard everything he made for the show and there's then a lot of re-use of the themes, which can get a little repetitive during a thorough binge of the show.

The episodes themselves, as with any show, can be a bit of a mixed bag. The show is at its best when there's a huge disaster unfolding and the IR team have to deploy the Thunderbirds and come up with a clever solution. The show blasts out of the gate with a bunch of episodes strongly exemplifying this, between Trapped in the Sky (IR has to rescue a hypersonic aircraft that can't land because of sabotaged landing gear), Pit of Peril (the team have to rescue a massive walker-mech that's fallen into a giant pit), City of Fire (the world's tallest skyscraper catches fire) and Sun Probe (a manned mission to collect material from the Sun gets into trouble). Unfortunately, these sort of episodes are also clearly very expensive, and by mid-season the show is starting to see less of these kind of epics and more character-focused and smaller-scale stories, such as Lady Penelope and her driver/bodyguard/manservant Parker having to take out some criminals. These episodes can be fun, but the need to save money is sometimes painfully obvious.

The show also suffers from a pacing problem. As is well-known now, Thunderbirds was originally a 25-minute show extended to 45 minutes by Lew Grade, resulting in last-minute rewrites and the addition of new scenes to already-filmed episodes. In fact, we're more than halfway through the show's 32-episode run before we start seeing episodes made end-to-end with the longer running time in mind. The retroactive expansion of the earlier episodes can result in a lot of filler, repetitive dialogue exchanges and the full, mildly impractical, launch sequence for each Thunderbirds vehicle in full. These launch sequences are awesome, but they do get a bit wearying the third time you see them, let alone the tenth. Some of the later episodes in the season do overcome the issue by having more substantive A and B (and sometimes C) plots, and cutting the launch sequences down considerably. The show can also be a little bit more po-faced at the start, but in its latter half it relaxes considerably and there's some more relaxed joking and more naturalistic dialogue (reaching its apex in the very funny Attack of the Alligators!).

These negatives are not overwhelming, but they make it hard to recommend bingeing the show straight-through, where the repetition and limitations become much more obvious. Watching an episode or two a week to savour the impressive production values and fun scripts may be the best way to experience Thunderbirds today.

For the show's 60th anniversary last year, the entire show was re-scanned in high definition and additional clean-up work was done to remove film blemishes and enhance the colour (a prior HD remaster in the early 2010s had been somewhat less accomplished in this regard). However, fans may be rest assured that no wire removal work was done here: all of the wires for the puppets and vehicles have been left intact. A formidable package of extras was also added, including several new documentaries and features, and a multitude of older interviews and documentaries dating back to the 1990s, and several behind-the-scenes features recorded during the making of the show itself. The package is extraordinarily generous, spreading across 11 Blu-Ray discs. The only niggle is the absence of the theatrically-released movies, Thunderbirds Are Go (1966) and Thunderbird 6 (1968), due to rights issues. There is also an ongoing 4K release of individual episodes, no doubt to be followed in time by a 4K box set of the whole show, but that will no doubt be much more expensive. The 4K image also arguably makes the wires and some of the compromises in making the miniatures and sets a bit too obvious, but views may vary on that.

More intriguing is that the set includes three new adventures of the show! Shot with painstakingly recreated-from-the-original sets, puppets and vehicles, the three new episodes use a series of audio dramas made in the 1960s for their soundtracks, meaning the original voice actors from the show return, sounding pretty exactly the same as they did back in the day, in scripts written by the original writers. Whilst the quality of the three episodes is variable, it's a great treat to see some new Thunderbirds material shot in the exact same way as the original show was. These new episodes are also only 25 minutes long, and benefit a great deal from the tighter running time.

The Thunderbirds 60th Anniversary Edition boxed set (****½) is a terrific way of experiencing one of British television's all-time classics. Yes, the show has aged somewhat, and its slow pacing and lack of continuity may occasionally be distracting. But the artistry is phenomenal, especially given the superb high-definition remaster present here, and the archive and new documentary material is exhaustive and informative. The boxed set is available worldwide and from the Anderson Store.

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Live-action CYBERPUNK 2077 movie in development at Paramount

Paramount Pictures and CD Projekt Red have confirmed they are partnering on a movie set in Mike Pondsmith's Cyberpunk universe, most famously used in CD Projekt's video game Cyberpunk 2077.

Mike Pondsmith developed the setting for a tabletop roleplaying game, Cyberpunk (now referred to as Cyberpunk 2013 to avoid confusion), released in 1988. It was followed in 1990 by Cyberpunk 2020, its best-known edition, and Cyberpunk v3.0 (2005). Cyberpunk Red, the current edition of the game, launched in 2019.

CD Projekt optioned the setting for a video game in 2012, beginning development in earnest after the release of The Witcher III in 2015. Cyberpunk 2077 launched in late 2020 in an infamously bugged state, resulting in significant criticism before the game recovered through an extensive series of patches and, in 2023, the massive expansion Phantom Liberty. Cyberpunk 2077 recently crossed 40 million sales, with Phantom Liberty hitting 15 million sales by itself.

In 2022 Netflix released the anime series Cyberpunk: Edgerunners, which is set in Night City one year before the events of the video game and even uses vistas and locations from the video game as a backdrop. A second season drops later this month, also on Netflix.

The new movie will be live-action and CD Projekt Red will be involved as consultants, though it's unclear if Mike Pondsmith will be on board in a consulting role. Despite some early jumping-the-gun reports, it's also not confirmed if Keanu Reeves and/or Idris Elba will be reprising their roles from the video game as Johnny Silverhand and Solomon Reed. It does appear that the movie will tell a new story, and will not be an adaptation of the video game (trying to cram the ~125 hours from a single thorough playthrough of the game into a 2.5-hour movie would clearly not work).

CD Projekt Red is also developing a direct sequel to the game, provisionally entitled Cyberpunk 2. The only thing that is known about the game is that it will see the return of Night City but will involve a trip to a new city as well.

British TV heavy-hitter Jed Mercurio makes DOCTOR WHO bid

The BBC is considering multiple pitches from some of the biggest production companies in the UK on how to revive Doctor Who. In surprising news, one of UK television's heaviest hitters, producer Jed Mercurio, has thrown his hat into the ring.

Mercurio has had an eclectic career, studying medicine and serving in the Royal Air Force before switching to writing television in the 1990s. He made his name with Cardiac Arrest (1994-96), a grittier and more realistic hospital drama than was normal at the time. He also created The Grimleys (1999-2001) and Bodies (2004-06). His first foray into science fiction, Invasion: Earth (1998), was only a moderate success.

He then achieved a massive, cross-generational success with Line of Duty (2012-21, with a 2019 spin-off movie, with a new season planned next year), a police procedural drama series. One of the biggest British shows of the last twenty years, the show had huge audiences and critical acclaim over an extended run, with a comeback planned.

Mercurio also penned the blockbuster mini-series Bodyguard (2018), which was another big success. His more recent work includes Bloodlands (2021), Trigger Point (2022), DI Ray (2022), Payback (2023), Breathtaking (2024) and Trinity (forthcoming). He is also a successful novelist, having penned four novels and a graphic novel.

Hat Trick Mercurio has made a formal bid to take control of Doctor Who, with Mercurio himself slated to write and produce the series. Mercurio has described himself as a casual Doctor Who fan in the past, someone who enjoys the show but is not steeped deeply in the lore and backstory. One suggestion is that the BBC wants someone less immersed in the minutiae of the show to produce the series moving forwards, with former showrunners Russell T. Davies (2005-10, 2023-25), Steven Moffat (2010-17) and Chris Chibnall (2018-22) all emerging from fandom or writing books etc during the show's long hiatus period in the 1990s.

World Productions, ironically the Line of Duty production company, has submitted another bid, with CEO Simon Heath acknowledging his admiration of the franchise. World Productions is collaborating with ITV Studios, which, if the bid were successful, would mean ITV and the BBC, Britain's two biggest TV networks, joining forces on the show. Formerly fierce rivals, greater ITV-BBC cooperation has been mooted for some time now as a way of generating enough revenue to continue producing good television in the face of international competition.

STV Studios, a Scottish-based company, has also bid on the show. STV is currently riding high with five seasons of Blue Lights, a critically-acclaimed show about policing in Northern Ireland. STV and Screen Scotland have apparently made an ambitious proposal which would include relocating production to Scotland. For twenty-two years, Doctor Who's production has been based in Cardiff, Wales. The BBC is apparently leaning towards keeping production in Wales due to the brand's value to the local economy, including tourism, but may be open to a strong argument for moving to another part of the UK. STV also shoots in Northern Ireland and there may be some scope for the show to make use of locations there as well.

At least two different labels in the BBC Studios family have also bid for the show. Apparently it was considered a shoe-in for BBC Studios to take on the project, but Jed Mercurio's involvement has thrown an unexpected chaos grenade into the process. Mercurio would add interest and gravitas to a show that's been seen as run-down and past its prime for a while now, even though some fans may be wary of Mercurio's relative inexperience in science fiction.

The BBC is expected to declare the winning bid in March 2027.