SFX

Michela M, email I hate spoilers so I usually read your magazine very slowly (I’m a few issues behind). I knew that David Tennant was coming back along with Catherine Tate, but I was happily surprised to see Yasmin Finney as Donna’s daughter. I loved

plus FOUR BBC TARGET BOOKS ★ Four Doctor Who Target novelisations worth £31.96 ★ Delivered direct to your door ★ Never miss an issue £41.99 EVERY 12 MONTHS Get 13 issues of SFX in print over 12 months, and save 41% £36.99 EVERY 12 MONTHS Get 13 issue

You’ll probably be reading this after Christmas and will have seen the Doctor meet Ruby Sunday by now. But for us it’s timey-wimey… Has David Tennant left yet? Who’s the Doctor now? We don’t even know what day it is – as I write this, November is bar

JAMES WAN WAS SWIMMING around his pool late one night when he thought he saw someone watching him. A shiver ran up his spine. The malignant mind behind the Saw, Conjuring and Insidious franchises was scared. Yet he knew where he had seen this scene b

THREE YEARS AFTER THEIR RUN on Hellblazer came to an end, Si Spurrier and Aaron Campbell are returning to the mage with John Constantine, Hellblazer: Dead In America, which sees an ailing John Constantine crossing the Atlantic as he flees murder char

AFTER JED MACKAY’S FOCUS ON Kang the Conqueror in the first two volumes, this year’s Timeless one-shot not only features a new main protagonist in the Immortal Moon Knight, but is also written by a new team: Collin Kelly and Jackson Lanzing. “Tom Bre

DISAPPOINTED FANS DON’T often get a second chance when a beloved book gets botched in a Hollywood adaptation. Take the legions of readers who adore author Rick Riordan’s YA fantasy series Percy Jackson & The Olympians, who are still smarting from dir

FOUR DECADES AFTER THEY first collaborated on the adventures of Alex, Julie, Jack and Katie Power, Louise “Weezie” Simonson and June Brigman are returning to tell another tale of the superheroic siblings. Billed as a “retro series”, Into The Storm fo

WHILE BRINGING a character back from the dead almost became an everyday occurrence for the Merry Mutants during the Krakoan Age, due to their Resurrection Protocols, Magneto didn’t have that option after he perished in X-Men Red issue seven during 20

♦ Season one, episode two, coming later in 2024, is called “The Devil’s Chord”. ♦ Music from “The Church On Ruby Road” was released on 11 December. “The Goblin Song” is available free on BBC Sounds and can be purchased on other platforms, with all pr

IN THE WORLD OF YOUTUBE creators, Vivienne Medrano is a gold standard example of a self-made success story. An illustrator and animator who worked under the moniker “VivziePop”, Medrano joined the platform in 2012 to share her self-made comic ZooPhob

GROWING OUT OF editor Tom Brevoort’s idea for “a future-set Avengers tale”, Avengers: Twilight takes place three decades from now, in a prosperous America that doesn’t have any need for Earth’s Mightiest Heroes to exist – although things are apparent

IT’S THE ANNIVERSARY WEEK OF DOCTOR Who and SFX is in a London hotel, opposite a legendary pub where fans used to meet, and in the shadow of the iconic BT Tower. Ncuti Gatwa (in a Prada sweater, with shirt underneath, and yellow socks on display unde

Tell us about your protagonist – what’s her story? → Violet Everly is the last heir to a fatal family curse. She grows up alone, so she lives inside stories, until she finds herself in one as she attempts to break the curse. And it’s more wondrous an

FOR A TIME MACHINE, TIME seems to stand still when you’re inside the TARDIS. Because it’s so mind-boggling and, quite frankly, overwhelming to step into – especially when you’re doing so before it’s been seen on television. It’s housed in Stage 6 at

FROM CDS AND BOOKS, TO ACTION figures and spatulas, there’s been a constant flow of Doctor Who products into the nation’s shops since the show’s earliest days. Some have enjoyed more of an afterlife than others. Over the following pages, SFX joins co

♦ Were you familiar with Doctor Who? I’ve always been a fan. I remember watching the Christopher Eccleston series when I was young. David Tennant and Catherine Tate were my childhood heroes. To be involved in their reunion was something special; to s

WOLF STUDIOS, Cardiff. They should just rent us a room, really. The one we’re in today is jokingly referred to as “the Meeping Room” as it’s filled with concept art from the first two specials, as well as props and costumes including the full-size Ji

“We’re still actively developing it,” Jamie Anderson reveals. “Around 10 months ago it was about to go into formal pre-preproduction development, shall we say, with a major international partner. And then there was a change of guard and it got droppe

MY BROTHERS AND I made a film filled with all of the things we enjoyed and wanted to see in a movie,” says Stephen Chiodo, one quarter of the sibling filmmaker team behind 1988’s colourful and brilliantly titled Killer Klowns From Outer Space. “We th

THEY’VE WORKED with legendary filmmakers and created characters for a slew of iconic properties – but Lou and Dave Elsey from Igor Studios would “do Ghost Story forever” if they could, despite the annual tales from Mark Gatiss being created on a frac

The supernatural temperature drop during the exorcism scene required the actors’ breath to be visible. Easily done now via CG, but in 1973 a practical solution was required. “What we did was place a gigantic restaurant air conditioner across the top

FEW TV SHOWS HAVE HAD AS MUCH LASTING INFLUENCE as Buffy The Vampire Slayer. The beloved series ran for seven seasons between 1997 and 2003 and, in one swift strike of a wooden stake, changed the way that fantasy dramas looked and felt forever. Buffy

TWENTY YEARS AGO, DR LAWRENCE Gordon took a hacksaw and preceded to free himself from an ankle shackle chaining him to a dilapidated bathtub. It was a bloody victory for both Gordon and his sadistic captor John Kramer, the Jigsaw killer. Kramer’s twi

Our simple 6 Month Best Offer breaks up the annual subscription into two easily manageable payments over the course of the year £22 .71 EVERY SIX MONTHS 13 issues of PC Gamer in print over 12 months £18 .17 EVERY SIX MONTHS 13 issues of PC Gamer in d

MAYBE IT’S IN THE BLOOD, BUT Jamie Anderson is a self-confessed Terrahawks fan. “You make it sound like it’s a bad thing!” laughs the son of television legend Gerry, quick to defend the honour of a series often regarded as a lesser entry in his dad’s

▶ RELEASED OUT NOW! PG | 116 minutes ▶ Director Paul King ▶ Cast Timothée Chalamet, Calah Lane, Olivia Colman, Hugh Grant Gene Wilder was, and always will be, the best Willy Wonka. It doesn’t matter how kookily Johnny Depp played him in 2005’s Charli

▶ RELEASED 12 JANUARY 12A | 141 minutes ▶ Director Yorgos Lanthimos ▶ Cast Emma Stone, Willem Dafoe, Mark Ruffalo, Ramy Youssef A feminist Frankenstein from the director of The Favourite, Yorgos Lanthimos’s latest is one of the most fiercely inventiv

UK BBC One/iPlayer, streaming now ▶ Showrunner Russell T Davies ▶ Cast David Tennant, Catherine Tate, Bonnie Langford, Ncuti Gatwa ANNIVERSARY SPECIALS The Toymaker may be a stickler for following the rules, but Russell T Davies sure as hell ain’t. T

UK iPlayer, streaming now US AMC+, streaming now ▶ Showrunners Michelle Ashford, Esta Spalding ▶ Cast Alexandra Daddario, Tongayi Chirisa, Jack Huston, Annabeth Gish EPISODES 1.01-1.08 Set in the same world as Interview With The Vampire, Mayfair Witc

UK/US Disney+, streaming now ▶ Showrunners Rob Letterman, Nicholas Stoller ▶ Cast Zack Morris, Isa Briones, Miles McKenna, Ana Yi Puig EPISODES 1.01-1.10 RL Stine’s kids’ horror series Goosebumps lends itself to the anthology TV series format, becaus

UK ITVX, streaming now US MGM+, streaming now ▶ Showrunners Kate Brooke, Ed Whitmore ▶ Cast Iain De Caestecker, Stuart Campbell, Ellie James, Jordan Alexandra EPISODES 1.01-1.10 The Winter King is based on the Warlord Chronicles books by Sharpe creat

UK BBC Two/iPlayer, streaming now ▶ Writer/director Mark Gatiss ▶ Cast Kit Harington, Freddie Fox, Colin Ryan, John Heffernan This year’s enjoyable addition to classic strand A Ghost Story For Christmas deviates from the norm in two key respects. Fir

UK/US Apple TV+, Fridays ▶ Showrunner Chris Black ▶ Cast Anna Sawai, Kiersey Clemons, Ren Watabe, Wyatt Russell, Kurt Russell EPISODES 1.01-1.10 When the BBC released The Tripods in the mid-’80s, the scarcity of actual Tripod sightings was a bone of

RELEASED OUT NOW! 2023 | 15 | SVOD ▶ Directors Zack Snyder ▶ Cast Sofia Boutella, Ed Skrein, Michiel Huisman, Charlie Hunnam NETFLIX Zack Snyder’s epic space opera doesn’t start with a crawl, but a cheesy voiceover. Which, since this has been enthusi

▶ RELEASED OUT NOW! 2023 | 15 | SVOD ▶ Director Sam Esmail ▶ Cast Julia Roberts, Mahershala Ali, Ethan Hawke, Myha’la NETFLIX This end-of days thriller brings Rumaan Alam’s 2020 novel to the screen with slow-burn power and paranoia to spare. A brittl

EXTRAS RELEASED OUT NOW! 1981-1986 | 15 | Blu-ray ▶ Director Piotr Szulkin ▶ Cast Jerzy Stuhr, Roman Wilhelmi, Daniel Olbrychski BLU-RAY DEBUT Poland isn’t known for sci-fi films, which makes this box set (subtitled Three Films By Piotr Szulkin) doub

EXTRAS ▶ RELEASED OUT NOW! 1993-1998 | 12 | Blu-ray ▶ Creator J Michael Straczynski ▶ Cast Bruce Boxleitner, Michael O’Hare, Claudia Christian, Mira Furlan BLU-RAY DEBUT Don’t listen to Tim Bisley in Spaced. Babylon 5 is definitely not “a big pile of

EXTRAS ▶ RELEASED 22 JANUARY 2003 | 18 | Blu-ray (4K/standard) ▶ Directors Alexandre Aja ▶ Cast Cécile de France, Maïwenn, Philippe Nahon BLU-RAY DEBUT Titled Haute Tension in its homeland, this product of what was dubbed the New French Extremity was

EXTRAS ▶ RELEASED OUT NOW! 1981 | 18 | Blu-ray ▶ Director Riccardo Freda ▶ Cast Stefano Patrizi, Martine Brochard, Henri Garcin, Laura Gemser BLU-RAY DEBUT Both a comeback and a last hurrah for Riccardo Freda (director of landmark Italian horror I Va

▶ RELEASED 18 JANUARY 269 pages | Hardback/ebook ▶ Author Aliya Whiteley ▶ Publisher Solaris Aliya Whiteley’s work is tricky to categorise. This may be why – in a career of over 15 years, and despite being shortlisted for awards in fantasy, science f

▶ RELEASED 18 JANUARY 372 pages | Hardback/ebook/audiobook ▶ Author Saara El-Arifi ▶ Publisher HarperVoyager This first instalment in a new series starts as a grimdark tale of neverending war and morphs into a throbbing romance. Author Saara El-Arifi

▶ RELEASED 9 JANUARY 416 pages | Paperback/ebook ▶ Author Alice McIlroy ▶ Publisher Datura Books Many of us have memories we’d rather not linger on. But would we choose to remove them if we could, to move on with our lives with no knowledge of what w

▶ RELEASED 16 JANUARY 416 pages | Hardback/ebook/audiobook ▶ Author Alastair Reynolds ▶ Publisher Gollancz Such has been Alastair Reynolds’s creative restlessness down the years that it still genuinely comes as a surprise when he returns to the Revel

▶ RELEASED OUT NOW! 271 pages | Hardback ▶ Author Jonathan Helm ▶ Publisher Cult Edge A labour of love, this print-on-demand making-of for the opening run of Terry Nation’s ’70s sci-fi saga about a bunch of freedom fighters takes a day-by-day approac

▶ RELEASED OUT NOW! ▶ Publisher DC Comics ▶ Writer Tom King ▶ Artist Daniel Sampere ISSUES 1-3 Superhero comics have been dabbling with the political thriller subgenre for a long time, but it’s safe to say that the 1970s conspiracy vibe of movies suc

▶ RELEASED OUT NOW! ▶ Publisher Marvel Comics ▶ Writer Saladin Ahmed ▶ Artist Aaron Kuder, Farid Karami ISSUES 1-3 Considering its reputation as one of Marvel’s most street-level and grounded superhero sagas, Daredevil has never been afraid to get su

▶ RELEASED OUT NOW! ▶ Reviewed on PC ▶ Also available on PS5, Xbox Series X ▶ Publisher Ubisoft VIDEOGAME There is a very simple hook to Avatar: Frontiers Of Pandora which won’t win any awards for originality, but does make for an enjoyable open worl

Which 1974 Doctor Who story is partially set at a Buddhist meditation centre? Name Scientology founder L Ron Hubbard’s 1982 sci-fi novel, later made into a blockbuster movie starring John Travolta. Who wrote the 1969 novella Behold The Man, in which

SFX 375 ON SALE 24 JANUARY WALKERS BEWARE – THEY’RE BACK! RICK AND MICHONNE ARE THE ONES WHO LIVE IN THE WALKING DEAD MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE Prepare for a Revolution! MADAME WEB Don’t research spiders in the Amazon… AVATAR: THE LAST AIRBENDER The li

When I was about 13 – sometime in the mid-18th century, it feels like – we’d have “library lessons” as part of English at school. This meant 40 minutes in, er, the library, when we were all supposed to choose a book and just read it. Most kids read c