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Welcome to the first SFX Annual, packed full of the very best movies, TV shows, books and comics that have made 2017 one of the most exciting years for sci-fi and fantasy ever. We’ve journeyed through space and time to visit the set of Peter Capaldi’s final series in the TARDIS. We’ve donned our winter wear for a trip to Westeros as Game Of Thrones kicked off its penultimate season. We’ve seen talking raccoons, giant robots, acid-blooded aliens, adamantiumclawed superheroes making their last stand, webslingers, and a triumphant movie debut for a certain Amazonian princess. We’ve even found time to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Buffy The Vampire Slayer, one of your all-time favourite shows, and to look ahead to the movies and TV that’ll be exciting you in 2018.…

What did you want to bring to the character of Spider-Man? My main thing was to not do something that had been done before. It’s quite hard to come by original content. So I just really, really dove into the research about finding new and unique things we hadn’t seen with Spider-Man and especially Peter Parker. And making him younger, I think, was a very smart decision on Marvel’s behalf because it just makes it more relatable. Not only to an older generation but to a younger generation because it’s nice to be able to go and see a movie and see someone as incredible as Spider-Man go through the same things that they’re going through. But then it also appeals to an older audience because everyone went to school.…

Female empowerment is a hot topic right now. How do you see this movie reflecting that? I think Wonder Woman is at the centre of that zeitgeist – to have a character who is so strong and physically adept, but also brings with her a great amount of compassion and love for man. She sees the hope for what human beings can be: the best parts of themselves. Whereas I play a character who’s much more of a jaded realist who’s seen the awful shit that can happen, and he tries to teach her the ways of how awful mankind can be. So we teach each other a wonderful thing. Is Steve a supporting character in this movie? Is he co-lead? I don’t know, man. I mean, the movie’s called…

LA BELLE ET LA BÊTE Jean Cocteau, 1946 This exquisite French adaptation sees director Jean Cocteau dial up the sensuality, turning the Beast into a leonine creature driven mad by Belle’s beauty. PANNA A NETVOR Juraj Herez, 1978 This moody Czech adaptation is the only one where the Beast is envisioned as a giant bird. In a grim twist, he tries to kill Beauty and can only survive by drinking blood. SPIKE Robert Beaucage, 2008 A surreal, hallucinatory journey from an indie American director. Three young girls wander into a forest where an ancient force has been watching them for years. BEASTLY Daniel Barnz, 2011 A fairytale reimagined as a teenage drama, with Alex Pettyfer as the high-school jerk who’s turned into a bald, tattooed creep after mocking a girl…

LAWRENCE OF ARABIA WAS THE INSPIRATION FOR DAVID, WHAT INSPIRED WALTER? For Walter, there’s no vanity to him. He doesn’t have feelings of inferiority, or any of those human traits present in David. And that ambiguity present in David in Prometheus – Walter wouldn’t have that. He’s more like Leonard Nimoy’s Spock. He just operates under logic and whatever’s necessary to keep the crew and the ship safe. DO YOU REMEMBER WATCHING ALIEN FOR THE FIRST TIME? Yeah, I was about 11 or so. I remember very clearly that image of the alien bursting out of John Hurt’s stomach. And I remember it affected me in a different way. There was just something different about Alien. It was a new world introduced to me; that idea of sci-fi and horror…

Can you tell us about your character, Desi? Just a guy who didn’t sign up for this! He got thrust into this world and he’s terrified. He’s probably the closest to what an audience member would feel. He’s the eyes for those people who’d try to figure it out on the fly. It’s how I would be in real life, running from Decepticons and drones! Your background is in comedy. Did you look for ways to make the role funnier? Michael [Bay] was actually really open and excited by improv and ad libs. The things that work best are when you find the most human reaction, which isn’t necessarily the clever line – it’s portraying fear or excitement in an interesting way. More than “What about this line?” it was…

When you realised that Cara Delevingne would be cast as Valerian’s companion, Laureline, what did you think? I was excited. She impressed me all the way through. It’s not like I knew exactly what to expect from her as an actress. But she really made the job a pleasure. Every day that I saw her, she lit up and I was super-happy to see her. In that way, it was easy to establish the Valerian- Laureline dynamic. There was a lot of blue-screen involved in the making of the film. Did you get to see sketches of the aliens before you started filming? Yeah, there were mock-ups of the aliens, digital renderings, and there was always pre-viz of what we were shooting – renderings of the worlds. And also just…

It’s easy to forget that The Mummy was once at the forefront of Universal’s wave of monster franchises. The third such film – after Frankenstein and Dracula – to spawn multiple sequels, director Karl Freund’s 1932 classic may not inspire the white-knuckle thrills it did 84 years ago, but it’s retained its haunting mood, atmosphere and eerie performance by Boris Karloff as an ancient Egyptian priest buried alive for trying to resurrect his dead lover – and set loose centuries later to kill while searching for her reincarnated form. Forbidden love is also at the heart of director Alex Kurtzman’s new reboot, the studio’s second after the Brendan Fraserstarring 1999-2008 trilogy, and the first to serve as the cornerstone of a new shared Universal Monsterverse. “The Mummy in particular was…

“I’m finally saying exactly what I want to say, the way I want to say it, and this tiny little series on the Warner Brothers station has made me happier than any gigantic movie I have ever worked on.” Joss Whedon, SFX 35, February 1998 “She’s mostly normal. That’s the key to her, the way she tries to fit in, to do all the things that girls her age do. It’s her destiny that keeps getting in the way.” Sarah Michelle Gellar, SFX 35, February 1998 “The whole series is grounded in the idea that high school is the most horrifying experience a human being can go through. So we just tried to extend our metaphors of popularity, puberty, humiliation and isolation and turn them into monster movies.” Joss Whedon,…

▸ The White Walkers, the icy sword of Damocles that’s been dangling over Westeros since Game Of Thrones began, are on the march, and at the beginning of the season, looked set to finally reach the wall. ▸ Thanks to Bran’s visions, we know a lot more about these ice-cold killers. Created by the Children of the Forest to protect them from men, and – in theory, at least – they can’t get past the Wall because of magic embedded deep within its colossal structure by Bran’s famous ancestor, Bran the Builder. ▸ Yet when Bran was “touched” by the Night King, the White Walkers were able to locate the young Stark and break through defences that had previously kept them out. Bran’s link with their undead leader could provide…

Where does Varys find himself at the start of this season? Still on the boat, still standing… He hasn’t got a seat the whole trip, and he didn’t get any duty-free. No, things pick up from where we left off. We arrive somewhere… all of us… and start planning. We seem to be heading for an all-out confrontation this season. Where do his loyalties lie? The realm’s always been constant – the realm is the people. So he wants the best for the people. They will prosper under just rule, I imagine. He cares about that. Did you ever consider taking the skullcap route to baldness? No, it was never an option. I just think, under the lights and with all the flames, a skullcap would have melted down my…

It feels like Sansa is now playing the game of thrones. Are we about to see her darker side? She’s very strong and steely this season. She’s in it for herself. Whether that means going a bit dark… you’ll have to see. Is she conflicted because Jon is now King in the North – yet it was she who helped save the day at the Battle of the Bastards? She definitely feels left out. There’s a little bit of jealousy there. She feels like she deserves the title of Queen in the North… All she wants is the respect of her brother, and she feels like she’s not getting that. Fair enough! Has Sansa been short-changed in the romantic department? Yeah, I’d say so! She hasn’t been very lucky. There…

ANANSI BOYS Anansi Boys is, essentially, a spin-off from American Gods; a comedy about the African spider god Mr Nancy and his two sons. There have been rumblings about a BBC adaptation but nothing has come of it so far (except on the radio). A shame, as it would no doubt be a fun and funny farce. SANDMAN An adaptation of the Sandman comics has been mooted for decades. Most recently it looked like it would be developed by Arrival screenwriter Eric Heisserer, but he quit after saying the material was unworkable as a film, and would better suit a TV series. Step on up, Bryan Fuller! THE GRAVEYARD BOOK Another case of development hell: Neil Gaiman’s story of a boy raised in a graveyard was originally mooted by Disney…

What’s the essential difference between the Defenders and the Avengers? With the Avengers, there’s a pride about who they are, they’re very chest-out, gung-ho, and that’s very cool to watch. To make this work on TV, with these street-level heroes, we have to go the opposite way. We go to a place of shame, and a place of loneliness for these guys. We’re trying to find moments where Matt is essentially learning not just what these guys can and cannot do but how they deal with the same pain he deals with on a daily basis. How do they not feel like they’re freaks of nature and outcasts of society? Are there tensions between Matt and the other characters? A lot. Initially they don’t trust each other. It’s particularly difficult…

So, what did happen to Coop when he returned from the Black Lodge? And precisely how is Annie? The former question will be answered, of course, in the TV show. Kyle MacLachlan was the first person announced as having been cast in the new series, and it’s impossible to imagine Twin Peaks without Agent Cooper. Whether he’s good or bad – or some combination of the two – is the big question. But what of Annie Blackburn, first introduced in season two and last seen looking seriously worse for wear after Windom Earle dragged her to the Black Lodge? Actress Heather Graham is absent from the new season’s sprawling cast list and the character doesn’t appear in the book. Will we ever find out what became of her? “All of the speculation…

• While Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning are responsible for bringing the current team together in 2008, the Guardians of the Galaxy also owe a huge debt to the work of Jim Starlin. In fact the whole Marvel cosmic universe is inspired by the superheroic space operas that he wrote and drew in the 1970s. Starlin also created Drax the Destroyer and Gamora, who made their respective bows in 1973’s Iron Man #55 and 1975’s Strange Tales #180, along with other prominent characters like Thanos and Adam Warlock. “Jim Starlin is one of my favourite creators, and his work on Warlock and Captain Marvel are benchmarks for me,” says Abnett. “It was a pleasure to use those characters and, I hope, honour that legacy.” Star-Lord’s first adventure – the work…

Sometimes, it seems best to keep things secret. When she began writing her new novel, Carve The Mark, Veronica Roth didn’t even tell her publisher that she was on to something until comparatively late in the day. “I’ve gotten good at shutting out the outside world, I think,” she says. “You have to because if you spend all your time thinking about how people are going to react to a story, then you really don’t take any risks.” You can understand why Roth was so reluctant to share. Her dystopian Divergent YA trilogy, of which more later, represents one of those rags-to-riches publishing success stories that authors dream about but which occur only rarely. The first volume, Divergent, was published in 2011, a year after Roth left Northwestern University. The…

Comics in the 1940s weren’t exactly considered high art. However, 48-year-old William Moulton Marston felt differently. One of the most fascinating creators in comics history, Marston imagined that the medium could serve as the perfect tool for educating readers and sharing his view of the world. Wonder Woman was the result. Calling Wonder Woman radical feminist propaganda sounds like a pejorative; in fact, it was exactly what her creator claimed. “Wonder Woman,” Marston said, “is a psychological propaganda for the new type of woman who should, I believe, rule the world.” From a comic career spanning eight decades to her iconic 1970s television series starring Lynda Carter to her new standout role in the DC Extended Universe movies, it’s hard to argue that she hasn’t done exactly that in the…

1979 Alien opens 25 May in America and 6 September in the UK. Xenomorph costumes are already on sale for Halloween. 1986 Militarised sequel Aliens is released 18 July in the US and 29 August in the UK. 1989 Franchise collision Alien Vs Predator commences in the pages of Dark Horse Presents. 1992 Alien 3 arrives 22 May in the US and 21 August in the UK. Aliens: Special Edition is released on laserdisc and VHS, restoring 17 minutes of cut footage. 1995 DC and Dark Horse team on two-issue miniseries Superman/ Aliens. Batman/Aliens follows in 1998. 2002 Alien is declared “culturally, historically or aesthetically significant” by the US Library of Congress and preserved for posterity. 2004 Alien Vs Predator becomes a movie, helmed by Paul WS Anderson. 2007 More Hollywood franchise-splicing in Aliens…

IN THE FIRST GUARDIANS PETER MATURES AND TAKES ON A LEADERSHIP ROLE. IS ALL OF THAT SHOT TO HELL WITH THE ARRIVAL OF HIS DAD? In some ways, yes. But it was really important to me… I remember having that conversation with James. I said, “Listen. It’s important that we honour where these characters went and the journey that they went through in the beginning.” You’ll see when you see the movie. It’s not taking the first movie and just doing it over again in a different way, which sometimes happens with sequels. This is different. We definitely pick up where we left off, and the growth that they’ve had in the first movie remains. HOW HAVE THE GUARDIANS CHANGED? The result is a closer familial bond, meaning more familial…

Is Bad Ape the comic relief? Well, there’s a lot of weight to this character – he’s gone through a lot – but in contrast to the tone of the other apes, yeah, he lightens this really heavy story. It’s a story of revenge, and battling primal instincts that we all have. Then there’s this character who is tagging along that doesn’t want to go be a part of this story, but because there are other apes he’s so excited. This is a chimp that’s lived on his own for a long time, and now he’s found new friends, and I think there’s something really childlike and beautiful in that. How did movement coach Terry Notary help you prepare? The first time we started talking it was extremely philosophical –…

How would you describe the Valerian- Laureline relationship? They are basically alone together most of the time in their spaceship, travelling around, trying to rescue or save people and trying to keep the universe at peace. They have a rapport that’s very teasing: they know each other very well. Are you a big sci-fi geek? No. The Fifth Element was probably my first – and favourite – sci-fi movie. To me, the characters and stories were the most exciting things about films, generally. Not just sci-fi. But with this movie, I feel like you get so much of everything. It’s not just about the sci-fi element. There are so many different eclectic parts of other kinds of films. You did Suicide Squad, which had a lot of visual effects. Did…

Few performers have crafted a film career that so casually demolishes the barriers between media like Sofia Boutella. As a child, the Algerian-born actress studied classical dance and became a rhythmic gymnast on the French national team, before finding fame as a professional street dancer. But a love of film drove her to pursue acting, and she won her first major role as the salsa dancer Eva in 2012’s StreetDance 2. 2015’s Kingsman: The Secret Service, in which she starred as the deadly henchwoman Gazelle, won her the approval of genre film fans. And she followed that super-spy hit with her turn as the Enterprise crew’s alien ally Jaylah in last year’s Star Trek Beyond. Her biggest film, however, is her latest: Universal’s The Mummy, in which she reinvents the…

Word gradually reached me of just how good Buffy was. For many years I was a box set viewer. I only got Sky when it came to season seven because I thought “I cannot be spoilt on this! I have to watch this on transmission!” The writing was just brilliant. It very much reminded me of [Steven Moffat’s] Press Gang. To have those cleverer-than-average teenage characters talking at a fast rate and throwing jokes at you – it’s actually a very Steven Moffat pattern. Joss Whedon didn’t invent that – writing’s progressed in that direction over a couple of decades – but it had the same velocity, the same intelligence, the same wit. And to see that in a fantasy setting was absolutely brilliant. It was the kind of rat-a-tat…

▸ Jon Snow, of course, is in the thick of things. A Stark is back in Winterfell, but there’s a snake loose. Littlefinger called chaos a ladder, and his machinations are surely not over. Deep GOT history tells us men forged ties with White Walkers in the ancient past, and Littlefinger has a habit of choosing the side most likely to win. The slimiest man in the Seven Kingdoms is surely not above forging an ice-cold alliance... ▸ Daenerys, meanwhile, appears destined to claim the Iron Throne. Yet she knew nothing of the White Walkers, and her dragons are surely going to be needed in the North, where time-worn tales of sleeping ice dragons could prove a spectacular counterpoint to their fiery menace. The song of ice and fire is…

So, you’re definitely not dead this season… I’m not dead this year! I can now say that. Was it all cloak and dagger on season six, getting to and from set? Not really. I thought they would get me a private jet in, helicopter to set… But not much of that, no. There were drones on set during the [filming of] “Battle Of The Bastards”, though. We’d have this [alert] ‘drone drone drone!’ and I’d have to run under an umbrella and get taken to a tent. That felt quite exciting. Will season seven explore more of the rather dour Jon’s optimistic side? I think there is an optimism in seven, definitely at the start. At the end of six, being crowned King in the North, there’s a small smile…

⋆ Hyped as “The most fabulous fighting-team of all!”, the Defenders officially debuted in Marvel Feature 1 in 1971. Created by writer Roy Thomas, the original line-up united the titanic trio of Doctor Strange, the Hulk and the Sub-Mariner. ⋆ The self-styled non-team earned their own title in 1972, written by Steve Englehart and drawn by Sal Buscema. Based in Doctor Strange’s Greenwich Village sanctum, the loose, endlessly rolling membership expanded to include reformed villain Nighthawk and Asgardian demigoddess Valkyrie. Other Defenders over the years: X-Men’s Beast, the Son of Satan and Luke Cage. ⋆ Led by Marvel’s Sorcerer Supreme, the team frequently faced occult or reality-bending threats. Writer Steve Gerber introduced a rich streak of absurdity and surrealism during his ’70s run, including a crossover with his own Howard…

Given the comic book history between Luke and Danny, does it feel like a natural pairing? FINN The dynamic between the characters is working really well. Before we started this, because there was such hype around our characters coming together for the first time, there was a worry that it might be too oversensationalised or too overwritten or too overanticipated. But the way that it’s written and the way that we’re getting on and working together, it feels really natural. MIKE They’re trying to organically allow our characters to get to know each other, without just going, “Hey, I like you, you like me, let’s hang out!” What’s it like working with Sigourney Weaver? FINN Sigourney’s amazing. She’s very talented, very generous and kind. Genuine. Just has an excellent energy…

WHAT WAS IT LIKE THE DAY YOU WERE ANNOUNCED, WATCHING YOUR TWITTER FOLLOWERS GO UP? Oh yeah, that was mad. The day before I had like 435, and then the next day it was like 16.5K. My phone was like [vibrating noise]… I can’t even deal with that. When the battery died I was actually quite grateful. HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE BILL? She’s just like a normal young woman. She’s very interested in the Doctor and the way his mind works. The way he sees the world is very fascinating for her and something that she’s never experienced before. She’s pretty normal but that’s the fantastic thing about her – she’ll allow people who haven’t ever watched Doctor Who to come into it with her WHAT WAS IT LIKE, YOUR…

JIM WEST It wasn’t the hit in the UK that it was in America, but Robert Conrad’s 19th century superspy in the TV series The Wild Wild West paved the way for today’s steampunk movement. JONAH HEX John Albano and Tony DeZuniga’s antihero has battled everything from zombies to apocalyptic mutants to Ra’s al Ghul in Batman: The Animated Series. THE GUNSLINGER Yul Brynner’s proto-Terminator in the 1973 amusement-parkgone- wrong thriller Westworld not only led to the HBO hit, but also the dinos in Michael Crichton’s Jurassic Park. ROLAND DESCHAIN The Man With No Name-like hero of Stephen King’s The Dark Tower series, Roland finally comes to the big screen this year, played by no less an actor than Idris Elba. MALCOLM REYNOLDS Joss Whedon’s Firefly gave us rogue spaceship…

This year marks 120 years since HG Wells’s The War Of The Worlds was first serialised in Pearson’s Magazine. As visions of tripods marauding across south-east England have subsequently embedded themselves not just in the collective consciousness of sci-fi fans, but the wider world, it is indeed a story that sits deep in our shared culture. All of which means that, even though Wells left plenty of scope for the story to be continued, it would take a brave man indeed to write a sequel. Step forward Stephen Baxter, whose Massacre Of Mankind, authorised by the HG Wells Estate, imagines what happens when the Red Planet invaders return in an alternate-history 1920s. “You have the Martians landing in the jazz age,” says Baxter, with some satisfaction. “And I’ve got to…

Even in a post-truth world, there are moments in life when everything suddenly changes for the better. Spectacularly so. Just ask Adrian Tchaikovsky. Last year, his science fiction novel, Children Of Time, took the 30th Arthur C Clarke Award. To someone steeped in the genre and who reads the shortlist every year, it meant “everything” to see his name added to a list including the likes of Margaret Atwood, M John Harrison and China Miéville. “I’m still over the moon about the whole thing,” says Tchaikovsky. “Every so often it comes back to me that, yes, this was a thing that actually happened.” The win was particularly remarkable because Tchaikovsky was known primarily as a fantasy writer. Indeed, his new novel, The Bear And The Serpent is the second offering…

A judo-robed figure stands primed for combat, one hand a balled fist, the other clutching a blade of blood-red light. He’s flanked by three other figures: one blasts a ray gun, another man – hooded, white-bearded – holds his own bright, electric sword. Behind them is a woman, her hair styled like a Victorian governess, her lips pouting, doll-like, her eyes closed in what could almost be rapture. Looming above them all is a disembodied green head, partway between a tribal mask and a carburettor, its eyes lit by the blaze of galactic war. As starships wheel around this bizarre tableau, a question is posed in the familiar booming voice of comic book hyperbole: “Enter: Luke Skywalker! Will he SAVE the galaxy – or DESTROY it?” It’s a question that…

The Lucifer TV show has been criticised for having only the bare minimum in common with the comic book of the same name, but Mike Carey, writer of the Lucifer comic, knows better than most that adaptation means reinvention. He confesses that, while he’s seen and enjoyed some episodes of Lucifer, he’s “not following it religiously. No pun intended.” Carey, of course, was himself adapting Lucifer from Neil Gaiman’s Sandman, where the character had first been introduced. On the subject of adaptation, Carey says: “I’ve done it enough times to know now that you can’t translate something straight from one medium to another, you have to figure out what works in the new medium and play to that… I don’t resent the fact that the show’s gone in a different…

“He strikes from above – silently and without warning!” No, not that bastard urban seagull evacuating its bowels but classic Spidey villain the Vulture, first seen menacing Manhattan in The Amazing Spider-Man 2 in 1963. Only the second foe to face the web-slinger, the Vulture is electronics wiz Adrian Toomes. Embezzled by his business partner, Toomes takes to crime, making use of an electromagnetic harness that allows him to fly, boosts his strength and augments his lifespan. Creators Stan Lee and Steve Ditko clashed over the Vulture’s appearance. “Stan believed the most effective villain was the heavy-set one,” Ditko recalled. “So Stan didn’t like my thin, gaunt Vulture.” Lee continued to feel uneasy at the sight of Spidey beating up a scrawny old codger. He later introduced a younger, burlier…

How does it feel to follow Lynda Carter’s iconic take on Wonder Woman? They’re big shoes to step into. What Lynda Carter did with the character is fantastic and amazing, and I love it. The Wonder Woman that is being introduced – reintroduced – now is different [but] she has a lot of the qualities Lynda Carter brought to the Wonder Woman character of ’75. I wasn’t big on comics, growing up, and I was too young when the Lynda Carter show was out, but I always knew of Wonder Woman. It’s like a household name. It’s like knowing about Superman and Batman. But I never knew what was her story, who exactly she was. How was the physical side of filming? I was a dancer for so many years.…

WHO IS DANIELS? She’s the chief terraformist on this colonising mission. Once we get there, we’re pioneers setting up a new world. So when they get to the planet, she’s in charge of making things grow there. There’s a massive section of the ship where all of the little plants grow in space greenhouses. So she’s in charge of all of that. HOW DID YOU PREPARE FOR THE ROLE? There’s two things that keep her from getting killed for most of the film, and they are courage and good fortune. She’s not a soldier. She’s not a martial artist. She’s a terraformist. So I kept trying to get the guys to teach me: how do I use this stick like an axe? How do I use the tools that I…

WHAT CAN YOU TELL US ABOUT NEBULA AND GAMORA’S RELATIONSHIP IN GUARDIANS VOL 2? On an intellectual level, I loved the relationship between Gamora and Nebula in this movie. We were able to establish some kind of dysfunction in the first movie, but we didn’t know why. This Guardians instalment is really planting a solid villain in the Marvel movie universe in Thanos. You are gonna get to know how sinister he truly is because of what happened. Because of what he’s done to his daughters. THEIR FIGHT SCENE WAS ONE OF THE HIGHLIGHTS OF THE FIRST GUARDIANS. NOW, THEY HAVE A BIGGER ONE THIS TIME AROUND. This time there was less hand-tohand combat. It was more like the way sisters would fight if they were in space and they…

What can you tell us about Vivian? She’s a professor at Oxford University. She’s English, very single, quite independent, sarcastic and very intelligent. She gets picked up by the car that she’s had forever and driven off to this unknown destination, where she’s plonked in a room with Anthony Hopkins and Mark Wahlberg’s characters. Then she goes on this big adventure. It sounds like it’s no accident she gets picked up? She has been watched by Anthony Hopkins’ character all her life. He knew her father and knows everything about her – but she’s never heard of him. She’s a descendant of someone who was prolific in the Transformer world, so she has a quality that’s needed to complete this particular mission. How does she get on with Mark Wahlberg’s…

How would you describe the Colonel’s ethics? Well, it’s kind of us or them. You could judge him to be a bit ruthless, but I think in his mind what he’s doing is much more noble. With considerable sacrifice, he’s trying to save humanity – that’d be the way he looks at it. The Colonel has some noble elements, and Caesar is starting to experience some of the dark side with everything that’s going on with him. So it’s not completely black and white. How was working with the motion capture actors? A little daunting at first, but then I got totally used to it. Terry Notary, who’s the movement coach, does an amazing job with these guys, so you really feel like you’re dealing with apes. Eventually it doesn’t…

When Valerian debuted on 9 November 1967 in issue 420 of Pilote, the weekly anthology was home to super-powered Gallic rebel Asterix and atypical Western hero Lieutenant Blueberry, and science fiction was largely absent from French comics. The genre’s main predecessors in France were the earnest post-war serial Les Pionniers de l’Espérance and the strictly adults-only Barbarella. So in Valerian’s almost virgin territory, writer Pierre Christin and artist Jean-Claude Mézières unveiled a distinctly French and fresh vision of tomorrow, one undeniably influential on comics and movies to come. The Frenchmen had been childhood friends and avid readers of the masters of science fiction. In 1965 they reconnected in the USA, where Christin was a university teacher of French literature and journalism in Salt Lake City, and Mézières, a jobbing illustrator,…

“THE SECRET SAUCE WAS JOSS!” When Buffy The Vampire Slayer debuted on 10 March 1997, no one thought it would last more than a few episodes, much less change the television landscape. But change TV it did, as Joss Whedon’s bold, sassy and sometimes scary metaphor for our teen years placed a strong, witty heroine front and centre and had her save herself and the world. Two decades later, Buffy remains a TV icon with 144 bingeable episodes of adventures still captivating a new generation of fans – and making her original generation of viewers nostalgic for the show’s indelible mix of humour, pathos, horror and the occasional helping of heartbreak. Two of the show’s writers, Jane Espenson and Howard Gordon, are today respected figures in the current golden age…

Davos and Melisandre – are they finally over? It’s like a bad marriage, isn’t it? As we find the relationship [at the start of season seven], they’ve been separated and she’s been exiled. My biggest disappointment is that I don’t get to work with [actress] Carice van Houten any more – I mean, possibly. These HBO people have taken Carice off me, they’ve taken Stephen Dillane [Stannis Baratheon] off me, they’ve taken Kerry Ingram [Shireen Baratheon]. I dread to think who they’re going to take next. How do they make Davos’s fingers disappear on the show? In the book it’s his left hand that’s gone, but I’m left-handed, so I said, ‘can we make it my right hand?’ And they agreed, just in case I had to swing a sword…

SHADOW IN THE BOOK IS NOTORIOUSLY QUIET AND PASSIVE. HOW DID YOU FIND TRANSLATING THAT TO SCREEN? • When I first started, I was very attached to Shadow from the book. But in the book he’s very stoic and it’s a lot of internal monologue which isn’t going to entertain a TV audience. So they wanted to add layers. They wanted Shadow to be more outgoing, outspoken, they wanted him to ask questions, to have more charisma about him. HOW DID YOU FOUND WORKING WITH IAN McSHANE? • Oh my goodness. I’ve idolised him since I was a kid. I used to watch Lovejoy with my mum. All I’m doing is learning from him, and I can’t help not feeling blessed about that. I’m gonna state it right now: he’s…

First appearing in in 1985’s New Mutants #25, Legion was introduced by Chris Claremont and Bill Sienkiewicz during their groundbreaking run on the junior X-book. Described by Claremont as “an amalgam personality”, he is the long lost son of Charles Xavier and Holocaust survivor Gabrielle Haller. “David is a reflection of the personalities that are caught within him,” explains Claremont. “When David was a child, his stepfather was slain by a Palestinian terrorist and that catalysed his mutant abilities. In rage and fear, he essentially absorbed the young man attacking him into his own body. From then on, there were two people living inside his head, but over time they come to realise that they are not enemies.” However, Legion didn’t come into his own until he became the focus…

Has Jessica changed all that much from her own series? She hasn’t changed much. She’s still kind of an asshole. She’s still hitting the bottle. She is dealing with popularity and eyes on her – that’s not the easiest thing for someone that’s reclusive and as isolated as she is, and prefers to be. So she’s just kind of trying to figure out how to fit in. We’re picking up not too long after we see her at the end of [Jessica Jones] season one. She’s dealing with the aftermath of killing someone, which is not easy. And as someone who already hates herself, the self-loathing is running pretty deep. But she’s still funny! What’s the mood like on set? Honestly, it’s the fucking best! I think it’s the most…

How much can you tell us about who you play? I’m allowed to say that I’m a multilayered character! And I get to have quite a lot of interaction with the four heroes, which is fun for me. I’m having a great time. We don’t share the same priorities but it’s a delicious character. This is longform television. Are you relishing the chance to build a character over these eight episodes? The funny thing is, you get one script and you do that, then you get the others, so you don’t really know quite where you’re going to end up, which is interesting. It’s suspenseful. It’s like opening a surprise package every couple of weeks and you go, “Oh! I didn’t know that that would happen!” How important is New…

DIFFERENT COMPANIONS BRING OUT DIFFERENT SIDES OF THE DOCTOR. WHAT DOES BILL BRING OUT IN YOUR DOCTOR? We keep saying she’s new but in a way she’s a classic companion, because she doesn’t know anything at all about the Doctor or his existence or space and time or Daleks. He’s able to adopt an almost teaching role in showing her these delights that are available to him. But of course it spins out of control, as ever, because it’s the Doctor. He has to explain himself more, and explain the universe more, but in a way that’s more old fashioned, I think. DOES THE SERIES FEEL NEW AGAIN? It’s new but in a way it’s old. It’s new in the sense that it’s all new to Bill, so she’s suddenly…

Anthony Horowitz hands SFX a distressed copy of Dr No. Distressed may be underselling it – this 1962 paperback looks as though it’s endured an especially brutalising torture session by SMERSH. The cover clings to the spine with the kind of tenacity that defines 007. Just above the photo of Sean Connery in his, sharp-suited pomp, is Horowitz’s own signature, from a long time ago. “This is so sad. I was 14 years old when I wrote my name on that cover. And look, that’s my mother’s signature inside, giving me parental permission to read this book in school.” Horowitz has always loved heroes. He trades in them, too. He began his career writing TV adventures of William Tell and Robin Hood. More recently he’s given new literary life to…

Paris isn’t just the city Aliette de Bodard calls home, it’s a city she adores. Although, as she herself concedes, she has a strange way of showing this when it comes to her fiction. “Apparently, my way of writing love letters to cities is to write books where they’re completely nuked and people are fighting to death in the ruins,” she tells SFX. She’s talking about her Dominion Of The Fallen series, a “Gothic dark fantasy” set in an alternate Paris torn apart by “a great magical war”. As portrayed in new novel The House Of Binding Thorns, a standalone sequel to The House Of Shattered Wings, it’s a place of “magical residue clogging the skies”, where the Seine runs black “with the remnants of spells”, and opposing sides, factions…

Controversy and experimentation wasn’t the be-all and end-all of Vertigo under Karen Berger. The books all shared similar themes, including what Berger refers to as the “anarchic, rebellious, rage-against-the-machine or whatever you want to call that almost revolutionary, punk aspect. I think it was a big part of what was so attractive about those series. It just speaks to a lot of people at a certain age, who want to defy the system and question the world that we live in and explore the darker side and follow characters who have ambiguous moralities. “That’s probably the key thing that differentiates a Vertigo protagonist from a superhero protagonist – they’re complicated. They’re not black and white. You don’t necessarily always agree with what they’re doing.”…