Last Monday, The Rock unveiled the new WWE Championship replacing the “spinner” belt introduced by John Cena in 2005. While the new design is an improvement, it still comes off more toy aisle than title worthy.

Last week’s Raw gave us a mixed bag of angles, but the big story led to a match scheduled for tonight featuring John Cena vs. C.M. Punk.  Cena is putting up his title shot with The Rock in the main event of WrestleMania on the line against the former champion, and the Road to WrestleMania may take sometimes takes unexpected turns.  There are some other superstars who should be returning tonight to help populate the rest of the card including Brock Lesnar and a rumored individual who may have made a return over the weekend at the house shows.

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As the last major stop on the road to WrestleMania, we’d thought last night’s Elmination Chamber PPV would bring WWE’s biggest event of the year into greater focus. In part it has, as the expected rematch between the Rock and John Cena, which was never really in doubt, appears to be set in stone with Rock’s defeat of C.M. Punk. However, many other areas of the card still seem hazy… including the surprising choice of Jack Swagger as the World Championship contender for WrestleMania coming out of the Elimination Chamber match. Needless to say, this week’s Warm Up begins with a “Huh?”

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Punk, Rock will square off this Sunday for the WWE Championship.

Last Monday WWE celebrated 20 years and 4,096 hours of Raw. It feels like most of those hours have come since the show went to three hours last Fall. For perspective, Raw’s 20th Anniversary ran against new episodes of four of CBS’ half-hour comedies, Hawaii 50, and half of the 11 o’clock news. While excessive in length, the show benefitted from the approach of focusing on the current product rather than bringing in a parade of former superstars as we head into the annual Royal Rumble featuring the Rock versus C.M. Punk for the WWE Championship.

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Fall premiere time is usually my favorite time of year, but this season I was a little underwhelmed by the new crop of shows. However, I agreed to check out a bunch of pilots so I could report back my thoughts. I was surprised how much I liked a few of these shows. I’m also quite surprised that a few of these are still around—I heard a rumor that Fox is holding off whacking the Mob Doctor until the World Series are over.

Since the fall season started a month ago reviews & ratings for all of these shows are available, so we have a general idea of what shows are performing and what shows are not. In my opinion NBC is one of the big winners this fall season as it looks like its comedy block is performing –NBC shows are performing so well in fact, that they are cutting shows slated as midseason replacements (Bryan Fuller’s Mockingbird Lane is now going to be a one episode special and the network recently cancelled Dane Cook’s Next Caller BEFORE it even aired). Anyhoo, I would say overall this crop of shows is stronger than I first thought, although I don’t think there is anything here that I would miss terribly if it went away (though I’m hoping after a few episodes I will be fully devoted to Nashville)… Read on for my reviews!

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The Marvel Now! movement begins today with the release of Uncanny Avengers #1 in comic shops across the country. The publisher is pulling out all the stops with its line wide “refresh” including an appearance by Chief Creative Officer Joe Quesada on ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel Live last night. The inaugural series of the Marvel Universe’s new direction spills directly out of this Summer’s Avengers versus X-Men, and this marquee title features the debut of a new mutant-infused team of Avengers team as the X-Men’s Havok, Rogue and Wolverine join forces with Earth’s mightiest mainstays the Scarlet Witch, Thor and Captain America.

This series is getting a big push and the inclusion of Havok in the Marvel spotlight like never before has had me on board since the first announcement. However, what merits an edition of Standard Deviations dedicated to it are the first issue’s nineteen cover images. Read on for a look at the many faces of Uncanny Avengers #1.

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