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Sep 26

House to Astonish Episode 137

Posted on Saturday, September 26, 2015 by Al in Podcast

A slightly chunkier episode than usual for you this time round, with just over 90 minutes of chat about Batman Day, Ta-Nehisi Coates and Brian Stelfreeze’s Black Panther, DC’s recent cancellations (and un-cancellations), Marvel’s news out of the Diamond summit (including Moon Knight, Mockingbird and Silver Surfer, along with the Master of Kung Fu omnibus news); the return of Gail Simone and Jim Calafiore’s Leaving Megalopolis, and the Gambit movie’s woes. We’ve also got a jaunt through December’s solicitations, reviews of Wild’s End: The Enemy Within and Exit Generation, and the Official Handbook of the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe is the little engine that couldn’t. All this plus the comic with the most distinguished regnal numbering, a ferret in a hat in a hat, and Tom DeFalco’s massive Scooby-Doo sandwich.

The podcast is here, or here on Mixcloud, or available via the embedded player below. Let us know what you think, either in the comments, on Twitter, via email or at our Facebook fan page. And hey, the nights are starting to draw in – why not keep yourself warm with a t-shirt from our always-open Redbubble store?

Bring on the comments

  1. Thom Dicomidis says:

    Just to let you know there’s a couple of minutes of silence starting around 44:50. 🙂

  2. Al says:

    Oh balls. Looks like an edit didn’t save. I’ll re-upload the podcast in a revised version – if anyone wants to re-download it, the corrected version will be live in about 15 minutes. Cheers for letting me know!

  3. Frodo-X says:

    I would imagine the return of Lucifer is probably down to the coming TV series.

  4. Reboot says:

    Happy Birthday is still not public domain in the UK!

  5. Martin Smith says:

    What was the actual legal hurdle for Master of Kung-Fu? I think it got lost in an aside.

    If anyone can make a Transformers Holiday special work, it’s James Roberts. Unfortunately, he’s only writing 1/3 of it. TF UK might be an anomaly in the quality of Transformers media, but I wouldn’t say the early IDW stuff, Furman’s minis, were *that* bad. More so if they’d been allowed to finish at their own pace. And there’s Beast Wars, of course.

    If Everyman really wanted to show that anyone could be Captain America, surely he should be setting things up to make some D list superhero look really awesome? He could set up some potentially apocalyptic scheme and then lure Gravity or Battlestar in to foil it to mass acclaim.

  6. odessasteps says:

    I believe the Dr Fu Manchu issue was with Sax Rohmer Estatet over reprint issues. The novels were OOP for a long time and then came back in print in the 2000s in a series of omnibuses.

    —-

    There may it be enough of a sample size, but youncould argue Karl Kesel’s best work as a writer (as opposed to inker) has been the couple brief times he wrote FF. I think that one Annual, set in the future, might be his best writing (along with his brief DD run w Cary Nord).

  7. Paul F says:

    I got the first eight episodes of Grayson in the sale DC have going at Comixology right now, and liked them so much I bought the rest straight away. Excellent series.

  8. Reboot says:

    Deadpool & Cable is six digital “issues”, three print issues.

  9. Reboot says:

    …wait. Didn’t you do Everyman before in the OHOTOHOTMU?

  10. Reboot says:

    Ah, yes: https://www.housetoastonish.com/?p=1335

    You were very uncomplimentary indeed about the Zeitgeist makeover as I recall.

  11. Paul F says:

    It seems odd for Boom to release a sequel to Wild’s End when the TPB of the first mini isn’t out for another few weeks. Not much about Boom’s collection policy makes sense though.

  12. Al says:

    Haha, it had to happen eventually…! We even made a bunch of the same references, though we came up with a completely different story for him at least…

  13. Alex H says:

    Somewhat intrigued by the big news “being announced by then”… the I’m going to speculate either you’ve been nominated for an award or one of you is going to write a comic series for someone… Al writing a Heroes for Hire or Iron Fist book?

  14. Literary North Americans growing up in the 80s are, of course, well familiar with the concept of the camera that takes photos of the near future thanks to the seminal classic “Say Cheese and Die”by R. L. Stine.

    I imagine he stole the plot from a Twilight Zone episode, but I’m too lazy at the moment to find out.

  15. odessasteps says:

    As i mentioned on twitter, there was also the TV show Early Edition, where a guy (coach from Friday night lights) had tomorrow’s newspaper delivered today iand had to try and stop bad thanks from happening

  16. Si says:

    Funniest episode in a long time. The beginning 10 minutes or so particularly.

    As for Fantastic Four, I think even at the beginning the series didn’t really work. The first few issues were great, when it was about four people in tweed suits outsmarting the weirdo of the week. But then it became a superhero comic, Johnny got older, Reed got younger, and Ben got more cartoony, and it just didn’t work properly. The premise is just wrong. The movies not working isn’t that the comic is a 60s idea, it’s because the entire premise has been shoehorned into the wrong genre. That’s my opinion, anyway.

  17. Also, for the record, I’m in favor of Al’s interpretation of The Incredibles. But then, I was against the rat following his dreams in Ratatouille. “No, you can’t be a chef! You’re the poison-taster for your entire pack! They will literally all die without you!” It’s like Superman in a universe without any other heroes deciding that someone else can handle Doomsday because he’s really into making his band work right now.

  18. Odessasteps says:

    My big problem with Ratatouille was the depiction and portrayal of the critic and criticism.

  19. Paul F says:

    Camera that takes pictures of the future was also the premise of a movie from this year, Time Lapse: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2669336/combined

  20. Al says:

    Alex: Mwah ha ha ha etc

    All will be revealed.

  21. Zach Adams says:

    I downloaded two of the Jemas zombie books for a quick hate read. They’re utterly baffling. Not just because they’re poorly written (they are that), but really weird presentational choices. They’re “guided view native” with each panel being a “page”, but the first page advises you to turn off animated transitions because it doesn’t use them. Instead of traditional word balloons, there are long tails from the speaker leading to a rectangular box at the bottom of the panel, lettered in a more “bookish” typeface. I can’t really describe the art style; “wrong for comics” seems closed-minded and reductivist, but my first instinct was that it felt like it belonged in an illustrated short story or novel instead.

    Also, it’s hilarious that they’re just using the same solicitation text for #3 as #1 with maybe one extra sentence.

  22. I read the first ish of Eiit Generation when it was a digital-available indie, along with Master Tape and the beautifully-named Gonzo Cosmic. Great to see the book get a second wind.

    Last time I read Private Eye, I ended up in hospital. Largely unconnected, but one after t’other, so avoision. The thing is, I was reading it on the big telly in the living room. What a future. Reading comics on the big telly in the living room. A gas.

    //\Oo/\\

  23. Jerry RAy says:

    Looking forward to the MOKF Omniboo. I’ve always heard good things about the series, and I don’t think I’ve ever read an issue of it. I don’t much care for Shang Chi in his modern appearances, maybe because I don’t have the context of the original series. It’s one of the few major holes in my Marvel reading.

  24. kelvingreen says:

    I imagine the Shang Chi omnibus will also be missing that weird Grant Morrison short story that folded the character into the Action Force/GI Joe universe.

  25. MOFK is a great premise at its core: what do you do when you are the son of the most evil crime lord there is? Plus you have Paul Gulacy artwork. Definitely the best non-superhero book from Marvel.

  26. […] The team at House To Astonish gave a really positive review of the book on their show this week; give it a listen HERE. […]

  27. ZZZ says:

    If Everyman’s shtick was trying to prove that “anyone can be a superhero,” he could be reimagined as a guy who runs a superhero fantasy camp, where anyone CAN be a superhero (for a reasonable price). But instead of doing something sensible like hiring actors to play villains and letting campers “fight” them with fake weapons and powers, he actually gives people real weapons and sends them out on the streets to fight criminals. Someone like Spider-Man or Daredevil could run into a series of incompetent rookie vigilantes and eventually piece together that they all came from the same place, and have to shut him down.

    (And since I could tell this was a pressing concern to you both: “Des Moines” – assuming you’re talking about the one in Iowa – is pronounced as if it didn’t have the letter “s” in it. Basically as if it were spelled “D’moin” or “Deh Moyne” or something like that)

  28. deworde says:

    The Incredibles’ problem with Syndrome was more that he was straight up murdering people, surely?
    It’s like Iron Man 3. The villain has a genuine grievance against Tony, but he still shouldn’t be murdering people and kidnapping the president.

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