Fallen Angels #4 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers are by the digital edition. And to be honest, there’s not all that much to say about this issue, annotations-wise…
COVER/PAGE 1. X-23 and Cable on the run from… some sort of weird shadowy things.
PAGE 2. Flashback. Young Kwannon is shown a dying man who was poisoned while trying to broker peace.
The moral, presumably, being “nice guys finish last.”
PAGES 3-6. Psylocke and X-23 discuss what to do.
Reasonably enough, X-23 has concluded that the whole scenario is being engineered by Apoth to lure Psylocke/Kwannon in, and that this means Psylocke shouldn’t trust the vision that she had in issue #1. For some reason X-23 suggests asking the other Psylocke for help, though it’s not clear what Betsy could really contribute, and it feels more like an excuse to raise her name so that Psylocke/Kwannon can reject her again.
(more…)New Mutants #4 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
COVER / PAGE 1. Boom-Boom in a cornfield. The Krakoan letters are “NM” for “New Mutants”.
PAGES 2-3. Recap and credits. This is “Fast and Furious” by Ed Brisson and Marco Failla. Most of this issue speaks for itself, annotation-wise, by the way.
PAGES 4-5. Boom-Boom learns that Armor has been gone for three days.
This version of Boom-Boom, like the version in the recent New Mutants miniseries, is clearly an alarmingly heavy drinker if not an outright alcoholic. The seemingly incessant partying of Krakoa allows her to fit in without being too obvious. And again… just how party-centric is this place?
(more…)Excalibur #4 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
COVER / PAGE 1. Um… Captain Britain fights a dragon with flowers on it. It’s presumably meant to be one of the monsters that invades right at the end of the issue, but this doesn’t actually happen in the issue.
PAGES 2-3. Gambit checks in on Rogue, then goes to London to catch with Betsy, who is meeting the Queen.
All self explanatory. As Morgan Le Fey suggested last issue, the public is apparently not happy about the new Captain Britain being a mutant, so there are people protesting about it outside Buckingham Palace.
PAGES 4-5. Recap and credits. This is “Verse IV: Fall Back and Think of England!” by Tini Howard and Marcus To.
PAGES 6-8. Gambit gets into a fight with the protestors, and Captain Britain shows up to announce that they’re the new Excalibur.
(more…)The Homies 2019
There’s gifts on the fire and logs on the tree, and that means only one thing – it’s time for the annual House to Astonish Homies awards, where we dish out our gongs in various categories to the best and brightest comics of the year.
As always, Paul and I will individually be choosing a winner for each category, but there’s the usual proviso – we want YOU to help, so you all name your picks in the comments, and Paul and I each choose our own, and we talk a bit about each of the three on our awards show.
We’re likely to be recording at the very end of December/start of Jan, so we’re giving you until midnight UK time (7pm Eastern, 4pm Pacific) on December 29 to make your choice. When you list your picks, don’t just name names either, because we’ll be reading out the best comments on the show, so let us know your thinking!
BEST NEW SERIES
This one’s pretty self-explanatory – any comic whose first issue was published between 1 January 2019 and the close of nominations (29 December) is eligible. What new series got your attention the most this year?
BEST ACTUALLY NEW SERIES
This one’s a little less self-explanatory – what series, again first published between 1 January and 29 December, did you think was best, with the proviso that it has to be something where the property wasn’t in existence prior to the start of 2018. We’re counting re-use of titles as well as concepts, so Agents of Atlas or Criminal wouldn’t be eligible, but (for example) Coffin Bound or Excellence would.
BEST CONTINUING SERIES
The counterpart to the categories above, which covers books whose first issue was published in 2018 or before. They’ve been around the block, but they’ve still got what it takes.
BEST MINI, ONE-SHOT OR OGN
These are explaining themselves by this point, right? We’re looking for OGNs, one-shots and minis published in 2019 (or partially in 2019, in the case of minis).
FAVOURITE WRITER
FAVOURITE ARTIST
FAVOURITE COLOURIST
Each of these three is pretty self-explanatory – whose name on the cover or credits box of a book makes you want to pick it up? Whose work do you most look forward to seeing?
MOST WANTED
This is for the comic, series or graphic novel that saw print this year which you’d want to see more of, whether that be a book that was cancelled before its time, a one-shot or mini that just begs for a follow-up, or an OGN that you’d love to see a sequel to.
MOST PLEASANT SURPRISE
It may have seemed unappealing when you read about it online, and those preview pages may have looked unremarkable, but when you finally got the winner of this category in your hands you were ready to eat your words. What comic, series or graphic novel did you find yourself enjoying much more than you thought you would?
OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT
This is exactly what it says – which creator, creative team, publisher or other contributor to the world of comics really knocked it out of the park this year?
Let us have your picks in the comments thread below, along with your thinking on each one – we’ll read out a range of the responses on our big end-of-year show. Happy nominating!
Charts – 15 November 2019
Nine new entries on the singles chart, the most in a while. And almost all from the same genre, too. The singles chart used to have more range than this…
1 Tones & I – “Dance Monkey”
Seven weeks and counting. It’s going to be there till Christmas, isn’t it? And it heads up a static top four, followed by…
5. J Hus – “Must Be”
(more…)Charts – 14 December 2018
Fans of essentially nothing happening won’t want to miss this week’s magnificently uneventful charts! The thing is, if you’re planning a steady climb to the top in time for Christmas, well, you started a couple of weeks back at the latest. And if you’re hoping for a smash-and-grab Christmas-chart one-off sale, that’s next week. Which means this week’s new releases are, um, few in number.
1. Ariana Grande – “Thank U, Next”
Six weeks – it needs a seventh to be Christmas number one. In the current market, that’s by no means impossible. After all, the 2016 Christmas number one was Clean Bandit’s “Rockabye”, which had been at number 1 since mid-November and remained there into the new year. But the lead over the number two single – Ava Max’s “Sweet But Psycho” – is equivalent to only 9,000 sales, so by sheer coincidence there’s something of a battle on for next week. Oh, and “Santa Tell Me” climbs from 35-30 this week.
Charts – 10 February 2017
Not much happening, but let’s run through it.
1. Ed Sheeran – “Shape of You”
You amaze me. That’s five weeks, and “Castle on the Hill” remains at number 2. This is a new record for the longest run at numbers 1 and 2 for a single artist… but it’s one of those records which is going to be broken more routinely as the digital era allows for multiple tracks to be available at once, and as the charts slow down. The previous record holder was Justin Bieber, who managed four straight weeks at the tail end of 2015 (and was only stopped by Christmas); before that, the record had been stuck at three since the Beatles.
8. Stormzy – “Big For Your Boots”
Charts – 9 December 2016
Look at the date. What do you think is going to happen?
But first up, this gets a fifth week at number 1, to overtake “Rather Be” as Clean Bandit’s biggest hit. Not so unusual for this remarkably slow year on the singles chart. It tops a completely static top 4.
5. Neiked – “Sexual”
Charts – 28 October 2016
Let’s see, what’s still in the queue… oh yes, Deadpool v Gambit. We’ll get to that soon, honest. And then we’ll be caught up, hopefully just in time for some more stories to wrap up. First, though, I’m going to bash through a pretty quiet week on the singles chart.
1. Little Mix – “Shout Out To My Ex”
That’s their second week, so clearly it didn’t just fluke itself a week at the top on the strength of fan sales. The streams have caught up quickly enough to keep it here. It heads up an entirely static top five.
Entering the top ten, and it still doesn’t have a video.
7. Clean Bandit – “Rockabye”
Uncanny X-Men vol 1: Superior
Of the current crop of X-Men titles, I greeted Uncanny X-Men with perhaps the least enthusiasm. Cullen Bunn’s run on Magneto was very good, and even though it was generally strongest when it steered clear of the mainstream of the Marvel Universe, the prospect of putting him on a higher profile X-Men title with Magneto in tow should have been attractive.
But Uncanny X-Men is drawn by Greg Land, who is a dealbreaker as far as I’m concerned. I’ve suffered through his work on the X-books before, purely through completism, but he’s one of a very small number of artists that can drive me away from books by writers I generally enjoy. That’s how enthusiastic I am about the prospect of Uncanny X-Men drawn by Greg Land.
