Charts – 15 October 2021
At last, deliverance is upon us.
1. Elton John & Dua Lipa – “Cold Heart”
In its 9th week on the top 40, and following three weeks at number 2, “Cold Heart” climbs to the top and spares us all a sixteenth week of Ed Sheeran. Bryan Adams remains unmatched.
I explained all this back when “Cold Heart” first charted, but it’s the latest in a series of tracks by the Australian trio Pnau, constructing new dance tracks from chunks of the Elton John back catalogue. In this case, that’s supplemented by original vocals from Dua Lipa, but still sticking to Elton John elements. The main sources for “Cold Heart”, and the most immediately recognisable, are “Rocket Man” and “Sacrifice”, but it also draws on two more obscure tracks, “Kiss the Bride” and (in the fade out) the album track “Where’s the Shoorah?”
X-Force #24 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
X-FORCE vol 6 #24
“The Pen is Mightier than the Cerebro Sword”
by Benjamin Percy, Martin Coccolo & Guru eFX
COVER / PAGE 1: Colossus with (literally) blood on his hands.
PAGES 2-4. Mikhail Rasputin intimidates the Chronicler.
This is the sort of scene I’m used to seeing as a thinly veiled complaint from writers about editorial interference, but I can’t imagine it’s the actual intention here. Still, if I’m being honest, it’s the first thing that these tropes bring to mind.
This issue contains the first semi-clear explanation of what the Chronicler’s powers actually are, but we’ll come to that. In terms of what hold Mikhail has over him, it seems to be mostly a matter of threats of violence, though apparently this guy is also really keen on wine to the point of abject desperation – is he meant to be an alcoholic?
Mikhail gets another speech to claim that his manipulation of Colossus is in keeping with a long Russian tradition of secret police forces which, he says, are a constant throughout years of Russian change. The examples he gives don’t really support that claim, since they’re all secret police forces from the Soviet era:
X-Men #4 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
X-MEN vol 6 #4
“Fearless, Chapter 4: Nightmare on 86th Street”
by Gerry Duggan, Javier Pina & Erick Arciniega
COVER / PAGE 1. Nightmare rears up on his horse, holding the severed head of Cyclops.
PAGE 2. Data page. Opening quotes about Nightmare from Dr Voodoo (currently in the cast of Strange Academy) and Magik.
Nightmare is a Doctor Strange villain, and the fairly self-explanatory ruler of a magical Nightmare Realm.
“He’s conquered a splinter realm…” This is just referring to the Nightmare Realm. The term “splinter realms” comes from the 2000 Magik miniseries.
“…once succeeded in trapping Eternity.” Doctor Strange vol 2 #13, published in 1976.
PAGE 3. Night at the Treehouse.
The pumpkin with a single eye is a cute touch.
X-Men Unlimited Infinity Comic #1-4
X-MEN UNLIMITED INFINITY COMIC #1-4
by Jonathan Hickman & Declan Shalvey
So here’s a thing that exists!
A few people have asked me about this book. Mainly, “will you be annotating it”. The answer, obviously, is no, for reasons which will be very very obvious to anyone who’s actually read it.
The Infinity Comics line is a series of digital-only exclusives for Marvel Unlimited subscribers. You can’t buy them separately, and it wouldn’t even be possible to print them as conventional comics. What they are is vertically scrolling comics in the model of Webtoons, optimised for viewing on a phone.
When I say “optimised for viewing on a phone”, I’m not kidding. You can read them on a tablet if you really want, but I wouldn’t. The lettering is enormous, and the app fills the whole screen – which is unlikely to have precisely the same dimensions as a phone screen and means that you often find it’s impossible to view in one go everything that the artist plainly intended you to see. (Artists might want to be a bit more cautious about what they assume to be the dimensions of the screen, to be honest. It’s not like all phones are the same shape either.)
House to Astonish Episode 194
We’ve got a bit of NYCC-dodging news chat for you this time round, as we discuss the Ditko lawsuit, creative changes on the X-books, Kurt Busiek’s new Image slate and Gene Luen Yang’s American Born Chinese coming to Disney Plus. We’ve also got reviews of Amazing Spider-Man, We Have Demons and the Official Handbook of the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe is a little dark. All this plus Spidey and the Family Stone, a little girl that swears and the Scott Snyder/John Allison crossover project you didn’t know you needed.
The episode is here, or here on Mixcloud, or available via the player below. Let us know what you think, either in the comments below, on Twitter, via email or on our Facebook fan page. And don’t forget that our fab shirts are available over at our Redbubble store! We will remind you if you do forget, it’s okay.
Charts – 8 October 2021
After a few fairly quiet weeks on the singles chart, here’s an absolutely dead one!
1. Ed Sheeran – “Shivers”
Four weeks at number one, and it was preceded by eleven weeks for Sheeran’s “Bad Habits” (currently at number 6). So Ed Sheeran has now been at number one for 15 weeks, which matches Drake’s run in 2016. Of course, Drake did it with just one song – “One Dance” – but it’s still an uncommon level of dominance. For the next target, you’re going back to 1991, when Bryan Adams spent 16 weeks at number 1 with “(Everything I Do) I Do It For You”.
Number 2 is still “Cold Heart” by Elton John and Dua Lipa, which has been stuck there for three weeks now.
32. Billie Eilish – “No Time To Die”
So here’s an artefact of the pandemic. This is the theme tune to the new Bond film… and it was originally released last February, when the promotion was just starting to ramp up. It spent a week at number 1 on release, and managed ten weeks in the top 40. It now re-enters a year-and-a-half later. Her current single, “Happier Than Ever”, also climbs back into the top 10, sitting at 9.
New Mutants #22 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
NEW MUTANTS vol 4 #22
“Shadows & Mirrors”
by Vita Ayala & Rod Reis
COVER / PAGE 1: The Shadow King in profile, with the New Mutants fighting inside his mind.
PAGES 2-4. Inside the Shadow King’s illusion, the New Mutants make a last stand to defend Krakoa.
The horde of attackers include:
- Some good old fashioned Sentinels
- Former X-Man Omega Sentinel, currently allied with Orchis as seen in House of X and X-Men. I’ll come back to her.
- Nimrod
- Belasco
- S’ym, Magik’s former sidekick demon turned insurgent, and one of the main villains from the original Inferno.
- The Brood
- The First Horsemen, who aren’t actually enemies of Krakoa any more.
- AIM
- Some people from Orchis, including the helicopter in the top right and the evolved apes in the middle of the page.
Hellions #16 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
HELLIONS #16
“Come Hurt With Us”
by Zeb Wells, Stephen Segovia & Rain Beredo
COVER / PAGE 1. Greycrow, with the other Hellions in his sights – though in the story itself, he’s certainly not after all of them. It’s got an “After Liefeld” credit on it, which I can only assume is because of a very vague resemblance to the cover of New Mutants vol 1 #87 (the one with Cable and the heads of the New Mutants shown in gunsights). Calling it a homage is very generous
PAGES 2-6. The aftermath of the explosion.
Last issue ended with Sinister revealing his creation of a Sinister/Tarn hybrid chimera, and Empath responding by prompting Havok to destroy the whole place – thus also eliminating the backup of Psylocke’s AI daughter (from Fallen Angels) that Sinister has been using to keep her in line throughout this series. The Hellions also effectively learned that they’d been manipulated by Sinister and had their memories altered at his behest.
Excalibur #24 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
EXCALIBUR vol 4 #24
“By the Pleasure of the Court”
by Tini Howard, Marcus To & Erick Arciniega
COVER / PAGE 1. The regents of Sevalith with Betsy as a guest, and a spilled goblet of wine / blood. One of those cases where having a different cover artist is very noticeable, since Betsy’s costume is entirely different, and so is the entire style of room – Mahmud Asrar opts for something traditionally gothic, while Marcus To’s Sevalith is minimalist and modern.
PAGE 2. Data page. Our opening quote is from Le Morte D’Arthur by Sir Thomas Malory (c 1415-1471). It’s missing a few words – it forms part of a passage about how Mordred has become a popular ruler in Arthur’s absence, and it continues: “For then was the common voice among them that with Arthur was none other life but war and strife, and with sir Mordred was great joy and bliss.” The general tone of the original is “bunch of ingrates”.
PAGES 3-5. Betsy has dinner with the regents of Sevalith.
I think this is the first time we’ve seen Oublia and Oscura as anything other than generics, but they were named back in Marauders #13.
“The assassin who attacked you in the Avalon woods.” A Sevalith assassin attacked Excalibur last issue.
“What followed within the market.” Presumably the skirmish with the Furies in the Crooked Market at the end of last issue.
Charts – 1 October 2021
It’s another extremely quiet week for the singles.
1. Ed Sheeran – “Shivers”
Three weeks, but if you combine it with the preceding run of “Bad Habits”, it’s a total of 14 weeks. If he manages another, he matches Drake’s 15-week monopoly from 2015 (though Drake did it with just one single).
3. Coldplay & BTS – “My Universe”
Well, that’s certainly two acts I wouldn’t have expected to find on the same record. I’m not sure anyone ever listened to a BTS record and thought “If only they were doing a Coldplay song”, but here it is. It’s the second single from the next Coldplay album and very much Coldplay’s record; the all-purpose upliftingness is a reasonable fit for BTS, to be fair, but it’s still just kind of what you expect from the big single for a Coldplay album, just with bits of it in Korean.
