Uncanny X-Men Annual #1: “The Return of Cyclops”
Well, no messing around with that story title, is there? Still, coming after the decidedly underwhelming “Disassembled” arc, this is more like it. It’s no classic – there’s an unavoidable sense of a writer and his editors grabbing the story by the neck and yanking it into the desired position. But on the flip side, it also brings a clear sense of what it’s trying to accomplish, and it gets there in a fairly satisfying and efficient way. It does a rather better job than “Disassembled” of conveying a sense of purpose.
“The Return of Cyclops” is written by Ed Brisson, one of the X-books’ regular stable of writers, with strong art by Carlos Gomez. It’s solid storytelling that adds to the scenes with some decent acting, and hopefully Marvel US will do more with him. He does a particularly solid job with the young Cable, who comes across as annoyingly relaxed for much of the issue, something that plays nicely into the way he acts. But the scene of the villain returning to his neglected lab after years in jail is also beautifully done.
Charts – 25 January 2019
There’s a ton of new entries on the album chart this week, so settle in. And hey, here’s our first new number one of 2019!
1. Ariana Grande – “7 Rings”
Mmm. This is Ariana Grande’s fourth UK number one and… it’s a bit rubbish, this, isn’t it? Hugely popular – nearly 17 million streams in a week, and you don’t get that just from dutiful fans listening. But still a bit rubbish. It’s the old “allow me to inform you of my significant wealth” song, which I’m never interested in, even if it is tongue in cheek (“Whoever said money can’t solve your problems / Must not have had enough money to solve ’em”). It’s… vaguely unlikeable, you know, which is not usually an issue with Ariana Grande.
Uncanny X-Men #1-10: “X-Men Disassembled”
Well.
On paper, this looked okay. New direction, weekly storyline. Written by Ed Brisson, Matthew Rosenberg and Kelly Thompson – they’re usually interesting writers. Named after “Avengers Disassembled”, which was awful… but actually closer to the format of last year’s “Avengers: No Surrender”, which was pretty good. Art by… well, the first issue is drawn by Mahmud Asrar, but mostly it’s the likes of Pere Perez, RB Silva and Yildiray Cinar, because it’s a weekly and it needs a team. Still, it sounded quite promising on paper.
And here it is, and it’s kind of meh.
Charts – 18 January 2018
The singles chart is getting back into the swing of things. The album chart… very much isn’t.
1. Ava Max – “Sweet But Psycho”
That’s four weeks at number one, but at least some other records are marching on her. “Nothing Breaks Like a Heart” by Mark Ronson featuring Miley Cyrus climbs 3-2, which is Miley’s highest position since 2014 (when she was one of a ton of guests on will.i.am’s “Feelin’ Myself”). “Wow.” by Post Malone climbs 4-3, equalling the peak of his previous single “Sunflowers”, which in turn is still hanging around at 5.
4. Sam Smith & Normani – “Dancing with a Stranger”
House to Astonish Episode 170
We’re sorry we’ve been away for such a long… wait, two weeks? Are you sure? What is this, 2014?
Anyway, we’re back, talking about Batton Lash, Dark Horse’s upcoming Definitive Moonshadow, Joe Casey and Piotr Kowalski’s Sex going straight to OGN, the return of Section Zero, Marvel’s upcoming Thanos mini, Kieron Gillen leaving Star Wars, the upcoming Age of Rebellion one-shots and Rob Liefeld’s return to Marvel. We’ve also got reviews of Criminal and Invaders, and the Official Handbook of the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe can make you a man. All this plus Capital The, the X-Majorettes and the personnel link between Gorilla Comics and NPR.
The podcast is here, or here on Mixcloud, or available via the embedded player below. Let us know what you think in the comments, on Twitter, via email or at our Facebook fan page. And hey, it’s never too early to start thinking about buying one of our snazzy t-shirts! And if you’re in the Southern hemisphere, it’s never too late!
Charts – 11 January 2018
Christmas is over, and the singles chart is back to something approaching normal. Just four new entries, but they are normal new entries.
1. Ava Max – “Sweet But Psycho”
Not that anything is yet breaking through to challenge Ava Max, who gets a third week at number 1. She has a comfortable lead over the number 2 single (“Thank U Next”), equivalent to 27,000 sales, so she could be here a while yet. Number 3 is “Nothing Breaks Like a Heart” by Mark Ronson featuring Miley Cyrus, which is now Ronson’s biggest hit since “Uptown Funk”. “Wow.” by Post Malone climbs to 5, pushing his own “Sunflower” down to 5.
6. Headie One featuring Dave – “18Hunna”
Iceman #3-5
The idea of Sina Grace and Nathan Stockman’s Iceman tends to be better than the reality, which is a frustrating mix of the subtly executed, and the crashingly heavy handed. I covered the first two issues of this series a while back, and here we get what amounts to a third issue which broadly stands alone, followed by the big drawing together of threads to… mixed results.
#3 has a lot of what this book does well. It’s Bobby as the X-Man with a foot in the real world. He’s dating, he’s at a street food festival in Manhattan. Spider-Man and Firestar are there too, with their own dates. And honestly, I’m more interested in seeing these characters do normal things for a bit. Well, not so much Spider-Man, who actually does normal things quite often – but it’s a nice change of pace for the X-Men. Stockman’s good on the setting and largely decent on his conversation scenes, though he does lapse into fixed grins from time to time.
Domino #7-10: “Soldier of Fortune”
On the heels of the strikingly abrupt final issues of Weapon X, “Soldier of Fortune” is something suspiciously similar – a four part story which comes in two barely connected halves, and which seems to go into fast forward in its final issue. I don’t know what was going on here, but this is another story that certainly reads as if the book was abruptly cancelled and went into aggressive wrap-up mode.
Except… Domino returns as a five-issue miniseries in March, with precisely the same creative team. So… what the heck? A last-minute reprieve after they’d already committed to the wrap-up? An inexplicable attack of madness?
Charts – 13 December 2018
This is the annual dead chart, the one between Christmas and New Year that makes no sense. Last week the chart was dominated by Christmas records, which made up more than half the top 40. This week they’re all gone. All of them. . But there’s nothing new out yet to replace them, which means a surge of stuff that’s been hanging around a while, plus a few things that didn’t quite make the top 40 until now. To keep this somewhat manageable, I’ll mainly stick to pointing out the records that are actually at a new peak.
1. Ava Max – “Sweet But Psycho”
That’s two weeks, and it managed nearly eight million streams last week. So even though it’s been out for a couple of month, it could be a while before something musters the energy to shift it. Ariana Grande’s “Thank U Next” rebounds to number 2, while “Sunflower” by Post Malone featuring Swae Lee climbs to number 3 after eleven weeks out (its previous peak was number 7).
5. Post Malone – “Wow.”
Mr & Mrs X #6 – “King & Queen”
So this is the previous issue of Mr & Mrs X – issue #7 was out this week – but I was figuring it was an opening chapter of something, and it turns out that it isn’t.
As promised in issue #5, this is Rogue and Gambit’s… well, apparently it’s a “belated engagement party”, though it’s basically a flatwarming. Either way, this is what you want from a Rogue and Gambit series; I can understand why the first arc packed them off into space, if only to get them away from the rest of the X-Men, but mainly I’m here to see them be domestic. That’s the interest here, surely? That’s what we want to know if they can actually do?
