Charts – 18 September 2011
It is time once again to bow before our overlord Simon Cowell. Yes, just in time for the new series of X Factor… One Direction are back. And this time they’re McFly! Well, kind of, anyway.
With X Factor about to launch in America, a whole new nation is, one suspects, about to be exposed to the dubious charms of the ad hoc group.
DCU Week 2
Everyone else may want to call it week three, but here at House to Astonish we’re choosing to pretend Justice League didn’t happen.
And for those of you checking in late of a weekend: you’ll find this week’s X-book reviews here, you’ll find this week’s podcast here (with reviews of Pigs, Ultimate Spider-Man and Demon Knights), and you’ll find the wrestling preview here. Content!
The DCU titles I didn’t get this week: Batman and Robin (reviews suggest it’s okay), Deathstroke (sounds like I’m not missing much), Green Lantern (mixed reviews elsewhere, and nothing that makes me feel like I want to read it), Mr Terrific (seems to be getting a fairly muted reaction), Resurrection Man (ditto, and I never much cared for the book first time round), Suicide Squad (critical consensus: destroy) and Superboy (Al’s read it, and he says it’s better than you’d expect). If you want to persuade me to give any of these a go, the comments thread is at the bottom.
But now for the six I did buy…
Night of Champions 2011
(Lest I risk driving it off the front page: it’s a podcast weekend. The show is just two posts down!)
But now: WWE’s Night of Champions, a one-match show if ever I saw one. Ironically, that one match also happens to be the one that doesn’t fit the show’s gimmick, which is supposed to be that every title is on the line. This isn’t the draw that the company seems to think it is. The two versions of the world title – which should really be consolidated into one, especially given the continuing erosion of the brand split – are defended on every show anyway, so all they’re really promising is defences of minor championships like the Intercontinental Title, which not many people care about.
At the top of the card, however, the curious CM Punk storyline rambles onwards…
The X-Axis – 17 September 2011
(Before we get started: it’s a podcast weekend! Just one post down! Don’t miss out!)
Meanwhile: sticking with last week’s format, I’m going to do the X-books here, and the DC launches in their own post. That’ll most likely be tomorrow, assuming I’ve actually read them all by then. Which is not currently guaranteed. But we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.
Actually, there’s only three X-books out this week, but hey, I’ve got six DC launch issues sitting here, so that’ll do me. Check out the podcast if you want to hear Al and me talk about the first issues of Ultimate Spider-Man and Pigs (both of which are good reading).
House To Astonish Episode 68
We’ve managed to bring an episode in at under an hour for the first time in a while, with discussion of the good and bad press DC have received over the New 52, John Rozum leaving Static Shock, the Amanda Waller controversy, the announcement of Avengers: X-Sanction, the Spectre TV show and the opening of Little Island Comics. We’ve got reviews of Pigs, Ultimate Comics Spider-Man and Demon Knights, and the Official Handbook of the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe is running a two-for-one deal. All this plus kiddy-on people, the most mysterious brand of apple and the link between Green Lantern and Michele Bachmann.
The podcast is here, or here at Mixcloud, on iTunes or accessible via the player below. Let us know what you think, either in the comments below, on Twitter, via email or at our Facebook fan page.
While we’re here, here’s another quick plug for my guest appearance on Scotland’s most petty and foul-mouthed SF podcast, The Thumbcast, where Iain Hepburn, Craig McGill and I talk a lot of daft nonsense about Apollo 18, Rise of the Planet of the Apes, Fright Night, Star Wars on Blu-ray, Doctor Who, the New 52, SeaQuest DSV and a whole bunch of other stuff. Enjoy!
Charts – 11 September 2011
For the seventh consecutive week, we have another new number one. And since it drops to 3 in the midweeks, it’s a pretty safe bet that there’ll be an eighth on Sunday.
Yes, Pixie Lott is back, to start promoting her second album. The single is “All About Tonight”, and it’s her seventh hit (they squeezed a lot of singles out of that debut album). Pixie Lott is a classic example of the age-old promotional technique of insisting very loudly that somebody is a star until everybody gives up and believes you. She had two number 1 hits in 2009, “Mama Do” and “Boys And Girls”, both of which had a sort of pseudo-retro-but-way-too-polished thing about them. Passable enough songs, but produced into the ground.
This time round she has apparently decided that she’s the Saturdays, and reinvented herself as an electropop act. This is a very formulaic piece of songwriting – people in the music industry seem to spend an awful lot of time waiting for the weekend considering they don’t work 9 to 5 jobs in the first place – but it’s a decent chorus and they’ve got the production right this time.
DCU Week 1
As per the previous post, I’m going to split the reviews into two this month. So the X-books are one post down, and in this post we’re going to do (some of) the new DC titles.
Before we start: yes, I know it’s technically week two, of the relaunch, but I’m treating Justice League as week zero.
And no, I didn’t buy Detective Comics, Green Arrow, Hawk & Dove, Justice League International, or Men of War. Just to save you scrolling down.
Oh, and for those of you who missed the plug on Twitter, Al is the guest co-host on this month’s episode of The Thumbcast, which is well worth a listen.
Action Comics #1 – Well, this is the big one, isn’t it? As far as online fandom is concerned, at any rate. The challenge for Superman writers is his overfamiliarity; like Mickey Mouse, he’s so iconic that he’s a brand first and a character a distant second, if at all. With All-Star Superman, Grant Morrison addressed that problem by doing a definitive modern take on the classic (ie Silver Age) Superman set-up, but with Action Comics he’s taking a more radical approach.
The X-Axis – 10 September 2011
The big news this week, and for the next few weeks, is obviously the DC relaunch. There’s going to be a lot to talk about there.
But there are also quite a few X-books out this week. Because Marvel, being Marvel, have decided that a very good number of Wolverine comics to ship in a single week is three. To the uninitiated this might appear moronic, but they’ve been doing it for long enough that one would like to think somebody has deluded themselves into thinking it makes sense.
Anyway, rather than do a juggernaut mixture of X-books and DC first issues together, I’m going to split them into two columns this week. We’ll see how that goes.
Charts – 4 September 2011
For the sixth straight week, there’s a new entry at number 1. (And according to the midweeks, there’ll be a seventh on Sunday.) The main thing this tells us, to be honest, is that quite a few record labels have given up on the “On Air On Sale” thing and have gone back to promoting their singles in advance of release. And frankly, they seem to be getting better results that way, at least in terms of getting a high chart placing in their first week. And to be fair, nine out of the last ten number 1s are still on the chart, so it’s not like they’re all crashing straight out.
Oh, and if these things interest you, the last eight number one singles have all been by British acts. Which is actually quite uncommon.
Olly Murs drops to 2 in his second week, and his replacement at number 1 is…
Astonishing X-Men: Monstrous
Astonishing X-Men #36-37, 39, 41
Writer: Daniel Way
Pencillers: Jason Pearson, Sara Pichelli and Nick Bradshaw
Inkers: Karl Story, Sara Pichelli, Nick Bradshaw, Norman Lee, Jay Leisten and Craig Yeung
Colourists: Sonia Oback and Rachelle Rosenberg
Letterers: Cory Petit, Joe Caramagna and Clayton Cowles
Editor: Nick Lowe
As regular readers will know, I find that most storylines are improved by reading them in one sitting. Partly it’s because the structure comes across better. Partly it’s because it’s a re-reading, and you always see things that you didn’t spot the first time around. And yes, partly it’s because a lot of comics weren’t properly structured for the serial in the first place, even though it’s the format in which most readers will experience it.
