Charts – 24 December 2021
If you liked the years of the X Factor winner’s single, you’ll love LadBaby!
1. LadBaby featuring Ed Sheeran & Elton John – “Sausage Rolls for Everyone”
Mark Hoyle has had the Christmas number one for the last three years, with essentially the same joke: do a cover version of a well known song but change the lyrics to be about sausage rolls. By having a fourth Christmas number one, Hoyle has matched the record set by the Beatles, although of course they did it organically, in the days before the Christmas Number One was a big part of British popular culture (for reasons now lost in the mists of time to younger generations). Hoyle is doing it as a campaign record.
X-Men: The Trial of Magneto #5 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
X-MEN: THE TRIAL OF MAGNETO #5
“To Catch a Toad”
by Leah Williams, Lucas Werneck & Edgar Delgado
COVER / PAGE 1. Magneto and the Scarlet Witch dancing.
PAGE 2. The Scarlet Witch names her murderer.
This picks up directly from the end of the previous issue.
“No matter how your magic may or may not have affected Krakoa today…” Northstar is referring to the kaiju attack over the last couple of issues, triggered by Wanda’s traumatic identity crisis.
PAGE 3. Recap and credits.
PAGES 4-8. The Toad is summarily tried and exiled.
The Quiet Council here consists of Professor X, Magneto, Mr Sinister, Exodus, Mystique, Kate Pryde, Emma Frost, Sebastian Shaw, Nightcrawler and Storm. This is before Destiny and Colossus join the Quiet Council in Inferno (which is obvious from the timeline, as this story takes place in the days immediately following the Hellfire Gala).
Mighty Marvel Holiday Special – Happy Holidays, Mr Howlett Infinity Comic #1
MIGHTY MARVEL HOLIDAY SPECIAL – HAPPY HOLIDAYS, MR HOWLETT INFINITY COMIC #1
by Ryan North, Nathan Stockman & Chris O’Halloran
Yes, that’s the title. Don’t look at me.
Hey, it’s an X-book. And it’s probably meant to be canon, too. Not that anything’s ever likely to turn on whether this is canon or not, admittedly, but if it matters, it probably is.
So it’s a few years back – the costumes say early to mid 90s – and the X-Men are holding a party for the general public as some sort of public relations event. Which isn’t really the sort of thing they did back then, but sure, they probably should have. Professor X is there in his hover wheelchair, and he’s not openly associated with the X-Men at this point, but he is publicly known as a mutant rights activist so… again, sure. Okay. And Nightcrawler and Shadowcat are there too, but fine, they’re visiting. I mean, it doesn’t quite fit, but it’s not a big problem.
And the schtick is that everyone is having fun at this thing except for Wolverine, who doesn’t like joining in with fun things. Since this is a Ryan North comic, it’s not quite as basic as saying that Wolverine is a grinch. He just doesn’t particularly want to be part of this, he doesn’t really see what his unique skillset of razor sharp blades can contribute to the world of children’s entertainment, and he’d prefer not to be there. (“I’m not grumpy. I’m… I’m brusque. And content in solitude. There’s a difference.”)
Wolverine #19 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
WOLVERINE vol 7 #19
“The Old Mutant and the Sea”
by Benjamin Percy, Javi Fernandez & Matthew Wilson
COVER / PAGE 1. Well, it’s Wolverine on the surface with a monstrous sea creature below the surface.When I started doing these posts, I figured there would be plenty of X-books that weren’t that heavy on continuity and where the annotations would be pretty short. As it turns out, there weren’t. This one is getting there, though, so we might not be terribly long here.
PAGES 2-3. Wolverine hunts Krakoan wildlife while a corpse washes up on the beach.
Percy seems to be the only writer interested (however tenuously) in the idea that Krakoa has distinctive animals on it. Anyway, Wolverine is hunting this thing so that he can use it as bait in his hunt for the Leviathan later in the issue. This is the final issue of this volume of Wolverine and, perhaps rather tellingly, it opens with a callback to Wolverine’s first scene in X-Force #1. In that scene, he was also hunting Krakoan wildlife and arguing that the paradise of Krakoa would lead to people dropping their guard and becoming soft. (Intriguingly, with hindsight, the character he lectures about this theme is the Beast, who starts off X-Force much less paranoid than he eventually becomes.)
S.W.O.R.D. #11 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
S.W.O.R.D. vol 2 #11
“Final Frontier”
by Al Ewing, Jacopo Camagni & Dernando Sifuentes
COVER / PAGE 1. Storm, Cable and Brand fight the Lethal Legion. Not quite what happens in the issue itself.
PAGES 2-3. Manifold prepares to deal with S.W.O.R.D. Station One falling out of the sky.
Apparently we’re not calling it the Peak any more (and it’s about to become academic anyway). Anyway, after being blown up last issue as part of Abigail Brand’s convoluted plan, the station is falling to Earth over Australia, and Manifold and Cable are going to their powers to stop is causing a disaster.
We saw Baz before in issue #3, Manifold’s solo story.
The Winter Soldier was “Captain America for a while” during Ed Brubaker’s run, circa 2008.
Abigail Brand has drawn our attention before to the fact that Cable’s powers and his techno-organic virus are kept in balance, so that stretching him to his limits like this causes problems for him. As we’ll see, this seems to be part of her plan to depower him and get him out of her way.
Charts – 17 December 2021
Just one more chart week to go before Christmas… which means this is a dead week. Not the Christmas chart yet, so too early for the records that want a shot at number one. But swamped with Christmas back catalogue, so nobody else is releasing new music against it.
1. Ed Sheeran & Elton John – “Merry Christmas”
Two weeks. This is starting to grow on me slightly, but I’ll be interested to see if it can really keep charting in future years. It heads up a completely static top 7.
25. D-Block Europe featuring AJ Tracey – “Make You Smile”
This is… an anomaly. It’s not even a single, but a track from the Home Alone 2 mixtape, climbing from last week’s 42. It’s obviously positioned well to capitalise after the Christmas tracks vanish in two weeks time. “Overseas” is at still at number 12.
X-Force #26 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
X-FORCE vol 6 #26
“Wipeout”
by Benjamin Percy, Robert Gill & Guru-eFX
COVER / PAGE 1. The rest of the cast look on as Wolverine dives into a live volcano after… well, who knows? Nothing much like it happens in the issue. There’s an eruption, but no diving into the lava with claws drawn. (And this looks to be a man’s hand, not Pike’s.)
This issue’s pretty simple, annotation-wise.
PAGES 2-4. Pike and her team bring the stolen babies to their submarine.
These are the Krakoan babies that they stole from the Bower last issue. The one that screams is Maximillian, who “nearly killed everybody in a hundred-yard radius” with his uncontrolled powers (according to Kid Omega last issue).
Pike’s unnamed employer is identified at the end of the issue.
PAGE 5. Recap and credits.
PAGES 6-9. X-Force investigate Pike’s attack, and Wolverine talks to Kid Omega about his break-up with Phoebe.
Last issue, Pike and her team entered Krakoa through the supposedly unmanageable Dead Mutant’s Cove, posing as Krakoan surfers, and Wolverine directed them to the Bower (not least because he was attracted to Pike, though he doesn’t say that in terms here).
Excalibur #26 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
EXCALIBUR vol 4 #26
“The Fantasy is Over”
by Tini Howard, Marcus To & Erick Arciniega
COVER / PAGE 1. Saturnyne, with Betsy as her knight, and her sword in a scrying pool that shows the rest of the cast. Unusually for 2021, we get a very old-school piece of lettering trailing the climax. In three mismatched fonts, none of which fit well with the logo, and all of which feel squeezed into a space in the corner. I’m really not sure what it’s doing there, since the cover as a whole doesn’t evoke anything retro, and it drags down a perfectly nice piece of art.
PAGE 2. Merlyn briefs his troops.
Merlyn captured the Starlight Citadel and renamed it the Lunatic Citadel last issue. Those are his siege engines in the background of the first panel.
Aside from Arthur himself, Merlyn is addressing groups from the various factions allied with him in previous issues: the Sevalith (the vampire guys), the Furies (the robot thing) and the Colony (the bees people). There are some more generic soldiers around as well. Saturnyne’s aide Ryl is still there, standing by Merlyn’s throne and apparently being accepted by him. Presumably she’s loyal to the throne rather than its current occupant.
The Homies 2021
I say! You there! You, boy! What day is it?
It’s Homies Eve? Then I haven’t missed it! Go to the content mines, bring me your finest views on comics from the calendar year 2021! The ones as big as you, yes, come on, be quick about it, you children today, you don’t know you’re born, a short spell of National Service would sort you out.
Anyway. It’s time for your nominations for the 2021 House to Astonish Homies awards.
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 beginning of the new year, so we’re giving you until midnight UK time (7pm Eastern, 4pm Pacific) on December 31 2021 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 and 31 December 2021 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 during 2021, 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 2021. We’re counting re-use of titles as well as concepts, so Eternals or The Swamp Thing wouldn’t be eligible, but (for example) The Good Asian or Primordial would.
BEST CONTINUING SERIES
The counterpart to the categories above, which covers books whose first issue was published in 2020 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 2021 (or partially in 2021, 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!
X-Men Legends #7-9
X-MEN LEGENDS #7-9
“Kidnapped!”
by Larry Hama, Billy Tan & Chris Sotomayor
From time to time I read the final chapter of a story and realise I have no memory of what happened in the previous chapters, and none of this feels like it has any particular significance to me. Often I go back and re-read the earlier issues, and the pieces fall into place, and I can see what the story was going for. And sometimes… it’s still just stuff happening.
For its fourth arc, X-Men Legends revisits Larry Hama’s run on Wolverine in the 1990s. And undoubtedly, that qualifies as a landmark run. We’re working through it at the moment over in the “Incomplete Wolverine” posts, but suffice to say that the first few years of Larry Hama’s run are not only vastly entertaining, they also introduce a lot of core Wolverine mythology that gets referenced regularly to this day. The later years of Hama’s run are, shall we say, a bit more patchy; some of that feels like it’s to do with editorial stop-starting, but a fair bit feels like it’s to do with having already done the big ideas, and a drift towards the surreal that often doesn’t pay off.
