Charts – 26 February 2021
It’s not budging.
1. Olivia Rodrigo – “Drivers License”
That’s seven weeks. So it’s time to start paying attention to the records. Two records managed six weeks last year: Ariana Grande’s “Positions” and Joel Corry & MNEK’s “Head & Heart”. “Drivers License” now overtakes them both. The next step is a big challenge, though – “Dance Monkey” by Tones & I, which lasted 11 weeks at number 1 in 2019. I don’t see Rodrigo making it that long – she’s had one close call already. But we’ll see.
The rest of the top 3 is static, with “Calling My Phone” by Lil Tjay & 6LACK at 2, and Nathan Evans’ “Wellerman” at 3. And it’s a long, long way down to the first new entry. “The Business” by Tiesto climbs 6-4, becoming his highest placing single since 2014. “Friday” by Riton x Nightcrawler featuring Mufasa & Hypeman climbs 10-7. Remarkably, “Save Your Tears” by the Weeknd continues to climb despite having been available as an album track for months, and now moves 13-11. “Latest Trends” by A1 & J1, which entered at 19 and climbed to 17 last week, gathers momentum by climbing to 12. “Your Love (9pm)” by ATB, Topic & A7S climbs 21-5. Cardi B’s “Up” climbs 22-17. Central Cee’s “Commitment Issues” climbs 23-18. “Heat Waves” by Glass Animals climbs 26-23. “My Head & My Heart” by Ava Max climbs 29-25, which coincidentally leaves it one place above “Head & Heart”, still hanging in there months after it left number 1.
28. Ella Henderson & Tom Grennan – “Let’s Go Home Together”
New Mutants #16 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
NEW MUTANTS vol 4 #16
“One Step Behind”
by Vita Ayala & Rob Reis
COVER / PAGE 1: The faces of the New Mutants in a shadowy cloud, presumably the Shadow King. Once again, Scout is shown with the team, somewhat jumping the gun in terms of the actual story.
PAGES 2-3. Some kids sneak into Otherworld.
The Braddock Lighthouse is the headquarters of Excalibur, as seen over in their own book. That’s Rictor hanging around near the gate and being sneaked past, though the character model is a little off (the X-logo on his chest is usually drawn bigger than that).
The three kids are Monica, Josh and Liana. Monica’s the one with the red hair. Technically it’s the first appearance for all three of them, but versions of these characters previously appeared as background prisoners in Ayala’s Age of X-Man: Prisoner X miniseries. We established in the previous issue that the prison in that series included a bunch of filler characters who were copies of real-world mutants but apparently were not simply counterparts of them – from the look of it, Ayala is importing a whole bunch of these background characters into mainstream continuity.
Wolverine #10 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
WOLVERINE vol 7 #10
“Mercenaries”
by Benjamin Percy, Adam Kubert & Frank Martin
COVER / PAGE 1: Logan and Maverick in action.
PAGE 2: Recap and credits.
PAGES 3-5: Logan takes the lead with Maverick.
The basic point here is that their relationship is so ingrained that Maverick is willing to take Logan’s lead just on a vague sense of who he is. The Merchant’s comment that the two of them “don’t put much value in history” is somewhat ironic – they can’t put much value in their history, because they can’t remember it, or can’t trust what they do remember. The Merchant, in contrast, seems to value Marvel Universe trinkets largely on the basis of their supposed historical significance – or at least he serves customers who do. Even though Maverick was being sold as a useful weapon, most of the Merchant’s stock appears to be mere cast-offs and collectibles from famous heroes and villains. In a sense, he’s obsessed with history without actually seeming to grasp why it matters.
X-Men #18 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
X-MEN vol 5 #18
“Inside the Vault”
by Jonathan Hickman, Mahmud Asrar & Sunny Gho
COVER / PAGE 1: Darwin, Wolverine (Laura) and Synch enter the Vault.
PAGE 2. The exterior of the Vault.
This is recapping issue #5. In that issue, the X-Men decided to infiltrate the Vault, home of the post-human Children of the Vault. Technologically-enhanced post-humans are supposed to be the biggest threat to mutantkind, according to everything we discovered in Power of X; and besides, the Children of the Vault really are planning to take over the world once they’re ready. The Vault is a sealed chamber where time moves at a different rate, the idea being that eventually they will emerge in a hyper-advanced state, ready to take over the world. From time to time the Children come out to have a look around and decide that they need a bit more time in the oven.
Charts – 19 February 2021
It’s the busiest week on the singles chart for ages. Serenely undisturbed by it all is…
1. Olivia Rodrigo – “Drivers Licence”
…which remains number 1 for a sixth week. But it’s close this time.
2. Lil Tjay & 6LACK – “Calling My Phone”
This is the strongest challenge that “Drivers Licence” has had yet – it holds on, but by a margin equivalent to 1,700 sales. That’s beatable. It’s not an obvious challenger, either. Lil Tjay’s only previous appearance in the top 40 was as a guest on Pop Smoke’s “Mood Swings” (number 5 last year) – until now, his own singles have always missed the chart. 6LACK – it’s pronounced “black”, which would be more obvious if it was written in lower case – hasn’t had a hit single in the UK either, though he’s got an album into the top 20. It’s a surprising chart record (or lack thereof) considering that he’s been around for years and has several Grammy nominations under his belt.
Cable #8 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
CABLE vol 4 #8
“My Dinner with Domino”
by Gerry Duggan & Phil Noto
COVER / PAGE 1: Just Cable with Domino’s face in the background – and her black spot framing his head.
PAGE 2. Straightforward quote from Cable. Of course, Stryfe doesn’t just look like Cable; genetically, they’re identical, so the differences between them should be down to their different experiences.
PAGE 3. A meteorite changes course.
We’ll see it again at the end of the issue. Generally, Duggan writes Domino’s luck powers at a ridiculously high level in this story, more akin to the way Longshot has sometimes been written; traditionally Domino’s powers have been played at a subtler level than that. In voice over, Domino kind of shrugs her shoulders and acknowledges that she can’t really explain how her powers work. Explanations offered over the years have involved things like probability manipulation and subconscious telekinesis, none of which would really account for a bad guy just happening to stand in the right position to get flattened by a meteorite… but whatever. You can only really write Domino this way as a guest star; as a regular character, this sort of thing would break the book rather quickly, or at least wear thin. As a one-off, it’s fine.
Marauders #18 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
MARAUDERS #18
“Saving Face”
by Gerry Duggan, Stefano Caselli, Matteo Lolli & Edgar Delgado
COVER / PAGE 1: Just an action shot of Iceman and Pyro. I think it might be going for a yin-yang thing, but if so, it’s pretty loose.
PAGE 2. Quote from an anonymous UN ambassador about Madripoor. Could well be Madripoor’s own ambassador, Donald Pierce. In terms of the way Madripoor has been presented in Wolverine stories over the years, the comment isn’t unreasonable.
PAGE 3. Professor X and Magneto arrive for Emma’s ceremony.
“I know you have been helping Emma with her gala…” The Hellfire Gala, first mentioned in issue #7. It’s finally going to happen in upcoming issues of X-Men, where the new team line-up is going to be held. Magneto helped Emma by acquiring the location in Giant-Size X-Men: Magneto #1.
The Incomplete Wolverine: 1982
Part 1: Origin to Origin II | Part 2: 1907 to 1914
Part 3: 1914 to 1939 | Part 4: World War II
Part 5: The postwar era | Part 6: Team X
Part 7: Post Team X | Part 8: Weapon X
Part 9: Department H | Part 10: The Silver Age
1974-1975 | 1976 | 1977 | 1978 | 1979 | 1980 |
1981
1982 is the year when Wolverine comes to the foreground as a lead character. I’m taking Uncanny X-Men as the cut-off points, and so we won’t reach the first Wolverine miniseries until 1983 (which is when it fits into continuity, despite having cover dates from the end of 1982). But he gets his moment in the sun in the main title, and he gets to tour some more of the Marvel Universe in guest appearances.
UNCANNY X-MEN vol 1 #153
“Kitty’s Fairy Tale”
by Chris Claremont, Dave Cockrum, Josef Rubinstein & Glynis Wein
January 1982
Kitty tells Illyana a bedtime story in which all the characters are obvious stand-ins for the X-Men. Wolverine, in Claremont’s self-parody, is an animalistic “fiend with no name”, who says “I’m mean” and eats cans of beer – all of which pretty much nails the tropes of the mysterious antihero role that he’s now drifted into. But now Logan finds all this just as charming as the rest of the team do – a few years ago, he would have gone ballistic about somebody making fun of him. (Oddly, the plot of Kitty’s story involves Logan and Scott’s rivalry over Jean, which happened before she joined the team.)
Charts – 12 February 2021
It’s 90s Eurodance chorus recycling week.
1. Olivia Rodrigo – “Drivers Licence”
Five weeks, without much difficulty.
5. Digga D & AJ Tracey – “Bringing It Back”
Easily the biggest hit to date for Digga D, who’s never previously got above 18. Of course, he’s working with AJ Tracey here, who had four straight top ten hits last year alone.
S.W.O.R.D. #3 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
S.W.O.R.D. vol 2 #3
“Everywhere Man”
by Al Ewing, Valerio Schiti, Ray-Anthony Height, Bernard Chang, Nico Leon & Marte Gracia
COVER / PAGE 1. Manifold doing his thing, with the outback on one side and the Alpha Flight station (with Henry Gyrich) on the other. Unlike last issue, this does have a King in Black tie-in banner, though it’s largely obscured.
PAGE 2. Manifold leaves Lila in charge.
Although it’s notionally a King in Black tie-in, this issue is largely a spotlight for Manifold, perhaps in part to introduce him to the X-books’ audience – although he’s a mutant, his previous appearances have mostly been in Secret Warriors, Avengers and Black Panther. And fair warning, I’m not hugely familiar with any of those runs.
