House to Astonish Episode 179
A relatively quiet period for comics news, but we’re talking about Kevin Feige being installed as Chief Creative Officer of Marvel, the Bloodshot movie, the Into The Spider-Verse sequel, Sky UK’s troubles showing the CW’s Crisis crossover, HBO Max’s Green Lantern and Strange Adventures series, Dark Horse collecting Michel Fiffe’s Panorama, and the closing of ComicBookDB and The MNT. We’ve also got reviews of Afterlift and The Sandman Universe Presents: Hellblazer and the Official Handbook of the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe is a metal guru. All this plus comics industry execs who could break into your house and strangle you in your sleep, comics ASMR and what you get when Goodnight Sweetheart meets Flash Gordon.
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 on our Facebook fan page. And remember, we’ve got some smashing shirts for sale over at our Redbubble store!
And as mentioned on the podcast, if you’re at the Thought Bubble convention in Harrogate next Saturday, come along at 2pm to see me team up with Gary Lactus and The Beast Must Die of SILENCE! for the second of this year’s SILENCE! To Astonish panels!
Excalibur #1 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers are from the digital edition.
EXCALIBUR: This is the fourth volume of Excalibur. The first volume ran from 1988 to 1998 and featured a British-based superhero team initially made up of Captain Britain, Meggan and some X-Men who had been separated from the main team (Shadowcat, Nightcrawler and Rachel Summers / Phoenix). It tended to go in for lighter antics than the rest of the X-books. The second volume is a largely-forgotten four-issue reunion miniseries from 2001. The third ran for 14 issues in 2004-5, and involved Professor X rebuilding in the ruins of post-massacre Genosha; aside from being an X-book, it really has no connection with the previous series. There’s also New Excalibur, another UK-based team, which ran for 24 issues in 2006-7.
This version of Excalibur features no members of the previous teams; the connection lies in Psylocke, Captain Britain’s sister.
COVER / PAGE 1: The team pose for us. Left to right, that’s Gambit, Jubilee, Apocalypse, Psylocke / Captain Britain II, Rictor (who doesn’t appear in the story) and Rogue. The background seems to be Krakoa, but in the foreground is what looks like the Otherworld scrying pool from the issue.
(more…)Charts – 25 October 2019
Ah well, another tumbleweed week.
1. Tones & I – “Dance Monkey”
Four weeks and counting, and with a massive lead over the competition (though it does seem to have peaked). It’s going to be here for a while. Wikipedia now lists 19 countries where this has been number 1. And below that… a singularly uneventful top 30.
“Circles” by Post Malone is up 4-3. “South of the Border” by Ed Sheeran featuring Camila Cabello & Cardi B climbs 7-4 – that’s the highest Cardi B has ever been. “Bruises” by Lewis Capaldi climbs 9-6. Aitch gets a third top 10 hit as “Buss Down” climbs 11-8. “Memories” by Maroon 5 climbs 19-10, which is their eleventh top 10 hit. The Harry Styles single that entered at number 3 last week drops to 11, which is not a good sign for his breadth of appeal. “Turn Me On” by Riton & Oliver Heldens featuring Vula climbs 16-12.
15. Meduza, Becky Hill & Goodboys – “Lose Control”
Read moreMarauders #1 – annotations
As always, this post features spoilers, and page numbers are based on the digital edition. And no, I’m not planning to do these for every issue of all the new titles, but the first issues of each seem worth a look.
MARAUDERS: It’s first time we’ve had a series of this title. In the context of the X-Men, the Marauders are Mr Sinister’s henchmen, who first appeared in Uncanny X-Men vol 1 #210 (1986) and committed the mass murder of the Morlocks. The original Marauders – or a bunch of them, at any rate – were last seen in Uncanny X-Men vol 5 #18 (2019), where they all died fighting the X-Men. In the meantime, this book seems to have no connection to the team whose name is clearly being evoked, and going back to the literal sense of marauding, which would fit with the piracy angle (though not so much the rescuing bit).
COVERS: The regular cast on their boat (whether they’re actually aboard it in this issue or not).
(more…)Charts – 18 October 2019
In which a whole bunch of records hit ten weeks on chart and get whacked by the chart rules on older hits, thus allowing… well, some climbers, because there’s still not a huge amount going on in terms of new releases.
1. Tones & I – “Dance Monkey”
Three weeks and counting. This is over ten weeks old as well, by the way, but it’s still growing, so it’s not in danger of being hit by the chart rules just yet. “Ride It” by Regard climbs 3-2, and…
3. Harry Styles – “Lights Up”
(more…)X-Men #1 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers are going by the digital edition.
X-MEN: This is the fifth volume of just-plain-X-Men, although confusingly the legacy numbering continues from the last run of Uncanny X-Men.
COVER (PAGE 1): The residents of the Summers House (plus the visiting Corsair) in the Blue Area of the Moon. More of that inside.
PAGES 2-3: A flashback to Charles Xavier giving Scott Summers a pair of ruby quartz glasses to control his optic beams. It’s a metaphor for Xavier giving Scott the confidence to embrace what makes him superhuman, of course – plus, there’s a parallel being drawn with the leader of Orchis, Killian Devo, but we’ll come to that. Scott’s visor can be seen sitting on a stand in the corner of the room.
(more…)House of X / Powers of X
But is it any good?
Pretty much everyone would agree that the X-books needed a shot in the arm. House of X and Powers of X are certainly that. People are talking again, in a way that they haven’t been talking in years. Not only that, they’re talking about the plot. Jonathan Hickman has begun his X-Men run by bringing out the high concept ideas from the off – Moira’s multiple lives, the mutant island of Krakoa, the apparent immortality through back-up copies – and for the most part, people have bought it. In both senses of the word. So, as an opening arc, job done. Nothing in the X-Men has produced this sort of reaction since the start of the Grant Morrison run, back in 2001.
A book like this is inevitably going to divide the audience to some degree. For one thing, it’s very different in tone and focus, which means it’s not necessarily what attracted some readers to the X-books in the first place. And more fundamentally, this is the sort of story where you either trust that it’s heading somewhere, or you don’t – and if you don’t, you won’t be having much fun with this. But so far, for the most part, Hickman seems to have kept people on board.
(more…)Charts – 11 October 2019
Another fairly quiet week on the singles chart coupled with a barrage of new material on the albums.
1. Tones & I – “Dance Monkey”
Second week, and it’s still growing – streams were up to 7.34m last week. Could be around for a while.
2. Travis Scott – “Highest in the Room”
(more…)Powers of X #6 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition. This is the final issue of Powers of X, and an actual review of both series will follow later.
COVER (PAGE 1): Moira standing over a pile of dead mutants on Krakoa. This includes characters from the “Year 100” timeline, so it’s evidently symbolic. The flowers resemble cherry blossom, traditionally a symbol of life’s ephemeral nature.
PAGE 2: The epigraph quotes Professor X: “And now we build.”
PAGE 3: The credits. The title is “House of X”; the small print reads “When they learn the truth.”
(more…)House to Astonish Episode 178
We’re back, with chat on Tom Lyle, Mariko Tamaki’s new graphic novel imprint, a bunch of news out of NYCC including new series for Wolverine, Thor, Guardians of the Galaxy, Iron Man 2020, Star Wars, the upcoming The End one-shots, Marvel teaming with Games Workshop, Plunge, G Willow Wilson on The Dreaming, Amethyst, The Last God, The Killing Horizon, Black Crown folding, Quantum & Woody, Tomorrow, Enigma, Kill a Man and Alienated. We’ve also got reviews of Ghost Rider and Strange Skies Over East Berlin, and the audio from the SILENCE! to Astonish panel from Glasgow Comic-Con 2019. All this plus Vantablack covers, poonicorns and Goth Crossgen.
The podcast is available here, or here on Mixcloud, or via the embedded player below. Let us know what you think, in the comments below, on Twitter, via email or on our Facebook fan page. And don’t forget that you can get our well tidy t-shirts at our Redbubble store – I’m looking at you, Australia and New Zealand.
