Charts – 13 May 2012
Just a single week at number one for “Young” by Tulisa, though it’s still selling in pretty respectable quantities. It’s replaced by a record which, judging from the midweeks, might be around for a while.
If you haven’t heard this before, pop quiz: who do you think it was originally written for?
1. Rita Ora featuring Tinie Tempah – “R.I.P.”
The X-Axis – 13 May 2012
It’s a podcast weekend, so check out the show one post down, where Al and I are reviewing Trio, Dial H and Mind the Gap.
Meanwhile, over at the X-books, crossovers with the rest of the Marvel Universe continue to abound. This would normally have been a relatively quiet week (just four X-books) but the tie-ins get us up to six…
Journey into Mystery #637 – This is part 2 of the “Exiled” crossover which is running weekly through this book and New Mutants. In scheduling terms, it’s a little odd to see this coming out at the same time as the big “Avengers vs X-Men” event, which will inevitably overshadow it, but on the other hand it’s certainly preferable to seeing the New Mutants shoehorned into that storyline. After all, these two books have taken the trouble to establish some minor ties in the preceding months, so that this seems more organic than it otherwise might.
That being said, this remains principally a Journey into Mystery story, with some of the Asgardian gods being magically turned into ordinary humans living in San Francisco (or thinking they have been, at any rate). The New Mutants’ role here, thus far at least, is a bit more generic. They’re basically here to drive the plot along by pushing an investigation into what happened to the JiM regulars; and while it helps for these purposes that Dani is a Valkyrie, you could have swapped other characters into the same role without fundamentally changing things.
House to Astonish Episode 84
A tight little episode for you this time out, with discussion of the sad passing of Tony DeZuniga, the unbelievable box office of The Avengers, Marvel’s digital exclusive deal with Comixology, Cullen Bunn taking on the writing of Venom and DC’s upcoming Phantom Lady mini, as well as an extended chat about the value of new characters, reviews of Dial H, Mind the Gap and Trio and a grave undertaking from the Official Handbook of the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe. All this plus America’s own private Easter, Marvel’s relationship status and ’90s technobabble.
The podcast is here, on Mixcloud here, available on iTunes or on Stitcher Radio (via their website or their Android or iOS apps), or accessible through the player below. Let us know what you think, in the comments, on Twitter, via email or on our Facebook fan page.
Charts – 6 May 2012
We’ve missed a few weeks, but worry not – they all featured Carly Rae Jepsen still at number one, giving her a four week reign. As it happens, this week sees a change at the top anyway. Bring on the generic dance-pop!
1. Tulisa – “Young”.
This is the solo debut for Tulisa Contostavlos of N-Dubz, who have had ten hits in their own right since 2007, and also guested on Tinchy Stryder’s number 1 hit “Number 1” back in 2009. In fact, the producer of this record is one of the quieter members of N-Dubz, so it’s not all that solo – though the shift to dance music does mark a change from the rap/pop crossover stuff that N-Dubz used to do. Still, it’s arguably more N-Dubz Without The Bloke In The Hat. Which most of us, I think, would applaud as a wise move.
The X-Axis – 6 May 2012
And finally we get back up to date. (There’s also a bunch of interesting first issues this week, but I’ll either deal with them separately, or cover them in the podcast next week.)
Age of Apocalypse #3 – My main problem with this book so far has been that too many of the main (human) characters were interchangeable, so it’s good to see David Lapham addressing that in this issue. This is the first point where the likes of Donald Pierce and Graydon Creed have really come across as having distinctive personalities of their own, albeit that Creed is essentially a generic drunken antihero. Pierce, though, is starting to look more interesting – he’s the guy who leads a double life as a member of what passes for the elite.
The X-Axis catch-up (part 2)
Right, I did say we’d get through the rest of these books, and that’s what we’re going to do. Quickly, because there’s a whole new week of books to cover next…
Uncanny X-Force #24 – A one-off story between arcs, as X-Force hunt down the Age of Apocalypse Iceman (who’s apparently now living in our world) and try to kill him. I can see the thinking here – X-Force need some nice disposable villains to hunt down in order to sell their black ops concept, and it’s also a good opportunity to put Nightcrawler in the spotlight. Thus far, the focus has tended to be on how he’s a dark and bitter version of the original Nightcrawler; this story, playing up his former friendship with Iceman, allows an opportunity to play up his similarities instead.
The X-Axis catch-up (Part 1)
Don’t forget it’s a podcast weekend – you’ll find this week’s show just a post down, with reviews of Reset, Popeye and Captain America & Hawkeye. Meanwhile, I’ve got some catching up to do, since we skipped last week, and the Avengers vs X-Men crossover is in full sway. Seven issues in those two weeks, people! Mind you, most of them are the same story from different perspectives, so…
I’m not ploughing through 14 X-books and crossover titles in one post. Instead, I’ll do the first half here and follow up with the rest during the week. (Fingers crossed.)
House to Astonish Episode 83
We’re a day later than usual, but we’ve got loads of great chat to make it up to you with – this time round we’re talking about Chris Roberson leaving DC and the fallout from that, the return of Devil’s Due and lots and lots of film and TV chat as we look at the impending X-Men: First Class sequel, the Daredevil and Fantastic Four reboots and the potential New Mutants movie, the animated Flashpoint direct-to-DVD flick, Fox’s Axe Cop animated show and the Lobo film. We’ve also got reviews of Popeye, Captain America and Hawkeye and Reset, and the Official Handbook of the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe does the robot. All this plus Hank Pym’s secret vendetta, the Avengers Personality and Little Cabin In The Woods.
The podcast is here, or here on Mixcloud, available on Stitcher.com or via their Android or iOS apps, or via the embedded player below, or on iTunes. Let us know what you think, in the comments thread, on Twitter, via email or on our Facebook fan page.
Extreme Rules 2012
And normal service is resumed with the post that a small minority of you were waiting for – a preview of WWE Extreme Rules! This, to be honest, is a show I won’t be ordering because I won’t have time to watch it in the next few days – but it’s also an unusually newsworthy B-show, built around the return of Brock Lesnar after eight years.
Extreme Rules started life as a successor to the WWE’s successful ECW reunion pay-per-views which paid tribute to the influential 90s promotion. After the WWE revived the ECW brand for a short-lived and entirely unsuccessful weekly show, their annual PPV was rebranded under the current name, and basically ended up as a show full of gimmick matches. “Extreme Rules” used to be the WWE’s preferred term for ECW rules (i.e., no count-outs and no disqualification), but for the purposes of this year’s show, it seems that pretty much any gimmick is deemed acceptable – there’s nothing especially “extreme” about a best-of-three-falls match, but they’re doing one anyway. Mind you, it’s not as if wrestling referees are exactly noted for their rigorous enforcement of the rules in the first place.
This year, Extreme Rules also follows Wrestlemania in the PPV calendar. This slot has traditionally gone to a generic show called “No Way Out”, but this year No Way Out is taking place later on and is being rebranded as a show full of cage matches (a gimmick which worked surprisingly well for the distant number two promotion TNA with their annual Lockdown show).
But the main story for this show is…
More housekeeping…
Well, so much for probably getting a chart post done earlier in the week…
Fortunately, things should now be getting back to normal (ish), so here’s the plan: podcast tomorrow, reviews catching up over the next week or so, wrestling preview coming up, charts catch-up at some point too.
Honest.
