Housekeeping
No reviews this week. Haven’t received the books yet and I’m terribly busy anyway. Probably a chart post at the start of the week, and we’ll be back with comics with a podcast and X-Axis post next weekend.
Charts – 15 April 2012
It’s the busiest week for new entries in ages – 7 new entries, plus three surprise re-entries from the back catalogue. One of them very surprising indeed, in fact. But sitting serenely above them all…
1. Carly Rae Jepsen – “Call Me Maybe”
Second week at number one, and for the second straight week she outsells the number two single 2:1. It’s almost certainly going to hang on for a third. It’s a huge hit.
2. Justin Bieber – “Boyfriend”
No video for this yet, but it’s a fairly blatant example of Bieber trying to grow with his audience and turn into Justin Timberlake. Can you take seriously the idea of a sultry Justin Bieber? No, me neither.
The X-Axis – 15 April 2012
It’s a podcast weekend, so check out the post below and download the show, where you can hear Al and me talk about Secret Service, Courtney Crumrin and America’s Got Powers. Over on the X-books, it’s an extremely quiet week, so I’ll chuck a couple of other books in as well…
Avenging Spider-Man #6 – This is the start of the three-part “Omega Effect” crossover, which also runs through Daredevil and Punisher. In fact, it looks suspiciously like a Daredevil storyline which has sprouted some guest stars in the name of mutual sales-boosting. The story is built entirely around that book’s Omega Drive subplot, in which Daredevil has ended up in possession of a hard drive full of information about the Marvel Universe’s major criminal/terrorist groups. Naturally, they’d like it back. And for equally obvious reasons, the Punisher would quite like it too.
House to Astonish Episode 82
Plenty of stuff to get through in this episode, as we’re looking at the new Buffy spin-offs, the GI Joe/Danger Girl crossover, the new version of The Crow, Archaia and DC’s forays into “digital first”, the launch of Thrillbent Comics, Matt Wagner and Simon Bisley’s The Tower Chronicles and the Thief of Thieves TV show. We’ve also got reviews of Secret Service, America’s Got Powers and Courtney Crumrin, and the Official Handbook of the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe is going up in the world. All this plus Scott Allie’s burning bush, Ted Bundy Comics and Brian Michael Bendis as Widow Twankey.
The podcast is here, or here on Mixcloud. You can also, as noted in the previous post, check us out on Stitcher.com, or use the embedded player below. Let us know what you think in the comments, on Twitter, via email or at our Facebook fan page.
Housekeeping: House to Astonish on Stitcher
In advance of tomorrow’s episode, we’ve got a quick bit of info about another way in which you can now get hold of the show.
If you listen to a variety of different podcasts then you might have heard of Stitcher – it’s a site (and a free app for iOS and Android) that lets you put together what are essentially custom radio stations, “stitching” together podcasts and radio from their available sources. They’ve got a bunch of podcasts that I normally listen to, such as the Bugle, Answer Me This and Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me, as well as some other comics podcasts like Comic Geek Speak and Around Comics. They’ve also now got House to Astonish, so if you’re looking for another way to listen to House to Astonish (and to be honest, who wouldn’t want another way to listen to House to Astonish?) then check it out – their site is here or you can get the app from the iTunes or Android app stores.
Charts – 8 April 2012
It’s another exceptionally quiet week, with a bare handful of new releases, and some older records making a resurgence further down the chart. Mercifully, Chris Brown’s sales flare out after a single week, and he drops to number five. He is replaced by a much better pop single.
1. Carly Rae Jepsen – “Call Me Maybe”
No less than two “tribute” cover versions of this song were floating around outside the top 40 last week, which should have been a tip-off that it was going to sell rather well. It takes thirty seconds or so to get going, but then it launches into the chorus and pretty much stays there for the rest of the track. Well, okay, there’s a second verse. But it’s not very long. It’s a very good pop single, and it looks like it’s got a decent shot of staying on top for a second week.
The X-Axis – 8 April 2012
Well, after all the hype, we’ve finally reached Marvel’s big event of the year. Also available in exciting “augmented reality!” Yeah…
But first!
Age of Apocalypse #2 – I’m still not really sold on this book, but it does have something. In theory, there’s some potential in doing an inverted Marvel Universe where the mutants are all lunatics and in control, while the human villains become the plucky underdogs whose anti-mutant agenda becomes utterly reasonable. And I like the use of the depowered Jean Grey and Sabretooth, who end up stuck with the human resistance – though it’s perhaps surprising that they don’t get more to do, given that they’re among the book’s most recognisable established characters.
Charts – 1 April 2012
I never did get around to doing last week’s chart. So I’ll catch up now. We’ll run through this week’s new entries, and the tracks from last week that are still around. Last week’s number 1 was a one-week-wonder new entry, which we’ll come to in a bit. But first…
1. Chris Brown, “Turn Up The Music”
Oh, Britain. Oh, really.
Chris Brown has been around since 2006, but this is his first UK number one. His previous best was debut single “Run It!” back in 2006. His success in the UK is decidedly patchy – his last single, “She Ain’t You”, failed to make the top 50 last year. But this is the start of the campaign for his new album, so inevitably it’s doing better.
The X-Axis – 1 April 2012
Tonight’s Wrestlemania preview? One post down.
This weekend’s podcast? Two posts down.
Alright, now to run through this week’s X-books! And it’s quite the eventful week, with one cancellation, one new creative team, and the lead-in issue for the big summer crossover.
Astonishing X-Men #48 – The first issue by Marjorie Liu and Mike Perkins. We talked about this on the podcast, and for my money it’s a mixed affair. There’s an obvious difficulty for any of the secondary X-books in trying to find a separate identity for their title, and to some extent Liu succeeds in setting a different tone for her book – even if it’s one that bears little resemblance to the sort of stories that have appeared in this book before. The title is now aligned with Wolverine’s side of the split, but steers clear of the school in favour of doing stories about some of the staff hanging out in New York over their weekends along with Manhattan residents Northstar and Cecilia Reyes.
Wrestlemania 2012
It’s spring again, and time for the biggest wrestling show of the year. This time, Wrestlemania is coming from Miami, where the weather has apparently been pretty dreadful of late. And it’s an open-air arena. But there’s a bloody great tent suspended over the ring, so unless the weather turns really atrocious, they should be okay. Could be a long night for the live crowd, though.
As we’ve come to expect, the show is built around the headlining matches, with the idea being that the casual audience will be attracted by the big names, but that decent matches on the undercard should bring them back for more. This is well and good in theory. It’s notable, though, that this year’s two biggest matches actually feature wrestlers who aren’t on the regular roster at all, and are essentially semi-retired – with the Raw and Smackdown champions down at the third and fourth slots on the card. It’s undoubtedly the case that the two top matches are bigger draws than anything the regular roster has to offer right now, but that in itself should be a cause of concern for the company. There’s a risk in bringing back the likes of the Rock, which is that you draw attention to the company’s failure to create stars of similar magnitude in the years since.
