Charts – 26 May 2023
Apparently it’s late-career hit week on the singles chart. But first…
1. Calvin Harris & Ellie Goulding – “Miracle”
That’s week seven. One more week for it to match “One Kiss” as Calvin Harris’s longest-running number one. “Daylight” by David Kushner returns to number 2 for a fourth week, after getting pushed down to 3 last time.
9. Lana Del Rey – “Say Yes to Heaven”
Lana Del Rey did have hit singles right at the start of her career – “Video Games” made number 9 in 2011, and “Born To Die” did the same the following year. In fact, that’s as high as she’s ever got with a regular single. Technically she has three higher placed singles to her credit – the 2013 remix of “Summertime Sadness”, which reached number 4; her inexplicable collaboration with Ariana Grande and Miley Cyrus on “Don’t Call Me Angel (Charlie’s Angels)”, which got to number 2 in 2019; and her guest appearance on Taylor Swift’s “Snow on the Beach”, which reached number 4 last year. But she hasn’t had a top 40 hit with one her own records since “Lust For Life”, which scraped the bottom of the chart in 2017.
The X-Axis – w/c 22 May 2023
Just one core book this week, so we’re straight on to the capsules.
X-MEN UNLIMITED INFINITY COMIC #88. By Steve Orlando, Emilio Laiso & Rachelle Rosenberg. Okay, so this is clearly us building to the big finale. Nature Girl has finally moved beyond eco-terrorism to outright atrocity, and the real X-Men finally show up to deal with her. It’s straightforward, and at this point Nature Girl isn’t what you’d call a subtle character – her back story and her previous established persona is doing a lot of the work here by providing some context for her. Laiso’s art, meanwhile, works hard to invest us in the mega-obscure Spider-Girl. As is often the case with X-Men Unlimited, it’s more of a scene than a story, but on a weekly schedule there’s nothing wrong with that.
NEW MUTANTS: LETHAL LEGION #3. (Annotations here.) I’m counting this as a core title because it’s basically a continuation of New Mutants, but if we’re being honest, we’re on the fringes of Krakoan continuity here too. It remains very much a book centred on Charlie Jane Anders’ new character Escapade, which I don’t really have a problem with, since I quite like Escapade – but the established cast are getting marginalised. The middle section has some awkward cutting back and forth between scenes mid-page, which might have worked better if they were coloured more distinctively from another, but winds up feeling a bit confused at times. Still, this is mostly good fun as things start escalating at Nefaria’s Mansion, with a bit of soap opera for Escapade, Morgan and Cerebella thrown in. There’s a lot of personality in both writing and art, and it’s a very likeable series.
House to Astonish Presents: The Lightning Round Episode 14
It’s time for another electrifying set of issues of Marvel’s most wanted superteam, the Thunderbolts, as we look at Thunderbolts Annual 2000, as well as Thunderbolts #38 and #39. Scourges! Hellstroms! Citizens V! It’s very much all go, as the storyline begun in issue 34 continues along its twisty-turny path.
The episode can be found here, or via the embedded player below. Let us know what you think, in the comments, via email, on Twitter or Mastodon, or on our Facebook fan page! And do you know what would really bring out your eyes? A House to Astonish T-shirt. It’s true!
New Mutants: Lethal Legion #3 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
NEW MUTANTS: LETHAL LEGION #3
“Old Wounds, Old Weapons”
Writer: Charlie Jane Anders
Penciller: Enid Balám
Inker: Elisabetta D’Amico
Colourist: Matt Milla
Letterer: Travis Lanham
Design: Tom Muller with Jay Bowen
Editor: Sarah Brunstad
COVER / PAGE 1. Count Nefaria stands over the defeated cast.
PAGES 2-3. Karma, Mirage and Galura arrive at Count Nefaria’s mansion.
“Well, this is where Cerebro said we’d find those kids.” Last issue, Dani and Xuân were looking for Cerebella and Scout, and learned that they’d gone off-island with Escapade. Evidently they really don’t trust the trio’s judgment, since for all they know, they might have just gone to visit home.
“Do you ever miss it Karma? Being a billionaire?” Karma inherited the Hatchi Corporation upon the death of Susan Hatchi in Astonishing X-Men vol 3 #56 (2012). She claims here to have given it all away “long ago … before Krakoa”. In fact, although it was only mentioned intermittently in later years, it featured prominently in the miniseries New Mutants: Dead Souls, and she was still rich during the Matthew Rosenberg run (see Uncanny X-Men vol 5 #18), which is immediately before Krakoa. Admittedly, it hasn’t been mentioned during the Krakoan era, which at the very least suggested that she had handed the running of the business off to somebody else.
Charts – 19 May 2023
It’s the post-Eurovision chart, and for once, there’s a real impact in the top ten. But first…
1. Calvin Harris & Ellie Goulding – “Miracle”
…this gets a fairly comfortable sixth week at number one. Still another two weeks to go before it matches “One Kiss” as Calvin Harris’s longest running number 1.
Embedding doesn’t seem to be working right now, so I’ll just do links. You know how to open in a new window, after all.
It’s not unusual for tracks from Eurovision to show up in the top 40 in the following week, but their sales and streams tend to be frontloaded in the days after the contest. This year, four songs make the chart, but they all had actual sustained success and wind up in the top 10 – they’re legitimate hits. Part of that may be because the viewing figures were high this year, possibly because it was held in the UK (subbing for last year’s winner Ukraine). Part of it may be that the standard was unusually high.
The X-Axis – w/c 15 May 2023
A nice quiet week, for once.
X-MEN vol 6 #22. (Annotations here.) This is evidently meant to be the Orchis spotlight issue – only half of the X-Men appear, and it’s mostly focussing on the plans of Orchis. Thing is, I’m not sure that Duggan’s take on Orchis really has enough depth to it to sustain this. They feel like they’re all basically the same character doing the same thing. That wasn’t quite the case under Hickman, when a big part of Orchis’s role was to be a mirror of Krakoa. We seem to have abandoned that angle, and I’m not really convinced that anything much has come in to replace it. As a plot angle, “the Krakoan drug supply is contaminated, ruining the mutants’ reputation and their economic leverage” is fine – but the Orchis characters aren’t very interesting at this point.
X-FORCE vol 6 #40. (Annotations here.) It still feels like a weird choice to spend years building up Beast’s scheming in X-Force and then pay it off in Wolverine. This issue sees Sage’s new team dragged off to the future by Kid Omega to deal with assorted Beast variants planted throughout the timeline by… well, apparently by another future variant Beast. I suppose this is kind of sort of their showdown with Beast, but it feels far too much like busy work designed to occupy the characters instead of having their storyline actually pay off in their own series. It feels terribly placeholder to me.
X-MEN UNLIMITED INFINITY COMIC #79. By Steve Orlando, Emilio Laiso & Rachelle Rosenberg. So that leaves this as the best X-book of the week, as Eye Boy tries to talk some sense into Nature Girl, and get precisely nowhere with it. We’re clearly going here with the idea that X-Men Green’s eco-terrorism is such an extreme overreaction that it has to be attributed to Curse’s influence – which is the back door that makes Lin Li redeemable – but leaving open the possibility that maybe she has just snapped. She’s certainly an outright villain at this point, but bringing in Eye Boy as a likeable voice of reason to put that point beyond doubt is an effective choice.
X-Force #40 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
X-FORCE vol 6 #40
“The Ghost Calendars, part 1”
Writer: Benjamin Percy
Artists: Robert Gill and Paul Davidson
Colourist: GURU-eFX
Letterer: Joe Caramagna
Design: Tom Muller with Jay Bowen
Editor: Mark Basso
COVER / PAGE 1. X-Force leap into action in a futuristic city – with Beast in the background rather than Kid Omega, but that’s spoilers being avoided in the solicitations, I expect. If you want, you could claim he’s sort of symbolically looming over them? Deadpool doesn’t go on this mission either, but heck, it’s a cover.
PAGES 2-6. Quentin Quire briefs X-Force and takes them into the future.
This picks up from the end of the previous issue. X-Force have just dealt with a bunch of Beast’s genetic experiments who were dumped on Krakoa by Sevyr Blackmore, hence all the body parts lying around. Then the older Quentin Quire emerged through a portal, sliced off a giant tentacle thingy that was reaching after him, and announced that he needed X-Force’s help.
X-Men #22 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
X-MEN vol 6 #22
“Bring on the Bad Guys”
Writer: Gerry Duggan
Artist: Joshua Cassara
Colourist: Marte Gracia
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Design: Tom Muller with Jay Bowen
Editor: Jordan D White
COVER / PAGE 1. Pin-up of Orchis. Specifically, from left to right, that’s Feilong, Omega Sentinel, Nimrod, Dr Stasis, the Wolverine-skeleton Sentinel seen later in the issue, M.O.D.O.K., and two of the ape scientists who’ve occasionally been seen among Orchis ranks.
PAGES 2-4. Omega Sentinel meets with Opal Vetiver.
Omega Sentinel. It’s been a while since Karima actually did anything – she was prominent as an Orchis adviser in the Hickman run but she’s done essentially nothing in the time since he left.
Charts – 12 May 2023
Well, Ed Sheeran has a new album out, and we all know what that means.
Oh, hold on.
1. Calvin Harris & Ellie Goulding – “Miracle”
That’s a total of five weeks, albeit with a one-week interruption by Lewis Capaldi in the middle. That overtakes “Love Me Like You Do” to be Ellie Goulding’s longest running number one. (Calvin Harris’s record is eight weeks, with “One Kiss”.) The midweeks have it holding on for a sixth week.
9. The Krown Jewelz – “Scrap the Monarchy”
The X-Axis – w/c 8 May 2023
FREE COMIC BOOK DAY 2023: AVENGERS / X-MEN #1. This came out last weekend, but as in previous years, Marvel have already put it on Marvel Unlimited. After all, it’s relevant to the plot. Well, kind of. As we’ve come to expect, it’s basically three teaser stories. “Prescribed Burn” by Gerry Duggan, Joshua Cassara and Marte Gracia is a flash forward to this year’s Hellfire Gala, and a mystery figure from Orchis attacking the Treehouse and stealing the Captain Krakoa costume. That leads directly into “Controlled Demolition” – Duggan again, Javier Garrón and Morry Hollowell – in which “Captain Krakoa” starts making trouble in Washington, and a bunch of Iron Man-themed Sentinels make their debut (which builds on a storyline from Duggan’s Iron Man). It’s… you know, it’s basically a trailer and we know the key plot points will all be repeated when the actual story comes out. But you can’t really say much more than that about it. If I’m being honest, I’m a lot more interested in the general “Fall of X” storyline than I am in more specific things like the return of Uncanny Avengers, a book which always felt like an awkward exercise in corporate synergy to me. But we’ll see how it goes. Rounding it out is literally a few pages of G.O.D.S. by Jonathan Hickman, Valerio Schiti and Marte Gracia, which truly is just a trailer fragment.
X-MEN: RED #11. (Annotations here.) This is a very talky issue – Storm and Craig Marshall go on a date for five pages, and then for the main event Storm talks with Professor X for ten straight pages. There’s a B-plot, and it’s mainly talking. And it’s all great, of course, because Al Ewing is consistently great at finding insightful little angles on his characters, and leveraging continuity to make it serve those character moments in a way that feels organic. Stefano Caselli and Jacopo Camagni deserve credit too for making it visual – the current Professor X design naturally obscures most of his face and there’s something quite effective about having him lose his composure anyway. The double page montage is also a really good way of representing memory fragments, particularly in the way that the panels are taken out of context, broken up, and so forth. And, yes, there are some flashback panels thrown in just to break up the talking heads, but that’s what you do. Clearly, this dovetails somewhat with the Storm spotlight issue in Immortal X-Men, in which she recognises the need to take steps to guard against the state of the Quiet Council, and confidently marches off in completely the wrong direction. This issue is a lot more ambiguous about her decisions – she’s clearly right in most of her criticisms of Professor X, but turning her back on him feels like it’s heading towards another case of Storm managing to position herself in the wrong place at the wrong time.
