Charts – 5 May 2017
Blimey, this is getting positively eventful.
1. DJ Khaled featuring Justin Bieber, Quavo, Chance the Rapper & Lil Wayne – “I’m The One”
So after a long, long stretch of tedium, we’ve had four changes of number one in a row. Okay, one of those was Ed Sheeran going back to the top, but it counts! And this time it’s DJ Khaled, who’s had hit albums in America going back a decade. His only previous appearance in the UK singles chart was “For Free”, which made number 25 last year. That one had Drake on it, which is probably not a coincidence..
X-Men: Gold #1-3 – “Back to the Basics”
You can’t accuse “Back to the Basics” of false advertising. After years of the X-Men hiding out in Limbo, or mutants facing annihilation (twice), not to mention even more years of the X-Men being more of a community than a team, Marc Guggenheim is indeed writing a book with a format and cast that look like the 1980s.
The school still has a decent number of students, so in that sense there’s still a potentially large cast. But the X-Men – the actual X-Men – are back to being a small, defined team, made up entirely of characters who are over thirty years old.
Charts – 28 April 2017
Ed Sheeran’s “Shape of You” is no longer number one… for the second time. Maybe this time it’ll stick?
1. Clean Bandit featuring Zara Larsson – “Symphony”
“Symphony” has been on the chart for six weeks now, moving 6-4-3-4-2-1. It’s Clean Bandit’s third number one, after “Rather Be” and “Rockabye”. “Rockabye”, of course, was the number one before “Shape of You”, and it spent nine weeks at the top. So, aside from that single week of Harry Styles, it’s been nothing but Ed Sheeran and Clean Bandit at number one since mid-November. That’s coming up for six months.
Charts – 21 April 2017
Two weeks after Ed Sheeran’s “Shape of You” was finally deposed from number 1 after its thirteen week reign, how are things shaping up in the bold, post-Ed world?
1. Ed Sheeran – “Shape of You”
Oh.
Okay then.
So that’s fourteen weeks, non-consecutive, which matches the total of “Bohemian Rhapsody”. One more week to match “One Dance” and “Love is All Around”, each of which made 15 weeks without interruption. Bryan Adams is 16, and beyond that lies the seemingly unattainable 18 weeks of Frankie Laine’s “I Believe” from 1953. Who knows?
All-New Wolverine #13-18: “Enemy of the State II”
Despite the title, this really has very little to do with the original “Enemy of the State” storyline by Mark Millar and John Romita Jr. There’s the very loose general idea of Wolverine being used as a weapon… but in this six-issue storyline, that phase lasts for less than an issue. After all, the schtick of Laura as a brainwashed human weapon has been done. It’s her origin story.
Laura’s back story is not what you’d call subtle. It is relentlessly grim. You may have seen it recently being used in the Logan film, which is, shall we say, on the melancholy side as superhero movies go.
Charts – 14 April 2017
So I will, I assure you, get to the last outstanding X-Axis review – which is the “Enemy of the State II” arc from All-New Wolverine – pretty soon. But let’s do the topical post first. It’s taken fourteen weeks, but Ed Sheeran’s “Shape of You” finally throws in the towel. It goes down in the record books as the fourth longest-running number one in chart history, behind the 15 weeks of Drake’s “One Dance” and Wet Wet Wet’s “Love Is All Around” and the 16 weeks of Bryan Adams’ “(Everything I Do) I Do It For You”. There are still seven Sheeran songs on the chart this week, but they’re all going down, and “Dive” and “Supermarket Flowers” bid the top 40 farewell.
1. Harry Styles – “Sign of the Times”
Charts – 7 April 2017
We did a podcast this weekend! It’s one post down! Meanwhile, over in the UK singles chart, the era of Ed Sheeran glides serenely on…
1. Ed Sheeran – “Shape of You”
That’s 13 weeks at the top. And for the fifth straight week, the biggest challenge comes from Sheeran’s own “Galway Girl” at number 2. The rest of his chart domination is finally waning – other Sheeran tracks can be found at 6, 16, 22, 26, 29, 38 and 40. Drake settles for a mere three, all going down, so things really are returning to normal. It’s taken a while, though.
House to Astonish Episode 154
It’s been a busy couple of weeks, so we’ve got nearly an hour of chat about the comics news, including the sad death of Bernie Wrightson, the closing of ComicsAlliance, Marvel’s four-fold woes with digital code backtracking, artists vs writers, diversity and sales, and Ardian Syaf’s hidden messages, and the announcement of the New Warriors TV show. We’ve also got reviews of Royals and Eleanor and the Egret and the Official Handbook of the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe is a bit pony. All this plus the Wintercontinental Title, mufti X-Men and Fantastic Four: Gymkhana Girls.
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 don’t forget, it’s getting warm outside, and nothing says “I’m warm, but want to cover key areas of my torso” like a swanky House to Astonish t-shirt!
Old Man Logan #16-20 – “Return to the Wastelands”/”Gone Real Bad”
I’ve been taking stuff out of order so as to get the X-Men titles up to date for the relaunch. So it’s time to go back and pick up on the Wolverine books. “Return to the Wastelands” is a curious three-parter. At root, it has one very simple job to do, but it takes a strange route to get there.
The story opens with Logan waking up back in the Wastelands, the post-apocalyptic future he left behind. For the first two issues, it cuts back and forth between two plot. In the Wastelands, Logan returns to check up on the Hulk baby – Bruce Banner’s grandson – whom he left behind with Danielle Cage. Of course, somebody has wandered off with the baby, and it turns out to be Kang. Ostensibly thanks to Kang’s time distortion, the baby has now grown up to become an evil adult Hulk called the Warlord.
