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.
Marvel Comics Presents #1-9: “The Vigil”
Well, this went wrong. Marvel Comics Presents was a format that worked in the eighties and nineties – the original run made it to issue #175 – but the market is no longer so friendly to anthologies. Marvel put some well known creators on this book, and put a Wolverine story in the lead slot – at a time when the character had only just returned from a lengthy (if largely notional) absence. But here we are, cancelled after issue #9.
That’s particularly awkward since Soule’s original announcement of this storyline described it as a twelve-parter. The final issue is extended, but it still seems to have lost some pages along the way.
(more…)New Mutants: War Children
Marvel’s 80th anniversary celebrations have spawned quite a few retro one-shots, ranging from the straightforwardly nostalgic to the barely fathomable. You certainly can’t dismiss it as a pure cash grab – nobody publishes a Ziggy Pig & Silly Seal one-shot because they expect it to rake in the profits.
One of the more welcome one-shots – for readers of a certain age, at any rate – is New Mutants: War Children, which reunited Chris Claremont and Bill Sienkiewicz for what amounts to a missing New Mutants Annual. Claremont and Sienkiewicz never did an annual during their run – New Mutants Annual #1 has a Sienkiewicz cover, but he didn’t do the interior art. So if you’re going to revisit a very specific run, this is certainly the way to do it.
(more…)Charts – 4 October 2019
Movement! Or rather, artificial movement! Because, in another of those weeks when the downweighting rule for older singles makes its presence a bit too glaringly obvious, Ed Sheeran’s “Take Me Back to London” reaches its tenth week on chart, and (having peaked a few weeks ago) promptly drops straight from 1 to 13. This rule needs some refining. Meanwhile…
1. Tones & I – “Dance Monkey”
(more…)House of X #6 annotations
As always, this post is full of spoilers, and page numbers are according to the digital edition. This is the final issue of House of X, but I’ll be reviewing it and Powers of X together once both are complete, since they’re functionally a single book.
COVER (PAGE 1): Storm, Emma Frost and Exodus, on Krakoa, with Storm apparently addressing an audience. There are more people watching from the balconies in the background.
PAGE 2: The epigraph simply has Professor X proclaiming an imperfect but good start. That applies not just to his plan with Krakoa, but to the Hickman run in general – House of X is more of an extended prologue to establish the Krakoan status quo than it is a story in itself. The line comes from the Council meeting scene later in the issue.
PAGES 3-7: One month ago, Professor X dons the Cerebro helmet and makes his speech to humankind – the one that he gave shortly before issue #1.
(more…)Wolverine Annual #1: “Acts of Evil”
It’s not all Jonathan Hickman! I mean, it’s mostly Jonathan Hickman, to be sure. But there were a smattering of other X-books out last week, miles off to the side of anything that might impinge on current continuity.
First up is this year’s Wolverine Annual #1, because this is Marvel, and you have to explain which Wolverine Annual #1 you mean. There have been four this century, only one of which was followed by Wolverine Annual #2. If you’re into legacy numbering, then by my count this is actually Wolverine Annual #10, although that’s over a 24 year period, which isn’t especially annual. And I couldn’t even be confident about that because it’s so hard to search for them.
(more…)Charts – 27 September 2019
Practically a dead week… but let’s run through it. “Take Me Back To London” by Ed Sheeran featuring Stormzy spends a fifth week at number one, with unspectacular sales/streams but a comfortable lead over the pack. “Taste (Make it Shake)” by Aitch is up to 2, and “Ride It” by Regard climbs into the top 10 at number 5 – overtaking the original Jay Sean version in the process, which only managed number 11. “Dance Monkey” by Tones & I also enters the top 10, by climbing to 7.
I don’t normally mention the fallers, but “Don’t Call Me Angel (Charlie’s Angels)” by Ariana Grande, Miley Cyrus and Lana Del Rey drops from 2 to 12 in its second week out, which is really quite unusual for a major release – this sort of first-week fanbase behaviour was common in the days of sales charts, but we don’t see it so much any more. Then we have a string on modest climbers: “Post Malone” by Sam Feldt featuring Rani (17-15), “Be Honest” by Jorja Smith featuring Burna Boy (18-16), “Outnumbered” by Dermot Kennedy (20-17), “Professor X” by Dave (24-19) and “Panini” by Lil Nas X (23-21), none of which particularly merit talking about. More notably, “Wiley Flow” by Stormzy vaults 37-22.
23. Lizzo – “Good as Hell”
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