House to Astonish Episode 217
Paul and I have a lot of news for you this time round, as we remember Tatjana Wood, and talk 3 Worlds 3 Moons, Hulk War, Terminal, M.A.S.K., Skate Ali, Odin, Avengers/JLA, Jays of Future Past and Concrete: Stars Over Sand. We’ve also got reviews of The Peril of the Brutal Dark: An Ezra Cain Mystery and The Punisher, and the Official Handbook of the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe appears subject to work commitments. All this plus the octopus that predicts the football results, donkey cigars and one unit of entertainment.
The episode is here, or available through the player below. Let us know what you think, in the comments, on Bluesky, or via email.
(Also, I know the Vertigo book I was thinking of was End of Life rather than The Living End, it was late and I was tired)
Imperial did not feel important, especially the distance from the mainline. Xavier not turning up after derailing the X books and killing the greymalkin storyline which was the only link between the books. And worse hulk whose presence made no sense with the current status quo or any recent run. Just a random smart hulk who is working with Jen and brawn.
The wakandan empire has never felt part of Black Panther world. And no big bad to really hold this together like in annihilation or conquest.
If the wanted to split the kree skull alliance, the would have been better with a young avengers reboot or a captain marvel, FF, Wanda, or avengers crossover or story line so we could at least spent time on Teddy and how it impacts him.
As soon as Al said it, I got his Pinocchio’s reference. Love it!
Miles Morales is a superhero with spider-themed powers, such as turning invisible and having a sword made of lightning.
With Hickman, I think he needs focus. Krakoa was Mutants. Ultimate was Reimagining the setting from scratch. Gods was background characters from various cosmic/magic/scifi stories, that didn’t really belong to any flavour of Marvel books. Imperial was a whole bunch of unrelated things … in space.
Or to look at it another way, Krakoa derailed X-Men lore. Imperial derailed the lore of Hulk, She-Hulk, X-Men, Young Avengers, Captain Marvel, the list goes on.
With the Wakanda space empire, the problem is concept clash. The country of Wakanda is a tiny, isolationist nation that keeps its advanced science from the rest of the world. The empire is thousands of entire planets, strutting boldly across the galactic stage, but also still only a tiny isolated bit of Earth.
Also, the linking thing being that vibranium is rare on Earth, making Wakanda what it is. And vibranium is rare in space, and by huge coincidence the Wakanda empire somehow owns all the planets that have it. There’s not a single moon in Shiar space with vibranium? No huge asteroids within Kree orbit?
Tower, Timeshadow, Paul Roma and Jeff Jarrett
That’s an OHBOFTOHBOTMU team
Wasn’t Intergalactic Wakanda from Ta-Nehsi Coates? I thought Hickman just made a brief, polite nod towards it in Imperial, and added almost nothing original there. It isn’t like Gods or Krakoa where he made significant concepts central to the stories.
I don’t think Imperial did much with Black Panther, but while dismantling the Kree/Skrull alliance, it would have been a positive, in my opinion, if they also dissolved space Wakanda.
Substack…. yeah don’t have time for that.
The Lanterns trailer is out. Looks polarizing.
It did seem to be missing any magic wishing rings
This is probably very pedantic of me, especially since I don’t even care that much about the character, but as I understand it, Philip Marlowe’s actually pretty well read and I think plays chess; it just rarely comes up.
People keep forgetting about Stinger’s appearances in recent books, because they’re always after the credits.
I haven’t looked at Substack in a while, but when there was that big push and they gave money to a bunch of comics people you could see the subscription numbers and there’s no way any of them are making much money.
Actually, I went and looked again and the current most subscribed in the comics section, 3 Worlds / 3 Moons is #1 with “Over 38,000 subscribers” (paid and free). It has an orange checkmark which means “thousands of paid subscribers”.
#2 is Scott Snyder with “31K+ subscribers” and what I believe is a white checkmark which means “hundreds of paid subscribers.”
Beyond those two, there are thirteen others with checkmarks, so doesn’t seem to be much money there. Cost per month seems to be $5-$8. And like, 1000 people paying you $8 a month isn’t nothing, but also if it’s supposed to be supporting more than one person it doesn’t seem sustainable.