Apr 20
House to Astonish Episode 218
Posted on Monday, April 20, 2026 by Al in Podcast
Paul and I are back with more comics waffle for you to gobble up, as we send good wishes to Adam Hughes, chew over Marvel’s layoffs and its wider malaise, and discuss DNX, Challenges of Doom, Clayface: Celebrity Dirt, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Dark Horse’s Marvel reprints and Jughead: Piemageddon. We’ve also got reviews of Fireborn and The Fury of Firestorm, and The Official Handbook of the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe has aged badly.
The podcast is here, or available via the player below. Let us know what you think, in the comments below, on Bluesky, or via email.
(And yes, my audio is all wonky – we had to record remotely for the first time in ages, and I didn’t set up my mic right. Sailor V, as they say.)
Marvel in recent years doe not feel like a shared universe which is was always it’s selling point above DC who at the moment really do. The clearest example was the Hulk appearing in imperial in a way that does not fit in is own book. But even with in lines there is no enough connective tissue such as between the x-books. The are some really good stories in isolation on Hulk, Thor, and FF but they don’t lift up any other books. Spidey is the only corner where things are hanging together a bit better, with Venom and Black Cat walking in out of the edges of ASM, A bit like Bat books are described above.
In DC at the moment there is a clear dialogue between JLU, Titans, Superman and the Flash and over recent years a handful of JLU mini’s that tie back to new watchtower.
But even then it is not the earth 1 books that are getting the spotlight it’s the alternate universe books in Absolute just like the Ultimate’s were at Marvel.
I think since neither Paul or Al or terribly familiar with Firestorm, they have neglected to mention the most interesting thing about the character, namely that he is an immensely powerful character whose only real limitation was that one half of him (the Ronnie Raymond half) was a mediocre high school student who didn’t know enough about chemistry and physics to properly wield his god-like powers.
Maybe they are most familiar with the outstanding John Ostrander run on Firestorm (which was the best Firestorm). Although, I believe the finale of Ostrander’s Firestorm was just ignored when DC decided to publish a Firestorm series again. I didn’t read that one, so maybe they explained it, but it seemed they simply ignored the Ostrander years and reset the character to his factory settings. The Ostrander issues might have been erased by Infinite Crisis or something, of course.
Then, there was the godawful New 52 relaunch, which…the less said, the better. I know Gail Simone was only scripting that awful mess, but it should show that Simone can do so much worse than her Uncanny X-Men. Yes, she could do far better too, but maybe we should be thankful for what we did not end up getting.
The Soviet Firestorm was during the Ostrander/Yale run, I think. But I don’t recall if they were writing it when Firestorm became the Fire elements,, during the time when they tried to tie people into the whole Swamp Thing elemental umbrella.
Yes, that was still during the Ostrander run. I’m not sure about Yale, but Ostrander was on Firestorm until issue #100, the final issue. I don’t believe Firestorm was seen again until after the year 2000, when DC kind of ignored what Ostrander had been doing with the character.
@Chris V- It’s complicated. After Martin Stein got separated from Ronnie at the end of Firestorm 100 and became Firestorm on his own, Ronnie regained his powers in the Extreme Justice series and joined the team which consisted of heroes like Booster Gold in ugly armor and Captain Atom. Ronnie operates on his own for a while as Firestorm. Then in Identiy Crisis Ronnie gets killed by the Shadow Thief and that sets up the next Firestorm series.
The new 52 Firestorm was about gail Simone proving liberals can play nice with conservative talent ethan van scriver and that’s the meta text driving the series. That was then, this is now. Scriver is a comicsgate troll too toxic for the big two. Moral of the story is don’t let you’re dipshit friends get in the way of a promising career.
I hope the Buffy series does a pleasant modernized version of the series without getting bogged down in the continuity of it. It’s about the allegory and relatable characters at the end of the day. Buffy fans don’t really seem the type to want to go the Trekkie route of demanding strict adherence to dawn of television era sixties-in-space continuity.
Of course, Ibissa could always become the official hero of…Ibiza
Al and Paul covered Calcium Master in a previous OHOTOHOTMU a few years ago! I remember it clearly because I thought tht bringing Calcium Master back in a new story has huge potential!