House to Astonish Episode 120
It’s a big week for movie news, as House to Astonish looks at the Guardians of the Galaxy trailer, the potential Black Widow movie and the Fantastic Four casting, as well as ReedPop’s new New York convention and the May solicitations (no, we didn’t do Dark Horse, but you could probably write those yourself). There are also reviews of Undertow, New Warriors and Loki: Ragnarok and Roll, and the Official Handbook of the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe is a horny devil. All this plus Oprah’s Skrulls, an intervention for a comics company and All-New Steeltown Rockers.
The episode is here, or here on Mixcloud, or available via the player below. Let us know what you think, in the comments below, on Twitter, via email, or through our Facebook fan page, and don’t forget about our super-cool shirts available at our Redbubble store.
If everything from the 80s is being collected, then why not Crystar: Crystal Warrior.?
I would have thought the Dr Doom stories being put into that Marvel Rarities volume would have gone with Super Villain Team-Up, when(/if) that eventually appears in the Masterwork line.
Isn’t Crystar, like ROM, a licensed property that Marvel can’t reprint for legal reasons?
Believe it or not, SAGA OF CRYSTAR: CRYSTAL WARRIOR #1 was reprinted in the first volume of the 1980s Firsts series (along with gems like JACK OF HEARTS and CONTEST OF CHAMPIONS).
The reason Bendis’ creator owned books aren’t talked about is because he can’t actually be bothered to write them.
No, no, Doctor Sun was the old Tomb of Dracula villain, the disembodied brain guy. I think you’re thinking of Lightmaster, Z-level Spectacular Spider-Man villian.
@Al…
I’m not sure I do believe you, but then again… Why would anyone lie about a thing like that.
Btw I actually liked Crystar.
Omar: Amazingly, Crystar was one hundred percent Marvel. I think they looked at all the development they had done for GI Joe/Transformers/ROM/Micronauts and decided they wanted to make one of their own and then outsource the toys.
A lot of those #1’s in that book are quite entertaining. Iwould not want a book of just those, but still…
It seems like it has been quite a while when the three reviews were mildly positive at best.
I would not mind an Espionage heavy BlackWidow picture, maybe with somoelike Gina Carano or Rhonda Rousey stunt casted as Yelena.
DAKOTA NORTH is kind of interesting as one of Tony Salmons’ only long works (along with a VIGILANTE mini-series at DC). Mostly he did fill-ins and one-shots, which usually looked interesting when they weren’t buried under an incompatible inker. So it’s on my list of back issues to pick up. Kind of far down that list, but on there.
But no, I’m not going to buy a $45 book just to get the first issue of it, when I can probably get all five for $1 each.
STEELTOWN ROCKERS is 1990, so that’s still to come I guess. I actually have #1, since it came out just after I read Elaine Lee’s STARSTRUCK, and Steve Leialoha’s art is always good looking. I can’t remember if I decided not to buy more, or just never saw more and had that decision taken from me. That was the era when stores stocking shelf copies of everything from Marvel stopped being a given.
I think DC has long since given up the “New 52” branding meaning 52 books a month. So the New 52 is now no longer new and no longer 52.
“Four Bondings and An Exorcism”: We start off with a wacky romantic comedy involving Mephista, Satana, Lilith Mother of All Demons, and Umar…
…..
I think one of the things about presenting GotG (and the MCU films) as a FUN movie isn’t just in comparison to the DC films like MOS, but also compared to the other studios’ Marvel movies — think of how dark Fox’s X-Men movies have been, for example (and how reticent they’ve been to include things like traditional costumes).
I liked Paul’s point about the family angle in the Johnny/Sue casting. My curiosity upon hearing about the mixed-race issue was simply that it made things more complicated from a narrative point of view — why set up something that needs time to explain away when so much already needs to be set up in two hours when things could be so much more easily done by also casting a black Sue? It’s struck me as odd that so much of the internet press has assumed that fandom is complaining about a black Johnny when we’re really questioning a white Sue! 😉
Having a Black Widow solo movie would be cool, not only for the genre and gender factors (ha! see what I did there?), but for the experiment of how much could be set up (character and story-wise) for it over the course of IRON MAN 2 to AVENGERS to CAPTAIN AMERICA 2 to AVENGERS 2 to BLACK WIDOW without us even yet realizing it. The shared-universe that you see in your NEW WARRIORS review could work just the same in a film here (indeed, I still think it could work in a CAPTAIN MARVEL film, if Carol Danvers is introduced as a background character in AVENGERS 2 while the Kree play their role in GotG…).
I share Al’s opinion about New Warriors needing to be double sized or over sized. It’s a problem I’ve had with every All new now book but X-Factor and Black Widow, Marvel is giving you so little and expecting you to pay $4 then come back in two weeks to pay another $4 for what amounts to 1 issue of story. Image nailed launching several books like Saga with oversized issues.
The other weird about Dakota North is it was written by Martha Thomases, who went on to be a long time DC staffer in the 90s.
On the Cyclops issue:
I may be one of the few people who actually like Cyclops’s current status qwo and direction. He is a man who used to be trained to be a fighter and a leader, fell in love with Jean and ended marrying an evel clone of hers, got possessed by Apocalypse, started showing signs of darkness when he fell in love with Emma, got possessed again by the Phoenix force and got power hungry. (mind that some of the above may be wrong, i did it by memory). I can safelly say that I expected him to go full on Magneto Jr. after everything. I like this Cyclops, who is no longer a boyscout but a man who can finally be himself and lead to something new. I hope they don’t revert him or even worse kill him
The Fantastic Four is a washed up concept. Hickman’s run was slightly imaginative, but it was still a Kirby’s Greatest Hits parade.
They need to retire the book and leave them as ancillary characters.
Oh yeah, Tony Salmons did some fill-in issues of GI Joe in the late 80s and they were bloody awful. Partly because it looked like the inker didn’t have a clue what to do with them.
There’s a very good interview with Salmons up at the Factual Opinion blog conducted by Michel Fiffe. In it, Salmons comes off as… well, Tuckaloo’s place is a good fit for him.
Count me among the folks who like Cyclops’ status quo – it’s the logical follow-though for a character who has always been completely focused on the Mutant Question and completely consumed by questions of his own guilt (earned or unearned). It makes him a unique sort of leader in the Marvel Universe, not a charismatic one but one who is ultimately dedicated to the cause (and one who is so studied to have made a tactical expert out of himself).
One of the key things about Scott, I think, is that he is biologically a gun — and one that the safety on broke during childhood. As such, he can only imagine being in wartime. Not that he LIKES that — he HATES war, he sees the death and turmoil and damage to his friends and family while neutral parties stand idly by. I can imagine that he and Magneto get along not just because of the Mutant Issue itself, but because Scott can understand what every war-torn civilian in end-thirties Europe felt like watching the Nazis roll in crying out for American aid and getting nothing when they see the Avengers & SHIELD watch mutants be hunted down in the street.
Scott is an amazing example of a broken, broken human being who is fighting because the war — and the resistance — is all he knows, but because doing the right thing and being slandered as a monster is all he can do. Having him actually be what Magneto claims that he is (although, as Morrison pointed rightfully out, went far beyond decades ago) is PERFECT in the Marvel Universe. Rather than another gun-toting militant like Cable or Bishop, having Cyclops be that side of Xavier’s Dream, the *actual* reflection of a weary Malcolm X and such in a hostile world, is just wonderful.
That’s what makes me fearful of Teen Tony-ing Scott with the Rucka series. First, I hope that Bendis hasn’t brought Corsair back in All-New X-Man without thinking through that he actually DID die (a la not quite explaining how characters escaped the Cancerverse). Now just to see if Hepzibah becomes the stereotypical Rucka Female Protagonist… 😉
Fantastic Four needs to have them exploring new places – not going back to the negative zone or the microverse or Latveria again and again. They had the macroverse a while back, but was that actually in Amazing Spider-man? Millar’s run, underwhelming as it was, introduced the artificial Earth…but ultimately ended up as another story of Doom becoming more powerful. Maybe a big part of it repeatedly doing the greatest hits is down to it getting a new creative team every year or two; they start a run and build up to something familiar they’ve wanted to do their take on instead of sticking around and introducing new ideas.
I’m also a fan of the long-game they’ve been playing with Cyclops. It’s nice to see a character who actually evolves along with continuity without being overly dragged down by baggage (eg. Cable).
Mephista appeared in X-Factor as Jezebel, isn’t that right? Will be curious to see if she appears down the line following the current Dr. Strange arc in New Avengers. (selling his soul, and what not)
“Fantastic Four needs to have them exploring new places.”
No, it needs to be canceled, because there are no new ideas and new places they can go. The concept had been thoroughly milked 50 years ago.
What, the end of the original Galactus story?
Byrne’s run was only 30 years ago, but obviously opinions vary.
Paul Cornell had the FF travel into the World of Literature just five years ago, and I’m pretty sure they hadn’t been there before.
Come to think of it, Earth-2 isn’t much like the Golden Age of DC, or even the Silver Age idea of the Golden Age characters, either.
Robinson strikes me as the sort of writer who would write FF as a love letter to Lee and Kirby … but would take on board Kirby’s famous comment that doing something in his style should mean doing something new.
According to Marvel Wiki, Sun Girl’s dad is Lightmaster. No, me neither.
Lightmaster!!! From the Spec Spidey college years with the (proper) White Tiger and all his kung fu pals! He looked like a bar of chocolate with all those radiating lines, only if the chocolate was a lightbulb!
*I* remember Lightmaster. Or possibly Light-Master.
//\Oo/\\
Galactus love Sam Ruby: http://www.samruby.com/Villains/Lightmaster/lightmaster.htm
//\Oo/\\
That Fantastic Four thing is hilarious. Sure, that guy’s made out of stone, but a black guy with a white sister, whaaaat? That would mean one of their parents was white, and at different times procreated with a white person and a black person! Impossible!
“Paul Cornell had the FF travel into the World of Literature just five years ago, and I’m pretty sure they hadn’t been there before.”
Oh yes, that classic storyarc that absolutely nobody remembers except you.
Character race doesn’t matter to me. What I REALLY want to see in a FF movie is Kirby technology and krakle in Imax 3-D.
Hi, guys, good podcast, I just found you googling. Keep the good work.
Greetings from Spain.
Wait… That purple guy Nova was fighting… Was that HYBRID from Rom? I think it is. I appreciate all the nods to old stories in this, but give people something to go on. Even Bova didn’t get a name check.
Hi people if you can’t earn any money online try – bluehand roulette system – it earns me extra money everyday,
just google it