RSS Feed
May 9

House to Astonish Episode 132

Posted on Saturday, May 9, 2015 by Al in Podcast

It’s a relatively quiet week for comics news, but Paul and I have got a bit of chat for you regardless, as we look at the announcement of We(l)come Back at Boom!, the CBLDF’s new “Comics Connector” programme, the cancellations and renewals of a bunch of Marvel and DC TV shows and Bill Jemas’s new Ultimate imprint (now with added zombies!). We’ve also got reviews of Secret Wars and Swords of Sorrow, and the Official Handbook of the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe treads lightly, for it treads upon your dreams. All this plus Mike Deodato the Multiple Man, a garage with stairs and the Conspiracy Theory Channel.

The podcast is here, or here on Mixcloud, or available via the 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 our Redbubble store, where we can help you finally look as good as you feel.

 

Bring on the comments

  1. Martin Smith says:

    I suppose we could all be reincarnated as deep sea creatures.

    I’m surprised Sky didn’t poach Agent Carter. They love snapping up shows from terrestrial channels. It’s a fun show, so I’m glad it’s getting a second series.

  2. Given their relative sizes, I feel like it would make more sense for the Hulk to throw Colossus.

    As for why destroying the Earth destroys an entire universe–uh, something, something, Molecule Man. …All right, a well-detailed summary would have helped more than just the readers who hadn’t been following Hickman’s Avengers. I followed the whole thing, and I’m still a bit vague on some of the finer points.

  3. FallenAngel says:

    I get the feeling that the uncursions just happen on separate Earths, not that destroying the Earth causes the destruction of the entire universe.
    In one of the Avengers books, the Shi’ar caught on to what was happening, and sent their armada to destroy the planet Earth. If there was no planet Earth in that universe, there would be no incursion event.
    That gives the implication that it’s not destroying Earth that destroys the universe, that’s just the impetus for it.

  4. Stu West says:

    Bill James’s comics line sounds like it was named after objects you might interact with in a ’90s point and click adventure game.

  5. Stu West says:

    Bill James. Thank you autocorrect. This new comics mogul is the brother of Richey James; his first comic will be called 4 REAL and will feature a hero whose costume is made out of a pair of leopard-skin curtains.

  6. Dave says:

    FallenAngel: I think that ONCE AN INCURSION HAS BEGUN, destroying the ‘other’ Earth saves your universe. It doesn’t destroy the other universe, it allows it to happen, AFTER it already started.

    Does the Secret Wars #0 issue give a decent recap?

  7. Dave says:

    Ah, just got to the mention of issue 0.

  8. Chris says:

    I think the earth being the focal point as something to do with that whole nexus of all realities stuff over in the old Man-Thing comics… and Portal…. and A.R.M.O.R. and whatever.

  9. Martin Smith says:

    But Chuck Austen made it clear that it’s really Havok who is the Nexus of all realities. Or one of them.

    You know what, I’d love it if Secret Wars ended with the Exiles saving the day. Blink just walks up to the Illuminati/Cabal people and shouts ‘what are you playing at?” while Morph deus ex machinas a solution.

  10. M says:

    As Dave says, if the two Earthes collide during an incursion both of their universes are destroyed, if you destroy one of the Earthes before that can happen then there’s no collision and both universes are spared (other than that planet you destroyed and anyone who was on it).

    So, Earth is a cosmically unique place in the Marvel multiverse. Not like that’s new, but it does make you wonder why it’s not subject to even more attempts at alien conquest or destruction than it is.

    Not real clear what it is you have to destroy to prevent the collision. If you blow the planet apart, all the pieces are still there. But anyway it works.

    Shouldn’t Earthlings in a lot of these universes just relocate and blow up the planet? Between Reed, Doom, the High Evolutionary, a Cosmic Cube, the Infinity Gauntlet, umpteen interstellar or extra-dimensional empires there are plenty of ways.

  11. M says:

    PS I hope Kitty’s cosmically enhanced phasing power plays absolutely no role.

    One, that was a stupid change.

    Two, what a stupid cop out that’d be. Like in all the multiverse none of the superscientists, magic users, alien civilizations or god-like people and entities tried to phase or teleport the planet.

    Three, Shadow Mare already did the phase the whole planet trick in Power Pack.

  12. Chris says:

    M stole the idea from me.

    And I count it as a plot hole!

    The High Evolutionary built a duplicate earth and half the New Avengers have been there!

    No one thought of this?

    Hickman even took Reed to Miller’s Nu Earth

  13. Chris V says:

    The Uncanny Avengers team are on Counter-Earth right now, in their comic book.

    No, Secret Wars #0 did not contain any sort of decent recap for events, really. It’s just a short story where Reed’s daughter briefly explains what happens with the incursion events, and mentions that the Ultimate Universe and Earth-616’s universe are the only two left.

  14. Chris says:

    I remember when Ultimate comics were not part of the Marvel meta-continuity

  15. M says:

    1) All credit to Chris. For the pragmatically altruistic solution to incursions.

    2) Last two of a formerly infinite number of Earths. Probably mathematically possible if incursions happen at an exponentially increasing pace, but still.

    3) Once the trades come out, if I’m still interested, I’m going to want to know what the minimal set is for this story without extraneous build-up or crossover.

  16. M says:

    What did they have to cut to air Buffy?

  17. Jamie says:

    Jonathan Hickman needs to stop trying to write like Grant Morrison. He is no good at it.

  18. Bruce Baugh says:

    Paul, I was pleased by your reaction to Secret Wars #1. I read the Prelude collection of relevant stories selected from the original Secret Wars through to bits of Hickman’s runs of recent years and then #1 and…I was lost. (I also had a severe reaction of unhappiness to the characterization of the Illuminati – as I told a friend, I’m not averse to reading about interesting characters of this sort, but I expect them to be named Fu Manchu or R’as al-Ghul.)

  19. Jerry Ray says:

    I’ve seen the contents of that Secret Wars Prelude TPB, and off the cuff, it seems like a pretty random set of issues. I don’t know that it would really help with understanding the intricacies of this story.

    I’ve read all the Hickman Avengers stuff (monthly), so I guess I get the general gist, but I’m sure there are subtleties that would emerge if you read it all in one setting. Offhand, I can’t really remember the significance of a lot of the concepts that factored into the story (the Ex Nihilo things, the New Universe characters, the mapmakers, etc.).

    I suppose that stuff is not really all that important to understand Secret Wars, but it does kind of seem like releasing the content of #1 as a one-shot capstone to the Avengers runs and launching point to the crossover would have made a little more sense (except maybe from a sales perspective).

  20. Chris says:

    I’ve assumed that most of the 77 issues is filled with filler and red herrings.

    and I read most of them. and Infinity.

  21. Chris says:

    Keep in mind that the schism between the Avengers in Hickman’s story was not driven explicitly by Dr Strange mindwiping Captain America but because Iron Man’s faction was destroying uninhabited worlds to prevents two universes each from being wiped out.

    And doubt that will have a bearing on story’s end

  22. quizlacey says:

    The Secret Ways FCBD issue was a very, very surface-level overview of the incursions, but it read as being very impenetrable to anyone coming into this as a new reader. (Yes, they do exist). Whatever possessed Hickman/Marvel to focus the story on the Future Foundation (hardly a recognisable group of characters) without any introduction to any of the characters who took up the page count is beyond me.

    Pun unintended.

  23. Dave says:

    I’ve read the Avengers arcs up to right before the 8 Months Later, and I haven’t really followed what was going on with Ex Nihilos, Starbrand, Mapmakers, etc. But I (think I) know what was going on with the incursions, and I’ve read about the Doom & Molecule Man involvement. Does Secret Wars #1 require you to know anything ‘beyond’ how the incursions work and how Doom and MM are involved? I think that could all have been covered in a (maybe 2-page) recap.
    It certainly seems to me like Secret Wars #2 will be the actual start of the main plot.
    Why didn’t they just make this ‘first’ issue #0, but also bill it as being the conclusion to Avengers?

  24. Paul C says:

    Part of me wishes that I had not read any Marvel comics for at least the past 5 years so that I could look at every single page of Secret Wars and be completely baffled as to what was going on. As it was I was only confused about half the time.

    I dropped New/Avengers about 6 months in and had to ask a friend who read them all to fill me in. He said it took him 5 attempts to read through them all and he still didn’t even follow all of what was going on.

    As many have rightly mentioned this either needed a decent recap page and/or be a stand alone one-shot. But it was a good issue, mainly helped by the excellent artwork that I am cautiously optimistic about what follows.

  25. Taibak says:

    Paul C: How can it be a good issue if people can’t follow the story?

  26. Jerry Ray says:

    Without having the issue in front of me, it seems like a lot of the comprehensibility problems with the issue come not from not understanding Hickman’s Avengers stuff, but rather from plain old confusing storytelling in a very packed issue.

    It was just kind of hard to tell who was doing what, and to what end, and where the action was taking place just because there wasn’t a lot of scene setting and stuff like that. (If you don’t happen to notice that the Ultimate characters speak in mixed case and the Marvel U characters speak in all uppercase, then it’s probably even more confusing.)

    The basic concept (putting aside the “why” aspect) is pretty straightforward – these two earths are smashing together, and if they touch, both universes will be destroyed, so each earth is trying to blow up the other one, or something. But if you’re coming in cold, it’s probably going to be hard to tell Ultimate from normal characters, or know what to make of the scenes with Doom/Strange/Molecule Man or Thanos and Terrax.

  27. Paul C says:

    @Taibak: I didn’t have to understand *everything* in order to enjoy the comic. I was able to get the general gist of things. For what was essentially one big fight scene it was paced really well. Plus as mentioned on the podcast Hickman got some of the ‘smaller’ moments dead on like the Punisher scene and the fast-ball special. Also such as he nailed the characterisation of both Reed Richards as well. Plus as I said above, the art was terrific. The level of detail that Ribic had on the pages, while dealing with a massive amount of characters, was just superb.

  28. Si says:

    Wikis have been around forever. Why don’t Marvel have little reference boxes like Stan Lee used to do, except have it say “see Avengers #234 on marvel.wiki.com”, then have recap pages of every issues, with one or two of the most dynamic frames on there. Don’t have the entire plot, just enough to be a hook. It would have to increase sales, as people get curious about the other issue from reading the recap.

  29. Rhett says:

    Starseed would have made a pretty great Runaways character.

  30. Jamie says:

    “Why don’t Marvel have little reference boxes like Stan Lee used to do, except have it say “see Avengers #234 on marvel.wiki.com””

    Because understanding the context doesn’t mean the story itself is any good.

    Avengers Forever by Busiek was basically continuity masturbation, but knowing that continuity wasn’t necessary for enjoying the story that was building told – it just added an extra little layer of appreciation if you did.

  31. Paul Fr says:

    I’m glad Martin Smith mentioned the Exiles up the comments thread. When I read the first New Avengers trade I thought of them. Something going wrong on a parallel earth having a cascading destructive effect? Pretty much why the Exiles were brought together in the first place. Anyone checked in on the Panoptichron? Aren’t Blink and Morph and Heather still running that gig?

    The next thought was why weren’t Roma, Saturnyne and the Captain Britain Corps involved since their whole deal is also the Multi-verse. At least that finally covered (as a background story point in a Spider-Verse tie-in) and the Corp did eventually get involved during ‘Time Runs Out’.

    (And as an aside, doesn’t Spider-Verse seem rather pointless now. All those Spider totems that were saved are now dead?)

    I didn’t mind Secret Wars #1 but I’d been following the Avengers stories through recaps so I had a generally good idea of what was going on there. I gave up on the Ultimate universe some time back so I have no idea what Ultimate Reed’s been up to over the years though, and he became a villain or something.

    If anything this reminds me of when House of M #1 came out, and I assumed that series would start in the altered world with the gaps to be filled in later.

  32. Martin Smith says:

    I’m surprised so many people are finding Secret Wars so incomprehensible, actually. It’s a Jonathan Hickman comic – surely there are loads of graphs and diagrams explaining everything?

  33. Niall says:

    I’m not finding it that difficult. I mean, there are things I don’t understand, but I’m happy to wait for them to be cleared up.

  34. Jamie says:

    But the issues in and of themselves are unsatisfying given how incomprehensible they are.

  35. Jerry Ray says:

    Thoughts on issue #2? I was surprised that it seemed to be just another trawl through a couple of corners of an alternate reality, a la House of M or Age of Apocalypse or 1602 or any of a dozen other stories. [Character] is in charge with [other characters] as his advisers/lackeys, and [some more characters] are remixed into new roles in the new world.

  36. Daibhid Ceannaideach says:

    I may have said this before, but it’s going to be fascinating to see, in 2017 or so, how Marvel UK deals with Secret Wars, given that they took one look at Hickman’s sprawling metaplot and said “Yeah, sod that, we’ll take Uncanny and Mighty, thanks.”

    I mean, assuming Secret Wars actually turns out to have consequences, and they can’t just skip it the way they did Age of Ultron.

  37. I don’t know a lot about Marvel UK, but looking at Age of Ultron and deciding to pass is a business strategy I can respect.

  38. The original Matt says:

    @M (sorry I’m late)

    Evacuating the planet and blowing up their own earth has apparently been done in alternate universes. The Black Swan recounted this to the Illuminati. She gave it a fancy name, and referred to it as a cowardly option. (I don’t know which issue, but somewhere between 4 and the start of infinity)

    My question is, if this had happened, then obviously the multiverse hasn’t collapsed? There’s alternate universes still out there but with no earth, right?

  39. Martin Smith says:

    @Daibhid It’s possible they’ll just try and run Secret Wars in the monthly titles with some editorial pages explaining what’s going on and maybe with a note saying that their trades of Hickman’s Avengers are out now.

    I’ve not actually read a Panini Collector’s Edition in about a decade, back before their trade department really got going. Do they actually promote the trades in there?

  40. Chris says:

    The original Matt, that is how I interpreted it.

    Frankly I’m a little insulted by writers presenting the death of the multiverse as a big deal… unlike DC’s old multiverse, popular franchise characters lived in regular settings that were clearly different from ones we were used to and we returned to them on a monthly or annual or bi-annual basis. And the big reason it was a multiverse instead of just different settings was so the Flashes could meet and then so the JSA and JLA could have a Crisis.

    Marvel’s multiverse consists of adventure towns. Each earth was essentially no more important than a place that Bill Bixby visited in THE INCREDIBLE HULK, or more appropriately, no more significant than the average place that the Starship Enterprise visited on a weekly place.

    And when the Ultimate Universe started it was basically stories not related to Marvel’s meta-continuity at all.

    Then Marvel Zombies and Squadron Supreme impied heavily, or explicitly hinted that they were all in one multiverse after all.

    Which still didn’t make the ultimate comics imprint very significant or its universe because by the time they were all revealed to co-exist the ultimate universe wasn’t so interesting in its own right, on its own terms and so many of their titles or characters were too out there, too redundant, or dead. And their titles were canceled.

    So I resent that Hickman is telling me that it is a big deal that the universe where all my favorite Marvel characters live is crashing into the universe where Miles Morales and only Miles Morales still a character with a title.

    I read one issue with Miles Morales in it. I got bored. I left.

    It might be fun if they crashed into Squadron earth.

    It might be more fun if they were about to collide with a pastiche of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

    But then again, that would only be REALLY fun if Jason Aaron had not written out Nick Fury… or if writers whose names I will never remember would stop telling me that Nick Fury Jr is interesting. You know, adapting the 616 comics to resemble movies anyway?

Leave a Reply