House to Astonish Episode 145
After our diversion into the world of professional wrestling, we’re back to our regular comics chat this time out, with news of the sad and untimely death of Darwyn Cooke; the cancellation of Agent Carter; the renewal of Supergirl; the woes of Marvel’s Most Wanted; a bit of movie chat around Black Panther, Civil War, Suicide Squad and BvS; the end of Darth Vader; the upcoming Section 8 mini; and DC’s anti-sexual harassment measures. We’ve also got reviews of Punisher and Satellite Falling, and the Official Handbook of the Official Handbook of the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe is showing real growth potential. All this plus artisanal badger-baiting, the Muppet Babies of Star Trek and a man tap-dancing next to a kitten.
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Definitely had Young Enterprise down here in Gloucestershire. My year group’s Enterprise was the three-wash bootleg t-shirt Al’s always mentioning on Twitter.
Has to be “turn of the millennium”, surely? We didn’t have a new millennium just to waste it.
I think Bounty should get some swords and have a spiritual awakening and drive a Japanese drift-racing car. Otherwise, how will we know she’s cool?
Fantastically cool character, build up a lot, but eventually goes nowhere?
Why wasn’t she on Bendis’ Avengers?
She would’ve perfect as the babysitter of Danielle Cage!
Since Atwell has a new series on ABC the show being “saved” by anyone is a real pipe dream. Interest will have cooled by the time that show is cancelled or on a break.
Edmondson did the last Punisher. Punisher vs Los Angeles gangs. It was rather blah. It did feature Frank with friends that were still enlisted.
I joked the other day they should hire Hayley for Supergirl and kill twi birds with one stone.
Bounty sounds a lot like River Song.
I’ve said before that Turner D. Century should be revived as a hipster that has it in for people born before 2000. He rides a fixed-gear bicycle, has ironic dress sense, and facial hair. You’d have to time his revival right though, when hipsters are still a thing but when people born this century are actually old enough to have this make sense.
As for Netflix, they do want to attract new subscribers, but they also want to hold on to current ones. If there’s a big viewer base for Marvel TV shows, then having as many different shows along the same theme as possible is worth it so people don’t drop their subscriptions until the next show goes up.
We do have Bounty paper towels over here…or at least we did. I usually buy store-brand, but I THINK we still have them.
And Americans usually get a “learners’ permit” at 15 (meaning you can drive with an adult in the front passenger seat) and a full drivers’ license at 16. I know it sounds weird by UK standards, but given that we have no mass transit to speak of in any city with less than a half-million people, it’s basically a necessity.
Presumably, once she’s back to intergalactic work and in the right size category, Bounty will presumably enter into a will-they or won’t-they kind of relationship with professional rival, Death’s Head, which will last until she outgrows him.
Regarding the gamut of TV topics:
I don’t think moving to Vancouver will affect Supergirl badly – it is set in a generic fictional city after all. A CW effects budget doesn’t constrain Flash particularly. Losing Calista Flockhart would be a problem though.
Agent Carter being cancelled is disappointing, but given it’s all set in the past, it seems like the kind of show Marvel/ABC could just do as and when they feel like it (and Atwell is available), rather than having to keep to a yearly schedule.
Don’t underestimate the mainstream appeal of the Punisher. This is anecdotal admittedly, but I know at least a couple of people who only casually read comics (ie very rarely) who don’t subscribe to Netflix for the other Marvel shows but are dead keen on the Punisher having a solo series. I think the two Punisher films have given it cache in a subset of the audience that normal superhero films only lightly touch.
It’s kind of ironic that Marvel’s TV shows have the same standing that tie-in comics to TV and movies (and all Doctor Who spin-off media) have had for years. “It totally counts, just don’t expect it to ever be referenced in the ‘proper’ stories!'”.
I don’t think the divide between Agents of SHIELD and the films is too much of a problem though. The Inhuman element of AoS would only really have been relevant to Civil War if it had done the same Registration Act that the comic had, but it’s really more about just regulating the Avengers.
The lack of reference to the current version of SHIELD in all the films also makes sense because SHIELD is (again) top-secret so there’s no reason for anyone to have gone “I’ll call in Phil and all his super-powered operatives!” I think that’s quite a sensible working arrangement, as it allows them independence.
It’s always going to be a fun episode when I’m laughing out loud at the first thing Al says…
Also, just to pick at a nit, James Wan confirmed that he was still going forward with Aquaman just after the Seth Grahame-Fisher news broke.
BOUNTY! Gosh, there’s a character I haven’t thought about in years! What on EARTH is the change in height referring to? She was still hanging around when Carlos Pacheco took the book over from Claremont and Larocca, right, did he just draw her taller?
Wait, woah, I went to look it up and apparently she was only in half-a-dozen issues of Claremont’s FF? It felt like so much more back in the day! And then she just vanished? And turned back up in a Claremont Spider-Man annual the next year?
I think–for me at least–part of the reason it feels like Bounty hung around so long is that she blurs into the general assortment of Strong Femake Characters Claremont had hanging around the FF for his run, with Alyssa Moi and Caledonia.
Long-time listener, first-time commenter.
But I have recently read Claremont’s FF run on Marvel Unlimited, and I have to say that I admire your restraint in not addressing which exact Captain Britain counterpart Bounty was hunting.
And ONLY Claremont would shoehorn a strong, female alternate reality Captain Britain into the Fantastic Four’s supporting cast. Didn’t he even have the Technet show up?
Nightcrawler’s Mom popped up a few times too, IIRC.
There’s only one good Marvel multi-dimensional bounty hunter, yes?
To clarify from Zack’s comment, in the US you can get a Driver’s License at age 16. You can get a Learner’s Permit and/or a Hardship License at age 15.
So there are plenty of 15 year olds operating machines of remarkable destructive capacity every day. This is an environment that, at age 14, I saw as a shameless display of fascism; but, at age 32, take as gross negligence on the part of our law makers.
Just for yalls entertainment, here is a list of activities that the legal system considers 15 year olds too underdeveloped to be permitted to engage in unsupervised (in Texas anyway, as I am a Texan living in Texas, I couldn’t care less what’s legal when in America:
Vote
Enter into legally binding contracts (including marriage)
Buy tobacco
Gamble
Apply for emancipation
Buy pornography
Buy cigarettes
Buy fireworks
Watch rated R movies
Buy firearms
Be legally held accountable for committed crimes
Enlist in the armed forces
Consent to medical treatment
Yes, Bishop is the only good one.
Tsk.
In addition to what CS2-6 said, a lot of farm kids are driving tractors and/or the family pickup truck around when they’re even younger than that.
I remember driving the tractor at younger than ten.
No regrets
I wish I learned to drive earlier however