House to Astonish Episode 148
Because we finally remembered that we actually do a podcast, here’s a podcast! Paul and I take a canter through the comics news of the past week or so, including the renaming of Death of Hawkman; the announcement of the Justice League/Suicide Squad event and Steve Orlando as Justice League of America writer; the suggested new optimistic direction for the DC Cinematic Universe; Marvel’s teases for Ressurexion and Monsters Unleashed; the mooted New Warriors sitcom; Alan Moore’s retirement from comics; Image’s cross-country move; and Warren Ellis and Coleen Doran’s forthcoming webcoming Finality.
We’ve also got reviews of Night’s Dominion and Supergirl, and the Official Handbook of the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe means Brexit. All this plus the Bottled City of Candor, Stonehenge with a false beard and glasses and Tillicoultry, near Stirling.
The podcast is here, or here on Mixcloud, or available through the embedded player below. Let us know what you think, in the comments, on Twitter, via email or on our Facebook fan page.
(If your comment is along the lines of “Hey, wow, I can’t believe House to Astonish has been going for nearly nine years!” then yes, you’re right, I got it wrong on the podcast – we launched in 2008, so we’ll be eight in November.)
And hey, the nights may be drawing in, but just think how much warmer you’d be if you were wearing one of our super-awesome t-shirts!
Bet they’re replacing Katar Hol Hawkman with Egyptian reincarnate Hawkman again as part of the JSA revival, hence the killing off.
Which version of hawkman is on the tv show? Prob smart to use that version.
I wonder how a Brexit Lionheart would have done as part of Cornell’s CB book, and how would she have interacted with Faiza.
Ok. Here is the problem with rebirth you guys hit in this.
Convergence told us that pre flashpoint was its own universe and the superman we love was brought into the new 52.
Rebirth has Wally West saying this world is the old DC universe with ten or so years removed.
That Doesn’t work.
The Captain Britain stuff is quite a meaty topic. Lionheart would be interesting to have running around as Captain Brexit shouting down Brian. “Captain Britain, not Captain EU” etc.
I think some of the issues of British identity would be more apt for Union Jack though, not least because Joey has been shown as genuinely working class (he’s a painter and decorator in his last mini series) in a role originated by landed gentry. He’s always seemed a tad more politically savy than Brian (what with Brian going off into Otherworld half the time) and has more overt military connections, working directly for MI5 etc. Certainly the Northern Ireland issues are more contentious for someone claiming to represent the UK rather than Britain (although there’s an interesting technical issue there over whether CB’s powers are linked to “Britain” or “the British isles”. Is he still powered in the Channel Islands?)
Great episode as always.
I actually feel like the artificial nature of Sabretooth’s redemption makes it something with a lot of wasted potential. I *really* want to know how he washed out of the Avengers, and how he ended up on the same team as Mystique again. I like the idea that he’s not a good dude, but feels compelled by the Inversion to make amends but keeps fucking it up, is an interesting one. It’s like My Name Is Earl with more disembowelment and getting kicked out of the Avengers.
Hey, about other takes on The Authority, I really like the Abnett/Lanning/Coleby run. I would say it’s better than Ellis’ if it wasn’t so much a reaction to it. But at the same time, this made it age so much better. If Ellis’ was about changing the world to the risk of shattering it, World’s End was dealing with a shattered world, shattered relationships, shattered bodies and the consequences of one’s actions.
Then Tom Taylor came with some cool sci-fi stuff. Overall kinda aimeless and at most a Stormwatch story, rather than an Authority one, but with some really great moment.
@Tdubs, but Convergence also showed us that the pre-Flashpoint New Earth did transform into the New 52 Earth Prime (and the Infinity Inc Earth-2 turned into the Society Earth-2 and Earth-C turned into the Multiversity Earth-26 and so on and so forth). ISTR Telos even said the two Jay Garricks were the same person at one point. So it wasn’t even consistent with itself.
After all, the pre-Zero Hour Earth existed in Convergence as well, and it was definitely meant to be the same universe as New Earth with the history changed. (In fact, I think history actually changed less in Zero Hour than it did in Infinite Crisis, which Telos didn’t consider worth bothering about.)
This is almost consistent, if you force it to be; Telos takes the cities from moments before reality changes. This doesn’t affect the new reality, because it’s changed. The characters who’ve been taken with the cities have duplicates in the new reality, so when Lois and Clark (and Still Parallax Hal) them travel to that reality, it’s like they’re parallel universe versions. But actually they’re from previous versions of this reality. That … sort of makes sense? I think?
But it still doesn’t really explain Wally West, since by that argument Old Universe Wally shouldn’t be “the same” as the Wally who died in the New 52 Titans’ first mission, but apparently he is.
Re Supergirl’s hair, back in the Silver Age she wore a wig and changing-to-Supergirl panels regularly showed her whisking it off and its pigtails fluttering in the air.
> But it still doesn’t really explain Wally West, since by that argument Old Universe Wally shouldn’t be “the same” as the Wally who died in the New 52 Titans’ first mission, but apparently he is.
Oh, when you break it down, it’s a mess. The best theory I’ve seen is that this Wally was “always” N52 Wally, but gained the memories of the pre-FP version while trapped in the Speed Force, outside reality.
My understanding is that most of the population of Portland are bestial shapeshifters or bestial shapeshifter hunters, BTW. But I don’t suppose that takes up all their time.
As someone who has read Supergirl: Rebirth but hasn’t got #1 yet because the comic shop was closed when I went in, it doesn’t sound like there’s that much repetition. The Rebirth issue was kind of the set-up to the set-up, establishing Kara’s relationship to the D.E.O. and the Danverses, with Kara Danvers, high school student, only being put into place in the last couple of pages.
Wonder Girl was definitely wearing a wig – it even had a backstory as a wig Diana used to wear during one of her ill-thought-out revamps. Initially, no-one apart from the Wonder Woman team seemed to know this, so in other books she slept in it and it disappeared when she was turned into an alien.
I think the trick is to remember the Sword of Might grows downwards and the Amulet of Right grows upwards.
Seriously, I’m not so sure that there’s “always a Britain” as much as there’s “always something roughly approaching Britain”. There might not be a universe of Captain Mercia and four other guys, but there’s a Captain Cymru, and we never get told if he comes from a Britain with no Saxons, or if his Wales is an independent country and the “Britain counterpart” of his world. There’s Caledonia, who might be a godawful Claremont-by-numbers character, but who is unambiguously a Captain Britain whose “Britain” is just Scotland. ISTR there’s even a Corps member who’s Steve Rogers as Captain Colonies.
@Martin Smith, good point about the difference between “Britain” and “UK”. I remember Jeremy Hardy on The News Quiz, talking about the Union Jack in Belfast, because someone had said “We’re British aren’t we?” and Jeremy was saying “That’s the problem, no you’re not. You’re part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, which is a different place.”
@SanityOrMadness That does seem to be the best explanation based on what we’ve got, yes.
I have always enjoyed the occasional Earth X nod, but it has not even clicked with me about the mists or lady thor.
I think on that theme the big Inhumans X-men tie up will reveal the X-gene is part of ancient Kree manipulation making Mutant Inhumans. (Oh and ResurXtion will be the return of hyped as the return of Charles but end up being Wall Esme couckoo)
It makes sense with Legends of Tomorrow take Hawkman back to Egypt and away from Thanagar. Same as folding Cat in to Supergirl and introducing Flick and Diggle in Arrow.
I have only read Lion heart in the Avengers and she may have improved in new Excalibur. When I read her story I assumed Austin did not know the correct answer or just thought the sword sounded better rather then it being the wrong choice. But thinking of her as the US agent is quite intriguing.
I am glad Brian came back though I wish he would get more use and that MI:13 was still around, I liked the idea that he was essentially reborn through national pride. If we look at this summer we have had both the good and bad of how that can work the Joy of the Olympics or and for one corner of the country the Wales football team would be the power the fuels Brian and makes him heroic, Take back control isolationism of that vote that I may be makes him more irrational and violent. I think a story where his power is corrupted because the ideal of Britain is corrupted as some potential. This would explain why captain UK was not able to stand up to Jim Jaspers in the crooked world his Farage style populism would have weakened her.
It is a shame the CSBG place in CBR has become so muddy, there is good stuff there that is much harder to find, I hope you keep you place in as it help people find the podcast.
always thought it was easy for Katar Hol to coexist with his Egypt counterpart but noooooo….
editors think we’re morons.
And they’re worried about “Brand confusion”.
Lame.
“Are we rich yet?” – PATREON.
I would wager that there are more people in Portland that you don’t know, than people that you do.
Just sayin’
Really cool discussion on Captain Britain / Lionheart.
I think an interesting way of using a Captain Britain analogue is as a Black Panther villain. Given Britain’s deplorable behaviour across Africa, West Indies and Asia…Black Panther clashing with Lionheart would be an obvious dramatisation of these issues. You could then have Captain Britain stuck in the middle between them – forced to confront the bad things that were done in Britain’s name. Because the reality is that for much of the world there’s no question about it – we really were the bad guys.
Will Coolinlg: Claremont did something similar with Jamie Braddock in an old issue of Excalibur.
No, wait. I’m wrong. It was way back in an old Marvel UK story. Jamie was rescued in Excalibur.
My go to comparison for Night’s Dominion was the rogue end of the sword and sorcery genre rather than D&D per se, but I can see that D&D probably makes more sense, given how “one of each type of character” the set up is. The actual D&D licensed comic was a little too centered on Baldur’s Gate the last time I checked in, so I’m happy to have this alternative.
Your podcast is pretty much everywhere. And it’s my favorite podcast. So why is it not on Google Play?
A big part of DC’s problem is that their continuity is squarely in the foreground rather than serving their stories. It shouldn’t be a 31 year problem for a publishing line.
Daibhid Ceannaideach beat me to it by mentioning Caledonia – perhaps the single most hilariously Claremontesque character Claremont has ever created – as an indication that yes, there are the likes of Captain Mercia out there.
Claremont cunningly avoided some of the questions about how could Caledonia represent part of Britain as Captain Britain by presenting her as the leader of the last resistance against a foreign enemy that were implied to be invading Romans.
But he lacked the good judgement to call her “Captain Caledonia,” which would have been a much funnier name for the Reed and Sue’s nanny. I really want the OHTTOHTTMU to do Caledonia some day.
I like the idea of Captain Britain studiously avoiding going to Northern Ireland so as not to confront the awkward implications of whether his/her powers start to fade away or not.
You’re right to be wary of Geoff Johns and his “lightening the mood”, but it was Ted McKeever who was responsible for the dog murder of the Wonder Twins in Teen Titans.
You missed the obvious anniversary numbering solutions, one that would require only two episodes instead of three.
First, Episode 148 should have instead been a renumbered Episode 1.
Second, you announce that you are resuming your original numbering due to the upcoming anniversary. Coincidentally, that makes your next episode number 150. To answer the as yet unasked question of how you skipped episode 249, you say that you are remembering all of House to Astonish’s history, which means you are including unnumbered specials in the count. When someone says that would put you past 150, you (rather blatantly) ignore that question.
If you want to be really bold, you can quietly follow episode 150 with episode 150. When asked, you can make a tiny disclaimer that there had been a numbering mistake.
There was a Captain Angleterre, a Hauptmann England, and there were other Captain Britain analogs whose names indicated nothing geographic (Crusdaer X and Captain Marshall, for example). Crusader X, if I recall, was a Native American representing a British Empire that still included North America. So there’s nothing necessarily against precedent with Caledonia.
“Captain Cymru, and we never get told if he comes from a Britain with no Saxons, or if his Wales is an independent country and the “Britain counterpart” of his world.”
Oops, I just looked it up, and Captain Cymru is a woman. So same point but she, her.
Wasn’t there also an Enforcer Capone, from a universe where Britain is, apparently, Chicago?
Lionheart’s story in New Excalibur was interesting, but if memory serves, it was hampered by Claremont’s obsession with Sage, who had a horrible and extremely Claremontian subplot about going so deep undercover with the bad guys that she got lost in her cover identity.
For the record, Wonder Dog didn’t kill the Wonder Twins. It killed Marvin and injured Wendy. The Wonder Twins were the shapeshifting aliens from the second iteration of Superfriends; Wendy and Marvin were the powerless* teenage interns or something from the first iteration of the show. Wonder Dog was Marvin’s dog on the cartoon; the Wonder Twins’ pet was a blue alien monkey named Gleek.
*(Marvin would occasionally announce that he was going to make a “super leap” and then jump over a fence or something, but he was probably supposed to be a regular powerless jerk benefiting from cartoon physics.)
Portland is full of Wesen, French-pressed coffee and thick short rashers of applewood smoked bacon.