House to Astonish Episode 200
Or “Goodness me, is it that time already?”
To quote the Bard, it’s been a long road, getting from there to here, but we’ve made it to episode 200 of House to Astonish, and we’re indulging in our traditional vices of cake and fizz, and talking about Vault Comics’ Headshell line, Titan’s new Conan series, Joe Kelly and Kim Niimura’s Immortal Sergeant, and Ty Templeton’s cancer-free all-clear. We’re also reviewing a bunch of comics on a theme, as we look at Batman #200, House of Mystery #200, Amazing Spider-Man #200, and, er, Deadpool #58? And as always, the Official Handbook of the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe is ringing in the new. All this plus the villainy of Soupface, the world’s least efficient purse-snatching scheme, and a small haystack that looks like a big haystack.
As we recorded this episode on Sunday evening, the news hadn’t yet broken of the incredibly sad loss of Kevin O’Neill, an absolute giant of British comics. We’ll have more to say about him on a future episode.
The podcast is here, or here on Mixcloud, or available via the embedded player below. Let us know what you think, in the comments, on Twitter, via email or on our Facebook fan page. And has there ever been a better time to snag yourself one of our gorgeous t-shirts from our Redbubble store? Depends on your personal circumstances, I guess?
Super congratulations on your tin foil double page cover anniversay
There’s something wrong with the file here and on libsyn: it’s lonly the first 5 minutes.
Congrats to Paul and Al for 200 wonderful, insightful and ever-brilliant episodes – here’s to 200 more!
Also having a problem via RSS feed
Controversial Enterprise reference there. There will be tweets.
Congratulations on 200! I look forward to listening to the triple foil embossing!
Iron Man post-Civil War was in fact written by the Knaufs. The confusion comes from the fact that whilst it said “Iron Man: Director of S.H.I.E.L.D.” on the cover officially the comic was called “Iron Man” and then got renamed… to “Invincible Iron Man”. By the time it got renamed again to “Iron Man: Director of S.H.I.E.L.D.” we were getting ready for Secret Invasion (after which the name became defunct and the title was cancelled, it having ran alongside Fraction/Larocca’s “Invincible Iron Man” for several months).
Also, congratulations on reaching two hundred episodes! I remember listening to the first and finally learning what Paul sounded like; has it really been that long?
Tales to Astonish was the Hank/Jan Pym book that eventually was split with the Hulk and became Hulk at issue 102.
House of Mystery in the mid 1980s was relaunched with Elvira replacing Cain as the host.
Most of the DC horror hosts ended up in Sandman: Cain, Abel, Lucien, Eve, the Witches Three, …
File is fixed now (on Apple, at least). Last night’s download cut off after 5 minutes, so I redownloaded this morning and it was fine.
Heartfelt congratulations on 200(+) episodes! Hoping for many more!
ASM #200 also reminded me of a Batman story, but it was the 1948 “Origin of Batman” from Batman #47. That’s the one where Bats finally catches up with Joe Chill, beats him up, and unmasks in front of him. Chill gets away, but is murdered by his colleagues after telling them he’s basically responsible for Batman’s existence. Peter’s unmasking in front of The Burglar struck me as very similar, although Burgs’ death is different.
You are right about NBC and 30 Rock, but I think “Black Rock” was the nickname for the then-current CBS headquarters. Of course, CBS aired the short-lived 1970s Spider-Man TV show, as well as the Hulk TV show (and maybe the Captain America and Dr. Strange TV movies…?). Anyway, CBS and Marvel had some disco-era successes, so it’s not surprising to see the network referenced here.
Love the podcast, keep up the great work!
Congrats on 200(ish) episodes!
Congrats on 200-ish.
I remember the Knaufs Director of SHIELD. It was good. The last good/proper Mandarin story.
Congrats on 200 (+) episodes! I haven’t listened to the whole thing yet (same 5 min issue), I look forward to being able to hear the rest.
I don’t think you cover it, but my all-time favorite 200th issue is Justice League of America 200. Perez, Bolland, Joe Kubert, and other great artists = an artistic feast.
That JLA 200 is a great issue and would have been a fun discussion, although I don’t know if the guys would have gotten all the Silver Age Easter eggs.
Doing a romance or war or western would have also been fun.
As someone who ha been listening since the very first episode, congratulations on hitting the officially-numbered episode 200!
Bill the Lobster was my favorite Official Handbook of the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe entry — so much so that I did that fan art of him!
Cheers!
Regarding Batman #200 being the first appearance of Scarecrow’s fear toxin, I did some digging and it turns out this is the Scarecrow’s fourth ever appearance! The first two were in the Golden Age, so happened in a different universe, and the third was just eleven issues previously. However, in that comic he did in fact have a spray that induced a fear of heights, so presumably this is just a better version.
FWIW, the Marvel Wiki page for The Burglar says “name unrevealed (last name possibly Carradine)”.
Oh, and while I was mucking about researching things, I learned that the microscopic aliens from the Phone Ranger’s origin actually predate him by 33 years, and all that backstory is actually a random Strange Tales story. Not only that, but I learned this on Marvel Appendix, and it kind of looks like the connection between the Phone Ranger, the Microverse and these aliens was pure speculation on the Appendix’s part until the Handbook canonised it!
Congrats from another listener-since-the-beginning, and may there be 200 more!
Disappointed that you didn’t do Transformers (UK) #200.