Hell in a Cell 2013
Not much in this week’s X-books to talk about, though I’ll try to do something about the second Wolverine Max TPB in the next couple of days. In the meantime – wrestling!
The Hell in a Cell PPV is a hangover from the period when the WWE wanted to give all of their B-shows a theme. It is arguably one of the worst ideas they ever had. The Hell in a Cell match – basically a cage match in a bigger cage – had been very well promoted for years in a way that made it synonymous with Really Big Matches. But having an annual show which was required to feature the match, and then failing to plan months in advance to ensure that was actually any reason to do so, has largely gutted the gimmick’s drawing power and turned it into simply a glorified cage match. Of course, in terms of the rules, that’s all it ever was, but that’s not the point. Presentation is everything.
Charts – 20 October 2013
X-Men Legacy #16-18 – “Wear the Grudge Like a Crown”
There’s a podcast this weekend! No, really! You can find it just one post down from here.
Meantime… X-Men Legacy #16-18. This week’s issue might not obviously look like the end of a storyline, but according to the solicitations, it is indeed the cut-off point for the end of the third trade. (That trade, incidentally, is entitled “Revenants”, despite the Revenants being the entirely unrelated baddies over in Uncanny X-Force. Left hand, meet right hand. You must have so much to talk about.)
Legacy is a book with an uneasy relationship to superheroes. On the one hand, the character is firmly rooted in a lot of X-Men baggage. On the other, the book’s central schtick is to have Legion reject the X-Men’s approach and looking for a different and supposedly more proactive approach, which perhaps inevitably casts the X-Men as slightly clueless throwbacks. You can read that as Legion’s take on the team – he is the narrator, after all – but it generally feels as if writer Si Spurrier is using Legion to express, shall we say, a fair degree of ambivalence about the whole genre.
House to Astonish Episode 112
Yep, you read that right – we’re back, and on a (theoretically) regular schedule too. This time round, on a special extra-length episode, we’ve got tons of discussion of news out of New York Comic-Con for you. We’re talking about a whole load of things, including Batman: Eternal, the Dynamite revival of the Gold Key characters, the return of Priest and M.D. Bright to Quantum & Woody, Greg Rucka’s new horror series Veil, the slew of new Marvel series, the return of Miracleman and, of course, the ReedPOP promotional tweet controversy. We’ve also got interviews with Antony Johnston, Greg Pak, Justin Jordan and Charles Soule, and all the usual waffle you’ve come to expect (except reviews or Handbook stuff, both of which are AWOL). All this plus a 24-hour hype man, a really complicated tax spreadsheet and Alan Moore giving you the finger.
The podcast 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 on our Facebook fan page.
Don’t forget too that there are snazzy t-shirts available through our Redbubble store. Look good! Feed Paul’s son!
Charts – 13 October 2013
Some weeks, the Radio 1 chart show producers must look at the listing as it comes through, see an utterly predictable number 1, see an almost uninterrupted stretch of fallers from 40 through to 15, and sigh deeply. This is one such week, with a bunch of new entries clustered at the top (but no surprise at the very top), and literally nothing happening in the lower half of the chart except for one lone new entry.
And that new entry?
24. Ylvis – “The Fox”
Astonishing X-Men #68
So, farewell then, Astonishing X-Men. You will be back next month with a shiny new adjective.
It’s hard to believe now, but when it was launched in 2004, Astonishing X-Men was the main book of the line. Now it’s the runt of the litter that doesn’t get invited to the crossover, as if all the other books were whispering to one another to for christ’s sake not mention the party in front of Astonishing, because it’d be really awkward. The book was created as a vehicle for Joss Whedon, and while it proved to be something of an absentee flagship, it was a flagship nonetheless. Its regular absence from the shipping schedule didn’t deprive it of that status, so much as leave the line floundering for direction without it.
After Whedon left, the book was rebranded as a place where writers could do their own thing without worrying about the broader X-Men continuity, which isn’t really a premise, but at least allowed it to be defined by the style of the creative team of the day. Whatever you may think of the creators assigned, though, few could deny that the star power has eroded rather drastically over the years, much as occurred with the Ultimate line. For the last while we’ve had Marjorie Liu and Gabriel Hernandez Walta – hardly industry stars, though they were certainly allowed to bring their own voice to the book.
Charts – 6 October 2013
Wolverine: Japan’s Most Wanted
I could start by talking about the plot. But let’s be honest, the thing that’s really striking about this comic is the format. Japan’s Most Wanted is Marvel’s first venture into long-form digital comics under its Infinite imprint. We’ve had short stories and back-ups before now, but this is the first time a full-length story arc has been produced in the new format.
So depending on how things go, this is either the first of a new breed, or a weird little footnote that will rarely be mentioned again.
WWE Battleground
For those of you who come here for wrestling posts, I’ll draw your attention to the Chikara post just below, which, to be honest, is probably more interesting than Battleground. The general consensus is that the WWE hasn’t done a brilliant job of promoting this one, or even giving people a particularly good reason to watch it. But hey, it’s not a PPV in the UK, so I might as well record it…
1. WWE Title: Daniel Bryan v Randy Orton. The WWE Title is currently vacant. The storyline here is that the evil owners of the company don’t want Daniel Bryan as their champion, because he doesn’t look like their idea of a champion. In theory this is meant to get us behind him as a plucky underdog who doesn’t give up in the face of overwhelming odds. That’s fine as far as it goes.
