Charts – 28 June 2024
After last week’s coma, there’s a bit more going on this week. Almost all outside the top 20, admittedly, but hey.
1. Sabrina Carpenter – “Please Please Please”
Two weeks. It’s peaked already, but she still has both the number 1 and 2 slots.
21. Tommy Richman – “Devil is a Lie”
Climbing from the lower reaches, this is the follow-up to “Million Dollar Baby”, which is still at number 10. It’s a decent production in search of a better song, and I think the first hit is the stronger, but yeah, it’s not bad. The video is the sort of thing you used to see at number 7 on the Chart Show Indie Chart, which is an interesting call. The microbudget video is making something of a comeback, not least because labels are starting to wonder what the point of expensive videos even is in 2024. For example…
The X-Axis – w/c 24 June 2024
X-MEN: FROM THE ASHES INFINITY COMIC #3. By Alex Paknadel, Diógenes Neves, Arthur Hesli & Clayton Cowles. The first arc turns out to be just three parts, which is fine – that feels like the natural length of a fairly straightforward ghost story. The ghost turns out to be mostly preoccupied with his wife, a mountaineer whom he assumes must have died on the mountain for no particular reason beyond sexism. That comes somewhat out of the blue as a plot point in this story, which hadn’t really hinted very much about what the ghost was up to, but it does dovetail nicely with Scott’s discomfort about how his relationship with Jean can survive their power disparity in the long run, which is the idea that Paknadel really seems interested in. It’s a solid idea for an Infinity Comic short, nicely illustrated for the most part (though some of the vertical scrolling feels a bit clunky in this one). A pretty good little story.
DEADPOOL VS. WOLVERINE: SLASH ‘EM UP INFINITY COMIC #2. By Christos Gage, Alan Robinson, Carlos Lopez & Joe Sabino. Well, yup, that’s an extended fight scene. There’s not much to this in the way of plot. Wolverine has a vaguely interesting motivation: he’s helping a old man who, as a kid, used to help him out in Madripoor, until he forgot about the boy due to memory wipes and abandoned him. But it really is just an extended fight scene, even if it’s done with a bit of wit.
X-Men: Heir of Apocalypse #2 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
X-MEN: HEIR OF APOCALYPSE #2
Writer: Steve Foxe
Penciller: Netho Diaz
Inkers: JP Mayer with Sean Parsons
Colour artist: Alex Sinclair
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Editor: Tom Brevoort
APOCALYPSE
Despite being the title character, Apocalypse is barely in this issue. Aside from more brief flashbacks to show how he selected some of his twelve contestants, he doesn’t show up until two pages from the end, where he confirms that he did indeed lure Genocide to Egypt as part of his test – although Genocide isn’t in on it.
Apocalypse is unimpressed by his candidates’ performance against “my most despised child”. We’re not told why Apocalypse feels that way about Genocide – I don’t think the two have ever met – but the idea from the original Uncanny X-Force storyline which introduced Genocide was that Apocalypse viewed him as a threat. It might also be that Apocalypse views Genocide as a moron who hasn’t understood his philosophy at all.
Apocalypse’s new base on Mars is an Egyptian-stye pyramid, albeit with more modern construction in the grounds.
House to Astonish Episode 208
It’s been a few weeks, but we’re back, and we’ve got a full basket of comics news which we’re dispensing left, right and centre. This time round, we’re remembering Don Perlin and Peter B. Gillis, looking at Jeff Lemire’s Minor Arcana, the finales of Jupiter’s Legacy and Marvel’s Star Wars, and the new Blade: Red Band mini, chatting through the ends of Zeb Wells and John Romita Jr’s run on Amazing Spider-Man and Joshua Williamson’s runs on Green Arrow and Batman and Robin, and drawing your attention to the Wicked & the Divine‘s covers collection Kickstarter. We’ve also got reviews of Destro and Self-Help, and the Official Handbook of the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe belongs in a museum. All this plus Blade: Special Vampires Unit, an alien goth and Spider-Man’s 1980s toy restoration hobby.
The episode is here, or available via the embedded player below. Let us know what you think, in the comments, on Bluesky, via email or on our Facebook fan page. And if you don’t have a House to Astonish t-shirt by now, then God, Jed, I don’t even wanna know you.
Daredevil Villains #28: The Thunderbolts
DAREDEVIL #69 (October 1970)
“A Life on the Line”
Writer: Roy Thomas
Artist: Gene Colan
Inker: Syd Shores
Letterer: Artie Simek
Colourist: not credited
Editor: Stan Lee
No, not those Thunderbolts.
This story is set in Harlem, and there are multiple black characters with speaking parts. It’s Marvel in 1970, so that can only mean one thing: it’s time for an improving exercise in social commentary.
Daredevil stops two black gang members from robbing a warehouse. A third tries to escape, only to crash their van into a brick wall. He turns out to be a 15-year-old boy. The Black Panther shows up, and the heroes race the kid to hospital. His unspecified injuries call for a top surgeon, which Daredevil and the Panther are able to sort out. Although the story doesn’t labour the point, the clear implication is that the kid would otherwise have died thanks to the wonderful American health care system.
While our heroes wait for the outcome of the surgery, the Black Panther fills in some back story with an extended flashback. This is the period where the Panther had a civilian identity as school teacher Luke Charles. The kid is his brightest student, Lonnie Carver. Lonnie idolises his older brother Billy, who has just returned from Vietnam. Despite having become a pacifist as a result of his experiences, Billy wears his army uniform around the streets of Harlem, just in case we were in any doubt as to his status as a saintly veteran.
Charts – 21 June 2024
This week’s chart is laughably uneventful. Well, except for…
1. Sabrina Carpenter – “Please Please Please”
Climbing from 3 to give Sabrina Carpenter her second number one, a mere three weeks after “Espresso” ended its five-week reign.
A bit of context: Sabrina Carpenter has been releasing singles since 2014. During years in the Disney orbit, she had negligible impact on charts anywhere. She had a number 19 hit in Norway in 2017. After she jumped from Disney she had a minor internaional hit with “Skin” in 2021, mainly because it was widely understood as an answer record to Olivia Rodrigo. And then somewhere around 2022 she seemed to get it to click, but even then, her UK peak was just inside the top 20. To go from that to two number 1s in a row is quite the step up.
The X-Axis – w/c 17 June 2024
Well, this is quiet…
X-MEN: FROM THE ASHES INFINITY COMIC #2. By Alex Paknadel, Diógenes Neves, Arthur Hesli & Clayton Cowles. Don’t ask me what the schedule is for this book – the first two issues were released, um, twelve days apart. But it’s a nice solid story. It’s simple – something is possessing a bunch of people and making them march off through the snow. Scott is one of them, and he needs to find a way of getting Jean’s attention (because while she could easily keep track of him whenever he’s out of sight, she doesn’t). It’s basically a ghost story, and it’s got some relatively detailed character work, certainly for an Infinity Comic. Neves has always been a solid artist and he has some good uses of the vertical scrolling format here, with merging panels and the occasional interesting perspective trick. It’s pretty good!
WOLVERINE: BLOOD HUNT #2. By Tom Waltz, Juan José Ryp, Guru-eFX & Cory Petit. Um. Well, this is mostly extended fight scenes. There’s a little bit suggesting that Maverick has a more complicated agenda than the first issue implied but… no, mostly it’s just Wolverine and Nightguard fighting a zombie horde. Sorry, vampire horde. But it’s the same thing to all practical purposes. I see why we’re doing Blood Hunt tie-ins this month – it’s a very handy buffer between X-seasons. But this is the sort of issue that makes my heart sink at the thought of reading the rest of the crossover. Even the core titles participating in this event are only doing three issues each. The X-books are doing eight! And while Jubilee at least has a hook to do vampire stories with, there’s a real diminishing returns element to tie-ins taking place in the margins of a crossover like this. How many different stories can you really do about vampire hordes roaming wild? Because by my count there are 48 tie-in issues to Blood Hunt not counting the core series, and I’m willing to bet that the answer to my question isn’t “48”. In isolation, this is a competent action issue but… god, how much of this?
Daredevil Villains #27: Phoenix
DAREDEVIL #68 (September 1970)
“Phoenix and the Fighter!”
Writer: Roy Thomas
Artist: Gene Colan
Inker: Syd Shores
Letterer: Artie Simek
Colourist: not credited
Editor: Stan Lee
No, not that Phoenix.
After four issues in Hollywood, Daredevil is back in New York, but without Karen Page in tow. She’ll be back, but she’s out of the picture for the moment. In the meantime, Daredevil moves on to something else entirely.
Daredevil arrives at the DA’s office to find Foggy in a shouting match with three guys from an extremist group called Phoenix. The only one who gets a name is called Kragg. The Phoenix members wear brightly coloured tunics with logos on the chest – Kragg’s costume has a phoenix head, and the others have a sort of stylised flame thing. They generally look like they’ve wandered out of a Buck Rogers story and left their ray guns at home.
Kragg is trying to get Foggy to stop “hounding” his group. After Daredevil shoos the extremists away, we learn that Foggy is investigating them because they’ve mysteriously bought the contract of middleweight boxing contender Kid Gawaine. The Kid has an upcoming title match at Madison Square Garden, and his trainer, Pop Fenton, once trained Battlin’ Jack Murdock. For obvious reasons, a story of boxing corruption piques Daredevil’s interest, and he decides to look into Phoenix himself.
Charts – 14 June 2024
Have we wandered into the album chart or something?
Two weeks. Which is surprising in itself from a man in his fifties who ought to be a legacy act by this point. But it’s even more surprising when you realise that none of his other ten number ones made it past a single week.
3. Sabrina Carpenter – “Please Please Please”
Well, there you go – “Espresso” wasn’t a one-off, and Sabrina Carpenter is a star now. Remember, she’d never made it past number 19 until “Espresso” became a number one. In fact, “Espresso” is still there at number 2, so she has a majority of the top 3.
“Please Please Please” is an interesting choice of follow-up single – technically I suppose it counts as a ballad, of a sort? I like it, but I doubt she could have got a hit out of it before “Espresso”. She has a persona that only really makes sense that you accept the premise that she’s a star – which is obviously a lot easier once the public agree with her.
The X-Axis – w/c 10 June 2024
“The old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born; now is the time of monsters.” – Antonio Gramsci
X-MEN: HEIR OF APOCALYPSE #1. (Annotations here.) This is a truly weird month for the X-books. Krakoa is finished, but the new X-Men titles don’t start until July. In itself, that’s no bad thing. I’m all for a season break. But you can’t really pause the line for a month, and so we have a month of… what? Well, there are Blood Hunt tie-ins, and that event is nicely timed to provide X-filler. There’s a ludicrous number of Wolverine side projects. And then there’s this.
I’m not sure the scheduling has done it any favours. It makes it seem less like the X-event for June and more like it was so inconsequential that you could ship it before X-Men #1 without spoiling the launch. Yet it picks up on Apocalypse’s storyline from X-Men #35 so… apparently not? There are mixed messages here. It’s puzzling.
