House to Astonish Episode 195
A relatively quiet few weeks of news means a compact and bijou episode, but we still find time to talk about Amazon’s postponed assimilation of Comixology, Gina Gagliano leaving Random House Graphic, the launch of Zestworld, Oni signing with Lunar for distribution and Marvel’s announcement of Secret X-Men. We’ve also got reviews of King of Spies and Justice League Dark Annual, and the Official Handbook of the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe is an absolute unit. All this plus a cross between luge and Cluedo, a shop selling lemons and the gentrification of Neopets.
The podcast is here, or here on Mixcloud, or available via the embedded player below. Let us know what you think, in the comments below, on Twitter, via email or via our Facebook fan page. And as always, remember that you can get our highly stylish t-shirts from our extremely convenient 24-hour shop on Redbubble.
Marauders #26 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
MARAUDERS #26
“Many Happy Returns”
by Gerry Duggan, Matteo Lolli & Rain Beredo
COVER / PAGE 1: Iceman fights Fin Fang Foom.
PAGE 2. Data page. It’s an opening quote by Iceman, talking about how his participation in terraforming Mars in Planet-Size X-Men #1 has led him to rethink (again) the upper limits of his powers. This is a common theme for Iceman stories.
PAGES 3-4. Sebastian and Emma take Harry Leland to the Hellfire Club Mansion in New York.
We’ll find out in a few pages time that this is Emma helping to ease Harry back into life after his resurrection. Harry Leland was a member of the classic line-up of the Inner Circle of the Hellfire Club who debuted in the Dark Phoenix Saga; he died fighting Nimrod in Uncanny X-Men vol 1 #209, as shown in flashback on page 4. By the standards of an Inner Circle member, he did show some genuine loyalty to his colleagues and he died semi-heroically fighting by their side; his depiction in this story as a basically genial fellow is broadly in line with his earlier appearances.
X-Men: The Trial of Magneto #4 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
X-MEN: THE TRIAL OF MAGNETO #4
“Verdigris”
by Leah Williams, Lucas Werneck, David Messina & Edgar Delgado
COVER / PAGE 1:Â Three intertwined Scarlet Witches – one in the centre, one upside down, and one apparently made of branches.
PAGE 2. “Data page”, though in the magical designs used in this series (note the parchment effect). The spiral text is a description of the sensation of being reborn, with the narrator finally recollecting that they brought this about themselves. Presumably, this is Wanda describing the events of the flashback that follows.
PAGE 3. Flashback: The Five resurrect Wanda.
This presumably happens between pages 4 and 13 of issue #2. Hope takes the initiative to resurrect Wanda (just as she quietly ignored resurrection protocols to bring back Scout in New Mutants #21. As Hope points out, the Five are essentially untouchable because they’re vital to resurrection; they haven’t done much to use that political power.
New Mutants #23 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
NEW MUTANTS vol 4 #23
“The Truth Shall Set Them Free”
by Vita Ayala & Rod Reis
COVER / PAGE 1. The New Mutants looking down on us as scary dolls.
PAGES 2-3. Lost Club enter the Shadow King’s mind.
The previous issue ended with Lost Club arriving at the Shadow King’s home to find him standing over the unconscious New Mutants. We’re not told how the Shadow King wound up unconscious, though the art seems to suggest that Cosmar zapped him.
Once they enter the Shadow King’s mind, the art goes crazy, and stays that way for much of the issue. Rob Reis’s art on New Mutants is clearly influenced by Bill Sienkiewicz’s seminal run on the original title in the early 1980s, and that’s particularly clear here. The general thrust of the story (enter a mindscape and rescue the lost-child core persona) also seems like a homage to the first Legion arc from New Mutants vol 1 #26.
No-Girl, normally a disembodied brain in a jar, manifests on the astral plane with a body (albeit with a visible brain). Her psychic form is wearing a standard X-Men uniform, which presumably means she sees that as an important part of her persona despite the criticisms she’s made of Krakoa in this arc. Rain Boy and Cosmar also both look more human here, though not entirely so.
Charts – 26 November 2021
I mean, it’s not exactly a shock, is it?
1. Adele – “Easy on Me”
2. Adele – “Oh My God”
4. Adele – “I Drink Wine”
Adele’s fourth album, “30”, duly enters as her fourth number one, and would be dominating the singles charts if it weren’t for the three song limit. “Easy on Me” spends its sixth week at number one, while the two tracks that lead the pack are “Oh My God” and “I Drink Wine”.
X-Force: Killshot Anniversary Special #1
X-FORCE: KILLSHOT ANNIVERSARY SPECIAL #1
by Rob Liefeld, Chad Bowers, Bryan Valenza, Federico Blee & Mirza Wirawan
So this is a thing.
Commemorating the 30th anniversary of X-Force #1, this is a 33-page one-shot written and drawn by Rob Liefeld – the other listed creators are the scripter and the colourist – which… does pretty much what you’d expect?
Maybe not, actually. Liefeld sets up a perfectly decent premise for an anniversary one-shot. Cable is still fighting Stryfe through time and space, and for this mission he’s gathered an assortment of allies from across history, to take on Stryfe and his Mutant Liberation Front. There’s a passing mention that this version of the MLF is also from the past, or maybe an alternate timeline or… whatever, really. Not the same ones that are on Krakoa, which is the bit that actually matters.
So we know how that sort of premise plays out in an anniversary oneshot, right? You use it to gather cast members from across 30 years of continuity, you team them up in a supersquad, you play the hits. And god bless him, for Liefeld loses sight of that point pretty quickly.
X-Men #5 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
X-MEN vol 6 #5
“Fearless, Chapter Five: Don’t Piss Off Polaris”
by Gerry Duggan, Javier Pina, Zé Carlos & Erick Arciniega
COVER / PAGE 1. A close-up of Dr Stasis (presumably), holding a scalpel, while his faceplate shows a reflection of a monster fighting Cyclops and Wolverine. It doesn’t help that this is the first time we’ve even had a clear view of Dr Stasis’s faceplate, but some of the red trim was visible in issue #3, and we also see it at the end of the issue.
The original solicitation for this issue read “The X-Men’s new nemesis finally makes himself known to them, bringing his creations to bear. Mutants may have conquered death, but their foes are all too living…” This is not really what happens in the issue – which has a scene where the X-Men fight some of Stasis’ creations, but not where he makes his own involvement known – so you have to wonder if the cover is a hangover from an earlier story concept.
PAGES 2-4. The X-Men fight the Reavers in Mexico.
The opening narration is a straight recap of the premise of the new Reavers, as established over in Duggan’s Marauders. Although they’re mostly made up of former mercenaries, their main motivation is supposed to be revenge on mutants for their injuries – from the look of it, they’re also taking on unrelated mercenary work now, but they also suggest that they were deliberately trying to provoke a fight with the X-Men.
Wolverine #18 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
WOLVERINE vol 7 #18
“Auction of Secrets”
by Benjamin Percy, Paco Diaz, Java Tartaglia & Dijjo Lima
PAGE 1: Generic shot of Wolverine still standing after gunfire. Nice lighting and integration of the logo, though. (Remember the days when characters still standing after this sort of damage was something that only happened in Lobo?)
PAGE 2. Jeff Bannister and Maverick at the hotel.
This continues directly from the end of the previous issue, when Maverick picked up the quarter that Bannister had dropped and returned it to him. Percy writes Maverick throughout this arc as if he’s mainly motivated by money, which isn’t really the traditional take on him – he’s a lifelong mercenary but he was hardly an antihero in his 90s solo title.
The final panel is probably meant to light Maverick so that the shadows on his face reflect the design on his mask, but it winds up looking a bit odd.
X-Men Unlimited Infinity Comic #5-12: “X-Men Green”
X-MEN UNLIMITED INFINITY COMIC #5-12
“X-Men Green”
by Gerry Duggan, Emilio Laiso and Rachelle Rosenberg
Readers who don’t subscribe to Marvel Unlimited may well wonder if there’s anything going on in the Infinity Comics that they need to know about. The short answer is, not really. Most of them – and there’s a pretty steady stream of them – are essentially fill-in stories. But there are exceptions, mostly with stories that focus on minor characters whose status quo is of no real interest to any of the ongoing titles. One such book has been dutifully exploring the back story of Kushala, a character from Doctor Strange and the Sorcerers Supreme. Another is X-Men Unlimited Infinity Comic, which focusses its second arc on Nature Girl and Curse.
Curse is a background character from the Krakoan era and fair game for this sort of thing. Nature Girl was one of the pupils from Wolverine and the X-Men, and used to be a relatively high profile character – she was used in the last run of Generation X - but she’s fallen badly off the radar. That leaves her free for a story like this, which radically changes her status quo. And to be fair, it’s by the regular writer of X-Men, which is a sign that Marvel want you to take this book reasonably seriously.
Charts – 19 November 2021
Once again, the singles chart has to thank the album market for providing it with some activity.
1. Adele – “Easy On Me”
That’s five weeks, her joint biggest hit. “Someone Like You” also managed five weeks total, with a week’s interruption. The record that knocked it off for a week was “Don’t Hold Your Breath” by Nicole Scherzinger, which I haven’t thought about for over ten years until I looked it up just now.
Adele’s album is out today, so we can assume she’ll have two more singles on next week’s chart.
3. Taylor Swift – “All Too Well (Taylor’s Version)”
18. Taylor Swift – “State of Grace (Taylor’s Version)”
22. Taylor Swift – “Red (Taylor’s Version)”
Here we are again with Taylor Swift’s project of re-recording her back catalogue. At the start of the year, she released a re-issue of “Fearless”, her 2009 album; “Love Story” got to 12, “Mr Perfectly Fine” to 30. “Wildest Dreams”, released out of sequence as a single, got to 25. But now we’ve reached the second album release, “Red”, which was her first number 1 album in 2012, and the start of an uninterrupted run of number one albums that continues this week with… er, “Red (Taylor’s Version)”.
