House to Astonish Presents: The Lightning Round Episode 5
Lightning is striking again! That’s five times now! This is surely statistically improbable! We’re now up to the finale of the first year of Thunderbolts, and covering issues 10-12. This is where is all starts going off, as secrets are uncovered, plans are revealed and the whole house of cards comes down.
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Charts – 9 September 2021
Okay, so you know how I said I was hoping this wouldn’t hang on any longer?
That’s 11 weeks – an especially difficult feat under the current chart rules, which downweight the streams of tracks that have been out for more than ten weeks, if they’re also a few weeks past their peak. It matches the 11-week run of “Dance Monkey” by Tones and I from the tail end of 2019. The next target in sight is Sheeran’s own “Shape of You”, which had a 14-week run at number one in early 2017 (though only thirteen of those weeks were consecutive). I don’t fancy his chances of making it that far under the current rules, but you never know.
Anyway, Ed Sheeran proves unbudgeable in the face of…
2. Drake featuring Lil Baby – “Girls Want Girls”
3. Drake featuring Travis Scott – “Fair Trade”
5. Drake – “Champagne Poetry”
I’ll be honest – if it’s a choice between an eleventh week of Ed Sheeran, and a song called “Girls Want Girls” from an album called “Certified Lover Boy”, I’m kind of rooting for Ed Sheeran. Besides which, “Girls” and “Fair Trade” feel like water-treading to me. “Champagne Poetry” is more interesting, though I can’t shake the feeling that it might be in the top three tracks simply by virtue of being the opening track.
X-Force #23 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
X-FORCE vol 6 #23
“The New Tsar”
by Benjamin Percy, Martin Coccolo & Guru-eFX
COVER / PAGE 1: Mikhail Rasputin drives the Cerebro Sword into the Beast’s head. A very symbolic rendering of the attack on Beast’s mind by one of Mikhail’s agents.
PAGES 2-6. The Man With the Peacock Tattoo brings soldiers to Mikhail Rasputin.
Mikhail’s very uneasy alliance with XENO – an alliance of convenience against Krakoa – was established back in issue #12. The artificial red soldiers seen here are the same type of XENO agents previous seen in issues #11-12 and, before that, Wolverine #3. We saw their “nesting doll” schtick in issues #11-12, which is of course a reference to Russian nesting dolls.
PAGE 7. Recap and credits.
PAGES 8-11. A nesting doll enters the Beast’s ear.
As usual in this series, the Beast is doing something both morally dubious and practically unwise. One of the issues with the way Beast is being written here is that he’s not hypercompetent but unethical – which would invite the obvious moral dilemmas about whether the ends justify the means. Rather, he’s both unethical and massively arrogant and incompetent. Then again, that’s not necessarily a problem, depending on where Percy is going with this. Arguably the “ends justify etc” character has been done to death, and if the idea here is to have a character who gets away with far more than he should because too many people assume he’s that character – including himself – then maybe that works.
Excalibur #23 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
EXCALIBUR vol 4 #23
“In the Service of Lord Doom”
by Tini Howard, Marcus To & Erick Arciniega
COVER / PAGE 1. Dr Doom leading a somewhat reluctant Excalibur. The composition loosely echoes the cover of Excalibur vol 1 #1.
PAGE 2. Betsy dreams.
Braddock Isle is now “several kilometres off the coast of England”. Last issue it was “Just off the coast of England” and the art showed the distance to be pretty much swimmable. Maybe Rictor’s been moving it.
Betsy’s dreams show a mixture of images from the series to date, most of them fairly generic. Merlyn and Morgan Le Fay are at the top. The woman emerging from the golden egg is probably meant to be Malice, upon her reincarnation in issue #20. The group above Betsy’s head are all members of Krakoa’s Quiet Council (from left to right, Magneto, Mr Sinister, Nightcrawler, Kate Pryde, Mystique, Emma Frost, Storm and Professor X). To her left is a silhouetted image of Pete Wisdom being killed by Marianna Stern of Coven Akkaba in issue #21. To her bottom right are her brothers, Brian (Captain Avalon) and Jamie (Monarch). And bottom left are Stern again, with fellow Coven leader Reuben Brousseau.
The Incomplete Wolverine – 1992
Part 1: Origin to Origin II | Part 2: 1907 to 1914
Part 3: 1914 to 1939 | Part 4: World War II
Part 5: The postwar era | Part 6: Team X
Part 7: Post Team X | Part 8: Weapon X
Part 9: Department H | Part 10: The Silver Age
1974-1975 | 1976 | 1977 | 1978 | 1979
1980 | 1981 | 1982 | 1983 | 1984 | 1985
1986 | 1987 | 1988 | 1989 | 1990 | 1991
We’re deep into mythos-building at this point in the 90s, with Wolverine investigating his memory implants and following up on the events of 1991’s “Weapon X” origin story. We’re also deep into the glut of 1992/3, which results in a rather busy year for inconsequential guest appearances. But we kick off the year with a story that does matter.
WOLVERINE vol 2 #50
“Shiva Scenario, part 3”
by Larry Hama, Marc Silvestri, Dan Green & Steve Buccellato
January 1992
Wolverine breaks into the SHIELD Helicarrier (via improbable motorbike stunts) and demands that Nick Fury hand over his security dossier. Fury relents and hands it over – in the form of several boxes of floppy discs, because it’s 1992. The file has nothing about Logan’s personal history, but does have plenty of information about the Weapon X Project, including the whereabouts of Professor Thorton (who now has a cover job in the Department of Agriculture). Wolverine investigates a Weapon X warehouse in Ontario, and the Professor and Hines follow him there – as does Silver Fox, now an agent of HYDRA.
It’s at this point that Wolverine switches to his yellow costume. The story is very clear – Jean spells it out for us – that this is meant to be a sign of Wolverine’s mental regression, tied to the ill-advised exploration of his hidden memories in the preceding issues. But he’ll stick with the yellow costume long after that plotline fades out.
Charts – 3 September 2021
Please go away. Please.
1. Ed Sheeran – “Bad Habits”
Well, that’s ten weeks. If he’s past his peak, the chart rules will downweight him next week and he’ll be on his way. If not, and he manages an eleventh week, that’ll be the longest run at the top since “Dance Monkey” in late 2019. It heads up a static top four, for the second week running – “Stay” by Kid Laroi and Justin Bieber has been stuck at number 2 for five weeks now and would clearly have been a number one single against any normal competition.
7. Kanye West – “Hurricane”
11. Kanye West – “Jail”
15. Kanye West – “Off the Grid”
The maximum three permitted tracks from his new album “Donda”, which enters at number 1. It’s only his third number 1 album in the UK, the others being 2007’s “Graduation” and 2013’s “Yeezus”, but his last two albums both made number 2, so this hardly ranks as a surprise. There are no official singles from this album, and the only track with a video is “Come to Life” (which is just footage from one of his album playback events).
New Mutants #21 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
NEW MUTANTS vol 4 #21
“Krakoa Welcomes Gabby Kinney”
by Vita Ayala & Rod Reis
COVER / PAGE 1. Magik, Mirage and Karma confront a shadowy Wolfsbane, which doesn’t bear much resemblance to anything in the issue. It wouldn’t surprise me to learn it was based on an early version of the plot.
PAGES 2-3. Warpath takes his trainees to the moon.
The Summer House is the home of the Summers family, seen extensively in X-Men and Cable.
Warpath’s class are apparently here to look at the space slugs and, er, clean the more senior X-Men’s house. Heaven only knows where the space slugs came from; maybe someone brought them back from the Shi’ar empire, maybe they just happened to be passing and fell to the surface.
The kids in Warpath’s class today are:
Hellions #15 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
HELLIONS #15
“Don’t Look Back Part III: Fire and Brimstone”
by Zeb Wells, Rogé Antônio & Rain Beredo
COVER / PAGE 1: Just a straightforward picture of Psylocke with the rest of the cast behind her.
PAGE 2. Our opening quote comes from Tarn. The idea that Amino Fetus cannot be allowed to eat was established when he debuted in issue #6, and the rest of the Locus Vile have always been very keen to stop him doing it. The reasons haven’t been explained until now.
PAGE 3. The Right approach Krakoa.
These are the Right’s ZETA Team, who were introduced in issue #13, and were described by one of their own colleagues as “psychopaths”. They’re meant to be looking for the rogue AI that Nanny picked up from the Right in issue #8. They’re named here as Cobb (apparently the leader), Barker, Martinez and Susan. Susan appears to be a religious zealot, which Cobb (at least) doesn’t share.
Children of the Atom #1-6
CHILDREN OF THE ATOM #1-6
#1-2 by Vita Ayala, Bernard Chang & Marcelo Maiolo
#3-6 by Vita Ayala, Paco Medina & David Curiel
Here’s another one, then, for the list of recent X-books that read like they’ve been guillotined. Children of the Atom had long pre-release delays as well, perhaps pandemic-related. And after all that, it runs for six issues, five of which are spotlights on the individual team members. It’s not a gathering of the team arc as such – they’re already together right from issue #1 – but it’s a careful focus on each team member in turn, all very clearly intended to set up characters and relationships for the future.
Now, it’s certainly possible that we’ll come back to these characters. Carmen in particular seems like a natural fit for New Mutants. And it looks like some sort of revamp is coming after Inferno, so who knows, maybe the Children resurface then. That could explain some of the very obviously dangling plots, such as how they stumbled into a spaceship and found their equipment, or how one of their friends got super powers from being treated by Arthur Nagan of the Headmen, or… well, anything at all to do with poor Gabe, who never really gets around to do anything in these six issues, aside from getting introduced in issue #2.
But then there’s the sudden rush in issue #6 to tie up the romance angle that had been established with Gabe, Buddy and Carmen in earlier issues. That feels like something you only do if you have no choice but to cut to the chase.
Charts – 27 August 2021
Ed Sheeran continues to sit atop a becalmed singles chart.
1. Ed Sheeran – “Bad Habits”
5. Ed Sheeran – “Visiting Hours”
“Bad Habits” has now been number 1 for nine weeks, and it’s still not growing on me. Still, that matches “Drivers Licence” as the longest running number 1 of the year. Ten weeks and he overtakes her; eleven weeks would match Tones & I’s “Dance Monkey” from the tail end of 2019.
