House to Astonish Presents: The Lightning Round Episode 1
It’s here! As trailed on our last episode, Paul and I are pleased to present the first episode of The Lightning Round, an in-depth re-read show all about Marvel’s Most Wanted, the Thunderbolts! Each episode we’ll be looking at a few (usually 3-6) issues of the series, plus key tie-ins and guest appearances, checking off a few of the things to watch out for and chatting through all the twists and turns in this twistiest and turniest of series.
In episode 1, we’re covering Incredible Hulk #449, Tales of the Marvel Universe, and Thunderbolts #s 1 and 2. If you haven’t read the series before, be aware that this episode does contain spoilers for the first year of the book, though the intention is that there should be less need for this in future episodes. This episode is also a little longer than future instalments are likely to be (we’re aiming for around 40-45 minutes in future), but that’s largely because there’s an understandable amount of set-up and background to get through.
The podcast is here, or here on Mixcloud, or available through the embedded player below. We hope you enjoy it, but please let us know what you think, in the comments below, on Twitter, via email or through our Facebook fan page. And, as always, you can pick yourself up one of our very snazzy shirts at our Redbubble store if the mood takes you.
The Incomplete Wolverine: 1981
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
The focus is very much off Wolverine in this year’s X-Men stories. But 1981 is also where most of Wolverine: First Class fits, so…
X-MEN vol 1 #141 and UNCANNY X-MEN vol 1 #142
“Days of Future Past”
by Chris Claremont, John Byrne, Terry Austin & Glynis Wein
January & February 1981
Kate Pryde, the middle-aged Sprite from the distant future of 2013, swaps minds with her past self in order to warn the X-Men that the new Brotherhood of Evil Mutants – Mystique (Raven Darkhölme), Destiny (Irene Adler), Avalanche (Dominic Petros), Pyro (St John Allerdyce) and the Blob – are going to assassinate Senator Robert Kelly. In Kate’s timeline, this set off a chain of events resulting in an apocalyptic Sentinel-dominated America, and likely nuclear annihilation. The X-Men, now with Storm as field leader, duly defeat the new Brotherhood and save Kelly; Kitty and Kate swap back.
“Days of Future Past” is a classic X-Men story, but it’s not particularly central for Wolverine. He does get to use his senses to verify that Kate is the real thing, and to identify Mystique in disguise. And he has a brief argument with Storm, now that she’s the new authority figure in town. She orders him not to use his claws against opponents unless the circumstances are exceptional, and he grudgingly accepts the ruling. Interestingly, her argument is that he doesn’t need his claws because he has “speed [and] strength” as well as his adamantium skeleton, which reads as if they still hadn’t quite figured out exactly what his powers were at this point.
Excalibur #17 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
EXCALIBUR vol 4 #17
“QEIII”
by Tini Howard, Marcus To & Erick Arciniega
The title is short for “Queen Elizabeth III”, presumably referencing the cruise liner Queen Elizabeth II, often known as the QE2. (The normal abbreviation for the Queen is ER II, standing for Elizabeth Regina.)
COVER / PAGE 1. Betsy – or perhaps her counterpart – as queen of an alternate England, complete with the orb, sceptre and crown from the Crown Jewels.
Wolverine #9 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
WOLVERINE vol 7 #9
“Bidding War”
by Benjamin Percy, Adam Kubert & Frank Martin
COVER / PAGE 1. Wolverine’s hand is auctioned off. Which rather spoils the reveal in the issue itself, but okay – it’s not the main reveal, after all. Some other superhero memorabilia can be seen on the other tables.
PAGES 2-4. Flashback: a Team X mission.
These flashbacks follow the same visual pattern as other flashback pages in the issue – a 16-panel grid with the key information picked up in a diagonal row of panels shown in different colours. It’s quite effective.
(more…)New Mutants #15 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
NEW MUTANTS vol 4 #15
“The Kids Ain’t Alright”
by Vita Ayala & Rod Reis
COVER / PAGE 1. The New Mutants are pursued by… well, Cosmar from the look of it. Nothing like this happens in the issue. Interesting that Scout is shown alongside the team, though.
PAGES 2-3. Magik asks about the destruction of the Fort.
The Akademos Habitat is the area where the younger mutants are meant to live; this is the first time we’ve heard about the Fort, which has evidently been set on fire by other teenage mutants. This is the kind of vandalism that the New Mutants were referring in their memo to Professor X in the previous issue, the one that landed them with their mentor role.
(more…)X-Men #17 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
X-MEN vol 5 #17
“Empty Nest”
by Jonathan Hickman, Brett Booth, Adelso Corona & Sunny Gho
COVER / PAGE 1: Just a generic action shot of Storm (by the regular artist Leinil Francis Yu, who doesn’t draw this issue).
PAGES 2-4: Deathbird calls for help after Xandra is kidnapped.
“[A]nnihilation events and celestial disruptions.” The lettering has both in lower case, but this is at least alluding to the various Annihilation storylines in the cosmic books, and to the periodic appearances of Kirby space gods the Celestials.
(more…)Juggernaut #1-5
JUGGERNAUT #1-5
by Fabian Niceza, Ron Garney and Matt Milla
Is this an X-book? It’s from the X-office, and the Juggernaut is an X-character. But it doesn’t follow the style and layout of the Krakoa-era line – it has its own colour coded recap pages, I suppose, which are something of a nod to modern X-Men design sensibilities, but that’s about it. Professor X shows up in a couple of issues, but only to tell the Juggernaut that sorry, he’s not welcome on Krakoa, due to being a human.
That’s something of the point. The rest of the X-cast have decamped to Krakoa, and the Juggernaut – who was dutifully trying to reform the last time we saw him, and had briefly joined the Rosenberg-era “last X-Men” squad – is stuck behind in New York. And Fabian Nicieza is an X-Men writer of an earlier era, which in a meta sort of way feels very appropriate for where the Juggernaut is left.
(more…)X-Factor #1-5
X-FACTOR vol 4 #1-5
by Leah Williams, David Baldeon & Israel Silva
The thing about bringing back X-Factor is that the X-Factor name has been attached to a whole bunch of unrelated concepts over the years. It’s been the original X-Men’s reunion; it’s been the US government mutant team; it’s been a detective agency; it’s been a corporate team. There’s not much common thread beyond some recurring characters.
For the Krakoan era, we’ve only really got Polaris as an established team member. And we’re calling back to the well-received detective run, by making the new X-Factor Investigations into the people who investigate missing persons on Krakoa.
(more…)Charts – 22 January 2021
As the charts settle back down to normal, the first new number one of the year is settling in for a residency.
1. Olivia Rodrigo – “Drivers License”
32. Olivia Rodrigo – “All I Want”
Two weeks. “Drivers Licence” is – deservedly – an enormous hit, coming from nowhere to set new streaming records worldwide. Its streaming total this week was 13.7 million, not a record, but still the highest weekly figure in a couple of years. A couple of weeks ago Olivia Rodrigo was essentially unknown outside the Disney Channel demographic, which makes it all the more impressive. As a spillover, we have a surprise entry into the top 40 for “All I Want”, a track she wrote for Disney’s High School Musical: The Musical: The Series. It wasn’t technically released as a single but it does have a video and it made the top 100 on streaming when it was released a year ago.
(more…)X-Force #16 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
X-FORCE vol 6 #16
“Into the Deep”
by Benjamin Percy, Joshua Cassara & Guru-eFX
COVER / PAGE 1: Wolverine, Kid Omega and Forge fighting a giant sea monster.
PAGE 2. Memorial page for Mike Hobson.
PAGE 3. The Beast and Cecilia Reyes examine one of the zombies.
This is one of the zombified sailors that attacked the island last issue. Evidently they didn’t put up much of a fight.
“[Krakoa] is at once our protector and our destroyer.” It’s not immediately clear what the Beast has in mind by the latter point. Perhaps he’s referring to the fact that Krakoa still ultimately feeds on mutant energies. It’s unlikely he’s referring to any deep secret, given that he’s talking about it openly in front of Cecilia.
(more…)