Age of X-Man: Alpha
So here we are again, at the start of another event. This is the set-up one-shot which leads in to no fewer than six minis – Marvelous X-Men, NextGen, Amazing Nightcrawler, X-Tremists, Prisoner X, and Apocalypse & The X-Tracts. You know how these things work: a basic story that serves as an introduction to the world, and scenes which lead in to all of the individual minis, complete (for once) with footnotes telling you precisely where to go for the follow-up. Which is appreciated, by the way.
The build to this story, over ten issue of Uncanny X-Men, was decidedly underwhelming, and left me approaching this issue with a sense of grinding duty. But this is night and day. “Disassembled” felt like a protracted exercise in getting the right characters into the right place (and not very organically at that), but Age of X-Man turns out to be going somewhere less obvious.
Charts – 1 February 2019
We’re settling back into the normal routine here.
1. Ariana Grande – “7 Rings”
That’s two weeks, and it’s still doing over ten million streams. I still don’t think much of it. So let’s move on. The rest of the top three is static – below that, “Giant” by Calvin Harris & Rag’n’Bone Man climbs 5-4, and “Don’t Call Me Up” by Mabel moves 11-7. That overtakes “Finders Keepers” to be her biggest hit.
9. J Cole – “Middle Child”
Uncanny X-Men Annual #1: “The Return of Cyclops”
Well, no messing around with that story title, is there? Still, coming after the decidedly underwhelming “Disassembled” arc, this is more like it. It’s no classic – there’s an unavoidable sense of a writer and his editors grabbing the story by the neck and yanking it into the desired position. But on the flip side, it also brings a clear sense of what it’s trying to accomplish, and it gets there in a fairly satisfying and efficient way. It does a rather better job than “Disassembled” of conveying a sense of purpose.
“The Return of Cyclops” is written by Ed Brisson, one of the X-books’ regular stable of writers, with strong art by Carlos Gomez. It’s solid storytelling that adds to the scenes with some decent acting, and hopefully Marvel US will do more with him. He does a particularly solid job with the young Cable, who comes across as annoyingly relaxed for much of the issue, something that plays nicely into the way he acts. But the scene of the villain returning to his neglected lab after years in jail is also beautifully done.
Charts – 25 January 2019
There’s a ton of new entries on the album chart this week, so settle in. And hey, here’s our first new number one of 2019!
1. Ariana Grande – “7 Rings”
Mmm. This is Ariana Grande’s fourth UK number one and… it’s a bit rubbish, this, isn’t it? Hugely popular – nearly 17 million streams in a week, and you don’t get that just from dutiful fans listening. But still a bit rubbish. It’s the old “allow me to inform you of my significant wealth” song, which I’m never interested in, even if it is tongue in cheek (“Whoever said money can’t solve your problems / Must not have had enough money to solve ’em”). It’s… vaguely unlikeable, you know, which is not usually an issue with Ariana Grande.
Uncanny X-Men #1-10: “X-Men Disassembled”
Well.
On paper, this looked okay. New direction, weekly storyline. Written by Ed Brisson, Matthew Rosenberg and Kelly Thompson – they’re usually interesting writers. Named after “Avengers Disassembled”, which was awful… but actually closer to the format of last year’s “Avengers: No Surrender”, which was pretty good. Art by… well, the first issue is drawn by Mahmud Asrar, but mostly it’s the likes of Pere Perez, RB Silva and Yildiray Cinar, because it’s a weekly and it needs a team. Still, it sounded quite promising on paper.
And here it is, and it’s kind of meh.
Charts – 18 January 2018
The singles chart is getting back into the swing of things. The album chart… very much isn’t.
1. Ava Max – “Sweet But Psycho”
That’s four weeks at number one, but at least some other records are marching on her. “Nothing Breaks Like a Heart” by Mark Ronson featuring Miley Cyrus climbs 3-2, which is Miley’s highest position since 2014 (when she was one of a ton of guests on will.i.am’s “Feelin’ Myself”). “Wow.” by Post Malone climbs 4-3, equalling the peak of his previous single “Sunflowers”, which in turn is still hanging around at 5.
4. Sam Smith & Normani – “Dancing with a Stranger”
House to Astonish Episode 170
We’re sorry we’ve been away for such a long… wait, two weeks? Are you sure? What is this, 2014?
Anyway, we’re back, talking about Batton Lash, Dark Horse’s upcoming Definitive Moonshadow, Joe Casey and Piotr Kowalski’s Sex going straight to OGN, the return of Section Zero, Marvel’s upcoming Thanos mini, Kieron Gillen leaving Star Wars, the upcoming Age of Rebellion one-shots and Rob Liefeld’s return to Marvel. We’ve also got reviews of Criminal and Invaders, and the Official Handbook of the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe can make you a man. All this plus Capital The, the X-Majorettes and the personnel link between Gorilla Comics and NPR.
The podcast is here, or here on Mixcloud, or available via the embedded player below. Let us know what you think in the comments, on Twitter, via email or at our Facebook fan page. And hey, it’s never too early to start thinking about buying one of our snazzy t-shirts! And if you’re in the Southern hemisphere, it’s never too late!
Charts – 11 January 2018
Christmas is over, and the singles chart is back to something approaching normal. Just four new entries, but they are normal new entries.
1. Ava Max – “Sweet But Psycho”
Not that anything is yet breaking through to challenge Ava Max, who gets a third week at number 1. She has a comfortable lead over the number 2 single (“Thank U Next”), equivalent to 27,000 sales, so she could be here a while yet. Number 3 is “Nothing Breaks Like a Heart” by Mark Ronson featuring Miley Cyrus, which is now Ronson’s biggest hit since “Uptown Funk”. “Wow.” by Post Malone climbs to 5, pushing his own “Sunflower” down to 5.
6. Headie One featuring Dave – “18Hunna”
Iceman #3-5
The idea of Sina Grace and Nathan Stockman’s Iceman tends to be better than the reality, which is a frustrating mix of the subtly executed, and the crashingly heavy handed. I covered the first two issues of this series a while back, and here we get what amounts to a third issue which broadly stands alone, followed by the big drawing together of threads to… mixed results.
#3 has a lot of what this book does well. It’s Bobby as the X-Man with a foot in the real world. He’s dating, he’s at a street food festival in Manhattan. Spider-Man and Firestar are there too, with their own dates. And honestly, I’m more interested in seeing these characters do normal things for a bit. Well, not so much Spider-Man, who actually does normal things quite often – but it’s a nice change of pace for the X-Men. Stockman’s good on the setting and largely decent on his conversation scenes, though he does lapse into fixed grins from time to time.
Domino #7-10: “Soldier of Fortune”
On the heels of the strikingly abrupt final issues of Weapon X, “Soldier of Fortune” is something suspiciously similar – a four part story which comes in two barely connected halves, and which seems to go into fast forward in its final issue. I don’t know what was going on here, but this is another story that certainly reads as if the book was abruptly cancelled and went into aggressive wrap-up mode.
Except… Domino returns as a five-issue miniseries in March, with precisely the same creative team. So… what the heck? A last-minute reprieve after they’d already committed to the wrap-up? An inexplicable attack of madness?
