Hunt for Wolverine
Wolverine’s return was the great climax of the Marvel Legacy one-shot. And that was last September.
Now, over six months later, Marvel finally gets around to the follow-up. Yes, I gather there’s been some “where’s Wolverine” pages at the back of various comics, but they don’t make it into any of the digital editions, presumably because Marvel are classing them as glorified house ads. Rightly so, by all accounts. But with Hunt for Wolverine, Charles Soule – who killed off Wolverine in the first place – does the set-up work for a bunch of parallel miniseries that are going to bring him back again.
Weapon X #15-16: “Happy Birthday, Old Man Logan”
Have I mentioned – I think I may have done once or twice – that I didn’t greatly care for Axis? You remember Axis. It was the crossover back in 2014 where people had their moral compass “inverted” so goodies became baddies and vice versa. And that’s fine as a bit of short-term gimmickry, but Marvel decided to leave some of the characters like that permanently.
So four years later, Havok and Sabretooth are still kind-of-sort-of inverted. They had a go at an ongoing series with an inverted Iron man too, but unless I’m very much mistaken, that one just kind of petered out without a proper resolution.
Charts – 27 April 2018
I’ll get back to reviews shortly, but first, let’s catch up on a busy week…
1. Calvin Harris & Dua Lipa – “One Kiss”
Two weeks – Calvin Harris has number one hits fairly often but hasn’t managed a two week run since “We Found Love” back in 2011. This still doesn’t have a proper video, so here’s a TV performance which Calvin Harris has posted on his YouTube channel.
2. Ariana Grande – “No Tears Left To Cry” (more…)
Charts – 20 April 2018
Well, so much for Drake having another mammoth run at number 1.
1. Calvin Harris & Dua Lipa – “One Kiss”
We’re ready for summer, then? Calvin Harris has been around for over a decade now, and he’s been placing consistently in the top ten the whole time. This is his ninth number one hit, following “Dance Wiv Me” (2008), “I’m Not Alone” (2009), “We Found Love” (2011), “Sweet Nothing” (2012), “Under Control” (2013), “Summer” (2014), “Blame” (2014), and “Feels” (2017). Okay, a couple of those were guest appearances, but that’s still seven with top billing. It’s an impressive haul, but you don’t think of Calvin Harris as that level of celebrity, perhaps because he’s more of a background figure in the way he promotes his own records.
X-Men Gold #23-25: “Cruel & Unusual”
I’m late with this one, but that’s what I get for trusting the solicitations, which insist that “Cruel & Unusual” is a three-parter. It certainly seemed to have finished with issue #25, but you never know, do you?
So this is the prison story, which is a somewhat interesting idea. If you’re going to plonk the X-Men in Central Park then one side effect of that should be that the team get to deal with the authorities a lot more directly than when they just hid out in upstate New York and tried not to get noticed. So there’s some mileage in a story about the X-Men knowing they’re innocent, but recognising that the police have sensible reasons for arresting them, and deciding that they’d better play by the rules. It’s not how the X-Men are used to working.
Old Man Logan #36-38: “Moving Target”
With Wolverine Classic on his way back imminently, Old Man Logan seems to be marking time. You might have expected it to be building to some sort of conclusion, but instead it seems to be settling into a run of relatively normal Wolverine-style stories. That’s probably not ideal in the bigger picture – what’s the big deal of Wolverine returning if we’ve got Wolverine stories right here? – but at least it results in a comic which is perfectly okay on its own terms.
In search of a Marvel Universe hook that can somehow link back to Logan’s back story, Ed Brisson and Dalibor Talajić’s story settles on the Kingpin’s election as mayor of New York. This actually seems more like a story that X-Men Gold should be doing, since that’s the book about the X-Men squatting in Central Park and having to deal with the local authorities. It’s a bit more tenuous in Old Man Logan, which makes a token effort by suggesting that maybe this is how the villain takeover starts in our timeline, and then largely not pondering it again. There’s also quite a bit about New Yorkers’ newfound antagonism towards superheroes in general, but that’s hardly new territory for the X-books.
Charts – 13 April 2018
It’s an epic this week. But first, do you miss the heady days of three weeks ago when Drake was at number 1 with “God’s Plan”? Well, good news, because…
1. Drake – “Nice For What”
This is Drake’s fourth number one. True, one of them was his guest appearance on Rihanna’s “What’s My Name” back in 2010, and he wasn’t the draw on that one. But the others were “One Dance”, which spent fifteen weeks at number one, and “God’s Plan”, which managed nine. So we could be here for a while. This one’s a bit different in tone, though, since it’s built around a more uplifting sample. It’s a sped-up lift from Lauryn Hill’s “Ex-Factor” (number 4 in 1999) – which, by a weird coincidence, also crops up as a sample on another new entry this week. (more…)
Charts – 6 April 2018
Another week with everything still in mid-storyline, if you’re wondering about reviews. From reading it, you’d think this week’s X-Men Gold was the last part of “Cruel and Unusual”, but the solicitations assure me it isn’t, so we’ll take that on trust. In the meantime…
1. Lil Dicky featuring Chris Brown – “Freaky Friday”
Oh. Really? Oh.
So this has moved 16-5-1 and let’s say I’m no more enamoured of it than I was last week or the week before. Chris Brown has had a total of fifteen top 10 hits over twelve years, but this is only his second number one, following six years after “Turn Up The Music”. It also adds Lil Dicky to the one hit wonder list (for now, at least).
Charts – 30 March 2018
Apparently guitars are back in this week.
1. Rudimental featuring Jess Glynne, Macklemore & Dan Caplen – “These Days”
Number one with… well, with an asterisk, let’s be honest. As foreshadowed in last week’s post, “God’s Plan” by Drake has now been around for ten weeks and is far enough past its peak to have its streams downweighted under the chart rules. As a result, its nine week run at the top comes to a screeching halt with a drop directly to number 10. How you feel about this depends on what weight you think the chart should be giving to repeat plays by the same people – but on any view there ought to be subtler ways of designing the rule to avoid such blatantly technicality-driven artefacts as a chart run of 1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-10.
Without the rule, Drake would have clung on for a tenth week, but by a razor-thin margin, equivalent to fifty-one sales. So we’d have had a change next week anyway. And since “These Days” is actually still growing in sales, there’s a fair chance it will purge the asterisk with a less contentious second week at the top.
Charts – 23 March 2018
So, those rule changes last year that were planned to speed up the chart – how are those working out for you?
1. Drake – “God’s Plan”
“God’s Plan” heads up a static top four, with Rudimental spending their seventh week at number 2. It now shares the record for the longest run at number 2 – the unlucky co-champions are “I Swear” by All-4-One and “Moves Like Jagger” by Maroon 5.
Drake gets nine weeks at number one, though we’ve still got another four weeks to go before he matches Ed Sheeran’s interminable run this time last year. But that almost certainly isn’t going to happen, for several reasons. It’s only kept a marginal lead for the last couple of weeks. It peaked several weeks ago. And next week it will be ten weeks old. And ten-week-old tracks which are several weeks past their prime get their streams downweighted.
