Uncanny X-Men #17 – “You’re in the Middle of Nowhere”
Hanging over Brian Bendis’ X-Men run is the spectre of his Avengers run, in which a bunch of seemingly disparate plot threads ultimately turned out, after several years, not to even gesture vaguely in the direction of coming together.
His X-Men stories have generally done a rather better job of giving the impression that there’s a coherent plan to it all, even if it does often seem like one that could speed up a bit. But every so often you have to wonder.
Elimination Chamber 2014
Elimination Chamber is an unusual show, more for what’s going on in the wider business than for the actual card. On Monday, the WWE launches its online streaming service, WWE Network, which will offer all the future “pay-per-views” as part of the subscription – a subscription which massively undercuts the cost of actually buying them as PPVs. Subscribers will also get access to a substantial video-on-demand library, plus some original programming (though the only notable inclusion is the developmental show NXT, which is genuinely quite good these days). This is all for viewers in the US, by the way; the international launch isn’t for a while yet.
In effect, the WWE is abandoning the PPV platform, and these shows will become monthly specials designed to draw new viewers to the Network. In practice, anyone who’s remotely interested in the Network is likely to sign up in advance of Wrestlemania next month, and in the short term the company’s main revenue source is likely to be rights fees from TV contracts (which, incidentally, are all coming for renegotiation right now) – so there’s going to be an interesting tension between grabbing the ratings and steering people to the Network.
House to Astonish Episode 120
It’s a big week for movie news, as House to Astonish looks at the Guardians of the Galaxy trailer, the potential Black Widow movie and the Fantastic Four casting, as well as ReedPop’s new New York convention and the May solicitations (no, we didn’t do Dark Horse, but you could probably write those yourself). There are also reviews of Undertow, New Warriors and Loki: Ragnarok and Roll, and the Official Handbook of the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe is a horny devil. All this plus Oprah’s Skrulls, an intervention for a comics company and All-New Steeltown Rockers.
The episode is here, or here on Mixcloud, or available via the player below. Let us know what you think, in the comments below, on Twitter, via email, or through our Facebook fan page, and don’t forget about our super-cool shirts available at our Redbubble store.
Charts – 16 February 2014
An interesting day for the charts, as the BBC has just announced that streaming services are going to be incorporated into the top 40. There are obvious questions of weighting here, but the basic idea of counting audiences on streaming services is plainly right. Judging from the OCC’s existing streaming chart, the main impact will be to slow the charts down; it’ll be interesting to see how they do the weighting.
As for this week’s chart, we may be a first – a top 40 with two records deemed completely unbroadcastable by the Radio 1 chart show.
40. Nina Nesbitt – “Selfies”
X-Men Legacy #19-24 – “For We Are Many”
As the second wave of Marvel NOW launches hits the stands, one of the more interesting products of the first wave draws to a conclusion. While the sales of X-Men Legacy rather suggest that it would not have been long for this world anyway, it feels as if Simon Spurrier’s story has come to its natural conclusion anyway. There’s no sense here of things being cut short; on the contrary, this seems to be the pay-off of everything the series has been building to this point.
Charts – 9 February 2014
Some #1 thoughts…
The X-books are all mid-storyline this week (or just starting), and I haven’t had time yet to read some of the other new launches that we didn’t cover on the podcast. But with Marvel swinging into another phase of relaunches, it seems an opportune time to make a few comments about their – shall we say – increasingly relaxed approach to whacking #1s on the cover.
Even in the boom period of the early 1990s, an issue #1 normally came attached to at least a revival of something long dormant, or a new spin-off. Then, from roughly “Heroes Reborn” onwards, it was good enough just to be a major relaunch of a continuing title. After that, any old relaunch was good enough. Then a change of creative team.
House to Astonish Episode 119
Hot on the heels of our special episode on CHIKARA Pro, we’re back with a regular hour-and-a-bit of comics chat. We’re talking about Mike Marts and Nick Lowe’s editorial moves, the new creative team on Superman, the Chew/Revival crossover, the Preacher TV show and various bits of comics movie casting. We’ve also got reviews of Turok: Dinosaur Hunter, Ms Marvel and Batman: Joker’s Daughter, and the Official Handbook of the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe is for kids, silly rabbit. All this plus your grandfather’s superheroes, Deathmate: Taupe and the reshuffling of a plate.
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 through our Facebook fan page.
Don’t forget the glittering delights of our Redbubble store: helping comics readers rock a sharp look since 2013.
Holds to Astonish
As mentioned in our last podcast post, Paul and I have put together a special one-off wrestling-themed episode of the show, which we’ve renamed Holds to Astonish for the occasion. On this episode, we’re speaking to two of the highly entertaining peeps from CHIKARA Pro (which we’ve previously written about here) – commentator Leonard F Chikarason (co-host of excellent comics podcast The Weekly Longbox) and wrestler Kobald (who is a goblin. We’re not kidding. It’s that kind of promotion). Forewarned is forearmed, though – we try to set out as much of the essential information on Chikara as possible in our intro, and we’ve made the interviews (which follow on from the important storyline events of National Pro Wrestling Day, which you can watch the whole of for free here) as user-friendly as possible, but there may be points which are necessarily glossed over a little. For that we can only apologise, and encourage you to check out Chikara shows for more details. Also, Kobald is a goblin, so his voice is… distinctive.
There’s practically no comics chat in this episode (though we do natter to Kobald for a bit about Spider-Man) so if you’re not a wrestling person, or if you’re not interested in hearing about the only wrestling promotion that can even get me interested, then never fear – your regular episode of the show will be along this weekend.
For everyone else, the show is here, or here on Mixcloud, or available via the embedded player below. We’re also on Stitcher.com and their free iOS and Android apps, and you can find our feed, as always, on iTunes. Let us know what you think, in the comments below, on Twitter, via email or on our Facebook fan page.
There’s also super snazzy House to Astonish merch, as always, on our Redbubble store.
Charts – 2 February 2014
As we enter February, the release schedules are back to something approaching normal. Of course, there’s always something odd going on.
40. Dappy – “No Regrets”
This was the only solo number one for the N-Dubz bozo, back in 2011. He was last in the chart in September 2012, and the only apparent reason for “No Regrets” to suddenly reappear now is his recent stint on Celebrity Big Brother, the once-mighty Channel 4 ratings titan now eking out a living in reduced circumstances on Channel 5.
34. Sophie Ellis-Bextor – “Young Blood”
