Charts – 2 June 2023
Ah, so this is going to be around forever, then.
1. Calvin Harris & Ellie Goulding – “Miracle”
That’s eight weeks, so it ties with “One Kiss” as Calvin Harris’s longest-reigning number one. Goulding broke her record a few weeks back. It’s been on the chart for a total of 12 weeks now. “Daylight” by David Kushner is a non-mover at 2 – it’s now spent a total of five weeks stuck behind “Miracle”. Perhaps more surprisingly, number 3 is “Calm Down” by Rema, which has been in the top 10 for 24 weeks now, and has been on the top 40 since September. I haven’t mentioned it in a while because it reached number 4 for the first time back in March – and thus hasn’t achieved a new peak since, until now – but it’s huge.
12. Taylor Swift – “Karma”
18. Taylor Swift – “Hits Different”
24. Taylor Swift featuring Lana Del Rey – “Snow on the Beach”
Taylor Swift is so big that she can get three tracks into the top 40 on the release of the deluxe edition of an album from six months ago. Who does that?
X-Axis – w/c 29 May 2023
Another unusually quiet week. Well, next week’s busier. In the meantime…
BETSY BRADDOCK: CAPTAIN BRITAIN #4. (Annotations here.) So we’ve reached the penultimate issue, and while there isn’t quite a mad scramble going on, it does feel like yet again we’ve jumped past a bunch of stuff and headed straight to the conclusion. The whole Fury-as-Captain-Britain thing gets brushed aside by having him get beaten up in a few pages by the Avengers, though admittedly he’s got a subplot with Brian to pick up next issue. Rachel’s Askani storyline suddenly leaps forward. Jamie does things to advance the plot… It is what it is, at this stage. And let’s be fair, between Excalibur, Knights of X and BB:CB, this storyline has managed 36 issues, which isn’t bad in the current market. But 35 issues down, I’m still not really very interested in Betsy as Captain Britain, and when the book is trying to be defiantly celebratory about her in the role, it far too often feels brittle and defensive. Let’s just wrap up the storylines and move on.
X-MEN UNLIMITED INFINITY COMIC #89. By Steve Orlando, Emilio Laiso & Rachelle Rosenberg. The X-Men fight Nature Girl – sorry, Armageddon Girl – and of course she takes them apart singlehandedly. After all, it would be a pretty underwhelming story if a bunch of characters who hadn’t otherwise been involved just rocked up and sorted it a few panels. This issue comes across more as a swing back to the earlier X-Men Green vibe of “the planet is very angry and Nature Girl has a point”. There’s not a huge amount more to it than that, but it’s got a story beat to hit and it does it well.
DEADPOOL #7. By Alyssa Wong, Luigi Zagaria & Matt Milla. There’s a lot that I like about this run on Deadpool – the art and story have a nice upbeat feel, the Atelier characters feel well designed, Valentine works as a foil for Deadpool. The tone is right. My main issue with it is pacing – it does some really long action sequences which mean that not a huge amount happens in each issue. That’s the main thing holding it back right now, but it’s still quite good fun in its own way.
X-23: DEADLY REGENESIS #3. By Erica Schultz, Edgar Salazar & Carlos Lopez. You expect these flashback minis to play the hits, but up to about two thirds of the way through this issue, Deadly Regenesis feels a lot like it’s re-treading the hits. Eventually we get to the hook, which is Kimura trying to exploit X-23’s new heroic values to get her back under control by means of hostage taking, and deliberately finding the most random and unimportant people she can find (in her eyes, at least) so as to rub it in that Laura is doing this in service of some abstract notion of the importance of human life. I can kind of see that as an angle for a certain point in Laura’s development, and Salazar’s art makes Kimura seem suitably smug, but I’m far from convinced that this is really adding much.
Betsy Braddock: Captain Britain #4 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
BETSY BRADDOCK: CAPTAIN BRITAIN #4
“Earth’s Most Furious”
Writer: Tini Howard
Artist: Vasco Georgiev
Colour artist: Erick Arciniega
Letterer: Ariana Maher
Design: Tom Muller with Jay Bowen
Editor: Sarah Brunstad
COVER / PAGE 1: Captain Britain and Askani under attack by Morgan Le Fey’s Furies and Dr Doom’s Doombots.
PAGES 2-4. Betsy Braddock and Tony Stark talk.
This scene picks up from the end of the previous issue, with Betsy visiting Tony to ask for his help as “an expert on Morgan Le Fey”.
“I went to Otherworld once upon a time. With Doctor Doom.” If this is meant to be referring to Iron Man vol 1 #150, then that was a time travel story, not a trip to Otherworld.
“I dueled King Arthur somewhat recently.” In Excalibur #26 (which came out back in December 2021).
“Terrible what happened to the West End.” Tony is referring the Fury attack last issue.
PAGE 5. Recap and credits.
Charts – 26 May 2023
Apparently it’s late-career hit week on the singles chart. But first…
1. Calvin Harris & Ellie Goulding – “Miracle”
That’s week seven. One more week for it to match “One Kiss” as Calvin Harris’s longest-running number one. “Daylight” by David Kushner returns to number 2 for a fourth week, after getting pushed down to 3 last time.
9. Lana Del Rey – “Say Yes to Heaven”
Lana Del Rey did have hit singles right at the start of her career – “Video Games” made number 9 in 2011, and “Born To Die” did the same the following year. In fact, that’s as high as she’s ever got with a regular single. Technically she has three higher placed singles to her credit – the 2013 remix of “Summertime Sadness”, which reached number 4; her inexplicable collaboration with Ariana Grande and Miley Cyrus on “Don’t Call Me Angel (Charlie’s Angels)”, which got to number 2 in 2019; and her guest appearance on Taylor Swift’s “Snow on the Beach”, which reached number 4 last year. But she hasn’t had a top 40 hit with one her own records since “Lust For Life”, which scraped the bottom of the chart in 2017.
The X-Axis – w/c 22 May 2023
Just one core book this week, so we’re straight on to the capsules.
X-MEN UNLIMITED INFINITY COMIC #88. By Steve Orlando, Emilio Laiso & Rachelle Rosenberg. Okay, so this is clearly us building to the big finale. Nature Girl has finally moved beyond eco-terrorism to outright atrocity, and the real X-Men finally show up to deal with her. It’s straightforward, and at this point Nature Girl isn’t what you’d call a subtle character – her back story and her previous established persona is doing a lot of the work here by providing some context for her. Laiso’s art, meanwhile, works hard to invest us in the mega-obscure Spider-Girl. As is often the case with X-Men Unlimited, it’s more of a scene than a story, but on a weekly schedule there’s nothing wrong with that.
NEW MUTANTS: LETHAL LEGION #3. (Annotations here.) I’m counting this as a core title because it’s basically a continuation of New Mutants, but if we’re being honest, we’re on the fringes of Krakoan continuity here too. It remains very much a book centred on Charlie Jane Anders’ new character Escapade, which I don’t really have a problem with, since I quite like Escapade – but the established cast are getting marginalised. The middle section has some awkward cutting back and forth between scenes mid-page, which might have worked better if they were coloured more distinctively from another, but winds up feeling a bit confused at times. Still, this is mostly good fun as things start escalating at Nefaria’s Mansion, with a bit of soap opera for Escapade, Morgan and Cerebella thrown in. There’s a lot of personality in both writing and art, and it’s a very likeable series.
House to Astonish Presents: The Lightning Round Episode 14
It’s time for another electrifying set of issues of Marvel’s most wanted superteam, the Thunderbolts, as we look at Thunderbolts Annual 2000, as well as Thunderbolts #38 and #39. Scourges! Hellstroms! Citizens V! It’s very much all go, as the storyline begun in issue 34 continues along its twisty-turny path.
The episode can be found here, or via the embedded player below. Let us know what you think, in the comments, via email, on Twitter or Mastodon, or on our Facebook fan page! And do you know what would really bring out your eyes? A House to Astonish T-shirt. It’s true!
New Mutants: Lethal Legion #3 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
NEW MUTANTS: LETHAL LEGION #3
“Old Wounds, Old Weapons”
Writer: Charlie Jane Anders
Penciller: Enid Balám
Inker: Elisabetta D’Amico
Colourist: Matt Milla
Letterer: Travis Lanham
Design: Tom Muller with Jay Bowen
Editor: Sarah Brunstad
COVER / PAGE 1. Count Nefaria stands over the defeated cast.
PAGES 2-3. Karma, Mirage and Galura arrive at Count Nefaria’s mansion.
“Well, this is where Cerebro said we’d find those kids.” Last issue, Dani and Xuân were looking for Cerebella and Scout, and learned that they’d gone off-island with Escapade. Evidently they really don’t trust the trio’s judgment, since for all they know, they might have just gone to visit home.
“Do you ever miss it Karma? Being a billionaire?” Karma inherited the Hatchi Corporation upon the death of Susan Hatchi in Astonishing X-Men vol 3 #56 (2012). She claims here to have given it all away “long ago … before Krakoa”. In fact, although it was only mentioned intermittently in later years, it featured prominently in the miniseries New Mutants: Dead Souls, and she was still rich during the Matthew Rosenberg run (see Uncanny X-Men vol 5 #18), which is immediately before Krakoa. Admittedly, it hasn’t been mentioned during the Krakoan era, which at the very least suggested that she had handed the running of the business off to somebody else.
Charts – 19 May 2023
It’s the post-Eurovision chart, and for once, there’s a real impact in the top ten. But first…
1. Calvin Harris & Ellie Goulding – “Miracle”
…this gets a fairly comfortable sixth week at number one. Still another two weeks to go before it matches “One Kiss” as Calvin Harris’s longest running number 1.
Embedding doesn’t seem to be working right now, so I’ll just do links. You know how to open in a new window, after all.
It’s not unusual for tracks from Eurovision to show up in the top 40 in the following week, but their sales and streams tend to be frontloaded in the days after the contest. This year, four songs make the chart, but they all had actual sustained success and wind up in the top 10 – they’re legitimate hits. Part of that may be because the viewing figures were high this year, possibly because it was held in the UK (subbing for last year’s winner Ukraine). Part of it may be that the standard was unusually high.
The X-Axis – w/c 15 May 2023
A nice quiet week, for once.
X-MEN vol 6 #22. (Annotations here.) This is evidently meant to be the Orchis spotlight issue – only half of the X-Men appear, and it’s mostly focussing on the plans of Orchis. Thing is, I’m not sure that Duggan’s take on Orchis really has enough depth to it to sustain this. They feel like they’re all basically the same character doing the same thing. That wasn’t quite the case under Hickman, when a big part of Orchis’s role was to be a mirror of Krakoa. We seem to have abandoned that angle, and I’m not really convinced that anything much has come in to replace it. As a plot angle, “the Krakoan drug supply is contaminated, ruining the mutants’ reputation and their economic leverage” is fine – but the Orchis characters aren’t very interesting at this point.
X-FORCE vol 6 #40. (Annotations here.) It still feels like a weird choice to spend years building up Beast’s scheming in X-Force and then pay it off in Wolverine. This issue sees Sage’s new team dragged off to the future by Kid Omega to deal with assorted Beast variants planted throughout the timeline by… well, apparently by another future variant Beast. I suppose this is kind of sort of their showdown with Beast, but it feels far too much like busy work designed to occupy the characters instead of having their storyline actually pay off in their own series. It feels terribly placeholder to me.
X-MEN UNLIMITED INFINITY COMIC #79. By Steve Orlando, Emilio Laiso & Rachelle Rosenberg. So that leaves this as the best X-book of the week, as Eye Boy tries to talk some sense into Nature Girl, and get precisely nowhere with it. We’re clearly going here with the idea that X-Men Green’s eco-terrorism is such an extreme overreaction that it has to be attributed to Curse’s influence – which is the back door that makes Lin Li redeemable – but leaving open the possibility that maybe she has just snapped. She’s certainly an outright villain at this point, but bringing in Eye Boy as a likeable voice of reason to put that point beyond doubt is an effective choice.
X-Force #40 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
X-FORCE vol 6 #40
“The Ghost Calendars, part 1”
Writer: Benjamin Percy
Artists: Robert Gill and Paul Davidson
Colourist: GURU-eFX
Letterer: Joe Caramagna
Design: Tom Muller with Jay Bowen
Editor: Mark Basso
COVER / PAGE 1. X-Force leap into action in a futuristic city – with Beast in the background rather than Kid Omega, but that’s spoilers being avoided in the solicitations, I expect. If you want, you could claim he’s sort of symbolically looming over them? Deadpool doesn’t go on this mission either, but heck, it’s a cover.
PAGES 2-6. Quentin Quire briefs X-Force and takes them into the future.
This picks up from the end of the previous issue. X-Force have just dealt with a bunch of Beast’s genetic experiments who were dumped on Krakoa by Sevyr Blackmore, hence all the body parts lying around. Then the older Quentin Quire emerged through a portal, sliced off a giant tentacle thingy that was reaching after him, and announced that he needed X-Force’s help.
