Charts – 2 June 2013
In which the run of high-selling number one singles continues. Plus – back catalogue debris washed up on the shores of reality TV!
39. Ellie Goulding – “Anything Could Happen”
37. The Script – “The Man Who Can’t Be Moved”
Back catalogue downloads sparked by Britain’s Got Talent, I believe.
35. Bruno Mars – “Treasure”
The X-Axis – 2 June 2013
It’s a busy week, with X-Men relaunching, Wolverine and the X-Men kicking off its next major storyline, and Savage Wolverine wrapping up Frank Cho’s arc.
Well, kind of.
It’s also a podcast weekend, so don’t forget to check one post down for reviews that include a fuller discussion of X-Men.
Gambit #13 – Hmm. This book is on its way to imminent cancellation, and so naturally enough, it’s in wrap-up mode. The lengthy Joelle arc ended last month, but seemed to be setting up a cliffhanger where Gambit’s thievery-related sidekick Fence had been killed by Tombstone, or something to that effect. In this issue, Tombstone’s nowhere to be seen; instead, it’s an issue of Gambit trying to help his friend by stealing technology from Tony Stark’s apartment – which is going to help, apparently, because Fence is a cyborg, so, yeah, technology.
House to Astonish Episode 107
New month, new podcast, and Paul and I have got comicsy natterings for you on Rebellion’s limited Zenith hardcover (and the legal implications thereof), Paul Jenkins leaving Marvel and DC for BOOM!, the ever-expanding cast of Guardians of the Galaxy and Marvel’s wranglings with Fox over the cinematic versions of Quicksilver. We’ve also got reviews of Supermag, The Wake and X-Men, and the Official Handbook of the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe is a first-level magic user. All this plus Hose to Astonish, Ronan Keating the Accuser and golfing in a general sense.
The podcast is here, or here on Mixcloud, or available via the embedded player below. Let us know what you think, either in the comments, via email, on Twitter or on our Facebook fan page.
Don’t forget, you can be both stylish and supportive by checking out (and hopefully investing in) one of our swish new T-shirts.
Charts – 26 May 2013
After four weeks (and with their album now available to buy instead), Daft Punk’s reign at the top comes to an end. We can now return to our regularly scheduled business of records entering at number 1!
40. Evanescence – “Bring Me To Life”
Performed on Britain’s Got Talent, as if you couldn’t guess.
30. The 1975 – “The City”
The X-Axis – 26 May 2013
This week: some anthology filler, a crossover issue, the X-Men are going to fight Dormammu any time now, and inter-title continuity shows up where I’d least expect it.
A+X #8 – So yeah, this book is still going.
Leaving aside the dubious commercial wisdom of trying to sell an anthology title to today’s readers, you would think that A+X‘s broad remit at least provided it with a fair opportunity to do something entertaining. In theory, the only requirement for an A+X story is to fill half an issue with a team-up between two heroes, with one being primarily associated with the Avengers, and the other being primarily associated with the X-Men. Given the vast number of characters in either camp, that’s a huge number of combinations.
Charts – 19 May 2013
It wasn’t just Eurovision this week! There’s also a batch of new entries, none of which is troubling Daft Punk in the slightest!
38. Gabrielle Aplin – “Please Don’t Say You Love Me”
This was a number 6 hit in February. It’ll be back because of a spillover effect from the release of her album this week.
36. Birdy – “People Help The People”
This was on The Voice… er, two weeks ago. Delayed effect? Or was it just listed as a discount track on Amazon?
27. Mariah Carey (featuring Miguel) – “#Beautiful”
Climbing from last week’s 39, and it’s still climbing on iTunes – so perhaps this isn’t quite the dud it first appeared. But the midweek chart doesn’t show it going much further.
23. Tich – “Dumb”
Eurovision 2013
There is truly nothing quite like the Eurovision Song Contest. For those of you reading this outside Europe, a brief bit of context: it’s a contest in which countries from across a very broadly defined Europe each enter a song, and then there’s a Europe-wide phone vote (combined with scores from national judges) to determine a winner. Long regarded in the west as a piece of amusing kitsch, the contest is taken rather more seriously by the newer entrants from the east. The result is a baffling mixture of legitimate pop, sentimental ballads about love and/or global unity, odd novelty records, inexplicable misfires, and genuinely interesting curios that would never get an international audience anywhere else.
The show is hosted each year by the winner of the previous contest, a prize widely regarded as something of a curse, since it costs a fortune even with the contribution from the big five. Consequently, there was some relief when Sweden won last year, since they can actually afford to host it. Even so, the wise Scandinavians have tried to rein things in a bit this year, sending the show to Malmo rather than Stockholm, and dialling back the crazy displays of excess that have characterised some recent years. (When the Russians hosted, they claimed to have one third of the world’s LCD televisions on the stage, or something insane like that.)
The X-Axis – 19 May 2013
For those who asked, I might do a Eurovision post later on. We’ll see how I’m doing for time.
First, though! Second-tier X-books!
Cable & X-Force #8 – The end of the second arc, which serves mainly to reinforce the book’s gimmick: Cable has prophetic visions of terrible things that are going to happen, and in order to avert those catastrophes, the team end up doing things that make them looks pretty terrible from the outside. As Domino puts it, “We’re Cable’s X-Force. We do inexplicable criminal things for little or no reward.”
Extreme Rules 2013
After the usual post-Wrestlemania lull, the WWE’s pay-per-view schedule gets back underway this weekend. Frankly, I probably won’t have time to watch this one anyway, but I can’t honestly say it’s a card that gives me a lot of reasons to regret that. (Except, perhaps, the two Shield matches.)
1. WWE Title – Last Man Standing Match: John Cena (c) v Ryback. Cena regained the WWE Title at Wrestlemania to the surprise of precisely nobody, since The Rock plainly wasn’t going to be sticking around forever. There was in fact some suggestion at one point that he would be doing the (normally) obligatory rematch, but that became academic when he suffered a legitimate injury at Wrestlemania. So he’s out of the picture for the foreseeable future at least.
House to Astonish Episode 106
We’re back, and we’ve got an hour and a half of comics discussion for you, with news on the passing of Dan Adkins, James Robinson leaving DC, Disney’s Big Hero 6 movie, Matt Fraction and Kelly Sue DeConnick’s t-shirts for charity and a run through the August solicitations. We’ve also got reviews of The Dream Merchant, Avengers: The Enemy Within and… well, something special, and The Official Handbook of the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe is dressing for success. All this plus the Giraffe Wok, Avengers: Endless Breakfasttime and Doombots in pleather singing about crop rotation.
The podcast is here, or here on Mixcloud, or available via the player below. Let us know what you think, in the comments, on Twitter, via email or on our Facebook fan page.
And don’t forget, our t-shirts are on sale at our Redbubble store – look good, spread the word.
