Charts – 3 February 2013
This week: basically nothing comes out, but some other records do climb! Exciting, I know!
33. Justin Bieber (featuring Nicki Minaj) – “Beauty and a Beat”
Re-entry – this dropped out of the top 40 last week. I’m going to hazard a guess that it’s picked up a few downloads from the version available on his “Believe Acoustic” album.
30. Amelia Lily – “Shut Up (And Give Me Whatever You’ve Got)”
I don’t normally mention fallers, but it’s worth flagging up that this drops 19 places on its second week – not a promising sign for Xenomania’s latest attempt to find a new vehicle.
29. Droideka – “Get Hyper”
Droideka is Ellis Carter, a teenager from Cambridge named after a relatively obscure Star Wars concept, and this is a dubstep track that (as best I can figure out) he initially put out as a copyright-free track a year or so back. This is a rather more polished version, though. Bouncy little number, kind of sounds like something that might turn up on a Flash game soundtrack. It’s been climbing from the lower reaches for a couple of weeks now but I’m not entirely sure why, to be honest.
The X-Axis – 3 February 2013
One of those weeks where I’m very, very pushed for time, but there are so few X-books out this week (as in, two) that I might as well just get them done…
X-Men Legacy #5 – The plot threads start to draw together, as tends to happen when you’re coming up for what will be the end of the first trade paperback volume. But Si Spurrier does manage to give that connection some sense of surprise, perhaps because he’d set up what seemed to be a fairly disparate set of storylines that looked as if they might somehow come together down the road. Instead, we get a lot of explanations here rather sooner than I would have predicted, so that while the overall pattern makes sense, it doesn’t feel like it’s been patiently lumbering towards us for months. (Spoilers ahead, by the way.)
Charts – 27 January 2013
A slightly odd week as we ease back into the regular chart schedule. There are a couple of full scale new releases at the top, but mostly it’s album tracks that are soon to be promoted to single status, starting their climb into the top 40.
37. Little Mix – “Change Your Life”
A vague and non-specific self-affirmation song about believing in yourself and such forth, with added references to sticking together and ignoring the critics? Why, it must be randomly assembled X Factor girl band Little Mix, doing what such bands do! (And – “Become what you’ve always known”? Really?)
The X-Axis – 27 January 2013
It’s a podcast weekend, and by the time I post this, chances are it’ll be up, so scroll just one post down to find it. Reviews include Answer, Uncanny X-Force, and Threshold.
I’ve got a couple of books from last week that I didn’t get around to reviewing, plus all of this week’s books to cover, so there’s quite the catch-up to do here. These are probably going to be on the quick side, though I say that a lot…
A+X #4 – As often turns out to be the case with this book, it’s really a question of how keen you are to get the stories for the art alone, because the actual writing is largely fluff. Kaare Andrews writes and draws a Spider-Man/Beast story which has a few interesting tricks, like starting literally in mid-scene, and wheels out the 1980s colouring dots to give the story a nicely retro feel. But it doesn’t really go anywhere in particular; there’s a vague nod in the direction of a theme about Beast’s descendents celebrating his lack of humanity and his refusing to live up to their expectations, but it’s very handwaving stuff, feeling more like a concession to the shape of a plot than anything Andrews is really all that interested in.
House to Astonish Episode 99
It’s a podcast weekend, and we’ve got an hour and a half of discussion of DC’s chaotic creative assignments, Keith Giffen’s potential departure from Legion of Super-Heroes, Kyle Baker’s free graphic novels, Marvel NOW!’s free digital collections and the Doctor Strange movie, as well as a look at April’s solicitations. We’ve also got reviews of Uncanny X-Force, The Answer and Threshold, and the Official Handbook of the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe is full of beans. All that, plus a slim gorilla, Lamp and Plinth and how to hijack an aeroplane with a graphic novel.
The podcast is here, or here on Mixcloud, or available via the embedded player below, as well as on Stitcher.com or their free iOS and Android apps. Let us know what you think, in the comments below, via email, on Twitter or on our Facebook fan page.
The Royal Rumble 2013
The first pay-per-view of 2013 is, as ever, one of the big ones. From here through to the spring, the WWE will be beating the phrase “Road to Wrestlemania” into the ground, because the next few months will be entirely about the build to Wrestlemania at the start of April. Traditionally that starts here, because the winner of the titular battle royal is the challenger for the world title at that show.
Now, in practice, this has been undermined in recent years, because (a) they have two world titles, one for Raw and one for Smackdown, and so they can palm off the Rumble winner on the secondary Smackdown title if they want; and (b) there’s now a February pay-per-view which has to be filled, which means that in practice the Mania main event isn’t fixed here after all. But still, it’s an important show in storyline terms, and it has an established history of being used to help rising stars break from the pack. Whether that’s going to happen this year is maybe another question.
Charts – 20 January 2013
After a long, long run of weird Christmassy charts and dead weeks, we’re finally back to something approaching normal. Except with a singing actress, a lot of underachievers at the lower end, and an upset at number one.
38. Dizzee Rascal – “Bassline Junkie”
This is actually the lead track from a mixtape EP from Dizzee’s personal record label, and it’s been out since January 1st, but for some reason the public didn’t seem to notice until the middle of this week, when it suddenly started climbing the iTunes chart. It’s a bit of a return to his underground roots, even though it’s still emphatically a dancefloor track. But it’s got the best video we’ve had in ages. That first minute is fantastic. (The other guy is a comedian called Eric Lampaert, if you’re wondering.) I expect this to go further, now that people have finally noticed it’s out.
The X-Axis – 20 January 2013
Okay, so let’s take stock… I’ve still got several of last week’s books to do, which I didn’t get around to reviewing during the week. And as for this week’s books, so far I’ve only read the ones that I’m buying digitally. (That leaves X-Men #40 and X-Factor #250 to be picked up later, basically.) Still plenty to cover right now, though…
Age of Apocalypse #11 – Marvel have confirmed that the book is officially being cancelled with the “X-Termination” crossover, and while “cancellation” is a relative concept these days – another run of X-Men? Really? – a quick glance at the sales figures, not to mention the sudden haste with which it’s moving to wrap up its storylines, rather suggests that the book is genuinely being put to sleep.
Charts – 13 January 2013
We’ll get to the rest of last week’s comics in due course; for now, let’s get up to speed on the chart. The music industry’s festive season shutdown is finally over, and normal service is resumed! Well, kind of.
And the first new entry of 2013 is, appropriately enough…
39. Matrix & Futurebound (featuring Baby Blue) – “Magnetic Eyes”
The X-Axis – 13 January 2013 (part 1)
Podcast weekend! The podcast is just below this post, and has plenty of reviews. Go listen to it.
I’m still waiting for some of the books that I’m buying in physical form, so this is going to end up split over the course of the week. But let’s do the two recent relaunches now. (Actually, I’ve been toying with posting individual capsule reviews as separate posts anyway, rather than doing them all in a bunch on Sunday night. We’ll see about that.) Meantime…
Cable & X-Force #3 – This series got off to a rather slow start, but with this issue, it feels like it’s getting to the point. Thank heavens it had the accelerated shipping schedule for those first few issues.
Cable’s premonitions become rather more precise here. He’s expecting some sort of biological attack through a chain of fast food restaurants which kills humans but not mutants. This, apparently, is going to be an important tipping point in history which leads to, etc, etc, you know the drill.
