The X-Axis – 16 December 2012
And so on to this week’s reviews, plus some hanging around from the week before. You’ll forgive me if I take some of these quickly, it’s been a busy day…
Age of Apocalypse #10 – Age of Apocalypse sells abysmally, so even though it’s heading towards a crossover with the similarly audience-bereft X-Treme X-Men and the somewhat healthier Astonishing, it comes as no real surprise to see the book suddenly racing towards the conclusion. It doesn’t take a genius to read between the lines when Prophet takes the opportunity to explain that he really wanted to train Jean Grey as his successor but “We’ve run out of time.” No kidding you have.
TLC 2012
Late in the day (for me, at least), but let’s quickly run down tonight’s PPV before I turn to the comics reviews. After all, this one’s a bit more time-critical.
TLC, the final PPV of the year, is a themed show and a hangover from the days of a decade past when wrestling was significantly more reckless in terms of the level of damage people were willing to expose themselves to in the name of entertainment. It stands for “Tables, Ladders and Chairs”, a gimmick match that made a bit more sense in its original context, as part of a three-way feud between the Dudley Boys, the Hardy Boys and Edge & Christian (who were, at that point, associated with tables, ladders and chairs respectively).
Nowadays, it’s just a particularly chaotic version of the ladder match that gets brought out once a year, with the undercard traditionally including one regular ladder match, one tables match (in which you win by, er, throwing your opponent through a plywood table – again, it made sense as part of the Dudleys’ gimmick), and one chairs match (which is just stupid, but they needed to invent such a thing to fit the theme of the show).
House to Astonish Episode 96
After far too long away, we’re back with a solid hour and a half of jabbering about Karen Berger and Gail Simone’s departures from DC (and what this means for the Vertigo imprint and the company as a whole), the November sales figures, the cancellation of Creator-Owned Heroes and Marvel and DC’s March solicitations. We’ve also got reviews of Hellboy In Hell, Blackacre and Avengers, and the Official Handbook of the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe cracks open a cold one. All this plus Cherry Wolverine, Fairtrade comics and the action escapades of a man called Boise.
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.
Charts – 9 December 2012
Well, hmm, yes.
There was meant to be a podcast up this weekend, but as Al explains elsewhere, it’s apparently completely inaudible, so we’ll be doing another one… ooh, probably midweek, the way things are looking. And since I’ve been working this weekend and haven’t received some of last week’s books either, the reviews are going to slip too.
Fortunately, though, the great thing about the midweek chart is that it lets you write a big chunk of these chart posts in advance, so let’s do this instead. We’re still in the quiet period pre-Christmas, when the regular release schedule is winding down and the seasonal releases aren’t out yet. That means a dearth of activity at the top end of the chart, some oddities floating around the lower end, and a bit of a disaster for the career of Tulisa Contostavlos.
39. Burns – “Lies”
Before we get to the oddities, an ordinary record pops its head around the door.
Even Further Housekeeping
Folks, we’re really sorry, but the episode of HtA which we recorded yesterday is a complete audio disaster. We’re going to have to re-record the entire episode, which means it won’t be until next week some time. We’ll keep you up to date with when we’re going to be going live.
Further Housekeeping
Paul and I are both seriously snowed under with work at the moment, to the extent that it’s been close to impossible for us to coordinate a time to record, hence our silence this week – our best guess is that we’ll be recording on Friday evening UK time, but it could be as late as Sunday. Bear with us; we’ll be back with you as soon as we can.
Charts – 2 December 2012
The regular music industry is already shutting down for Christmas. Coming up: Christmas records, a charity record, stuff promoted on X Factor, and a handful of actual regular releases.
Covered on X Factor last weekend, and since it’s not that well known to the general public, it’s the sort of record that sees real benefits from that. “Wires” was Athlete’s only top 10 hit, making number 4 in 2005. The group are still together, but haven’t released any new material since 2010.
You may have noticed that X Factor hasn’t had quite the same impact on the charts this year, though it’s cropped up here and there. They also mercifully spared us the annual charity single. With the producers keen to avoid another unedifying squabble over the Christmas number 1 slot, the final is actually next week, so that the winners’ single will be on sale on 9 December to (they hope) be number 1 on 16 December. Much of the media coverage is centred on whether a chap called Christopher Maloney who has been panned by the judges since day one might actually win, which would apparently be some sort of disaster – though bear in mind that most stories of this sort actually emanate from the producers working their own angle.
The X-Axis – 2 December 2012
I’m taking the opportunity presented by the current wave of relaunches to make the jump from print to digital as each book comes round for a relaunch. This is fortunate, as I’m still waiting to receive the books from this week that I ordered in print, but by this point, that’s just Gambit and X-Treme X-Men, neither of which is exactly the focal point of the schedule. What we do have is the second issues of no less than four Marvel Now titles. Oh yes, and an annual.
A+X #2 – The first issue of A+X sold remarkably well, inheriting the top ten sales of AvX: Versus, of which it is ostensibly a continuation. I’ll be fascinated to see how long that lasts, considering that (notwithstanding Jeph Loeb’s vague gestures at foreshadowing in issue #1) it now seems pretty clear that this is simply going to be an anthology of self-contained stories united solely by the theme of team-ups between Avengers and X-Men characters – a line which is getting increasingly blurred anyway. In quality terms, this is probably for the best; A+X is simply a playpen in which creators can do whatever they feel like for a few pages, and the format here is far less restrictive than the very limited Versus. But books like this don’t have a track record of sales success, so it’s hard to imagine A+X sales holding up once readers and retailers figure out what the book actually is. If, somehow or other, it bucks that trend – well, more power to it.
Housekeeping
No episode of the podcast this weekend unfortunately – various life things have gotten in the way. We’re hoping to record mid-week, and we’ll keep you updated.
Charts – 25 November 2012
One Direction get elbowed aside after a single week by perhaps the most boring number one of the year. But first, rock classics on iTunes.
40. AC/DC – “Highway To Hell”
You might not have realised this, but AC/DC apparently weren’t available on iTunes until this week. The charming luddites have finally succumbed, and so a bit of a cherrypicking of their back catalogue is going on this week. There’s one more coming up.
