House to Astonish Episode 94
Join Paul and I as we celebrate the four-year anniversary of House to Astonish, with discussion of the effect of Hurricane Sandy, the purchase of Lucasfilm by Disney, Bryan Singer on X-Men: Days of Future Past, the next two Marvel Now! teasers and Before Watchmen: Dollar Bill. We’re also reviewing Joe Kubert Presents, Multiple Warheads and Bedlam, and answer questions we’ve solicited at the last minute on Twitter. All this plus the Maniac Consumer, utopian futuristic fly-y people and the most unexpected Ant-Man villain of them all.
The podcast is here, or here on Mixcloud, or available on the embedded player below. It’s also available through iTunes or via Stitcher.com and their free iOS and Android apps. Let us know what you think, either in the comments below, on Twitter, via email or on our Facebook fan page.
Thanks for listening, and here’s to the next four years.
Charts – 28 October 2012
And the turnover of number 1 hits continues.
39. David Guetta featuring Sia – “Titanium”
Back again, for the obvious reason at this time of year – somebody did it on X Factor. Specifically, it was Lucy Spraggan, though since she wrote completely new verses for it, it’s more a kind of sampling job.
That’s because he performed it on Graham Norton’s show last week. It made number 5 in June.
36. Swedish House Mafia – “Save The World”
Originally a number 10 hit last year. Kye Sones did it on X Factor (and nearly got eliminated for his troubles). Meanwhile, current single “Don’t You Worry Child” is holding up well at number 2.
23. The Lumineers – “Ho Hey”
The X-Axis – 28 October 2012
Quite the grab-bag we have this week – some second-tier X-books, a new title from the Max imprint, a blaring novelty.
A-Babies vs X-Babies – Do you need me to tell you that this is the novelty? I can’t be the only person who saw this in the solicitations and groaned at the prospect of yet another rehash of a joke Chris Claremont coined in the late 80s, and which has been relentlessly beaten to death over the years by a company seemingly oblivious to the fact that, when Claremont revived the one-shot joke X-Babies (originally just the X-Men de-aged in Silver Age style for a comedy one-shot) as actual characters, he did so as a not-even-remotely-veiled parody of Marvel’s money-grabbing dilution of his beloved franchise.
Hell in a Cell 2012
Hell in a Cell is one of the most talked-about pay-per-views in wrestling circles for quite a while. Granted, much of that talk focusses on the questions “What were they thinking?” and “How are they going to get out of it?” But people are talking.
This show is a hangover from the WWE’s experiment with giving every PPV a theme. That idea didn’t work out so well. It didn’t do much for sales (in fact, sales have increased this year after the theming concept was dropped), and it resulted in gimmick matches being shoehorned into storylines that didn’t really want them, to the mutual disadvantage of both gimmick and storyline. This show illustrates the problem rather neatly.
Once upon a time, the Hell in a Cell match was a heavily protected gimmick that carried a bit of weight in its own right. Essentially, it’s just a cage match, but great effort went into presenting it as a particularly brutal cage match. Of course, when you start wheeling it out for whatever title defence happens to seem suitable in October, the veneer starts to fade.
Charts – 21 October 2012
We’re back in the routine of having new entries at number 1 every week, it seems, with Swedish House Mafia slipping to 2. Tons of new entries this week, and we kick off with something you probably weren’t expecting to see here.
38. John Denver – “Annie’s Song”
But of course, Britain.
House to Astonish Episode 93
Another episode that’s a few days late, but there’s plenty in there, with a discussion of an enormous number of stories out of NYCC (really, we get through a lot. Like, about 30 or so). We’ve also got reviews of Uncanny Avengers, The Zaucer of Zilk and Cyber Force and the Official Handbook of the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe is rubbing a lucky rabbit’s foot. All this plus Avengers On Ice! On Fire!, gambling with a jetpack and an equal opportunities dingathon.
The podcast is here, or here on Mixcloud, or available via the embedded player below. We’re also available on Stitcher.com or through their free iOS or Android apps. Let us know what you think, in the comments below, on Twitter, via email or on our Facebook fan page.
On top of that, next episode’s our four-year anniversary as a podcast – what do you want to hear us do? Q&A? Karaoke? More regionally-accented comics creators?
The X-Axis – 21 October 2012
Late? What do you mean, late?
There’s a podcast as well. It’ll probably be up real soon.
Fortunately, it’s a relatively quiet batch of comics we’ve got here, so let’s bash briskly through these books that came out a week ago…
AvX: Consequences #2 – The vast bulk of this issue is a single scene of Wolverine confronting Cyclops in jail, ostensibly to try and get him to give the Extinction Team the order to come in. Which means that, yes, it’s an issue of thrilling conversation. Fortunately, it’s a Kieron Gillen issue, which means that the “thrilling conversation” bit is not necessarily ironic.
Housekeeping
I’m out of town at the moment, and I haven’t got this week’s comics yet, so podcast and reviews will be Monday or Tuesday, most likely. Just so you know.
Charts – 14 October 2012
Looks like we’re back in a phase of new entries going straight to number one each week. Rihanna’s “Diamonds” turns out to have been a bit front-loaded, dropping to 4 in its second week out. It’s a grower, though, so perhaps it’ll have a resurgence.
Before we get to the chart proper – yes, the Rolling Stones did release a new single last week, and no, it’s not on the charts (even though it’s surprisingly decent for a Rolling Stones single made after 1980). That’s because it’s being offered as an advance download for people pre-ordering their upcoming compilation album, and as such, it’s ineligible for the chart. Judging from the iTunes chart, if it had been eligible, it would probably have been somewhere in the 30s.
On with the chart.
40. Skrillex (feat. Sirah) – “Bangarang”
This has been hovering around the lower end of the chart for ages and never seems to entirely go away.
This was covered by Carolynne Poole on the first X Factor live show. Slightly surprising to see it in the chart, considering she came last. Minaj’s current single “Va Va Voom” is a non-mover at 20.
26. Disclosure (feat. Sam Smith) – “Latch”
The X-Axis – 14 October 2012
Crossover season is virtually over, and we’re now moving into the epilogue phase where the next stories are set up. Once again, that results in Marvel swamping the market this week, so let’s get to it…
Age of Apocalypse #8 – Anyone care? Really? Oh, alright.
This isn’t a bad issue, to be honest. Prophet and his crew have gone to Latveria in search of the notebooks of Reed Richards, which they hope might contain some clue to defeating Weapon X. Unfortunately, the notebooks don’t exist any more, and Dr Doom has his own plans for how to keep the mutants at bay until he can make his own plan for saving the world. That plan basically consists of trying to steal Weapon X’s power for himself on the logic that, hey, he’s bound to be an improvement, right?
