Charts – 20 May 2012
(NB: See the housekeeping announcement a post down, if you’re looking for this week’s podcast.)
This is the busiest chart in quite some while, though it’s also a week of relatively low sales and some underwhelming debuts. Still, nine new entries, and a couple of substantial climbers. There’s no move at number 1, but by a very slender margin; Rita Ora held on by less than a thousand sales.
1. Rita Ora feat Tinie Tempah – “R.I.P.”
Doesn’t look like it’s going to manage a third week, and I wrote plenty about it last week, so let’s move on. The highest climber is “Express Yourself” by Labrinth, jumping from 34 to 17; Emeli Sande’s “My Kind Of Love” predictably vaults 27 to 19; and the Fun single “We Are Young” has rebounded to number 2 after being covered on The Voice. It might yet make number 1 – it’s at 2 in the midweeks, but that’s behind the Wanted, and boy band sales tend to be heavily front loaded because the fans all buy the record as soon as it comes out.
On with the new entries…
Housekeeping
Just a quick note to say that a variety of home and work demands mean that Paul and I haven’t been able to synch up schedules for this weekend (and believe me, we’ve tried) so we’re going to have to put the podcast back a week – next weekend’s pretty packed out for both of us too, but we’re hoping to record next Friday evening, so we’ll see you then (all things being equal).
The X-Axis – 20 May 2012
Plenty of crossover material this week, so let’s get straight to it…
Avengers #26 – It’s an inherent problem with these sort of crossovers that, in order to make each series intelligible in its own right, you end up getting the same scenes repeated from various perspectives. So this is essentially the team from Secret Avengers being sent off to fight the Phoenix, only told from Noh-Varr’s standpoint, since that’s the focus of this particular book. In fairness, it does at least steer clear of just repeating the entire fight scene (unfashionably offering a footnote to suggest that you might care to read Secret Avengers if you’re interested in that bit – and I’ll come back to that shortly).
Walt Simonson’s art on this arc is about as cartoonish as he’s ever been, but in a strange sort of way that complements Bendis’s style rather well. It gives the book the sort of cosmic feel that this sort of story desperately needs, and it also stalls any risk of the book taking itself too seriously. There’s even a half-decent idea in here, with Noh-Varr having to betray the team over his greater loyalty to the Kree Empire. Ultimately, though, it runs up against the problem that’s plagued Bendis’ use of Noh-Varr from the word go; he just isn’t a very strongly defined character, and he remains a rather bland figure cast in a major role.
WWE Over The Limit 2012
Over the Limit is one of those generic pay-per-views that clogs up the annual schedule and that the company could probably quite happily do without. After the brief excitement of Brock Lesnar’s appearance last month, he’s been put on the back burner until Summerslam (in two shows time), so for the moment, we’re firmly in the annual post-Wrestlemania lull when not a great deal is happening. And it shows from the card, which is a mixture of essentially random pairings that might make for good matches, plus a storyline-driven main event that would probably have been better off on free television.
Before turning to the card, let’s quickly reflect on the latest overhaul of the company’s filming schedule. For some time now, the WWE shooting schedule has basically consisted of tapings on Monday and Tuesday, with an extra Sunday pay-per-view show every three to four weeks. The Monday taping consists of the live two-hour Raw broadcast together with some matches used for the internationally syndicated show Superstars; Tuesday generally records the two-hour Smackdown for broadcast on Friday, another Superstars match, and the dreaded NXT, featuring a mix of rookie and low-end roster members. The problem with NXT is that it’s not broadcast in the US (you can watch it online but almost nobody does), meaning that each show is taped before an utterly indifferent crowd who don’t recognise anyone.
Charts – 13 May 2012
Just a single week at number one for “Young” by Tulisa, though it’s still selling in pretty respectable quantities. It’s replaced by a record which, judging from the midweeks, might be around for a while.
If you haven’t heard this before, pop quiz: who do you think it was originally written for?
1. Rita Ora featuring Tinie Tempah – “R.I.P.”
The X-Axis – 13 May 2012
It’s a podcast weekend, so check out the show one post down, where Al and I are reviewing Trio, Dial H and Mind the Gap.
Meanwhile, over at the X-books, crossovers with the rest of the Marvel Universe continue to abound. This would normally have been a relatively quiet week (just four X-books) but the tie-ins get us up to six…
Journey into Mystery #637 – This is part 2 of the “Exiled” crossover which is running weekly through this book and New Mutants. In scheduling terms, it’s a little odd to see this coming out at the same time as the big “Avengers vs X-Men” event, which will inevitably overshadow it, but on the other hand it’s certainly preferable to seeing the New Mutants shoehorned into that storyline. After all, these two books have taken the trouble to establish some minor ties in the preceding months, so that this seems more organic than it otherwise might.
That being said, this remains principally a Journey into Mystery story, with some of the Asgardian gods being magically turned into ordinary humans living in San Francisco (or thinking they have been, at any rate). The New Mutants’ role here, thus far at least, is a bit more generic. They’re basically here to drive the plot along by pushing an investigation into what happened to the JiM regulars; and while it helps for these purposes that Dani is a Valkyrie, you could have swapped other characters into the same role without fundamentally changing things.
House to Astonish Episode 84
A tight little episode for you this time out, with discussion of the sad passing of Tony DeZuniga, the unbelievable box office of The Avengers, Marvel’s digital exclusive deal with Comixology, Cullen Bunn taking on the writing of Venom and DC’s upcoming Phantom Lady mini, as well as an extended chat about the value of new characters, reviews of Dial H, Mind the Gap and Trio and a grave undertaking from the Official Handbook of the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe. All this plus America’s own private Easter, Marvel’s relationship status and ’90s technobabble.
The podcast is here, on Mixcloud here, available on iTunes or on Stitcher Radio (via their website or their Android or iOS apps), or accessible through the player below. Let us know what you think, in the comments, on Twitter, via email or on our Facebook fan page.
Charts – 6 May 2012
We’ve missed a few weeks, but worry not – they all featured Carly Rae Jepsen still at number one, giving her a four week reign. As it happens, this week sees a change at the top anyway. Bring on the generic dance-pop!
1. Tulisa – “Young”.
This is the solo debut for Tulisa Contostavlos of N-Dubz, who have had ten hits in their own right since 2007, and also guested on Tinchy Stryder’s number 1 hit “Number 1” back in 2009. In fact, the producer of this record is one of the quieter members of N-Dubz, so it’s not all that solo – though the shift to dance music does mark a change from the rap/pop crossover stuff that N-Dubz used to do. Still, it’s arguably more N-Dubz Without The Bloke In The Hat. Which most of us, I think, would applaud as a wise move.
The X-Axis – 6 May 2012
And finally we get back up to date. (There’s also a bunch of interesting first issues this week, but I’ll either deal with them separately, or cover them in the podcast next week.)
Age of Apocalypse #3 – My main problem with this book so far has been that too many of the main (human) characters were interchangeable, so it’s good to see David Lapham addressing that in this issue. This is the first point where the likes of Donald Pierce and Graydon Creed have really come across as having distinctive personalities of their own, albeit that Creed is essentially a generic drunken antihero. Pierce, though, is starting to look more interesting – he’s the guy who leads a double life as a member of what passes for the elite.
The X-Axis catch-up (part 2)
Right, I did say we’d get through the rest of these books, and that’s what we’re going to do. Quickly, because there’s a whole new week of books to cover next…
Uncanny X-Force #24 – A one-off story between arcs, as X-Force hunt down the Age of Apocalypse Iceman (who’s apparently now living in our world) and try to kill him. I can see the thinking here – X-Force need some nice disposable villains to hunt down in order to sell their black ops concept, and it’s also a good opportunity to put Nightcrawler in the spotlight. Thus far, the focus has tended to be on how he’s a dark and bitter version of the original Nightcrawler; this story, playing up his former friendship with Iceman, allows an opportunity to play up his similarities instead.
