Feb 26
House To Astonish Episode 55
Posted on Saturday, February 26, 2011 by Al in Podcast
We’re back! After a month away, we’ve got a lot of news to catch up on, beginning with a few words on the sad loss of Dwayne McDuffie. We’ve also got some chat on Marvel’s plans for Pixar and the Big Shots initiative, Boom! Kids’ rebranding and future, Telltale’s comics games, the Powers TV show, the Spider-Man musical being reworked and DC cancelling the First Wave line, as well as reviews of The Mission, Superman/Batman and Iron Man 2.0. All this plus swimming the Atlantic with your voice, generic bootleg armoured super-heroes and a villainous Every Which Way But Loose.
The podcast is here, or on Mixcloud here. Let us know what you think, either in the comments below, on Twitter, via email or on our Facebook fan page.
That ape brain surgery bit sounds oddly like a scene from the “Cyberwoman” episode of Torchwood, possibly the worst hour of TV I’ve ever had the displeasure of sitting through.
I haven’t seen any stories or interviews about it, but I’m pretty sure Roger Langridge’s “Snarked” will not use original characters.
The two characters on the preview image are a walrus and a carpenter, and the title would then seem to be a take on the Lewis Carroll poem ‘The Hunting of the Snark.’
So the book strikes me as a Wonderland book, sans Alice.
I have no interest in Moon Knight. I’m sure I’m not alone in this.
It’s a shame they don’t just leave characters alone for a while.
The killing for angels bit sounds like Top Cow’s 7 Days in Hell, but that had the virtue of Phil Noto art.
Kitson was ill while doing Iron Man 2.0, pneumonia I think? So the other two got hauled in to help out.
Welcome back!
Oh, and the War Mach… er Iron Man 2.0 twist you were talking about was done in a comic drawn by, I think, Paul J Holden about ten years ago. I think it was the small press title Violent!, but I may be misremembering. Anyway, that’s the only instance of it I can think of in comics.
So, regarding the Ape. I’ve just read the story (because of you mentioning it) and unfortunately the Rawhide Kid isn’t QUITE as stupid as you think. What happens is that he chases the ape into the cave, then he has to take cover from a hail of rifle fire coming from the cave and hears Karlbad (who he hadn’t known was in the cave) yelling at him from inside. He runs out of ammo and the Kid rushes into the cave to find only the gorilla. We’re helpfully informed by a caption that Karlbad had a hidden escape tunnel and that he’ll be back for the ape.
Oh, and his daughter says he didn’t get the idea from the circus, that was just were this particular gorilla caught his eye. “All his life he’s dreamed of making an ape as intelligent as a human!” (apparently, this hasn’t kept him from fathering and raising a fairly well-adjusted daughter).
great to have the pod back.
Would have liked to heard about Al’s trip.
1964…so did the Ape predate the gun-toting Monsieur Mallah, or was this just another instance of Marvel/Doom Patrol synchronicity?
That bit where you guys struggled to make sense of that Rawhide Kid story?
Best moment in the podcast’s history.
According to wikidpedia Monsieur Mallah debuted in an issue cover-dated May 1964, while the Rawhide Kid in question (#39) was April 1964, so the Doom Patrol issue had to was likely done before the Rawhide Kid story saw print. I guess trying to make a gorilla super-intelligent was just part of the zeitgeist.
I’ve no problem with Marvel putting a big creative team on a character like Moon Knight and attempting to make him big, but I’d just prefer it if it didn’t require a premise that is so unutterably stupid.
I found it relatively easy to recognize the Iron Man 2.0 pages drawn by Carmine Di Giandomenico (7-8, 11-14, 17, 19) : he’s got a rougher style and I’ve been seeing his art a lot recently (Spider-Man Noir, Magneto Testament, the Iron Man annual and parts of #500…). Not that I’m complaining : he’s a great character artist and definitely the guy you want to draw pages of talking heads.
Barely any of the art looks like Barry Kitson to me (except maybe the opening fight scene ?), so my assumption would be that Kano either worked on his layouts or did most of the issue, with Kitson barely contributing a few pages.
Punisher should really rest a few years. Ennis managed to write something like the definite version with his Punisher MAX; this run is in the range of Moore´s Swamp Thing or Morrison´s Doom Patrol. All his successors were at best blah and at worst terrible.
DC´s Doc Savage was just awful. Compared to that the old b/w Doug Moench issues – which either wasn´t that good – was genius.
Good to have Al back and in one piece, btw.
This is a total nitpick, but when you bring up that TV show Take Me Out and clarify it has nothing to do with the song– It’s actually a Franz Ferdinand track, even if the Scissor Sisters covered it. For shame. Aren’t [at least one of] you guys Scottish? ^_^
Heh, good spot! I think I went straight to the Scissor Sisters version because I like that cover.