Charts – 5 March 2021
Well, this is quiet.
1. Olivia Rodrigo – “Drivers Licence”
Eight weeks. As mentioned last week, it’s the longest run at number 1 since the tail end of 2019, when “Dance Monkey” managed 11 weeks. And once again, it’s a long way down to the highest new entry. In the meantime, there’s just a bit of position-switching among the established hits. “Friday” by Riton x Nightcrawlers climbs 7-5, and “Goosebumps” by Travis Scott & HVME climbs 9-8. “Your Love (9pm)” by ATB, Topic & A7S climbs 15-12. “Up” by Cardi B is up one place to 16, “Commitment Issues” by Central Cee up 1 place to 17. We hit a peak of excitement at number 19, which “My Head & My Heart” by Ava Max climbing a whole six places – which is still only the peak that her spring 2020 single “Kings & Queens” reached.
20. Joel Corry x RAYE x David Guetta – “Bed”
Hellions #10 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
HELLIONS #10
“Funny Games, Part II: Hitbox”
by Zeb Wells, Stephen Segovia & David Curiel
COVER / PAGE 1. Some of the Hellions in the foreground, with Arcade gloating in the background. For some reason this issue has old-style 1980s cover boxes, which doesn’t really seem to play into anything much (though it does get the characters who aren’t in the main pose onto the cover).
PAGE 2. The now-usual opening quotation from Nightcrawler. This time he’s telling us what a valuable experience it is to face our demons and grow.
PAGES 3-6. Arcade talks to Sinister.
Arcade traditionally wouldn’t be in anything approaching Sinister’s league when it comes to power. But he does tell us that Sinister’s powers are being dampened by the chair. And Sinister seems to be a lot less physically powerful in his current incarnation anyway.
House to Astonish Episode 190
Coo-ee! Only us! Back again with more nattering about comics. This time, we’re remembering Si Spencer, and talking about the Linearverse, Wonder Girl, Milestone’s new creative teams, Legends of the Dark Knight, the Year of Spawn, X-Corp and The Blue Flame. We’re also reviewing Stray Dogs and Nuclear Family, and the Official Handbook of the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe is ramming jade eggs into Nosferatu’s chest. All this plus Batman’s Techno-Hat, the Tangent Spider-Ham universe, and ‘Eeper-Temps.
The podcast is here, or here on Mixcloud, or available via the embedded player below. Let us know what you think, on Twitter, via email or on our Facebook fan page. And t-shirts! You can buy t-shirts! Of course you can!
The Incomplete Wolverine – 1983
Part 1: Origin to Origin II | Part 2: 1907 to 1914
Part 3: 1914 to 1939 | Part 4: World War II
Part 5: The postwar era | Part 6: Team X
Part 7: Post Team X | Part 8: Weapon X
Part 9: Department H | Part 10: The Silver Age 1974-1975
1976 | 1977 | 1978 | 1979 | 1980 | 1981 | 1982
We left off with the Brood arc, which extends into early 1983. The X-Men and the Starjammers had just figured out that Professor X was infected by the Brood, and were racing back home to sort it out. Along the way, they stop for a flashback in Excalibur vol 1 #116, in which Kitty and Kurt insist on doing what they can to help a Sidri starship in trouble. Wolverine’s there, but he doesn’t contribute much.
UNCANNY X-MEN vol 1 #167
“The Goldilocks Syndrome!”
by Chris Claremont, Paul Smith, Bob Wiacek & various
March 1983
The X-Men storm the Mansion in pursuit of the Brood-infected Professor X, only to encounter his latest recruits the New Mutants – Cannonball (Sam Guthrie), Psyche (Dani Moonstar), Wolfsbane (Rahne Sinclair), Karma (Xi’an Coy Manh) and Sunspot (Roberto Da Costa) – who try to defend their home. After the usual fight, both teams join forces to defeat the Brood Queen, and Sikorsky clones Xavier a new body. This body can walk, but Xavier still has psychosomatic issues for a little while. Since Deathbird has seized control of the Shi’ar Empire, Lilandra also stays on Earth for now. And the Professor infuriates everyone by demoting Sprite to the New Mutants.
As you might expect, Wolverine’s not the focus here. He completely outclasses the New Mutants that try to deal with him – he even shrugs off Karma’s possession powers – but dutifully notes that they’ll be more dangerous once they’ve had time to train. He supports killing the Professor, but only because he’s unaware of the cloning option.
Charts – 26 February 2021
It’s not budging.
1. Olivia Rodrigo – “Drivers License”
That’s seven weeks. So it’s time to start paying attention to the records. Two records managed six weeks last year: Ariana Grande’s “Positions” and Joel Corry & MNEK’s “Head & Heart”. “Drivers License” now overtakes them both. The next step is a big challenge, though – “Dance Monkey” by Tones & I, which lasted 11 weeks at number 1 in 2019. I don’t see Rodrigo making it that long – she’s had one close call already. But we’ll see.
The rest of the top 3 is static, with “Calling My Phone” by Lil Tjay & 6LACK at 2, and Nathan Evans’ “Wellerman” at 3. And it’s a long, long way down to the first new entry. “The Business” by Tiesto climbs 6-4, becoming his highest placing single since 2014. “Friday” by Riton x Nightcrawler featuring Mufasa & Hypeman climbs 10-7. Remarkably, “Save Your Tears” by the Weeknd continues to climb despite having been available as an album track for months, and now moves 13-11. “Latest Trends” by A1 & J1, which entered at 19 and climbed to 17 last week, gathers momentum by climbing to 12. “Your Love (9pm)” by ATB, Topic & A7S climbs 21-5. Cardi B’s “Up” climbs 22-17. Central Cee’s “Commitment Issues” climbs 23-18. “Heat Waves” by Glass Animals climbs 26-23. “My Head & My Heart” by Ava Max climbs 29-25, which coincidentally leaves it one place above “Head & Heart”, still hanging in there months after it left number 1.
28. Ella Henderson & Tom Grennan – “Let’s Go Home Together”
New Mutants #16 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
NEW MUTANTS vol 4 #16
“One Step Behind”
by Vita Ayala & Rob Reis
COVER / PAGE 1: The faces of the New Mutants in a shadowy cloud, presumably the Shadow King. Once again, Scout is shown with the team, somewhat jumping the gun in terms of the actual story.
PAGES 2-3. Some kids sneak into Otherworld.
The Braddock Lighthouse is the headquarters of Excalibur, as seen over in their own book. That’s Rictor hanging around near the gate and being sneaked past, though the character model is a little off (the X-logo on his chest is usually drawn bigger than that).
The three kids are Monica, Josh and Liana. Monica’s the one with the red hair. Technically it’s the first appearance for all three of them, but versions of these characters previously appeared as background prisoners in Ayala’s Age of X-Man: Prisoner X miniseries. We established in the previous issue that the prison in that series included a bunch of filler characters who were copies of real-world mutants but apparently were not simply counterparts of them – from the look of it, Ayala is importing a whole bunch of these background characters into mainstream continuity.
Wolverine #10 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
WOLVERINE vol 7 #10
“Mercenaries”
by Benjamin Percy, Adam Kubert & Frank Martin
COVER / PAGE 1: Logan and Maverick in action.
PAGE 2: Recap and credits.
PAGES 3-5: Logan takes the lead with Maverick.
The basic point here is that their relationship is so ingrained that Maverick is willing to take Logan’s lead just on a vague sense of who he is. The Merchant’s comment that the two of them “don’t put much value in history” is somewhat ironic – they can’t put much value in their history, because they can’t remember it, or can’t trust what they do remember. The Merchant, in contrast, seems to value Marvel Universe trinkets largely on the basis of their supposed historical significance – or at least he serves customers who do. Even though Maverick was being sold as a useful weapon, most of the Merchant’s stock appears to be mere cast-offs and collectibles from famous heroes and villains. In a sense, he’s obsessed with history without actually seeming to grasp why it matters.
X-Men #18 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
X-MEN vol 5 #18
“Inside the Vault”
by Jonathan Hickman, Mahmud Asrar & Sunny Gho
COVER / PAGE 1: Darwin, Wolverine (Laura) and Synch enter the Vault.
PAGE 2. The exterior of the Vault.
This is recapping issue #5. In that issue, the X-Men decided to infiltrate the Vault, home of the post-human Children of the Vault. Technologically-enhanced post-humans are supposed to be the biggest threat to mutantkind, according to everything we discovered in Power of X; and besides, the Children of the Vault really are planning to take over the world once they’re ready. The Vault is a sealed chamber where time moves at a different rate, the idea being that eventually they will emerge in a hyper-advanced state, ready to take over the world. From time to time the Children come out to have a look around and decide that they need a bit more time in the oven.
Charts – 19 February 2021
It’s the busiest week on the singles chart for ages. Serenely undisturbed by it all is…
1. Olivia Rodrigo – “Drivers Licence”
…which remains number 1 for a sixth week. But it’s close this time.
2. Lil Tjay & 6LACK – “Calling My Phone”
This is the strongest challenge that “Drivers Licence” has had yet – it holds on, but by a margin equivalent to 1,700 sales. That’s beatable. It’s not an obvious challenger, either. Lil Tjay’s only previous appearance in the top 40 was as a guest on Pop Smoke’s “Mood Swings” (number 5 last year) – until now, his own singles have always missed the chart. 6LACK – it’s pronounced “black”, which would be more obvious if it was written in lower case – hasn’t had a hit single in the UK either, though he’s got an album into the top 20. It’s a surprising chart record (or lack thereof) considering that he’s been around for years and has several Grammy nominations under his belt.
Cable #8 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
CABLE vol 4 #8
“My Dinner with Domino”
by Gerry Duggan & Phil Noto
COVER / PAGE 1: Just Cable with Domino’s face in the background – and her black spot framing his head.
PAGE 2. Straightforward quote from Cable. Of course, Stryfe doesn’t just look like Cable; genetically, they’re identical, so the differences between them should be down to their different experiences.
PAGE 3. A meteorite changes course.
We’ll see it again at the end of the issue. Generally, Duggan writes Domino’s luck powers at a ridiculously high level in this story, more akin to the way Longshot has sometimes been written; traditionally Domino’s powers have been played at a subtler level than that. In voice over, Domino kind of shrugs her shoulders and acknowledges that she can’t really explain how her powers work. Explanations offered over the years have involved things like probability manipulation and subconscious telekinesis, none of which would really account for a bad guy just happening to stand in the right position to get flattened by a meteorite… but whatever. You can only really write Domino this way as a guest star; as a regular character, this sort of thing would break the book rather quickly, or at least wear thin. As a one-off, it’s fine.
