Dec 19
House to Astonish Presents: The Lightning Round Episode 23
Posted on Thursday, December 19, 2024 by Al in Podcast
We had to get there eventually. We’re biting the bullet and tackling Citizen V and the V Battalion: The Everlasting #1-4, the second (in any sense you care to choose) miniseries starring everyone’s least favourite patriotic superhero. We did it so you don’t have to, so the least you can do is listen to us suffer through it. Better issues next time, I promise.
And in case you’re wondering about the Homies, it’s coming! Tune in tomorrow!
The podcast is here, or available via the embedded player below. Let us know what you think in the comments, on Bluesky, via email or on our Facebook fan page. Get yourself a little Christmas present while you’re up and about, over on our Redbubble store, why don’t you?
I remember absolutely nothing about this mini, and it wasn’t *that* long ago that I read it. Having literally just finished listening to this, I don’t think I could explain the plot either. Just an absolute mess of a book and Nicieza’s worst traits on full display. You are mensches for struggling through.
Maybe the V Batallion are indifferent to Borders — it’s nice to browse in, but they understand the argument that it’s taking custom away from local bookshops and, if you don’t care about that, Amazon is taking off and is much more convenient. If the whole company goes bankrupt less than ten years after this mini comes out, it’s no skin off their nose.
Fabian Nicieza comics often remind me of the line in Sourcery: “He explained — although ‘explained’ is probably too positive a word and in this case really means failed to explain but at some length…”
Zoltan is the Turkish version of Sultan and Nestor was an elderly king who gave wise counsel in the Illiad. So Marduk is basically calling himself King of Battle Wisdom. He might as well be going by Murdoch Sumer.
Of course Citizen V isn’t going to check who was running Rumekistan before and whether Flag-Smasher is an improvement. That sounds like something someone who isn’t indifferent to politics would do!
Even though you’ve been talking about Aqhat all the way through, I honestly heard “Citizen V interrogates a cat” and thought that made as much sense as anything else.
Read this just before listening and it was so bad.
According to the fandom wiki Goldfire is a mutant so I guess she is alive in the white hot room now. Though both her sister and grandmother are listed as human mutate so maybe it’s a clerical eror and she is still dead.
I also heard “Citizen V interrogates a cat” and was momentarily interested.
So I’m going to regret this….
I’ve never heard of this series before. Just how bad is it?
It’s bad, and not the entertaining kind of bad, with the exception of some of the dialogue. (I don’t think our hosts mentioned, “Ah, Anglican customs are so quaint,” which IMO is a classic case of Jurgensesque not knowing what words mean.)
If the V Batallion is “indifferent to borders” and ULTIMATUM is for a one world government, you’d think they be more likely to be allies than enemies?
I was listening to issue 1 and thinking “China? Will we see the Collective Man?” and we did. And yes, he’s from Contest of Champions, like HTA perennial favorite Shamrock.
So how far past Nicieza will the pod be traveling?
“Even though you’ve been talking about Aqhat all the way through, I honestly heard “Citizen V interrogates a cat” and thought that made as much sense as anything else.”
I heard it as “a cat” repeatedly, didn’t figure out until I was 2/3rds of the way through the podcast that it was actually a name.