House to Astonish Episode 73
It’s our first podcast in conjunction with Comics Should Be Good, and it’s a bit of an epic – our longest ever episode, with discussion of the Marvel cancellation wave, the Booster Gold TV show, Image Comics’ convention and Ron Marz’s move off Voodoo, as well as a run through the solicitations. We’ve got reviews of Fantastic Four and Mudman, interviews with Nick Spencer, Stephen Wacker and Kieron Gillen recorded at Leeds’s Thought Bubble convention and the Official Handbook of the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe hits the bottle. All this plus J Michael Straczynski’s tomb, Iceman being beaten with a giraffe and some of the more obscure levels of Sonic the Hedgehog.
The podcast is here, or here on Mixcloud, or available via the player below. Let us know what you think, either in the comments thread, on Twitter, via email or on our Facebook fan page.
I really want a Pizzazz vs zombies comic now.
Long story short on the Supreme Intelligence v. Inhumans. Millions of years ago the Kree made ‘Inhumans’ on hundreds of alien worlds. When the Supreme Intelligence analyzed the preliminary data it showed that these groups would eventually interact and create something that could destroy or conquer the Kree, implicitly: Black Bolt. So it ordered all the test groups destroyed, but the records were damaged and it was aware it must have missed some. So it created a way to recreate the Supreme Intelligence at a critical juncture to survive the threat and finish the job.
Nick Spencer’s comparison of American and British shoes was fascinating.
(Sorry.)
I can’t see any reason for The Crossing to be re-released. Really, who wants to buy that again? Who wanted it the first time? Crikey.
Death Wreck. Yikes. I’d forgotten about him. Still, he was more interesting than Death Metal, and the imposter Death’s Head II.
Steve Wacker seems a lot better in face to face interviews than on internet message boards, where he never seems to answer questions or valid criticisms and sometimes acts with a Tom Brevoort level of arrogance about how Marvel never does anything wrong, ever. If it’s supposed to be a persona it’s a really bad decision.
Glad that the podcast still remained the same with the change.
FF #600 really didn’t feel welcoming, despite being part I of a new story. FF #500 felt a lot more open and accessible and that was the conclusion to the Doom arc.
And having read Annihilators Earthfall #3 I guess Ronan just rolls out with Kree Sentinels everywhere these days.
I know Kieron visits here all the time, but I was really impressed that Wacker is familiar enough with HtA to make jokes about the wrestling posts.
If you’ll excuse an autonomous reaction,
DOCTOR WHO IS THE NAME OF THE PROGRAMME NOT THE CHARACTER! Okay, I feel better now.
Death Wreck isn’t even a pun! They could have called him … um … Dead Drunk?
Kieron Gillen wrote Warhammer Comics!?! I must read these.
Al, I applaud you for not scoffing when Steve Wacker called Greg Land a good artist.
Regarding Avengers: The Crossing, I’m kinda morbidly curious to read it. I know it’s widely regarded as being awful, but it’s so reviled I just can’t help but want to see why. Though not to the degree of stumping up $100. I have to say though, I’ve seen on a number of message boards people saying that they remember it somewhat fondly and want to to get the collection.
I hadn’t realised that Dr Necker was Marvel UK Death’s Head related character when she turned up in Nova. That’s rather cool of DnA to tie that in there.
Hey stephen wacker,
People who live in comic book glass houses shouldnt throw stones at other forms of marginalized popular culture.
Liked the interviews.
With this extra long show, will we still be getting the traditional HTA holiday special?
those Marvel UK characters had the worst names!
I read the crossing, trust me it read like it was plotted month to month and the art was not quality for most of it. This mishandling of the Avengers is what brought on heroes reborn.
I hadn’t realised that Dr Necker was Marvel UK Death’s Head related character when she turned up in Nova. That’s rather cool of DnA to tie that in there.
Well, Abnett was the writer on Death’s Head II, and Lanning was the inker, so there’s the connection. As I recall, DHII pops up on a screen in the background in one scene and there are a couple of lines about Necker’s latest project.
Surprised that the mudman talk didnt generate talk about knght and squire, given its examinarion ob british superheoness.
I’ve never read the Crossing. I never expect to.
But man, do I love Quicksilver’s white-and-gray outfit from that era. Easily the best outfit he’s ever had.
The individual stories may not be great, but the first 12 issues of X-Men, or rather the first 11, actually have an unusually strong unifying arc. Issue 1, they fight Magneto, issue 4 Magneto forms the Brotherhood, issues 5, 6, 7 and 8 all feature the Brotherhood in one form or another, than in issue 11 the original Brotherhood is destroyed, Wanda and Pietro turn good, and Magneto is neutralized.
It’s not really an arc, though, so much as Lee and Kirby experimenting with a recurring villain format, doing it for six issues, and then abandoning it out of the blue. Nothing in the earlier issues builds to the Brotherhood’s collapse, though it might be possible to shoehorn that ino a retelling.
Yeah, I didn’t mean that it was laid out in advance like an arc, just that in terms of rewriting those issues to be more interconnected there’s an obvious structure to work with, and one that’s fairly easy to make resonant with the X-Men’s main themes. Certainly more so than if there were as many of the first few issues featuring Lucifer.
Ah The Crossing. I fucking hated it at the time and I am sure 17 years later it would be even worse.
So terrible it had to be written out of continuity. Classic.
The Age of Innocence: Rebirth of Iron Man 1-shot collected in the Crossing tpb was actually pretty good.
I think I need subtitles for the Gillen interview…
Steve Wacker sounds hot AND brilliant!
-Totally not Steve Wacker
Really enjoyable listen, the interviews were all pretty insightful. It is ridiculous thinking just how much the stock of Nick Spencer & Kieron Gillen has risen over the course of the past year. Both fully deserve it too as their books are generally quite terrific. I was really surprised about the Stephen Wacker segment. I’d echo Ken B’s comments above that he comes across quite irritating in online interviews or columns, but he seemed like a sound enough chap here.
Definitely agreed with Paul’s views regarding Marvel double shipping books. It’s a huge ask to expect fans to essentially spend twice as much per month. Marvel won’t be expanding the readership of those books either, just merely exploiting whatever current base they have. Given that monthly titles generally have diminishing returns anyway, it could only exacerbate things. Presumably with the quicker issue output, that means the trades will also be out quicker which may give readers a good excuse to opt-out of the monthly issues. The whole thing seems very penny-wise, pound-foolish.