House to Astonish Episode 77
Slightly earlier than usual (because it’s my wedding anniversary this weekend so I’m going to be away), we’ve got just shy of an hour and a half of chat for you on DC and Oni’s new logos, the public bust-ups on Infinite, Static Shock and Ashes and at Archie and a look at April’s solicitations. We’ve also got reviews of Infestation 2, Secret Avengers and Prophet and the Official Handbook of the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe gets its buttons mashed. All this plus Arms-Stick-On Boy, a kid whose head is on fire and a look behind the scenes at an early meeting of the Image founders.
The podcast is here, or here on Mixcloud, or accessible via the embedded player below. Let us know what you think, in the comments, on Twitter, via email or on our Facebook fan page.
It’s a shame that the Grendel/Batman crossovers won’t be included in the omnibuses (omnibi? I dunno). They aren’t essential, but are pretty good comics.
My copies of all the run are looking pretty battered though, so there’s a good chance I’ll buy these new ones.
You guys are giving too much credit to Iron Man 2.0. In my opinion one of the biggest disasters Marvel had last year. They interrupted the story line for FEAR ITSELF and returned with what seemed like no clue what they were doing.
There has been a court case involving the harassment allegations against Silberkeit, which I guess resulted in this injunction. http://www.comicsbeat.com/2011/07/08/tmz-archie-comics-co-ceo-nancy-silberkleit-liked-to-yell-out-words-for-genitalia/
Ah, Match.
Fond memories. He was in my half of the X-MEN: THE 198 FILES one-shot, five years back or so. Basically, since he’d been barely fleshed out and didn’t have remotely enough history to fill up the space allotted to his profile, I invented a mad scientist of German origin (the name escapes me right now) who had come up with a theory linking mutants’ powers to their personalities. Which was a bunch of bollocks, but did the trick. I wonder if anyone did anything with that. (I know that. David Hine picked up some bits from my Mister X write-up in his 198 miniseries, which was nice.)
DC’s logo looks like a peeled-back Band-Aid.
I always liked the Marvel logo that was the word “MARVEL” on top of a big “M” with “Comics” scrawled over it. I thought the Marvel UK version (which replaced the big “M” with a big “UK”) looked a bit silly, though.
I’ve a feeling Arm-Fall-Off Boy never actually made it into the Legion of Substitute Heroes, which is surely the ultimate badge of shame, given that their number included Stone Boy, who turned into an immobile statue.
According to ”Marvel Universe Appendix”, there were two Videomen in the cartoon who kind of fit both your proposed origins. One was created by Electro (because it was Spider-Man And His Amazing Friends so sure, Electro can do that. He could probably regrow arms as well). And the second was a young gamer geek called (I’m not making this up) Francis Byte, who gained powers from an exploding video game.
Just read Secret Avengers. At first it appeared the issue was that Cap was testing Hawkeye’s skill at spying, it was an issue brought up in Hawkeye and Mockingbird, made sense to me. Very next page Cap goes on a rant about Hawkeye being to immature to lead totally throwing me off. Add to this what was a pretty rushed ending really disappointed me.
If we can have a villain from the 80s Spider-Man cartoon, can we hopefully expect a bad guy that Spider-Man fought on the Electric Company?
When they started talking about a villain from Amazing Friends, I was sure it was going to be Mr. Frump.
I was looking forward to Secret Avengers. Promising both Hanks on one team will always get my attention. (As long as it doesn’t affect Academy, dammit.)
Mario Gear Solid is an amazing idea.
I always liked the Marvel logo that was the word “MARVEL” on top of a big “M” with “Comics” scrawled over it/
Me too. It still cropped up on some of the Essentials books until quite recently.
not even i care about match. and i care about trance and got downright excited about the return of ariel!
@Zach Adams
They just added Hawkeye to the casts of both Secret Avengers and Avengers Academy, so if they claim Hank Pym can’t be in both books, we have the right to call Shenanigans.
CVO is a terrible, terrible book.
Am I the only person who, on hearing Video Man described as “a guy who shoots rectangles,” thought he’d be the perfect villain for Sam Keith’s Zero Girl?
Just me, then.
I never read Prophet first time round but the reboot sounded promising.
I hoped it might be a sci-fi version of To The White Sea, an astonishing novel by William Dickey, the guy who wrote Deliverance. It’s about a grim US pilot shot down over Tokyo during WWII, who has to try and escape before the city is firebombed. All he has is his knife.
It is much better and stranger than I’m making it sound.
The Prophet issue was good in parts but I never warmed to the narration. I thought the double-page spread of him using the binoculars was effective though …
Ah Paul, it’s a long while since you saw a woman talking out of her arse while delivering exposition? This is where it pays to read Legion comics: http://dangermart.blogspot.com/2012/01/legion-secret-origin-4-review.html
Ah Paul, it’s a long while since you saw a woman talking out of her arse while delivering exposition? This is where it pays to read Legion comics: http://dangermart.blogspot.com/2012/01/legion-secret-origin-4-review.html