House to Astonish Episode 127
Back to recording without an audience, as Paul and I talk about the creative changes on Moon Knight, the Edge of Spider-Verse miniseries, the new Deathlok ongoing, the Hawkeye v Deadpool mini (and the numbering thereof), DC’s upcoming slate of movies, directorial news for both Ant-Man and Doctor Strange, the casting of the Kingpin, CB Cebulski and Jeanine Schaefer’s career moves and ReedPop’s Super Week. We’ve also got reviews of Armor Hunters, Infinity Man and the Forever People and… um… Angry Birds, and the Official Handbook of the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe is a teller of tall tales. All this plus cheap, non-brand Chinese superheroes, the aspirational underpants demographic and seven-toed tree-climbers.
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I love the idea of the Phantom Bullet beig this lazy reporter’s way of gettig out of doing work.
“Scoop, there’s been a shooting on the docks, could be gang related!”
“I’ll check it out, chief!”
*leaves, sleeps in his car for six hours, returns*
“There wasn’t anything to report on chief, must have been the work of that Phantom Bullet guy again. Well, I’m knackered from field work, I’ll give my notes to Olsen to write up.”
In America, we call trousers “pants”, and pants “underpants” making your conversation really odd.
Al’s Angry Birds plot does remind me of the UK Sonic the Comic written by Nigel Kitching and Lew Stringer with Rich Elson on art, in which Robotnik conquered the world in one of the first issues, and most of the run was Sonic and his gang as terrorists aiming to bring down his regime.
In terms of Deathloks in the Marvel Universe, does Death Locket from Avengers Arena/Undercover count as one?
I was hoping we would learn Phantom Bullet was behind the JFK assassination.
May have said this before, but i think a WW movie that plays upthe Greek mythology stuff would be way to go for a casual audience, seeing Diana fight a minotaur or hydra or Medusa etc
Wow! Ceefax reference. Never thought I’d hear that. I’m just glad I knew what Al was talking about cause I have an affinity for those old teletext programs.
I came here to make the same point as above on “pants”. So based on a sample size of two, 100% of your North American listeners named “Bob” were confused by your usage of pants.
The theory I heard regarding a Black Widow movie, Marvel is waiting to see how Lucy does. That is Scarlett Johansson’s action vehicle, directed by Luc Besson. If it does well, Black Widow will be announced pretty soon afterwards.
Also, she’s pregnant. They might be holding off until she’s ready to work again.
You are too dismissive of Wonder Woman’s status as the first female pop cultural icon. It’s hope against hope, but IMO that’s the thing that will actually save the movie. Too bad it’s the one thing that everyone dismisses as “outside” the property. I say, make it a feature of the property, and have her already a pop cultural icon as her set up for the story– of course that would mean that you wouldn’t have an origin story which is pretty much what every superhero film really is.
Shazam wouldn’t make sense as a grim gritty film, but it would make sense as a big budget Broadway musical!
I’m surprised the new Deathlok isn’t actually named Mike Peterson. This possibly indicates the success of ”Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.” (I liked it.)
I may have said this before, but the idea that there’s a version of Wondy who fits what a movie audience wants – or at least what WB think a movie audience wants – is exactly what makes my heart sink at the prospect, given Al’s comments about the grimdark.
I worry that the people who said “You know what would make Superman awesome? If he snapped a guy’s neck!” will say “You know what makes Wonder Woman awesome? She’s already snapped a guy’s neck!”
To be fair, from what I’ve seen, Johns does write Capt … sorry, Shazam … as a child in an adult’s body. A bratty, horrible child who hates everything because the world is so grimdark, and who is distinguished from Superman because Superman isn’t a total jerk. (I admit that I haven’t seen much, so it’s possible he gets better.)
IMO, anyone writing Shazam, in any medium, should be made to read the Jerry Ordway stories – at gunpoint if they start whining “The whimsy, it burnss!” – and told “This! And if you can’t do this, leave the character the heck alone!”
(Psst, Al, at one point you refer to Amour Hunters as Armour Wars. Which was a completely different story about the creator of a suit of powered armour trying to get it back under their control after people make loads of knock-off versions.)
Yeah, the best Kirby cover acts, even when they’re taking existing Kirby properties, at least do new things with them. My favourite has always been Karl Kesel’s Superboy, and things like “New Gods and DNAliens do Cannonball Run (or possibly Wacky Races).
I think being a top reporter despite a lax work attitude means that you’re such an awesome reporter you can wander into the office after a two-hour lunch, muck about on the typewriter for ten minutes, and that’s the front page sorted out.
“Has this been fact-checked, Scoop?”
“I didn’t bother, boss, because we both know I’m so good it doesn’t need to be.”
“Damn your insubordination, but you’re right!”
I honesty don’t think a Black Widow movie would work. She’s just too generic. She’s not even the first arsekicking lady spy in a black catsuit in a movie called Avengers.
Now a Captain Marvel movie would work. A She-Hulk movie would work (but would be a hard sell). A Dazzler movie would work. They all have a shtick. Black Widow has “like those movie spies but in a comic”. We all know how the various Punisher movies fared.
I believe Phantom Bullet actually got knocked off by Nazis in The Marvels Project.
I’ve not seen this reported anywhere, but Peyton Reed pitched for Fox’s original Fantastic Four along with co-writer and fellow FF fan Scott Aukerman, the Choctaw of Comedy Bang Bang fame. Apparently they wanted to make it a 60s period piece, with the FF becoming pop culture icons after their accident. I expect it would have been similar in style to Down With Love. So Reed (Peyton) could be a wise replacement.
Still sad we never get to see Hot Soccermom’s take on the Baxter Building gang though.
Gotta say, the Azzarello post-Gaiman version of Wondy is pretty far from what I might *say* I’d want from the character, but damn if that isn’t the most Wonder Womans I’ve ever bought in a row.
Spider-Manoir is bunk. I mean, I watched a playthru of that video game where he’s in there with a Webdings spider-logo on his back, and the bit where it goes first-person and the Vulture tries to do something unspeakable to you, I’m not saying it’s haunted me ever since, but it has haunted me ever since.
I sincerely hope we get to see that Mary Jane in a cheongsam version of Spider-Man from the original PlayStation 2 movie game. Just to stick it to the prudes who had the cheat removed from later pressings of the game.
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