House to Astonish Episode 176
It’s the annual SDCC roundup, and we’re talking about the upcoming relaunch of the X-Men line, Phase 4 of the MCU, Ed Brubaker’s deal with Legendary Television, Miracleman in Marvel Comics 1000, the CW’s upcoming Crisis on Infinite Earths crossover, Beware the Ghost Rider, The Question: The Deaths of Vic Sage, the return of Dead Rabbit as Dead Eyes, Cecil Castellucci taking over Batgirl, the upcoming Spider-Verse miniseries, Afterlift, Amazing Spider-Man: Full Circle, The Amazing Mary Jane, Birds of Prey, The Batman’s Grave, Doctor Doom, Undiscovered Country and DC’s further adventures in imprints. We’ve also got reviews of Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen and Loki, and the Official Handbook of the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe is the fastest milk float in the West. All this plus DC Graphic Novels For Elderly Podcasters, the X-Sausages and a look into the twilight years of one of comics’ favourite writer-artist teams.
The podcast is here, or here on Mixcloud, or available via the player below. Let us know what you think, in the comments, on Twitter, via email or on our Facebook fan page.
You can also get our well lush t-shirts over at our Redbubble store, and you know what? You would look fantastic in one.
I had great fun screaming ‘DENYS COWAN’ in my car during the entirety of the The Question section! Surprised that the Tom King/Adam Strange news wasn’t featured, or the Hellblazer stuff (although the former may have been announced during or after recording).
Against my better judgment I’m actually pretty excited about Hickman’s run and keen to see where it takes us. I’m somewhat reluctant because I feel like I’ve been burned so often in the past 15 years since House of M kneecapped the X-books. First Messiah Complex, then Fraction/Utopia, then Schism and that whole mess, the post AVX thing, the mostly terrible Bendis years and then the weird ups and downs of the past two years.
Marvel are going to that Spider-Verse well a lot but, eh, may as well while there’s interest.
I got Al’s deep cut reference. This means I’m old, doesn’t it?
Took me a while to realise the guy playing Shang Chi is the son off Kim’s Convenience, so along with Tony Leung, it’s got a great cast and I’m looking forward to it more than I thought I would when it was rumoured. Swapping Mandarin in for Fu Manchu is a good choice.
The other element to consider with the amount of Marvel movies (and TV shows) is that there won’t be Fox’s movies alongside this now (well, New Mutants, apparently), so it’ll feel like there’s less overall.
Just started listening. Dunno if it’s not a thing across the ocean, but in America “gone to a better place” is a euphemism for dying (ie going to heaven).
Oh, for Hurricane, I think that last bit from the handbook was from a brilliant short about him in the Marvel Westerns retro event from… ’06ish? It recast him as a man cursed with a superhumanly fast quick-draw continually plagued by people wanting to prove themselves again him, then the relatives of those people seeking revenge, then their relatives and so until he’s got literal mobs coming after him that he has to gun down. And then loot the corpses of, so he has enough bullets to deal with the next lot.
Weren’t Cowan and Sienkiewicz a classic 80s The Question team? Know I used to have a beautiful poster they did with him plus Batman and Green Arrow. I loved their work together on Epic’s Doctor Zero, will pick up the new book on the basis of that alone.
(Answering my own question — spot checking a few issues, it looks like Sienkiewicz mostly worked only on the covers?
Yes, that was the brilliant Denny O’Neil run on the Question from the 1980s.
Bill was on covers. Cowan was the artist.
The Batman and Green Arrow team-up was from an Annual.
Jason Loo, the artist on Afterlift, did Pitiful Human Lizard at Legendary, the Canadian superhero comic company. He’s a top artist, good with facial expressions and so-forth.
Pitiful Human Lizard was a good comic, basically about this guy who’s a legacy super hero, but he’s just an average joe aside from his powers. His workmates at the office treat his superheroing like he’s a LARPer or something. He’s not disrespected or inept or anything, but he’s certainly not a Marvel hero. I think you have to be familiar with Alberta to get the full enjoyment out of it, but it’s still entertaining.
“I think you have to be familiar with Alberta to get the full enjoyment out of it, but it’s still entertaining.”
Thanks for the info. Born, raised, and still living in Alberta here. Gonna have to check that series out.
I picked up my first issue of Pitiful Human Lizard the other day. It’s a Toronto based comic, so you’re best off being familiar with Ontario.
The comic does look pretty fun.
Bugger, I knew I’d get the wrong city. Sorry.
Does it mean that I’m an awful person that I was brought up short by “Either the left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing, or, more likely…”?
Props to the boys for not saying Harry Kane the Hurricane should play football.
It seems very strange to me that Marvel Studios didn’t pick out Iron Fist as a character for movies, but now IS doing Shang Chi.
Larroca drew a pretty nice looking DOOM when he was FF artist. Looking forward to that.
Iron Fist isn’t going to help them make a billion dollars in China.
Shang Chi will certainly try.
Personally, I think they shouldn’t have bothered introducing Danny Rand to the MCU to begin with and I’m not saying that just because his Netflix series sucked. The MCU didn’t need both Danny Rand and Shang Chi and this was one area where Marvel Studios could’ve gone off-script.
I’d have just omitted Danny and plugged Shang into the Iron Fist role instead and delivered “Shang Chi: Iron Fist”. Then you’ve got the powers, the costume, the superhero name, and a Chinese character all rolled into one property.
So…
Professor X is definitely The Maker in disguise right?
Disparaging Iron Fist on this blog might be a bannable offence.
There seem to be definite correlations between House of X and Hickman’s run on the Ultimates, yes.
Although, I’m hoping that isn’t where this run by Hickman is headed.
This book was so different for the X-Men.
The title needs this sort of shaking up, but I can’t see this being the new status quo in the Marvel Universe either.
My main question at this point is whether HoXPox introduces the status quo for Hickman’s run or is it merely a prologue and there will be a shake up at the end, with the actual shape of the world for the long run coming after these minis end.
“HoXPox”! That’s wonderful.
I have to admit, I was a sceptic, but Hickman has already brought something good with him.
I’m pretty sure there’s going to be a shake-up before the final status quo is put in place. I mean, we can’t fully trust (Professor) X, right? Something fishy is definitely going on.