Professor Xavier Is A Jerk

February 13th, 2015

We were so hot for Plok‘s extensive and illuminating reading of Guardians of the Galaxy (you know, the one with the raccoon that thinks it’s not a raccoon) that we invited him back to talk about X-Men: Days of Future Past, Jennifer Lawrence, Ellen page and their role in a series of movies that are just full of “great” men…

You all know this guy, right?

Right, then.

We’re ready.

…So, goddamnit, after all this time, they finally have a chance to make a genuine statement about difference in these X-Men movies. Or, rather: the X-Men franchise itself has that chance, and takes it. They don’t want it to, obviously…would like it to somehow be other than it is, even though the way that it is, is all their own doing. Oh, it almost breaks your heart, doesn’t it? Watching them floundering around trying everything they can try just to miss the point, yet the point still comes through, the meaning still comes out, inevitably. Sow the wind, reap the whirlwind, and all that. Instant karma…

Or, maybe not “Instant Karma”, actually. Not primarily.

But maybe something else.

I have to be honest with you: this is the only lens through which I can view X-Men: Days Of Future Past where it even counts as a movie that’s about anything. For what’s really happened here? I am, I freely confess, just a bit too old to have been tagged by the famous Kitty Pryde Nerd Crush – myself, I always liked the skinny, scared Jewish kid from the suburbs who was smarter than she thought she was, with the fairly-useless power – Chris Claremont used to talk about how maybe if she phased her hand through some loose rope for about an hour, maybe gradually the fibers of the rope would unravel – but Ellen Page was so astonishingly born to portray a film-version Kitty Pryde that she threatens to make actual even ALL the different kinds of Kitty Pryde out there, even for me who never really believed in about half of them. The Chess Grand Master. The Yogic Flyer. The Pro-Solar Mechanic. The Perfect Girlfriend. And just look at her whaling away on the thing, for heaven’s sake! From the second she wheeled to face Vinnie Jones in X3, perfectly improving on a Paul Smith cover (uh, it was a Paul Smith cover, wasn’t it?), my nerd-breath was absolutely taken away. Every time she’s been on screen, she’s been acting the CRAP out of this real-life-Kitty-Pryde thing…but you hardly get to notice it, because I think she’s been given, all told now, about ten-and-a-half minutes of screen time to do her thing. Even here, in what was really HER story in the comics, she’s doing dramatic things, badass things…even when it seems all she’s being asked to do is be hurt by Wolverine’s abduction of her storyline, she is heroically soldiering on and doing everything you and I probably couldn’t without breaking down and breaking right in two. Holy shit, and does anyone imagine that Ellen Page couldn’t have carried an X-Men movie? Wolverine would still be in it, you know. He would have a pretty cool part, in fact! Why you could even still have given Hugh Jackman top billing…but it would’ve been Kitty’s story, and so it would’ve been the right one, instead of the wrong one.

Click here to go back… to the future!

SILENCE! #123

November 25th, 2014

 

TEENAGE CAVEMAN, ROCK WITH SKIN AND BONE!

So Gary Lactus, a The Beast Must Die and a Bobsy walk into a bar…and then they ordered everyone else of said bar, in order to record a podcast. Shortly after the podcast was finished recording the enraged bar patrons stormed back in and threw the three stringy upstarts out into the gutter, as a lifetime of reading comics had left them milky of complexion and frail of frame. Certainly not strong enough to stand up to a bunch of gammon-faced alcoholics with nothing to live for. Nonetheless the outcome is 2 hours of comics podcast magicccckks…let’s all go SILENCE!

<ITEM> There’s a ramblicious opening salvo with sponsorshunting, and a selection pack of tangential conversations… but out of the morass comes a single ringing plea..BUY CINDY & BISCUIT!

<ITEM> The Reviewniverse opens it’s hallowed doors to welcome The Grant Morrison Apologist Society Annual General Meeting starts here, as the boys go long for a discussion of the really quite good Multiversity: Pax Americana. Much too chew on, and chew they do…woo hoo!

<ITEM> More Moz, as they careen into the void of Annihilator, before carrying onto X-Force, X-Men, Wonder Woman, Punk Mambo, Harley Quinn, Wytches, Intersect, and the weirdly divisive True Stories from Derf…there’s a bit of chat about Supreme Blue Rose, Zero, Loki: Agent of Axis and more…

Have a great time y’all. And watch out for the Jibblers!

Click to download SILENCE!#123

Contact us:

[email protected]
@silencepod
@frasergeesin
@thebeastmustdie
@bobsymindless

This edition of SILENCE! is proudly sponsored by the greatest comics shop on the planet, DAVE’S COMICS of Brighton.

 

 

SILENCE! #75

September 12th, 2013

A SUCCULENT CHINESE MEAL?!

Hello, Gary Lactus here.  Just back from The Beast Must Die’s stag do in Belgium.  It was good.  We dressed The Beast up as an egg and went Devalkarting.  I still ache.  Anyway, The Beast Must Die was last seen disappearing into some haunted woods on a drunken werewolf hunt with Narratorbot X-15735.  Hopefully he’ll turn up again before the wedding.

So it’s one of those disappointingly solo efforts this week, squeezed out between jobs, recorded on the hoof through the streets at night. Also on a bus and in my bedroom on my spaceship in space just before my bath. Sounds thrilling right? A BUS! JUST IMAGINE! Well there’s no need to imagine because it’s here and it’s real! I talk about X-Men: Battle of the Atom, Forever Evil, Deadshot, Satellite Sam, Trillium, Avengers AI, FF, Bat Slaps and more!

click to download SILENCE!#75

SILENCE! is proudly sponsored by the two greatest comics shops on the planet, DAVE’S COMICS of Brighton and GOSH COMICS of London.

SILENCE! #65

June 4th, 2013

 

 

WHAT’S THAT BLUE THING….DOING THERE?

Look, forget about angels,  Disembodied Narratorbot X-15735 wants to know how many sperm whales fit on the head of a pin? Depends on the pin, right fleshlings? AM I RIGHT?

I am right.  Disembodied Narratorbot X-15735 is right.

Know what else is right?  The feeling of SILENCE! as it runs it’s cold, waxy fingers down your neck and whispers ‘COMMMMMIIIIIICS’ in your ear. Disembodied Narratorbot X-15735 advises that you point to the dolly and say where SILENCE! touched you.

<ITEM> Sponsorhsip? You want sponsorship? Well we gots it! The question is – does it want US?

<ITEM> Shock! Horror! The boys find themselves misfiring and ending up in the Broken Zone of 2nd Hand Comics, and talk about Charlton Premiere Comics, Ed the Happy Clown, and Stan Lee Romance Comics

<ITEM> But then they overcompensate and end up in the Speed Force, wearing horrific figure hugging red leotards and discussing The Wake, Indestructible Hulk, Justice League of America, Fury, Wolverine & The X-Men, John Carpenter’s Asylum, Adventures of Superman, Earth 2 Annual, Captain America, Avenging Spiderman, Dark Knight Annual, X-Men, Dash Shaw’s 3 Stories, and Iron Man.

Now get yourselves back to the homestead, before the sun sets…you don’t want to be out in these badlands after dark. Them dead things get restless….BYE!

click to download SILENCE!#65

SILENCE! is proudly sponsored by the two greatest comics shops on the planet, DAVE’S COMICS of Brighton and GOSH COMICS of London.

LOOK! The SILENCE! Gallery is back!

AVX #11: Suck and Chuck

September 15th, 2012

Not: Night of the Weirwolf

Do you remember that Wolverine story where he goes all edgy and kills some superheroes, and the only ones he in fact murders are disabled or gay? It was written by staunch defender-of-women / rape profiteer Mark Millar. Is this like that? Or is this latest casual extermination of the bald, wheelchair-bound one something different, serious, and maybe even Real this time?

Whatever – it’s clearly a great time to be killing off your disabled characters Marvel.

(Are you actually going to sit there and say ‘Hey smartarse he got his legs back and working again this time? Are you actually going to do that? Are you going to deny that Charles Xavier is disabled? Did he bring a wig back from space with him this time too?)

Brian Michael Bendis: ‘I don’t always write in a very Shakespearean way’. Don’t be modest Brian Michael.

SILENCE! podcast #10

April 11th, 2012

SILENCE! #10 IS NOW BACK UP. SORRY FOR THE INCONVENIENCE, LOYAL FANS!

We are 10 today! That’s right SILENCE! Has reached double figures…look at it! Ahhh! Look at it’s cute little face….ahhhh…

Okay, enough.

In this episode Lactus continues to monitor the South Coast from his swinging cosmo-lounge, while the Beast reveals the details of his new Prestige Life. Not only that but Lactus unearths an extremely rare Booster Gold promotional item! (with thanks to big bad Bob Ferrie for sourcing it) Following that the dyspeptic duo barrel straight into the SILENCE! News, covering such cultural hot potatoes as Shaky Kane’s pop art act of terrorism and the re-colouring of Flex Mentallo.

With nary a thought for their, or your, safety the turgid twosome somersault into the week’s reviews covering Daredevil 10.1 (gah!), Action Comics (featuring the debut of Shit-eating Superman), the final issue of OMAC (One Man Actually Cares), Freedom, Avengers Vs X-Men (omigodtotallypsyched) Animal Man and Sweet Tooth, and Alan Moore’s Supreme. Not in that order.

Then the prosaic pair have a lovely long chat about Urasawa’a masterful Pluto, and the Beast takes us synth-rockin’ all the way back to the 80’s with the sublimely ridiculous Slash Maraud in the Beast’s Bargain Basement. In addition they fizz and pop with enthusiasm about Community in Notcomics before the show slides into gibberish for the Coming Attractions. All this and perhaps just a little bit more in the comics podcast that stands gills and flippers above all others, SILENCE!
What a show. What a world. What.

Remember these colossally egotistical man-tards need love to keep going. Please submit feedback, questions, erotic fan-mail and abuse to [email protected].

 

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Illogical Volume: Okay, so the idea here is that we’re going to do another one of these shit-talky back and forths, this time on DC’s New 52 (I hate the whole Nu52 thing, smells like team Durst), with various diversions into non-DC comics for added flavour.  I don’t know, I guess I’ve just read a veritable CUMPKINLOAD OF COMICS in the last three-and-a-half months and I feel the need to share my thoughts on them with both you and the rest of the world. Do you feel like enabling me big man?

Botswana Beast: Yeah, the nomenclature is – it’s external, it is entirely New Metal (the first music I loved, forefathers: Faith No More, whose cassette album ‘Angel Dust’ was the first by a single band I owned, in fucking Christmas 1991/2, I did have Now 17 before that.) It should have an ümlaut ideally, because comics are nothing if not racist and utterly without taste.

But anyway, yes, I think I have some feelings about comics, still, in my one remaining nerve, the world passes me by in numb shock, but these – well, one can express oneself. Isn’t it wonderful now everyone can express themselves via this technological medium? Wunderbar.

Illogical Volume: FEELINGS ABOUT COMICS ARE THE ONLY TRUE FEELINGS! So long as we can keep that in mind, we should do just fine here…

2000AD Progs 1750 – 1763

If I was writing about 2000AD like The Beast Must Die is was doing for a while there (note to The Beast Must Die: please write about 2000AD again soon!) I’d have the slight problem of wanting to repeat myself every week – there are two strips in here that are regularly worthwhile, you know what they are (Indigo Prime and Judge Dredd) and I can’t think of much to say about the other strips.  Which is just another reason why TBMD >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> me, obviously.

I’d feel like a total dilettante trying to say anything clever about Judge Dredd, so I’ll focus on Indigo Prime right now, which… well, thanks for “making” me buy the Indigo Prime trade at Kapow!, Botswana Beast, because this is so exactly WHAT I WANT that I can’t believe I hadn’t read it all before.

The last strip in Indigo Prime’s previous incarnation, Killing Time, also happened to be the best one. It’s both From Hell as written by a skin-sick sensualist and (thanks to the bulgy brilliance of Chris Weston’s art) a warped precursor to The Filth, which is to say that it’s pretty close to comic book perfection.  This freshly relaunched series doesn’t quite have the same queasy feel to, but that’s okay.  If Killing Time was the blue meat you’d pick up from a bad butcher, these two new stories have had a sort of processed meat feel to them, more like something you’d buy from the local Spar on yr lunch break and instantly regret. Only, you know, good.

Regardless of the exact flavour of meat involved, it (the old and new incarnations of Indigo Prime) is (are) one (two) of my favourites. Yes.

Plus, also, Al Ewing and Brendan McCarthy are going to be working together on a new strip called Zaucer of Zilk for 2K, so you can consider me officially THERE for the New McCarthysim, as always…

Click here for more! An early Xmas Overload awaits, now with extra added Scottish!

Reviewniverse

November 23rd, 2008

cleadimensionx

Not done these in a while. Where to start?

where indeed