Mindless Ones

Sweet singing Jesus! This is it. THIS IS THE ONE! No hyperbole, no exaggeration, this is IT. This gonna be the one the kids bicker over! This is the one that’s gonna change the game, this…this…

Sorry I can’t remember what the hell I was talking about. Forgive me. Been hitting the bottle harder than my man Starks on payday.

So what is this? It’s the seventh episode of SILENCE! the ‘award winning’ new podcast that’s sweeping the netosphere. In this episode you get two, count them TWO superhero songs: Gary Lactus’ ‘Variable Hulk’ featuring guest vocals from the soft Glaswegian brogue of Illogical Volume, and The Beast’s ‘Saga of the Swamp Thing’ super-ballad. That would basically be enough for most podcasts, but not SILENCE! God no. After that you get ‘hot’ ‘comics’ ‘gossip’ in SILENCE! NEWS! before the two launch into a heady discussion of BKV’s Saga no.1, Avengers Bendicise no.1, Captain America (and the loveliness of Alan Davis in general), Wolverine and the X-Men (again!), The Incredible Hulk (why not?), Casey and not-Fox’s disco bloodbath Haunt, the derangement of Elektra Assassin, The Secret History of DB Cooper from Oni, Shade from Robinson and Pulido [during which The Beast turns into a f*cking robot AGAIN!], the increasingly less yellow Fantastic Four, Saucer County,and SPACE: Punisher (fucking yes). they soil their minds at the awfulness of the Gearheart: Steampunk Revue no.2 in the fan-favourite You Should Have Known Better. Then the beast rhapsodises (in blue) about the lost classic Batman: Jazz from Gerard Jones and Mark Badger in The Beasts Bargain Basement (and yes there’s a cocking jingle!). There’s a quick discussion of the surprisingly brilliant Rise of the Planet of the Apes in Notcomics. Add in some America’s Top Model and the scintillation of the Coming Attractions, and you have yourself an aural swingers party.

So stick on your headphones, pour yourself an extreme beverage and CHOOSE THE FORM OF YOUR DESTRUCTOR!

PART 1
[audio:https://mindlessones.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/silence007a.mp3]
Click to download

PART 2
[audio:https://mindlessones.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/silence007b.mp3]
Click to download

Botswana Beast: [post-factum editorial note: these were written intermittently on a GoogleDoc, in sections post- the release of Marvel’s 2011 event Fear Itself, I think after issues 4, 6 and 7  were released unto the buying public.]

Right, son, I’mo get my fit-to-print pants on:

Where to start, oh, man; I guess you bought Fear Itself, I was surprised you did because you are a grown-up who buys [LOL interjection] grown-up comics, and you bought it because of how I described it to you at Kapow!? (How much punctuations should I put there? Feels like I should put more) Which was – I dunno – it was in April, so I guess just after the first issue? And I described it as “Final Crisis set in the Marvel Universe” which is… it’s not inaccurate, but, basically the lesson is never, ever listen to me.

Because it’s been – and I know some folk don’t think it inarguable that Final Crisis was a good comic, let alone a great one (I think “you are probably wrong” to these people, not necessarily on a permanent basis, just on that matter) – but it’s been a disaster, really, and at this point I kind of wish I’d sold you, or more importantly, myself, on “Age of Apocalypse set in the DC Universe” aka Flashpoint which has been… I don’t know, not good exactly? Momentous? They both have nice art, that is all I’m going to say on art. That is the Art Statement. Mainstream comics are not about art, they’re about commerce. The artists on Fear Itself and Flashpoint really did a good job – but it was the Marvel eds and Johns that built these.

It’s been so bad – whilst also offering glimmers of something that could have been really good, Marvel is my district, really, it always has been in comics, but it’s been so bad that I can feel my Zombie embers burn out as it progresses; I’ve fiended Marvel for a decade, which, whatever, bloggers don’t tend to do (“I’m not you, blogger. I’m not you.”) possibly because they are largely at some level involved in an industry which the company can and has run jackbooted over as it please. And I’m not: you’ll get purely sideline sniping here. So, yeah, I looked at September’s offerings from them and, assuming Mark Waid performs the first-time feat of maintaining my interest in a comic he’s writing past three issues, the art on these is really nice, I’ll get Daredevil, I’ll probably fork out £3.25 for DPMAX2, I’ll definitely get the Elektra:Assassin trade at some indeterminate point and that’s it. (It is necessary to discuss Marvel comics in transactional terms, always). Now, there may be other aspects at play here, I may have taken Alan Moore and his former friend Steve Bissette’s rejoinders to heart, it may be that I am envious of Matt Fraction*, it may be that, given I have a second imminent baby, probably [EDIT: yes] arrived by the time this sees printernet, I’ve decided to rationalise cutting back in all these ways, who knows what my Crowleyan Will hath wrought? But anyway, Fear Itself is coincident with my final days as a Marvel “fan”, it transpires. It’s complicated, I guess; but anyway, anyone who sez: Kirboycotters are all people who weren’t reading Marvel anyway – no, I am yr counterexample. But, you know, do what you like.

By do what you like I mean CLICK HERE to read the rest of this epic in the making!