Aliens

New Comics & Collected Editions: Marvel Comics – February 21 2024

February 15, 2024 by krisis

It’s the 8th new comic book day of the new year! This post covers Marvel Comics February 21 2024 releases. Missed last week’s releases? Check out last week’s post covering Marvel Comics February 14 2024 new releases.

This week in Marvel Comics: Fall of X collections, an Alien anthology, an unexpected Sentry, a major Spider-Woman cliffhanger, and more!

This list includes every comic and digital comic out from Marvel this week, plus collected editions in omnibus, hardcover, paperback, and digest-sized formats. For each new release, I’ll point you to the right guide within my Crushing Comics Guide to Marvel Comics to find out how to collect each character in full – and, if a guide is linked from this post, that means it is updated through the present day!

Marvel Comics February 21 2024 Collected Editions

Black Panther by Christopher Priest Omnibus Vol. 2
(2024 oversize hardcover, ISBN 978-1302953683 / digital)
See Guide to Black Panther. This was one of the most-requested Marvel Omnibuses for a long while, so it’s amazing to see it finally completed with a second volume! This run has the distinction of establishing tons of familiar modern Black Panther lore (including Okoye and the the Dora Milaje) but also being batshit crazy, as all Christopher Priest comics are. If you’ve never read it before, Fariha and I covered the first half of this run (the entire first omnibus) in our Black Panther Reading Club six years ago this month back in 2018!

Blade Vol. 1: Mother of Evil
Vol. 1: Mother of Evil (2024 paperback, ISBN 978-1302952105 / digital)
See Guide to Blade. I just caught up on this Bryan E. Hill series this week. This first arc is about Blade coming up against an ancient evil much bigger than anything he is used to fighting. That sounds mega-fun, but it’s told through Bryan E. Hill’s authorial filter – which is all about expository two-person dialog. Y’all remember Fallen Angels (2019), right? While this book isn’t the catastrophe that one was, this arc is a lot more about talking about what might happen than it is about character moments or coherent action. I think that made this arc slightly unsatisfying, but the book does pick up afterward with some shorter, tighter stories.

Children of the Vault
(2024 paperback, ISBN 978-1302952464 / digital)
See Guide to X-Men – The Age of Krakoa. First things first: This Fall of X book should be titled “Cable & Bishop.” While the Children of the Vault are the featured foe, if you go in expecting to spend quality time getting to understand them in a way that pays off what Carey and Hickman created you’ll be sorely disappointed. Instead, go in assuming you’re in for some guerrilla warfare from a pair of X-Men who traveled through centuries as sworn enemies. I think this sputters at the end, but Deniz Camp shows a flair for terse sci-fi that makes me excited to read more from him at Marvel.

Daredevil Epic Collection: A Woman Called Widow
(2024 paperback, ISBN 978-1302957933 / digital)
See Guide to Daredevil. Despite the title, this reprint of an existing Epic actually collects the period just prior to Black Widow taking over as the titled co-star of Daredevil (1964). [Read more…] about New Comics & Collected Editions: Marvel Comics – February 21 2024

New Comics & Collected Editions: Marvel Comics – February 7 2024

February 3, 2024 by krisis

It’s the sixth new comic book day of the new year! This post covers Marvel Comics February 7 2024 releases. Missed last week’s releases? Check out last week’s post covering Marvel Comics January 31 2024 new releases.

(No, you haven’t time-travelled to the future – this post is now a few days earlier to give you an earlier heads up on what’s coming next week and to make way for some other planned posts that will occupy the Tuesday slot.)

This week in Marvel Comics: the debut of a new Ultimate Black Panther, an adventure for Bats the Dog, a treat for Liz Allen super-fans, an almost-completed Captain America Epic line, and more!

Marvel Comics February 7 2024 Collected Editions

Captain America Epic Collection Vol. 21: Twilight’s Last Gleaming
(2024 paperback, ISBN 978-1302956349 / digital)
See Guide to Captain America – Steve Rogers. This is the second-to-last Epic Collection covering Cap’s 1968 series. The final one, Man Without a Country, already exists.

However, I think the bigger news about this collect is that it means we now have the entirety of Mark Gruenwald’s landmark run on the title collected in Epic Collections Volume 12-21. That’s not a big shocker, since Marvel is about to kick off a long-awaited omnibus run of Gruenwald’s Cap, so it made sense for them to wrap up the Epics first. This run is to pre-2000 Cap what Brubaker’s is to post-2000 Cap – lengthy, defining, and essential.

We only need TWO more Epics to complete the coverage of Cap’s 1968 title (Vol. 7-8), but we could be waiting for a while since now we know the classic Epic line will continue to cover his titles through 2004 when Brubaker’s run kicks off the “Modern Epic Collection.”

Cult of Carnage: Misery
(2024 paperback, ISBN 978-1302951986 / digital)
See Guide to Carnage (eventually). Are you a Liz Allen super-fan? I’m not sure how many of you are out there, but this book is for you! Despite the “Carnage” wrapper on the title, this book is all about dissecting Liz Allen’s history, her motivations, and her connection to Harry Osborn. Yeah, there’s also some symbiote nonsense involving a sliver of the Carnage symbiote and Carnage’s various progeny, but if you aren’t interested in Allen and her family this is going to fall flat for you. (And, if you don’t even know who I’m talking about, you should skip it).

Magneto: Magneto Was Right
(2024 paperback, ISBN 978-1302954215 / digital)
See Guide to Magneto. One of Marvel’s many retcon flashback series, this 2023 mini is set during the excellent mid-40s of Claremont’s New Mutants – a fertile period for more Magneto stories, as he was certainly up to a lot back then! [Read more…] about New Comics & Collected Editions: Marvel Comics – February 7 2024

Aliens Comic Books – Collecting Guide & Reading Order

Guide to Aliens Comic Books – New for Patrons!

January 15, 2024 by krisis

It’s the first Indie & Licensed comics guide of the year for Patrons of Crushing Krisis! This is a guide to the comics for one of my favorite film properties, which was published by Dark Horse Comics for over 30 years before joining the Marvel Comics umbrella after Disney acquired Fox. That’s right, both Ellen Ripley and the xenomorph queen are now a kick-ass Disney princesses, and I’ve got a Guide to Aliens Comic Books!

Guide to Aliens Comic Books

My first exposure to Aliens was watching either Alien or Aliens at way too early an age from the floor of my grandmother’s living room.

I’m pretty sure the family was showing it to me because I already knew Sigourney Weaver from Ghostbusters… and, Aliens isn’t that much scarier than Ghostbusters, right? Right?! [Read more…] about Guide to Aliens Comic Books – New for Patrons!

Newly Released Graphic Novels & Collected Comics – Sept. 1, 2015 Edition

September 1, 2015 by krisis

This month I’m going to revisit an old habit, where I blog the new collected comic releases each week with some color commentary. If you find this useful I’d really appreciate a comment or a tweet – I already know what I’m buying every week, so it’s only worth it to do this if you’re finding it helpful!

Dark Horse Comics

Aliens: Salvation Premiere HC

A $11 hardcover reprint of a 1993 David Gibbons / Mike Mignola take on Aliens where two mean abandon ship and are left alone with a xenomorph? Pretty damn tempting, I’d say, but I feel that way about most things Mignola. Pity they didn’t pair it up with the 2001 sequel Aliens: Salvation and Sacrifice, though.

Conan, Vol. 18: The Damned Horde HC – Collects Conan the Avenger. #7-12

I know, you’re looking at this and asking yourself, “Volume 18? Really? Do I need to pick up all 17 other volumes?” And I don’t know what to tell you, because I own all of one Conan comic and it was my father’s and I’ve still never read it.

Here’s what I can say: Fred Van Lente is a reliable scripter, and they wouldn’t have just rebooted the title if Vol. 17 wouldn’t be a halfway-decent picking up point despite the number stretching from Conan the Barbarian and Conan: Road Of Kings before that and Conan The Cimmerian before that and just plain old Conan before that way back in 2003. So, if you love Conan and want to get back to his comic roots (well, he was a novel first, but then very famously a comic), maybe you should start there. Or, you know, dip way back to Vol. 1, still readily available in TPB, because Dark Horse knows how to manage their backlist.

Hmm… now I kind of want to read Conan. This is how it happens. (Note that the awesome cover is not drawn by the interior artist Brian Ching, but I think his art is strong – it’s just not the cinematic style of the cover.) [Read more…] about Newly Released Graphic Novels & Collected Comics – Sept. 1, 2015 Edition