Avengers Arena

20 Must-Read Marvel runs (that ought to be an omnibus) from 2012 to 2015

April 28, 2017 by krisis

Each year, a mysterious and intrepid comic book fan known only as Tigereyes reaches out to some of the biggest collected editions communities on the web to ask them a single question: What are the top 10 Marvel Omnibuses you’d most like to buy?

Thus, the Most-Wanted Marvel Omnibus Secret Ballot was born.

While we only get to see the top 50 or so results of the survey each year, based on the number of voters it’s entirely possible that there are over ten times that many omnibuses nominated by voters. The long tail of the survey would make not only for interesting analysis, but terrific rainy-day reading.

To help inspire that long tail as well as your own rainy day reads, I’m covering dozens of Marvel runs that would make for terrific omnibuses. For the past four days I highlighted every potential missing X-Men omnibus from 1963 to 2015. Now, I’m going to stroll backwards through time to look at the rest of Marvel, starting with their newest comic runs released from 2012 to present.

The fact that these books aren’t currently omnibuses (and may never be) doesn’t have to stop you from sampling them – even if you’ve never read a comic before in your life! Each one is a terrific self-contained comic experience that can be enjoyed without any crossovers or companion series.

You can either pick up existing collections as outlined by Crushing Comics’s Guide to Collecting Marvel Comic Books, or just sign up for Marvel Unlimited, a Netflix-for-comics where 100% of the issues from today’s post are available to read on any device.

X-23: Who she is, her best stories, and every appearance in trade reading order!

March 1, 2017 by krisis

To celebrate the release of Logan in theaters this week, this week I’m releasing a guide that was on on my to-do list for a long time: The Definitive X-23 Collecting Guide and Reading Order.

That might lead you to ask, “Who is X-23, and what does she have to do with Logan?”

It’s a fair question.

You won’t see her name in any of the marketing of this week’s final Hugh Jackman Wolverine film. If you pay attention to such things you’ve probably seen a brooding young girl with a familiar set of claws between her knuckles.

Whether they call her by her codename or not in the film, that girl is X-23. In fact, whether they call her that or not would be a pretty big spoiler about her origins in the film. If you’re 100% spoiler averse when it comes to knowing the comics history of characters in comics movies, you probably should enjoy the trailer again and then stop reading now.

Definitive X-23 Collecting Guide and Reading Order

The X-23 comic books definitive issue-by-issue collecting guide and trade reading order for omnibus, hardcover, and trade paperback collections. Find every issue and appearance! Part of Crushing Krisis’s Crushing Comics. Last updated January 2018 with titles scheduled for release through August 2018.

X-23 is Wolverine’s clone, but in her own way she’s Marvel’s Harley Quinn.

That’s because, like Quinn, X-23 originated in a medium other than comics. She was created for the cartoon X-Men Evolution by Craig Kyle and Christopher Yost, who would also oversee her comics journey for half a decade in a pair of mini-series and on two teams.

Kyle and Yost’s material is stellar from beginning to end. Their run on X-23 often explored the theme of her savagery – how she was raised to be a perfect assassin without being a person.

Afterwards, Author Marjorie Liu took X-23 over for two years for her first solo ongoing title. Liu focused more on X-23’s human side and her internal emotional life, forging connections with Gambit and Jubilee.

Unfortunately, her development goes on a detour from that point.

With the cancellation of her title in the midst of a reshuffling of the X-Men line, X-23 was shipped to Avengers Academy for a year. Christos Gage extended Liu’s work, but it was in a crowded team title. Afterward, Dennis Hopeless picked up X-23 and other Academy cast members for Avengers Arena – where she was cast mostly an unintentional villain.

After the end of Arena, X-23 is adopted by All-New X-Men, weirdly filling out the young cast of the 1960s original X-Men with a Wolverine analog. She’s mostly played for big action beats and romance, but her development finally gets back on track in the aftermath of Wolverine’s death in Wolverines.

Finally, in the wake of Secret Wars, X-23 regained a solo title for the first time in half a decade – this time taking on the mantle of Wolverine (!) while also continuing in All-New X-Men. [Read more…] about Definitive X-23 Collecting Guide and Reading Order

Collecting Young Avengers, Avengers Academy, The Initiative, & Avengers Arena as graphic novels

The definitive, chronological, and up-to-date guide on collecting Young Avengers, Avengers Academy, and other youthful and in-training Avengers comic books via omnibuses and trade paperback graphic novels. A part of Crushing Krisis’s Collecting Avengers Graphic Novels: A Definitive Guide. Last updated November 2018 with titles scheduled for release through January 2019.

The Avengers has not historically included division for younger heroes, unlike the X-Men, whose entire premise was based upon a school. That made sense, since being an Avenger was a serious duty and frequently a job. A random team couldn’t declare themselves Avengers, though they could could be mutants by birth. And from a publishing standpoint, Avengers never had the cache to support more than a handful of titles.

yav02 - 14 and 15 combined That all changed in 2005 in a series created by budding superstar artist Jim Cheung and TV and film writer Allan Heinberg. In the wake of Avengers Disassembled fundamentally altering the team, a group of teen heroes arose to take on the mantles of their heroes – some of whom had fallen in battle. Inspired by Avengers members like Captain America, Thor, Hulk, Hawkeye, Vision, Iron Man, and Giant-Man, this new group declared themselves Young Avengers.

With the proverbial seal broken and the Avengers brand hotter than ever thanks to the stewardship of Brian Bendis, Marvel seized the opportunity for a decade-long run of titles focused on a next generation of Avengers. While the Young Avengers continued in a string of mini-series, an official training-squad was coined in Avengers: The Initiative, followed by an actual Avengers school in Avengers Academy.

The line-wide Marvel Now relaunch in 2012 brought with it not one but three Avengers titles focused on training squads – a redux of Young Avengers from the hip team of Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie, the Hunger Games inspired Avengers Arena (which became Avengers Undercover), and finally a team of android and robot characters in Avengers A.I. [Read more…] about Collecting Young Avengers, Avengers Academy, The Initiative, & Avengers Arena as graphic novels