Blood Hunt

Free Comic Book Day: Marvel Comics FCBD 2024, May 4 2024 – Every Issue Explained!

April 30, 2024 by krisis

This Saturday, May 4, is Free Comic Book Day 2024! That means you get an extra and extra-special new releases post for Marvel Comics. This post covers Marvel Comics FCBD 2024 releases – explaining the contents and background of every issue. Missed this week’s regular releases? Check out last week’s post covering Marvel Comics May 1 2024 new releases – which will all be available in shops on FCBD 2024!

This year from Marvel Comics FCBD 2024: the first drips of Blood Hunt from Jed MacKay, a preview of Gail Simone’s X-Men, all-new Spider-Man India by Nikesh Shukla, Star Wars & Darth Vader by Soule & Pak, the return of Ultimate Marvel Ultimates by Deniz Camp, and a hint of the final phase of Zeb Wells’s run on Amazing Spider-Man!

This list includes every comic and digital comic out from Marvel this week, plus collected editions in omnibus, hardcover, paperback, and digest-sized formats. I recap and review every new single issue. Plus, for every 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 FCBD 2024 Titles

Saturday May 4 2024 is Free Comic Book Day 2024! Free Comic Book Day (FCBD) is a special promotional event for local comic shops that falls on the first Saturday of May. Publishers big and small release promotional comics at low or no cost to stores, which they can give away for free. That draws in a huge crowd of both established fans and curious newbies. It gives stores the chance to throw special events, sell tons of stock, and establish new customers.

Marvel Comics FCBD issues tend to include 2-3 stories each. That usually includes least one unique story that will be excerpted in a collection within the next year. Sometimes books are a pair of unique stories, but they can also include recent reprints or teases of upcoming comics.

Here’s the line-up of Marvel Comics FCBD 2024 issues:

Free Comic Book Day 2024: Blood Hunt / X-Men #1
Free Comic Book Day 2024: Marvel Voices #1 [featuring Spider-Man India]
Free Comic Book Day 2024: Spidey and His Amazing Friends #1
Free Comic Book Day 2024: Star Wars/Darth Vader #1
Free Comic Book Day 2024: Ultimate Universe / Spider-Man #1

If there’s a big surprise here for me, it’s the lack of a Deadpool / Wolverine issue! With Deadpool & Wolverine as the only major MCU entry coming in 2024 it seems wild not to capitalize on that excitement. At least for X-Men ’97 there’s a Jubilee story in the Blood Hunt / X-Men issue.

Want to know more about all five of these issues, their stories, and their creators? Keep reading! [Read more…] about Free Comic Book Day: Marvel Comics FCBD 2024, May 4 2024 – Every Issue Explained!

New Comics & Collected Editions Releases: Marvel Comics – May 1 2024

April 25, 2024 by krisis

It’s the 18th new comic book day of the new year! This post covers Marvel Comics May 1 2024 releases. Missed last week’s releases? Check out last week’s post covering Marvel Comics April 24 2024 new releases.

This week in Marvel Comics: Blood Hunt begins, Captain America de-iced, Daredevil Unmasked, the improbable X-Men 2099, Deadpool & Wolverine go to war, Iron Man & Magneto team up, and more!

Marvel Comics May 1 2024 Collected Editions

Captain America Omnibus Vol. 1
(2024 oversize hardcover, ISBN 978-1302957995 / digital)
See Guide to Captain America. This omnibus collects the start of Cap’s Silver Age return – though, since it is based on the Masterworks mapping, it omits his actual return in Avengers (1963) #4.

We go straight from him despairing over a photo of Bucky in Tales of Suspense (1959) #59 to fighting Baron Zemo in Tales of Suspense (1959) #60. Even if Lee & Kirby lean on action-oriented plots, there are still those moments of Steve being a man out of time trying to absorb the modern day and its new challenges.

Carnage Vol. 1: Born Again
(2024 paperback, ISBN 978-1302955014 / digital)
See Guide to Carnage. This is the very creepy kickoff of Torunn Grønbekk’s 2023 Carnage series, which finds the Carnage symbiote getting back to Earth after nearly attaining godhood and deciding to return to what it knows best – serial killing, one victim at a time.

Marvel Studios’ Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania – The Art of the Movie
(2024 hardcover, ISBN 978-1302956592)
See Guide to Ant-Man.

Mighty Marvel Masterworks: Daredevil Vol. 3: Unmasked
(2024 digest-size paperback, ISBN 978-1302954284 / digital)
See Guide to Daredevil. Marvel’s digest-sized Silver Age collection presses on to the third year of early Daredevil comics. I’m somewhat surprised Marvel extended the Mighty Masterworks line to Daredevil, as his early stories aren’t considered to be particularly significant.

She-Hulk by Rainbow Rowell Vol. 4: Jen-Sational
(2024 paperback, ISBN 978-1302957117 / digital)
See Guide to She-Hulk. This is labeled “Volume 4” despite being the first collection of Sensation She-Hulk (2023) because it picks up directly from the end ofRowell & Company’s 2022 She-Hulk series. While you could pick this up and easily follow it with no preamble, the 15 issues of the prior series are absolutely delightful slice-of-life romance stuff with a just-right amount of punching. [Read more…] about New Comics & Collected Editions Releases: Marvel Comics – May 1 2024

New Comics & Collected Editions: Marvel Comics – March 13 2024

March 7, 2024 by krisis

It’s the 11th new comic book day of the new year! This post covers Marvel Comics March 13 2024 releases. Missed last week’s releases? Check out last week’s post covering Marvel Comics March 6 2024 new releases.

This week in Marvel Comics: Thor’s most-titanic stories yet, a collected hunk of multi-versal Deadpool, Black Widow & Hawkeye team up, Carnage crosses over with Venom, Ghost Rider’s Final Vengeance, 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 March 13 2024 Collected Editions

Deadpool-Verse: Deadpool Corps
(2024 paperback, ISBN 978-1302958527 / digital)
See Guide to Deadpool. Don’t confuse this collection with the “Marvel-Verse” digest-size books collecting scattershot all-ages stories for their focus character like the Wonder Man volume below. This is actually a very chunky standard-size paperback collecting all of the Deadpool Corps material from the Prelude mini-series and the 12-issue main series.

This is one of the main “Deadpool in the multi-verse” sorts of stories, which tracks well with the themes of the Deadpool & Wolverine film from what we’ve seen in the marketing material.

Immortal Thor by Al Ewing Vol. 1: All Weather Turns To Storm
(2024 paperback, ISBN 978-1302954185 / digital)
See Guide to Thor – Odinson. This run is a massive blockbuster that somehow manages to tell a Thor story even bigger than the two runs that came before. However, if you like Thor throwing his hammer at a clearly-defined villain, this one’s not for you. It’s about the concept of Thor, of godhood, and of stories. Also, it looks absolutely gorgeous. More on this run below in the single issue section!

Marvel-Verse: Wonder Man
(2024 digest-size paperback, ISBN 978-1302954543 / digital)
Hmm, I don’t have a guide to Wonder Man, but with Marvel pumping out collections in anticipation of his debut in the MCU maybe I need to move him up the priority list! This digest-size intro to the character collects Avengers (1963) #9, Marvel Two-in-One (1974) #78, Wonder Man (1986) #1, and Avengers (1998) #14.

Moon Knight Vol. 5: The Last Days of Moon Knight
(2024 paperback, ISBN 978-1302950910 / digital)
See Guide to Moon Knight. Jed MacKay brings his 30-issue Moon Knight series to a spectacular conclusion. Normally I’d say, “don’t start with the final volume!” However, this opens with a truly outstanding issue in the giant-sized #25, and I think you could read this brisk conclusion in order to catch up to the new Vengeance of Moon Knight (2023) title and be left hungry to catch up on the four volumes that came before. [Read more…] about New Comics & Collected Editions: Marvel Comics – March 13 2024

New Comics & Collected Editions: Marvel Comics – March 6 2024

February 29, 2024 by krisis

It’s the 10th new comic book day of the new year! This post covers Marvel Comics March 6 2024 releases. Missed last week’s releases? Check out last week’s post covering Marvel Comics February 28 2024 new releases.

This week in Marvel Comics: a major Moon Knight omnibus, Dark Droids collections, the new arc of MacKay’s Strange, Iman Vellani’s return to Ms. Marvel, and more!

Marvel Comics March 6 2024 Collected Editions

The Amazing Spider-Man Epic Collection, Vol. 5: The Secret of the Petrified Tablet [reprint]
(2024 paperback, ISBN 978-1302957810 / digital)
See Guide to Spider-Man – Peter Parker (1963 – 2018). It’s less interesting that Marvel is reprinting this Amazing Spider-Man Epic Collection of issues #68-85 & Annual 5 and more interesting that this is when they are reprinting it. The first printing of this book was just four years ago, and it means Marvel has gotten the first five Epics back into print in a three-year span.

I think that’s really interesting, considering they also now have the Mighty Marvel Masterworks in play to cover this Silver Age material. It shows a real commitment to making their most-historic comics evergreen in an affordable format. Take note DC.

Daredevil Modern Era Epic Collection, Vol. 2: Underboss
(2024 paperback, ISBN 978-1302956332 / digital)
See Guide to Daredevil. Speaking of interesting Epic Collections, this second volume of Epics covering Daredevil from 1998 to present is the first time issues #20-25 have ever been collected continuously alongside issues #16-19 & 26-30, which are by Bendis.

Plus, it collects Daredevil: Ninja (2000) #1-3! This is what the Modern Epic collections ought to be doing – not just parroting existing mediocre maps of Complete Collections.

Mighty Marvel Masterworks: Captain America Vol. 3: To Be Reborn
(2024 paperback, ISBN 978-1302954321 / digital)
See Guide to Captain America – Steve Rogers. In an unusual twist, this Mighty Masterworks line is now behind what was collected in the original hardcover Masterworks of the same volume number. The two lines aren’t meant to match up with each other, but I’ve been working from the expectation that these books would go slightly more aggressively to cover more material, faster.

Moon Knight: Marc Spector Omnibus Vol. 2
(2024 oversize hardcover, ISBN 978-1302956899 / digital)
See Guide to Moon Knight. This is a big deal, y’all! This omnibus collects the end of Moon Knight’s 90s series for the first time, as well as his subsequent 1998 and 1999 mini-series. It also means we have every issue of Moon Knight in oversize format from his debut through the beginning of Marvel Now at the end of 2012. That’s pretty major! It’s amazing what some MCU exposure can do for the collected edition coverage of a Marvel character who hasn’t had a single continuous series from the Silver Age to present day. [Read more…] about New Comics & Collected Editions: Marvel Comics – March 6 2024