Dan Slott

New Comics & Collected Editions: Marvel Comics – February 14 2024

February 8, 2024 by krisis

It’s the seventh new comic book day of the new year! This post covers Marvel Comics February 14 2024 releases. Missed last week’s releases? Check out last week’s post covering Marvel Comics February 7 2024 new releases.

This week in Marvel Comics: a true Jessica Drew, lots more Gang War, the return of Night Thrasher, Pet Avengers for the win, 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 14 2024 Collected Editions

Captain Marvel: Dark Tempest
(2024 paperback, ISBN 978-1302951214 / digital)
See Guide to Captain Marvel – Carol Danvers. Ann Nocenti writes this bridging series between the concluded Kelly Thompson run and the impending Alyssa Wong run. I saw some internet fans come down hard on Carol being voiced badly, but I didn’t feel that way at all. This is a solid arc that makes good use of both Spider-Woman as a supporting player and various civilians to give Carol someone other than superheroes to bounce off of. I do think Nocenti tends to treat some groups of characters as a Greek Chorus rather than developing them individually, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Not an all-time-best arc, but worth reading if you collect all of Captain marvel.

Edge of Spider-Verse: Across the Multiverse
(2024 paperback, ISBN 978-1302957339 / digital)
See Guide to Spider-Man – Peter Parker (2018 – Present). This is an anthology of anthologies – collecting the three different “Edge of Spider-Verse” mini-series from 2014, 2022, and 2023. Each issue introduces new alternate-reality Spider-folks or revisits past one. The first series famously included the first appearance of Spider-Gwen. This isn’t a particularly satisfying read on its own, especially since most of the stories are written to subtly dovetail into the Spider-Verse events that followed. But, if you love Spider-Verse stuff in general and can’t get enough of alternate spiders, this one is for you!

Luke Cage Epic Collection Volume 2: The Fire This Time
(2024 paperback, ISBN 978-1302955069 / digital)
See Guide to Luke Cage. This collects the second half of Luke’s original series from when it was titled “Power Man,” stopping prior to the first two issues he shares with Iron Fist before the indicia changes to “Power Man and Iron Fist” with issue #50. It’s really wild how we went from this series not being collected at all in color in 2014 to it being fully collected in Masterworks, Omnibus, and now Epic over the course of a decade. It’s one of the prime examples of how hard the Marvel Collected Editions department has worked to cover their 1970s series. (Of course, the Netflix shows helped!)

Marvel Unleashed
(2024 paperback, ISBN 978-1302931124 / digital)
See Guide to… um… I’m not sure, honestly, because this delightful story primarily stars Redwing, Chewie, and Bats the Dog, among other Marvel super-pets. If that sounds like a dull kiddie book to you, boy have you got a surprise in store! I read this a few weeks ago and it is consistently hilarious, beautifully drawn, and made me cry at the end. If you want to read a great Avengers adventure without any human Avengers, this is the book for you.

New Comics & Collected Editions: Marvel Comics – January 31, 2024

January 30, 2024 by krisis

It’s the fifth new comic book day of the new year! This post covers Marvel Comics January 31 2024 releases. Missed last week’s releases? Check out last week’s post covering Marvel Comics January 24 2024 new releases.

This week in Marvel Comics: Danny Rand’s early Iron years, Sabretooth post-exile, late-breaking mutant resurrections, Secret Wars that should’ve stayed secret, and more!

Marvel Comics January 31 2024 Collected Editions

Betsy Braddock: Captain Britain
(2024 paperback, ISBN 978-1302950750 / digital)
See Guide to Captain Britain. By the start of 2023 Betsy had held the Captain Britain title for over three years of comics, but this was her first solo title. Unfortunately, it also marked the end of her exploits as a leading lady in the Age of Krakoa. I wasn’t always on Tini Howard’s side as an author of Betsy, but I think this was one of her tighter arcs with the character.

If you were waiting for more of the focus Howard showed on the Malice material from the end of Excalibur (2019), this feels closer to that. Plus, it has the historically bisexual Betsy actually dating a woman (who happens to be one of my favorites characters)!

Daredevil: Born Again Gallery Edition
(2024 “Gallery Edition” oversize hardcover, ISBN 978-1302953041)
See Guide to Daredevil. This oversize Gallery Edition hardcover collects all of Frank Millers return alongside David Mazzucchelli for the all-time classic “Born Again” story in issues #226-233.

Dark Avengers Modern Era Epic Collection: Osborn’s Reign
(2024 paperback, ISBN 978-1302952709 / digital)
See Guide to Thunderbolts & Dark Avengers. It’s funny to me that this is an “Epic Collection” when really it’s just a more complete “Complete Collection” since it doesn’t skip over the Dark Avengers / Uncanny X-Men crossover material like the previous Complete did.

The fact that a one-off run like this is getting an Epic Collection just goes to prove how “all-in” Marvel has gone on moving all of their classic paperback reprints into Epic format. This is my favorite Brian Bendis comic and you really don’t need to know these characters from Thunderbolts to appreciate how awful (in a good way) they are as Norman Osborn’s Avengers.

Iron Fist – Danny Rand: The Early Years
(2024 oversize hardcover, ISBN 978-1302954857 / digital)
See Guide to Iron Fist. This is a much-needed omnibus edition that combines the contents of the single Iron Fist Marvel Masterworks with all of his Deadly Hands of Kung-Fu magazine material. This marries up neatly with the run of Power Man & Iron Fist on the other side.

However, like all of his other collections, it still puzzlingly excludes Marvel Team-Up (1972) #31 – one of his major starring appearances in this period! I guess that’s an oversight that will never be corrected, at this point. Even without that issue, this is a terrific read – largely written by Chris Claremont. [Read more…] about New Comics & Collected Editions: Marvel Comics – January 31, 2024

New Comics & Collected Editions: Marvel Comics – January 24, 2024

January 23, 2024 by krisis

It’s the fourth new comic book day of the new year! This post covers Marvel Comics January 24 2024 releases. Missed last week’s releases? Check out last week’s post covering Marvel Comics January 17 2024 new releases.

This week in Marvel Comics: a ROMnibus appears, Straczynski & Gillen’s Thor runs finally reunited, Al Ewing up to something with Magneto, and more!

Marvel Comics January 24 2024 Collected Editions

Marvel Two-in-One Epic Collection: Two Against Hydra
(2024 paperback, ISBN 978-1302931766 / digital)
See Guide to Fantastic Four or Guide to Thing (eventually). Marvel is slowly-but-surely pressing on with their collections of this Thing team-up title, which included a few more significant stories than its sibling Marvel Team-Up (1972). This volume (and all collections of this material, in general) skips issue #21, which includes a team-up with Doc Savage – Marvel no longer has the rights to reprint it.

ROM: The Original Marvel Years Omnibus Vol. 1
(2024 oversize hardcover, ISBN 978-1302956714 / digital)
See Guide to ROM, Spaceknight. We never thought it could exist, but here it is – the ROMnibus! FYI, there are THREE DM variants of this omnibus cover – Frank Miller X-Men, George Pérez, and Sal Buscema. Marvel will cover this series in a trio of omnibuses, and there’s no guarantee they will print it in any other format (like Epic Collection), so this could be your one chance to finally own a reprinted, remastered collection of this material.

Siege
(2024 paperback, ISBN 978-1302952792 / digital)
See Guide to Marvel Universe Events. Marvel has been working through paperback reprints of most of their line-wide events in the past year, likely to serve as complements to the Epic and Modern Era Epic lines. This event isn’t particularly satisfying to read on its own – all three of the Avengers books at the time heavily filled out the action, in particular New Avengers.

Star Wars Legends Epic Collection: The Menace Revealed Vol. 4
(2024 paperback, ISBN 978-1302953911 / digital)
See Guide to Star Wars Legends – The Old Expanded Universe. This is not only the last Epic of this era (which stretches from pre-prequels through the prequel trilogy), but also potentially the second to last of the Legends Epics! There’s only one major uncollected series remaining – Star Wars: Invasion (2009) #0-16. After that, we’re just down to recollecting old Star Wars comics coverage omnibus format and Epic reprints.

Strange Academy: Year Two
(2024 paperback, ISBN 978-1302953003 / digital)
See Guide to Doctor Strange. This collects the back half of the original 2020 series and its “Finals” mini-series from 2022. Strange Academy had such a massive cast to start that sometimes it could be hard to zero in on the characters, their histories and powers, and how they related to each other. Here at the end the book is hyper-focused on one particular relationship and conflict, which escalates to a pretty epic level by the end. This is a rare in-continuity Marvel book that would work well for a YA crowd, though I’d perhaps call it for 10YO+ due to some themes related to drug use.

Thor by Straczynski & Gillen Omnibus
(2024 oversize hardcover, ISBN 978-1302953010 / digital)
See Guide to Thor, The Odinson. This is a relatively rare release from Marvel in that it specifically expands the content of a prior omnibus release! The Thor by JMS omnibus was a great read that kicked off the modern era of Thor, but it has always been an incomplete work since Gillen dropped in to finish off JMS’s abandoned plot threads before Matt Fraction took the reins. Now this volume completely plugs that gap, butting perfectly up against Thor by Matt Fraction and Loki by Gillen. Plus, it adds Gillen’s excellent Beta Ray Bill material. Strong recommendation from me on this one for Thor fans – it’s the ground level of his modern comics! [Read more…] about New Comics & Collected Editions: Marvel Comics – January 24, 2024

New for Patrons: Guide to Spider-Man 2099 (+ Guide to Marvel 2099!)

April 22, 2023 by krisis

What’s this? A special Saturday launch of a new guide for Pledgeonaut Patron supporters of CK? You betcha! What can I say, I found myself with some free time without a brand new RuPaul’s Drag Race episode to recap. I’ve wanted to add this guide to the site ever since 2014, and it makes more sense to add it now than ever before – and not just because I just updated the Guide to Exiles or because this character is about to hit the big screen. I’m happy to announce my Guide to Spider-Man 2099!

Guide to Spider-Man 2099

Hmm… while I’m at it, do you think I should just make a guide to every 2099 title Marvel has ever published? Really? Well, okay, since you insist – also exclusively for Pledgeonaut Patron supporters of CK…

Guide to Marvel 2099

I mentioned above that I first wanted to launch this Guide to Spider-Man 2099, because that’s when Dan Slott brought Miguel O’Hara back from the vast unknown of the 2099 continuity to the present day in Superior Spider-Man just ahead of the original Spider-Verse event.

But, if I had created his guide back then, I might not have paired it with a guide to all of Marvel 2099 … because it wasn’t clear if it existed! [Read more…] about New for Patrons: Guide to Spider-Man 2099 (+ Guide to Marvel 2099!)

Tigereyes Most Wanted Marvel Omnibus 11th Annual Secret Ballot Results & Mappings

April 17, 2023 by krisis

This morning I had the absolute pleasure of announcing the results of the Most Wanted Marvel Omnibus 11th Annual Secret Ballot with Near Mint Condition!

The Most Wanted Marvel Omnibus Secret Ballot is an annual poll conducted by a mysterious comic book forum user named Tigereyes. The rules are simple: anyone can email Tigereyes up to 10 picks for their most-wanted, never-before-printed omnibuses of material originally printed by Marvel, even if they may no longer own the licensing rights.

Each first vote gets 10 points, each second vote gets 9 points, all the way down to your tenth vote getting just 1 point. After the voting period, Tigereyes goes through the gargantuan effort of tallying up all the votes – which also involves figuring out what everyone meant by their sometimes inconsistently-named or cryptically-described votes.

For me, the reveal of the results of the Tigereyes Secret Ballot is an international comics-loving holiday. I used to be the primary person on the internet creating statistics from the results every year! However, when I attempted to cover the entire poll entry-by-entry in 2017 I stalled out at the halfway point as the results straddled our move to New Zealand.

That’s why it was worth waking up at 4am NZ time to be ready to share this year’s results with my good friends Omar and Jess on the Near Mint Condition channel, thanks to some last-minute planning with Omar over the weekend.

Our show was nearly three hours long as we dug into the potential contents of every book on the list and whether we’d read them or not. As always, I had just as much fun appearing on-camera as I did chatting with all of the wonderful Minties in the live chat!

Don’t have time for the full 3-hour tour? We actually run down the full 60-book list in just 15 minutes, starting just before the 12-minute mark. I’m sharing the full list below, but it’s more than just a list – every omnibus includes a full suggested omnibus mapping along with a link to the relevant collecting guide on Crushing Comics.

That’s right, y’all – this is a post with SIXTY omnibus mappings in it, mapping well over 2,000 issues of comics. (Actually, it’s even more than that – there’s one tie, and in several entries I get into mapping second volumes if they would complete a run). That makes that one of the longest blog posts in 23 years of CrushingKrisis history.

Are you ready to be rocked by the Most Wanted Marvel Omnibus vote? Strap in, true believers, and prepare to be mapped like you’ve never been mapped before.