Comic Books, Drag Race, & Life in New Zealand
Today I start out musing on the concept of a “beginner’s mind,” and how for as much as we see the trope in fiction we have a trouble replicating it in our every day lives. Then, I unwrap the latter half of Buffy The Vampire Slayer Season 8 and discuss how the unlimited budget of the comic page subtly changed Buffy into something less personal than the TV show we remember.
Want to start from the beginning of this season of videos? Here’s the complete Season 1 playlist of Crushing Comics.
In this episode I share an anecdote about going spice shopping with my E and then unwrap the trio of Angel & Faith Library Editions from Buffy Season 9. I haven’t read these books yet, but my brain is packed with information from Buffy Season 1-8, so I give a rundown of how Faith came to be (although I inexplicably don’t mention The Mayor!) and discuss my love for Christos Gage.
Want to start from the beginning of this season of videos? Here’s the complete Season 1 playlist of Crushing Comics.
Episode 33 features Angel & Faith: Season 9 Library Editions Vol. 1, Vol. 2, and Vol. 3.
In this episode I open a trio of Buffy The Vampire Slayer books I have yet to read and reminisce about the 90s, when I used to faithfully read TV Guide each week from cover to cover.
Want to start from the beginning? Here’s the complete Season 1 playlist of Crushing Comics.
Episode 11 features Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 9 Library Editions Vol. 1, Vol. 2, and Vol. 3.
In this episode I’m convinced I’m about to open a DC Absolute edition, which leaves me totally surprised when I open a pair of Hellboy Library Editions. How much do I know about Mike Mignola’s masterpiece, now 25 years into its ongoing story? I guess we’re about to find out.
Want to start from the beginning? Here’s the complete Season 1 playlist of Crushing Comics.
Episode 11 features Hellboy Library Edition Vol. 1 (Amazon / eBay) and Vol. 2 (Amazon / eBay). Need more direction on how to read Hellboy? Check out Multiversity Comics’ awesome reading order.
Updated Mar 22, 2025! The guide to collecting Star Wars Legends – the old Expanded Universe – comic books by Marvel and Dark Horse. Find every omnibus, Epic collection, hardcover, and trade paperback in reading order. Part of Crushing Comic’s Guide to Star Wars. Last updated March 2025 with titles scheduled for release through October 2025.
These 30 years of comics were removed from canon (along with nearly everything else that wasn’t a film or TV show) in 2014 when LucasFilms announced the impending Episode VII and the move of their comics license to Disney sibling Marvel Comics.
That means these stories have all been rendered out-of-continuity to the current Star Wars universe. Compared to current canon, these stories range from alternate retellings to complete fiction, much as we regard children’s stories and fairy tales.
However, just because these Star Wars Legends stories are no longer in continuity it doesn’t mean they are not worth reading. They include a massive 25-year effort to maintain an interconnect, cross-media canon that began nearly a decade before The Phantom Menance and stretched all the way through the announcement of the sequel trilogy!
Along the way, these comics – combined with other Expanded Universe works like novels, video games, and magazines – defined centuries of Star Wars canon (including the original Old Republic!), introduced memorable characters (like Thrawn and Mara Jade), and filled in deeper layers of tragedy and drama of the rise and fall of the Empire that the films alone could not construct.
These stories were once collected comprehensively and in impressively-detailed reading order by Dark Horse Comics in a set of paperback Omnibuses. When Disney moved the Star Wars license back to Marvel Comics in 2015, Marvel began to repeat that methodology (with some tweaks) into their own Epic Collection format.
Marvel’s Epic Collections are broken across the broad, identifiable eras of Expanded Universe continuity. While they largely maintain the Dark Horse Omnibus reading orders, they have made some tweaks to placement both for continuity and to maintain the relative parity in the length of their books.
With a dwindling amount of Epic Collections left to release, in 2022 Marvel pivoted into recollecting the Expanded Universe a second time – now into hefty oversize hardcover omnibus editions.
Many thanks to Kurtis from The Epic Marvel Podcast for his aid in some of the continuity and contents of books covered by this page!