Deathstroke

Every Missing Blue Beetle, Doctor Fate, Deathstroke Omnibus & More, Mapped | 2025 Tigereyes Most Wanted DC Omnibus Poll

May 22, 2025 by krisis Leave a Comment

It’s time to map the DC Universe! In June, I’ll be joining with Near Mint Condition to launch the Tigereyes Most Wanted DC Omnibus 2nd Annual Poll! This post explains every DC Hero from A to E I haven’t already covered in other posts – including Blue Beetle, Captain Atom, Doctor Fate, & Deathstroke omnibus mapping – all of which will appear as options on the 2025 poll.

Through the end of May I’ll be covering DC entire publishing history by mapping missing omnibus volumes to fill in every gap in your DC oversize shelf! That’s all leading to the kickoff of the Tigereyes Most Wanted DC Omnibus 2nd Annual Poll on Near Mint Condition the first week of June.

Here’s the full list of the characters this post covers: Adam Strange, Ambush Bug, Amethyst, Angel & The Ape, Animal Man, Arak, Arion, The Atom, Black Adam, Black Lightning, Blue Beetle, Blue Devil, Booster Gold, Cameron Chase, Captain Atom, Captain Carrot, Creeper, Cyborg, Damage, Deadman, Deathstroke, The Demon Etrigan & Demon Knights, Doctor Fate, & Elongated Man.

DC Solo Characters Omnibus Mapping for the Tigereyes Most Wanted DC Omnibus 1st Annual Poll

May 17, 2024 by krisis

Are you ready for the biggest DC Mapping Post you’ll ever read!? Today I’m mapping every DC solo character we haven’t covered in the past two weeks! I’ll be loosely mapping missing and most-wanted DC omnibus volumes every day until May 19th! Then, on the 19th, I’ll be joining with Near Mint Condition to launch the first annual Tigereyes Most Wanted DC Omnibus Annual Poll!

This post explains potential DC solo character omnibus mapping for votes on the Tigereyes Most Wanted DC Omnibus 1st Annual Secret Ballot. I’m posting all of these maps before the poll begins to give people the time to consider their favorites, correct our mapping mistakes, and catch books I might have missed.

Here’s the full list of the characters this post covers: Adam Strange, Ambush Bug, Amethyst, Arion, The Atom, Black Adam, Black Lightning, Blue Beetle, Blue Devil, Booster Gold, Brainiac, Brimstone, Cameron Chase, Captain Atom, Captain Carrot, Creeper, Cyborg, Damage, Darkseid, Deadman, Deathstroke, Demon Knights, Doctor Fate, Doomsday, Eclipso, Elongated Man, Etrigan, Firestorm, Frankenstein, Hawk and Dove, Hawkman, Hitman, Hourman, Human Target, Immortal Men, Jonah Hex, Kamandi, Kid Eternity, Lex Luthor, Lobo, Madame Xanadu, Manhunter, Martian Manhunter, Metamorpho, Mister Miracle, OMAC, Peacemaker, Plastic Man, Promethea, The Question, Ragman, The Ray, Red Tornado, Renee Montoya, Resurrection Man, Richard Dragon, Rose & Thorn, Sgt. Rock, Shazam, Sideways, Silencer, Solomon Grundy, The Spectre, The Spirit, Stargirl, Starman, Tom Strong, Valor, Vigilante, Warlord, and Zatanna.

If you don’t know DC well enough to know what to vote for, stick around for my explanations! Learn why the team behind the poll decided on these books and titles – including giving us feedback if we missed the mark.

If voting is now open, you can use this as your crib sheet! Or… just find some great comics to read!

Remember: These mappings are just my suggestion of how DC could assemble these books. They are meant to help you decide on your votes and build your personal reading list, but your vote on the poll is NOT an endorsement of my specific map. It’s a vote in favor of DC creating a book with that title or covering that period.

High-effort, heavily-researched, over-the-top comics posts like this one are made possible via the support of Patrons of Crushing Krisis. For less than the cost of a single comic issue a month you can fuel my in-depth comics coverage, plus gain access to dozens of exclusive collecting guides & reading orders – including all of the Crushing Comics Guide to DC Comics.

The Pull List: Batman, Black Bolt, Deathstroke, Dodge City, Elsewhere, Infinity Countdown, Oblivion Song, Shade The Changing Woman, & more!

March 11, 2018 by krisis

The Pull List is holding strong as 33 issues this week thanks to a huge number of new pickups – including eleven new number one issues (plus two already-running series I finally caught up to reading)!

This was an intense Marvel Comics week on my pull list and a lighter DC week for me. Marvel had only two books out from titles I’m not up to speed on, where DC had a lot of comics out in lines I’m not yet caught up on and no “New Age of Heroes” books, plus only one new number one – a relaunch of Shade.

Meanwhile, it is a big week for new debuts from independent publishers – though a few of them weren’t to my tastes (and one was entirely unreadable!).

Artwork by Becky Cloonan.

Here’s The Pull List for the 7th of March, 2018. New adds to the pull list are marked with *; dropped titles are marked with #.

DC Comics
- Batman #42
- * Deathstroke #29
- Exit Stage Left: The Snagglepuss Chronicles #3
- Justice League #40
- * Shade, The Changing Woman #1
- Superman #42
Image Comics
- * Elsewhere #5
- *# Gideon Falls #1
- * Oblivion Song #1
- * Prism Stalker #1
Marvel Comics
- * Avengers – Back to Basics #1
- Avengers #683
- Black Bolt #11
- Captain America #699
- Doctor Strange – Damnation #2
- Hawkeye #16
- Iceman #11
- Infinity Countdown #1
- Rise of the Black Panther #3
- Rogue & Gambit #3
- Spider-Man #238
- Venom #163
- X-Men: Gold #23
- X-Men: Red #2
Smaller Publishers:
Aftershock Comics, Boom! Studios, Dark Horse, Humanoids, IDW Publishing, Oni Press
- *# The Ballad of Sang #1, Oni Press
- * Dodge City #1, Boom! Studios
- * Exo #1-3, Humanoids
- Giant Days #36, Boom! Studios
- * Highest House #1, IDW Publishing
- Incognegro – Renaissance #2, Dark Horse
- Mech Cadet Yu #7, Boom! Studios
- # Monstro Mechanica #4, Aftershock Comics
- *# The Spider King #1, IDW Publishing

Before we begin, a reminder that 2.5 stars on my rating scale is an average comic book! It should be my most-assigned score, but I tend to err on thinking average comics are good (confusing, I know), so 3 stars is the peak of my very distributed bell curve of ratings.

That means a 2/5 comic is not bad. That’s my rating for “uneven.” So, don’t freak out and assume a comic book is terrible because it has 2 stars. “Bad” and “Terrible” are 1/5 and .5/5, respectively, and I’ve only given those scores to 2.35% of the comics I’ve read so far this year.

Picks of the Pull

Big Two (Marvel/DC) Pick of the Week:
Infinity Countdown (2018) #1

This galaxy-spanning series is ecstatic – maybe the first time I’ve felt like the comics incarnation of Guardians of the Galaxy has resembled the tone of movie since the first film was released.

This book is built on a year of Guardians plot, but it could not possibly be more inviting to a new reader. All of the action is massive, all of the jokes land, and Aaron Kuder’s style of subtle figures paired with ultra detail is the perfect match for big space blowouts. It’s definitely the first time I’ve ever liked Drax, and the issue is full of amazing moments for Groot.

The Guardians have split their attention between a showdown with the murderous Gardener and defending a massive Infinity Stone along with the Nova Corps. Drax and the Corps start out faring better defending the stone than the rest of the assembled Guardians do agains The Gardener, but as both fights wear on the balance begins to tip.

With the [hugely shocking spoiler] scene on Earth that ends this issue, I understand why Duggan got this story upgraded from being just a Guardians story arc to a universe-wide event. He’s a writer who has been in Marvel’s big leagues for a few years now, and it’s terrific to see him writing an event that touches so many of Marvel’s big franchises without needlessly interfering with their ongoing titles.

I am absolutely subscribed to Infinite Countdown from this point forward, and it has moved Duggan’s Guardians run even further up my “to-read” list.

(Why in heaven’s name would you put a Nick Bradshaw cover on a book with interiors by Aaron Kuder and Mike Deodato? It makes no sense to me whatsoever.)

Small-Pub Pick of the Week:
Exo (2017) Hardcover AKA #1-3, Humanoids

This is the first English translation of this work, originally released as three French graphic albums and here released by Humanoids as three digital issues or a single hardcover.

Exo is a sci-fi motion picture waiting to be optioned. It combines two seemingly separate plots into one perfectly tense story – one of a NASA scientist on Earth, the other of a military strike force on the moon.

John Koenig is a perfectly average scientist who happens to have located a potentially habitable planet in another solar system and tasked a probe to fly its way. His announcement makes for a sleepy press conference, since any potential findings from the probe are almost two years away. The discovery is just another day at the office for Koenig – he goes for a routine physical afterward, and the heads into LA to retrieve his adult daughter, who calls him John.

Meanwhile, a projectile arcs from the moon to Earth, shattering part of an International Space Station en route to crashing into a field in Colorado before it starts to… branch out. Unfortunately, one of its findings is a schizophrenia man named Charles, who it is unable to control.

As Charles’s new crew seeks John, the military responds to the projectile by putting boots on the lunar ground – but they aren’t ready for what they might find there.

That describes just a sliver of the first 40 pages of this 120 page graphic novel, and it doesn’t even include the drug trip!

Exo has the same third act struggles as any massive sci-fi plot, but the tension that proceeds it is makes it worth a read. Even if a lot of the story draws from familiar tropes, it has the brash inventiveness to combine them in a way that we all hope to see from sci-fi films (think: Arrival).

This week in comic book collected editions – March 8, 2017

March 5, 2017 by krisis

For a number of arcane reasons, it’s hard to say, “These are the new comic collections out this week!”

Out where? Mass market booksellers like shops and Amazon get comic collections at a different time than comic stores do, and that lag differs from publisher to publisher.

What’s out? Not every publisher is as big or as consistent as DC and Marvel. The release list shifts day-to-day in the final week before they hit the shelves, so that you have to check the Preview Mag website on a Saturday to see what definitely hit the trucks.

Ah, but here’s the important question: Why care?

First, because single issue AKA “floppy” comics are a pain to keep up with and to keep. It’s way easier and more satisfying to buy complete stories.

But, more importantly – some of these comics are really good stories.

Publishers:

DC
Dark Horse
IDW
Image Comics
Marvel Comics
Valiant Entertainment – No books this week!
Other Publishers

What are the must-read books this week?

DC’s Rebirth initiative has generated a lot of hype for major heroes like Wonder Woman and Superman, but some of the below-the-fold titles are generating the most buzz amongst fans.

One of those has been Deathstroke, by beloved author Christopher Priest – who was also responsible for the definitive run on Black Panther. Deathstroke Vol. 1: The Professional is the first volume of his reboot and from what I’ve heard it’s great. If you’ve never read Deathstroke before, he’s the totally serious and merciless assassin that Deadpool has parodied to much greater success.

And now, onto the full list of books!

DC New 52 Review: Deathstroke #1

September 16, 2011 by krisis

Meet Deathstroke, AKA Slade Wilson, DC’s silver fox of a meta-human assassin. He’s DC’s answer to Marvel’s Bullseye – and maybe even Deathlok: an unflinching, unfailing assassin who can also mix it up hand to hand with his enhanced strength.

(Of course, Marvel shot back with Wade Wilson, AKA Deadpool, who started out as a legitimately entertaining anti-hero became one of the most profitable solo characters in comics.)

From Deathstroke’s preview it sounded like it would be a blood’n’guts title reliving the past glories of a popular 90s character.

Did I get it right? And, even if I did, is that such a bad thing?

Deathstroke #1

Written by Kyle Higgins, art by Joe Bennett & Art Thibert

Rating: 3 of 5 – Good

In a Line: “And sharpshooting. Everyone forgets I sharpshoot.”

#140char Review: Deathstroke #1 manages to inject some context & intrigue into anti-hero DS for new readers. A fun brisk ish w/a minor twist. Slightly >avg.

CK Says: Consider it.

Deathstroke’s re-debut eeks out on the plus side of average, with less blood and guts than promised (not a bad thing) and a little more thought-provocation than expected.

The story by Higgins takes a tact that not many of the 52 books have to this point, which is to tell a complete one-shot story in the debut issue. We travel from intro to a firm, bloody resolution in a single read, with a single plot thread dangling to carry us to the next issue.

I enjoyed the heavily inked artwork. Particularly, the age and gravitas of Slade’s unmasked face is consistent and effective, as opposed to the slick lines of him in costume. It supports the idea that Deathstroke isn’t being taken as seriously as an assassin anymore. Maybe it’s more of a young man’s game.

Deathstroke’s leet-speaking fanclub is annoying at first, but as the issue presses on they develop a bit of charm as his unwanted Greek chorus.

Despite being rather middle-of-the-road on the whole I find myself interested enough to want to read a second issue, mostly because of the smart twist at the close that reinforces a legitimate point of mystery (even if it is stolen from Tarantino).