Greg Rucka

8 Must-Read Marvel Runs (that ought to be an omnibus) from 2008 to 2012

May 1, 2017 by krisis

Today in my best-of-Marvel retrospective, we’re looking at ten mega-sized runs from Secret Invasion in 2008 to Avengers vs. X-Men in 2012 that really ought to be omnibuses.

If you want to see any of them in that mega format, perhaps they ought to be your vote in the Most-Wanted Marvel Omnibus Secret Ballot – choices are due this Sunday!

However, even sans a mighty omnibus edition, all of Marvel’s modern runs are easily collected in hardcovers and trade paperbacks listed in Crushing Comics’s Guide to Collecting Marvel Comic Books, and 100% of the issues are available on Marvel Unlimited, a $10/month Netflix-for-Marvel-comics.

Whether you’re a new comics fan or a grizzled vet, read with this in mind: These potential mappings are just my own shot, and the may include errors, omissions, or choices that could be improved. That’s part of the fun, for me – it’s like playing “Fantasy Corrections Department”! If you see something fishy or have a vociferous disagreement, I’d love to know what that is via the comments, below.

Let’s begin! [Read more…] about 8 Must-Read Marvel Runs (that ought to be an omnibus) from 2008 to 2012

Batwoman: The female, feminist, lesbian Caped Crusader you need to be reading

March 22, 2017 by krisis

Today I’m bringing you a guide to one of my favorite characters introduced in the past decade – Batwoman!

If you’ve never heard of Batwoman, don’t worry – I hadn’t either when I first picked up a comic she starred in back in 2011. I’m going to explain everything you need to know.

Batwoman: A Thoroughly Modern Bat-Hero

I was initially intrigued by Batwoman because of her bold visual design – the v-shaped slash of red hair centered about her black mask and chalk-white skin.

I had no idea she was much more interesting for two other reasons.

First, Batwoman is a rare female hero who shares a title with Batman as her male counterpart but has never been his “girl” (Supergirl, Spider-Girl), or a secondary “Ms” or “She” version (Ms. Marvel, She-Hulk).

Batwoman’s wealth and training rivals Bruce Wayne’s, as does a traumatic loss in her youth. That makes her a similarly aloof adult when she’s out of the mask, complete with a complex history of romantic entanglements.

The woman behind the mask, Kate Kane, is an out lesbian who was discharged from the Army in the Don’t-Ask-Don’t-Tell era. As you can imagine, that experience also informs her decision to become a costumed crime fighter.

Second, this modern Batwoman was truly a brand new character when she debuted in 2006. There’s no lengthy history or different character versions to understand.

In fact, she has been used sparingly enough that you can easily buy all of her appearances and read them in just a week or two, and she has a brand new series that just started last week! [Read more…] about Batwoman: The female, feminist, lesbian Caped Crusader you need to be reading

Definitive Batwoman Collecting Guide and Reading Order

Updated Apr 25, 2025! The definitive issue-by-issue collecting guide and trade reading order for Batwoman comic books in omnibus, hardcover, and trade paperback collections. Part of Crushing Krisis’s Crushing Comics Guide to Collecting DC. Last updated April 2026 with titles scheduled for release through December 2026.

There is not another character in comics today quite like Batwoman: A female legacy hero who has never been a “girl” or “ms” version and whose power, wealth, and training matches her “man” counterpart – and, who also happens to be an out lesbian with a complex romantic history.

The original Batwoman was introduced in the early Silver Age of DC, when every hero had a female counterpart, teen and kid version, and pet.

The Batwoman we’re reading today is not that Batwoman.

The current Batwoman, Kate Kane, put on her cowl in Batman’s absence during the aftermath of Infinite Crisis. Despite bearing the Bat codename and costume, for her first decade of publishing she was at best a distant cousin in the Bat family, disconnected from both their camaraderie and their drama (though she has forged a connection with Nightwing).

Kate Kane’s history is a twisted mirror of Bruce Wayne’s. Like Wayne, she is an estranged aristocrat who experienced childhood tragedy that fractured her family and relationships. While Wayne escaped Gotham for his lost years, Kane sought a path in the military before her career was prematurely ended.

Without her military career, she descends into a party-girl life of solipsism before a brief encounter with Batman shakes her out of it. Heroism fills a void for her, and she filled a void in Gotham in Batman’s absence.

In her earliest appearances Kane is shown as a long-haired, high-society bombshell, but as her story progresses she transformed into a pale-skinned, tattooed, punk-rock social pariah with a severe bob haircut. This standoffish, counter-culture version is the one that persisted.

While Batwoman was intriguing as a foil and love interest to Renee Montoya for her first two years of stories, she comes into her own in her starring run in Detective Comics penned by Greg Rucka with sumptuous art nouveau illustrations from J.H. Williams III. Williams would continue illustrating and writing the character into DC’s New 52 in 2011.

Batwoman disappeared for a while at the end of that period, only to pop back up as the co-lead of Detective Comics with equal standing to Batman in DC’s Rebirth in 2016 before returning to her own ongoing title in February of 2017.

Get Started!
- Where to Start Reading
- Greatest Hits Reading Order

Detective Comics – Collecting Guide & Reading Order (Post-Crisis, from #568 – Present)

Updated April 23, 2026! The Detective Comics comic books definitive issue-by-issue collecting guide and trade reading order for omnibus, hardcover, and trade paperback collections. Part of Crushing Krisis’s Crushing Comics and The Definitive Guide to Collecting Batman Comics. Last updated April 2026 with titles scheduled for release through December 2026.

Post-Crisis Detective Comics: #568 (Nov 1986) – Present

Many of DC’s heroes saw their comics relaunched in the wake of Crisis on Infinite Earths to delineate where their new continuity began. That was not the case with Batman, whose Detective Comics and Batman continued their runs uninterrupted.

Detective Comics #568 is chosen as the demarcation of Batman’s changeover from pre- to post-Crisis for three reasons.

First, it was a chapter in the Legends event, which was DC’s first linewide event after the conclusion of Crisis – necessitating all characters appearing therein were in their post-Crisis iterations.

Second, the creative team mentions the changes in the letters column of this issue!

And, finally, it’s the end of a run by and outgoing writer, Joey Cavalieri, so it makes a natural change-over point.
[Read more…] about Detective Comics – Collecting Guide & Reading Order (Post-Crisis, from #568 – Present)

Review: Black Magick, Vol. 1 by Rucka & Scott

June 25, 2016 by krisis

I am a contrary person and at times in my life I have totally given up on certain things that other, normal people find it totally okay to engage in with moderation. For example, I went through a period where I felt slow-dances were “boring, rotating hugs,” and used such time to rehydrate for the next uptempo set of songs.

There was a period in my life where I had completely given up on movies. They were necessarily assembled by committee and that meant they couldn’t be perfect. Who would want a story spoon fed to them visually for two hours when they could read the same material four times as fast?

Our movie collection makes obvious that I overcame my discrimination, though if you example that large library you’ll see that the films they largely fall into one of two camps. One is special-effects or period films like Star Wars or Braveheart, which present a reality I could not otherwise witness. The other are the finely coordinated works of auteurs like Wes Anderson. Some are both, like Primer and Donnie Darko, or most of Christopher Nolan’s films.

I still don’t see the point of watching a two hour comedy or drama that it took hundreds of people to produce unless I am watching it for some spectacle, whether that’s visual or in caliber of performance.

Yet, the sheer scope of film cannot be denied. That widescreen window on the world and its beautifully pushed colors – that is a thing to covet and convert to other mediums. It is why television shows and advertisements and comic books yearn for that stamp of cinematicism.

That wasn’t always the case for comics. I’m not sure when it started – perhaps with David Finch’s widescreen take on The Ultimates, which ultimately informed Marvel’s The Avengers film. Now it has infected the entire medium. No more caption boxes or thought bubbles, because movies so rarely have narrators and voice-overs. Massive establishing shots with no text, despite the fact that each panel tells the geography of a scene in miniature. Glossy colors that cram in reflections and lens flares, because only movie magic can help you suspend your disbelief.

Every comic book wants to be its own film, but very few of them actually feel like one.

Black Magick, Vol. 1

Collects issues #1-5 by Greg Rucka and Nicola Scott, with color assistance from Chiara Arena.

Tweet-sized Review: Black Magick v1: spellbinding cop procedural w/dose of magical ritual, but only half of Act 1…I want the whole play!

CK Says: Buy it.

Black Magick is an entrancing, deliberately-paced dose of witchy mystery, like Homicide: Life On the Streets crossed with The Craft, by a pair creators at a newfound apex of their powers.

Not a word more can be said for this book without talking about artist Nicola Scott’s grayscale, ink-washed artwork. It is a sight to behold. Black and white major label comics are few and far between, but this isn’t true black and white – her flood of gray inks have tone and depth. They give her figures a sense of texture and weight that would be hard to replicate with typical digital coloring. Chiara Arena contributes only occasional splashes of color – a bloodshot eyeball, a burst of flames, or a green mist of spellwork.

Scott’s world is filled with so much detail and organic motion that panels seem to sweep from one to another like a strip of film passing across the bulb of a projector. At points, I honestly forgot I was reading a comic book with static pictures and tangible pages. Scott’s art transported me. [Read more…] about Review: Black Magick, Vol. 1 by Rucka & Scott