Hawkeye

Avengers West Coast by Thomas & Thomas – The #40 Most-Wanted Marvel Omnibus of 2017

May 24, 2017 by krisis

Completionism is a a crazy impulse. There are hundreds of Avengers issues unrepresented by oversized volumes, but omnibus collectors are super-focused on getting the relatively unheralded back third of Avengers West Coast into an oversize volume to complete their bookshelves.

The funny thing is, I’m not sure all of the voters realize just how strong and cohesive this Roy & Dann Thomas run on Avengers really is.

The Avengers West Coast by Thomas and Thomas Omnibus is the #40 Most-Wanted Marvel Omnibus of 2017 on Tigereyes’s Secret Ballot. Visit the Marvel Masterworks Message Board to view the original posting of results by Tigereyes and head to the Guide to Avengers West Coast to see how you can read this run right now.

Past Ranking: This volume leaps up five spots from #45 in the 2016 survey.

Probable Contents: Avengers West Coast (1989) #63-100, 102, & Annual 5-8, Avengers Annual 19, Darkhawk Annual 1, and Iron Man Annual 13,

That’s 43 issues, which means the book could also include the full Bloodties crossover: Avengers West Coast (1989) #101, The Avengers (1963) #368-369, Uncanny X-Men (1963) #307, & X-Men (1991) #26.

However, that would leave behind 20 issues of five related miniseries – U.S. Agent #1-4 (after #95 & Annual 8), Avengers: The Terminatrix Objective #1-4 (after #97), Spider-Woman #1-4 (after #101), Scarlet Witch #1-4 (after #101), and Hawkeye #1-4 (after #102).

What to do? More on how to reconcile that, below.

Creators: Written by Roy Thomas and Dann Thomas with pencils by Paul Ryan and Dave Ross with Tom Morgan, George Freeman, Herb Trimpe, and Andrew Currie.

Can you read it right now? Mostly. Issue #76-79 and #83-88 remain uncollected (as is the U.S. Agent mini-series), but everything else has been captured. Visit Guide to Avengers West Coast for the full details. Unfortunately, most of this run is not on Marvel Unlimited.

The Details:

Avengers West Coast had gone for years as a forgotten era of Avengers as far as reprints were concerned until Marvel’s Cinematic Universe began focusing strongly on its core cast of Iron Man and Hawkeye, and later Scarlet Witch and Vision.

Suddenly, West Coast reprints were abounding – a set of Marvel Premier Classic hardcovers, corresponding paperback reprints, two omnibuses, half of an Avengers by John Byrne volume, and a handful of trades covering the latter run of the series. The only remaining gaps are #76-79 and #83-88, two stories split by the massive “Galactic Storm” crossover.

Comic books fans are nothing if not obsessive completists, so that makes a final omnibus edition of Avenger West Coast sorely tempting – especially since it’s all co-written by comic book royalty Roy Thomas along with his wife Dann (who was the first woman to ever script an issue of Wonder Woman!) mostly to illustration by a pair of strong pencillers – Paul Ryan through #69 and Dave Ross from #71 through the end of the series. [Read more…] about Avengers West Coast by Thomas & Thomas – The #40 Most-Wanted Marvel Omnibus of 2017

10 Marvel runs from the 80s that ought to be omnibuses – 1981 to 1989

May 4, 2017 by krisis

It’s the penultimate stop in our trip backwards through time to find all of the Marvel runs most in need of Omnibus treatment.

Why? For fun. For accumulating rainy-day reading. And, to fuel our 2017 Most Wanted Marvel Omnibus Secret Ballot votes!

Marvel in the 1980s is really a tale of two different Marvels. The first half of the decade featured many continuing 70s series, a handful of limited series, and relatively few new ongoing titles – most of which were direct spinoffs of characters from other books.

However, after Secret Wars II in 1986 the line got a serious shake-up, with many titles outside of what I think of as “The Big 9” and their satellite books getting cancelled or rebooted, plus tons of new ongoing and limited series and a whole new line of comics with New Universe!

(“The Big 9” are all of the lines of books that made it from the Silver Age to 2005 while being published continuously, even if that meant being restarted along the way – , Avengers, Captain America, Daredevil, Iron Man, Fantastic Four, Hulk, Spider-Man, Thor, and X-Men. After 2005, Thor went on hiatus, and Fantastic Four has been on hiatus since 2015.)

(In a totally weird turn of events, we can now probably add Deadpool to that list of evergreen lines.)

Marvel released a lot of comics in the 1980s, so what should Marvel prioritize getting into omnibuses? I’ve already covered all of the X-Men runs from this period, and I’m not touching Spider-Man or Fantastic Four mapping at the moment. Plus, many key 80s runs are on the survey already, like Peter David’s Hulk, Iron Man by by Michelinie & Layton Ann Nocenti’s Daredevil – but that still leaves a ton of potential runs to cover! [Read more…] about 10 Marvel runs from the 80s that ought to be omnibuses – 1981 to 1989

Mockingbird, Bobbi Morse – The Definitive Collecting Guide and Reading Order

The Mockingbird comic books definitive issue-by-issue collecting guide and trade reading order for omnibus, hardcover, and trade paperback collections. Find every issue and appearance! Part of Crushing Krisis’s Crushing Comics. Last updated October 2024 with titles scheduled for release through December 2024.

When most comics fans think of the most fearsome, non-powered Avenger, they’ll typically name Hawkeye – or, perhaps Black Widow (though whether she has any enhancements is debatable).

The best answer is actually Bobbi Morse AKA Mockingbird, but part of her allure is that you would have never thought of her.

Mockingbird has the athleticism of Hawkeye (she’s a trained gymnast and combatant), the secret agent training of Black Widow (she’s a member of SHIELD, where she graduated top of her class), plus she holds a PhD in biology. Her origins find her roughing it in the Savage Land as Ka-Zar’s original blonde love interest before turning out to be a SHIELD agent under deep cover. Her first solo story finds her going under even deeper cover by dropping out of SHIELD for her assignment before returning to SHIELD to root out their double agents.

Yes, she’s pretty awesome. So, why is she so often forgotten by Avengers fans?

First, because until the 2010s she has always been cast as a love interest – first to flirt with Ka-Zar and then after just a two-issue breather on her own she’s married to Hawkeye! She joins the Avengers seemingly through marriage, as if she’s being added to a health insurance plan. Though she later is a founding member of Avengers West Coat, she plays second fiddler to her headline star husband.

Second, there’s the matter of how she exits Avengers West Coast. I won’t spoil it here in the intro (although I do, slightly, below), but it left us without Mockingbird appearances for over 15 years! That’s a long time to forget about a hero.

Third, because it’s just her style. As a double- and sometimes triple-agent, Mockingbird has never been a character who sticks out as the big star – even after her return in Secret Invasion (as championed by writer/editor Jim McCann), she remained a supporting player.

That all changed thanks to her popularity as a Hawkeye-free character on Agents of SHIELD, and after a rapturous response to her first solo one-shot in 2015 (due in large part to writing by Chelsea Cain) she graduated to her own series in 2016 as she returned to widespread use in All-new, All-Different Marvel. [Read more…] about Mockingbird, Bobbi Morse – The Definitive Collecting Guide and Reading Order

Marvel’s Most-Wanted Omnibuses of 2016 – #45 to 41

June 7, 2016 by krisis

rsz_2016-06-06_095604 I’m back with the next five votes for most-wanted Omnibus volumes from major Marvel fans as collated via the Annual Secret Ballot by TigerEyes. I covered #50-46 in the last installment.

These next five low-ranked books are an interesting mix – flagging support for a pair of prior mid-list favorites, several debuts, and one book that’s held steadily in the 40s for three years.

If you have any extra intelligence to add about the probable runs or opinions about the comics therein, please leave a comment! I have read only a handful of issues from all five of these books combined, so most of my knowledge comes from reading about Marvel’s history and some good ol’ fashioned research.

Do want to learn more about the Marvel Omnibus editions that already exist and the issues they cover? My Marvel Omnibus & Oversized Hardcover Guide is the most comprehensive tool on the web for tracking Marvel’s hugest releases – it features every book, plus release dates, contents, and even breakdowns of $/page and what movies the books were released to support.

And now, onto entries 45 through 41! [Read more…] about Marvel’s Most-Wanted Omnibuses of 2016 – #45 to 41

Review: Spider-Woman (2015) Vol. 2 – New Duds, by Hopeless, Rodriguez, Lopez, & Bustos

June 6, 2016 by krisis

If you are lucky (or: extraordinarily talented or beloved) you may start a trend, but most times you wind up following one.

I think about that maxim frequently. It applies to movies, memes, restaurants, fashion, start-ups, and comic books. To me the application where it is most obvious is in the music industry.

Bands making an album always have three choices – be themselves, try to match the current popular sound, or try to invent a new one.

A useful context to consider this within is Amy Winehouse. People were doing throw-back-y, Motown-influenced songs before Back to Black, but they weren’t all that popular. She already had a retro vibe of her own, but it was more jazz and classic R&B influenced, and she was moderately successful in the UK. When she went into the studio with Mick Ronson to make Back to Black, they had a choice: be the same Amy as before, try to ape current radio hits to expand her reach, or try to do something new.

That something new not only meant success for Amy Winehouse. It set a trend. Other acts started following the trend. Existing artists dabbled in the sound. I’m convinced that ten years later its trickle-down effect is fractionally responsible for the success of “All About That Bass” and Nathaniel Rateliff and The Night Sweats.

Whether it’s true of either of those two artists, they bring an interesting subtext to the maxim: what if the trend you wind up following makes you better than you were before? I’d call that a successful pivot, and now we are into start-up territory (or at least, start-up language). Maybe staying the course has proven only moderately successful and you have no idea how to set the next trend. Perhaps the current trend could make you your best self?

This plays itself out in a constant bust and boom in each of the industries I already named. It’s easy to follow with comics, because they are so visual and their success or failure is typically swift and obvious. Marvel had a hit with the “indie-style” Matt Fraction Hawkeye’s starting in 2012 that did nothing like a superhero comic – not the story, the art, or even the colors. Its massive success (and, to a degree, the reception to Mark Waid’s Daredevil the year before) was a reminder that superheroes seen as B-list characters who couldn’t maintain a book might survive by trying something different.

As with Back to Black, I think we’ll continue to see Hawkeye’s wake sweep through comics for years to come, but at Marvel “The Hawkeye Pivot” has quickly turned into a repeatable blueprint: write a small-ball story about how everything is local; give it some modern-day credibility through language or culture; pair it with an artist who doesn’t draw typically muscly/ busty superheroes; and use flat. less-shiny colors.

What’s so fascinating about the brief 10-issue run of Dennis Hopeless’s Spider-Woman is that it started out in the most flashy superhero mode possible – mid-crossover, illustrated by pin-up king Greg Land – and then abruptly executed “The Hawkeye Pivot” mid-run.

Did it work?

Spider-Woman, Vol. 2 – New Duds

Collects Spider-Woman (2015) #5-10 written by Dennis Hopeless with pencils by Javier Rodriguez, inks by Alvaro Lopez, colors by Rodriguez and Muntsa Vicente, and issue #10 line art by Natacha Bustos with color art by Vero Gandini.

#140char review: Spider-Woman’s New Duds was more than a costume change; Hopeless pivots Jess Drew to new status quo w/Rodriguez art.

CK Says: Consider It.

Dennis Hopeless reinvents Spider-Woman in the vein of former boyfriend Hawkeye and Superior Foes of Spider-Man alongside artist Javier Rodriguez and manages to make it feel like organic character growth.

That’s quite the feat, especially considering both of those series had the ability to start fresh with their more lighthearted tones. Hopeless pulls it off mid-run, going from the high-wire of Spider-Verse tie-in issues with Greg Land to a new look and direction here. [Read more…] about Review: Spider-Woman (2015) Vol. 2 – New Duds, by Hopeless, Rodriguez, Lopez, & Bustos