Hulk

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

20 Must-Read Marvel runs (that ought to be an omnibus) from 2012 to 2015

April 28, 2017 by krisis

Each year, a mysterious and intrepid comic book fan known only as Tigereyes reaches out to some of the biggest collected editions communities on the web to ask them a single question: What are the top 10 Marvel Omnibuses you’d most like to buy?

Thus, the Most-Wanted Marvel Omnibus Secret Ballot was born.

While we only get to see the top 50 or so results of the survey each year, based on the number of voters it’s entirely possible that there are over ten times that many omnibuses nominated by voters. The long tail of the survey would make not only for interesting analysis, but terrific rainy-day reading.

To help inspire that long tail as well as your own rainy day reads, I’m covering dozens of Marvel runs that would make for terrific omnibuses. For the past four days I highlighted every potential missing X-Men omnibus from 1963 to 2015. Now, I’m going to stroll backwards through time to look at the rest of Marvel, starting with their newest comic runs released from 2012 to present.

The fact that these books aren’t currently omnibuses (and may never be) doesn’t have to stop you from sampling them – even if you’ve never read a comic before in your life! Each one is a terrific self-contained comic experience that can be enjoyed without any crossovers or companion series.

You can either pick up existing collections as outlined by Crushing Comics’s Guide to Collecting Marvel Comic Books, or just sign up for Marvel Unlimited, a Netflix-for-comics where 100% of the issues from today’s post are available to read on any device.

Marvel introduced a black female Iron Man – is that a good thing? (Yes.)

July 6, 2016 by krisis

Today, Marvel and writer Brian Bendis broke the news via Time Magazine that at the end of the currently-running event “Civil War II” the mantle of Iron Man will be taken over by a 15-year old black MIT student named Riri Williams

(This IIM - 2016 - promo is a major shocker, because the vast majority of fans assumed Riri’s introduction in the pages of Invincible Iron Man (visit the guide) – where she was reverse-engineering Tony Stark’s armor – was a set-up for her to take over the mantle of War Machine. Rhodey has become unavailable to carry that title due to the events of Civil War.)

Riri Williams as Iron Man is a very good thing. We do not have enough female heroes or heroes of color, and to see a that in a character who is both as she takes over the mantle of ostensibly Marvel’s most popular single hero outside of Spider-Man is a huge, visible step not only for Marvel comic readers, but for their film fans who this news will surely reach. To have Williams also be a female super-scientist when Marvel generally boasts only a handful is even more wonderful.

(The most prominent female geniuses of Marvel are Kitty Pryde, who is frequently shown to be nearly as genius as Beast; Valeria Richards, whose preternatural intelligence is partially attributed to super powers; the new Moon Girl; and Mockingbird, an oft-forgotten PhD) .

So Riri Williams as Iron Man is a good thing, right?

On the face of it, yes. Inclusion means representation. I love reading books about heroes that are women, and so does my daughter – also a girl of color.

However, there are some aspects of this character choice that have given some fans and critics pause, which I’d like to discuss here – three in particular. I’m very interested in your input. (Edited to add: Here is a post with similar critique from black writer Son of Baldwin, Here is another from black female nerd BlerdGurl.)

1. Minority legacy heroes are only useful until the original makes their return; then their marginalization can be worse than the average minority hero.

“Legacy Heroes” is a term applied to heroes that are the replacement or junior version to their original heroes. They are sometimes used by creators as an opportunity to change the gender or race of the character bearing the main mantle.. The easiest examples to give are from DC comics (Superboy, Batgirl, Wondergirl, etc), because Marvel simply isn’t known for this practice outside the past few years.

Let’s stick with Marvel, for the moment. For a brief time in the 1980s, Tony Stark could not serve as Iron Man and Rhodey Rhodes took over the title. Rhodey is the best possible example of a Legacy Hero – he was a dynamic, well-developed character long before he became Iron Man, and that means that he was able to continue to be featured even when Tony Stark returned.

Ms-Marvel - 2014 - 0004 As War Machine, he’s lead his own title on many occasions (though they are usually short-lived) and he’s and been a significant character in both comics and now films (though he’s frequently sacrificed as a narrative reason to make Stark feel bad, as has happened twice this year alone).

His time as a Legacy Hero made him more visible, but after being Iron Man he didn’t stay an A-level hero. The white guy bumped him.

Another terrific example is the relatively new Ms. Marvel, the Pakastani-American Kamala Khan (visit the guide). Kamala is a wonderful analog to the original Spider-Man as a new, unsure hero, and Carol Danvers is very unlikely to ever retake her “Ms.” hero mantle now that she is officially Captain Marvel.

Her books sell ridiculous amounts of copies and have been nominated for Eisners. She’s now an Avenger. Things are going well … but we’re only in year two.

There are examples that don’t go as well. At the end of the comics version of the original Civil War, Captain America appears to die, and Bucky takes over the mantle as Cap (visit the guide). His days as Cap are amazing – great, layered storytelling. When Cap came back they shared the mantle for a while before Bucky was spun back to being Winter Soldier, at which point he began to sink back into obscurity – and he’s a white guy who stars in movies.

As with War Machine, he’s now a character Marvel needs to periodically kickstart into a new title or team only to watch him sink again.

Despite those concerns, check out the amazing list of Legacy Heroes Marvel is currently fielding: [Read more…] about Marvel introduced a black female Iron Man – is that a good thing? (Yes.)

Review: Savage Hulk, Vol. 1: The Man Within by Davis, Farmer, & Hollingsworth

July 1, 2016 by krisis

Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about audiences and about screaming into the void.

One of my earliest ongoing creative endeavors was writing fan fiction inside the Final Fantasy II (Japan IV) universe. I was writing it just to write it, but then I discovered a few other like-minded folks on the internet and we had a small, shared universe of fiction. Honestly, I have no idea how 14-year-old me put it all together – the details are a blur. It was mostly just that same handful of people who were reading it. No one was writing for attention or exposure. We were all writing for the joy of writing.

The same is true for my songwriting. I spent years writing songs for no one to hear before I started pushing to play them for more people. Even after being in a gigging band for years, to this day the vast majority of my catalog has never been heard outside of our house or this website because I write so darn many songs. I’d have to put out an album a year to keep up and tour constantly.

I have the luxury of doing those things for fun. My fanfic was niche and so is my music, but it doesn’t really matter. I am happy to cast that art out into the void knowing no response would echo back at me.

The problem with doing art for the love of it comes once you’ve actually earned some attention. What happens when more than a handful of people like your writing or your music? Now you have an audience. If you were making art for the love of it, their eyeballs and ears shouldn’t make any difference to you. Yet, it’s hard to avoid their influence, even if you aren’t performing craven acts of fan service to keep them all pleased. Once you’ve seen an indicator that your art is actually being consumed it’s hard to ignore it completely.

Let’s advance that to it’s end state: a popular artist who has followed their own path and pleased fans along the way now wants to do something inherently less popular – or simply something different. I’m not thinking about the dangers inherent in each new release. Instead, consider an independent artist experimenting with a new genre or a big money director wanting to make a decidedly non-mainstream film. J.K. Rowling is a terrific example; after Harry Potter, she didn’t want to write another young readers opus, but that’s what everyone wanted!

It’s a risk. Do they trust fans enough to compartmentalize this work of otherness away from their main oeuvre? You might not be able to afford the detour if it turns too many people off. In Rowling’s case, she released one novel under her own name (The Casual Vacancy) and then another under a pseudonym (The Cuckoo’s Calling by Robert Galbraith). Neither detracted from the fervor for Potter, but the latter earned higher marks from fans and critics, called “a brilliant debut.”

Was it the quality of the Galbraith book that made it more successful, or that it was free of baggage? How would you enjoy the new album from your favorite artist if you didn’t know it was by them?

These questions occur to me with every subsequent piece of art I purchase or consume from a known artist.

Savage Hulk, Vol. 1 – The Man Within

Collects Savage Hulk issues #1-4 written and penciled by Alan Davis, with inks by Mark Farmer and colors by Matt Hollingsworth. Also includes X-Men (1963) #66 written by Stan Lee with pencils by Sal Buscema.

Tweet-sized Review: Alan Davis writes/draws a lovely, clever sequel to X-Men #66, a face-off w/Hulk, in this ode to early-70s Marvel.

CK Says: Consider it.

This Alan Davis Hulk and X-Men story is a love letter to early-70s comic books and it’s possible you simply won’t care. His tale in The Savage Hulk, Vol. 1 – The Man Within branches off from a bash-em-up encounter between the heroes in X-Men #66, the last comic before the hiatus ended by their Giant-Size comeback in 1974.

In a follow-up to that orphaned story, a recovered Professor Charles Xavier feels compelled to design a device that could help Bruce Banner control the Hulk as repayment for Banner’s cure for his mental exhaustion. However, the Hulk is being hunted by the military after causing serious damage in Las Vegas, while Xavier has unwittingly attracted the attention of Hulk’s foe The Leader. [Read more…] about Review: Savage Hulk, Vol. 1: The Man Within by Davis, Farmer, & Hollingsworth

Marvel’s Most-Wanted Omnibuses of 2016 – #4 and 3

June 17, 2016 by krisis

Omnibus on Shelf Welcome back for the next pair of books from the Most-Wanted Marvel Omnibus secret ballot by TigerEyes. I covered #5 & 6 in the last installment.

Today’s installment of the next pair of books on the survey is a pair of prohibitively classic runs – one from the early 70s and another from the mid-80s. Even without the ballot results in front of me, I’d probably name these as two of the most famous single-creator streaks in Marvel’s pre-00s history.

For one of the runs I even took the unusual, exceedingly-rare step of recruiting a guest author to make sure I’ve got the details right.

(Clearly, that run is not The X-Men ;)

Marvel has released these oversized omnibus editions for over a decade now, with a staggering amount of their most-popular material now covered in the format – from Silver Age debuts to modern classics. Is your favorite character or run of issues already in an Omnibus? My Marvel Omnibus & Oversized Hardcover Guide is the most comprehensive tool on the web for answering that question – it features every book, plus release dates, contents, and even breakdowns of $/page and what movies the books were released to support.

Okay, here we go – the fourth and third of Marvel’s most-wanted Omnibuses! [Read more…] about Marvel’s Most-Wanted Omnibuses of 2016 – #4 and 3