Jean Grey

New Comics & Collected Editions: Marvel Comics – March 20 2024

March 14, 2024 by krisis

It’s the 12th new comic book day of the new year! This post covers Marvel Comics March 20 2024 releases. Missed last week’s releases? Check out last week’s post covering Marvel Comics March 13 2024 new releases.

This week in Marvel Comics: Franklin Richards’ secret revealed, Gillen’s final X-book, Spider-Woman old and new, repackaged collected editions, and more!

This list includes every comic and digital comic out from Marvel this week, plus collected editions in omnibus, hardcover, paperback, and digest-sized formats. For each new release, I’ll point you to the right guide within my Crushing Comics Guide to Marvel Comics to find out how to collect each character in full – and, if a guide is linked from this post, that means it is updated through the present day!

Marvel Comics March 20 2024 Collected Editions

Astonishing X-Men Modern Era Epic Collection, Vol. 1: Gifted
(2024 paperback, ISBN 978-1302957971 / digital)
See Guide to Astonishing X-Men. On one hand, I’m all for any recollection of the brilliant first two arcs of this title, which should always been easily accessible to new readers. On the other hand, this is an exact copy of a prior Ultimate/Complete collection, which bums me out because it would be cool to see an Epic line of this title include some or all of Kitty Pryde: Shadow & Flame, Phoenix: Endsong, or Phoenix: Warsong – which were all extensions of this title. (For that matter, so was House of M).Shadow and Flame would have fit perfectly as another five issues in this collection.

Captain America Omnibus Vol. 4
(2024 “Vol. 4” oversize hardcover, ISBN 978-1302955137 / digital)
See Guide to Captain America. This is a reprint of “Captain America by Jack Kirby” simply rebranded to fit seamlessly into the omnibus line. That means it’s actually totally fine to buy as a standalone book – that’s how it’s been sold for well over a decade! If you want to read the beautiful madness that is Kirby drawing and writing Cap, it’s all here.

Carnage Epic Collection Vol. 3: The Monster Inside
(2024 paperback, ISBN 978-1302956363 / digital)
I’m working on this Carnage Guide right now, I swear! It’s been a busy month. This is a third (and likely last) “Classic” Carnage collection, picking up in 1998 and cruising all the way through 2009 to pick up some of his modern mini-series.

Doctor Strange by Jed MacKay Vol. 2: The War-Hound of Vishanti
(2024 paperback, ISBN 978-1302951177 / digital)
See Guide to Doctor Strange. I wouldn’t recommend picking up this book as a standalone, as it’s all payoff for the mystery that was set up expertly in the first volume by MacKay. That said, this is immensely enjoyable. It shows off just how good modern Strange comics can be. There’s a way to build off of old magical continuity and established foes without being slavishly devoted to it in a way that is dull or alienating to new fans. MacKay is the author to perfectly walk that tightrope, and it yields a fascinating puzzle box of plot for our Doctor. [Read more…] about New Comics & Collected Editions: Marvel Comics – March 20 2024

New Comics & Collected Editions: Marvel Comics – February 21 2024

February 15, 2024 by krisis

It’s the 8th new comic book day of the new year! This post covers Marvel Comics February 21 2024 releases. Missed last week’s releases? Check out last week’s post covering Marvel Comics February 14 2024 new releases.

This week in Marvel Comics: Fall of X collections, an Alien anthology, an unexpected Sentry, a major Spider-Woman cliffhanger, and more!

Marvel Comics February 21 2024 Collected Editions

Black Panther by Christopher Priest Omnibus Vol. 2
(2024 oversize hardcover, ISBN 978-1302953683 / digital)
See Guide to Black Panther. This was one of the most-requested Marvel Omnibuses for a long while, so it’s amazing to see it finally completed with a second volume! This run has the distinction of establishing tons of familiar modern Black Panther lore (including Okoye and the the Dora Milaje) but also being batshit crazy, as all Christopher Priest comics are. If you’ve never read it before, Fariha and I covered the first half of this run (the entire first omnibus) in our Black Panther Reading Club six years ago this month back in 2018!

Blade Vol. 1: Mother of Evil
Vol. 1: Mother of Evil (2024 paperback, ISBN 978-1302952105 / digital)
See Guide to Blade. I just caught up on this Bryan E. Hill series this week. This first arc is about Blade coming up against an ancient evil much bigger than anything he is used to fighting. That sounds mega-fun, but it’s told through Bryan E. Hill’s authorial filter – which is all about expository two-person dialog. Y’all remember Fallen Angels (2019), right? While this book isn’t the catastrophe that one was, this arc is a lot more about talking about what might happen than it is about character moments or coherent action. I think that made this arc slightly unsatisfying, but the book does pick up afterward with some shorter, tighter stories.

Children of the Vault
(2024 paperback, ISBN 978-1302952464 / digital)
See Guide to X-Men – The Age of Krakoa. First things first: This Fall of X book should be titled “Cable & Bishop.” While the Children of the Vault are the featured foe, if you go in expecting to spend quality time getting to understand them in a way that pays off what Carey and Hickman created you’ll be sorely disappointed. Instead, go in assuming you’re in for some guerrilla warfare from a pair of X-Men who traveled through centuries as sworn enemies. I think this sputters at the end, but Deniz Camp shows a flair for terse sci-fi that makes me excited to read more from him at Marvel.

Daredevil Epic Collection: A Woman Called Widow
(2024 paperback, ISBN 978-1302957933 / digital)
See Guide to Daredevil. Despite the title, this reprint of an existing Epic actually collects the period just prior to Black Widow taking over as the titled co-star of Daredevil (1964). [Read more…] about New Comics & Collected Editions: Marvel Comics – February 21 2024

Updated: Guide to X-Factor

January 12, 2023 by krisis

Now that I’m digging back into my comic guides, it’s time to start attacking my backlog of 150+ guides that haven’t had a significant revision in half a decade! Time flies when you’re reading comics. This week, I’ve reached back to update one of CK’s earliest guides. Actually, I re-wrote every word and rebuilt every link from scratch to make it easier than ever to find the physical and digital collections you want. Welcome to my all-new, all-different Guide to X-Factor.

Guide to X-Factor

My last update of the Guide to X-Factor was in the middle of the Reign of X, which means it wasn’t missing too many collections – just the newest Epics and the relatively fresh second and third volumes of the Peter David Omnibus line.

However, that doesn’t meant the page was easy to use! The guide had grown to be a labyrinth of collections with 20 years worth of competing oversized hardcovers, Epics, and paperbacks. That approach to guide organization predates Marvel’s more-organized approach to the contents of Omnibuses and Epic collections. Now that collection formats are getting tidier, the guide should follow! Now, major collection formats have their own sections that you can easily open or skip.

As a result, I rebuilt every collection link on the page. That’s not the only big change to this guide. I’ve added all of the features of the newest guides on the site, including a “Where to Start” section, digital purchase links, reformatted images, and links to read on Marvel Unlimited!

This was one of my milder rebuilds, since it didn’t require adding many new collections or researching character appearances. It still took a whopping five hours altogether, which is almost as long as it takes to create a small new guide from scratch! I’ve got my work cut out for me keeping everything updated, but the more often I do it the easier and quicker it becomes.

Enjoy this renewed Guide to X-Factor – and, let me know in the comments which of my 200+ guides you’d love to see me update next!

The Pull List, Jan. 31, 2018: Dark Ark, Detective Comics, Moon Knight, Reactor, The Realm, and more!

February 2, 2018 by krisis

My pull list keeps growing in size as I get caught up with more current comic books! I read 21 new comics released earlier this week on January 31 – and I would have read even more if I managed to catch up on my Superman reading in time for these reviews!

Here’s The Pull List for the week, as broken out by publisher (though they’re reviewed in alpha order, below).

Aftershock Comics: Dark Ark (2017) #5
Amigo Comics: Call of the Suicide Forest (2018)
Dark Horse Comics: Hungry Ghosts (2018) #1
DC Comics: Dark Nights: Metal #5, Detective Comics (2016) Annual 1, Milk Wars (2018) JLA/Doom Patrol Special, Mystik U (2018) #2, The Silencer (2018)
IDW Publishing: Dread Gods (2017) #3
Image Comics: Bonehead (2018) #2, God Complex: Dogma (2017) #4, The Realm (2017) #5, Void Trip (2017) #3
Marvel Comics: Avengers (2017) #678, All-New Wolverine (2016) #30, Captain Marvel (2017) #128, Jean Grey (2017) #11, Moon Knight (2017) #191, Old Man Logan (2016) #34, Phoenix Resurrection: The Return of Jean Grey (2018) #5
Vault Comics: Maxwell’s Demons (2017) #2, Reactor (2017) #2, Songs For The Dead (2018) #1

As you will discover below, I am not shy about giving low ratings to comic books. A lot of sites shy away from covering comics they think are weak or bad, but I think that does the fans and industry a disservice. We can’t only talk about comics that are brilliant or at least better-than-average – that signals a death of critical discourse!

I’m just as interested in the weak books as the strong ones, because they help set the standard of what’s great in comics and the tough reviews might still help those books find fans.

Enough chatter – let’s take a look at my top Big Two and Indie books of the week before getting to the full list.

Top Marvel/DC Comic of The Week

Detective Comics (2016) Annual 1, DC Comics

A stunningly good tragic origin story for Clayface with the best artwork I’ve ever seen from Eddie Barrows, which is really saying something because I always love Eddie Barrows.

This is the kind of comic book single issue you can hand to a brand new fan who only vaguely knows the Batman mythos. Tom King has been knocking out terrific one-offs like that on Batman, but this James Tynion story is different in that it delves into the core of an existing character instead of inventing a new plot.

My understanding is that this departs a bit from the established Clayface original, which we’ve seen several times in the past – so, I appreciate if some regular Bat-readers aren’t into getting more of it. However, considering the events of the recently concluded story arc in Detective, this feels like the perfect time to reestablish Basil’s origin.

Top Indie Comic of the Week

The Realm (2017) #5, Image Comics

This comic is on fire!

The Realm has quickly become one of my favorite comics on the stands with its blend of post-apocalyptic terrain with fantastical monsters out of a Dungeons and Dragons campaign. This issue has a downright wild amount of siege action coming from every which direction, which puts the central quest on hold while our protagonists fight for their lives. (They aren’t all successful in that fight.)

There are major shades of Helms Deep here, with the goblins trying to breech the wall of a make-shift city. The action was frantic, but never hard to follow. It even revealed some new information about our characters in the midst of the chaos. There was some wonderful panelling to build tension to a fever pitch during the battering ram portion, but it also gave us several moments to reveal things about our cast…

…the ones that survive, anyhow.

And now, on to the other 19 comics I read that were released on January 31, 2018!

This Week in X: Phoenix Resurrection: The Return of Jean Grey concludes, plus All-New Wolverine #30, Jean Grey #11, and Old Man Logan #34

February 2, 2018 by krisis

It’s the fifth week of new comics in 2018, and it’s a climactic week for the X-Men!

Tom Taylor and the stellar art team of Juan Cabal and Nolan Woodard wrap up the “Orphans of X” arc in All-New Wolverine #30. Jean Grey goes through an unexpected transformation in Jean Grey #11. Our aged Logan has a brief reunion with a lost love and then the plot lurches onward in Old Man Logan #34. And, finally Phoenix Resurrection: The Return of Jean Grey concludes with issue #5 and … you guessed it, the return of Jean Grey!

I was underwhelmed by the conclusions of both Jean Grey books, which felt much ado about nothing to me. It would have been more interesting to have Jean appear out of nowhere. I have a lot more to say about this on this week’s “This Week In X”!