Kate Bishop

Marvel United: Multiverse has a Civil War in their new expansion box (and uses it to solve their Young Avengers problem)

January 27, 2023 by krisis 1 Comment

Breaking news! Minutes ago, CMON’s Marvel United: Multiverse Kickstarter campaign announced its third new expansion box and a new stretch goal: Marvel United Multiverse – Civil War!

While Civil War wasn’t on my list of 10 predicted expansion boxes in my last post, I’m still claiming victory. That’s because this box includes Kate Bishop, and if you buy it from Kickstarter it will also include Hulking.

That’s two of the four core Young Avengers down. Plus, the box came just as the Kid Loki stretch goal was met, which introduced a Wiccan stretch goal. That’s two more Young Avengers down, including another of the core four.

We’re now missing just three characters able to play a complete Young Avengers team across any of their incarnations: Stature (Cassie Lang), the final core founding member; Grant Morrison’s creation Marvel Boy (Noh-Varr), from Kieron Gillen’s run; and the depowered mutant Prodigy, also from Gillen’s run.

Given the potential Ant-Man synergy I’d still expect them to fit in Stature before this campaign ends. Marvel Boy and Prodigy are slightly more obscure, so I wouldn’t lay heavy odds on seeing the pair of them.

(Want to play Marvel United right now? Grab either the Marvel United or Marvel United X-Men core boxes right now. They are fun cooperative games that are fun to play with adults and kids alike.)

The Marvel United Multiverse Civil War box does more than just introduce Kate Bishop and Hulking to the game. It re-implements Captain America and Iron Man from the core Marvel United box with beefed up cards. It introduces a MCU-friendly Iron Spider skin for Peter Parker with new cards. Plus, it includes missing 80s Avengers Tigra, Wonder Man, Yellowjacket, Spectrum (Monica Rambeau), and the first giant-size hero sculpt with Bill Foster AKA Goliath!

Civil War also introduces an entirely new mode of play: player-vs-player. [Read more…] about Marvel United: Multiverse has a Civil War in their new expansion box (and uses it to solve their Young Avengers problem)

Updated: The Definitive Guide to Hawkeye Comic Books

October 24, 2017 by krisis

I’ve got a freshly updated comic guide for you – The Definitive Hawkeye Collecting Guide and Reading Order!

Don’t want to browse through the entire guide at the moment? Keep reading for little hits on where to start, what’s new, where the Hawkeyes have been in 2017, and what percent of Hawkeye’s comics have been collected.

The Definitive Hawkeye Collecting Guide and Reading Order

The definitive Hawkeye – Clint Barton and Kate Bishop – issue-by-issue collecting guide and trade reading order for comic books, omnibus, hardcover, and trade paperback collections. Find every issue and appearance! Part of Crushing Krisis’s Crushing Comics. Last updated November 2018 with titles scheduled for release through March 2019.

Collecting Hawkeye

If there is a single character outside of the holy-trinity of Captain America, Iron Man, and Thor who is most associated with The Avengers, it’s Clint Barton as Hawkeye.

Hawkeye began as an early Iron Man villain in Tales of Suspense and so it comes as a surprise to the team in the classic Avengers #16 when he breaks into their Mansion with a request to join (he’s soon followed by fellow former villains Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver).

Despite his unlikely initiation, Hawkeye has one of the longest tenures of any character in the Avengers – and has maybe quit and been kicked out the most of any character, too. He is often represented as the core of what the Avengers are and as a conscience for the team.

In 2005, with Clint out of the picture, a young woman named Kate Bishop took up the mantle of Hawkeye. Kate is nearly the opposite of Clint – she grew up rich and privileged, while he literally joined the circus as a child.

However, their shared grit, marksmanship, and moral compass finally brought them together as partners in Matt Fractions’ remarkable 2012 Hawkeye ongoing.

From there on out, they share the codename. [Read more…] about The Definitive Hawkeye Collecting Guide and Reading Order

Collecting Young Avengers, Avengers Academy, The Initiative, & Avengers Arena as graphic novels

The definitive, chronological, and up-to-date guide on collecting Young Avengers, Avengers Academy, and other youthful and in-training Avengers comic books via omnibuses and trade paperback graphic novels. A part of Crushing Krisis’s Collecting Avengers Graphic Novels: A Definitive Guide. Last updated November 2018 with titles scheduled for release through January 2019.

The Avengers has not historically included division for younger heroes, unlike the X-Men, whose entire premise was based upon a school. That made sense, since being an Avenger was a serious duty and frequently a job. A random team couldn’t declare themselves Avengers, though they could could be mutants by birth. And from a publishing standpoint, Avengers never had the cache to support more than a handful of titles.

yav02 - 14 and 15 combined That all changed in 2005 in a series created by budding superstar artist Jim Cheung and TV and film writer Allan Heinberg. In the wake of Avengers Disassembled fundamentally altering the team, a group of teen heroes arose to take on the mantles of their heroes – some of whom had fallen in battle. Inspired by Avengers members like Captain America, Thor, Hulk, Hawkeye, Vision, Iron Man, and Giant-Man, this new group declared themselves Young Avengers.

With the proverbial seal broken and the Avengers brand hotter than ever thanks to the stewardship of Brian Bendis, Marvel seized the opportunity for a decade-long run of titles focused on a next generation of Avengers. While the Young Avengers continued in a string of mini-series, an official training-squad was coined in Avengers: The Initiative, followed by an actual Avengers school in Avengers Academy.

The line-wide Marvel Now relaunch in 2012 brought with it not one but three Avengers titles focused on training squads – a redux of Young Avengers from the hip team of Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie, the Hunger Games inspired Avengers Arena (which became Avengers Undercover), and finally a team of android and robot characters in Avengers A.I. [Read more…] about Collecting Young Avengers, Avengers Academy, The Initiative, & Avengers Arena as graphic novels