Leah Williams

New Comics & Collected Editions: Marvel Comics – April 26, 2023

April 23, 2023 by krisis

It’s time to take a look at what’s out from Marvel Comics this week! This post covers Marvel Comics April 26 2023 releases.

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 Crushing Comics guide.

Marvel Comics April 26 2023 Collected Editions

All-Out Avengers: Teachable Moments (2023 paperback, ISBN 978-1302947019 / digital)
See Guide to Avengers Flagship Titles (2010 – Present). This new “All-Out” brand for Marvel indicates an all-action series that is a non-stop five issue fight, here created by Derek Landy & Greg Land. The Landy-Land team continues to a new volume, Avengers Beyond, below.

Cosmic Ghost Rider by Donny Cates (2023 paperback, ISBN 978-1302949891 / digital)
See Guide to Ghost Rider. This paperbacks collects all of Donny Cates’s Cosmic Ghost Rider material, which is a subset of the material from the 2021 omnibus. However, there is really just one full CGR series in this collection – his first 2018 five-issue limited series. All the other material in this book are his debut in Thanos (2016) and guest-starring and team membership issues. Bottom line: This is the right buy if you’re a Cates fan or looking purely for origin material, otherwise you should buy the omnibus instead.

Deadpool & Cable Omnibus (2023 oversize hardcover, ISBN 978-1302949921)
See Guide to Deadpool or Guide to Cable for this complete reprint of their 50-issue 2004 team-up series.

Fantastic Four by Millar & Hitch Omnibus (2023 oversize hardcover, ISBN 978-1302949716 / digital)
See Guide to Fantastic Four. This omnibus fits directly prior to Jonathan Hickman’s run and pair of omnibuses. This run’s reputation tends to be overshadowed by Hickman, but there are some enjoyable big ideals here and I enjoy seeing Millar in his less-audacious mode when he’s not writing mature books.

Midnight Suns (2023 paperback, ISBN 978-1302947187 / digital TBA)
See Guide to Ghost Rider or Guide to Blade. This series featured a peculiar hodgepodge of a team of supernatural heroes… and Logan, with a cast of Magik, Wolverine, Blade, Spirit Rider, and Nico Minoru.

Thor Epic Collection Vol. 9: Even An Immortal Can Die (2023 paperback, ISBN 978-1302948689 / digital)
See Guide to Thor – The Odinson. This material has been covered in Masterworks and in bits and pieces across several old trades, but it has never been collected comprehensively in paperback before.

Strange, Vol. 2: The Doctor Strange of Death (2023 paperback, ISBN 978-1302946746 / digital)
See Guide to Doctor Strange. The second (and final) volume of Jed MacKay’s volume of Clea as the Sorcerer Supreme before the relaunch of Doctor Strange last month.

X-Terminators (2023 paperback, ISBN 978-1302946999 / digital)
See Guide to X-Men – The Age of Krakoa. Leah Williams takes Dazzler, Jubilee, Boom Boom, and Wolverine (X-23) on a high-action, high-comedy spin.

Read on for a rundown of Marvel Comics April 19 2023 single-issue releases, including a link to their accompanying guide pages on Crushing Comics.

X-Factor Math & Maps: Collected Issue Counting and Future Omnibus Mapping

January 26, 2023 by krisis

A few weeks ago I updated the Guide to X-Factor to present day, which means now it’s time for mathing and mapping X-Factor! How much of X-Factor been collected from its start in February 1986 to the team’s most-recent appearance Dec 2021? How many issues have been collected in color, Epic Collection, or Omnibus formats? And, what’s the perfect X-Factor mapping to collect the remaining issues into an impressive shelf of omnibus volumes

Get ready for the deepest possible dive into the data behind the physical collections of X-Factor!

This is a pilot of a new post format that acts as a companion to major guide updates. It’s a way to bring back my popular series of omnibus-focused posts from 2017, where I looked at dozens of likely entries on Tigereyes’ annual Marvel Omnibus straw poll and then mapped the results.

Those posts were major favorites for many readers, but each one could take as long as a brand new comic guide – and, back in 2017 I still had many guides still to build. Oh, and there was also the brief interruption where I found out we would be moving to New Zealand in the middle of the 50-post series!

To get started with our X-Factor Math & Maps, let’s look at the current collection standings for X-Factor:

Series	Total Issues	in Color*	in Epic	in Oversize
X-Factor	325	282	74	176
as a percentage:		82.46%	22.77%	54.15%

* I am no longer including Essentials in my tally of collected issues now that they are long out of print and Marvel has retired the black-and-white reprint format.

How does that break down across every X-Factor series? What am I even counting? Read on to find out! And, when you’re done, be sure to leave a comment to let me know if you’d like to see more posts like this in the future.

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!

X-Factor (2020) #5 – Resurrection Drama and The Krakoan Community | This Week in X!

December 3, 2020 by krisis

It’s “This Week in X” for X-Factor (2020) #5, released 2 December 2020! This is a full-spoilers post and episode.

The premise set up by this issue is that The Five want X-Factor’s oversight on more than just proof of death. They’re asking them for the go-ahead to continue with resurrections after Rockslide’s troubled return at the beginning of X of Swords (the details which it doesn’t seem like Lorna has shared with the rest of this group).

X-Factor (2020) #5 really needed this episode all to itself to spread out, because there are a STAGGERING amount of characters for us to cover in this issue – so many we don’t quite mention them all (sorry Mercury!).

We discuss many of those characters; the post-X of Swords resurrection drama as it relates to Wind Dancer, Rockslide, and Gorgon; Leah Williams’ masterful Emma Frost; terrific and heartbreaking data pages; and how well Leah Williams and David Baldeon weave a complex sense of community on Krakoa.

Join Peter, Tyler, and Fariha’s specially-nominated guest New Mutant, Harry, for this epic discussion on “This Week in X,” the show where we cover every in-continuity X-Men comic book released by Marvel, every week.

Now that X of Swords has ended, we’ll be posting an individual video for each X-Men issue every week, with our combined conversation (plus our intro discussions!) presented as a single podcast episode.

(watch on YouTube)

Need help making sense of reading and collecting the X-Men? Crushing Comics can help!

Want to keep up with comics commentary all week long? Follow Crushing Comics on Twitter and subscribe to my channel on YouTube.

Recapping X of Swords, Week 2: X-Factor (2020) #4 and the politics of resurrection on Krakoa | This Week in X

October 1, 2020 by krisis

Join the former HiX-Men Report as we dive into the second week of the 22-chapter X of Swords crossover as it hits Leah Williams’ X-Factor (2020) #4.

In this episode we discuss the philosophy & bureaucracy of resurrection, the dissent inherent in community, the value of internal monologues, root cause analysis, my love for a certain rocky mutant, and more!

(watch on YouTube)

Want to relive the deepest dive into HOXPOX on the entire internet? In 2019 we recorded nearly 24hrs of content covering House of X and Powers of X (with me providing musical interludes for most of the episodes) on The HiX-Men Report.

Need help making sense of the X-Men? Visit my comprehensive guides to reading and collecting Marvel Comics or my definitive X-Men Reading Order.

Want to read more X-Factor? Visit my Definitive Guide to X-Factor!