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Louise Simonson
Guide to Superman, 1987 – Present (New for Patrons!)
It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s one of my biggest single-character guide pages of all time exclusively for Pledgeonaut Patrons of CK. That’s right, folks, it’s my second super week in a row, because today I bring to you my Guide to Superman (Post-Crisis, 1987 – Present), including a full issue-by-issue reading order for the Triangle Era!
Guide to Superman (Post-Crisis, 1987 – Present)
For the past seven years this Guide to Superman has existed somewhere between being my white whale and my albatross. I knew I had to tackle Superman at some point. But, he is the Justice League hero who I knew the least about. Plus, I could never make heads or tails of his publishing history – with how his titles traded names in 1987 only to swap back in 2006.
Oh, plus, there was the little matter of THE TRIANGLE ERA. From 1991 to 2001, every Superman comic was coordinated in perfect reading order by a brain trust of editors and authors, with their covers clearly labeled with their absolute placement within each year of continuity.
That meant I had to make a guide that was even better at explaining The Triangle Era than the hundreds of comic book covers from the actual Triangle Era.
😬
[Read more…] about Guide to Superman, 1987 – Present (New for Patrons!)
New Comics & Collected Editions Releases: Marvel Comics – May 1 2024
It’s the 18th new comic book day of the new year! This post covers Marvel Comics May 1 2024 releases. Missed last week’s releases? Check out last week’s post covering Marvel Comics April 24 2024 new releases.
This week in Marvel Comics: Blood Hunt begins, Captain America de-iced, Daredevil Unmasked, the improbable X-Men 2099, Deadpool & Wolverine go to war, Iron Man & Magneto team up, 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. I recap and review every new single issue. Plus, for every 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 May 1 2024 Collected Editions
Captain America Omnibus Vol. 1
(2024 oversize hardcover, ISBN 978-1302957995 / digital)
See Guide to Captain America. This omnibus collects the start of Cap’s Silver Age return – though, since it is based on the Masterworks mapping, it omits his actual return in Avengers (1963) #4.
We go straight from him despairing over a photo of Bucky in Tales of Suspense (1959) #59 to fighting Baron Zemo in Tales of Suspense (1959) #60. Even if Lee & Kirby lean on action-oriented plots, there are still those moments of Steve being a man out of time trying to absorb the modern day and its new challenges.
Carnage Vol. 1: Born Again
(2024 paperback, ISBN 978-1302955014 / digital)
See Guide to Carnage. This is the very creepy kickoff of Torunn Grønbekk’s 2023 Carnage series, which finds the Carnage symbiote getting back to Earth after nearly attaining godhood and deciding to return to what it knows best – serial killing, one victim at a time.
Marvel Studios’ Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania – The Art of the Movie
(2024 hardcover, ISBN 978-1302956592)
See Guide to Ant-Man.
Mighty Marvel Masterworks: Daredevil Vol. 3: Unmasked
(2024 digest-size paperback, ISBN 978-1302954284 / digital)
See Guide to Daredevil. Marvel’s digest-sized Silver Age collection presses on to the third year of early Daredevil comics. I’m somewhat surprised Marvel extended the Mighty Masterworks line to Daredevil, as his early stories aren’t considered to be particularly significant.
She-Hulk by Rainbow Rowell Vol. 4: Jen-Sational
(2024 paperback, ISBN 978-1302957117 / digital)
See Guide to She-Hulk. This is labeled “Volume 4” despite being the first collection of Sensation She-Hulk (2023) because it picks up directly from the end ofRowell & Company’s 2022 She-Hulk series. While you could pick this up and easily follow it with no preamble, the 15 issues of the prior series are absolutely delightful slice-of-life romance stuff with a just-right amount of punching. [Read more…] about New Comics & Collected Editions Releases: Marvel Comics – May 1 2024
New Comics & Collected Editions: Marvel Comics – February 28 2024
It’s the 9th new comic book day of the new year! This post covers Marvel Comics February 28 2024 releases. Missed last week’s releases? Check out last week’s post covering Marvel Comics February 21 2024 new releases.
This week in Marvel Comics: Gang War ends, Tony Stark’s X-era, nostalgic Power Pack perfection, the conclusion of unexpectedly great turns on Punisher & White Widow, 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 February 28 2024 Collected Editions
The Amazing Spider-Man Vol. 8: Spider-Man’s First Hunt
(2024 paperback, ISBN 978-1302953447 / digital)
See Guide to Spider-Man – Peter Parker (2018 – Present). This collects the arc that directly precedes Gang War and vaguely follows up on Dark Web with a focus on new comedy character Rep-Rap. It was fine, but ever since the initial meta-arc of this book wrapped up in issue #25 it has felt a bit directionless. I wouldn’t call this a jumping-on point.
Daredevil Modern Era Epic Collection: Underboss
(2024 paperback, ISBN 978-1302956332 / digital)
See Guide to Daredevil. This recollects Brian Bendis’s run from the start. However, it is not the same mapping as Daredevil by Bendis & Maleev Ultimate Collection, Vol. 1 because it collects the typically skipped arc from #20-25! This is the first time that arc has ever been collected in sequential order along with the issues that surround it.
The Invincible Iron Man Vol. 2: The Wedding of Tony Stark and Emma Frost
(2023 paperback, ISBN 978-1302947590 / digital)
See Guide to Iron Man – Tony Stark. If you haven’t been reading Iron Man I imagine that title might warrant an eye-roll or the assumption that this is a big sales gimmick forcing a romance between Tony and Emma. In reality, this is a surprisingly organic outgrowth of the continuing plot of Fall of X extending out of the 2023 Hellfire Gala.
In this collection, Iron Man is 100% an X-book, and here’s a secret: Gerry Duggan is way better with a solo title with one or two characters than a big team book, so importing Emma here means he has room to really have fun with both her and Tony. Issues #9-10 are perfection, especially if you’ve also been reading Duggan’s X-Men (2021).
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New Comics & Collected Editions: Marvel Comics – January 24, 2024
It’s the fourth new comic book day of the new year! This post covers Marvel Comics January 24 2024 releases. Missed last week’s releases? Check out last week’s post covering Marvel Comics January 17 2024 new releases.
This week in Marvel Comics: a ROMnibus appears, Straczynski & Gillen’s Thor runs finally reunited, Al Ewing up to something with Magneto, 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 January 24 2024 Collected Editions
Marvel Two-in-One Epic Collection: Two Against Hydra
(2024 paperback, ISBN 978-1302931766 / digital)
See Guide to Fantastic Four or Guide to Thing (eventually). Marvel is slowly-but-surely pressing on with their collections of this Thing team-up title, which included a few more significant stories than its sibling Marvel Team-Up (1972). This volume (and all collections of this material, in general) skips issue #21, which includes a team-up with Doc Savage – Marvel no longer has the rights to reprint it.
ROM: The Original Marvel Years Omnibus Vol. 1
(2024 oversize hardcover, ISBN 978-1302956714 / digital)
See Guide to ROM, Spaceknight. We never thought it could exist, but here it is – the ROMnibus! FYI, there are THREE DM variants of this omnibus cover – Frank Miller X-Men, George Pérez, and Sal Buscema. Marvel will cover this series in a trio of omnibuses, and there’s no guarantee they will print it in any other format (like Epic Collection), so this could be your one chance to finally own a reprinted, remastered collection of this material.
Siege
(2024 paperback, ISBN 978-1302952792 / digital)
See Guide to Marvel Universe Events. Marvel has been working through paperback reprints of most of their line-wide events in the past year, likely to serve as complements to the Epic and Modern Era Epic lines. This event isn’t particularly satisfying to read on its own – all three of the Avengers books at the time heavily filled out the action, in particular New Avengers.
Star Wars Legends Epic Collection: The Menace Revealed Vol. 4
(2024 paperback, ISBN 978-1302953911 / digital)
See Guide to Star Wars Legends – The Old Expanded Universe. This is not only the last Epic of this era (which stretches from pre-prequels through the prequel trilogy), but also potentially the second to last of the Legends Epics! There’s only one major uncollected series remaining – Star Wars: Invasion (2009) #0-16. After that, we’re just down to recollecting old Star Wars comics coverage omnibus format and Epic reprints.
Strange Academy: Year Two
(2024 paperback, ISBN 978-1302953003 / digital)
See Guide to Doctor Strange. This collects the back half of the original 2020 series and its “Finals” mini-series from 2022. Strange Academy had such a massive cast to start that sometimes it could be hard to zero in on the characters, their histories and powers, and how they related to each other. Here at the end the book is hyper-focused on one particular relationship and conflict, which escalates to a pretty epic level by the end. This is a rare in-continuity Marvel book that would work well for a YA crowd, though I’d perhaps call it for 10YO+ due to some themes related to drug use.
Thor by Straczynski & Gillen Omnibus
(2024 oversize hardcover, ISBN 978-1302953010 / digital)
See Guide to Thor, The Odinson. This is a relatively rare release from Marvel in that it specifically expands the content of a prior omnibus release! The Thor by JMS omnibus was a great read that kicked off the modern era of Thor, but it has always been an incomplete work since Gillen dropped in to finish off JMS’s abandoned plot threads before Matt Fraction took the reins. Now this volume completely plugs that gap, butting perfectly up against Thor by Matt Fraction and Loki by Gillen. Plus, it adds Gillen’s excellent Beta Ray Bill material. Strong recommendation from me on this one for Thor fans – it’s the ground level of his modern comics! [Read more…] about New Comics & Collected Editions: Marvel Comics – January 24, 2024