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Magik
Guide to Magik (New For Patrons!)
This week I have the somewhat rare pleasure of debuting a new X-Men reading order for Patrons of CK – rare because I cover so many X-Men titles already! When this character got her own ongoing series earlier this month it was an easy choice to dig in and create a reading order for her every appearance because she is one of my favorites – a feeling shared by many fans and players of Marvel Rivals! Of course, I’m referring to the woman who is the magic, the muscle, and the teleporting-through-Limbo school bus of Cyclops’s X-Men… yep, it’s a brand new Guide to Magik – Illyana Rasputin!
Guide to Magik – Illyana Rasputin
CK readers have requested many different X-Men solo guides and given an infinite amount of time I’d love to create them all!
One of the deciding factors of what guides I’m actually willing to attack is whether a character who has rarely had a solo title still has an identifiable story arc. There’s a big difference between Magneto, who has a finite number of gradual pivots to and from heroism, and Storm, who has just been in a whole heckin’ lot of comics every single month for the past 50 years.
Ødfel Cosplay as Magik – Illyana Rasputin, as shot by The Portrait Dude.
Magik is experiencing a surge of popularity right now thanks to her appearance in the recently-launched Marvel Rivals. That led us to finally hold an often-teased “Map My X: Magik” panel on Near Mint Condition’s channel last week… which is a super-obvious thing to do when your panel always includes Ødfel, who is an amazing Magik cosplayer!
In prepping for the panel, I started to re-read every Magik appearance – which, fun fact, I have read all but five issues of already. As I rea-read everything there is to read about Illyana Rasputin, my mapping notes for the show quickly morphed into the beginnings of a Guide to Magik. I quickly realized that Magik is one of those X-Men characters who has a specific arc despite going 40 years without a solo title of her own.
I also realized writers love Magik. She is never in the cast of a comic purely as an accessory or a background player. Every time she has appeared in a run over the past four decades she has been used often and used well. There are truly no bad Magik stories.
Really, Magik has had three arcs over the course of her publishing history.
New Comics & Collected Editions Releases: Marvel Comics – January 8 2025
Next week is the 2nd new comic book day of 2025! This post covers Marvel Comics January 8 2025 new releases. Missed this week’s releases? Check out last week’s post covering Marvel Comics January 1 2025 new releases.
This week in Marvel Comics: Sam Wilson’s saga, Epic Guardians, a Venomous mystery, Elektra unleashes hell, X-Men are Magik again, New Champions, Ultimate Panther vs. Moon Knight, The End of Marvel, and more!
The Krisis Pick of the Week: Magik (2025) #1! Magik scores her first ongoing series and it’s by a relatively new comic writer, Ashley Allen. Can Allen make magic with Magik and turn her into the newest X-Men solo star? I can’t wait to find out!
This post includes every comic out from Marvel this week, plus collected editions in omnibus, hardcover, paperback, and digest-sized formats. This isn’t the typical comic releases post you can find on other sites. Why? I explain each collection and review every series with a new issue out this week. Plus, for every new release, I’ll point you to a personally-curated guide within the Crushing Comics Guide to Marvel Comics to find out how to collect that title in full! There’s no other website on the internet that can claim that.
And now, onto Marvel Comics January 8 2025 new releases!
Marvel Comics January 8 2025 Collected Editions
Captain America: The Saga of Sam Wilson
(2025 paperback, ISBN 978-1302956639 / digital)
See Guide to Sam Wilson – Falcon & Captain America. This isn’t a “best of” collection like some Saga trades, and isn’t even all material of Sam Wilson as Cap. But, it’s all pretty good!
This collects Sam’s debut as Cap, his initial 2015 single-arc series by Rick Remender from before Secret Wars, his 2016 return to being Falcon in Marvel Legacy (which I think got slept on), and the one-shot showing off his seemingly permanent return to being Cap alongside Steve as Cap from 2023.
Why collect that disparate group of material separated by two years of comics? It skips over a lot of other material of Sam as Cap, including his entire 2016 series from Nick Spencer. However, that’s all collected in Complete Collections, so it makes sense to collect around it with this book. The one thing that’s critically missing is All-New Captain America: Fear Him (2014), a digital series that was actually his first run with the stars and stripes.
Guardians of the Galaxy, Modern Era Epic Collection Vol. 2: War of Kings
(2025 paperback, ISBN 978-1302959968 / digital)
See Guide to Guardians of the Galaxy. While some Modern Era Epics are just reskinned Complete Collections, this one actually improves on the existing Guardians of the Galaxy by Abnett & Lanning: Complete Collection, Vol. 2 by collecting the back half of their series and adding in Thanos Imperative: Ignition (2010) #1, and Thanos Imperative (2010) #1-6. That’s really the climax of Abnett & Lanning’s original Guardians run, so it makes sense to include it here.
I’d really recommend starting with Volume 1, because the circumstances that form this team continue to play out through the remainder of the run.
I do think it’s odd that this isn’t also solicited to include Thanos Imperative: Devastation (2010) #1, unless it pops up in the indicia when the digital version releases next week. I suppose they could be saving it for a follow-up, since the conclusion of Thanos Imperative has a strong link to how Bendis’s run begins.
That means the speculated Volume 3 would likely be Devastation #1, Annihilators (2010) #1-4, Annihilators: Earthfall (2011) #1-4, and inito Bendis’s Guardians of the Galaxy #0.1 & 1-10. That would leave a solid Vol. 4 to take us through Secret Wars. [Read more…] about New Comics & Collected Editions Releases: Marvel Comics – January 8 2025
This Week in X: All-New Wolverine #32, Astonishing X-Men #9, New Mutants – Dead Souls #1, Old Man Logan #36, Weapon X #15, & X-Men Blue #23
It’s the eleventh week of new comics in 2018, and This Week in X has six new titles to review – so many that I mistakenly omitted one the first time I edited this video. I’ve never had to count as high as six before!
This week, I cover:
- All-New Wolverine #32, a pleasant (if pandering) one-shot epilogue to “Orphans of X”
- Astonishing X-Men #9, a dull middle chapter that does a lot of telling rather than showing
- New Mutants – Dead Souls #1, a solid hit for lovers of every era of New Mutants
- Old Man Logan #36, which flirts with some heavy themes before turning into a MacGuffin hunt
- Weapon X #15, a surprisingly satisfying (and unsurprisingly bloody) tussle
- X-Men Blue #23, far and away the best issue of this series and a return to form for Cullen Bunn
Learn more about how each of those series reached their current issues and hear which ones I’d recommend picking up.