Magneto

New Comics & Collected Editions: Marvel Comics – February 28 2024

February 22, 2024 by krisis

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).

New Comics & Collected Editions: Marvel Comics – February 7 2024

February 3, 2024 by krisis

It’s the sixth new comic book day of the new year! This post covers Marvel Comics February 7 2024 releases. Missed last week’s releases? Check out last week’s post covering Marvel Comics January 31 2024 new releases.

(No, you haven’t time-travelled to the future – this post is now a few days earlier to give you an earlier heads up on what’s coming next week and to make way for some other planned posts that will occupy the Tuesday slot.)

This week in Marvel Comics: the debut of a new Ultimate Black Panther, an adventure for Bats the Dog, a treat for Liz Allen super-fans, an almost-completed Captain America Epic line, and more!

Marvel Comics February 7 2024 Collected Editions

Captain America Epic Collection Vol. 21: Twilight’s Last Gleaming
(2024 paperback, ISBN 978-1302956349 / digital)
See Guide to Captain America – Steve Rogers. This is the second-to-last Epic Collection covering Cap’s 1968 series. The final one, Man Without a Country, already exists.

However, I think the bigger news about this collect is that it means we now have the entirety of Mark Gruenwald’s landmark run on the title collected in Epic Collections Volume 12-21. That’s not a big shocker, since Marvel is about to kick off a long-awaited omnibus run of Gruenwald’s Cap, so it made sense for them to wrap up the Epics first. This run is to pre-2000 Cap what Brubaker’s is to post-2000 Cap – lengthy, defining, and essential.

We only need TWO more Epics to complete the coverage of Cap’s 1968 title (Vol. 7-8), but we could be waiting for a while since now we know the classic Epic line will continue to cover his titles through 2004 when Brubaker’s run kicks off the “Modern Epic Collection.”

Cult of Carnage: Misery
(2024 paperback, ISBN 978-1302951986 / digital)
See Guide to Carnage (eventually). Are you a Liz Allen super-fan? I’m not sure how many of you are out there, but this book is for you! Despite the “Carnage” wrapper on the title, this book is all about dissecting Liz Allen’s history, her motivations, and her connection to Harry Osborn. Yeah, there’s also some symbiote nonsense involving a sliver of the Carnage symbiote and Carnage’s various progeny, but if you aren’t interested in Allen and her family this is going to fall flat for you. (And, if you don’t even know who I’m talking about, you should skip it).

Magneto: Magneto Was Right
(2024 paperback, ISBN 978-1302954215 / digital)
See Guide to Magneto. One of Marvel’s many retcon flashback series, this 2023 mini is set during the excellent mid-40s of Claremont’s New Mutants – a fertile period for more Magneto stories, as he was certainly up to a lot back then! [Read more…] about New Comics & Collected Editions: Marvel Comics – February 7 2024

New Comics & Collected Editions: Marvel Comics – January 24, 2024

January 23, 2024 by krisis

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!

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

New Comics & Collected Editions: Marvel Comics – September 6, 2023

September 5, 2023 by krisis

It’s time to take a look at what’s out from Marvel Comics this week! This post covers Marvel Comics September 6 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 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!

Plus, I’m getting close to caught up on reading all of the Marvel Universe – so I have some commentary on some of the single issues and new collections.

Marvel Comics September 6 2023 Collected Editions

Captain Marvel by Kelly Thompson Vol. 1
(2023 paperback, ISBN 978-1302950989 / digital)
See Guide to Carol Danvers, Captain Marvel. This is effectively a “Complete Collection by Kelly Thompson,” recollecting the first two trades worth of this ongoing series. That’s actually somewhat short for a complete – it would take five volumes to collect the entire series, at this rate! I love this comic, and it comes with a ringing endorsement from me.

Captain Marvel, Vol. 10: Revenge of the Brood, Pt. 2
(2023 paperback, ISBN 978-1302947637 / digital)
See Guide to Carol Danvers, Captain Marvel. This is the final half of the final arc of Kelly Thompson’s multi-year Captain Marvel epic, plus a double-sized final issue that is entirely reflective. I think this arc is one of the shakier of the series, simply because Thompson is juggling a massive cast without much time to focus on Carol. While I’m a big proponent of picking up any comic run with any issue to get started, I’d say if you’re planning to read this run you ought to start from the beginning.

Loki Modern Era Epic Collection: Everything Burns (Vol. 2)
(2023 paperback, ISBN 978-1302952655 / digital)
See Guide to Loki. The second (and final?) volume of the Loki Modern Era Epic Collection line, collecting the back half of his run of Journey Into Mystery including crossovers with New Mutants and Thor. The contents of this are just slightly different than the contents of a previous Complete Collection.

Mighty Marvel Masterworks: The Incredible Hulk Vol. 3 – Less than Monster, More than Man
(2021 digest-size paperback, ISBN 978-1302949037 / digital)
See Guide to Hulk, Bruce Banner. This continues the digest-sized reprint of Hulk’s Silver Age Tales to Astonish (1959) material.

Spider-Man 2099: Dark Genesis (2023 paperback, ISBN 978-1302952235 / digital)
See Guide to Spider-Man 2099. This is a Steve Orlando mini-series set in 2099 continuity.

Red Goblin Vol. 1: It Runs in the Family (2023 paperback, ISBN 978-1302948634 / digital)
Hmm, this still has no guide to call home! But, I have caught up on this book to present day, and I dig it! Alex Paknadel is writing a very different title than anything else going on at Marvel right now. I wish he’d lean even further into the intergenerational aspects of the book and its lead characters, but I liked all of this first volume.

She-Hulk by Mariko Tamaki (2023 paperback, ISBN 978-1302950774 / digital)
See Guide to She-Hulk, Jennifer Walters. Collects the entire run by Eisner-winner Mariko Tamaki from All-New All-Different Marvel and Marvel Legacy. This book is not a similar tone to most She-Hulk runs or the She-Hulk MCU show. It starts out subtle and decompressed, focusing on She-Hulk’s trauma in the wake of Civil War II, picking up just a hint of the typical acerbic She-Hulk wit towards the end.

Venom Vol. 4 by Al Ewing & Ram V: Illumination (2023 paperback, ISBN 978-1302948504 / digital)
See Guide to Venom. This continues Ewing’s multi-timeline Venom epic (V has departed the title), but with a slightly more grounded story than the past 1o issues. What I think works well about this is you absolutely could jump in here and be tantalized with references of what has come before, which to me is good comics-making.

The Epic X-Men (Re-)Read: X-Men (1991) #1-3 (Ep001)

March 19, 2018 by krisis

After nearly a decade of collecting and planning, it’s finally here: I’m tackling my entire 50-year collection of X-Men comics with the intent of reading every single issue, and you’re invited along for the ride!

Rather than start from The Silver Age and trundle forward through a lot of very wordy classic comics, we’re taking inspiration from Marvel’s Epic Collections and jumping around from era to era and title to title.

I don’t know how I could start anywhere but with the arc that brought me to comic collecting, which marks the end of the truly classic period of X-Men – Chris Claremont and Jim Lee’s X-Men (1991) #1-3 (found in the Guide to X-Men, Vol. 2). This story arc is the platonic ideal of a major faceoff against Magneto with a cast of a dozen X-Men, many of them in the Jim Lee uniforms that would follow them to X-Men: The Animated Series a year later.

Do these comics still hold up today? And, does Claremont leave the series doing right by his cast of indomitable-willed woman? Watch this mega-sized episode and find out!

Want to keep up with the next six weeks of (re-)reading? Here’s our schedule: [Read more…] about The Epic X-Men (Re-)Read: X-Men (1991) #1-3 (Ep001)