Matt Fraction

New Comics & Collected Editions Releases: Image Comics – March 19 2025

March 15, 2025 by krisis Leave a Comment

Next week is the 12th new comic book day of 2025! This post covers Image Comics March 19 2025 new releases. Missed this week’s releases? Check out last week’s post covering Image Comics March 12 2025 new releases.

This week in Image Comics: More Bug Wars, the end of a Deviant, Adventureman’s family tree branches out, Power Fantasy’s “Second Summer of Love” explodes onto the scene, Saga’s second season concludes, Shadowhawk guests with the Blood Squad, and more!

The Krisis Pick of the Week: This is impossibly hard. The Power Fantasy (2024) #7 is one of my Top 10 comics promising a major, world-defining revelation. The Rocketfellers (2024) #4 promises to reveal more about what drives its lovable family. Saga (2012) #72 ends the second season of the powerhouse series! But for me, I think my most-anticipated book is Bug Wars (2025) #2 from Jason Aaron, Mahmud Asrar, Matt Wilson, & Becca Carey. Issue #1 was so perfectly developed both on the fantastical and human side of things, and it brought us right up to the point where those two worlds clash. I can’t wait to read more.

This post includes every comic out from Image Comics this week on March 19 2025, plus collected editions. This isn’t the typical comic releases post you can find on other sites. Why? I explain each collection and comment on every series with a new issue out this week to help you figure out if they’re for you.

Plus, for some long-running series and Image Comics imprints, I’ll point you to a personally-curated guide within the Crushing Comics Guide to Indie Comics to find out how to collect that title in full!

There’s no other website on the internet that can claim that. In fact, if you are a Patron of CK you might notice a couple of guides in this post I’ve never mentioned before…

And now, onto Image Comics March 19 2025 new releases!

New Comics & Collected Editions Releases: Marvel Comics – June 5 2024

May 31, 2024 by krisis Leave a Comment

It’s the 23nd new comic book day of the new year! This post covers Marvel Comics June 5 2024 releases. Missed last week’s releases? Check out last week’s post covering Marvel Comics May 29 2024 new releases.

This week in Marvel Comics: The Ultimates debut, Alpha Flight divided, Ms. Marvel’s Inhumans reunion, Lando’s verdict, a second Spencer Spidey omni, the Age of Krakoa finale, 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 June 5 2024 Collected Editions

Alpha Flight: Divided We Stand
(2024 paperback, ISBN 978-1302952457 / digital)
See Guide to Alpha Flight. I really, really loved this Ed Brisson & Scott Godlweski Alpha Flight mini-series that was a part of the Fall of X fallout from the 2023 Hellfire Gala.

I have a lot of affection for the core Alpha Flight characters and Ed Brisson voiced all of them particularly well as he explored how they might be stuck on separate sides of the mutant conflict. I think this reads just fine as a standalone outside of a full-on Krakoa read, since most of these characters are non-mutants and not a big part of the past five years of X-Men.

The Amazing Spider-Man By Nick Spencer Omnibus Vol. 2
(2024 oversize hardcover, ISBN 978-1302953645 / digital)
See Guide to Spider-Man – Peter Parker (2018 – Present). This collects the final half of Nick Spencer’s run on Amazing Spider-Man (2018). I deeply disliked this comic – it felt like a Spider-Man with no jokes and no heart. I think if you are an Osborn Family superfan this would appeal to you, as it deals with a lot of the intricacies of the relationship between Norman and Harry. Otherwise, I wouldn’t recommend it.

In a curious turn of events, the next omnibus is already available – Amazing Spider-Man: Beyond Omnibus (2023 oversize hardcover, ISBN 978-1302949624 / digital), which contains the entire final portion of this run that reintroduces Ben Reilly.

Black Panther by Eve L. Ewing Vol. 2: Reign at Dusk
(2024 paperback, ISBN 978-1302948849 / digital)
See Guide to Black Panther. I was soft on this series from Dr. Ewing to start, but after the first three issues I really warmed to it and I was bummed to see it end abruptly at issue #10.

I think Ewing did something intriguing and much-needed here by defining more of the urban environment of Wakanda outside of the capital city and exploring T’Challa’s relationship to it outside of being king. Plus, she brought in strong new supporting players and villains. If you can get into a more slow, cerebral take on Black Panther that does not have the political bent of Coates’s run, this could be for you. [Read more…] about New Comics & Collected Editions Releases: Marvel Comics – June 5 2024

X-Men Omnibus Mapping for the Tigereyes Most Wanted Marvel Omnibus 12th Annual Secret Ballot

April 2, 2024 by krisis

Until April 5, I’ll be loosely mapping missing and most-wanted Marvel omnibus volumes every day! It’s finally time, y’all… time to MAP MY X. This post offers maps for flagship X-Men series – books with “X-Men” in the title! Then, in the following posts I’ll look at other X-Team titles and solo characters.

This post explains titles and potential X-Men Omnibus Mapping for entries on the Tigereyes Most Wanted Marvel Omnibus 12th Annual Secret Ballot. You can vote right now (until 5 April 2024 @ midnight US ET) or watch our mega-length announcement stream reviewing every single voting option.

For this post, it’s important you understand that I don’t think all of these books are a good idea! Some of them were votes on past polls or popular comments from Near Mint Condition viewers.

Also, many of these maps are not even my idea. As Marvel has progressively (and recently) recollected 90s and 00s X-Men in paperback, they have clearly shown their plans on how they group this material. If Marvel told me how to map something, that’s the map I used! Our fanciful mappings of years past are less relevant than ever.

With those disclaimers out of the way: Are you ready to see all of the omnibuses we’d need to collect every issue of every book with “X-Men” in the title from 1963 to 2023 – as well as collecting every major run of the Age of Krakoa? Strap in, folks – it’s gonna be a long post!

If you’re not sure of what to vote for, stick around for my explanations. Or, if you’ve already voted, learn why the team behind the poll decided on these books and titles – including some of my mistakes and regrets as one of the editors of the options on the final poll.

Or… just find some great comics to read!

Remember: These mappings are just my suggestion of how Marvel could assemble these books. They are meant to help you decide on your votes and build your personal reading list, but your vote on the poll is NOT an endorsement of my specific map. It’s a vote in favor of Marvel creating a book with that title or covering that period.

Over-the-top comics posts like this one are made possible via the support of Patrons of Crushing Krisis. For less than the cost of a single comic issue a month you can fuel my in-depth comics coverage, plus gain access to dozens of exclusive collecting guides & reading orders – including all of the Crushing Comics Guide to Marvel Comics.

Tigereyes Most Wanted Marvel Omnibus 11th Annual Secret Ballot Results & Mappings

April 17, 2023 by krisis

This morning I had the absolute pleasure of announcing the results of the Most Wanted Marvel Omnibus 11th Annual Secret Ballot with Near Mint Condition!

The Most Wanted Marvel Omnibus Secret Ballot is an annual poll conducted by a mysterious comic book forum user named Tigereyes. The rules are simple: anyone can email Tigereyes up to 10 picks for their most-wanted, never-before-printed omnibuses of material originally printed by Marvel, even if they may no longer own the licensing rights.

Each first vote gets 10 points, each second vote gets 9 points, all the way down to your tenth vote getting just 1 point. After the voting period, Tigereyes goes through the gargantuan effort of tallying up all the votes – which also involves figuring out what everyone meant by their sometimes inconsistently-named or cryptically-described votes.

For me, the reveal of the results of the Tigereyes Secret Ballot is an international comics-loving holiday. I used to be the primary person on the internet creating statistics from the results every year! However, when I attempted to cover the entire poll entry-by-entry in 2017 I stalled out at the halfway point as the results straddled our move to New Zealand.

That’s why it was worth waking up at 4am NZ time to be ready to share this year’s results with my good friends Omar and Jess on the Near Mint Condition channel, thanks to some last-minute planning with Omar over the weekend.

Our show was nearly three hours long as we dug into the potential contents of every book on the list and whether we’d read them or not. As always, I had just as much fun appearing on-camera as I did chatting with all of the wonderful Minties in the live chat!

Don’t have time for the full 3-hour tour? We actually run down the full 60-book list in just 15 minutes, starting just before the 12-minute mark. I’m sharing the full list below, but it’s more than just a list – every omnibus includes a full suggested omnibus mapping along with a link to the relevant collecting guide on Crushing Comics.

That’s right, y’all – this is a post with SIXTY omnibus mappings in it, mapping well over 2,000 issues of comics. (Actually, it’s even more than that – there’s one tie, and in several entries I get into mapping second volumes if they would complete a run). That makes that one of the longest blog posts in 23 years of CrushingKrisis history.

Are you ready to be rocked by the Most Wanted Marvel Omnibus vote? Strap in, true believers, and prepare to be mapped like you’ve never been mapped before.

Updated: Guide to Uncanny X-Men in the 00s – The Trade Paperback Era

March 3, 2023 by krisis

If you were worried that my weekly series of X-Men Guide updates would go on hiatus during my Indie Comic Month, have no fear! There’s no higher priority for me at Crushing Comics than getting every one of my X-Guides completely up-to-date! However, it turns out there wasn’t too much to update in this guide, which is for the first era of Uncanny X-Men to be completely collected in color. It’s my guide to Guide to Uncanny X-Men in the 00s – The Trade Paperback Era!

Guide to Uncanny X-Men in the 00s – The Trade Paperback Era

I titled this guide “The Trade Paperback Era” because it picks up Uncanny X-Men in the 00s as Marvel began to transition to the standard practice of issuing trade paperback collections of almost every series as their story arcs completed.

The trade paperback era represents a massive shift in the comic industry. Not only did it change the way comic stories were structured as authors began “writing for trade,” but it created an entirely new market of readers! Readers who might previously drop into a comic store only a few times a year no longer had to suffer for their lack of a pull list. And, whenever a series started to accumulate a critical mass of popularity or acclaim, it could be easily ordered by book stores.

Previously, regular trade paperback releases were mainly reserved for prestigious, adult-oriented series like Sandman, whose readers might never venture out of a bookstore and into a comic shop. A key story arc or crossover from a superhero comic might see trade release, but Marvel and DC weren’t in the practice of collecting every issue of every title.

Suddenly, everything was recollected. [Read more…] about Updated: Guide to Uncanny X-Men in the 00s – The Trade Paperback Era