• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Crushing Krisis

The Newest Oldest Blog In New Zealand

  • DC Guides
    • DC Events
    • DC New 52
    • DC Rebirth
    • Batman Guide
    • The Sandman Universe
  • Marvel Guides
    • Marvel Events
    • Spider-Man Guide (1963-2018)
    • X-Men Reading Order
  • Indie & Licensed Comics
    • Spawn
    • Star Wars Guide
      • Expanded Universe Comics (2015 – present)
      • Legends Comics (1977 – 2014)
    • Valiant Guides
  • Drag
    • Canada’s Drag Race
    • Drag Race Down Under
    • Drag Race France
    • Drag Race Philippines
    • Dragula
    • RuPaul’s Drag Race
    • RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars
  • Archive
  • Contact!

Rob Williams

The Pull List: Action Comics, Avengers, Eternity Girl, Infidel, Judas, Marvel Two-in-One, Vampironica, & more!

March 18, 2018 by krisis

The Pull List was slightly lighter this week than the past three, partially due to me not managing to pick up any additional ongoings from Marvel or DC. I made a heroic effort to catch all the way up with Doctor Strange, but fell an arc short.

This week’s comics felt a little ho-hum for me, with even typical standouts like Flash and Paradiso falling flat. However, it also brought not one but two near-perfect comics, plus one unexpectedly great debut.

Here’s The Pull List for the 14th of March, 2018. New adds to the pull list are marked with *; dropped titles are marked with #.

Artwork from Infidel #1 cover by Aaron Campbell & José Villarrubia

  • DC Comics
    • Action Comics (2016) #999
    • Batgirl and The Birds of Prey (2016) #20
    • Detective Comics (2016) #976
    • *Eternity Girl (2018) #1
    • The Flash (2016) #42
    • Mister Miracle (2017) #7
    • Sideways (2018) #2
    • Suicide Squad (2016) #37
    • Titans (2016) #21
    • Trinity (2016) #19
    • Wonder Woman (2016) #42
  • Image Comics
    • Bonehead (2018) #3
    • *#Dry County (2018) #1
    • *Infidel (2018) #1
    • Paradiso (2017) #4
    • #Sleepless (2017) #4
    • Slots (2017) #6
    • VS (2018) #2
  • Marvel Comics
    • All-New Wolverine (2016) #32
    • Astonishing X-Men (2017) #9
    • Avengers (2017) #684
    • Marvel Two-in-One (2018) #4
    • New Mutants – Dead Souls (2018) #1
    • Old Man Logan (2016) #36
    • Weapon X (2017) #15
    • X-Men: Blue (2017) #23
  • Smaller Publishers: Aftershock Comics, Archie Comics, Black Mask Studios, & Boom! Studios
    • Judas (2017) #4, Boom! Studios
    • *Come Into Me (2018) #1, Black Mask Studios
    • *Vampironica (2018) #1, Archie Comics
    • *Betrothed (2018) #1, Aftershock Comics

Before we begin, a reminder that 2.5 stars on my rating scale is an average comic book and my bell curve distribution peaks at 3/5 stars! Don’t freak out and assume a comic book is terrible because it has 2 stars. That means it’s just a hair below average (and there are a lot of those this week)

Picks of the Pull

Big Two (Marvel/DC) Pick of the Week:
Action Comics (2016) #999, DC Comics

Dan Jurgens leaves us with a truly perfect, contemplative issue of Superman that puts a wrap on his stellar Rebirth run but also addresses his writing from over 25 years ago, as beautifully rendered by artist Will Conrad and colorist Ivan Nunes.

In Metropolis, Lois is newly reunited with her estranged Army General father after saving him from execution in the last arc. It’s his first time meeting Jon (sort of), but General Lane isn’t in on the Superman secret, so he thinks Jon is a regular kid. That makes it even more tense as Lois and her father square off across the dinner table about the philosophy of Superman. Jon has never been exposed to this kind of hatred and xenophobia about his father before – which is also, by extension, aimed at him.

Meanwhile, Superman is in space dealing with a routine chore of breaking up an asteroid that will stray a bit too close to Earth for STAR Labs liking. Superman is thinking about fathers – General Lane, his own father Jor-El, as well as Zod – all of whom were tangled in the cross-time plot he just wrapped with Booster Gold.

Superman can see the errors in the ways of each of those parents and they in turn reflect his errors back upon him. Clark Kent is good-natured to a fault, but he’s not always right. General Lane isn’t entirely wrong about him – sometimes his absolute power corrupts him, both in how he metes out justice and in how he isn’t accustomed to apologizing for his actions.

As a result, Superman decides to put right two wrongs. One is with Hank Henshaw, the Cyborg Superman, who he currently has imprisoned in the Phantom Zone. The other, eventually is General Lane. [Read more…] about The Pull List: Action Comics, Avengers, Eternity Girl, Infidel, Judas, Marvel Two-in-One, Vampironica, & more!

Filed Under: comic books, reviews Tagged With: Action Comics, Aftershock Comics, All-New Wolverine, Astonishing X-Men, Avengers, Batgirl, Batgirl and The Birds of Prey, Batman, Batwoman, Betrothed, Birds of Prey, Black Canary, Black Mask Studios, Bonehead, Charles Soule, Chip Zdarsky, Come Into Me, Cullen Bunn, Dan Jurgen, Dan Jurgens, Dan Panosian, DC Comics, Detective Comics, Dry Country, Ed Brisson, Eternity Gitl, Fantastic Four, Fred Van Lente, Greg Pak, Greg Smallwood, Huntress, Image Comics, Infidel, Jack Herbet, James Robinson, James Tynion, Jeff Loveness, Jorge Molina, Joshua Williamson, Judas, Kenneth Rocafort, Lois Lane, Magdalene Visaggio, Marvel Two-in-One, Matthew Rosenberg, Mister Miracle, Mitch Gerads, New Mutants, Old Man Logan, Paradiso, Red Robin, Rob Williams, Sabretooth, Sideways, Sleepless, Slots, Suicide Squad, Superman, The Flash, The Pull List, Titans, Tom King, Trinity, Valerio Schiti, Vampironica, VS, Weapon X, Will Conrad, Wonder Woman, X-Men Blue

The Pull List: Action Comics, Avengers, Calexit, Detective Comics, Jim Henson’s Labyrinth, The Terrifics, Thanos, & more!

March 4, 2018 by krisis

This week The Pull List is holding steady at a still-staggering 32 comic books.

I’m not sure if I was being a moody reader or if every company shipped some bunk books this week, but the average rating for the week was 2.70 – a full third of a point lower than the past few weeks. While that means most of the books were still better than average, it’s not by a whole lot.

Artwork from Thanos #16, line art by Geoff Shaw with color art by Antonio Fabela.

Here’s what I pulled this week, with *s on adds (whether I just caught up with them or started them fresh):

  • DC Comics
    • Action Comics #998
    • Detective Comics #975
    • The Flash #41
    • * Mera – Queen of Atlantis #1
    • Milk Wars: JLA/Doom Patrol Special
    • Raven: Daughter of Darkness #2
    • * Suicide Squad #36
    • Teen Titans #17
    • The Silencer #2
    • * The Terrifics #1
    • Wonder Woman #41
  • Image Comics
    • * The Beef #1
    • Days of Hate #2
    • Gasolina #6
    • Twisted Romance #4
    • Void Trip #4
  • Marvel Comics
    • All-New Wolverine #31
    • Avengers #682
    • Captain Marvel #129
    • * Champions #17
    • Legion #2
    • * Lockjaw #1
    • Moon Knight #192
    • Thanos #16
    • X-Men Blue #22
  • Smaller Publishers: Aftershock, Black Mask, Boom! Studios, Dark Horse, Titan
    • Abbott #2, Boom! Studios
    • * Alisik #1, Titan Books / Statix Press
    • Backways #3, Aftershock Comics
    • * Calexit #2, Black Mask Studios
    • Hungry Ghosts #2, Dark Horse / Berger Books
    • * Jim Henson’s Labyrinth: Coronation #1, Boom! Studios
    • * The Wilds #1, Black Mask Studios

Picks of the Pull

Big Two (Marvel/DC) Issue of the Week:
Detective Comics (2016) #975

A great-looking, contemplative issue that brings together the members of the Bat-Family we don’t usually see in this book – Nightwing, Batgirl, Red Hood, and Damian.

Batman has pulled these trusted lieutenants together as an inner council to decide Batwoman’s fate as a member of the Bat-family, yet in some ways their conversation is also a litigation of Bruce and his methods as the head of this dysfunctional household. Meanwhile, Batwoman holds herself accountable for her own actions, with a surprising result.

This isn’t an issue that’s going to appeal to a more casual reader – it looks amazing, but it has hardly any conflict. However, for someone who has been reading from the start this pierces right to the heart of this title and the ideological divide between Batwoman and Batman that has been brewing all along.

Part of what makes it so power is that Batwoman also has an avowed “no kills” philosophy, but she is willing to make exceptions when other lives hang in the balance. Batman won’t make exceptions, so he gets to watches thousands of Gothamites die from his moral high ground.

It’s heartbreaking to think of this book writing by someone other than Tynion or with a cast other than this one. Everything about it works so incredibly well. Yet, we’re in the “disassembled” phase, and there’s certainly more conflict to come before Tynion moves on.

Best Small-Pub Issue of the Week:
The Wilds (2018) #1, Black Mask Studios

A strong and sombre new zombie comic, The Wilds is definitely a descendent of Walking Dead but with a completely different tone – due in no small part to its pair of woman creators, Vita Ayala and Emily Pearson.

We get the same old zombie-pocked landscape with isolated camps trading resources and doing their best to survive, except the zombies are walking plant life – humans who have turned into semi-sentient flower pots. It makes for strangely calming, beautiful zombies to see all of their typical goriest bits covered in blooming flowers.

Pearson’s art evokes such masters of the modern form as Allred and Noto, employing their same plain, truthful faces and uncomplicated backgrounds.

Beneath the flowery dressing, this is the familiar story of a single senior errand runner who thinks it might be time to get out of the game, and how an act of compassion on her last journey might spell the end of the safety of her heavily fortified compound. There’s no slam bang action beats in this one, but the strange stillness of it is pulling me towards reading more.

[Read more…] about The Pull List: Action Comics, Avengers, Calexit, Detective Comics, Jim Henson’s Labyrinth, The Terrifics, Thanos, & more!

Filed Under: comic books, reviews Tagged With: Abbott, Action Comics, Aftershock Comics, Ales Kot, Alex de Campi, Alisik, All-New Wolverine, Avengers, Backways, Batman, Batwoman, Berger Books, Black Mask Studios, Boom Studios, Calexit, Captain Marvel, Champions, Dan Jurgens, Dark Horse, Days of Hate, DC Comics, Detective Comics, Doom Patrol, Emily Pearson, Gasolina, Hungry Ghosts, Image Comics, James Robinson, James Tynion, Jeff Lemire, Joshua Williamson, Labyrinth, Legion, Lockjaw, Marv Wolfman, Marvel Comics, Mera, Mera - Queen of Atlantis, Milk Wars, Moon Knight, Raven, Raven: Daughter of Darkness, Rob Williams, Simon Spurrier, Statix Press, Suicide Squad, Superman, Teen Titans, Thanos, The Beef, The Flash, The Pull List, The Silencer, The Terrifics, The Wilds, Titan Books, Tom Taylor, Trungles, Twisted Romance, Vita Ayala, Void Trip, Will Conrad, Wonder Woman, X-Men Blue

Review: Unfollow, Vol. 1 by Williams & Dowling

July 3, 2016 by krisis

No one can ever own or end a concept.

I think about that a lot in my constant state of creator’s decision paralysis, stemming all the way back to when I first starting writing my novel as an eighth-grader and then that summer a comic with almost the exact same concept came out.

I was young then, and I thought, “Oh no! Now they own that concept! They’ve done it so well that no one can do it again. They ended it.”

I’ve thought that many times about a lot of my creative endeavors. People have owned being a boy/girl duet band, blogging about Philly, the theme of my novel again, and many other things. Heck, it’s no so different in the start-up world, where at RJMetrics we saw dozens of other companies with similar concepts get funded and join the fray.

Here’s the thing – concepts are very rarely a zero sum game. There’s room in a single theme for many different variations.

The case and point for me is an actual zero sum game – the “many people enter, one person leaves” theme in fiction. Highlander might be the best example of this for us children of the 80s. There can be only one! Many film fans thought Battle Royale was such an innovative, transgressive take on it that no one else ought to bother. Then, of course, came Hunger Games. Some people called it a Battle Royale rip-off, while others thought it was such an innovative, transgressive take on it that one one else should bother. I loved a comic called Avengers Arena, which many people called a Battle Royale and Hunger Games rip-off, and by that point I knew better than to think it should prevent anyone else from trying the same thing.

Unfollow-tpb-vol01People keep bothering. There is something elemental about concept of a zero sum game where the sum is both power and life. No one owns zero sum games, or superheroes, or zombie apocalypses, and no single work on any of those is so prohibitive a mic drop that no one else ought to make an attempt.

All that matters is that your story is good – that your creation is compelling.

Unfollow, Vol. 1 – 140 Characters 4.0 stars Amazon Logo

Collects Unfollow #1-6 written by Rob Williams and drawn by Mike Dowling with Pahek and R.M. Guerra, with lettering by Clem Robins and color art by Quinton Weaver and Giula Brusco

Tweet-sized Review: Unfollow: a comic for tweeters who’d love a real-world Hunger Games about wealth’s abundance rather than its lack

CK Says: Buy it.

Unfollow, Vol. 1 contains the first six issues of a maddeningly intriguing comic that breathes fresh life into the concept of a zero sum game where there can be only one winner, which we’ve seen used to such great success in Highlander, Battle Royale, and Hunger Games.

Part of its delightful conceit is that there really can be more than one. Larry Ferrell, a Zuckerbergian figure, is facing imminent death and has decided to dispense his $17 billion fortune between 140 people. Their selection isn’t entirely random nor is it perfectly deliberate, and it is extremely public. Some of them are potential future CEOs and world-altering documentarians, while others are bored rich kids and god-fearing one-man militias.

There’s a catch: for every one of them who dies, the remainder of the 140 get to split that person’s inheritance of $120 million. That’s less than an extra million each, so there’s not a lot of incentive for assassination – unless, of course, you plan to slim down the ranks considerably. [Read more…] about Review: Unfollow, Vol. 1 by Williams & Dowling

Filed Under: comic books, reviews Tagged With: Battle Royale, Giula Brusco, Hunger Games, Mike Dowling, Quinton Weaver, Rob Williams, Unfollow, Vertigo, zero sum game

Primary Sidebar


Support Crushing Krisis on Patreon
Support CK
on Patreon


Follow me on Twitter Contact me Watch me on Youtube Subscribe to the CK RSS Feed

About CK

About Crushing Krisis
About My Music
About Your Author
Blog Archive
Comics Blogs Only
Contact Krisis
Terms & Conditions

Crushing Comics

Marvel Comics

Marvel Events Guide

Spider-Man Guide

DC Comics

  • Breaking News: D&D continues support of Open Gaming License (OGL 1.0), releases their core rules SRD under Creative Commons
    Breaking news! Dungeons & Dragons made the shocking announcement that they're keeping OGL v1.0 and releasing SRD 5.1 under Creative Commons! […]
  • Marvel United Multiverse Civil War Box KickstarterMarvel United: Multiverse has a Civil War in their new expansion box (and uses it to solve their Young Avengers problem)
    All out war breaks loose in CMON's Marvel United Multiverse Civil War expansion set, adding several classic Avengers and a new PVP play mode. […]
  • The Reading Order Guide to Excalibur - image from Excalibur (1988) #1Updated: Guide to Excalibur
    My updated Reading Order Guide to Excalibur adds several new collections, including big Epic Collection news! […]
  • X-Factor Math & Maps: Collected Issue Counting and Future Omnibus Mapping
    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? And, how could it all fit into Omnibus? […]
  • The Guide to Unstoppable WaspUnstoppable Wasp, Nadia van Dyne – Definitive Collecting Guide and Reading Order
    The definitive issue-by-issue comic book collecting […]
  • Marvel United Multiverse Age of Apocalypse - Kickstarter Exclusive BoxMarvel United: Multiverse enters the Age of Apocalypse! (plus, predicting the 10 most-likely expansion boxes)
    CMON's Marvel United: Multiverse - Age of Apocalypse brings more mutants to the game! What are the 10 next expansions we might see soon? […]
  • The Guide to Unstoppable WaspNew for Patrons: Guide to Unstoppable Wasp, Nadia van Dyne
    Who is The Unstoppable Wasp, and how did an elegant retcon from writer Mark Waid make her a different character than the MCU's Hope van Dyne? […]
  • Champions (2016) #1 variantGuide to The Champions – now available to the public!
    My Guide to The Champions is now available to everyone! Learn why Marvel abandoned this team concept after its 1977 cancellation until 2016. […]
  • Dolly told me I’m doing okay
    Do you know what happens when you run a lot, even when you hate every single second of doing it? Eventually, it gets easier. But, Dolly Parton doesn't always offer you encouragement when you shatter your personal record. […]
  • RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 15, Episode 4 – Snatch Game, Review & Power Ranking
    The double-size Season 15 Snatch Game gave us 14 celebrity impressions and a surprising amount of successes, though queens struggled with their "Beautiful Nightmare" runway prompt. […]
  • Marvel United: Multiverse makes more mutants, plus Inhumans enter the fray with War of Kings!
    The Marvel United: Multiverse campaign debuts a War of Kings box, and I tally a few hundred missing mutants they could add to the campaign. […]
  • Werewolf by Night – Definitive Collecting Guide and Reading Order
    The definitive issue-by-issue comic book collecting […]
  • Washington Post - New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern resigns ahead of electionA Surprise Farewell to Prime Minister Ardern
    It felt like Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern was personally keeping my family safe with her decisive actions on gun violence and COVID policy. Now that era is coming to a close. […]
  • Marvel United Multiverse Kickstarter Campaign ImageCMON’s Marvel United returns to Kickstarter with Marvel United: Multiverse!
    Board game publisher CMON is back on Kickstarter with a third wave of their delightful Marvel United game - and this time, it's multiversal! Their new campaign is for Marvel United: Multiverse! […]

Layout copyright © 2017 · Foodie Pro Theme by Shay Bocks · Built on the Genesis Framework · Powered by WordPress

Links from Crushing Krisis to retailer websites may be in the form of affiliate links. If you purchase through an affiliate link I will receive a minor credit as your referrer. My credit does not affect your purchase price. Affiliate programs and affiliations include, but are not limited to: Amazon Services LLC Associates Program (in the US, UK, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, and Spain), eBay Partner Network, and iTunes Affiliate Program.