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Roy Thomas

Conan The Barbarian: Marvel’s Most Well-Collected Hero (really!)

March 15, 2017 by krisis

Today I bring you a first for Crushing Comics – a guide to a licensed character who has lived with two different publishers over the course of his nearly 5o-year comics career: The Definitive Conan Comics Collecting Guide and Reading Order!

Created with the support of Patrons!

In fact, I’d say that Conan might be Marvel’s best-collected hero of all time – better than X-Men and Spider-Man! More on that, below.

I’ve always been fascinated with Conan, starting from catching scenes from Arnold’s 1982 film on my parent’s TV as a kid and a tattered old copy of Conan The Barbarian #62 I somehow inherited straight through my first attempt at penning new releases posts in 2015.

It was in researching that post that I became obsessed with how deep Conan’s reprinted archives were – Dark Horse had issued dozens of paperbacks covering his entire primary run at Marvel as well collections covering over 100 issues in the new Dark Horse continuity.

Conan-the-Barbarian-1970-0062

Possibly my first comic book ever! I still have the tattered copy in my attic as a keepsake.

As I said then, “[N]ow I kind of want to read Conan. This is how it happens.” I’m a sucker for long runs, and an even bigger sucker for coherent collected shelves.

While I’ve managed to avoid the siren call of collecting these dozens of books, I couldn’t resist trying to untangle the various releases.

Marvel held Conan license from 1970 to 2000 and produced several distinct continuities of Conan in that period – including 23 years of Barbarian (the majority written by Roy Thomas) plus a magazine called The Savage Sword of Conan and King Conan, a title with stories of the more mature hero.

Marvel rebooted Conan in 1994 before Dark Horse acquired the rights (which included rights to reprint Marvel’s stories!). Then, in 2003, Dark Horse launched their own Conan continuity, originally written by Kurt Busiek and hewing very closely to the original Robert E. Howard stories.

Dark Horse’s Conan has run through s sequence of titles ranging from 12 to 50 issues in length, starting with plain old Conan, followed by Conan The Cimmerian – even though that’s actually a befitting title for an initial volume considering it’s how Robert E. Howard originally described him:

Hither came Conan, the Cimmerian, black-haired, sullen-eyed, sword in hand, a thief, a reaver, a slayer, with gigantic melancholies and gigantic mirth, to tread the jeweled thrones of the Earth under his sandalled feet.”

Between the two publishers, they’ve printed over 850 original Conan comics across multiple continuities and timelines – which definitely merits some guidance when it comes to collecting, especially seeing as some volumes have nearly the same names as each other! And so my Guide to Conan was born.

Just how collected are those Conan issues? Would you believe over 90% of them are available in a modern collected edition from 2003 and forward? Keep reading to learn how it breaks down.

[Read more…] about Conan The Barbarian: Marvel’s Most Well-Collected Hero (really!)

Filed Under: comic books, thoughts Tagged With: Collected Editions, Conan, Dark Horse, Kurt Busiek, New Comic Guide, Roy Thomas

Definitive Conan Comics Collecting Guide and Reading Order

The Conan comic books definitive issue-by-issue collecting guide and trade reading order for omnibus, hardcover, and trade paperback collections. Find every issue and appearance! A part of Crushing Krisis’s Crushing Comics. Last updated June 2020 with titles scheduled for release through February 2021.

Conan has lived many lives in comics, from a young barbarian to a grizzled old king. Those lives are split into two distinct periods of Conan comics with distinctly different story continuity.

His first life in comics was at Marvel from 1970 through 2000, largely under the pen of veteran Roy Thomas in his long-running series Conan the Barbarian.

Then, in 2003, Conan comics made the jump to Dark Horse – initially under the pen of Kurt Busiek. Dark Horse launched his book with reverence, assuring fans that they would present adaptations of Robert E. Howard’s original work and its implied connective tissue – nothing more.

In a major twist, Marvel won the license back starting in January of 2019! That means Marvel is able to release new Conan titles, reprints of their original Conan comics, and reprints of Dark Horse’s 15 years of Conan!

The contents of Marvel’s original run from 1970 to 2000 are listed as an alphabetical index by title, since they published many series outside of the spine of Barbarian and King Conan. However, the content of the page is chronological by series.

Dark Horse’s contents are listed and presented chronologically in the order the series have been released.

Patreons make this page possible! Every month, Patrons of Crushing Krisis help to fund its hosting, helper applications, video production, and more! Every dollar contributed by Patrons goes directly to helping sustain and grow this site.
[Read more…] about Definitive Conan Comics Collecting Guide and Reading Order

New Collecting Guide: Doctor Strange (plus, 5 suggestions for new fans)

July 11, 2016 by krisis

I’m happy to share The Definitive Doctor Strange Collecting Guide and Reading Order! It includes every Doctor Strange issue ever published with notes on trade-reading order and guest appearances.

Agamatto-eyed readers may have spotted it last week, but as of today the guide is officially out of its beta-release phase and ready to help you collect Marvel’s most-famous mystic.

Doctor Strange by Alex RossThis is the first of several new and revised collection pages I’ll be highlighting over the next few weeks; you can already see several of them in action in Crushing Comics.

Doctor Strange was one of Marvel’s original Silver Age heroes, debuting in 1963 in Strange Tales, a title he split with Nick Fury. He is a brilliant-but-prideful surgeon whose career is ruined when his hands are injured in an accident, and in his quest to repair them he stumbles into the world of mysticism.

Like Fury, he was one of the few freshly-invented Silver Age solo heroes not to be hoovered up by The Avengers. This was exploited by his inclusion in The Defenders, a team of relative outcasts that also included The Hulk, Namor, and Silver Surfer.

Aside from a brief blip at the beginning of the 70s, Strange starred in an ongoing book in continuous publication through 1996, when his third volume was cancelled with no replacement.

Unlike fellow hot-in-the-90s hero Ghost Rider, Strange got no ongoing revival in the 00s, although he was finally absorbed by the Avengers under Brian Bendis’s tenure (partially due to his participation in The Illuminati).

After playing a critical (some may say “starring”) role in Jonathan Hickman’s Avengers mega-story that began in 2013, Doctor Strange finally found his way back into an ongoing title from Jason Aaron and Chris Bachalo in the fall of 2015 in anticipation of his big screen debut in 2016.

I’ve always had affection for the good doctor, but I did some foot-dragging on giving him his own guide due to his relatively low profile in past years. However, with his movie coming up this fall, it was finally time to attack his guide – no small feat, since he’s had over a dozen series and one-shots to call his own plus a starring role in most incarnations of The Defenders.

If that all sound great but you’re kind of new to this comics game, what should you sample to find out of you like Doctor Strange? Here’s a few books to try: [Read more…] about New Collecting Guide: Doctor Strange (plus, 5 suggestions for new fans)

Filed Under: comic books Tagged With: Chris Bachalo, Collected Editions, Doctor Strange, Emma Rios, Greg Pak, Jason Aaron, Marcos Martin, Mark Waid, Mike Mignola, Roger Stern, Roy Thomas

Marvel’s Most-Wanted Omnibuses of 2016 – 6 books that missed the cut

June 18, 2016 by krisis

Omnibus on ShelfWe’re hurtling towards a conclusion of 2016’s Most-Wanted Omnibuses from TigerEyes’ secret ballot, but before I could even get the whole list out some of them have been announced for publication in 2017!

This isn’t all that unusual – they whole reason TigerEyes runs this survey in May and June of each year is to beat the solicitations for January of the following year. Anticipating we’d see a few of the most-wanted books picked off, he reveal a list of the next six books that just missed the cut.

These six books will all be big contenders next year (unless they’re printed before then). Let’s dive in… [Read more…] about Marvel’s Most-Wanted Omnibuses of 2016 – 6 books that missed the cut

Filed Under: comic books Tagged With: 2001: A Space Odyssey, Arthur C. Clarke, Avengers, Bill Mantlo, Collected Editions, Doctor Strange, Galactic Storm, Gene Colan, J. Michael Straczynski, Machine Man, Marvel Comics, Micronauts, Mike Carey, Omnibus, Professor X, Quasar, Rogue, Roy Thomas, Spider-Man, Stanley Kubrick, Wonder Man, X-Men, X-Men Legacy

Marvel’s Most-Wanted Omnibuses of 2016 – #9, 8, and 7

June 15, 2016 by krisis

Omnibus on ShelfWelcome to another edition of Marvel’s most-wanted omnibuses based on the annual secret ballot by Tigereyes. I covered #10-12 in the last installment.

We’ve broken through to the Top 10 books on the survey. That doesn’t immediately make all of it classic – some of it warrants high demand for other reasons, like a specific creator or filling in a highly-desired gap.

However, today I have three classics for you. For two of the books, that designation is an obvious one. For the third, this might be the first time you’ve ever been asked to consider it as a classic, but I’ve felt that way for over 25 years!

Do you own an oversized tome of the comics starring your favorite character or featuring your favorite story? My Marvel Omnibus & Oversized Hardcover Guide is the most comprehensive tool on the web for tracking Marvel’s hugest releases – it features details on every oversize book, including a rundown of contents and if the volume is still readily available for purchase. [Read more…] about Marvel’s Most-Wanted Omnibuses of 2016 – #9, 8, and 7

Filed Under: comic books Tagged With: Alan Davis, Avengers, Black Panther, Captain Britain, Chris Claremont, Collected Editions, Excalibur, Fantastic Four, Hank Pym, Jack Kirby, Kitty Pryde, Man-Ape, Marvel Comics, Nightcrawler, Omnibus, Rachel Grey Summers, Roy Thomas, Stan Lee, Ultron, Vision, X-Men

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