Scarlet Witch

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

September 5, 2023 by krisis Leave a Comment

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.

New Comics & Collected Editions: Marvel Comics – April 5 2023

April 5, 2023 by krisis Leave a Comment

Let’s take a look at what’s out from Marvel Comics this week! This post covers Marvel Comics April 5 2023 releases.

Marvel Comics April 5 2023 Collected Editions

This is a slim week for new collected editions – there’s just four books out, and one is a reprint!

Adam Warlock Omnibus (2023 oversize hardcover, ISBN 978-1302949877 / digital)
See Guide to Adam Warlock. This collects Warlock’s full Silver & Bronze Age Warlock saga all in one place for the first time, from his debut as “Him” in the pages of Stan Lee & Jack Kirby’s Fantastic Four to Jim Starlin’s psychedelic late-70s space epic! You can read this and continue directly to Infinity Gauntlet.

Fantastic Four Epic Collection Volume 3: The Coming of Galactus
(2023 paperback, ISBN 978-1302950415 / digital)
See Guide to Fantastic Four. This is the third time this particular Epic has been back to print. That speaks not only to the fact that it’s one of the Marvel’s most-significant stories of all time, but also speaks to the ongoing success of the Epic Collection line as we head into its second decade. It’s doing exactly the thing it’s meant to do – getting books all into the same format and reprinting them whenever necessary!

Marvel-Verse: Guardians of the Galaxy (2023 digest-size paperback, ISBN 978-1302950705 / digital)
See Guide to Guardians of the Galaxy. This collects a smattering of stand-alone Guardians stories from the middle of Bendis’s run through the beginning of Duggan’s run, including one previously uncollected issue – Guardians of the Galaxy: Dream On (2017) #1. A decent, if scant, sampler platter if you’re averse to sampling digitally on Marvel Unlimited – but it’s hard to take it seriously without any material from the 2008 series.

Star-Lord: The Saga of Peter Quill (2023 paperback, ISBN 978-1302950712 / digital)
See Guide to Star-Lord, Peter Quill. This is the collection if you want to grab Star-Lords earliest set of continuity stories in the Marvel Universe. I say “continuity” stories because the character of Peter Quill as Star-Lord first debuted in the 1970s, but all of his early adventures have been since rendered as occurring in a separate reality due to some unresolvable time travel shenanigans. That means when Quill pops up in the 2003 Thanos ongoing series, it’s technically his first appearance (though, making things even more confusing, at the time he was assumed to still be the same character as that 1970s version). All of this and more is explained in my guide!

Read on for a rundown of Marvel Comics April 5 2023 single-issue releases, including a link to their accompanying guide pages on Crushing Comics. [Read more…] about New Comics & Collected Editions: Marvel Comics – April 5 2023

Krisis on Near Mint Condition, Mapping Scarlet Witch!

May 31, 2022 by krisis

Earlier Tonight I was incredibly excited to re-unite with my “Map My X” compatriots Ødfel and Ryley as well as Near Mint Condition host Omar to dig into mapping a theoretical Scarlet Witch omnibus!

If you’ve never seen one of our “Map My X” streams before, here’s what you need to know: it is a game of fantasy omnibus mapping.

All four of us enter with sometimes wildly different potential maps of 30-60 issues worth of material to cram into a single Marvel Omnibus with a maximum page count in the 1600-page range. Then we haggle for two hours between the four of us and our live commenters over what’s in, what’s out, and what awesome cover should grace the front of the book.

And, if Marvel eventually gets around to printing it, we get to see just how right we were – like when we perfectly hit the mark with our New Mutants, Vol. 2 mapping!

Here’s our incredibly deep diving into the Scarlet Witch Reading Order from her debut in 1964 through the early 1990s (plus, a glimpse at the state of my totally rock-and-roll mane of curls, a frequent topic in the comments section):

The final mapping we all agreed to in the video was:

Scarlet Witch Classic Omnibus, collecting Uncanny X-Men #4-5 (and material from 6-7 & 11), Strange Tales #128, Avengers (1963) #16, 76, 128, 185-187, 234 (and material from #181-182), Giant-Size Avengers #1 & 4, Vision & Scarlet Witch (1982) 1-4, Marvel Team-Up #125 (2nd story), Marvel Fanfare #6 & 58 (2nd story), Marvel Two-in-One #66, Doctor Strange (1974) #60, Vision & Scarlet Witch (1985) #1-12, West Coast Avengers #2 & 42-45 (and material from 46), Marvel Super-Heroes (1999) #10 (1st story), Solo Avengers (1987) #5 (2nd story), Marvel Comics Presents (1988) #60-63 (3rd story), Avengers West Coast #47-57 & 60-62 (and material from 58-59), Darkhold: Pages from the Book of Sins (1992) #3-7, and Scarlet Witch (1994) #1-4 (plus extras from the Vision & The Scarlet Witch – The Saga Of Wanda And Vision 2021 trade paperback).

However, that was NOT the mapping I walked in with! I felt the book should include more classic material and cut off after Avengers West Coast #62, to be followed up with a The Avengers & Scarlet Witch volume to collect the remainder of West Coast.

Here was the map I walked into the show planning to pitch:

Scarlet Witch Classic Omnibus, Uncanny X-Men (1963) #4-7 & 11 (and material from 53), Strange Tales (1951) #128, Avengers (1963) #16-18, 22, 25, 75-76, 128, 181-182, 185-187, 234, & 312 (and material from 47-49), Giant-Size Avengers (1974) #1 & 4, Marvel Two-In-One (1974) #66, Vision & Scarlet Witch (1982) #1-4, Marvel Team-Up (1972) #125 (2nd story) & #129-130, Marvel Fanfare (1982) #6 & 58 (2nd story), Power-Man & Iron Fist (1978) #102, Doctor Strange (1974) #60, Vision & Scarlet Witch Vol. 2 (1985) #1-12, West Coast Avengers Vol. 2 (1985) #2 & 42-45 (and material from 46), Marvel Super-Heroes Vol. 3 (1990) #10 (1st story), Solo Avengers (1987) #5 (2nd story), Marvel Comics Presents (1988) #60-63 (3rd story), and Avengers West Coast (1989) #47-57 & 60-62 (and material from 58-59).

What’s the difference? Aside from the slightly earlier cut-off, I was planning to include a lot more material to form a more complete Scarlet Witch Reading Order!

I erred on the side of including more of Scarlet Witch’s Silver Age material, both to establish her leaving the Brotherhood, and to show some of her key early adventures with the Avengers, including all of their major Magneto encounters.

I also felt it was worth including a Team-Up two-parter with Vision from #129-130, as well as a Wanda-focused issue of Power-Man & Iron Fist. And, finally, I had less of a problem with double-dipping all of “Vision Quest” and “Darker Than Scarlet” from the Avengers by John Byrne omnibus, since they are her signature stories.

Want to work through your own Scarlet Witch mapping? Check out my previously patrons-only Definitive Guide to The Scarlet Witch to find a complete Scarlet Witch Reading Order of all of her appearances from the Silver Age through 2018!

New For Patrons: Definitive Guide to Scarlet Witch

October 29, 2017 by krisis

Today I launched a long-awaited guide especially for Patrons of Crushing Krisis – The Definitive Scarlet Witch Collecting Guide and Reading Order! This guide was their top pick in a Patrons’ Choice poll for April.

This guide covers Wanda Maximoff’s entire chronological Marvel history, including every single appearance from her debut as a villain in X-Men #4 to joining The Avengers in Avengers #16 to her later romance with Vision, breakdown in “Avengers Disassembled,” return in Children’s Crusade, and – finally – a 15-issue Scarlet Witch solo series in 2016-17.

Even with her mid-2000s hiatus from comics, Scarlet Witch’s Avengers membership accounts for nearly 45 years out of the Avengers’ 54 years as a franchise – making her one of the longest-running, most-permanent heroes on the team’s roster. It’s only in the course of the past decade that it isn’t a truism that Wanda would be appearing somewhere in the Avengers line-up, and recently it seems she can be expected to co-anchor Uncanny Avengers along with Rogue.

Want access to this guide? Patrons’ Choice guides get picked from a pool of pages I’m not planning to work on for many months, so this one isn’t scheduled for released to the public anytime soon! But, you can be reading it tomorrow in exchange for covering $1.99 a month of CK’s hosting expenses.

The Definitive Scarlet Witch Collecting Guide and Reading Order

The definitive Scarlet Witch issue-by-issue collecting guide and trade reading order for comic books, omnibus, hardcover, and trade paperback collections. Find every issue and appearance! Part of Crushing Krisis’s Crushing Comics. Last updated September 2023 with titles scheduled for release through May 2024.

Wanda Maximoff is The Scarlet Witch – one of the most powerful mutants in Marvel’s universe, and the sometimes daughter of Magneto. She is able to alter reality at her whim with blasts of pure chaos, causing anything from a wall suddenly crumble down upon a villain to an alteration to the fabric of our universe.

Scarlet Witch is one of Marvel’s earliest reformed villains and one of their most dedicated heroes. She forms a link between the X-Men and Avengers franchises that has been in place since 1965.

For the prior year, Wanda and her brother Quicksilver had appeared together as members of Magneto’s Brotherhood of Evil Mutants since their debut in X-Men (1963) #4. However, in May of 1965 the mutant twins shocked both Marvel’s characters and their readers by applying for membership with Captain America’s reformed Avengers in Avengers (19630 #16.

While Quicksilver has come and gone from The Avengers since then, Scarlet Witch has remained a mainstay of the team. Her initial membership ran for a nearly-continuous 20 years before she spun off into a year-long maxi series with her beau The Vision in 1985, which depicted their unusual romance and eventual home life. Wanda even gave birth to a pair of twins.

After that domestic interlude, Wanda returned to active Avengers membership with the West Coast Avengers. Under the pen of John Byrne, she had her own “Dark Phoenix” period, turning on her teammates. However, she quickly returned to heroism and broke away from The Avengers with her other teammates to form the more proactive Force Works in 1994, lead by Iron Man (but not before briefly headlining her own limited series).

A subsequent return to The Avengers was short-lived, as the results of Onslaught shunted Wanda and her teammates into a pocket universe in 1996 before they returned in a new flagship title in 1998. Scarlet Witch was a founding member and an ongoing anchor of the team.

Everything changed in 2004, when red-hot writer Brian Michael Bendis was given free reign to rebuild the flagging Avengers franchise. His answer was a four-issue arc called “Avengers Disassembled,” which would both elevate and irrevocably alter Scarlet Witch’s profile in the Marvel Universe. It’s follow-up, the X-Men and Avengers crossover House of M, would emphasize Wanda as the link between the two teams and also prove her to be one of the most powerful forces in the universe.

After that climax, five whole years passed with only the scantest hints of Wanda’s continued existence. She returned in Avengers: The Children’s Crusade, which both addressed her absence and resolved her seeming connection to a pair of Young Avengers – Wiccan and Speed – who closely resembled Wanda and her brother.

With Scarlet Witch back in action, she was a natural choice to anchor a “Unity” team of Avengers and X-Men in Uncanny Avengers in 2012 to welcome the Marvel Now era. A second volume of that book called into question her long-established link to Magneto (which many fans took as a rebuke of FOX being able to use Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch in their X-Men movies). Then, after Secret Wars, she starred in her own ongoing series for the first time in 2016 before making a return to Uncanny Avengers in 2017.