Star Wars Legends

Star Wars Legends Guide – Updated through November 2023!

February 17, 2023 by krisis Leave a Comment

I’m excited to take a (very brief) detour from updating my core of X-Men guides to bring you a comprehensive update to my guide page that might contain the most individual series in the most exact reading order out of all of Crushing Krisis! It’s not May the 4th, but it’s time to journey to a universe far, far away with this update to my Star Wars Legends Guide – which covers the entirety of the old Star Wars Expanded Universe comics that ran from 1977 to 2015!

Guide to Star Wars Legends Comics (Expanded Universe Comics, 1977 – 2015)

As I’ve been sprinting through updating all of my Marvel Comics guides, I hadn’t given too much thought to collections of the Star Wars Legends old Expanded Universe. Of course, Marvel is pumping out new Expanded Universe comics non-stop, which have now expanded to post Empire Strikes Back and into the High Republic era.

But… how much action could there be on recollecting Star Wars Legends in a handful of years?

Apparently, a lot of action. I was surprised when I showed up to my live co-hosting gig with Near Mint Condition last week to discover how many Star Wars Legends omnibuses have been released over the past two years. When our co-host Kurtis from Epic Marvel Podcast mentioned that the Star Wars Legends Epic Collection line was only a handful of books from being completed, I knew it was time to take a closer look at updating my Star Wars Legends Guide.

(Kurtis also sent me some personalized recommendations of Star Wars Legends comics after the stream, which sent me even further down the rabbit hole. So, if you’re happy for this guide update, you have him to thank.)

What I discovered is that Marvel has transformed the landscape of Star Wars Legends over the past few years. [Read more…] about Star Wars Legends Guide – Updated through November 2023!

New Comics & Collected Editions: Marvel Comics – February 8, 2023

February 8, 2023 by krisis Leave a Comment

Welcome to the second in my trial run of a return to new release posts! This post covers Marvel Comics February 8 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.

Marvel Comics February 8 2023 Collected Editions

Avengers by Jonathan Hickman Omnibus, Vol. 1
(2017 hardcover, ISBN 978-1302907082 / 2023 hardcover, ISBN 978-1302945473 / digital)
This is the massively-satisfying first half of Hickman’s Avengers run, taking it through the end of the Infinity event in perfect Hickman-approved reading order. Although I’ve been known to have complains about this run, they’re 100% from the back half – you cannot go wrong with this (and I’m a rare dissenter on the run as a whole). See the Guide to Avengers Flagships (2010 – Present Day).

Avengers By Jason Aaron Vol. 11: History’s Mightiest Heroes
(2022 paperback, ISBN 978-1302928858 / digital)
This is the final volume of this series collected on its own before it heads into the climactic Avengers Assemble crossover. See Guide to Avengers Flagships (2010 – Present Day).

Avengers: Kree/Skrull War Gallery Edition HC
(2023 oversize “Gallery” hardcover, ISBN 978-1302949594)
These gallery editions are even larger than omnibus-size – they’re similar to DC Absolutes. And, if any classic run of art merits one, it’s Kree/Skrull war, which contains one of my favorite issues of all time, Avengers (1963) #93 – “Journey to the Center of the Android.” See Guide to Avengers (1963 – 1996).

Mighty Marvel Masterworks: Captain Marvel Vol. 1 – The Coming of Captain Marvel
(2023 paperback, ISBN 978-1302948894 / digital)
This book is part of Marvel’s new paperback Masterworks recollection line, which does not always line up directly with the breaks in the original Masterworks line. See Guide to Captain Marvel, Carol Danvers or Guide to Captain Marvel, Mar-Vell (eventually).

Star Wars Legends Epic Collection: The Menace Revealed Vol. 3
(2023 paperback, ISBN 978-1302932312 / digital)
This release (and the announcement of some Epics for later in 2023) brings us tantalizingly close to full coverage of Star Wars Legends in Epic format. Of course… Marvel hasn’t reprinted a single volume, so some of them have risen to omnibus-prices on the aftermarket! We’ll see if Marvel releasing the actual omnibuses deflates that a bit. See Guide to Star Wars Legends (Expanded Universe, 1977-2015).

X-Men: The Animated Series – The Adaptations Omnibus
(2023 oversize hardcover, ISBN 978-1302947774 / digital)
This one is PACKED with nostalgia for us 90s X-kids. It collects the three ongoing series comic adaptations-slash-extensions of the iconic X-Men Animated series. Collects X-Men Adventures (1992) #1-15, X-Men Adventures (1994) #1-13 and X-Men Adventures (1995) #1-13 in full. See Guide to X-Men Ongoing Titles.

Read on for a rundown of Marvel Comics February 8 2023 single-issue releases, including a link to their accompanying guide pages on Crushing Comics.

Star Wars Legends Comics – The Old Expanded Universe by Marvel Comics and Dark Horse Comics

The guide to collecting Star Wars Legends – the old Expanded Universe – comic books by Marvel and Dark Horse. Find every omnibus, Epic collection, hardcover, and trade paperback in reading order. Part of Crushing Comic’s Guide to Star Wars. Last updated February 2023 with titles scheduled for release through November 2023.

These 30 years of comics were removed from canon (along with nearly everything else that wasn’t a film or TV show) in 2014 when LucasFilms announced the impending Episode VII and the move of their comics license to Disney sibling Marvel Comics.

That means these stories have all been rendered out-of-continuity to the current Star Wars universe. Compared to current canon, these stories range from alternate retellings to complete fiction, much as we regard children’s stories and fairy tales.

However, just because these Star Wars Legends stories are no longer in continuity it doesn’t mean they are not worth reading. They include a massive 25-year effort to maintain an interconnect, cross-media canon that began nearly a decade before The Phantom Menance and stretched all the way through the announcement of the sequel trilogy!

Along the way, these comics – combined with other Expanded Universe works like novels, video games, and magazines – defined centuries of Star Wars canon (including the original Old Republic!), introduced memorable characters (like Thrawn and Mara Jade), and filled in deeper layers of tragedy and drama of the rise and fall of the Empire that the films alone could not construct.

These stories were once collected comprehensively and in impressively-detailed reading order by Dark Horse Comics in a set of paperback Omnibuses. When Disney moved the Star Wars license back to Marvel Comics in 2015, Marvel began to repeat that methodology (with some tweaks) into their own Epic Collection format.

Marvel’s Epic Collections are broken across the broad, identifiable eras of Expanded Universe continuity. While they largely maintain the Dark Horse Omnibus reading orders, they have made some tweaks to placement both for continuity and to maintain the relative parity in the length of their books.

With a dwindling amount of Epic Collections left to release, in 2022 Marvel pivoted into recollecting the Expanded Universe a second time – now into hefty oversize hardcover omnibus editions.

Many thanks to Kurtis from The Epic Marvel Podcast for his aid in some of the continuity and contents of books covered by this page!