Star Wars

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

April 17, 2023 by krisis 4 Comments

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.

New Comics & Collected Editions: Marvel Comics – April 19, 2023

April 16, 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 April 19 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 April 19 2023 Collected Editions

Guardians of the Galaxy by Al Ewing (2023 paperback, ISBN 978-1302949907 / digital)
See Guide to Guardians of the Galaxy. This is effectively a “Complete Collection,” though Marvel is starting to phase that brand out in favor of “Modern Epics.” This not only includes Ewing’s complete Guardians run (but none of the Last Annihilation tie-ins), but also his run on Rocket (2017) #1-6.

The Incredible Hulk Epic Collection Vol. 24: The Lone and Level Sands
See Guide to Hulk – Bruce Banner. This is ostensibly the last Hulk Epic Collection, as it complete the run of the Incredible Hulk (1968) series.

Iron Man Epic Collection: Doom (2018 paperback, ISBN 978-1302910136 / 2023 paperback, ISBN 978-1302950446 / digital)
See Guide to Iron Man, Tony Stark. This is a reprint of an existing 2018 Epic.

Marvel Masterworks: Daredevil Vol. 17 (2023 hardcover, ISBN 978-1302949259 / digital)
See Guide to Daredevil. This collection brings us to the end of the original Frank Miller run on Daredevil! Now we have it completely remastered to Masterworks quality. I’d expect it to finally hit Epic Collection in the next year or two.

Marvel-Verse: Rocket & Groot (2023 paperback, ISBN 978-1302950729 / digital)
See Guide to Rocket Raccoon. Collects a smattering of Rocket & Groot adventures from Incredible Hulk (1963) #271, Free Comic Book Day 2014 (Rocket), Rocket Raccoon (2014) #5, Rocket Raccoon and Groot (2016) #4, Groot (2015) #6 and material from A Year of Marvels: The Unbeatable

Planet of the Apes Adventures: The Original Marvel Years Omnibus (2023 hardcover, ISBN 978-1302950736 / digital)
This incredibly slim omnibus collects Adventures on the Planet of the Apes (1975) #1-11.

Predator by Ed Brisson, Vol. 1: Day of the Hunter (2023 paperback, ISBN 978-1302926199 / digital)
Collects Predator (2022) #1-6

Trials of X, Vol. 8 (2023 paperback, ISBN 978-1302948429 / digital)
See Guide to X-Men – The Age of Krakoa. These anthologies are still pretty far behind the present day – this is just cracking into Sabretooth’s series from the start of 2022!

Read on for a rundown of Marvel Comics April 19 2023 single-issue releases, including a link to their accompanying guide pages on Crushing Comics.

New Comics & Collected Editions: Marvel Comics – April 12 2023

April 12, 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 12 2023 releases.

Marvel Comics April 12 2023 Collected Editions

Ghost Rider (2022) Vol. 2: Shadow Country (2023 paperback, ISBN 978-1302947972 / digital)
See Guide to Ghost Rider. This continues collecting the current Benjamin Percy series, plus the Ghost Rider: Vengeance Forever (2022) #1 one-shot. The upcoming crossover with Wolverine is still one volume beyond this – we’ll get a Volume 3 later this year before the crossover is collected in its own book. The Ghost Rider Guide is updated with all of those collections!

Guardians of the Galaxy Epic Collection: Earth Shall Overcome (2023 paperback, ISBN 978-1302950439 / digital)
See Guide to Guardians of the Galaxy. This is an Epic Collection not of the main MCU Guardians team in their early appearances, but of the original Guardians of the Galaxy team which were based in the future.

Thor Mighty Marvel Masterworks Vol. 3: The Trial of the Gods (2023 digest-size paperback, ISBN 978-1302948931 / digital)
See Guide to Thor – The Odinson. This is Marvel’s new digest-size Silver Age collection line, which DOES NOT line up perfectly with the break points in existing hardcover Masterworks.

Nova, Vol. 1: Sam Alexander (2023 digest-size paperback, ISBN 978-1302950422 / digital)
See Guide to Nova(s). This is volume is part of Marvel’s initiative to recollect all of their 2010s teen heroes into library-friendly, digest-sized paperbacks. This covers the first two arcs of Sam’s 2013 Marvel Now series.

Shang-Chi and the Ten Rings (2023 paperback, ISBN 978-1302948351 / digital)
See Guide to Shang-Chi. This collects the third series (and subsequent one-shot) of Gene Luen Yang’s ongoing run on Shang-Chi.

War of Kings Omnibus (2023 oversize hardcover, ISBN / digital)
See Guide to Marvel Universe Events – War of Kings & Realm of Kings. This collects the heart of the multi-year intergalactic epic that mashed up X-Men, Inhumans, and the new Guardians of the Galaxy. This is immensely satisfying to read all in a single, coherent collected order – even if you don’t have the Prelude or Aftermath omnibuses to sandwich it.

X-Men Epic Collection Volume 22: Legacies (2023 paperback, ISBN 978-1302951115 / digital)
See Guide to Uncanny X-Men – The Crossover Era or Guide to X-Men, Vol 2 (1991). This is the fourth Epic Volume that interweaves both flagship X-Men titles in reading order – exactly what we’ve always wanted! This covers the aftermath of X-Cutioner’s Song, the lead-up to Fatal Attractions, and the introduction of Kwannon as Revanche – Psylocke’s body double!

Read on for a rundown of Marvel Comics April 12 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 12 2023

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

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!