Superman

Superman Omnibus Mapping for the Tigereyes Most Wanted DC Omnibus 1st Annual Poll

May 7, 2024 by krisis

Mapping continues, my friends! From now until May 19, I’ll be loosely mapping missing and most-wanted DC omnibus volumes every day! Then, on the 19th, I’ll be joining with Near Mint Condition to launch the first annual Tigereyes Most Wanted DC Omnibus Annual Poll! This post covers every missing solo Superman omnibus, from the Golden Age to the present day.

This post explains potential Superman Omnibus Mapping for votes on the Tigereyes Most Wanted DC Omnibus 1st Annual Secret Ballot. I’m posting all of these maps before the poll begins to give people the time to consider their favorites, correct our mapping mistakes, and catch books I might have missed.

Why move on to Superman? Because I’ve just covered the vast majority of his comics in four guides over the past few months, so he’s fresh in my brain! Right now, Patrons of CK have access to Guide to Action Comics (Pre-Crisis, 1938-1986), Guide to Action Comics (Post-Crisis, 1987 – Present), Guide to Superman (Pre-Crisis, (1939 – 1986), and Guide to Superman (Post-Crisis, 1987 – Present).

If you don’t know DC well enough to know what to vote for, stick around for my explanations! Learn why the team behind the poll decided on these books and titles – including giving us feedback if we missed the mark.

If voting is now open, you can use this as your crib sheet! Or… just find some great comics to read!

Remember: These mappings are just my suggestion of how DC could assemble these books. They are meant to help you decide on your votes and build your personal reading list, but your vote on the poll is NOT an endorsement of my specific map. It’s a vote in favor of DC creating a book with that title or covering that period.

High-effort, heavily-researched, over-the-top comics posts like this one are made possible via the support of Patrons of Crushing Krisis. For less than the cost of a single comic issue a month you can fuel my in-depth comics coverage, plus gain access to dozens of exclusive collecting guides & reading orders – including all of the Crushing Comics Guide to DC Comics.

New Comics & Collected Editions Releases: DC Comics – May 8 2024

May 4, 2024 by krisis

It’s the 18th new comic book day of the new year! This post covers DC Comics May 8 2024 releases, which actually hit comic stores on Tuesday May 7 2024. Missed last week’s releases? Check out last week’s post covering DC Comics May 1 2024 new releases.

(DC is still releasing their comics on Tuesday until the start of July, but I think most folks think of Wednesday as release day, so that’s how I’m labelling my posts until then.)

This week in DC Comics: spotlight on Steel, the mystery of Birds of Prey, the end of Poison Ivy begins, Zod lost in space, Shazam gets silly again, a massive Dick (Grayson) Compendium, and more!

This list includes every comic and digital comic out from DC this week, plus collected editions including omnibus, hardcover, paperback, and digest-sized formats. I recap and review every new single issue. Plus, for every new release, I’ll point you to the right guide within my Crushing Comics Guide to DC Comics 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!

DC Comics May 8 2024 Collected Editions

52 Volume One
(2024 paperback, ISBN 978-1779525857 / digital)
See Guide to DC Universe Events – Trinity, 52, and One Year Later. This is a straight reprint of a 2016 recollection of this 52-issue weekly anthology series that collected exactly half of its run.

The 52 (2006) series was a delightful sampler platter of slightly more obscure DC heroes, who would largely disappear from view from 2011-2020. If you enjoy the idea of a grab-bag of smaller DC characters operating in a vacuum where Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman won’t be saving the day, this is for you.

Nightwing: A Knight in Blüdhaven Compendium Book One
(2024 paperback, ISBN 978-1779525864)
See Guide to Nightwing. Ah, the DC collected editions “strategy” strikes again. DC is rolling out these 1,000-page hulks of paperback collections with 40-ish issues each. Great way to collect huge swaths of DC’s endless catalog in a uniform format, right? These massive doorstops could cruise across all of DC’s major superhero title lines, and even the hugest ones like Action/Superman and Detective/Batman could be knocked out over time if DC kept at it. And, single title heroes like Nightwing could be totally collected in just 4-5 volumes.

Well, at the same time DC are also rolling out their new “DC Finest” line which are effectively DC’s version of Epic Collections. These books are 16-25 issue paperbacks that… do the exact same thing as the Compendiums in a seemingly identical format, just at half the length.

Now we’re all left with a decision. Do we want to buy this Nightwing Compendium, which collects the first third of Pre-Flashpoint solo Nightwing all in one book? Ah, but before you answer, note that Catwoman – a character also in the Batman line with similar scope and length of solo series that crosses over with Batman just as much as Nightwing does – is getting a “DC Finest” trade and not a compendium.

Basically: DC’s strategy doesn’t make a lick of sense.

What would make more sense is using compendiums to knock through runs that could never be collected completely in 20-issue chunks – namely, Pre-Crisis Golden, Silver, and Bronze Age. Then, use the “DC Finest” line for everything Post-Crisis – a much smaller scope than Marvel’s Epic Collection is covering.

Alas, we already have DC Finest collections announced for Golden and Silver material, and Compendiums announced for the 90s and 00s. It looks like these two formats will be competing with each other, sometimes within the same line or even across the same titles. [Read more…] about New Comics & Collected Editions Releases: DC Comics – May 8 2024

Superman (1987 – Present) – Collecting Guide & Reading Order

Guide to Superman, 1987 – Present (New for Patrons!)

April 29, 2024 by krisis

It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s one of my biggest single-character guide pages of all time exclusively for Pledgeonaut Patrons of CK. That’s right, folks, it’s my second super week in a row, because today I bring to you my Guide to Superman (Post-Crisis, 1987 – Present), including a full issue-by-issue reading order for the Triangle Era!

Guide to Superman (Post-Crisis, 1987 – Present)

For the past seven years this Guide to Superman has existed somewhere between being my white whale and my albatross. I knew I had to tackle Superman at some point. But, he is the Justice League hero who I knew the least about. Plus, I could never make heads or tails of his publishing history – with how his titles traded names in 1987 only to swap back in 2006.

Oh, plus, there was the little matter of THE TRIANGLE ERA. From 1991 to 2001, every Superman comic was coordinated in perfect reading order by a brain trust of editors and authors, with their covers clearly labeled with their absolute placement within each year of continuity.

That meant I had to make a guide that was even better at explaining The Triangle Era than the hundreds of comic book covers from the actual Triangle Era.

😬