Uncanny X-Men

Updated: Silver Age X-Men Guide

September 14, 2023 by krisis Leave a Comment

Earlier this year I launched an initiative to completely overhaul all of my X-Men team title guides with up-to-date collections, revised formatting, and links for digital buying and reading. Now, those guides will all continue to receive regular updates throughout the year! First up: My uncanny Silver Age X-Men Guide – covering every major collection format for Uncanny X-Men (1963) #1-66, their hiatus years guest appearances, and modern “Hidden Years” stories inserted into that period!

Silver Age X-Men Guide

Since this Silver Age X-Men guide had a major update back in February, this update focused on adding just a few new collections:

Confirming that the Marvel Masterworks Vol. 1 and Vol. 2 reprints are indeed “Remasterworks” with revised restoration.
Adding the newest volume of the “Mighty Marvel Masterworks” digest-sized paperback reprint series
Adding a new section for Marvel’s licensed reprints with other companies, including a new Penguin Classic collections and a massive Taschen artbook with newly-shot artwork and restoration.
I also added some additional detail about collection formats and hiatus years appearances.

I think it’s so cool that Marvel is leveraging its new relationship with Penguin Random House to produce comics collections in their typically academic- and classics-focused Penguin Classics line! What an awesome way to celebrate the X-Men’s 60th birthday this month!

This Silver Age X-Men Guide update is just the first of a series of regular X-Men guide updates. I now have over 200 guide pages to maintain, but the X-Men guides will always be the closest to my heart and some of the highest-trafficked pages on CK! But, don’t worry – my upcoming page updates won’t be restricted just to revisiting these X-title guides again. There are some fresh page updates heading your way as well!

New Comics & Collected Editions: Marvel Comics – September 13, 2023

September 12, 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 13 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 guide within my Crushing Comics Guide to Marvel 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!

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 13 2023 Collected Editions

Bishop: War College (2023 paperback, ISBN 978-1302948054 / digital)
See Guide to X-Men – The Age of Krakoa. I read the first issue of this book back when it was released, and it’s an odd bird. A book about Bishop training young X-Men in the defense of Krakoa would’ve been a solid hit, but what we actually got was Bishop dealing with an inane alternate universe side quest while the X-kids got cornered by a villain in their own subplot. If I’m being honest, this pitch never should’ve received a green light.

Captain America: Cold War (2023 paperback, ISBN 978-1302952389 / digital)
See Guide to Captain America – Steve Rogers. This collects the crossover intersection between the Steve Rogers and Sam Wilson Cap titles. There’s only another three issues of both titles combined after this, which makes it odd that they didn’t simply close out the runs in this volume, but there will be a separate “Finale” volume in a few months with Sentinel of Liberty #14, Cap #750, and a Finale issue.

Captain America by Ed Brubaker: Captain America Lives! Omnibus [AKA Vol. 3] (2023 oversize hardcover, ISBN 978-1302954468 / digital)
See Guide to Captain America – Steve Rogers. This omnibus reprint tracks the return of Steve Rogers at the end of the period where Winter Soldier was serving as the primary Captain America. This book doesn’t stand so well on its own – you probably want to first read Brubaker Omnibus, Vol. 2: The Death of Captain America (2009 hardcover, ISBN 978-0785138068 / 2021 oversize hardcover, ISBN 978-1302929619) to understand the story.

Captain Marvel: Game On (2023 digest-sized paperback, ISBN 978-1302951153)
See Guide to Captain Marvel – Carol Danvers. In a totally brilliant move by Marvel, this is a recollection of the all-ages Marvel Action Captain Marvel (2019) #1-6 and Marvel Action Captain Marvel (2021) #1-5. Both the kid and I absolutely loved these books – they’re very close to actual Marvel continuity and Sam Maggs’s writing for Carol is spot on. Highly recommended for Captain Marvel fans of truly any age!

Captain Marvel: The Saga of Monica Rambeau (2023 “Saga of” paperback, ISBN 978-1302950996 / digital)
See Guide to… Monica Rambeau? Hmm, I should probably have one of those… maybe you should check back in a week or two 😉. In the meantime, Monica’s comics appear in Guide to Captain Marvel – Carol Danvers. If you want Monica’s early comics history, this is a fairly complete collection of her greatest hits and solo stories of the 80s and 90s reprinted from a 2019 Direct-Market-only volume.

Marvel Studios’ Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness: The Art of the Movie (2023 hardcover, ISBN 978-1302945879)
See Guide to Doctor Strange.

Marvel-Verse: Kraven The Hunter (2023 digest-sized paperback, ISBN 978-1302950644 / digital)
In a relief to me specifically, this “kids and libraries” targeted digest-size collection does not collect any in-continuity Spidey stories, so it is not covered by any of my guides! It collects Collects Marvel Action Spider-Man (2018) #5-6, Marvel Adventures Spider-Man (2005) #7, Marvel Adventures Super Heroes (2010) #4, Spidey (2015) #9.

Moon Knight Vol. 4: Road to Ruin (2023 paperback, ISBN 978-1302947354 / digital)
See Guide to Moon Knight. This is more of Jed MacKay’s spectacular Moon Knight run, one of of my favorite books at Marvel! While I think this series is worth reading from the start, this story does pick up from a solid jumping-on point for the big antagonist in the past year of this run.

Star Wars: Sana Starros – Family Matters (2023 paperback, ISBN 978-1302933074 / digital)
See Guide to Star Wars Expanded Universe Comics (2015-Present).

Venom Epic Collection: The Madness (Vol. 3) (2023 paperback, ISBN 978-1302953874 / digital)
See Guide to Venom. This is the the third Epic Collection volume in the Venom line, but it’s actually the first that is fully collecting Venom’s own mini-series, rather than mostly his appearances in Amazing Spider-Man. While his landmark first mini Lethal Protector is in the prior volume, this collects his mini-series from 1993 and 1994.

Wolverine Omnibus Vol. 4 (2023 oversize hardcover, ISBN 978-1302953997 / digital)
See Guide to Wolverine – Logan. This collects the year of stories leading up to Logan losing his adamantium in issue #75 in 1993, which is the final issue in this collection – as well as the original graphic novels and Marvel Comics Presents issues released at the same time.

X-Men Epic Collection: Proteus (2023 paperback, ISBN 978-1302950538 / digital)
See Guide to Uncanny X-Men by Chris Claremont (1975-1991). If it’s helpful to you to think about this another way, we could call this Epic Collection “Phoenix Saga Prologue.” It covers the break-up and reunion of the team after their throwdown with Magneto in his volcano base, plus the debuts of Alpha Flight, Arcade, and Proteus! That’s a lot of major X-Men history packed all into one book. If you enjoy Phoenix Saga, this is a natural extension for you. However, if you only enjoy later 80s X-Men, it might not be a total slam dunk – Claremont is still getting his feet under him at this point, and his character voices don’t quite meet the standard of his amazing plots just yet.

Read on for a summary of all of the Marvel Comics September 13 2023 single issue and digital releases! [Read more…] about New Comics & Collected Editions: Marvel Comics – September 13, 2023

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 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

Updated: Guide to X-Men flagship titles, 2010 – 2019

March 24, 2023 by krisis Leave a Comment

This week my X-Men guide update includes an unusual event: the birth of a new guide page! Now that we have hindsight on the storylines and collections of X-Men from 2010 to 2019, I’ve consolidated all of the main X-Men flagship titles into a single guide. Welcome to the all-new, all-different Guide to X-Men flagship titles (2010-2019)!

Guide to X-Men flagship titles (2010-2019)

This page consolidates the contents of a pair of older pages – a “Guide to Uncanny X-Men, Vol. 2-5” and “Guide to X-Men, Vol. 3 & 4,” though some of the former contents of those pages now lives in the recently revised Guide to New Mutants & Young X-Men.

At the time I original created my X-Guides, the “Second Coming” storyline was still ongoing and the map of X-Men titles seemed so obvious. There had always been and would always be the 1963 volume of Uncanny X-Men, often accompanied by an adjectiveless X-Men title as well as many supporting teams and titles like New Mutants, X-Force, X-Factor, and Astonishing X-Men.

I thought I had it all figured out. But, when it comes to the X-Men, that feeling never lasts for long.