Walt Simonson

Every Missing Thor Omnibus, Mapped | 13th Annual Tigereyes Most-Wanted Marvel Omnibus Poll

April 18, 2025 by krisis Leave a Comment

It’s the most wonderful time of the year for Marvel Omnibus fans – time for the Tigereyes Most Wanted Marvel Omnibus 13th Annual Secret Ballot! This post explains every Asgard & Thor omnibus that does NOT exist – all of which will appear as options on the 2025 poll.

For the next two weeks, I’ll be covering Marvel’s entire publishing history by mapping missing omnibus volumes to fill in every gap in your Marvel oversize shelf! That’s all leading to the kickoff of the Tigereyes Most Wanted Marvel Omnibus 13th Annual Secret Ballot on Near Mint Condition on April 28, 2025.

We’re getting a major Thor omnibus later this year – The Mighty Thor Vol. 5 from his classic line! That brings us just two volumes away from a continuous oversize shelf that reaches Walt Simonson’s material. Meanwhile, 2024 brought us two modern Thor omnibuses in Thor by Straczynski & Gillen and Thor by Cates & Klein – which mean we now also have continuous coverage of Thor from 1998 to 2023!

That makes Thor perhaps Marvel’s most well-collected major character out of all of its Silver Age heavyweights. What’s left to collect? A handful of classic volumes we can safely map, the 90s, and many Asgardian supporting characters… but not Loki, who has now been covered quite comprehensively in oversize format!

If you’re not sure of what to vote for, stick around for a list of books vetted by a gang of the biggest mapping nerds on the internet with explanations from yours truly – keeper of the most-definitive guides to Marvel’s collected editions on the planet.

Or, if you don’t care about omnibuses, just use this post to learn about Marvel’s history and find some great comics to read!

New Comics & Collected Editions Releases: Marvel Comics – June 12 2024

June 7, 2024 by krisis Leave a Comment

It’s the 24th new comic book day of the new year! This post covers Marvel Comics June 12 2024 releases. Missed last week’s releases? Check out last week’s post covering Marvel Comics June 5 2024 new releases.

This week in Marvel Comics: a septet of Blood Hunt issues, complete Thompson Black Widow, a Thorless Thor Epic, Krakoa’s apocalyptic epilogue, Orlando’s Scarlet Witch perseveres, the end of Hickman & Schiti’s GODS, and more!

The Krisis Pick of the Week: Scarlet Witch (2024) #1 (of 4)! Steve Orlando has been writing what might be his best comic ever with this run, and all of his art teams have been top notch. I have my fingers crossed this will get upgraded to an ongoing stories.

This list includes every comic and digital comic out from Marvel this week, plus collected editions in 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 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!

Marvel Comics June 12 2024 Collected Editions

Black Widow by Kelly Thompson
(2024 paperback, ISBN 978-1302952662 / digital)
See Guide to Black Widow. This Eisner-Winning series from Kelly Thompson, Elena Casagrande, Jordie Bellaire, & Cory Petit is easily the best start-to-finish single read for any fan of Black Widow. It starts out by putting Natasha in a uniquely uncomfortable place and ends with her leading an unlikely team of deadly misfits.

This series looks great from start to finish and tells one big and and incredibly satisfying story that actually reads better as a binge than it did in single issues. Highly recommended!

PS: Don’t be put off by the awful cover of this collection; the interiors look nothing like this!

The Incredible Hulk Vol. 2: War Devils
(2024 paperback, ISBN 978-1302954178 / digital)
See Guide to Hulk – Bruce Banner. I think this second collection is a great place to start with Phillip J. Kennedy, Nic Klein & Danny Earls, Matthew Wilson, & Cory Petit is a fine place to begin. While I found the initial Ghost Rider story in this collection to be on the marginal side, I loved the follow-up New Orleans story.

This run leans into Hulk as one of the few weapons against the biggest horrors of the Marvel Universe, and I think that works best in 2-3 issue jaunts rather than longer arcs. It’s also a book full of page after page of stunning artwork, with a carefully curated color palette from Wilson that makes Hulk’s green really pop off the page.

Marvel Masterworks: The Avengers Vol. 2
(2024 “Remasterworks” hardcover, ISBN 978-1302951405)
See Guide to Avengers (1963 – 1996). This Masterworks collects the first true peak of early Avengers by Stan Lee, as we get the second year of their adventures together – including the iconic line-up change in issue #16!

This is a “Remasterworks” edition, meaning the linework is even more-restored than the original Masterworks edition. That restoration will be largely invisible to all but the most discerning of eyes, but if you want a prestige-format bookshelf of early Avengers comics then this is even more of a must-buy than it was before.

The Mighty Thor by Walter Simonson Omnibus
(2024 oversize hardcover, ISBN 978-1302957612 / digital)
See Guide to Thor – The Odinson. This massive brick of an omnibus continues Walt Simonson’s entire multi-year epic both writing and pencilling Thor, all with modern recolors from the 10s.

I thought the modern colors were instantly dated and they haven’t aged particularly well. However, this is the only way to pick up all of Simonson’s run easily aside from a long-since-out-of-print set of trade paperbacks. And, colors aside, this run is about as classic as you can get – it’s one of the major pillars of 80s superhero comics alongside Claremont’s Uncanny X-Men and Wolfman & Pérez’s Titans.

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

May 5, 2024 by krisis

Welcome back to mapping, 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 first post covers every missing Wonder Woman omnibus, from the Golden Age to the present day.

This post explains potential Wonder Woman 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 start with Wonder Woman? Because I know her the best out of the entire DC line! I own, have read, or have mapped every single issue in this post – which won’t be true for any other DC character or team!

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.

X-Factor, Vol. 1 – The #31 Most-Wanted Marvel Omnibus of 2017

June 2, 2017 by krisis

(Note: This post was originally scheduled for June but is being stickied to the top of the main page during the week of November 27th so current readers don’t miss it! Regular updates continue, below.)

X-Men fans who know the team from cartoons and movies are familiar with that single title acting as an umbrella to all of the various incarnations of the franchise.

That’s about to change in 2018. Fans will get their first taste of a X-Men spinoff title with the release of New Mutants, a movie based on the third generation of young mutants at Xavier’s school who were spun off into their own title in 1984. Either that film or Deadpool will likely lead us to another movie named X-Force, which would show off a more-proactive, bloodier version of X-Men on film.

Those spinoff titles – “new” and “force” – are explicit in describing what their teams represent. That’s one of many reasons why the film franchise is skipping over another X-Men spinoff title: X-Factor.

We might eventually see an “X-Factor” movie or TV show thanks to a 2006 incarnation of the title, which envisioned it less as a team and more as the motley crew staffing a mutant detective agency.

What we probably will never see is an adaptation of the original X-Factor, which was dedicated to reassembling the original comic book X-Men – Cyclops, Angel, Beast, Iceman, and Jean Grey returned from the dead. That’s because the film series has always been smart enough to realize that those five characters are a boring combination that’s quickly dominated by the Cyclops/Jean relationship.

If the original X-Men are so boring, why were they reassembled? And, is it worth reading about over thirty years later? Those two questions are answered by the #31 vote on this year’s Marvel’s Most-Wanted Omnibus ballot.

(Note that this post was published in November, as the originally scheduled post was interrupted by coordinating my move to my new home in New Zealand).

X-Factor, Vol. 1

X-Factor, Vol. 1 is tied as the #31 Most-Wanted Marvel Omnibus of 2017 on Tigereyes’s Secret Ballot. Visit the Marvel Masterworks Message Board to view the original posting of results by Tigereyes and collect all of these issue right now as detailed in my X-Factor Guide

Past Ranking: X-Factor was #13 last year, making it one of the biggest drops in rank in 2017.

Probable Contents: Fantastic Four #286, Avengers #263, X-Factor #1 to 26 or 32, plus Annuals #1-3.

Creators: Written by Louise Simonson with Bob Layton and Walt Simonson. Penciled by Jackson Guice (#1-7) and Walt Simonson (#10-11, 13-15, 17-19, 21, 23-31, & Annual 3) with Marc Silvestri (#8 & 12)

Can you read it right now? Not entirely, and what you read will be in an hodge-podge of formats. The whole run isn’t even on Marvel Unlimited! Visit the X-Factor Guide for the full story.

**What’s in the X-Factor, Vol. 1 omnibus?**

X-Factor marked the first time the original five X-Men were reunited in over a decade.

It was a clever solution to a non-existent problem, but also very nearly a dead-on-arrival dud. Even though it turned out to be good, I’m still convinced it was the first big misstep of the X-Men franchise.

Let’s start at the beginning.

The year is 1985. Jean Grey is still dead. Cyclops represents the “old guard” in Uncanny X-Men and is increasingly unnecessary to the team, though he continues to get pulled back into their adventures despite starting a new life (and family) with Madelyne Pryor (later decided/revealed to be a clone of Jean!). Angel, Beast, and Iceman are roughly half of the New Defenders in a title headed for cancellation. [Read more…] about X-Factor, Vol. 1 – The #31 Most-Wanted Marvel Omnibus of 2017

Thor, the Odinson – The Definitive Collecting Guide and Reading Order

Updated Mar 25, 2025! The definitive issue-by-issue comic book collecting guide and reading order for Marvel’s Thor, the Odinson, in omnibus, hardcover, trade paperback, and digital. Part of Crushing Krisis’s Crushing Comics. Last updated March 2025 with titles scheduled for release through September 2025.

The Marvel Comics version of Thor was created in 1962 by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby as a literal interpretation of the Norse god of legend as tied to a mild-mannered human doctor, Donald Blake.

Of all of the founding Marvel heroes, Thor was the one who felt most like a DC hero like Wonder Woman or Superman – an all-powerful, iconic, godlike figure finding his way through a superheroic life in human society.

In the decades since then, the Asgardian god of thunder has become so much more than that. Creators have pulled in more Norse myth as well as invented their own, merged his identity with Donald Blake and then separated them again, put him and all of Asgard through several Ragnoroks, killed him, replaced him, stripped him of his hammer, and made him a king.

Throughout it all, Thor has established itself as a title

There are hundreds of different collections of Thor, especially his original run from 1962 to 1996. However, there are a few specific formats of books that cover large portions of this title, and I’ll cover those first – Omnibuses, Marvel Masterworks, Mighty Marvel Masterworks, Epic Collections, and Essentials.

Then, I will break down every Thor series and appearance issue by issue to explain their reading order and how you can find those comics – both in physical collected editions an donline.