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X-Force

Updated: Guide to Cable

January 15, 2023 by krisis 2 Comments

It’s time for another update to a long-standing X-Guide! It’s another guide where I re-wrote every word and rebuilt every link from scratch to make it clearer than every before how to follow the story of one of the most-complicated X-Characters. Welcome to my all-new, all-different Guide to Cable!

Guide to Cable

This Guide to Cable didn’t exist when I first launched Crushing Comics back in 2010.

At the time, Cable’s 1993 series wasn’t particularly well-collected and his 2008 series was just wrapping up, so the bulk of his collected editions were actually from the run of Cable & Deadpool from 2004 to 2008. At the time Deadpool hadn’t been associated with the X-Men for well over a decade (this was just before Uncanny X-Force was announced!), but he had several well-collected series to his name.

Faced with a decision between an under-collected X-Character and well-collected non-X-Character, it made sense to package the pair of them together thanks to their shared series and intertwined origins. Thus, the Guide to Cable & Deadpool was born. [Read more…] about Updated: Guide to Cable

Filed Under: comic books Tagged With: Cable, Deadpool, Fabian Nicieza, Gerry Duggan, Marvel Comics, Phil Noto, Rob Liefeld, Updated Comic Guide, X-Force

Updated: Guide to X-Force

September 6, 2022 by krisis Leave a Comment

This week I have another update to one of the original Crushing Comics launch guides that I created back in August of 2010. Despite updating it many times over the years, I decided to tear this one down and re-built it from scratch to make it easier than ever to find the physical and digital collections you want – plus, I added over a dozen new collected editions! Welcome to my all-new, all-different Guide to X-Force.

Guide to X-Force

Guide to X-Force

My last update of the Guide to X-Force was before the first collections from Dawn of X were announced, so clearly I had a lot of updating to do! That not only included collections of Benjamin Percy’s 2019 Age of Krakoa series, but also X-Men Milestones reprints of several major crossovers and several new X-Force Epic Collections announced over the past few years.

That’s not the only big addition to this guide. I’ve added all of the features of the newest guides on the site, including a “Where to Start” section, a summary of both oversized hardcovers and paperback Epics & Complete Collections, digital purchase links, and links to read on Marvel Unlimited!

Like I said: rebuilt from scratch. Even though the guide includes a lot more information, it’s also significantly simpler than it ever has been before.

That rebuild included one subtraction, but it was for a good reason! Since X-Statix made a comeback this year into their all-new The X-Cellent series by original creators Peter Milligan and Mike & Laura Allred, I decided it was time for X-Statix to graduate to it’s own guide! X-Statix is one of my favorite X-runs of all time, but they’ve never really had anything to do with X-Force other than squatting in their title for 14 issues.

I’ll be back tomorrow to share that new X-Statix spinoff guide once I’ve polished it up a bit. For now, enjoy this renewed Guide to X-Force – and, let me know in the comments which X-Force incarnation is your favorite version of the team.

Filed Under: comic books Tagged With: Benjamin Percy, Epic Collections, Fabian Nicieza, Rick Remender, Rob Liefeld, Uncanny X-Force, Updated Comic Guide, X-Force, X-Men

X-Statix & The X-Cellent – Definitive Reading Order & Collecting Guide

X-Statix and X-Cellent comic books in a definitive issue-by-issue collecting guide and trade reading order for omnibus, hardcover, and trade paperback collections. Find every issue and appearance! Part of Crushing Krisis’s Crushing Comics. Last updated September 2022 with titles scheduled for release through February 2023.

Grant Morrison isn’t the only author who revolutionized X-Men comic books in 2001.

Like Watchmen, X-Statix is a comic dissecting the convention of superheroes. Except, instead of a dystopian 1984 we get a celebrity-as-reality obsessed modern day with absolutely no overarching plot. About the same amount of sex, though.

Giant-Size X-Statix (2019) #1 Textless

Fans revere Morrison’s New X-Men run for good reason. They completely changed the dynamics of mutant society and forever altered the X-Men by splintering Scott and Jean and bringing Emma from the sidelines of the line to the center.

However, New X-Men wasn’t the only ground-breaking run of X-Men comics that kicked off in 2001. The other had an unlikely birth in the pages of X-Force before graduating to its own title: X-Statix.

X-Statix had a humble beginning. It came on the heels of a Warren Ellis-led “Counter X” initiative across the three more-youthful titles of X-Force, Generation X, and X-Man. X-Man was cancelled outright, with its star shuffled into obscurity. Generation X saw its cast spread across several titles (including Emma and later Monet in Morrison’s run).

X-Force took a different approach, bringing in an unlikely indie stars Peter Milligan (2000AD, Shade The Changing Man) and Mike & Laura Allred (Madman) to reboot the title. (Milligan had been writing for Marvel on and off for half a decade by this point, but not to much acclaim.)

True to their indie and often counter-culture comics roots, Milligan and the Allreds completely altered X-Force in the span of a single issue – #116. They changed it from the proactive squad of Xavier’s dropouts to a group of disaffected mutant reality TV stars going on dangerous missions – with the draw of their show being that any of them could die at any moment.

While this sounds like a well-worn concept at this point, Survivor and Big Brother debuted in America less than a year prior to X-Force #116 (and it was another year until American Idol). The idea of a reality-TV ride-along was more rooted in shows like COPS and Real World that came before the early-00s explosion of reality shows.

It wasn’t only the (sometimes brutal) framing concept that make Milligan & The Allred’s run on X-Statix such a revolution. While their mutant cast came with all of the angst you’d expect, it was hardly ever tied into the wider mutant universe apart from Morrison’s concept of there being millions of mutants in the world. Brief appearances by Xavier and Logan were played largely as gags.

The book also broke ground in bringing sexuality and gender identity to the fore for its cast, as well as tackling substance abuse, body image, PTSD, self-harm, and mental health – and, Marvel’s long-established themes of racism and race relations. Each one is framed in terms of what it would mean to be a superhero struggling with that incredibly common human condition. Despite the wry, ironic humor of the series (and its iconic camera-thing, Doop), it could turn on a dime to serious personal topics and outright tragedy. The pop art style of the Allreds made the occasional weight of the subject matter even more surreal.X-Statix (2002) #8 Textless

X-Statix is really weird. Do not think of it as an X-Men comic, or even a Marvel superhero comic. There are no “villains” to speak of, though the team certainly faces ongoing challenges. It is an indie comic about relationships that happens to use the concept of mutants as its framework. It has close to zero connection to X-Men continuity. Think of it  like Reality Bites or Chasing Amy – or even Hunger Games – something that is incredibly self-aware and constantly comments on the real world culture surrounding the fiction.

Some of this material reads differently over two decades later. Today, comics in general and X-Men in specific are much more queer and more apt to discuss the trauma inherent in super-heroic life. However, for a Marvel mutant book in the year 2001, there was nothing anywhere close to X-Statix.

After its cancellation in 2004 it seemed that the last gasp of X-Statix would be its Dead Girl limited series in 2006. Jason Aaron later adopted Doop as a mascot in his Wolverine and The X-Men run in 2011, which introduced him to a new generation of fans and yielded an unlikely Doop mini-series in 2014!

Then, seemingly out of nowhere, Marvel announced a Giant-Size X-Statix issue alongside Jonathan Hickman’s launch of the Krakoan Age in 2019 … which made an amount of sense, since his status quo meant any mutant could return to the title. After over two years of constant teases by Marvel, Milligan, and the Allreds, their sequel The X-Cellent debuted in February 2022.

[Read more…] about X-Statix & The X-Cellent – Definitive Reading Order & Collecting Guide

X-Force (2020) #15: X-Force vs. Beast! | This Week in X

December 18, 2020 by krisis

It’s This Week in X for X-Force (2020) #15, released 16 December 2020!

X-Force (2020) #15, released on 16 December 2020, finds Ben Percy and Joshua Cassara returning to their pre-X-of-Swords plots to kick of Year 2 of the mutant intelligence division.

Is it a smooth transition? Why is everyone on both sides of X-Force so frustrated with Beast? And, what’s the newest deadly threat to our island paradise?

This week is driven by the question “What is X-Force?” – both meta-textually in terms of what the comic is delivering AND in the story when it comes to what X-Force is meant to do for Krakoa.

Join Peter, Tyler, and Fariha’s specially-nominated guest New Mutant, Harry, for this epic discussion.


(watch on YouTube)

Need help making sense of reading and collecting the X-Men? Crushing Comics can help!

  • X-Force Collecting Guide & Reading Order
  • Guide to Hickman’s Age of Krakoa in X-Men
  • Definitive X-Men Reading Order
  • Guides to all of Marvel Comics

Want to keep up with comics commentary all week long? Follow Crushing Comics on Twitter and subscribe to my channel on YouTube.

Filed Under: comic books Tagged With: Age of Krakoa, Benjamin Percy, Joshua Cassara, Reign of X, This Week In X, Video, X-Force

Recapping X of Swords, Week 9: X-Force #14, Hellions #6, and Cable #6 | This Week in X

November 19, 2020 by krisis

Join Peter, Tyler, and Fariha as we dissect the penultimate ninth week of X of Words in the X-Men comics of 18 November, 2020 – X-Force (2020) #14, Hellions (2020) #6, and Cable (2020) #6.

They’re the 17th, 18, & 19th chapters of X of Swords, and it’s all about duels and double-crosses. We discuss Sinister’s duplicitous plans, ponder whether we’re eager to see the resurrection process go awry, and charge through a lightning round chat about EVERY ONE of the tournament match-ups this week.

Plus, Fariha brings along a special surprise!


(watch on YouTube)

Need help making sense of reading and collecting the X-Men?

  • Cable Collecting Guide & Reading Order
  • X-Force Collecting Guide & Reading Order
  • Definitive X-Men Reading Order
  • Guides to all of Marvel Comics

Filed Under: comic books Tagged With: Age of Krakoa, Benjamin Percy, Cable, Gerry Duggan, Hellions, This Week In X, Video, X of Swords, X-Force, X-Men, Zeb Wells

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