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New For Patrons: The Definitive Guide to Marvel’s X-Man, Nate Grey

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Today’s new guide for Patrons of Crushing Krisis covers an unusual X-Men character, a copy of another character who went one to helm one of the longest-running X-Men solo series before disappearing into the aether (literally) for nearly a decade…

X-Man, Nate Grey – The Definitive Reading Order and Collecting Guide

Let’s get one thing out of the way first: yes, this is really a guide for one 80-issue ongoing and fewer than 50 additional appearances by a character who went forgotten for a decade, and then for another half decade after a brief return.

That’s it! And, yet, X-Man AKA Nate Grey is about to make a major comeback to the world of X-Men, so it was time he got his own guide.

He debuted as part of “Age of Apocalypse” in 1995, and it’s important to remember that this event was quite specifically not an alternate reality at the time. It was the only version of Marvel’s reality that existed in the present day thanks to Legion going back in time to murder his father, Charles Xavier, rather than his target Magneto. (Oops!)

Nate Grey was a critical figure in the Age of Apocalypse – a version of Cable unravaged by time and the TO virus. While our Cable relied on his tactical skill and his leverage over the timestream to thwart his enemies, Nate Grey only needed Cable’s heritage of raw, uninhibited mutant power – the kind that Mr. Sinister had spent years trying to realize in our original timeline.

Age of Apocalypse was well-received and marvelous fun to read at the time. The idea of four of its characters and one of its titles persisting into Marvel-616 continuity was thrill! Of course, it made the most sense for that title to be X-Man, the most unique and singular of all the converted books.

However, there was the question of what to do with Nate Grey. In the Age of Apocalypse he was the most-powerful rebel, but in 616 Marvel he had nothing to rebel against. There was no narrative to welcome Nate Grey to the main Marvel timeline.  [Read more…] about New For Patrons: The Definitive Guide to Marvel’s X-Man, Nate Grey

New for Patrons: The Definitive Guides to The Sandman Universe

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Today’s new guide Patrons of Crushing Krisis is actually three guides (or maybe four, by the time you read this), which seems like overkill for what is essentially a single title with an obvious ten-volume paperback line. But, it’s really so much more than that…

Sandman Universe – The Definitive Reading Order and Collecting Guide

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Books of Magic – The Definitive Reading Order and Collecting Guide

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Lucifer – The Definitive Reading Order and Collecting Guide

I am fascinated by how Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman (and, in fact, all of the extended Sandman Universe) bridges the gap between comic books and serious literature.

That fascination has lasted for over 25 years – almost as long as Gaiman’s reinvention of the Golden Age character has existed.

Even the most-knowledgable comic fan could be forgiven for not knowing that Morpheus the King of Dreams was merely an iteration on an already-rebooted Golden Age DC hero. The original Sandman, Wesley Dodds, was a minor character who ran for seven years in the Golden Age and then popped back up twenty years later in the Earth 2 Justice Society of America in the Silver Age.

Without Gaiman and Morpheus, Dodds would probably be that one JSA member whose name you could never recall. His Silver Age iteration certainly wouldn’t jog your memory – a Kirby/Simon creation meant to be Mr. Sandman who lasted just six issues and who was later retconned in Wonder Woman to be a professor lost in the world of dreams.

There was no harm in Neil Gaiman revamping such a character to a more adult version early in the Post-Crisis years in 1989. At the time, Gaiman was still a relative unknown, coming off of the slept-on Black Orchid mini-series – a similar act of excavation and reinvention. He was so used to tepid reception to his early work that he expected Sandman to run just eight issues, which is why the first eight form such a satisfying arc despite being a mix of one-shots and continuing stories. He though that would be the whole series!

Instead, The Sandman became the springboard off of which Gaiman launched his multimedia fame in a miraculous three-year run from 1990-93 that saw him release Books of Magic at DC, the novel Good Omens (with Terry Prachett), win a World Fantasy Award in a category where Sandman wasn’t even eligible, essentially give birth to what we know as the modern American graphic novel market with the first two Sandman trade paperbacks, and top it off with the landmark Death: The High Cost of Living (the collection of which would be introduced by his friend and frequent name-checker, Tori Amos). [Read more…] about New for Patrons: The Definitive Guides to The Sandman Universe

Updated: X-Men Reading Order Guide – Era #3: The New Mutants

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This updated X-Men Reading Order guide is available to everyone, but it was made possible via the support of Patrons of Crushing Krisis

The Revised & Expanded X-Men Reading Order Guide – Era #3: The New Mutants

This era covers every X-Men story from Uncanny X-Men #143 in March 1981 and ending with Uncanny X-Men #200 in December 1985.

That includes the significant broadening of the world of X-Men – Kitty Pryde adventuring with the team, the launch of Dazzler, the debut of Rogue, the launch of New Mutants and Alpha Flight, the first three Marvel line-wide events, and a bevy of mini-series from Magik, Wolverine, Iceman, Nightcrawler, and more!

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This is the era where the X-Men really began to explode – both in popularity and in proliferation across the Marvel Universe. [Read more…] about Updated: X-Men Reading Order Guide – Era #3: The New Mutants

New For Patrons: The Definitive Guide to DC’s Mister Miracle

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Today’s new guide for Patrons of Crushing Krisis is for a character who has gone in and out of vogue for nearly five decades, but who is having perhaps his highest-profile year of all time in 2018…

Mister Miracle – The Definitive Reading Order and Collecting Guide

Mister Miracle is having a very good year.

His 12-issue maxi-series from Tom King and Mitch Gerads is one of the biggest critical and fan hits of the year. It generates endless conversation, speculation, and dissection every month upon its release and both King and Gerads took home 2018 Eisner Awards for their work just halfway through the run.

This is not a coincidence. Not just because King and Gerads are both at the top of their games right now, but because Mister Miracle is a character who ebbs and flows. It was time for him to make his return.

Before this iteration, there was Grant Morrison’s reimagination of the character in 2005. Before that, a string of New Gods series from 1992 to 2002. Before that, a long run in the Justice League and his 28-issue 1989 series.

It all started in 1971, when Scott Free was one of the major creations of Jack Kirby’s Fourth World at DC Comics. At the surface level, he seemed like an outlier – a random traveller on the countryside who stumbles into taking over the mantel of a famed escapologist. Yet, every issue unfurled more of Free’s complex entanglement with the wild world of Apokolips – from his epic love story with Big Barda to the and the nasty Granny Goodness and her female furies.

As it turns out, our charming Mister Miracle was actually the future sovereign of Apokolips… or of the more-peaceful New Genesis, based on a long-ago peace treaty slash child-swap between Darkseid and Highfather. When Scott Free defected from the pits of Apokolips to Earth, he voided the treaty.

All he had to do to fix things was give up his entire life. [Read more…] about New For Patrons: The Definitive Guide to DC’s Mister Miracle

New For Patrons: The Definitive Guide to Marvel’s Falcon (and, sometimes, Captain America), Sam Wilson

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Today’s new guide for Patrons of Crushing Krisis is for a character who has only 12 solo comic issues to his name, but a rich 50-year history as a hero both on the worldwide stage and in his own Harlem community…

Falcon, Sam Wilson – The Definitive Reading Order and Collecting Guide

I knew exactly what I was getting into with this guide. Sam Wilson is a Marvel character who has been around for 50 years and has spent the vast majority of that time as a supporting player. I could easily work out his continuity order, but there was no shortcut to explaining his many stories other than just reviewing the comics.

Unlike some of my other solo hero projects this year, I was eager to dive in and better understand Falcon’s lengthy Marvel history.

That has a lot to do with my reaction to Wilson in the role of Captain America, which he served from 2014 to 2017.

I was slow to catch up with the initial run of Rick Remender stories of Sam as Cap prior to Secret Wars. I had literally never read a Falcon comic outside of his scant Avengers appearances and his co-star turn in Captain America following the death of Steve Rogers.

This was the guy who talked to birds, right? Why would I be interested in reading him as Marvel’s greatest hero?

It only took a few issues of Remender’s run to change my mind. He quickly became my Captain America, and that made me want to understand everything that brought him to that point.

Sam Wilson’s story begins in 1969, when he was introduced as just the second major black Marvel hero, on the heels of Black Panther in 1966. If Black Panther joining the Avengers in 1968 was progressive, Sam Wilson sharing the title of Captain America’s ongoing comic in 1971 was revolutionary. [Read more…] about New For Patrons: The Definitive Guide to Marvel’s Falcon (and, sometimes, Captain America), Sam Wilson

New For Patrons: The Definitive Guide to DC’s Aquaman

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Today’s guide for Patrons of Crushing Krisis gets me one step closer to covering DC’s pantheon of most well-established heroes, although this hero in particular has suffered many indignities over the years both in comics and in the court of public opinion…

Aquaman – The Definitive Reading Order and Collecting Guide

I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’ve been carefully dancing around addressing DC’s Golden Age in guides for a while now. Honestly, wrestling with Earth 2 and Earth 1 versions of Wonder Woman and Flash took the fight out of me, as did tracking all of the many anthology appearances of Green Arrow. It has been a relief to work on DC guides with titles set almost entirely in the Post-Crisis era, like Nightwing and Catwoman.

(Yes, I know I could just choose to skip the Golden Age portion of characters’ histories, but then I wouldn’t be creating the most-definitive character guides on the internet, would I?)

Despite the looming Golden Age challenge, I knew it was time to knock out the next of DC’s major Justice League heroes, and with Aquaman’s movie out next month he was the obvious choice over Green Lantern (oof, so many of them) or Superman (it’s still too scary to think about how I’ll organize that one).

As it turns out, Aquaman was the perfect DC character to ease me back into tracking Golden and Silver Age appearances.

Maybe that’s because he’s never been all that popular? That has always come as a shock to me, as a child of the 80s who knew Aquaman as an A-List cast member in DC Super Friends. [Read more…] about New For Patrons: The Definitive Guide to DC’s Aquaman