krisis

Krisis has been creating Crushing Krisis since 2000, writing songs since 1996, and reading comics since 1991. He is a Customer Success and Digital Brand Strategy executive, serial organizer, parent, and feminist, among other things. Based in Philly through 2017, he now resides in Wellington, NZ.

Patron’s Choice: Guide to Black Cat, Felicia Hardy

August 11, 2022 by krisis

Today I’m finally here with a guide for all Patrons of CK that I’ve been preparing for by adding guides to Heroes For Hire and Spider-Man, Peter Parker (2018-Present)! I needed both guides in place because both of those titles housed this character while she was a stray with no title of her own, but that all changed started in 2019. I’m happy to share the August 2022 Patron’s Choice: Guide to Black Cat, Felicia Hardy!

Felicia Hardy is not who you think she is.

Or, at least, she’s not who I thought she was.

That’s true whether you know her from her origins or from her most-recent appearances, because Black Cat has been at least three distinctly different characters in her comic career – so much so that her current incarnation feels completely disconnected from her debut, even if her arc from start to finish makes sense.

(I know this because I’ve now read every panel she has ever appeared in to put together this Guide to Black Cat!)

I think many folks assume that Felicia Hardy is Marvel’s Catwoman – a cat burglar villain turned vigilante through the power of her attraction to the flagship hero.

That’s not entirely wrong, but Felicia Hardy was only ever a cat burglar for her first four appearances in Amazing Spider-Man (1963) in 1979 and she was never a villain until 2015! We barely even see here do any burgling on-panel between 1980 and the mid-00s unless it’s for her job as a security consultant. Instead, she quickly gave up her life of crime due to an obsession with Spider-Man. As she was originally written, all Felicia wanted to was to be Spider-Man’s partner in adventure and in romance.

Curiously, she has no interest at all in who Spider-Man was under the mask. In fact, when Peter first reveals his apartment and identity in Peter Parker, The Spectacular Spider-Man (1976) #74, Felicia reacts with a combination of distaste and horror. To her, the fantastical life of a hero or vigilante is a necessary escape from the dull routine of civilian existence. To think about the regular person beneath the spider-webbed mask ruined her fantasy. [Read more…] about Patron’s Choice: Guide to Black Cat, Felicia Hardy

New for Patrons: Guide to Spider-Man, Peter Parker (2018-Present)

August 10, 2022 by krisis

Today I am swinging in with a guide for all Patrons of CK that began as an unexpectedly-sticky update to an existing guide before I realized it had become a tangled web and I needed to spin some of it off into its own page. Of course, I’m talking about a Guide to Spider-Man, Peter Parker (2018 – present)!

This guide is now available to the public thanks to the spectacular support of Patrons of Crushing Krisis!

When I started making notes for this guide, I thought I’d simply be catching up on the collections of Amazing Spider-Man (2018), its 2022 relaunch, plus Peter David’s various flashback Symbiote Spider-Man series.

Those two things alone would make for a guide’s worth of content, but as I continued making notes I realized there was so much more – including Spider-Geddon, Tom Taylor’s Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man, Joy Kelly’s Non-Stop and Savage Spider-Man, several digital series, the upcoming End of the Spider-Verse crossover, and even more!

Marvel has released fifty Peter Parker Spider-Man series and one-shots in the past four years.

I’ve worked for many years to figure out the best way to untangle the massive bulk of my main Guide to Spider-Man, Peter Parker. Just the thought of adding all of this material to its table of contents made me shudder. About halfway through outlining I realized it was time for Mr. Parker to graduate into a second guide page for his most-moden era.

Never fear, non-Patrons – I’d never keep a major Marvel guide like this one exclusive for very long! That is not a part of my mission statement for Crushing Comics. This guide will have a brief window of exclusivity with my Patrons while I update the main Spider-Man guide and make sure they match up perfectly. It will be available to all readers in time for the debut of Dan Slott’s new adjectiveless Spider-Man series launching at the top of October.

Believe it or not, not only was I surprised this turned into its own guide page, it wasn’t even the guide page I set out to build when I planned for this week! If yesterday’s Guide to Heroes for Hire was an hors d’oeuvre, this is an appetizer to the massive reading order I’ll be back with tomorrow – which references the runs in this guide several times.

Any guesses?

Patrons of Crushing Krisis currently have access to… [Read more…] about New for Patrons: Guide to Spider-Man, Peter Parker (2018-Present)

New for Patrons: Guide to Heroes For Hire & Villains For Hire

August 9, 2022 by krisis

Today I’ve got a succinct new guide for Patrons of CK that covers of the few Marvel teams I have yet to cover – and, it’s a team where anyone might turn up as a member. No, not the Avengers. Not the Defenders. I’m talking about a Guide to Heroes For Hire (& their Villains For Hire counterparts)!

This is a brief guide that won’t be exclusive to Patrons for all that long, since so many characters intersect with it. Right now, some of the series are linked from the Guide to Luke Cage and Guide to Iron Fist, others from the Guide to Shang-Chi, and some from nowhere at all. Once this is available to the general public, all of those collection links will be centralized to this guide.

This is a brief guide, but that’s because it’s just an hors d’oeuvre for a much bigger guide coming to Patrons later this week. Want a hint? It’s a guide for a character who is receiving one of Marvel’s most-recently announced omnibuses.

Stay tuned to find out more!

Patrons of Crushing Krisis currently have access to… [Read more…] about New for Patrons: Guide to Heroes For Hire & Villains For Hire

Updated: Guide to Collecting Marvel Comic Books homepage

August 8, 2022 by krisis

Today I’m excited to bring you a major facelift to a major page that I hope will represent a quality of life improvement for you and me both – the Crushing Comics – Guide to Collecting Marvel Comic Books.

I first launched this page twelve years ago on 1 August, 2010! Since then, it has expanded from being a simple index of X-Men team titles, to an index of every X-Men book, to an index of dozens of Marvel Guides, to now acting as a directory page linking to over 100 current or coming-soon guides to reading and collecting Marvel Comics. [Read more…] about Updated: Guide to Collecting Marvel Comic Books homepage

RuPaul’s Drag Race Down Under Season 2, Episode 2 – Cagey Queens: Review & Power Ranking

August 7, 2022 by krisis

Kia ora and welcome to my review and power rankings for the second episode of RuPaul’s Drag Race Down Under Season 2 – “Cagey Queens” – a particularly wretched acting challenge.

Despite living in New Zealand for five years, I haven’t seen a single lick of New Zealand TV – so, I couldn’t tell you if this prison skit is a spoof of anything specific about Down Under television.

(In fact, there have been some well-regarded Aussie prison shows to pull from – namely, Prisoner and its modern reboot Wentworth – but I can’t say whether it references either.)

Just based on what I’ve absorbed from conversational context, it feels like a more apt acting challenge would be a Soap Opera spoof of Home and Away or Neighbours, a high school drama, a parody of Xena, a nature programme, or even a badly-imported reality TV show.

(Too meta?)

Yet, here we are with a prison script that sincerely has no plot and no jokes. Much like the “here’s some leaves” design challenge last episode, it feels like these Aussie and Kiwi queens are being given nothing to work worth.

In the immortal words of India Ferrah: “Girl… prison, honey.”

Yet, once again this cast somehow managed to shine despite that. Aside from two queens who were particularly lost in this scene, everyone delivered something ranging from a decent performance to laugh-out-loud comedy.

Pair that with a particularly-strong insect-themed runway and it feels like the cast made good episode by sheer force of will. They certainly weren’t aided by a downright surly Michelle Visage, or the typically-hilarious Lucy Lawless as a guest judge. She gets the chance to say maybe two sentences throughout the entire episode.

This criminally bad acting challenge has shaken up the power rankings significantly from my Week One rankings – with one low queen on a meteoric rise and another queen seemingly doomed to be the next out no matter what she does. Do you agree or disagree? Sound off in the comments below.

If you want to watch RuPaul’s Drag Race Down Under Season 2 outside of Australia, New Zealand, and Canada you can sign up for WowPresentsPlus to watch the many worldwide Drag Race franchises for $4.99 a month or $50 a year. (Note that if you’re in the home country of a franchise you will need to use a VPN to “visit” another country to see that content.)

Readers, start your engines… and may the best Down Under drag queen win!