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.

10 Marvel runs from the 90s you might have missed (and that ought to be omnibuses) – 1990 to 1997

May 3, 2017 by krisis

It’s our third installment of backwards time travel through Marvel runs that could easily fit into an omnibus volume to help inspire your votes on the Most-Wanted Marvel Omnibus Secret Ballot.

Today I’m taking a slightly different perspective than I did for 1998 to 2008 and 2008 to present. For those installments, I focused on runs I knew well or at least could recommend from context. However, when it comes to runs I’ve read, the 90s are pretty thoroughly covered over both by existing omnibuses and the current votes of the poll. Add to that how much of this period are covered by the end of runs from the 80s, that I’ve already mapped X-Men, and my temporary avoidance of exhaustively mapping Fantastic Four and Spider-Man, and the pickings wind up being pretty slim!

Thus, this list comes with a caveat – I’m not necessarily suggesting you run out and buy and read all of these runs right now. I mean, I own nearly all of them, and even having not read them cover to cover I can tell you that most of them are very 90s comic books.

However, they also represent under-collected material that’s relatively unknown to modern readers. While it might be more reasonable to see all of it covered with Epic Collections, I think it would be more expedient to see them collected in this format than to wait around for trade paperbacks.

Ready to dig deep into the extreme 1990s? [Read more…] about 10 Marvel runs from the 90s you might have missed (and that ought to be omnibuses) – 1990 to 1997

12 Must-Read Marvel Runs (that ought to be an omnibus) – 1998 to 2008

May 2, 2017 by krisis

As we continue our trip backwards down Marvel Memory Lane, I’m here to convince you to read – or, at least, covet – 12 more Marvel runs, this time from 1998 to 2008.

While my concurrent period of X-Men looked at 2001 to 2008, for the rest of the Marvel Universe 1998 was a better starting point. That’s because Marvel’s Avengers and Fantastic Four franchises relaunched new volumes in 1998, and Spider-Man and Daredevil were rebooted within the next year as well.

(That wound up being less relevant to this post than I planned, since I decided not to touch mapping Fantastic Four or Spider-Man in the style of my exhaustive X-Men mapping. I also won’t hit the titles that are just waiting for a sequel – namely Thor, Captain America, and Iron Man. See my Orphan Report for more on those. And, one of the best runs from this period – Christopher Priest’s Black Panther – is already in the survey results.)

I’ve read less of Marvel outside of X-Men, so I’m being a little choosier with these runs so I don’t lead you astray! That’s not only a choosiness in quality, but in self-containment. While Marvel’s Universe was a little more siloed from 1998 to 2005, once New Avengers arrived titles became increasingly intertwined and reliant on events to launch and intersect with them until we hit peak tie-in after Secret Invasion in 2008, with the entire Marvel Universe being affected by Dark Reign in one way or another.

These runs aren’t that – they’re comics you could sit down and enjoy today regardless of your foreknowledge about a certain plot or character. While some of them intersect event series, none of them rely on your reading the main event to enjoy their chapters.

If you want to see any of these runs released in all-in-one omnibus editions, perhaps you should include some of them on your Most-Wanted Marvel Omnibus Secret Ballot – votes are due this Sunday!

However, omnibuses are not your only hope! The majority of these runs are collected in hardcovers and trade paperbacks listed in Crushing Comics’s Guide to Collecting Marvel Comic Books, and the vast majority of the issues are available on Marvel Unlimited, a $10/month Netflix-for-Marvel-comics.

Of course, all potential collection mapping comes with a disclaimer: all of my suggestions are subjective and subject to improvement, or at least spirited debate. If you have a correction, alteration, or disagreement, there’s no need to be shy – I’d love to hear from you in the comments, below.

Let’s dig in!

8 Must-Read Marvel Runs (that ought to be an omnibus) from 2008 to 2012

May 1, 2017 by krisis

Today in my best-of-Marvel retrospective, we’re looking at ten mega-sized runs from Secret Invasion in 2008 to Avengers vs. X-Men in 2012 that really ought to be omnibuses.

If you want to see any of them in that mega format, perhaps they ought to be your vote in the Most-Wanted Marvel Omnibus Secret Ballot – choices are due this Sunday!

However, even sans a mighty omnibus edition, all of Marvel’s modern runs are easily collected in hardcovers and trade paperbacks listed in Crushing Comics’s Guide to Collecting Marvel Comic Books, and 100% of the issues are available on Marvel Unlimited, a $10/month Netflix-for-Marvel-comics.

Whether you’re a new comics fan or a grizzled vet, read with this in mind: These potential mappings are just my own shot, and the may include errors, omissions, or choices that could be improved. That’s part of the fun, for me – it’s like playing “Fantasy Corrections Department”! If you see something fishy or have a vociferous disagreement, I’d love to know what that is via the comments, below.

Let’s begin! [Read more…] about 8 Must-Read Marvel Runs (that ought to be an omnibus) from 2008 to 2012

Spring Thing: Delaware Children’s Museum

April 30, 2017 by krisis

This week brought an all-new adventure for us – The Delaware Children’s Museum!

We loved this museum. It is a completely different beast than the well-known Please Touch Museum in Philly.

Please Touch is themed around small-scale, hands-on activities and role play, and it’s kind of expensive at $19 a person, plus parking! If you’re going to go more than twice in a year you might as well be members.

Delaware Children’s Museum was much more geared to larger exhibits and full body engagement, whether that’s climbing, zooming around on person-powered scooters, or playing dress-up on a pirate ship. It had six large play areas, some with just a single theme (like climbing or scooters) and others with multiple engagements (a lemonade stand and restaurant with other counting activities). Delaware Children's Museum

It’s also just $9 per person! And, not for nothing, it’s in the middle of a huge, free parking lot with two decent restaurants, as opposed to Please Touch, which is somewhat isolated.

EV6 probably would have spent her entire day just exploring the ant-hill climbing structure directly inside the front door, but she also enjoyed the physical fitness exhibit and retooling the magnetic race car.

The drive to Delaware from our house is only about 10 minutes difference, and it seems like the museum is much less crowded on weekdays. This Spring Fling gets a solid thumbs up from both EV6 and I.

RuPaul’s Drag Race Power Rankings, S09E06 – “Snatch Game”

April 29, 2017 by krisis

Every mysterious new season of RuPaul’s Drag Race comes with one hotly anticipated standard episode: Snatch Game!

Based on the 60s TV gameshow Match Game, RuPaul introduced his version of the game in Season 2 and it’s been back every season since (save for All Stars 1, which substituted a similar celebrity impersonator take on Laugh In).

Snatch Game has two simple rules – transform into a celebrity, and make them funny. It’s a make-or break live improv challenge that tends to elevate certain queens from the rest of the pack for the remainder of the season and create quotes that fans will call back to for years.

Last night’s episode delivered another callback to past seasons – a redux of Season 8’s “Night of a Thousand Madonnas” runway theme, which served up four different kimono looks based on the “Nothing Really Matters” video and Drowned World Tour.

With 11 queens in the race already forewarned to avoid the kimono could we avoid duplicates entirely? I don’t know, but I hope this runway becomes a fixture of every season just like Snatch Game. And girls, you betta watch out, because there is no one that knows their Madonna better than your author – except for maybe Michelle Visage … and we’ve both been served with cease and desists by Madge.

The combination of Snatch and Madonna was last seen in 2000, with Miss M lending “Lucky Star” to the soundtrack of her then-husband Guy Ritchie’s film. In the 2017 edition, it catapulted a new queen to the top of the rank after last week, plus shuffled a pair of queens at the bottom.

Who’s that girl? Let’s find out!