Crushing Krisis

Comic Books, Drag Race, & Life in New Zealand

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.

Batwoman: The female, feminist, lesbian Caped Crusader you need to be reading

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Today I’m bringing you a guide to one of my favorite characters introduced in the past decade – Batwoman!

If you’ve never heard of Batwoman, don’t worry – I hadn’t either when I first picked up a comic she starred in back in 2011. I’m going to explain everything you need to know.

Batwoman: A Thoroughly Modern Bat-Hero

I was initially intrigued by Batwoman because of her bold visual design – the v-shaped slash of red hair centered about her black mask and chalk-white skin.

I had no idea she was much more interesting for two other reasons.

First, Batwoman is a rare female hero who shares a title with Batman as her male counterpart but has never been his “girl” (Supergirl, Spider-Girl), or a secondary “Ms” or “She” version (Ms. Marvel, She-Hulk).

Batwoman’s wealth and training rivals Bruce Wayne’s, as does a traumatic loss in her youth. That makes her a similarly aloof adult when she’s out of the mask, complete with a complex history of romantic entanglements.

The woman behind the mask, Kate Kane, is an out lesbian who was discharged from the Army in the Don’t-Ask-Don’t-Tell era. As you can imagine, that experience also informs her decision to become a costumed crime fighter.

Second, this  modern Batwoman was truly a brand new character when she debuted in 2006. There’s no lengthy history or different character versions to understand.

In fact, she has been used sparingly enough that you can easily buy all of her appearances and read them in just a week or two, and she has a brand new series that just started last week!  [Read more…] about Batwoman: The female, feminist, lesbian Caped Crusader you need to be reading

This week in comic book collected editions & graphic novels – March 22, 2017

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It’s another week of comic collected editions – both gathered single issues and original graphic novels.

So, what’s out this week? It’s not an easy question to answer. While DC and Marvel keep a relatively consistent schedule, other publishers aren’t as consistent – in fact, this week we have a pair of books originally professed to be out a month ago!

This post covers all of the collections out this week, explains what they are and what they contain, and provides easy links to Amazon, where you can either buy them or at least get more helpful info like their prices and ISBNs.

Publishers:

What are the must-read books this week?

None of the major label releases this week are particularly interesting to me (unless, of course, you’ve been waiting with baited-breath for some Bronze Age Justice League!).

However, one that caught my eye was The Interview by Manuele Fior from Fantagraphics, thanks to this description:

Set in 2048, The Interview is a science fiction novel from the author of 5,000 km Per Second that eschews outer space for inner space. It is a moving story about the passage of time, the commonalities and differences between generations, and on our changing society. “I tried to imagine the near future,” says the author, “where not everything is negative and catastrophic, where the end of the world does not come with a violent apocalypse, but rather an intimate and familiar context of daily life that keeps flowing.”

What else is out this week? Keep reading to find out! [Read more…] about This week in comic book collected editions & graphic novels – March 22, 2017

New For Patrons: Definitive Guide to Robin(s)

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Tonight I launched a complete collecting guide and trade reading order for all of Batman’s Robins to CK’s Crushing Comics Club Patrons.

Dick Grayson, Jason Todd, Tim Drake, Stephanie Brown, and Damian Wayne – they’re all in there, from Robin’s first appearance in Detective Comics #38 in 1940 to present!! This guide will be available to the public sometime in April.

Head to Patreon to become a supporter of Crushing Krisis. Chip in as little as $1, or get early access to guides for the price of a single comic or cappuccino every month! We’re currently only $3 away from Patrons covering all of the month costs to host and serve CK!

The Matrix Re-Reloaded?

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Over the past two days, the internet of geeks has been in turmoil over the news of a potential new Matrix movie. The word “reboot” was used.

[s]ources tell The Hollywood Reporter that Warner Bros. is in the early stages of developing a relaunch of The Matrix, the iconic 1999 sci-fi movie that is considered one of the most original films in cinematic history, with Zak Penn in talks to write a treatment.

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Joel Silver, who produced the original trilogy, is said to have approached Warners about the idea of mining The Matrix for a potential new film. However, Silver sold his interest in all his movies to the studio in 2012 for about $30 million, according to sources.

Predictably, most people responded with a resounding “DO NOT WANT.” For all the flaws of The Matrix‘s pair of sequels, the world-building and powerful casting of the original movies isn’t something that needs reimagining – the movies still hold up visually against new sci-fi films out in the past year!

In the past 24 hours, potential writer Zak Penn very deliberately walked back the idea of a reboot on Twitter, as recapped by Slashfilm. This was part of his response:

What interests me about that – past the total denial of a reboot – is that Penn’s answer goes to the same place my brain did when the news first broke. In fact, I didn’t even mind the idea of a reboot, as long as it wasn’t a remake. [Read more…] about The Matrix Re-Reloaded?

Conan The Barbarian: Marvel’s Most Well-Collected Hero (really!)

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Today I bring you a first for Crushing Comics – a guide to a licensed character who has lived with two different publishers over the course of his nearly 5o-year comics career: The Definitive Conan Comics Collecting Guide and Reading Order!

Created with the support of Patrons!

In fact, I’d say that Conan might be Marvel’s best-collected hero of all time – better than X-Men and Spider-Man! More on that, below.

I’ve always been fascinated with Conan, starting from catching scenes from Arnold’s 1982 film on my parent’s TV as a kid and a tattered old copy of Conan The Barbarian #62 I somehow inherited straight through my first attempt at penning new releases posts in 2015.

It was in researching that post that I became obsessed with how deep Conan’s reprinted archives were – Dark Horse had issued dozens of paperbacks covering his entire primary run at Marvel as well collections covering over 100 issues in the new Dark Horse continuity.

Conan-the-Barbarian-1970-0062

Possibly my first comic book ever! I still have the tattered copy in my attic as a keepsake.

As I said then, “[N]ow I kind of want to read Conan. This is how it happens.” I’m a sucker for long runs, and an even bigger sucker for coherent collected shelves.

While I’ve managed to avoid the siren call of collecting these dozens of books, I couldn’t resist trying to untangle the various releases.

Marvel held Conan license from 1970 to 2000 and produced several distinct continuities of Conan in that period – including 23 years of Barbarian (the majority written by Roy Thomas) plus a magazine called The Savage Sword of Conan and King Conan, a title with stories of the more mature hero.

Marvel rebooted Conan in 1994 before Dark Horse acquired the rights (which included rights to reprint Marvel’s stories!). Then, in 2003, Dark Horse launched their own Conan continuity, originally written by Kurt Busiek and hewing very closely to the original Robert E. Howard stories.

Dark Horse’s Conan has run through s sequence of titles ranging from 12 to 50 issues in length, starting with plain old Conan, followed by Conan The Cimmerian – even though that’s actually a befitting title for an initial volume considering it’s how Robert E. Howard originally described him:

Hither came Conan, the Cimmerian, black-haired, sullen-eyed, sword in hand, a thief, a reaver, a slayer, with gigantic melancholies and gigantic mirth, to tread the jeweled thrones of the Earth under his sandalled feet.”

Between the two publishers, they’ve printed over 850 original Conan comics across multiple continuities and timelines – which definitely merits some guidance when it comes to collecting, especially seeing as some volumes have nearly the same names as each other! And so my Guide to Conan was born.

Just how collected are those Conan issues? Would you believe over 90% of them are available in a modern collected edition from 2003 and forward? Keep reading to learn how it breaks down.

[Read more…] about Conan The Barbarian: Marvel’s Most Well-Collected Hero (really!)