Crushing Krisis

Comic Books, Drag Race, & Life in New Zealand

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Patrons-Only: Crushing Comics Club Aftershow – Post Modern Epic Collection Update Hangout and Q&A

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Every week after my Sunday stream I keep on streaming for another hour of uncut, unlimited, unfiltered, and unhinged Q&A exclusively for live viewers and Patrons.

Join me for unlimited Q&A, stories from my life in New Zealand, and maybe a few random bars of a song as I chat with the commentariat until they run out of comments.

Please don’t publicly share this video link! It is an exclusive benefit for live viewers and Patrons of CK.

(Note that Sunday stream Afterparty links are a benefit for Patrons who support CK at the Pledgeonaut level, but other Aftershows or video exclusives are available on to the Crushing Comics Club level.)

Marvel Epic Collection Update – Every Modern Line Explained, Every Gap Mapped! (Plus, Classic Line new releases in 2027!)

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Last month I explained every one of Marvel’s 50 classic Epic Collection lines, including a visual guide to mapping every gap. Now I’m back with the second part of that exercising – explaining every one of their 27 Modern Epic lines to give them visual guide they’ve always deserved and explain where the heck they all start and stop where they do.

ALSO, I’ll do a lightning round reviewing all of the Classic Epic Lines to see which ones have had a new book announced for April to June of 2027 and what that means for their remaining gaps.

All of your questions will be answered by this stream in easy-to-screenshot explanations, backed by my fifteen years of expertise in tracking EVERY Marvel collected edition!

Whether you’re an avid Epic collector or just trying to understand where the line has been and where it’s going, you’ll want to tune in for this one.

Marvel Omnibus Announcement: Marvel Comics Presents Omnibus Vol. 1

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Marvel Comics Presents 1988 0001Near Mint Condition announced another Marvel omnibus for April 2027, and it was book that left me cheering out loud… until I got into the details of how it will be collected. That doesn’t mean it sucks: the community is divided on how this material ought to be handled. So, let’s dig into the pros and the cons of the newest Marvel Omnibus Announcement: Marvel Comics Presents Omnibus Vol. 1.

What is Marvel Comics Presents? It was a long-running anthology title launched in 1988 that took an unusual approach – and that approach is what is causing controversy with omnibus collections.

Marvel’s existing Anthology title, Marvel Fanfare (1982), was a Direct Market title with high production values that featured an A-Story by major industry stars, and often a slightly more obscure B-Story. Some stories ran for 2-3 issues, but others were one-shots. Marvel also launched Solo Avengers (1987), which similarly featured a team-up A-Story (usually anchored by Hawkeye) with a shorter B-Story.

I’d say that was a relatively standard approach for both Marvel and DC to this point. We’d have to look back to Silver Age DC Comics to find anthology titles that regularly ran three or more serialized stories each month. That was not Marvel’s way of doing things from the Silver Age onward except for in their 70s magazines (like Vampire Tales (1973)).

Marvel Comics Presents (1988) [“MCP” for short] saw Marvel taking the DC Silver Age approach turned up to 11. It was a bi-weekly comic series with each issue featuring four eight-page stories. Each issue was usually fronted by a major mutant (often Wolverine) or Avenger, but the following three stories sometimes featured characters that could be much more obscure. And, most of those stories were multi-part series – with Black Panther kicking off with a 25-part story during the first year.

Of course, when you’re releasing 26 issues a year, a 25-part story isn’t so wild. It was basically a 10-issue series serialized across the entire year. Similar, many Wolverine stories ran from three to ten installments, meaning they were anywhere from a one-shot story to a four issue mini-series.

(Another fun element: every issue had a table of contents page with recaps of each story!) [Read more…] about Marvel Omnibus Announcement: Marvel Comics Presents Omnibus Vol. 1

Marvel Omnibus Announcement: Avengers by Jed MacKay Omnibus (plus, a reprint of Hickman Avengers!)

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Avengers 2023 0001 cover by CF VillaNear Mint Condition announced a Marvel omnibus for May 2027 that sticks with Marvel’s dedication to quickly collecting runs by their hottest creators as soon as they’re completed… plus, a hotly demanded reprint for May 2027: announcing Avengers by Jed MacKay Omnibus plus a reprint of Avengers by Jonathan Hickman Omnibus Vol. 1!

These two books are the absolute peak of modern day Avengers in two different ways. If you are a fan of Avengers on film, these are the sorts of blockbuster runs that will resonate with you as as a comic book reader.

Avengers by Jed MacKay Omnibus collects the complete run of Avengers (2023). This was a familiar, back-to-basics Avengers cast with a very modern sensibility drawn from two big DC flagship teams: Justice League & The Authority.

Like the Justice League, MacKay’s Avengers spent much of this run headquartered above Earth so they could rapidly respond to incidents anywhere around the globe. And, like The Authority, this was a hyper-powerful team who was fighting for the very survival of Earth itself as they try to beat back a series of “Tribulation Events” … predicted by Kang!

I loved absolutely everything about this blockbuster run, which eventually brought Storm back into the fold as an Avenger and broke artist Farid Karami to widespread acclaim. While I appreciate street-level superheroes, I like my flagship superteams big, bold, and fighting for the very survival of the human race!

I don’t quite love absolutely everything about this omnibus, though. That’s because it should absolutely double-dip MacKay’s Blood Hunt (2024) event series in its entirety. The event was effectively a full arc of Avengers (2023), complete with the entire cast! Blood Hunt was absolutely one of the many Tribulation Events that Kang warned the team about, and this book will feel weirdly incomplete without it included.

That said, it’s still a terrific omnibus of strong modern material, including art that absolutely demands to be seen in oversize format (even if the coloring was a bit shit).

Meanwhile, Marvel is also back to print for the second time with Avengers by Jonathan Hickman Omnibus Vol. 1, just four years after a prior reprint in 2023 (which was six years after the first printing in 2017). [Read more…] about Marvel Omnibus Announcement: Avengers by Jed MacKay Omnibus (plus, a reprint of Hickman Avengers!)

Old Reader / New Reader: Squire by Nadia Shammas & Sara Alfageeh

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After a two year absense, later today I’m back on Old Reader / New Reader on Near Mint Condition with my dear friend Wonder Maddie! We’ll be discussing our read of Squire, an original graphic novel by Nadia Shammas & Sara Alfageeh about a girl whose dreams of becoming a knight – but, first she’ll need to make it through training to become a squire.

This book has been like a safety blanket I’ve carried with me to every doctor’s appointment I’ve had over the past nine months. Usually, I’d only get a page or two into it while in the waiting room. Now that my medical challenges seem to be behind me, I’m excited to put an end to a challenging period of my life by finally finishing this book!

Spoiler alert: I finished reading it last night, and it was NOT what I expected! I’ll talk about how Shammas & Alfageeh shattered my expectations and stereotypes live on the show with Maddie.