Crushing Krisis

Comic Books, Drag Race, & Life in New Zealand

comic books

Crushing Comics includes definitive comic book guides, essays about characters and titles, collecting strategies, comic reviews, and more!

New for Patrons: Guide to Justice Society of America

by

After working on the Guide to Doctor Fate launch earlier this week for Pledgeonaut Patrons of CK, I realized it was time for me to finally dive into one of the few corners of DC Universe continuity that I still find intimidating. That’s because this team has been repeatedly in and out of continuity, they’ve been residents of multiple Earths (and at the center of several crises), and their membership spans multiple generations of heroes. I am talking about the original comic super-team that first debuted back in 1940, now completely explained in my Guide to Justice Society of America!

Guide to Justice Society of America

This guide will debut to the public the week that the Black Adam movie releases to theatres!

This is one of those times where I always hoped someone else on the internet would have explained things by now, but they didn’t so I had to take things into my own hands. Yes, I read Wikipedia and Fandom. Yes, I checked out some sites dedicated to the Justice Society. All of them explained the timeline of the JSA either with needless complexity or with the assumption of the reader being a DC Insider.

That’s not good enough for me. I want my guides to be able to explain things to someone who decided to read a comic for the very first time and just happened to pick the title covered by that guide. Many of my older guides are way too complex for that – I have a lot of work to do! But, my newer style of coverage strives for completeness but also clarity.

As it turns out, creating a Guide to Justice Society of America doesn’t have to be all that complicated. If you’ve ever wanted the cliff notes on the team, here’s the simplest way I can explain it: [Read more…] about New for Patrons: Guide to Justice Society of America

New for Patrons: Guide to Doctor Fate

by

I took a deep dive into the mystical side of DC Comics to put together this new guide for Pledgeonaut Patrons of CK, and I was surprised to learn that the hero whose guide I was constructing has actually been nearly a dozen different characters over the course of their 80 years of comics history! Prepare yourself to enter the often-deadly magical side of DC, which has killed many versions of this hero along the way, with my… Guide to Doctor Fate!

I’ve always worked from the assumption that Doctor Fate is a major DC hero.

Why? Because I had his Kenner “Super Powers” toy as a little kid, and surely every hero who merited a unique sculpt in that legendary toy line was a major force in the DC Universe.

As it turns out, the story is slightly more complex than that.

Doctor Fate is not a singular hero in the DC Universe, but a heroic mantle and set of mystical powers that are often (but not always) connected to Nabu and the Lords of Order. It’s like how Doctor Strange is the Sorcerer Supreme, only if Strange died a lot more frequently and other people took up the role.

Actually, maybe it’s more like Buffy The Vampire Slayer… [Read more…] about New for Patrons: Guide to Doctor Fate

Newly Announced: Uncanny X-Men Omnibus Vol. 5 (+ the problem with its mapping explained)

by

This weekend, Marvel announced their most-anticipated omnibus via my friend and colleague Omar’s YouTube channel, Near Mint Condition: Uncanny X-Men, Vol. 5!

(That isn’t an exaggeration; the online omnibus community produces a yearly secret ballot to determine its most-wanted books and this one tops the list, as also reported by Omar.)

This is the last omnibus X-fans need to complete their oversized bookshelf of Uncanny X-Men (1963) #1-321. That means it’s time for the celebration to begin! Let the X-villagers rejoice!

Well… not quite.

The hesitation comes down to the initially-announced contents of the book, what fans assumed it would contain, what Marvel has recently reprinted, and how Marvel plans to continue collecting Uncanny X-Men in omnibus in the coming years.

(Note: Omar very kindly invited me to a discussion of this topic on his channel, but I couldn’t make it work across time zones. Plus, I’m trying to keep my X-Men X-Posure contained to CK, at the moment.)

Uncanny X-Men Omnibus Vol. 5 Contents

The contents of this volume, as announced by Omar on Near Mint Condition, are:

Uncanny X-Men (1963) #194-209 & Annual 9, New Mutant Special Edition (1985) #1, Nightcrawler (1985) #1-4, Longshot (1985) #1-6, and material from Marvel Fanfare (1982) #33.

I’ll explain why all of those issues are in the omnibus in just a moment. First, let’s talk about what’s missing. Or, should I say “missing” – since not everyone agrees.

What is Uncanny X-Men Omnibus Vol. 5 “missing”?

The initial solicited contents of Uncanny X-Men Omnibus Vol. 5 skips two runs that many buyers of all of the X-Men omnibus line anticipated it would include, for reasons I’ll cover below.

Here is what the contents do not currently include:

  • Uncanny X-Men (1963) Annual 10 and New Mutants (1983) Annual 2
  • Avengers (1963) #263; Fantastic Four (1961) #286; X-Factor (1986) #1-8 & Annual 1, and potentially some other related material

If you know your X-mapping well, you will immediately see the problem with these exclusions! By leaving Annual 10 out of this volume, Marvel has invented a difference between the mapping of the X-Men “Classic Omnibus” line that begins with Volume 1 and the X-Men “Event Omnibus” line that begins with Mutant Massacre. But, there’s no reason that difference has to exist!

If you’re not a X-Men mapping X-Pert yet, keep reading for a complete X-Plainer. [Read more…] about Newly Announced: Uncanny X-Men Omnibus Vol. 5 (+ the problem with its mapping explained)