Crushing Krisis

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

New For Patrons: The Definitive Guide to Marvel’s X-Man, Nate Grey

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Today’s new guide for Patrons of Crushing Krisis covers an unusual X-Men character, a copy of another character who went one to helm one of the longest-running X-Men solo series before disappearing into the aether (literally) for nearly a decade…

X-Man, Nate Grey – The Definitive Reading Order and Collecting Guide

Let’s get one thing out of the way first: yes, this is really a guide for one 80-issue ongoing and fewer than 50 additional appearances by a character who went forgotten for a decade, and then for another half decade after a brief return.

That’s it! And, yet, X-Man AKA Nate Grey is about to make a major comeback to the world of X-Men, so it was time he got his own guide.

He debuted as part of “Age of Apocalypse” in 1995, and it’s important to remember that this event was quite specifically not an alternate reality at the time. It was the only version of Marvel’s reality that existed in the present day thanks to Legion going back in time to murder his father, Charles Xavier, rather than his target Magneto. (Oops!)

Nate Grey was a critical figure in the Age of Apocalypse – a version of Cable unravaged by time and the TO virus. While our Cable relied on his tactical skill and his leverage over the timestream to thwart his enemies, Nate Grey only needed Cable’s heritage of raw, uninhibited mutant power – the kind that Mr. Sinister had spent years trying to realize in our original timeline.

Age of Apocalypse was well-received and marvelous fun to read at the time. The idea of four of its characters and one of its titles persisting into Marvel-616 continuity was thrill! Of course, it made the most sense for that title to be X-Man, the most unique and singular of all the converted books.

However, there was the question of what to do with Nate Grey. In the Age of Apocalypse he was the most-powerful rebel, but in 616 Marvel he had nothing to rebel against. There was no narrative to welcome Nate Grey to the main Marvel timeline.  [Read more…] about New For Patrons: The Definitive Guide to Marvel’s X-Man, Nate Grey

New for Patrons: The Definitive Guides to The Sandman Universe

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Today’s new guide Patrons of Crushing Krisis is actually three guides (or maybe four, by the time you read this), which seems like overkill for what is essentially a single title with an obvious ten-volume paperback line. But, it’s really so much more than that…

Sandman Universe – The Definitive Reading Order and Collecting Guide

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Books of Magic – The Definitive Reading Order and Collecting Guide

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Lucifer – The Definitive Reading Order and Collecting Guide

I am fascinated by how Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman (and, in fact, all of the extended Sandman Universe) bridges the gap between comic books and serious literature.

That fascination has lasted for over 25 years – almost as long as Gaiman’s reinvention of the Golden Age character has existed.

Even the most-knowledgable comic fan could be forgiven for not knowing that Morpheus the King of Dreams was merely an iteration on an already-rebooted Golden Age DC hero. The original Sandman, Wesley Dodds, was a minor character who ran for seven years in the Golden Age and then popped back up twenty years later in the Earth 2 Justice Society of America in the Silver Age.

Without Gaiman and Morpheus, Dodds would probably be that one JSA member whose name you could never recall. His Silver Age iteration certainly wouldn’t jog your memory – a Kirby/Simon creation meant to be Mr. Sandman who lasted just six issues and who was later retconned in Wonder Woman to be a professor lost in the world of dreams.

There was no harm in Neil Gaiman revamping such a character to a more adult version early in the Post-Crisis years in 1989. At the time, Gaiman was still a relative unknown, coming off of the slept-on Black Orchid mini-series – a similar act of excavation and reinvention. He was so used to tepid reception to his early work that he expected Sandman to run just eight issues, which is why the first eight form such a satisfying arc despite being a mix of one-shots and continuing stories. He though that would be the whole series!

Instead, The Sandman became the springboard off of which Gaiman launched his multimedia fame in a miraculous three-year run from 1990-93 that saw him release Books of Magic at DC, the novel Good Omens (with Terry Prachett), win a World Fantasy Award in a category where Sandman wasn’t even eligible, essentially give birth to what we know as the modern American graphic novel market with the first two Sandman trade paperbacks, and top it off with the landmark Death: The High Cost of Living (the collection of which would be introduced by his friend and frequent name-checker, Tori Amos). [Read more…] about New for Patrons: The Definitive Guides to The Sandman Universe

DC Comics Lucifer – The Definitive Collecting Guide and Reading Order

The definitive issue-by-issue collecting guide and trade reading order for DC Comics Lucifer comic books in omnibus, hardcover, and trade paperback collections. Find every issue and appearance! Part of Crushing Krisis’s Crushing Comics. Last updated August 2022 with titles scheduled for release through January 2023.

Lucifer Morningstar. Rebellious Angel of Heaven. Lord of Hell.

We first meet the DC Comics Lucifer of the Sandman Universe in The Sandman (1989) #4, where he is modeled on Space Oddity era David Bowie. He is a prickly and clever opponent for the still-recovering Morpheus, but one who allows for a battle of wits with his proxy rather than a physical confrontation.

That’s why it’s so surprising when Lucifer abdicates his throne in “Season of Mists,” handing the key to his kingdom to his former foe, Morpheus and decamping to the mortal coil to live on Earth.

Lucifer continues as a supporting character through the end of Neil Gaiman’s run on Sandman, also appearing in The Demon and Books of Magic in the 90s. When we find him in Mike Carey’s 1999 mini-series, he is running a piano bar in his exile when an agent of Heaven asks him to intervene in a human wish-granting scheme.

This highlights the central conflict of this version of Lucifer. Does he have free will? Does anyone? In choosing to abandon hell or aid heaven, is Lucifer flouting the shape of God’s plan or going along with it? This Lucifer seems to yo-yo between rebellion and self-destruction, never quite sure which which will cause more deviation from God’s plan. [Read more…] about DC Comics Lucifer – The Definitive Collecting Guide and Reading Order