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comic books

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

Batman by Grant Morrison – The Complete Guide & Trade Reading Order

Updated April 12, 2026! This page tells you everything you need to know and buy to read Grant Morrison’s Batman epic saga from 2006 to 2013. It includes every issue in comprehensive order, listing all of the formats in which each issue has been published. Last updated April 2026 with titles scheduled for release through December 2026.

Batman has had several epic single-author runs in his modern history, from the likes of Denny O’Neil, Doug Moench, Chuck Dixon, Greg Rucka, Ed Brubaker, Scott Snyder, and more!

What makes Grant Morrison’s run any different or more notable?

It’s a question of history and of scope. Grant Morrison’s run is predicated on a knowledge and reference to past Batman stories, including some Pre-Crisis stories that had been in continuity limbo for several years. Also, no single author had previously had a Batman run of this scope – running across three titles and seven years and intersecting with one of DC’s biggest events along the way.

Plus, there’s the x-factor of Morrison himself. They is a psychedelic comic author as likely to mine continuity for details that deserve fresh exploitation as they are to take characters on inexplicable journeys with some of the steps missing or out of order.

Like him or not, Grant Morrison’s arrival on a superhero title almost always makes for appointment comics. Pairing him with the most-popular comic book hero in the world was a lightning-in-a-bottle moment for DC.

Ready to get started? [Read more…] about Batman by Grant Morrison – The Complete Guide & Trade Reading Order

DC’s Gotham Titles – The Definitive Collecting Guide and Reading Order

The definitive issue-by-issue collecting guide and trade reading order for Gotham City comic books in omnibus, hardcover, and trade paperback collections. Part of Crushing Krisis’s Crushing Comics and The Definitive Guide to Collecting Batman Comics. Last updated February 2017 with titles scheduled for release through July 2017.

Gotham City: More Than Just Batman

To start, this guide focuses on literal “Gotham” comics – books with the word “Gothman” in their titles. As the DC Guide expands, it will act as an index for other Gothman-based titles covered on other pages. [Read more…] about DC’s Gotham Titles – The Definitive Collecting Guide and Reading Order

This week in comic book collected editions – February 22, 2017

February 19, 2017 by krisis

The comic collected editions scheduled for release by major comic publishers on any given week are a surprisingly unknowable and subjective list, which is exactly why I’ve done my best to summarize them here in a single post for you.

Why is the release schedule of trade paperbacks, deluxe hardcovers, and omnibuses so unknowable when other new media releases like novels, films and DVDs, and music are so predictable?

Preview Magazine tells us what comic publishers have scheduled to release to the direct market as of three to six months out from publication dates. Yet, that the schedule frequently changes and is not updated in a uniform fashion (although Previews does continue to update it right through the last moment before releases are shipped).

Meanwhile, Mass market booksellers receive comic collections on a delay from the direct market, but the delay differs from publisher to publisher depending on their distribution arrangements. Marvel is consistently delayed two weeks, while Image can range anywhere from one week to over a month.

Yikes.

So what is the book list below? It’s based on a combination of the Previews catalog, Amazon listings adjusted for the common mass market delay, and a poll of the top comic selling websites. There’s no other place you can find a similarly curated list.

Publishers:

  • DC
  • Dark Horse
  • IDW
  • Image Comics
  • Marvel Comics
  • Valiant Entertainment
  • Other Publishers

What are the must-read books this week?

There are a lot of good collections out this week, but just one is must-buy – and that’s not even due to my personal affinity for the character! Wonder Woman Vol. 1: The Lies is the first Wonder Woman collection of the present-day story from her Rebirth comic, written by Greg Rucka and illustrated by Liam Sharp. Fans already loved Rucka from a mid-2000s WW run, and they’ve been raving about this one.

And now, on to the books! [Read more…] about This week in comic book collected editions – February 22, 2017

Filed Under: comic books Tagged With: Collected Editions, New Releases

Comic Book Review: The Wild Storm #1 by Ellis, Davis-Hunt, Plascencia, & Bowland

February 16, 2017 by krisis

I place all remixed songs into one of two categories: enhancing or reimagining.

Some remixes enhance the original. Add more rhythms, speed things up, restructure the song. Other remixes reimagine the original, taking just one or two elements like a vocal or a prominent riff and build a whole new song from scratch – often sans the identifying bass line or chord changes of the original.

I’ve liked both kinds of remixes over the years, but sometimes when I hear a reimagination I think, “Why didn’t they just write their own song?” Aside from a copped vocal hook, sometimes they can be an entirely other creature than the original. Why call it “Song X (remix)” rather than “Song Y (featuring samples from Song X)”?

It’s all a study in taxonomy, I suppose – calling things by a name that will generate the most interest and success for them.

Which brings me to The Wild Storm.

WildStorm was one of the original Image Comics studios and the one with the richest expanded universe of characters. That’s what made it attractive for DC Comics to purchase from original studio head Jim Lee when he wanted to ditch administration to return to illustration, and why the WildStorm characters have continued to appear in DC-published comics for over a decade.

DC has done a lot of different remixes on the WildStorm characters and concepts since they first acquired the publisher in 1999. They’ve published straight-up continuances of the original continuity. They’ve done a trademark soft reset of continuity. They’ve mashed WildStorm into DC’s own history, putting characters like Grifter and Deathblow in league with DC stalwarts like Deathstroke and Amanda Waller.The_Wild_Storm_2017_001

The Wild Storm is something different entirely – a reimagination rather than an enhancement. Warren Ellis, one of the most famous and famously-reliable writers in comics today, has been handed the WildStorm intellectual property as a whole by DC Comics and instructed to create his own reimagination of the original with no strings attached.

Is it recognizable as WildStorm? Is it another great Warren Ellis book? Is it any good.

The Wild Storm #1 (digital)

The Wild Storm (2017) #1, written by Warren Ellis with artist Jon Davis-Hunt, colorist Ivan Plascenia, and lettered Simon Bowland. This issue will be collected in The Wild Storm, Vol. 1.

Warren Ellis has the entire palette of classic WildStorm players to work with to launch his reimagined WildStorm Universe. He selected some of the best characters of the bunch for this first issue, but the story relies on a lot of nostalgic expectations of what WildStorm consists of in order to click.

This is not the unrelenting debut issue you’ve come to expect from Ellis after reading books like Injection, Trees, Karnak, Moon Knight, and even as far back as Planetary. Even on the Astonishing X-Men, a run that left fans lukewarm, Ellis’s first issue was a bomb disguised as a puzzle box.

Compared to all of those, The Wild Storm #1 comes off a bit flat. Maybe it’s because we get to see every side of the main mystery, meaning we know more than the characters (not generally an Ellis hallmark). Or, perhaps it’s that half the issue is spent telling and even repeating rather than showing. [Read more…] about Comic Book Review: The Wild Storm #1 by Ellis, Davis-Hunt, Plascencia, & Bowland

Filed Under: comic books, reviews Tagged With: Ivan Plascenia, Jon Davis-Hunt, Simon Bowland, The Wild Storm, Warren Ellis, Wildstorm, Zealot

Batman – Collecting Guide & Reading Order (Post-Crisis, from #401 – Present)

Updated April 23, 2026! The Batman comic books definitive issue-by-issue collecting guide and trade reading order for omnibus, hardcover, and trade paperback collections. Part of Crushing Krisis’s Crushing Comics and The Definitive Guide to Collecting Batman Comics. Last updated April 2026 with titles scheduled for release through December 2026.

Post-Crisis Batman: Batman (1940) #401 (Nov 1986) – Present Day

Many of DC’s heroes saw their comics relaunched in the wake of Crisis on Infinite Earths to delineate where their new continuity began. That was not the case with Batman, whose Detective Comics and Batman continued their runs uninterrupted.

Batman #401 is the first appearance of Post-Crisis Batman. Yet, the true keystone to Post-Crisis Batman is Year One in #404-407. Frank Miller pens a fresh, definitive take on Batman’s first year in the cowl that becomes the in-continuity bedrock of all further Batman stories. [Read more…] about Batman – Collecting Guide & Reading Order (Post-Crisis, from #401 – Present)

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