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Action Comics (1987 – Present) – Collecting Guide and Reading Order

New Comics & Collected Editions Releases: DC Comics – May 1 2024

April 26, 2024 by krisis

It’s the 18th new comic book day of the new year! This post covers DC Comics May 1 2024 releases, which actually hit comic stores on Tuesday April 30 2024. Missed last week’s releases? Check out last week’s post covering DC Comics April 24 2024 new releases.

(DC is still releasing their comics on Tuesday until the start of July, but I think most folks think of Wednesday as release day, so that’s how I’m labelling my posts until then – which means this is the DC Comics May 1 2024 New Releases post… for releases on April 30 ? )

Unlike Marvel, who likes to fill every week to the brim with new releases, in a month with five new comic book days, DC treats the fifth one as a free play to release one-shots an annuals. That’s because their books tend to have a fixed schedule of what week(s) of the month they arrive.

This week in DC Comics: an absolutely stunning Dini & Ross collection, Spurrier’s Flash family squad gets bigger, the secret history of Nightwing’s pirate queen, Harley cruises with Zatanna, a House of Brainiac special, and more!

This list includes every comic and digital comic out from DC this week, plus collected editions in omnibus, hardcover, paperback, and digest-sized formats. I recap and review every new single issue. Plus, for every new release, I’ll point you to the right guide within my Crushing Comics Guide to DC Comics to find out how to collect each character in full – and, if a guide is linked from this post, that means it is updated through the present day!

DC Comics May 1 2024 Collected Editions

Absolute Justice League: The World’s Greatest Superheroes
(2024 slipcased oversize hardcover, ISBN 978-1779526311)
This is a definitive oversize collection of the Paul Dini & Alex Ross collaborations on DC Comics original graphic novels from 1998 to 2003. Together, they wrote definitive stories for DC’s Trinity, Shazam, and the Justice League.

They are all collected here in order: Superman: Peace on Earth (1998) OGN, Batman: War On Crime (1999) OGN, Shazam!: Power of Hope (2000) OGN, Wonder Woman: Spirit of Truth (2001) OGN, JLA: Secret Origins (2002) OGN, and JLA: Liberty And Justice (2003) OGN

Read on for a summary of all of the DC Comics May 1 2024 single issue and digital releases! [Read more…] about New Comics & Collected Editions Releases: DC Comics – May 1 2024

New Comics & Collected Editions Releases: Marvel Comics – May 1 2024

April 25, 2024 by krisis

It’s the 18th new comic book day of the new year! This post covers Marvel Comics May 1 2024 releases. Missed last week’s releases? Check out last week’s post covering Marvel Comics April 24 2024 new releases.

This week in Marvel Comics: Blood Hunt begins, Captain America de-iced, Daredevil Unmasked, the improbable X-Men 2099, Deadpool & Wolverine go to war, Iron Man & Magneto team up, and more!

This list includes every comic and digital comic out from Marvel this week, plus collected editions in omnibus, hardcover, paperback, and digest-sized formats. I recap and review every new single issue. Plus, for every new release, I’ll point you to the right guide within my Crushing Comics Guide to Marvel Comics to find out how to collect each character in full – and, if a guide is linked from this post, that means it is updated through the present day!

Marvel Comics May 1 2024 Collected Editions

Captain America Omnibus Vol. 1
(2024 oversize hardcover, ISBN 978-1302957995 / digital)
See Guide to Captain America. This omnibus collects the start of Cap’s Silver Age return – though, since it is based on the Masterworks mapping, it omits his actual return in Avengers (1963) #4.

We go straight from him despairing over a photo of Bucky in Tales of Suspense (1959) #59 to fighting Baron Zemo in Tales of Suspense (1959) #60. Even if Lee & Kirby lean on action-oriented plots, there are still those moments of Steve being a man out of time trying to absorb the modern day and its new challenges.

Carnage Vol. 1: Born Again
(2024 paperback, ISBN 978-1302955014 / digital)
See Guide to Carnage. This is the very creepy kickoff of Torunn Grønbekk’s 2023 Carnage series, which finds the Carnage symbiote getting back to Earth after nearly attaining godhood and deciding to return to what it knows best – serial killing, one victim at a time.

Marvel Studios’ Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania – The Art of the Movie
(2024 hardcover, ISBN 978-1302956592)
See Guide to Ant-Man.

Mighty Marvel Masterworks: Daredevil Vol. 3: Unmasked
(2024 digest-size paperback, ISBN 978-1302954284 / digital)
See Guide to Daredevil. Marvel’s digest-sized Silver Age collection presses on to the third year of early Daredevil comics. I’m somewhat surprised Marvel extended the Mighty Masterworks line to Daredevil, as his early stories aren’t considered to be particularly significant.

She-Hulk by Rainbow Rowell Vol. 4: Jen-Sational
(2024 paperback, ISBN 978-1302957117 / digital)
See Guide to She-Hulk. This is labeled “Volume 4” despite being the first collection of Sensation She-Hulk (2023) because it picks up directly from the end ofRowell & Company’s 2022 She-Hulk series. While you could pick this up and easily follow it with no preamble, the 15 issues of the prior series are absolutely delightful slice-of-life romance stuff with a just-right amount of punching. [Read more…] about New Comics & Collected Editions Releases: Marvel Comics – May 1 2024

Guide to Action Comics, 1987 – Present (New for Patrons!)

April 22, 2024 by krisis

I’m back today for a DC Guide for Pledgeonaut Patrons of CK, and this guide is a BIG DEAL – not only because it covers nearly 40 years of one of DC’s biggest ongoing titles, but because it marks a major milestone for Crushing Comics! Today I am very proud (and also very exhausted) to debut my Guide to Action Comics (1987 – Present).

Guide to Action Comics (1987 – Present)

This Guide to Action Comics covers every issue of Action Comics through its soft relaunch after Crisis on Infinite Earths, its year as Action Comics Weekly, the pre-Triangle period of three Superman ongoings, the entire decade-long Triangle Era (including Death & Return of Superman and Blue Superman!), the 00s as one of two Superman flagships (including the New Krypton / World Without Superman period), Grant Morrison’s redefinition of Superman in New 52, Rebirth’s streamlining Superman’s continuity, Brian Bendis’s takeover of the Superman titles, Phillip Kennedy Johnson’s Warworld Saga, and the newly-launched Dawn of DC!

Whew! No wonder this guide took the most effort out of all the guides I’ve launched so far this year. However, it’s more than just my first modern Superman guide. It also finally fulfills a plan for CK’s comic guide coverage I first outlined over seven years ago!

New Comics & Collected Editions Releases: DC Comics – April 24 2024

April 20, 2024 by krisis

It’s the 16th new comic book day of the new year! This post covers DC Comics April 24 2024 releases, which actually hit comic stores on Tuesday April 23 2024. Missed last week’s releases? Check out last week’s post covering DC Comics April 17 2024 new releases.

(DC is still releasing their comics on Tuesday until the start of July, but I think most folks think of Wednesday as release day, so that’s how I’m labelling my posts until then – which means this is the DC Comics April 24 2024 New Releases post… for releases on April 23 ? )

This week in DC Comics: a hunk of Booster Gold, evergreen Zatanna, Spurrier’s Flash gets weirder, Green Arrow strikes a deal with Amanda Waller, Harley becomes a villainous consultant, Power Girl in the House of Brainiac, and more!

These DC New Releases posts will be a work in progress. I’m slow catching up to present on my DC reading, and some of my DC Guides are twice that far behind on updates. I thought it might be a good idea to do all my reading and updating before beginning this series of posts, but there’s no better way to catch up on all of that than diving deep into New Releases! Sometimes you’ve got to build the plane while you are flying it!

DC Comics April 24 2024 Collected Editions

Booster Gold: The Complete Series, Book One
(2024 paperback, ISBN 978-1779527233 / digital)
This collects more than a year of the 2007 Geoff Johns Booster Gold series. The series ran for #47 issues – right up until Flashpoint – so we’ll need two more volumes to complete it.

The Flash Vol. 20: Time Heist
(2024 paperback, ISBN 978-1779525017 / digital)
See Guide to Flash. DC loves to really make fans wait for their trade paperbacks, so this is the final collection of the 2016 Flash ongoing that concluded a full year ago! There’s no need to backtrack for this if you want to jump onto the current Flash run.

The Joker: The Man Who Stopped Laughing Vol. 2
(2024 hardcover, ISBN 978-1779524928 / digital)
After bouncing around on a couple of DC properties, it seems that Matt Rosenberg has shown a real knack for the underbelly of Gotham. I haven’t caught up to this Joker series that concluded at the end of 2023 yet, but I absolutely loved Rosenberg’s back-ups in Detective Comics so I’m excited to catch up on this. If you prefer a paperback, DC releases a single paperback collection of this entire series in September.

Zatanna by Paul Dini TP 2024 Edition
(2024 paperback, ISBN 978-1779525833 / digital)
This Paul Dini Zatanna material is nearly evergreen – DC always brings it back to print. This includes her entire 2010 series, plus Dini’s famous Zatanna: Everyday Magic (2003) OGN.

Read on for a summary of all of the DC Comics April 24 2024 single issue and digital releases! [Read more…] about New Comics & Collected Editions Releases: DC Comics – April 24 2024