Comic Books, Drag Race, & Life in New Zealand
Crushing Comics includes definitive comic book guides, essays about characters and titles, collecting strategies, comic reviews, and more!
Tonight at 8pm US ET I make my official debut* on Near Mint Condition’s “Old Reader / New Reader” hosted by Wonder Maddie! Somehow, Maddie convinced me not only read a DC book, but a DC Black Label book! Join us as we discuss and dissect Peacemaker Tries Hard (2023) by Kyle Starks, Steve Pugh, Jordie Bellaire, & Becca Carey.
* shhh, we’re not counting my appearance on Omar’s birthday stream, Maddie and I scheduled this one first!
For the next two weeks, I’ll be loosely mapping missing and most-wanted Marvel omnibus volumes every day! Today I’ll be looking at all of the omnibuses that don’t yet exist for Avengers team books from 1963 to the present day.
This post explains titles and potential Avengers Omnibus Mapping for entries on the Tigereyes Most Wanted Marvel Omnibus 12th Annual Secret Ballot. You can vote right now (until 5 April 2024 @ midnight US ET) or watch our mega-length announcement stream reviewing every single voting option.
Marvel has always had a strong game when it comes to printing Avengers omnibuses, but a lot of that was linked to the MCU release schedule. In this vast gulf between Avengers films, what Avengers omnibuses do you want to see printed the most? And, what Avengers runs do you still need to dig into?
If you’re not sure of what to vote for, stick around for my explanations. Or, if you’ve already voted, learn why the team behind the poll decided on these books and titles – including some of my mistakes and regrets as one of the editors of the options on the final poll.
Or… just find some great comics to read!
Remember: These mappings are just my suggestion of how Marvel could assemble these books. They are meant to help you decide on your votes and build your personal reading list, but your vote on the poll is NOT an endorsement of my specific map. It’s a vote in favor of Marvel creating a book with that title or covering that period.
Over-the-top comics posts like this one are made possible via the support of Patrons of Crushing Krisis. For less than the cost of a single comic issue a month you can fuel my in-depth comics coverage, plus gain access to dozens of exclusive collecting guides & reading orders – including all of the Crushing Comics Guide to Marvel Comics.
It’s time for the most wonderful Omnibus time of the year! That’s right, today is the kickoff of Tigereyes Most Wanted Marvel Omnibus 12th Annual Secret Ballot – and, I am thrilled beyond words to say that I am both announcing and co-organizing this year’s poll alongside the legendary Tigereyes and Omar!
[cue screaming in excitement and waving my arms around Kermit-style]
Announcing Tigereyes Most Wanted Marvel Omnibus 12th Annual Secret Ballot!
Updated May 8, 2025! The definitive, chronological, and up-to-date guide on collecting X-Men: From the Ashes, including X-Men flagship titles by Gail Simone, Jed McKay, Eve Ewing, and more in comic books via omnibuses, hardcovers, and trade paperback graphic novels. A part of Crushing Krisis’s Crushing Comics. Last updated May 2025 with titles scheduled for release through January 2026.
In March 2024 Marvel Comics answered the question of how the X-Men line will move on from The Age of Krakoa with the announcement of X-Men: From the Ashes.
Editor Tom Brevoort introduced the From the Ashes era by saying, “The X-Men are fractured in the aftermath of the end of Krakoa, scattered across the globe without a central base of operation. What that means in practice is that all three titles carrying the name X-MEN are core X-MEN series—they all center around one of the major aspects of what the team has been about at different points. This is very much by design. We want to field a wide assortment of X-titles with different styles and tones and approaches, an X-MEN book for virtually any taste.”
This new era of X-Men comics launched in July 2024 with three co-flagship books all with “X-Men” in the title, as well as three further team books (NYX, X-Factor, X-Force) and three solo titles (Phoenix, Storm, Wolverine). Those nine books quickly expanded with a trio of mini-series (Dazzler, Mystique, Sentinels) and a second wave of solo book announcements (Laura Kinney – Wolverine, Psylocke, Magik).
This era is marked by a “play the hits” approach to X-Men that gets them back to being hated and feared and eschews as much of the complex character work and morally gray approach of Krakoa as possible. The line is almost universally designed to call back to existing runs and concepts, with only Storm offering a truly original vision out of the initial 12 comics in the line. In particular, NYX is particular reverent of developments from Krakoa.
This guide will be regularly updated as issues are released and new titles are announced.
[Read more…] about X-Men: From The Ashes – The Definitive Collecting Guide & Reading Order
Are you ready to rumble? Today, I’m live with Near Mint Condition to share my Evergreen X-Men Omnibus List – that means the X-Men books should never go out of print!
Omar of Near Mint Condition, Jess the Omnidog, Lars of Mad Norwegian Press, cosplayer and X-Men mega-fan Ødfel, GLAAD-Award Winning author Joe Glass, and more distinguished panelists will share their lists, too… and then we’ll fight tooth and nail over our officially endorsed Evergreen X-Men Omnibus List of 10 books. Plus, viewers on the live stream will get to have their say to correct our mistakes!
It’s the show that is half serious recommendations, half a cut-throat game show of all of us trying to block other people’s recommendations so that all of our own make the list. Will we allow Omar to get Uncanny X-Men Vol. 1 on the Evergreen X-Men Omnibus List, or will we blockade him with votes for Phoenix Vol. 1? Will side books like X-Factor and X-Force make the cut, or will we just stick to Uncanny X-Men and X-Men? And, what about Wolverine!?
Tune in to Near Mint Condition on YouTube to find out!