Join me and the Near Mint Condition Crew as we exclusively announce the Marvel December 2023 Collected Edition Solicits.
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Crushing Comics includes definitive comic book guides, essays about characters and titles, collecting strategies, comic reviews, and more!
Drax Guide – now available to the public!
My countdown to the release of Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 3 continues! Today I have another green-skinned warrior, though he’s not related to Gamora. In fact, one of his earliest objectives was to kill her! I never fully understood this character until I put together his guide, when I realized his key character trait wasn’t his strength or his single-mindedness, but his endless cycle of death and rebirth all triggered by the brutality of everyone’s favourite purple-skinned mad titan, Thanos. Learn about the man known as “The Destroyer,” who was revived to be Thanos’s arch-nemesis in my Drax Guide!
What do I mean about an endless cycle of death and rebirth? Drax’s earliest incarnation was a revival of an Earth man as a powerful golem hell-bent on Thanos’s destruction, but on his mission he has died several times over, which each revival leading to a tweak to his powers (and, sometimes, his intellect). Read more about how the Marvel Cinematic Universe merged those multiple versions of Drax into one in my original launch essay from when I debuted this guide to Patrons of CK.
If you really want to understand Drax’s cosmic comic origins, you absolutely must read a back-up story from the obscure Logan’s Run (1977) #6 as well as Warlock & The Infinity Watch (1992) #12-13. You’ll appreciate Drax more with that core of understanding, no matter which of has many incarnations you read next. I wish I had already known that material when I first read the Annihilation event prologue in Drax The Destroyer (2005). At the time, the themes of that book went totally over my head – I just saw a violent green guy and was confused about why he came back to life so quickly!
Drax has the most fully-developed comics history out of all of the core Marvel Cinematic Universe members of the team, but it also often feels like he doesn’t get the full focus of the book the way Star-Lord and Rocket often do. For a strong modern arc that connects to Drax’s origins, check out Guardians of the Galaxy (2019) #7-12 by Donny Cates.
All of Drax’s many incarnations and every one of his Marvel Comics appearances are detailed in my Drax Guide. Whether you’re trying to put your single comics in a perfect reading order or reserve some Destroyer-filled reads from your local library, my guide has every issue and collected edition you’re looking for.
Gamora Guide – now available to the public!
As we continue the countdown to the release of Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 3, I have another new character guide to share with all readers of CK. I had so much fun reading through every issue in this guide to understand how the most dangerous woman in the universe was introduced as a bounty hunter, turned out to be Thanos’s agent, abruptly died, became a long-term love interest to Adam Warlock and member of the Infinity Watch, and reached new heights of popularity as a Guardian of the Galaxy. You guessed it: it’s my Gamora Guide!
Want to learn more about that rich comics history and Gamora’s canonical relationship with Thanos? Check out my original launch essay from when I debuted the Gamora Guide to Patrons of CK.
Gamora’s comics history is tied closely to both Warlock and the birth of the modern Guardians. I think it’s worth reading Starlin’s Warlock material for just how wildly psychedelic it is, but Gamora really comes into her own as Warlock’s tough lady-friend slash bodyguard during Warlock & The Infinity Watch. That includes a fuller accounting of her origins, which you can read from two different perspectives in Warlock & The Infinity Watch (1992) #9 & 11 during the original Infinity War.
What Gamora still sorely lacks are present day solo adventures, aside from a pair of team-ups in Guardians Team-Up (2015) #4 (with She-Hulk) & 6 (with Nightcralwer). That’s in part because her starring turns in Gamora (2016) and Thanos (2019) we both told in flashback. However, it’s also because she is such a critical anchor of the Guardians team that allows Star-Lord, Drax, and Rocket to rotate in and out of the roster. For an especially strong story of Gamora as a member of the team, read the sequence of Gerry Duggan’s All-New Guardians of the Galaxy (2017) into Infinity Countdown (2018) and Infinity Wars (2018) – which form one mega-arc that develop’s Gamora’s character.
The Gamora Guide explains how to to read all of those issues, whether you are tracking down floppy comics to place in a perfect reading order, buying collected editions for your bookshelf, or reading online on Marvel Unlimited.
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