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

Unstoppable Wasp Guide – now available to the public!

February 15, 2023 by krisis

I’m happy to announce that my Unstoppable Wasp Guide is now available to all readers to celebrate the release of Ant-Man & the Wasp: Quantumania, in theatres today!

Guide to Unstoppable Wasp, Nadia van Dyne

This Unstoppable Wasp Guide includes a complete reading order of every Nadia van Dyne appearance, from her debut in Free Comic Book Day (FCBD) 2016, through her stint in The Avengers, into Secret Empire and out into the Champions on the other side – plus, Nadia’s own delightful book, Unstoppable Wasp.

Throughout the reading order, I indicate where some books are very tonally different for the character (a-hem, Secret Empire), in case you’re reading along with the kids in your life. If you’re Not in the mood for a full-on Unstoppable Wasp reading order, I also provided a slimmed-down list of “Greatest Hits” issues so you can get only the core of Nadia’s story without background appearances and cameos.

Nadia occupies an interesting space in Marvel’s mythology. She is Hank Pym’s daughter, but she is not his daughter with The Wasp (Janet van Dyne) that neatly aligns with Hope van Dyne of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Instead, Nadia is Hank’s previously unknown child with his first wife, Maria Trovaya. Maria was introduced via flashback in the Silver Age debut of Janet van Dyne. As Hank recalls in that 60s comic, Maria was abducted by foreign agents on their honeymoon and presumed dead for decades of comic continuity. Even when it was later suggested that she was kept alive and held captive, there was nary a hint of a secret daughter until Mark Waid created Nadia in 2016.

Even if Nadia isn’t the same as Hope, there’s something very clever about how she has been handled. That’s because she has allowed Janet van Dyne to take on a maternal role (even giving Nadia her last name!) without aging her to be the mother of a teenager of her own. While moms absolutely can be (and are) heroes, Marvel is always shy to make a female hero into a mom without artificially aging up her child – as we’ve seen with both Jean Grey and Scarlet Witch!

(Sue Storm remains Marvel’s mom-in-chief, parenting two teenagers who aged up off-panel alongside her during an eight-year gap spent tending to other universes after Secret Wars).

This Unstoppable Wasp Guide exists thanks to the ongoing support of the amazing Patrons of Crushing Krisis. They’ve had early access to the guide for three weeks. Now, the guide is open to the public and updated through the present day.

Kang the Conqueror – Definitive Collecting Guide and Reading Order

New for Patrons: Guide to Kang the Conqueror (including Iron Lad & Rama-Tut)

February 13, 2023 by krisis

This week I’m here with an especially rare new guide CK’s Plegeonaut Patrons on Patreon – a guide to a Marvel villain! I find villain guides to be some of the most-challenging to organize, and this villain might be the most-challenging of all because he exists in multiple time periods and has had multiple identities – sometimes all at once! After a lot of puzzling and a lot of reading, I’m proud to present my Guide to Kang the Conqueror!

Guide to Kang the Conqueror

Kang is one of those characters that my 30+ years of comic reading has suggested is incredibly complicated, but I’m here to tell you that his centuries-spanning history really isn’t as complex as the comics (and some fans) make it out to be.

First things first: Kang is from the future of the Marvel Universe, but not the future of Earth-616! He is from an alternate 30th Century future Earth that was visited by Reed Richards’ time-traveling father, Nathaniel Richards. He inspired young Kang, so he took on his name. Thus, Kang is often also known as Nathaniel Richards (Earth-6311).

How did Nathaniel Richards of Earth-6311 wind up in our present day comics? And what do Iron Lad, Rama-Tut, and Immortus have to do with it? It’s a lot simpler than you might think.

Updated: Guide to Silver Age X-Men

February 10, 2023 by krisis

I’m excited to share this much-needed guide refresh, especially in the wake of yesterday’s broadcast with Near Mint Condition – which included a key omnibus this page was missing! Welcome back to my uncanny Guide to Silver Age X-Men – covering every major collection format for Uncanny X-Men (1963) #1-66, their hiatus years guest appearances, and modern “Hidden Years” stories inserted into that period!

Guide to Silver Age X-Men

My Guide to Silver Age X-Men hasn’t had a significant update since 2016, although I did stop by to add a few Epic Collections in the past seven years.

Fortunately, the landscape of Silver Age X-Men collections hasn’t shifted too much since the introduction of the Epic line. Yet, there are still new collections to add to the guide. The big news has been the recent initiation of a new line of paperback “Mighty Marvel Masterworks,” plus the recent announcement of an omnibus of John Byrne’s retcon insert series, X-Men: The Hidden Years. There have also been a number of reprinted books along the way, including both classic omnibuses, and they’ve all been added explicitly to the guide.

I added those new collections, as well as gave the guide a facelift to bring it in line with my newer style guides. That means it now includes publishing years, full ISBNs, and links to buy and read digitally.

Many folks don’t hold this Silver Age run in high regard past the initial handful of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby issues. However, I think a lot of it is worth reading for modern X-Men fans. In particular, I’d suggest reading issues #1-6 to see Namor and Magneto’s first meeting, issues #12-13 for Juggernaut’s first story, and issue #14-16 for the first Sentinels story – as well as some of the Roy Thomas and Neal Adams material from issues #56-66.

This Guide to Silver Age X-Men update is just the first of many X-Men guide updates to come, which have been the most-demanded updates from Patrons and the general public alike. I hear you! There are now over 200 guide pages to update, but the X-Men guides will always be the closest to my heart and I know that’s true for many of you as well.

Near Mint Condition show recap: Marvel’s newest trade paperbacks & 40 upcoming 2023 Marvel omnibuses!

February 9, 2023 by krisis

I am fresh from co-hosting my first ever Marvel solicits announcement show on Near Mint Condition with the Uncanny Omar and Kurtis from the Epic Marvel Podcast! We joined forces to reveal eight new thick trades recollecting existing material, plus we recapped the staggering 40 Marvel omnibuses that Omar has announced from August through December of 2023.

(Watch on YouTube)

Altogether, that made for three solid hours of collected editions content, during which we had a lot of interesting conversations about these runs and how they’re collected. But, in case you don’t have three hours, now I can reveal what we talked about!

(I’ll warn you that if you start watching from the beginning you’ll see 10 minutes of technical difficulties that included my blind panic when I realized I was the only host connected to the live stream while I wasn’t wearing my glasses and was connected to the wrong wifi network in my house.)

First, let’s look at the even newly-announced thick trade paperbacks and one new gallery edition. Our show was the first time these books have been announced anywhere on the internet! Then, I’ll recap all 40 of the Marvel Omnibus announcements we dissected at length.