Crushing Krisis

Comic Books, Drag Race, & Life in New Zealand

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Crushing Comics S01E055 – Why I can’t meditate + X-Men: Fall of the Mutants

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As I unwrap today’s book, I talk about my inability to meditate in the traditional “relaxed mind” version of meditation. For me, meditation comes from engaging my brain in something. For some people that’s a zen koan, but for me it’s more like alphabetizing books or organizing files.

The book I unwrap after all that musing is X-Men: Fall of the Mutants, the “crossover that was not.” I explain how it began the unravelling of the main X-Men team and how it marked the highlight of Louise Simonson’s run on X-Factor.

Want to start from the beginning of this season of videos? Here’s the complete Season 1 playlist of Crushing Comics.

Episode 55 features X-Men: Fall of the Mutants, covered in the Guide to Uncanny X-Men by Chris Claremont.

Crushing Comics S01E054 – X-Men Inferno & Operation: Zero Tolerance (+ the vicarious thrill of natural disasters)

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As I unwrap I talk about the combined thrill and terror of living through natural disasters like hurricanes and earthquakes. I always said that Philly was relatively immune to such apocalyptic events, but now I live right on a fault line (and right on the water).

Then, I open what might be the most sought-after X-Men hardcover today – Inferno! Is the story worth all of the hype and high prices? I walk you through how it came to be, including a brief history of Madelyne Pryor, and speculate if it was Chris Claremont’s way of “fixing” his master plan after the debut of X-Factor. (I have much less to say about Operation Zero Tolerance.)

Want to start from the beginning of this season of videos? Here’s the complete Season 1 playlist of Crushing Comics.

Episode 54 features X-Men: Inferno and X-Men: Operation Zero Tolerance, which are covered in the guides to Uncanny X-Men by Chris Claremont and X-Men (1991), respectively.

Crushing Comics S01E053 – Neil Gaiman’s The Absolute Sandman, Vol. 2

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After yesterday’s unwrapping confusion, today I take great care to actually select an Absolute Edition from my shelf. As I unwrap, I talk about why DC is so under-represented on my shelf.

The book that I pulled is the second Absolute edition of Neil Gaiman’s Sandman. Since I have an imperfect memory of the stories therein, I discuss the World Fantasy Award the series received just prior to this run, and how that was a part of Sandman becoming the Literature of comics (all while Marvel and DC where at the height of the 90s speculation boom).

Want to start from the beginning of this season of videos? Here’s the complete Season 1 playlist of Crushing Comics.

Episode 53 features The Absolute Sandman, Vol. 2.

Crushing Comics S01E052 – Avengers Assemble by Kurt Busiek & George Perez (+ an explainer on Onslaught and Heroes Reborn)

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In this episode I am totally faked out by set of books that are so thoroughly-wrapped that I was sure I’d be talking about an Absolute Edition! As I unwrap them (under this mistaken assumption), I talk about how Marvel only occasionally releases a book that large – variously titled an Adamantium Edition or Vibranium Edition.

Instead, I wind up unwrapping the first half of Kurt Busiek and George Perez’s 1998 run on Avengers! That lets me give an explanation of how Heroes Reborn extends from Onslaught and changed the status quo of the Marvel Universe.

Want to start from the beginning of this season of videos? Here’s the complete Season 1 playlist of Crushing Comics.

Episode 52 features the Avengers Assemble Volume 1 and Volume 2, plus Avengers Forever. For more information on these books and what they contain, see the Guide to Avengers (1996-2005).

Crushing Comics S01E051 – X-Men Fatal Attractions & Phalanx Covenant (+ the challenges of reprinting 90s comics)

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Do you remember what it was like to celebrate the new year as a young child? For me, it’s memories of banging pots and pans at midnight, but also of months trying to remember to get the date right when writing the headers of my school assignments. After all, when you’re seven years old, you’ve spent 100% of you school life so far writing the prior year down on assignments!

In this episode open up two big books of comics from my original collecting days of the 90s: X-Men: Fatal Attractions and X-Men: Phalanx Covenant. As I page through them, I discuss Marvel’s process for restoring the art from these comics, and how it presents different challenges than reprinting books from the Silver Age – including dealing with holographs.

Want to start from the beginning of this season of videos? Here’s the complete Season 1 playlist of Crushing Comics.

Episode 51 features the X-Men: Fatal Attractions and X-Men: Phalanx Covenant oversized hardcovers. To understand where they fit into X-Men continuity, see Uncanny X-Men #281-350.