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Definitive Spider-Woman Collecting Guide and Reading Order

The Spider-Woman and Spider-Girl comic books definitive issue-by-issue collecting guide and trade reading order for omnibus, hardcover, and trade paperback collections. Find every issue and appearance! Part of Crushing Krisis’s Crushing Comics. Last updated November 2024 with titles scheduled for release through February 2024.

Marvel’s Many Spider-Women

Marvel never intended to have a Spider-Woman.

It’s true! The first Spider-Woman was introduced in a rush because Marvel was concerned that the rights-holder of the Spider-Man cartoon would be able to secure a copyright on the character by introducing her first.

Since then, the codename of “Spider-Woman” has had a tangled history at Marvel, being occupied by no less than four characters (plus a handful of Spider-Girls). However, none of these characters were part of Marvel’s A-list until 2006, when Spider-Woman joined the Avengers. Since then, she has been one of the most-used guest-stars in the Marvel Universe.

That development greatly simplifies keeping tracking of the Spider-Woman herself, but in 2014 Marvel amped up the Spider-Women in a major way, introducing Silk and Spider-Gwen, plus re-emphasizing Spider-Girl. [Read more…] about Definitive Spider-Woman Collecting Guide and Reading Order

RuPaul’s Drag Race Power Rankings, S8E01 – “Keeping It 100!”

March 10, 2016 by krisis

Earlier this week, I ranked the Ru Paul’s Drag Race queens based on their brief Meet The Queens interviews. Now we’ve seen a whole hour of them interacting and strutting their stuff. Who came out on top?

1. Bob The Drag Queen

Bob seems to be the queen to beat this season. Everything about her in this episode was perfection.

I think her potential stumbling block is that her fashion might be a little too obvious and off-the-rack based on her Meet The Queens and entrance look. Yet, we saw her construct a stylish garment for the challenge – and, it was one of the most from-a-pattern garments of all the looks. Clearly she has a sense of her fashion and fashion history. Whether that comes across in her suitcase remains to be seen.

There’s also the risk of her sarcastic humor. Bob’s style of comedy does not yet feel like something she can perform all season without ever backtracking or apologizing the way Bianca did.

I don’t think either issue is going to seriously hamstring Bob – she comes off as one of the smartest contestants of all time and I don’t think she would have auditioned without a plan. In the shorter term, I doubt she’s in any danger from next week’s acapella challenge.

2. Kim Chi

Despite my instant obsession with Bob, last year I had Violet in first place largely because she swept the first week of challenges. Who nailed that this year? Kim Chi. She was excellent on everything from entrance look to runway, with some hilarious interviews between.

Kim Chi seems to have the ingredients to make a deep run in this competition except for one thing – her meekness. We saw her be meek in the photo shoot and, to a degree, in some of the runway discussion. She was also a non-factor on Untucked. Wallflowers are not generally winners here, and despite Kim Chi being bomb dot com at everything this week, I have serious concerns about her making it through team challenges or anything theatrical. There’s a certain shyness about her that puts her at risk. We need to see her overcome that ASAP. [Read more…] about RuPaul’s Drag Race Power Rankings, S8E01 – “Keeping It 100!”

RuPaul’s Drag Race, S8E01 Recap: Keeping It 100!

March 9, 2016 by krisis

Twelve queens makes for a lot of men in wigs to wrangle, so rather than do a straight recap of this episode I’m going to describe the general structure, then break things down queen by queen through the judges comments, and finally handle the lip sync at the end.

The intro of the show counts up the most memorable moments from the first 99 episodes from the premiere of Season 1 right through Violet’s queening “Come Through!” at the end of Season 7. You certainly can’t accuse this show of not knowing its own viral moments.

After the 12 girls enter the room and introduce themselves. They aren’t too demographically unique from prior seasons with the exception that there is not a single big queen – Kim Chi is the curviest one, and she’s tiny!

Ru appears to the girls via a video that hits tons of the major catchphrases of the show, though no one quite catches on to the theme of guest stars from seasons past even when boy Ru comes into the room to say hello.

As for the past champions and their Mathu Anderson photo shoot? Bebe Zahara Benet is in high drag – a full-length purple gown, spectacular glittering make-up that draws attention to her eyes, and massive buns of silver costume jewelry and a big loop of hair atop her head. Tyra Sanchez is in basic Beyonce cosplay of black lace over a leather bikini with a ratty blonde wig, and at this point she really just ought to retroactively cede the crown to Raven. Raja is wearing some sort of Hannibal Lector as a Drag Queen in Space facial mask of jewelry that is perfectly weird over a sedate black ensemble. Sharon Needles is in a high-collared full-length velvet dress with big pairs of buttons, slightly masculine features, and bubble-gum pink bouffant. Chad Michaels is the vision of Cher in her 80s leather phase. Jinkx Monsoon is in peach old-film glamour with a stunning head of firey red-orange hair. Violet Chachki looks perhaps better than she ever did on the show as an all-pink Vegas showgirl with gray-lavender hair (I just had that look!)

Oh, and they brought a circus clown to stand in for Bianca! The ladies don’t do or say much during the shoot, although Sharon – ever the queen of comebacks – answers an “OMG” with, “Not really a god, but… close enough.” [Read more…] about RuPaul’s Drag Race, S8E01 Recap: Keeping It 100!

RuPaul’s Drag Race Power Rankings, Season 8 Meet The Queens

March 7, 2016 by krisis

They say you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, but that definitely doesn’t apply to drag queens. In anticipation of my new season of Drag Race recaps and power rankings, here are my hot take rankings solely from watching the Meet The Queens intro videos that were served up before tonight’s premiere.

1. Bob The Drag Queen

Fuck yes. I just love her. All she is 100% IT Factor and nothing else. In this look she has barely transformed her face and yet such handsome, masculine features make for a beautiful drag canvas because of the way she presents herself.

Her humor is on point, but she also seems incredibly smart (“I can’t – I shan’t”). Intelligence (and, past that, introspection) something many girls on the show have been missing in the past yet all of the winners from Raja on have had in spades. (Yes, even Violet. Do not come for my girl.)

I wonder if a lot of her looks are going to be as deglammed as the one in her intro. That could be her weak spot.

Cynthia Lee Fontaine

2. Cynthia Lee Fontaine

I am a little obsessed with Cynthia. She has that Ben De La Creme throwback older-lady realness without being just a vintage pastiche. She’s bringing something new to the housewife glamour look, and I do not think for a second she will hesitate with drop-dead modern fashion when it comes to slay the runaway.

I always think it’s important that you pick up what their key words are before they ever say them, and “elegant, sophisticated, and funny” completely tracks to the character she presents. Plus, she’s also got the Puerto Rico Queen uniqueness, which is is always compelling – and, isn’t it time we finally had a PR queen win? [Read more…] about RuPaul’s Drag Race Power Rankings, Season 8 Meet The Queens

The Avengers (1963) #1-402 (1963-1996) – Definitive Collecting Guide and Reading Order

Updated Sept 29 2025! The definitive, chronological, and up-to-date guide on collecting Avengers comic books from 1963 to 1996, including Avengers (1963) #1-402 as written by Stan Lee, Roy Thomas, Roger Stern, John Byrne, Bob Harras, and more via omnibuses, hardcovers, and trade paperback graphic novels. A part of Crushing Comics – Guide to Marvel Comics. Last updated September 2025 with titles scheduled for release through June 2026.

The Fantastic Four were Marvel’s “first family” and The Avengers were its first super-group.

In its 1963 debut, Avengers pulled together all but one of Marvel’s most-successful early Silver Age heroes from their disparate anthology titles – Iron Man, Thor, Hulk, and Ant-Man & Wasp. (The hero they omitted was Spider-Man.)

After just four issues the line-up was tweaked to drop Hulk and add Captain America, unfrozen after the Golden Age in a sly bit of retconning from Stan Lee & Jack Kirby, and the Avengers as we know and love them were born.

The Silver Age run of the book established many of the relationships we take for granted in modern day Marvel. Issue #16 found Cap leading the new “kooky quartet” of former villains Hawkeye, Scarlet Witch, and Quicksilver. A few years later the team would add characters like Black Widow and Black Panther to the cast and head into the famous storylines that debuted Vision and Ultron.

That original 1963 Avengers title lasted for 33 years until it was cancelled in the wake of the 1996 Onslaught crossover event. By the time the book ended it had seen dozens of heroes become members, eventually graduating from being anchored by its “holy trinity” of Iron Man, Thor, & Cap to feature a broad array of cast members like Carol Danvers as Ms. Marvel, Starfox, She-Hulk, Hercules, Crystal, Sersi, and more!

This guide addresses how read and collect every issue of this main Avengers title. If you’re looking for other Avengers titles from the same period, they have their own guides – including a Guide to Avengers West Coast. And, if you want to continue reading Avengers from this point forward, simply move on to the Guide to Avengers (1996 – 2005).

There are hundreds of different collections of this era of this initial thirty-year run of The Avengers. However, there are a few specific formats of books that cover large portions of this title, and I’ll cover those first – oversize Omnibuses, premium hardcover Masterworks, affordable digest Mighty Marvel Masterworks, chunky paperback Epic Collections, and the classic black-and-white Essentials.

Then, I’ll get into the issue-by-issue chronological breakdown of the 400+ issues of this title across the Silver, Bronze. and Copper AKA Modern Age – including where the run was intersected by major stories like Secret Wars, Inferno, Infinity Gauntlet, and Onslaught.

Note: This guide is focused on collections that will allow you to collect a continuous run or key stories from The Avengers. This guide does not contain every collection that includes just a handful of issues of Avengers. For example, a modern Doctor Doom collection containing two issues of Avengers would be omitted.