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RuPaul’s Drag Race Power Rankings, S7E01 – “Born Naked”

March 6, 2015 by krisis

Can you effectively read a queen after one episode? I’m not so sure, since the only season I got to watch without knowing the winner first was last season – but, eventual winners do have a way of standing out in their first appearances either in look or personality.

How do these ladies rank after a single engagement? Let’s take a look.

#1 Violet Chachki
This queen’s fashion ranged from simply pretty to avant garde, she’s fishy (i.e., like an actual girl), she dishes great commentary, and she won the first challenge. Welcome to a world with a target on your back, girl. Now we need to see that personality – she could be one who wilts under the lights of the theatrical challenges. If not? Major danger, and a suitable follow-up win for a younger queen after Adore didn’t quite make it.

#2 Kennedy Davenport
This is the experience of a Coco Montrese without the constant self-sabotage, and her fashion sense is impeccable so far. Plus, she’s apparently a dancer? She’s going to be a polished force to be reckoned with (although I have to wonder about her sewing after that circus tent resort wear). Also, clearly there’s a good story to be had in a more-experienced, black, southern, curvy winner. No way she misses the final three if she can stay consistent.

#3 Ms. Fame
So very fishy, but we’ll see if she has the performance chops for the more personality-driven challenges. While I suspect she’s a fierce competitor, I could see her pulling a Trinity Bonet and feeling she’s above one of the challenges or a Courtney Act where she just doesn’t realize she’s not the best. Without Tempest in the ix I get the sense she is going to be the remaining seamstress to reckon with. However, that ridiculous first outfit shows she’s capable of the occasional misstep and bad paint job, which could be her undoing.

(Here’s where I’d have Tempest. So sad.) [Read more…] about RuPaul’s Drag Race Power Rankings, S7E01 – “Born Naked”

RuPaul’s Drag Race, S7E01 Recap: Born Naked

March 5, 2015 by krisis

RPDRS7 One of my biggest life events in 2014 was becoming obsessed with RuPaul’s Drag Race.

I watched a random episode of its sixth season on a lazy Saturday and got sucked in by watching some of the world’s most-fabulous drag queens competing while also showing some of the behind-the-scenes of their craft. I’ve loved drag and gender-bending culture ever since I was a six year-old wearing a Jem costume for Halloween, so it wasn’t long before I had a season pass plus tickets to see the queens on tour (Ben De La Creme foreva!).

This week the newest season of Drag Race got started. One thing I experienced in my new fandom last year is that there aren’t a ton of sites doing recaps and commentary on the show – I was reading the same few things over and over, in particular, Tom and Lorenzo (now shuttered) and Onion’s AV Club, plus indiewire and l’etoile. So, I figure if I’m going to watch it obsessedly for the next three months, I ought to write a bit about it too!

Let’s be honest – there’s really nothing to recap other than fashion on the first episode when there are 14 queens and four outfits to reckon with. That’s not even a minute per outfit!

Rather than try to make some sort of cohesive narrative out of it, I’m just running down the queens in order of appearance – first in their entrance, then as they debuted spring and fall looks on the catwalk, and finally as they hit the catwalk with resort wear over a nude illusion. I wrote this as I watched, so I didn’t have any spoilers to influence me.

Gentlemen, start your engines! If you want to play along at home, grab a season pass! [Read more…] about RuPaul’s Drag Race, S7E01 Recap: Born Naked

Nova – Definitive Collecting Guide and Reading Order

Updated Dec 22, 2024! The definitive, chronological, and up-to-date guide and trade reading order on collecting Nova comic books via omnibuses, hardcovers, and trade paperback graphic novels. Part of Crushing Krisis’s Crushing Comics. Last updated December 2024 with titles scheduled for release through July 2025.

Marvel was known in the 1970s for piloting both new and returning heroes in anthology titles before promoting them to their own series. That’s why it was so remarkable that the original Nova, Richard Rider, debuted in the first issue of his own series in 1976!

It was a prescient move by Marvel, with the 70s sci-fi craze due to hit its peak the following year with Star Wars! The character was originally designed by Marv Wolfman and Len Wein a decade earlier in a 1966 fan-zine.

Nova was the first of Marvel’s many attempts to recapture the youthful magic of early Spider-Man at a point in the 70s when very few heroes in their line-up still came off as starry-eyed teenagers.

That gave Nova a strong focus during his ongoing series, but meant he was stranded with few connections in a world of adult heroes once it was over. He disappeared from Marvel for nearly a decade.

That changed when Marvel finally collected a number of existing teen heroes (plus a few new ones) into New Warriors, a sort of unbranded companion to New Mutants transition into the self-directed X-Force. The title ran for years and over time felt more like a family than a team with a charter.

Much like Nova’s original teendom restricted his connections, so did his association with the New Warriors brand. It took another half decade for them to finally break out of their orbit, but it was in a big way.

Richard Rider became one of the heroes to anchor Annihilation, a massive space blow-out that would revive Marvel’s cosmic line of heroes and cultures. It thrust Nova into an amazing five-year epic, during which he becomes a formidable commander who goes toe-to-toe with Thanos.

That all ends with the Thanos Imperative, and Nova going missing in its wake. After a few years of silence, Marvel brought back Nova – only, it wasn’t Richard Rider! Sam Alexander took up the mantle of Nova, but not from Rider – from his father, another prior (and missing) Nova.

Sam carried on the proud tradition of both Spider-Man and Richard Rider as a bumbling, well-meaning teen who does more damage than good. His series is a charming, high-gloss coming of age tail that dovetails into him being drafted by the real Avengers – and, also, finally meeting Richard Rider.

#MusicMonday: “Bang Bang” – Jessie J, Ariana Grande, Nikki Minaj

September 1, 2014 by krisis

One of many fan-made “Bang Bang” promo covers with a decidely retro feel.

I have always loved Motown. This post is about Jessie J’, Ariana Grande, and Nikki Minaj’s late-summer hit, “Bang Bang.”

These two statements are closely related, I promise.

I grew up revering Motown music. I was obsessed with “Stop! In The Name of Love,” and listened to Oldies 98.1 WOGL on every car ride with my father. The beauty of the great majority of Motown songs is their disarmingly simplicity. The classic and seemingly complex “I Want You Back” is mostly just one endlessly descending bassline. Smokey Robinson created intricate riffs and harmonies over the simplest of blues progressions. My favorite dance tune – “Ain’t Too Proud To Beg” – distills down to just one pair of chords.

As it turns out, simple songs with clearly distilled messages are hard to ignore.

This presents a terrific conundrum when it comes to Motown covers on acoustic guitar. “I Want You Back” translates to plenty action on an acoustic guitar, and Smokey songs can be dressed up or stripped down as you choose. Yet, other songs lose their sing sans arrangement and bassline. Plus, what to do with “Ain’t Too Proud To Beg” – so simple in its execution that it hardly holds together on one instrument? There, the power must be in your delivery and interpretation – there’s nothing spare to dress with.

Which brings me to “Bang Bang,” a raunchy summer slam from two of the hugest young female voices in pop. I heard it for the first time a few weekends ago while standing in a cell phone store, and my immediate first reaction wasn’t, “Who is singing?” or “Why is the production so huge?”

Nope. My reaction was, “This is so Motown!” I tried to explain it to E later that day, but not being the Hitsville connoisseur that I am she didn’t wholly appreciate the distinction. However, when I confessed it to Ashley in Smash Fantastic rehearsal yesterday, she shrieked, “I know!”

At which point we attempted our first cover of the ridiculous hot weather confection that is “Bang Bang” and discovered its true Motown realness: It’s just one damned chord! C7, over and over again. I thrashed it over and over in rhythm while Ashley annihilated that crazy Jessie J vocal that starts on an Eb. (I claimed Ariana’s verse as my own, as I love belting to her range. We are still negotiating over the Nikki verse.)

The similarity doesn’t stop there. Despite the decidedly unsubtle chorus, the first linee in Grande’s verse is practically cribbed from pint-sized Michael Jackson, “She might’ve let you hold her hand in school. But I’mma show you how to graduate.” Is that so different than the punnish innuendo in “The Love You Save,” where he sings, “When Alexander called you, he said he rang your chimes. Christopher discovered you’re way ahead of your times!”

It remains to be seen if Ashley and I can make our cover interesting enough to hold its own sans all of the arrangement and production on the studio cut, but at least now we understand why the song screamed “Motown!” at us on first contact.

Black Widow – Definitive Collecting Guide and Reading Order

Updated Apr 10, 2025! The definitive, chronological, and up-to-date guide and trade reading order for collecting Black Widow comic books via omnibuses, hardcovers, and trade paperback graphic novels. Part of Crushing Krisis’s Crushing Comics. Last updated April 2025 with titles scheduled for release through June 2025.

No Marvel character has been so important to the company’s rich continuity yet so on the fringe for as many years as Natasha Romanoff, the Black Widow.

Black Widow has been a villain and a spy, a symbol of the Cold War and of the triumph of democracy, a love interest and a superhero. Yet, for the first few decades of her publishing history it wasn’t uncommon for her to disappear from view for years at a time. It took over 40 years for her to merit her own ongoing title, and over 50 for one to last longer than a year!

Black Widow began as one of the first femme fatales of Marvel’s superhero era when she was introduced as a Russian spy in the Iron Man title Tales of Suspense in 1964 by Stan Lee, Don Rico, and Don Heck. She was unique not only as a female villain but as a non-costumed antagonist to start in an era where mutants, machines, and Asgardian gods were dominating the villain line-ups. In fact, she was Russia’s answer to Captain America – a super-spy rather than a super-soldier, who is resistant to the effects of disease and time.

Soon thereafter, she became one of Marvel’s earliest character to flip from villain to hero, following suit of her early collaborator Hawkeye and the mutant twins Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver. She followed in their footsteps to appear regularly in The Avengers beginning with #29 in 1966, though she was not recognized as a member until #111 in 1976.

Black Widow continued to serve as a female sidekick or team member for another three decades, notably in Daredevil, Captain America,The Avengers, and The Champions. Still, she was a supporting player even as she was voted a full-time member of the Avengers in #329 in 1991. From there she finally had her first series of headline releases, albeit as one-shot graphic novels rather than ongoing series. She still was not considered a core Avenger enough in 1996, when she did not join her teammates in the Heroes Reborn universe. Because of the fleeting nature of her appearances, collecting her is a challenge – aside from a few collections of her anthology stories and her run in Daredevil, there aren’t a lot of major Black Widow runs before the 90s.

It wasn’t until 1999 that Black Widow finally attained her own headline title (still: a limited series) as part of the more adult-oriented Marvel Knights line. Ironically, it came while defending her codename from a usurper and villain named Yelena Belova. However, from that point forward she increasingly became part of the core fabric of the Marvel Universe, appearing in several limited series, playing a major role in Civil War, co-starring in Iron Man, and taking over Captain America along with Bucky Barnes while Steve Rodgers was presumed dead.

Who can say if it was her Iron Man origins or this resurgence that lead to Black Widow being written into Iron Man 2 in 2010 and cast with the hugely popular Scarlett Johansson. Even if Johansson wasn’t the best fit for the femme fatale, her casting was definitely the best thing that ever happened to Natasha in the comic books. She was finally granted her own ongoing series that same year. Even though that ended after eight issues, Black Widow had clearly received a promotion to featured player, appearing regularly across the full range of Avengers titles even before she subsequently found her way into The Avengers movie in 2012 in lieu of several other famous female team members.

Since 2010 every year features Black Widow in more stories and starring turns than the one before. 2014 was inarguable Natasha Romanoff’s best year yet. In film, she shared top billing with Chris Evans’s Captain America in The Winter Soldier. At the same time, she launched another solo series drawn by fan and critical favorite Phil Noto. This one lasted as long as possible – 20 issues before being shut down by Marvel’s linewide re-launch in the fall of 2015 – and then relaunched by Chris Samnee and Mark Waid in 2016!
[Read more…] about Black Widow – Definitive Collecting Guide and Reading Order