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Ranking Every Moon Knight Modern Cover (and explaining the Moon Knight Reading Order along the way)
How well do you know modern Moon Knight? And, how well do you know the cover art of Moon Knight’s modern runs from his 2006 Charlie Huston relaunch through 2026? That’s 20 years of Moon Knight!
We’re about to find out, because for today’s Crushing Comics Live I have a different kind of stream for you. This one is 90% about art and only 10% about collected editions and reading orders.
We are going to look at every Moon Knight comic cover from the past 20 years, including every variant for his #1 issue. And, I am going to rank every single cover. That’s HUNDREDS of covers. Plus, along the way you’ll get a perfected Moon Knight reading order based on my best-on-the-internet Moon Knight Collecting Guide.
I’ve never tried anything like this before. We’ve seen me nearly crash out from ranking 110 X-Men omnibuses. Can I really rank 20 years of covers all on one stream? Tune in to find out!
Marvel Omnibus Reprint: Iron Man by Michelinie, Layton, & Romita Jr Omnibus
Near Mint Condition announced a Marvel omnibus reprint for April 2027 that is massively popular but also surprisingly controversial: Iron Man by Michelinie, Layton, & Romita Jr Omnibus.
What is this material? The Iron Man by Michelinie, Layton, & Romita Jr Omnibus collects what is widely considered to be the first truly great run on Iron Man. It includes the complete “Demon in a Bottle” storyline focused on Tony’s alcoholism as well as several other key classic stories. Plus, it was the run that introduced James “Rhodey” Rhodes – the future War Machine!
This omnibus is a stone cold classic – truly some of the best comics of the Bronze Age.
So… what is it controversial?
It’s not the material that is controversial, or even that is being reprinted. Just as with last week’s announcement of the reprint of Deadpool by Joe Kelly omnibus, we haven’t had this book of “ought to be evergreen” material in print since 2013.
The controversy has to do with OTHER REPRINTS of this material. Specifically, the currently in-progress reprints in the classic Masterworks-based omnibus line as well as in the Epic line.
When Marvel released Invincible Iron Man Omnibus Vol. 4 in May, literally every single omnibus fan fully expected it to buck the trend of following the exact breakpoints of the Marvel Masterworks to end at issue #114 so that it would line up perfectly with this book. It would only involve adding three extra issues on top of the scheduled chunk of 3 Masterworks.
Then, Marvel could re-release this volume as “Volume 5” just as just did with Captain America by Jack Kirby, perhaps re-issuing it with new scans. There’s literally nothing else to add – there are no side appearances or crossovers in this period. It’s just a straight sprint of Iron Man (1968).
Instead, not only did Marvel flub that by ending Volume 4 exactly where the Masterworks broke off – three issues short of this book – now they are reprinting this book, which is the exact same book as the impending Volume 5 except Volume 5 will have those three gap issues.
It’s inexplicable. And, it’s going to cost Marvel thousands of dollars as people either buy this and skip Volume 5, or skip this and wait for Volume 5. But, that’s not the only controversial aspect of this reprint! [Read more…] about Marvel Omnibus Reprint: Iron Man by Michelinie, Layton, & Romita Jr Omnibus
Marvel Omnibus Announcement: Avengers by Jason Aaron Vol. 1
Near Mint Condition announced another Marvel omnibus for March 2027, and it’s the start of collecting a massive recent run of comics: Avengers by Jason Aaron Vol. 1!
For the past 25 years, we’ve seen Avengers comics rotate through three phases, though not always in the same order: a “classic” phase where there are lots of recognizable cast members, a “new” or “reinvention” phase where several atypical Avengers are recruited, and a “decadent” phase where it’s everyone as an Avenger to tell a massive and maybe even slightly outlandish story.
Perez & Busiek? Classic. Bendis? New, obviously! Hickman, just as obviously a reinvention.
Things got slightly less clear after Secret Wars (2015), when All-New All-Different Marvel brought us an Avengers team that felt both classic and new, thanks to it being nearly a full team of “Legacy” heroes – Sam Wilson as Cap, the female Thor, Kamala Khan as Ms. Marvel, Miles Morales as Spider-Man, Sam Alexander as Nova, and the new Unstoppable Wasp – Nadia Van Dyne.
Similarly, Jason Aaron’s run started out classic and turned decadent. The first two years of the run had a fairly standard, largely recognizable cast. Of course, there were signs of decadence – including the team living inside of a Celestial in the Arctic Circle and going to war with vampires! At the midway point the team had a classic tournament arc over who would control the Phoenix Force and fought against a rampaging Khonshu. [Read more…] about Marvel Omnibus Announcement: Avengers by Jason Aaron Vol. 1
Most Wanted DC Finest 1st Annual Poll – Announcing the Results!
Today I am back on Near Mint Condition to announce the results of the first ever Most-Wanted DC Finest Poll – organized with the participation of DC Comics! The poll received over 3,000 votes, so we’ve got a significant amount of data telling us what fans want to see the most from the DC Finest line – including new volumes for existing titles and brand new title lines.
Tune in for us to announce the top results from both parts of the poll.