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X-Men Reading Order – LIVE on Omnidog’s Vault

February 6, 2024 by krisis

Today I am appearing live for a very special show with a very good friend on Omnidog’s Vault to re-organize his X-Men collected editions into reading order LIVE on camera!

Do you love my comics Reading Orders – like my famous X-Men Reading Order – but wish you could see how I create them LIVE and in REAL TIME? Here’s your chance.

Jess the Omnidog has been teasing the possibility of this show for years now. He has been buying X-Men trade paperbacks with reckless abandon since 2014, shortly before I met him. However, he hasn’t read any X-Books between Astonishing X-Men and the Age of Krakoa. Now he has accumulated more than four shelves worth of X-books and he’s read to dig in, but first he needs them shuffled into a coherent order!

Am I up to the task, or is my Cerebro brain too rusty at this point? Tune in live to find out! The only advanced knowledge I have of what Jess has in store for me is the thumbnail of the video below.

Crushing Krisis Organizes Omnidog’s X-Men Books LIVE!

Guide to Morbius, The Living Vampire (New for Patrons!)

February 5, 2024 by krisis

I’m back with the first new guide of February 2024 for all Patrons of Crushing Krisis – and it’s their January Patron’s Choice! It’s a guide for one of the horrific stars of 1970s Marvel, of the first Marvel characters to anchor two titles at the same time, and the most alive vampire you’ll ever meet. That’s right, folks, it’s Morbin’ time, with my Guide to Morbius – The Living Vampire.

Guide to Morbius – The Living Vampire

Morbius is one of those characters who I had next to zero exposure to prior to beginning my Marvel Zombie “read everything” approach to comics in 2011. That meant I had two seemingly conflicting ideas of the character in my mind – that he was a major Spider-Man villain and probably had been in the Sinister Six and that he was some sort of supernatural hero who was an ally of Ghost Rider.

Now that I’ve read every single Morbius appearance to write this Guide to Morbius, I know both those ideas were completely wrong! A better way to describe him would be as a reluctant monster and a begrudging anti-supernatural avenger, but even that fails to fully capture the nuance of his character… at least, when writers remember that he has nuance!

RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 16, Episode 5 – Girl Groups & “Faster Pussycat Wig Wig” runway Power Rankings

February 4, 2024 by krisis

RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 16, Episode 5 was a Girl Groups challenge paired with a wide-open runway prompt: Faster Pussycat Wig Wig! The combination let the queens really show of their range and their imagination. It resulted in strong showings from the entire cast and the tightest judging so far this season.

Drag Race can sometimes be stingy with music options when it comes to its mid-season “Girl Groups” songwriting challenges. Even with strong songwriters like Leland on the production team, often we get a somewhat limp instrumental track without much implied melody for queens to work with.

(There have been some obvious exceptions on the international franchises, like MNEK’s outstanding “Break Up (Bye Bye)” for UK Season 1).

On this episode, the queens got to work with three genuine RuPaul tracks – and, all three of them are absolute bops with House music flavor. Ru has always produced highly-entertaining, booty-shaking dance music. Last year’s record, Black Butta, felt as though it leaned out of making club-ready drag music and slightly more into the current pop mainstream. Of course, it doesn’t hurt that the mainstream has been loving House music influences for the past few years, in no small part thanks to Beyoncé.

For my dollar, “Stay Baby” is the best production of these three tracks, but “Courage to Love” is some of Ru’s better inspiro-pop, and as goofy as “ASMR Lover” is as a title it’s a catch tune.

Was it the high quality of these songs that led to such an outstanding trio of girl groups this episode? Or, do we really have a cast of 12 highly-capable queens who know how to both write and sing? I feel like I was considerably harder on the lyrics produced by the All-Winners for their Girl Groups than I am on the lyrics from this cast.

I was asking the same question for this runway prompt. “Faster Pussycat Wig Wig” is basically just a wig-styling assignment. To this cast’s credit, only one of them took it as a signal to do a full-on cat-themed look – and even she used that to play with proportions in an interesting way. Everyone else got imaginative, and while I didn’t love every outfit there were barely any BOOTs in the mix.

(Although, I think it’s telling that both of the frontrunners pulled the same “the wig is a cat” gag as each other, both layering it on top of another reveal. To me, that was a real “they cracked the code” sort of moment. Both queens seem to have an intrinsic understanding of the beats they need to hit to please Ru, while the other queens chasing them are having trouble finding that rhythm.)

Speaking of trouble with rhythm, this may have been the most-entertaining choreography rehearsal we’ve ever seen on the American franchise. Each group had its unique challenges to surmount, which lead not only to funny moments on stage, but absolutely righteous moments between the eight queens watching the rehearsal.

In the end, the Girl Group performances were so tight that you could easily make the case for any queen to be on the top of this episode. Instead of going for an obvious “one top and one bottom from each team” critique, the show instead bucked tradition for the US franchise and handed out a group win. As a result, that yielded a painfully obvious pair of bottoms – one due to the girl groups, the other due to the runway.

That means we’ve got a handful of big shake-ups in the power rankings compared to last week’s power rankings for RDR Live. In a week where every queen does well, it forces me to really pick apart their momentum. What are their narratives in the edit? What is the story for them Ru seems to be telling with her critiques? And, do they have any hope of lasting until the finale when two (or maybe three) of the top spots already feel like they’re all locked up?

Readers, start your engines. And, may the best drag queen win!

New Comics & Collected Editions: Marvel Comics – February 7 2024

February 3, 2024 by krisis

It’s the sixth new comic book day of the new year! This post covers Marvel Comics February 7 2024 releases. Missed last week’s releases? Check out last week’s post covering Marvel Comics January 31 2024 new releases.

(No, you haven’t time-travelled to the future – this post is now a few days earlier to give you an earlier heads up on what’s coming next week and to make way for some other planned posts that will occupy the Tuesday slot.)

This week in Marvel Comics: the debut of a new Ultimate Black Panther, an adventure for Bats the Dog, a treat for Liz Allen super-fans, an almost-completed Captain America Epic line, and more!

This list includes every comic and digital comic out from Marvel this week, plus collected editions in omnibus, hardcover, paperback, and digest-sized formats. For each new release, I’ll point you to the right guide within my Crushing Comics Guide to Marvel Comics to find out how to collect each character in full – and, if a guide is linked from this post, that means it is updated through the present day!

Marvel Comics February 7 2024 Collected Editions

Captain America Epic Collection Vol. 21: Twilight’s Last Gleaming
(2024 paperback, ISBN 978-1302956349 / digital)
See Guide to Captain America – Steve Rogers. This is the second-to-last Epic Collection covering Cap’s 1968 series. The final one, Man Without a Country, already exists.

However, I think the bigger news about this collect is that it means we now have the entirety of Mark Gruenwald’s landmark run on the title collected in Epic Collections Volume 12-21. That’s not a big shocker, since Marvel is about to kick off a long-awaited omnibus run of Gruenwald’s Cap, so it made sense for them to wrap up the Epics first. This run is to pre-2000 Cap what Brubaker’s is to post-2000 Cap – lengthy, defining, and essential.

We only need TWO more Epics to complete the coverage of Cap’s 1968 title (Vol. 7-8), but we could be waiting for a while since now we know the classic Epic line will continue to cover his titles through 2004 when Brubaker’s run kicks off the “Modern Epic Collection.”

Cult of Carnage: Misery
(2024 paperback, ISBN 978-1302951986 / digital)
See Guide to Carnage (eventually). Are you a Liz Allen super-fan? I’m not sure how many of you are out there, but this book is for you! Despite the “Carnage” wrapper on the title, this book is all about dissecting Liz Allen’s history, her motivations, and her connection to Harry Osborn. Yeah, there’s also some symbiote nonsense involving a sliver of the Carnage symbiote and Carnage’s various progeny, but if you aren’t interested in Allen and her family this is going to fall flat for you. (And, if you don’t even know who I’m talking about, you should skip it).

Magneto: Magneto Was Right
(2024 paperback, ISBN 978-1302954215 / digital)
See Guide to Magneto. One of Marvel’s many retcon flashback series, this 2023 mini is set during the excellent mid-40s of Claremont’s New Mutants – a fertile period for more Magneto stories, as he was certainly up to a lot back then! [Read more…] about New Comics & Collected Editions: Marvel Comics – February 7 2024

Drag Race Belgique Season 2, Episode 1 – De Retour Talent Show & Drache Nationale runway Power Rankings

February 2, 2024 by krisis

Bon retour, mes chers lecteurs! It’s the return of Drag Race Belgique! Drag Race Belgique Season 2 Episode 1 was titled “De Retour,” and it was a standard first episode of an international Drag Race: a talent show and a “Drache Nationale” runway that showed off a national theme.

(“Drache National” is the Belgian phrase in French for a heavy rainstorm on Belgian National Day, 21 July.)

J’aimerais pouvoir vous parler de cette émission dans un beau français, mais cela prendrait dix fois plus de temps! Alors, vous obtenez mon anglais. Mais, je vous invite à commenter en français et je comprendrai (la plus grande partie).

That goes for those of you who comment in English as well! If you want to see me continue to cover Drag Race Belgique (and other franchises), your views, shares, and comments really matter. The reason I started covering more international franchises in 2023 is because my coverage of Drag Race France Season 1 in 2022 was massively popular – as much as some of my biggest comic guides!

This premiere episode kicks off an intense week of international Drag Race, with three franchises debuting in just 8 days – Belgique, Drag Race España All Stars, & RuPaul’s Drag Race UK vs. The World. When I first saw that schedule I thought, “perhaps I’ll just do a brief post on each.” Yet, as I watched this episode – and especially as the queens of Drag Race Belgique Season 1 returned to walk the runway – I remembered just how much I adored this franchise when I wrote about it last year.

Bien sûr, j’aime toujours une saison qui est en français! Mais il y a autre chose que j’aime dans Drag Race Belgique. L’année dernière, j’ai vu que… there is some tension inherent in Belgian drag. On one side, there are very traditional, established cabaret artists. On the other, there are punks who are playing by their own rules – including all of last year’s top three – Susan, Athena Sorgelikis and winner Drag Couenne.

Yet, no matter what “side” they were on, the queens were incredibly smart. Belgique Season 1 gave us some of the most clever art references we’ve had on any Drag Race runway with their bandes dessinées and “Ce n’est pas une pipe” runways.

Not only that, but the judges have a very keen eye for fashion. They don’t only want over-the-top looks, but looks that speak to certain styles and references from distinct regions of the country or specific aspects of its history.

Pour moi, la Belgique est peut-être la meilleure de toutes les franchises pour raconter l’histoire du drag d’un pays (alongside Drag Race Phillipines!). Despite the widespread skepticism about Rita being a Canadian hosting a Belgian show, I feel like she respects the culture of Belgian drag and is not trying to make it into something exclusively Canadian or entirely international. Just the fact that a weirdo alikeDrag Couenne won the first season of the show speaks volumes – usually first season winners tend to represent something quintessential about the country’s drag.

Because of all of that, I couldn’t bring myself to not write about this season – at least, for the premiere! I think we once again have a cast full of incredibly smart queens who fall to either side of that old-school cabaret / new-school punk divide. And, they seem particularly strong – without the drag neophytes we saw as early outs last year.

(Want to watch Drag Race Belgique outside of Belgium? For most of the world, it’s available with a Wow Presents Plus subscription as soon as the episode is done airing.)

Lecteurs, start your engines. Et, que la meilleure Drag Queen gagne!