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New Comics & Collected Editions: Marvel Comics – April 19, 2023

April 16, 2023 by krisis

It’s time to take a look at what’s out from Marvel Comics this week! This post covers Marvel Comics April 19 2023 releases.

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 Crushing Comics guide.

Marvel Comics April 19 2023 Collected Editions

Guardians of the Galaxy by Al Ewing (2023 paperback, ISBN 978-1302949907 / digital)
See Guide to Guardians of the Galaxy. This is effectively a “Complete Collection,” though Marvel is starting to phase that brand out in favor of “Modern Epics.” This not only includes Ewing’s complete Guardians run (but none of the Last Annihilation tie-ins), but also his run on Rocket (2017) #1-6.

The Incredible Hulk Epic Collection Vol. 24: The Lone and Level Sands
See Guide to Hulk – Bruce Banner. This is ostensibly the last Hulk Epic Collection, as it complete the run of the Incredible Hulk (1968) series.

Iron Man Epic Collection: Doom (2018 paperback, ISBN 978-1302910136 / 2023 paperback, ISBN 978-1302950446 / digital)
See Guide to Iron Man, Tony Stark. This is a reprint of an existing 2018 Epic.

Marvel Masterworks: Daredevil Vol. 17 (2023 hardcover, ISBN 978-1302949259 / digital)
See Guide to Daredevil. This collection brings us to the end of the original Frank Miller run on Daredevil! Now we have it completely remastered to Masterworks quality. I’d expect it to finally hit Epic Collection in the next year or two.

Marvel-Verse: Rocket & Groot (2023 paperback, ISBN 978-1302950729 / digital)
See Guide to Rocket Raccoon. Collects a smattering of Rocket & Groot adventures from Incredible Hulk (1963) #271, Free Comic Book Day 2014 (Rocket), Rocket Raccoon (2014) #5, Rocket Raccoon and Groot (2016) #4, Groot (2015) #6 and material from A Year of Marvels: The Unbeatable

Planet of the Apes Adventures: The Original Marvel Years Omnibus (2023 hardcover, ISBN 978-1302950736 / digital)
This incredibly slim omnibus collects Adventures on the Planet of the Apes (1975) #1-11.

Predator by Ed Brisson, Vol. 1: Day of the Hunter (2023 paperback, ISBN 978-1302926199 / digital)
Collects Predator (2022) #1-6

Trials of X, Vol. 8 (2023 paperback, ISBN 978-1302948429 / digital)
See Guide to X-Men – The Age of Krakoa. These anthologies are still pretty far behind the present day – this is just cracking into Sabretooth’s series from the start of 2022!

Read on for a rundown of Marvel Comics April 19 2023 single-issue releases, including a link to their accompanying guide pages on Crushing Comics.

RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 15, Episode 16 – Season 15 Grande Finale review & season retrospective

April 15, 2023 by krisis

Welcome to my review of the RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 15 Grande Finale! Plus, a retrospective on each queen and their performances this season.

RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 15 has a thrilling winner and many standout performances, but when it comes to the full season it felt a bit dull.

Some people might suggest that’s down to Sasha Colby’s dominance of the season, but I’d say it due to the entire Top 4. At no point after the first episode was anyone edited as serious competition for the crown outside of those four queens – even Loosey Laduca and her many mini-challenge wins never felt like a realistic contender.

Was that down to the editing being squeezed by the 60-minute on-air runtime, or was this season actually stacked with mostly weak queens too early in their development as sacrifices to the alter of Goddess Colby?

Similarly, the finale never felt like a real competition between the three non-Sasha queens as to who would attempt to take her down in the final lip sync. The lip sync performances and clip packages were all for naught, since it’s clear Anetra was pre-ordained for the spot.

I’m happy that the new Lalaparuza mid-season showcase has removed the somewhat arbitrary lip sync for the crown tournaments from the finale. However, I still think the show can do better than writing a 90-second song for each of its contestants. Especially on a season like this one full of dancers, songwriters, and martial artists, it feels like the finale ought to be a redux of the Talent Show – where the queens can show off anything they want.

Of course, the secret of this finale format is that you can show off anything you want during the lip sync, but only Sasha Colby with her 20 years of drag experience seemed to fully understand that assignment.

There is a lot to be said about the significance of having a trans woman win Drag Race at the peak of its popularity and pop cultural exposure at this moment in time. Right now, conservatives and trans-exclusionary feminists all around the world want to hate people like Sasha right out of existence.

I don’t think winning Drag Race means a queen must become a political activist. Being seen in drag is inherently political. Yet, it also feels like Sasha Colby is the right queen at the right time who is ready to be political in her words and her actions in addition to her drag. There are people in the world right now who know they want to love someone they aren’t supposed to love or be someone who they aren’t supposed to be. The world can feel like a small and dangerous place for them, and that’s literal in some places like Texas and Florida.

Sasha has the opportunity be a voice for those queer people who are under attack across America right now, but also to remind everyone that trans people are our siblings, our colleagues, our friends, and our loved ones. They are us and they deserve all the same rights and love that everyone does.

This is the end of Season 15 but not the end of my Drag Race coverage! There are still two more episodes of Drag Race Sverige to cover before their first winner is crowned, next week starts my Drag Race España Season 3 power rankings (did you read my pre-season post?), and we’ll have an announcement of our All Stars Season 8 contestants before the week is up!

Before we can enjoy all of that drag, it’s time to talk about our entire cast of Season 15 queens one last time, to compare their final placements and performance to my original pre-season rankings. Which prediction was my biggest miss? Which queens left exactly when I said they would? And, why do I think I should have been the winner of “Fantasy Drag Race” across everyone writing about the show on the entire internet?!

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

Updated: Guide to X-23, Laura Kinney – The All-New Wolverine

April 14, 2023 by krisis

This week’s X-Men Guide Update is my first major update to one of the last major X-Men pages I launched! At the time this character was early in a star-making, joyous run taking over a legacy name from her adopted (and maybe actual) father. Little did I know how much she would go through in the next half decade, including flip-flopping over her codename, being trapped in an alternate reality, being trapped in a time bubble, and… well, the next bit would be a spoiler! Of course, I’m talking about my Guide to X-23 – Wolverine!

Guide to X-23 – Wolverine

I’ve always been a major fan of X-23, ever since first encountering here in the murderous 2008 run of X-Force and then backtracking to read her entire chronological history exactly as it is presented in this guide.

That’s why I was so pleased when Logan’s death stuck for four whole years, during which time Laura Kinney enjoyed the spotlight as Wolverine. It was just as thrilling to see her and Logan reunited at the beginning of Jonathan Hickman’s run and for Logan to affirm that she still held the title, only for Hickman to snatch her out of our grasp later than issue as she became trapped inside the accelerated world of the Children of the Vault for nearly two years of publishing.

Yet, it turned out to be worth out – as Laura emerged to be the Wolverine of the main X-Men squad, while Logan continued to anchor his combined mutant CIA/FBI in X-Force.

As I caught up on more-recent Wolverine reading to update this guide, I discovered the recent totally shocking revelation from just a few months ago! I won’t spoil it here, but it definitely changes the game for Laura’s character – and, it makes this the perfect time to binge her entire reading order.

It was interesting to revisit this guide, which I first crafted in the early days of my Patreon campaign. That was the beginning of my era of tackling solo characters with splintered bibliographies by summarizing all of their appearances as I still do today. Yet, this had many hallmarks of my older guides, like a vague Table of Contents, collections listed without ISBNs and digital links, and crowded reading order sections that didn’t separate recollections like omnibuses and Complete Collections out into their own section.

After a full day of work, my Guide to X-23 – Wolverine is now much tidier, updated with every notable appearance, and annotated with Marvel Unlimited links to help you with your next binge read.

Guide to WildCATs – now available to the public!

April 13, 2023 by krisis

I’m back with another public release of one of my new Guides to Indie & Licensed Comics. While my Indie Comics Month full of new guides was meant to cover all of the first year of Image Comics launches, there was one guide that inspired me to want to cover Image Comics in the first place – all the way back in 2017. As it happens, this team is celebrating their 30th Anniversary with a brand new ongoing series at DC Comics – which means there are thousands of curious fans out there ready to put my WildCATs Guide to good use!

WildCATs Guide

This WildCATs Guide covers every issue of Jim Lee’s co-flagship for his WildStorm line of comics, which was one of the launch imprints of Image Comics in 1992. Later, in 1998, Lee sold the entire imprint to DC Comics. But, DC kept WildStorm’s titles mostly separate from their own books for over a decade, only introducing occasional crossover events to signal that WildStorm was part of the DC Multiverse.

That started to change in the New 52 in 2011, which launched with two of the traditional Wi ldCATs roster in books of their own – Grifter and Voodoo. However, the rest of the team never materialized along with them! Instead, the other WildStorm co-flagship – Stormwatch – was woven into DC’s prime universe continuity.

A decade later in their Infinite Frontier era, DC finally began to make moves to bring the WildCATs back to action. Writer Matthew Rosenberg used back-up stories in Batman: Urban Legends as a backdoor pilot to integrate Grifter into the present day of Gotham City. Zealot and the rest of the team weren’t far behind, and in 2022 Rosenberg relaunched them into their first shared-universe series since 2011!

One of the great things about WildStorm comics being a part of DC is that they’re now included on DC Universe Infinite! DC is slowly but surely converting classic WildStorm titles to digital for their all-you-can-read subscription program. My Guide to WildCATs includes links to read each series digitally.

Want to know more about Jim Lee’s WildCATs? In addition to my WildCATs Guide, check out my 2017 “Blog of Tomorrow” month for recaps of the first 20 issues, plus #0, Special, Trilogy #1-3, and WildStorm Rising! And, read my Guide to WildCATs Launch Essay for why I think they’re a lot weirder than the X-Men.

New Comics & Collected Editions: Marvel Comics – April 12 2023

April 12, 2023 by krisis

Let’s take a look at what’s out from Marvel Comics this week! This post covers Marvel Comics April 12 2023 releases.

Marvel Comics April 12 2023 Collected Editions

Ghost Rider (2022) Vol. 2: Shadow Country (2023 paperback, ISBN 978-1302947972 / digital)
See Guide to Ghost Rider. This continues collecting the current Benjamin Percy series, plus the Ghost Rider: Vengeance Forever (2022) #1 one-shot. The upcoming crossover with Wolverine is still one volume beyond this – we’ll get a Volume 3 later this year before the crossover is collected in its own book. The Ghost Rider Guide is updated with all of those collections!

Guardians of the Galaxy Epic Collection: Earth Shall Overcome (2023 paperback, ISBN 978-1302950439 / digital)
See Guide to Guardians of the Galaxy. This is an Epic Collection not of the main MCU Guardians team in their early appearances, but of the original Guardians of the Galaxy team which were based in the future.

Thor Mighty Marvel Masterworks Vol. 3: The Trial of the Gods (2023 digest-size paperback, ISBN 978-1302948931 / digital)
See Guide to Thor – The Odinson. This is Marvel’s new digest-size Silver Age collection line, which DOES NOT line up perfectly with the break points in existing hardcover Masterworks.

Nova, Vol. 1: Sam Alexander (2023 digest-size paperback, ISBN 978-1302950422 / digital)
See Guide to Nova(s). This is volume is part of Marvel’s initiative to recollect all of their 2010s teen heroes into library-friendly, digest-sized paperbacks. This covers the first two arcs of Sam’s 2013 Marvel Now series.

Shang-Chi and the Ten Rings (2023 paperback, ISBN 978-1302948351 / digital)
See Guide to Shang-Chi. This collects the third series (and subsequent one-shot) of Gene Luen Yang’s ongoing run on Shang-Chi.

War of Kings Omnibus (2023 oversize hardcover, ISBN / digital)
See Guide to Marvel Universe Events – War of Kings & Realm of Kings. This collects the heart of the multi-year intergalactic epic that mashed up X-Men, Inhumans, and the new Guardians of the Galaxy. This is immensely satisfying to read all in a single, coherent collected order – even if you don’t have the Prelude or Aftermath omnibuses to sandwich it.

X-Men Epic Collection Volume 22: Legacies (2023 paperback, ISBN 978-1302951115 / digital)
See Guide to Uncanny X-Men – The Crossover Era or Guide to X-Men, Vol 2 (1991). This is the fourth Epic Volume that interweaves both flagship X-Men titles in reading order – exactly what we’ve always wanted! This covers the aftermath of X-Cutioner’s Song, the lead-up to Fatal Attractions, and the introduction of Kwannon as Revanche – Psylocke’s body double!

Read on for a rundown of Marvel Comics April 12 2023 single-issue releases, including a link to their accompanying guide pages on Crushing Comics. [Read more…] about New Comics & Collected Editions: Marvel Comics – April 12 2023