Crushing Krisis

Comic Books, Drag Race, & Life in New Zealand

The Pull List: Batman, Brave and The Bold, Damnation, Maestros, Mighty Thor, Punks Not Dead, and more!

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Doctor Strange: Damnation #1, art by Rod Reis

I know it seems impossible, but The Pull List has grown even bigger this week for the third week in a row! That’s because I finished catching up to present on a number of DC and Marvel books, plus I picked up five smaller press books.

  • DC Comics
    • Batman #41
    • Batman & the Signal #2
    • The Brave and The Bold #1
    • Damage #2
    • Deathbed #1 (Vertigo)
    • Justice League #39
    • Milk Wars – DC Cave Carson Has a Cybernetic Eye / Swamp Thing Special
    • Super Sons #13
    • Superman #41
    • Trinity #18
  • Image Comics
    • The Further Adventures of Nick Wilson #2
    • Ice Cream Man #2
    • Maestros #5
    • Redlands #6
    • Twisted Romance #3
  • Marvel Comics
    • Astonishing X-Men #8
    • Avengers #681
    • Deadpool vs. Old Man Logan #5
    • Doctor Strange – Damnation #1
    • Generation X #87
    • Infinity Countdown Prime
    • Mighty Thor #704
    • Tales of Suspense #102
    • The Incredible Hulk #713
    • Venom #162
    • X-Men Gold #22
  • Smaller Publishers: Dark Horse, Dynamite, IDW, Vault Comics, Zenescope
    • Belle Beast Hunter #2, Zenescope
    • Heathen #6, Vault Comics
    • James Bond: The Body #1, Dynamite Comics
    • Mata Hari #1, Dark Horse / Berger Books
    • Musketeers #1, Zenescope
    • Punks Not Dead #1, IDW Publishing / Black Crown

Pick of the Pull

Big Two (Marvel/DC) Issue of the Week:
Mighty Thor (2016) #704

A bloody, thrilling, heart-rending comic. Aaron has somehow amped up the drama in each of the last three issues as we hasten towards a potential Ragnarok at the hands of the Mangog and Jane Foster’s death at her own hands if she takes up the mantle of Thor just one more time.

Yet, beyond those looming disasters there is still Makelith’s war on the Ten Realms. Mangog is just one facet of that. Even in the dimness and tragedy, Aaron finds shining moments – Jane with her friend in the cancer ward, a father and son joined in battle, and a mother casting aside a snake that has wounded her before.

All the while, Dauterman and Wilson are turning in a quality of artwork never seen before at Marvel comics – truly, one of the pinnacles of art at Marvel in over 75 years of publishing.

This story has officially become the best Thor story in my eyes, and it just might be Marvel’s best longform story of all time. I’d place it alongside Mark Gruenwald Captain America and Chris Claremont X-Men at this point.

Best Small-Pub Issue of the Week:
Punks Not Dead (2018) #1, IDW Publishing / Black Crown

An utterly madcap introduction to Punks Not Dead (and, for me, to Black Crown comics, which are edited by Shelly Bond distributed by IDW). This book is part Injection, part Sid and Nancy, and a little dash of the more lighthearted issues of Sandman.

It follows a teenage boy and his scam artist mom as the kid picks up some kind of supernatural echo of the deceased Sid Vicious in a dingy airport bathroom. Meanwhile, the beleaguered Department for Extra-Usual Affairs is busy putting minor demons out of the closet at 10 Downing Street with a staff of one.

This book is funny, unique, and looks freaking brilliant. Artist Martin Simmonds is simply incredible, drawing a real-seeming Britain with amped up color and clever use of cut-and-pasted patterns to ground it in real, textured reality. I am in love with this book, and will not only be keeping up with it, but also checking out other titles from Black Crown. [Read more…] about The Pull List: Batman, Brave and The Bold, Damnation, Maestros, Mighty Thor, Punks Not Dead, and more!

RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars Season 3 Power Rankings Episode 05 – Pop Art Ball

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This week’s “Pop Art Ball” episode of RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars Season 3 draws its inspiration from Studio 54, and puts the queens through their paces with a dual costume design and graphic design challenge.

The queens have some difficulty with both tasks, leading to a lumpy episode and a curious top two and eliminated queen.

It doesn’t help that Ru wore what might have been her worst wig of all time (not pictured, out of sympathy for Ru and my readers).

Andy Warhol’s famous 1962 soup can painting doesn’t give our queens too much to work with when it comes to designing their own signature soup cans. Warhol’s original run of soup can paintings were a super-literal recreation of the full line of Campbell’s line of soups at the time, with none of the colorful pop art flair for which he is remembered.

Yet, even in that same year he was also producing paintings of deconstructed cans with their labels shredded to reveal the silver beneath. In later revisitations he replaced the red and white with other colors.

As a result, I was expecting the queens to adhere to the spirit of Warhol, if not the letter – to create something on-brand but subversive and pop-art inspired. I was disappointed to see almost all of them miss the mark, with nary a shredded label amongst them.

Meanwhile, Studio 54 is late-stage, decadent disco, but none of the queens nailed the level of care free avant garde of its key players.

That left us with some major shake-ups compared to last week’s rankings! Are you ready to boogie?

[Read more…] about RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars Season 3 Power Rankings Episode 05 – Pop Art Ball

This Week In X: Astonishing X-Men, Generation X, X-Men Blue in Venom, & X-Men Gold

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It’s the eighth week of new comics in 2018, and This Week in X we have the end of two series while two arcs hit their midpoints and one just starts heating up.

  • Astonishing X-Men #8 (of 12) finds Charles Soule delighting in making flashy, early-90s style comics.
  • Deadpool vs. Old Man Logan #5 (of 5) winds up as a slightly sub-par Deadpool story that looks pretty darn good and gives us a strong new character.
  • Generation X #87 (final issue!) puts a wrap on a series that had more heart than action, and which included the best character voices of the entire X-Men line.
  • Venom #162 (Poison-X 3 of 5) continues the X-Men Blue squad’s space adventures in a big, fun way.
  • X-Men Gold #22 is a comic book that exists and has pages with words on them.

Learn more about how each of those series reached their current issues and hear which ones I’d recommend picking up. Plus, learn what new X-collections are out this week, including All-New Wolverine, Astonishing X-Men, classic Cable & X-Force, and one of my favorite Excalibur stories of all time!

 

Crushing Comics S01E077 – Guilty Pleasures + Evolutionary War & Atlantis Attacks

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I get back to talking about Clue and how I don’t believe in guilty pleasures and then open a pair of 1980s Marvel events that many fans might label as guilty pleasures. Not me. I unabashedly love these all-annuals crossovers.

Want to start from the beginning of this season of videos? Here’s the complete Season 1 playlist of Crushing Comics.

Episode 76 features Evolutionary War Omnibus and Atlantis Omnibus, both of which are covered in my Guide to Marvel Universe Events.

Crushing Comics S01E076 – Absolute Sandman, Vol. 4

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Today I mean to talk about Clue, but wound up sharing a story from my days of digging into eCommerce data at RJMetrics. Then, I open my final Absolute-sized tome, Absolute Sandman Volume 4, and talk about knowing when (and how) to end things.

Want to start from the beginning of this season of videos? Here’s the complete Season 1 playlist of Crushing Comics.

Episode 76 features The Absolute Sandman, Volume 4.