Crushing Krisis

Comic Books, Drag Race, & Life in New Zealand

Black Panther Book Club, Week 2 of 4: Black Panther by Christopher Priest issues #13-24

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It’s our second of four sessions of Black Panther Book Club to read some of the stories that seem to be the biggest influences on Marvel’s Black Panther film, out next week.

In this installment, we follow the Black Panther through some rote Avengers adventures and then watch as he code-shifts to hang out with his fellow 1970s black Marvel heroes (and Iron Fist). Then we meet Erik Killmonger, back from the dead again and ready to usurp T’Challa’s reign.

Want to keep up with the reading assignments all this month? Here’s our full schedule for the month – visit the Guide to Black Panther to learn how to collect these issues.

New For Patrons: The Definitive Guide to Spider-Man, Miles Morales

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Today I brought Patrons of Crushing Krisis a guide that is one of the final pieces to providing full coverage of the Marvel Legacy era of titles. It also greatly simplifies my most-complicated (and most-visited!) single guide by breaking an important character out into his own page…

Mile Morales, Spider-Man – The Definitive Reading Order and Collecting Guide

While my Marvel Ultimate Universe Definitive Collecting Guide covers all of Miles’ appearances in the Ultimate Universe, there he’s one in a crowd of several characters being tracked from series to series.

This new guide covers every Miles Morales appearance, from his debut in Ultimate Fallout #4 through his transition to the main 616 Marvel Universe in the wake of Secret Wars in 2015.

Want access to this guide today? It’s available, along over a dozen other exclusive guides, in exchange for covering $1.99 a month of CK’s hosting expenses.

Crushing Comics S01E072 – X-Men: Supernovas and Uncanny X-Men: The Rise & Fall of the Shi’ar Empire

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Today I start out by talking about “the perfect weather.” If you’re the kind of person who loves it super hot on the beach or frigid on the slopes, would you really want to experience that every day? My favorite kind of day is breezy and springlike, maybe 68 to 72 degrees – and I see no problems with waking up to that every day of my life.

After that, I open a massive block of oversize modern X-Men – so big I had to break it up into a pair of episodes. In this one, I start out with a pair of weirdly orphaned oversized volumes.

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

Episode 72 features X-Men: Supernovas and Uncanny X-Men: Rise and Fall of the Shi’ar Empire, which are covered by my X-Men, Vol. 2 & New X-Men and Uncanny X-Men by Brubaker, Fraction, & Gillen guides, respectively.

Back Issue Review: Barbarella, Black Sable, Giants, Grass Kings, Shade The Changing Girl, and Slots

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This week in Back Issue Review I catch up with five indie series that have new issues out this week, plus one DC series that feels pretty indie. Between feminist explorers, giant monsters, recursive mean girls, backstabbing space pirates, and lucky retired boxers, I bet you’ll never guess what my favorites were!

This post contains reviews of the following six runs:

  • Barbarella (2017) #1-2
  • Black Sable (2017) #1-3
  • Giants (2018) #1-2
  • Grass Kings (2017) #1-6 (AKA Volume 1)
  • Shade, The Changing Girl (2016) #1-6
  • Slots (2017 #1-4

Keep reading for capsule reviews of all six runs. [Read more…] about Back Issue Review: Barbarella, Black Sable, Giants, Grass Kings, Shade The Changing Girl, and Slots

RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars Season 3 Power Rankings S03E03 – The Bitchelor

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This week’s episode of RuPaul’s Drag Race All-Stars sounded like it might be a trainwreck, but it turned out to be one of the most consistently hilarious episodes of all time.

And also a trainwreck. But, an intentional one!

RuPaul assigns the eight remaining queens characters to improv through an episode of The Bitchelor, a straight-up copy of The Batchelor where all of the women are horrible people.

The queens of most seasons would likely flounder in a totally free-form acting challenge, but The Bitchelor has a secret weapon – the preternaturally handsome Jeffrey Bowyer-Chapman, from Unreal, who plays a very convincing (not so) straight man to the various hilarity that the queens bring on their dates.

With a “wigs on wigs on wigs” runway that nods to Roxxxy’s Andrews’ iconic “Whip My Hair” wig reveal and an elimination that plays up some of the biggest tension in the cast, this episode was a deliciously nasty surprise from start to finish.

[Read more…] about RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars Season 3 Power Rankings S03E03 – The Bitchelor