Crushing Krisis

This Week in X: Astonishing X-Men, Phoenix Resurrection, Rogue & Gambit, & more!

January 5, 2018 by krisis

I’m finally caught up to Marvel’s present day after a long abstention after Secret Wars, and that means I’m keeping up with the status quo of my favorite mutants for the first time since 2015. And, since I’m keeping up, why shouldn’t you, too?!

This is a pilot of my new weekly recap of what’s new in X-Men comics. These are quick hit reviews, not feature-length write-ups or extensive recaps. My hope is that they’ll help you figure out the right books to be buying, and how to catch up with the current status quo of each title.

This weeks line-up is Astonishing X-Men (2017) #7, Iceman (2017) #9, Phoenix Resurrection: The Return of Jean Grey (2018) #3, Rogue & Gambit (2018) #1, X-Men: Gold (2017) #18, and X-Men: Grand Design (2018) #2.

Is this helping you decide what to buy or catch up with the present? Let me know in a comment! But, beware: spoilers abound!

lunch meeting at the beach

January 5, 2018 by krisis

I’m still getting used to the idea that it’s the height of summer here in New Zealand while back in Philly everyone is bundled up to ward off sub-freezing temperatures. It’s hard to reconcile cognitive dissonance of scheduling a January lunch meeting at a restaurant that overlooks a beach full of sunbathers in shorts and tank tops.

(In fact, I didn’t realize our meeting was literally right across the street from the beach, so I wore the not-entirely-practical beach footwear of cowboy boots.)

(I am so American.)

Crushing Comics S01E055 – Why I can’t meditate + X-Men: Fall of the Mutants

January 5, 2018 by krisis

As I unwrap today’s book, I talk about my inability to meditate in the traditional “relaxed mind” version of meditation. For me, meditation comes from engaging my brain in something. For some people that’s a zen koan, but for me it’s more like alphabetizing books or organizing files.

The book I unwrap after all that musing is X-Men: Fall of the Mutants, the “crossover that was not.” I explain how it began the unravelling of the main X-Men team and how it marked the highlight of Louise Simonson’s run on X-Factor.

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

Episode 55 features X-Men: Fall of the Mutants, covered in the Guide to Uncanny X-Men by Chris Claremont.

Crushing Comics S01E054 – X-Men Inferno & Operation: Zero Tolerance (+ the vicarious thrill of natural disasters)

January 4, 2018 by krisis

As I unwrap I talk about the combined thrill and terror of living through natural disasters like hurricanes and earthquakes. I always said that Philly was relatively immune to such apocalyptic events, but now I live right on a fault line (and right on the water).

Then, I open what might be the most sought-after X-Men hardcover today – Inferno! Is the story worth all of the hype and high prices? I walk you through how it came to be, including a brief history of Madelyne Pryor, and speculate if it was Chris Claremont’s way of “fixing” his master plan after the debut of X-Factor. (I have much less to say about Operation Zero Tolerance.)

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

Episode 54 features X-Men: Inferno and X-Men: Operation Zero Tolerance, which are covered in the guides to Uncanny X-Men by Chris Claremont and X-Men (1991), respectively.

Crushing Comics S01E053 – Neil Gaiman’s The Absolute Sandman, Vol. 2

January 3, 2018 by krisis

After yesterday’s unwrapping confusion, today I take great care to actually select an Absolute Edition from my shelf. As I unwrap, I talk about why DC is so under-represented on my shelf.

The book that I pulled is the second Absolute edition of Neil Gaiman’s Sandman. Since I have an imperfect memory of the stories therein, I discuss the World Fantasy Award the series received just prior to this run, and how that was a part of Sandman becoming the Literature of comics (all while Marvel and DC where at the height of the 90s speculation boom).

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

Episode 53 features The Absolute Sandman, Vol. 2.