Crushing Krisis

Comic Books, Drag Race, & Life in New Zealand

Oversize X-Men: A map of every existing omnibus, plus what’s missing (Part 2: 1991 to 2001)

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X-Men is one of the most popular comics franchises in history, and in the 90s it rode the crest of the speculator wave to over half a dozen ongoing series and at least twice that many crossover events.

However, when it comes to coverage in oversize editions, you’d think that those crossover events were all there was to X-Men in the 1990s. That’s not the case, and there are hundreds of issues outside of those events that haven’t seen oversize collection – including many that have never been reprinted.

Every one of those issues is covered in this post. Why? To give you ideas for the The Most Wanted Marvel Omnibus Secret Ballot, where you vote for the comic runs you’d most like to see in an oversized format. Yesterday I covered all of X-Men from 1963 to 1991 and how it could be collected by omnibus volumes, and tomorrow I’ll be back to cover the Morrison and Whedon era of X-Men.

There are 28 potential omnibus volumes in this material! Collected Edition mapping is a trivial pursuit (in both senses of the phrase) that is up to a lot of personal interpretation, so if you have a correction or disagreement don’t hold back – sound off in the comments below!

I think of this era as everything from X-Men #1 and Uncanny X-Men #281 in 1991 through the end of Onslaught and continuing to the beginning of Grant Morrison’s take on the X-Men in 2001. We’ve already got a number of omnibus-sized oversize hardcovers clustered at the beginning of this era, but after Age of Apocalypse things get spotty across all of the titles.

Are you ready? (I’m not sure that you could possibly be ready.)

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New Comic Guide: DC Elseworlds and Alternate Earths

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I’m back with the second of three guides in my “Universal Theme.” Last week, I shared my expansive guide to all of DC’s Events. Now, it’s time to explore other earths with The Complete Guide to DC Elseworlds, Infinite Earths, & Alternate Realities.

This guide offers a comprehensive look at all of DC’s alternate continuity stories and characters. That’s not only Elseworlds, but Earth One and Earth 2, inter-company crossovers with Marvel and Dark Horse, and the video game worlds of Arkham and Injustice. In the future, It will grow to include TV and Film tie-ins.

I haven’t been entirely sure I’m actually making even as late as two weeks ago, but now that I’ve made it I’m happy I did. Truthfully, I should have made the Marvel equivalent of this page years ago, because I’m constantly encountering out-of-continuity Marvel series with nowhere in my current guide line-up to stash them.

This guide started as two different pages. One page was for DC Elseworlds titles, of which there are many. And another for DC’s major Alternate Earths, where I could stash things like the Earth One graphic novels and the New 52 Era Earth 2 series.

As I continued to rough out other guides I kept finding new material that fit well onto both pages – DC inter-company crossovers could go on Elseworlds, and collections of classic DC Earth Two stories belonged on Alternate Earths.

After a number of debates about which material belonged on which page (e.g., “Where should cohesive alternate realities like Injustice go?”) I realized I was actually working on a single, massive page for all of DC’s tales outside of their main reality.

In my push to finish this guide I realized it’s the sort of guide that can never really be finished. That’s because there will always be more random out-of-continuity tales to track down that I will continue to discover as I work on further DC guides.

I thought this guide was boggling to assemble but… well, wait until you see what I have in store for you next Thursday. It’s not DC, and it’s not… quite… Marvel.

You’ll see soon enough.

Oversize X-Men: A map of every existing omnibus, plus what’s missing (Part 1: 1963 to 1991)

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The Most Wanted Marvel Omnibus Secret Ballot allows collected editions fans to play “Fantasy Collections Department” by picking the runs they’d most like to see in an oversized format.

Now that I’ve recapped the history of past years of the Ballot, we’re up to two weeks of the really fun stuff – thinking up dozens upon dozens of suggestions for Marvel omnibuses we’d love to see on our shelves!

I highlighted 50 runs that deserved an omnibus at the close of the survey last year, but this time I’m going to be a lot more comprehensive.

I’ll begin on my home turf: The X-Men. It’s how Crushing Comics guides began, and I own every issue of X-Men in either single issue or collected format, so I’m accutely aware of the gaps in oversized content.

Today I’ll cover both existing and potential Omnibuses for X-Men from their debut in 1963 through the launch of X-Men, Vol. 2 in 1991. Then, tomorrow we’ll look at the tumultuous and under-collected 90s, before finishing up on Wednesday with the pair of most recent X-Men eras – from Grant Morrison’s New X-Men in 2001 through present day.

After that, we’ll rinse and repeat this exercise in reverse for the entire Marvel Universe, working backwards from the current All-New All-Different Marvel to look at the top possible omnibuses across the entire line from every period until we’re back to the few books still left uncollected from the 1960s.

So, if you haven’t yet voted in the poll or just need a few more books to fill out your personal Top 20, get ready – the next two weeks of CK will have over 100 omnibus suggestions for you to choose from!

Now, let’s get to some X-Tensive X-Men omnibus mapping, staring with the Classic X-Men era from 1963-1974, before moving on to Chris Claremont’s tenure on X-Men from 1975-1991 (plus, all of the tie-in series from that era.

There are 19 potential omnibus volumes in this material! Collected Edition mapping can be exact and contentious work, so if you have a correction or disagreement don’t hold back – sound off in the comments below!

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The 2013 Inaugural Most Wanted Marvel Omnibus Secret Ballot Results (and, what’s been printed?)

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Right now Marvel Omnibus fans across the web are voting open for the 5th Annual Most Wanted Marvel Omnibus Secret Ballot, but today we’re going to flash back to the first ballot back in 2013.

2013 was a simpler time with a simpler list of just 33 selections. Due to the smaller scale of participations, a few imaginative picks were able to slip through that we haven’t seen since. Also, there was slightly less of an obsession with simply extending every open line.

Last year I devoted just one summary post to what got printed and what disappeared, but to this point the only place to read the full results of prior ballots was to dig through dozens of message board posts.

How many of those books have we seen printed since then? In total, 21 of 33 (63.6%) of the 2013 votes have been recollected in some format. [Read more…] about The 2013 Inaugural Most Wanted Marvel Omnibus Secret Ballot Results (and, what’s been printed?)

RuPaul’s Drag Race Power Rankings, S09E05 – “Reality Stars: The Musical”

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This week on Drag Race, the queens were faced with an all-syncing, all-dancing tribute to The Kardashians and a faux fur runway.

These pre-choreographed lip sync challenges rarely give any queens a chance to shine, but this week’s was a bit different since almost all of the girls got to impersonate a current celebrity.

Or, at least, I hear they are celebrities. Other than being vaguely aware that one of them is married to Kanye West and that another was a Drag Race judge, I really don’t have the slightest idea of who any of the Kardashians are.

Meanwhile, faux fur was a fail, with most queens looking rather slapdash in their attempt to mix and match fabric and fake animal skins.

Did anyone come out of this week looking good? Three queens rose from last week’s standings, although one was really more about sinking less than her competitors than rising. [Read more…] about RuPaul’s Drag Race Power Rankings, S09E05 – “Reality Stars: The Musical”