Crushing Krisis

Drag Race Belgique Season 1, Episode 8 – Grand Finale “Eleganza Extravanganza” runway Review and Power Rankings

April 9, 2023 by krisis

Welcome to my review, recap, and power rankings of the eighth and final episode of Drag Race Belgique Season 1! The Drag Race Belgique Grand Finale and its “Eleganza Extravaganza” theme that brought bought all ten queens of the season for a final walk down the runway!

SPOILERS AHEAD for the winner of Drag Race Belgique! Consider yourself warned!

This final episode stuck to the familiar Drag Race finale format. The queens had to pen a verse to a song, though it was an original called “Fierce” rather than an anonymous RuPaul remix. They all had out-of-drag sit-downs with Rita Baga, who was charming-as-always in her out of drag appearances.

And the queens had to deliver an elegant final runway and make some commentary to their younger selves (a cringe-inducing import from the US show that I hoped Rita would jettison as Canada’s Drag Race has done).

The format turned out to be a terrific showcase for the final three, even if it also confirmed that two of them had already already fully ceded their chances of winning to the third.

Susan was crisp and powerful in her choreography, showing off a muscular quality to her drag we hadn’t had the chance to see since the Talent Show. Athena regained a steely, fierce quality that had been eroded over the course of the season, delivering the most-convincing fierce drag performance of the trio.

Yet, there was no denying that this episode, and this entire season, belonged to Drag Couenne. We have rarely seen a queen represent herself and her runway package so meticulously and with such confidence across all of the many Drag Race franchises. I place Couenne’s powerful full-season performance alongside the greats like Bob The Drag Queen, Envy Peru, and Carmen Farala.

I think it is incredibly exciting that Rita Baga and the rest of the judging panel rewarded Drag Couenne’s singular take on drag with a Drag Race crown. I feel like on many franchises that a queen as weird as Couenne would be patronized and cut just short of the finale. That the judges gave Couenne the space to show of the fullness of her powers speaks to their taste in consistency in judging this entire season.

I loved Drag Race Belgique Season 1 from beginning to end. Even if I thought Rita Baga’s drag fashions were often forgettable and Lufy’s judging was often wrong-headed, this was a tremendously talented cast who were all treated fairly by the show.

This week’s final placements shook out exactly as I ranked them last week after the “Discour de Reine” challenge. What’s left to power rank? I’m not going to be ranking the queen’s final “Eleganza Extravaganza” runways, which were universally lovely. Instead, this final ranking is a retrospective of each queen’s placement, and how that compares to my pre-season predictions.

(Want to watch Drag Race Belgique outside of Belgium? For most of the world, it’s available as part with a Wow Presents Plus subscription as soon as the episode is done airing.)

Lecteurs, start your engines. Et, que la meilleure Drag Queen gagne!

RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 15, Episode 15 – “Reunited” fashion power rankings

April 8, 2023 by krisis

Welcome to my power rankings of the fashion from the fifteenth episode of RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 15 – “Reunited.” It’s a Season 15 reunion to bring the queens back together to reawaken their conflicts, hammer home the plot point you need to remember for the finale, and give early out queens one last crack at proving they are worth bringing back for All Stars.

I’ll be honest: reunion episodes hold little allure for me as a viewer. I’m into Drag Race for the artistry rather than the reality show trappings, and Reunion specials are all about reliving the drama.

If there’s one point with the Venn Diagram of my interests and the Reunions goals overlap, it’s the fashion! The reunion is one of two last chances for each queen to sell their visual brand to an audience who might quickly forget them once the season ends. While queens are stuck doing eleganza drag for the actual finale, the reunion allows them a free play to wear anything they want.

For some queens, that means getting redemption for their fashion fails from the season. For others, it means hewing close to their established brand. And, sometimes it means wearing something completely outlandish just for the sheer chaos of it!

This year’s reunion looks were all relatively tame compared to what we’ve seen in past years – everything from massive cartoon coats to burnt up horror prosthetics. There’s not a single boundary-pushing look in this bunch, and really only a pair that feel slightly subversive.

Did these queens get a note from producers to keep things simple and classy for the viewing audience on MTV given the climate around drag in America at the moment, or did they each come to that conclusion on their own?

Even in a crowd of unsurprising looks, a few queens managed to distinguish themselves – and several got their much-desired moment of fashion redemption.

I can’t say the same for the actual content of the reunion. Aside from running commentary from Irene Dubois and a pair of touching moments with Loosey LaDuca, the rest of the cast felt invisible up until the final chat with the finalists. RuPaul seemed intent to turn almost the entirety of the proceedings over to Mistress Isabelle Brooks to let her stir up drama.

It wasn’t a good look for either of them. It made Ru seem even more aloof and uninterested in his cast than usual.

Worse, to me it felt like it confirmed that Mistress Isabelle Brooks had been deliberate in pushing everyone’s buttons all season long. For a queen who talks a big talk about wanting to see other queens be their genuine selves, that behavior feels strangely out of sync with what she expects from others. It seems obvious that she wears her catty drag persona as armor to protect a lot of trauma and insecurities that lie beneath. Yet, if the case, why would she be so unkind to Loosey LaDuca for being the same?

I suppose it all works out in the end, since I’m sure Mistress Isabelle Brooks secured her future spot on All Stars with this showing if she doesn’t win next week. However, I feel like I’m less of a fan of her now after seeing this episode than I was during the season.

(By contrast, Luxx Noir London leaned hard into her persona of, “I’m just a girl who is obsessed with myself, is there anything wrong with that?” Even if she came off as an instigator at points in the season, here at the conclusion she comes off as cheerful, self-aware, and mostly-harmless.)

Read on for my countdown of the sixteen fashions of this episode and find out the surprising trio of queens who snagged the top spots! I’ll be back next week with a final retrospective on the season, looking at the queens final placements and performances compared to my initial pre-season predictions.

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

Updated: Guide to X-Force (+ Guide to Sabretooth, for Patrons of CK)

April 7, 2023 by krisis

My weekly X-Men guide updates continue as I revisit one of the guides I rebuilt in 2022! Does that make this update too easy? Well, that is sorta the point of getting everything back on schedule again, but don’t worry – there’s a reason my band’s motto used to be “Make It Harder.” That’s why today I not only have an update to my Guide to X-Force, but also an update to my Guide to Sabretooth exclusively for Patrons of CK!

Guide to X-Force

Guide to Sabretooth

Of this pair of X-Guides, it’s Sabretooth who has seen more recent collected edition action. [Read more…] about Updated: Guide to X-Force (+ Guide to Sabretooth, for Patrons of CK)

Drag Race España Season 3 – Pre-Season “Meet The Queens” Power Rankings

April 6, 2023 by krisis

Arranquen sus motores! Just as one of our Drag Race seasons draws to a close tomorrow with finale of Drag Race Belgique and another airs its penultimate episode with the RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 15 reunion, a new season looms on the horizon. It’s Drag Race España Season 3, which debuts on April 16! That means it’s time to meet a cast of 12 drag artists for my Pre-Season Power Rankings!

What is there to rank before we have seen a single second of this new season? Drag Race España released perhaps the most epic pre-season promo of all time, with a campy 60s sci-fi theme and two minutes for each queen to distinguish herself from her competitors.

These combination interview + fashion shoot videos are called “Meet The Queens,” a phrase which España didn’t even translate for these videos (perhaps in a nod to the fact that they are largely for consumption by global audiences rather than local ones).

In addition to trying to divine some hints at how each queen will perform based on their Meet The Queens segments, I also spend a few minutes perusing each of their social channels to scope out their makeup skills, fashion, and performance style.

Remember: I write these pre-season power rankings purely for fun, which is the same reason I recap all of the many Drag Race franchises week after week. If I make any critiques of these incredibly accomplished drag artists, those critiques are purely within the framework of what the show expects of them.

Being good at Drag Race is just one way to be good at the art of drag. The fun of writing these analyses is not to tear queens down, but to spend hours of time and thousands of words on an art form that needs celebration and support now more than ever.

In the case of Pre-Season power rankings, my rankings double as a placement prediction. I have a pretty good track record this past year, including predicting all 3 Français finalists (and the winner), 3 out of 4 American finalists, 2 out of 3 Belgique finalists. Will my psychic powers continue for this Drag Race España Season 3? I have my doubts.

España is revered by many fans as the best of the many global franchises of the show. A lot of that is down to the wildly over-the-top fashions brought by its competitors, which are consistently some of the most elaborate, glamourous, and high-impact looks across all of Drag Race. Yet, España can also be the most unpredictable franchise. It holds queens to an incredibly high standard, which can lead to heartbreaking and sometimes shocking eliminations without ever seeming to be unfair or rigged.

So far, two seasons of España have placed an emphasis on crowning professionals. Season 1 winner Carmen Farala was a nearly-flawless competitor with the poise and graciousness of a real-life monarch, and Season 2 champion Sharonne was a seasoned reality show competitor and talented singer. Will the show keep up that trend this year by crowning another peerless professional? Or is it finally time to get a little weirder to embrace the wildly creative art of Spain’s drag scene?

Lectores, start your engines. Y que gane la mejor drag queen! [Read more…] about Drag Race España Season 3 – Pre-Season “Meet The Queens” Power Rankings

New Comics & Collected Editions: Marvel Comics – April 5 2023

April 5, 2023 by krisis

Let’s take a look at what’s out from Marvel Comics this week! This post covers Marvel Comics April 5 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 5 2023 Collected Editions

This is a slim week for new collected editions – there’s just four books out, and one is a reprint!

Adam Warlock Omnibus (2023 oversize hardcover, ISBN 978-1302949877 / digital)
See Guide to Adam Warlock. This collects Warlock’s full Silver & Bronze Age Warlock saga all in one place for the first time, from his debut as “Him” in the pages of Stan Lee & Jack Kirby’s Fantastic Four to Jim Starlin’s psychedelic late-70s space epic! You can read this and continue directly to Infinity Gauntlet.

Fantastic Four Epic Collection Volume 3: The Coming of Galactus
(2023 paperback, ISBN 978-1302950415 / digital)
See Guide to Fantastic Four. This is the third time this particular Epic has been back to print. That speaks not only to the fact that it’s one of the Marvel’s most-significant stories of all time, but also speaks to the ongoing success of the Epic Collection line as we head into its second decade. It’s doing exactly the thing it’s meant to do – getting books all into the same format and reprinting them whenever necessary!

Marvel-Verse: Guardians of the Galaxy (2023 digest-size paperback, ISBN 978-1302950705 / digital)
See Guide to Guardians of the Galaxy. This collects a smattering of stand-alone Guardians stories from the middle of Bendis’s run through the beginning of Duggan’s run, including one previously uncollected issue – Guardians of the Galaxy: Dream On (2017) #1. A decent, if scant, sampler platter if you’re averse to sampling digitally on Marvel Unlimited – but it’s hard to take it seriously without any material from the 2008 series.

Star-Lord: The Saga of Peter Quill (2023 paperback, ISBN 978-1302950712 / digital)
See Guide to Star-Lord, Peter Quill. This is the collection if you want to grab Star-Lords earliest set of continuity stories in the Marvel Universe. I say “continuity” stories because the character of Peter Quill as Star-Lord first debuted in the 1970s, but all of his early adventures have been since rendered as occurring in a separate reality due to some unresolvable time travel shenanigans. That means when Quill pops up in the 2003 Thanos ongoing series, it’s technically his first appearance (though, making things even more confusing, at the time he was assumed to still be the same character as that 1970s version). All of this and more is explained in my guide!

Read on for a rundown of Marvel Comics April 5 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 5 2023