Crushing Krisis

New for Patrons: Guide to Shadowhawk by Jim Valentino

March 15, 2023 by krisis

I’m back with more of my Indie Comics Month with another new guide for all Patrons of CK! This guide is for perhaps the least popular of the Image flagship titles, but the one with perhaps the most straight-forward, self-contained, and satisfying runs of them all. It’s all explained in my Guide to ShadowHawk by Jim Valentino!

Guide to ShadowHawk by Jim Valentino

ShadowHawk was the only one of the Image launch books that I did not dabble in back in the early 90s, which means the character has always been a mystery to me – as were his serially-numbered 90s mini-series and what seemed like repeated returns from the dead.

I’m not sure I can explain why, other than that Jim Valentino was the least explosive of the Image Comics founders and launch artists at the time. I knew Jim Lee, Marc Silvestri, & Rob Liefeld from X-Men, and had at least seen Todd McFarlane on Spider-Man and Erik Larsen on Spidey and Hulk. However, Valentino mostly kept to his Guardians of the Galaxy (1990), which was set millennia into the future of Marvel Comics. With no crossovers into my beloved X-line, I hardly knew who Jim Valentino was.

Also, Valentino’s ShadowHawk simply wasn’t my style of hero. He looked like a shiny, armored Batman or a direct Darkkawk knockoff, roaming the dark alleyways of NYC. Even with a set of shiny Wolverine claws, he never seemed that interesting to me.

(Little did I know he was actually an indie version of totally different character I’d eventually come to love: Moon Knight!)

What I did know about ShadowHawk, likely thanks to regularly reading Wizard Magazine, is that he was HIV-positive. I was keenly aware of the AIDS/HIV epidemic in the early 90s. A debate over whether AIDS was a “plague” sent by god to punish sinners is what caused my permanent fracture with my Christian faith, and by the time of the reveal in ShadowHawk I was being certified as a peer sex educator.

I never knew anything more about ShadowHawk. Was he gay? Was he a future star of the musical RENT? Having that knowledge divorced from any other details of the character made his seemingly repeated death and return seem like it was in mildy-bad taste to me. I never knew the full story of ShadowHawk being HIV-positive, the numbering of his series, and his many incarnations until I researched this guide!

First, here’s the story, in Valentino’s own words from the back matter of Return of ShadowHawk (2004) #1: [Read more…] about New for Patrons: Guide to Shadowhawk by Jim Valentino

Drag Race Sverige Season 1, Episode 2 – “MARATHON Talent Hunt” Review & Power Ranking

March 14, 2023 by krisis

Welcome to my review, recap, and power rankings of the second episode of Drag Race Sverige (AKA Drag Race Sweden) Season 1 – “MARATHON Talent Hunt.” It’s a standard Drag Race talent show paired with an in-the-dark quick drag mini-challenge and a Longstocking Extravaganza runway.

The Drag Race talent show challenge has transformed from a novelty when it debuted in All Stars 2 back in 2016 to a staple regular seasons around the globe. It usually comes early enough in the season that it isn’t a a must-win challenge, it has definitely proved to be a “must not flop” challenge every time it has appeared on the show.

The flopping comes not in singing a little out of tune (a-hem, Monét), but in approaching it with a lack of imagination. As with many challenges on Drag Race, the talent show isn’t really a challenge about talent but a challenge about branding. You can sing an original song, but what does it communicate about you and how you do drag? You can dance to a royalty-free track rather than penning your own song, but what are you saying about yourself with the dancing?

MARATHON Talent Hunt saw a particular pair of queens understand the idea of “talent” in vastly different ways. Both of them are primarily talented at drag itself. One of them turned that into a hilarious song and dance act about being an untalented hack. The other used their act to protest the idea that Drag Race asks queens to have a talent.

One act was a terrific branding win about having a sense of self-deprecating humor. The other was a complete branding fail that made its performer out to be a bland, petulant prima donna. Unsurprisingly, the former was in the top and the latter only narrowly won a lip sync for her life.

What do those performances and the other talent show acts mean for my power ranking compared to last week’s debut episode? One queen from the middle of the pack has made her move to be a front-runner while another plummeted to the bottom of the rank. Meanwhile, a talented queen missed an opportunity to gain momentum with some questionable choices.

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

Läsare, start your engines. Och må den bästa Drag Queen vinna!

Shazam Guide, The Captain Marvel of DC Comics – now available to the public!

March 13, 2023 by krisis

To celebrate this week’s release of Shazam! Fury of the Gods, I’m happy to present my Shazam Guide – The Captain Marvel of DC Comics – now available to all readers of CK!

Guide to Shazam, DC’s Captain Marvel

Read my original Shazam Guide launch post for an essay on Billy Batson’s origins and how DC has gradually lost the magic that once made Shazam and his family the most-loved (and highest-selling) heroes in all of comics.

If you’r thinking about reading Shazam for the first time you may find yourself daunted by the fact that he has been around for over 80 years. However, his Golden Age comics from 1940-1953 are almost wholly uncollected, and they are completely disconnected from his present day continuity.

DC revived Shazam in 2012 starting with a new origin and a large adopted family that match closely with the film continuity. However, I don’t think it’s worth starting there. There’s simply not that much material to read, and none of the stories are particularly satisfying. They often have a cruel, violent edge that is a total mismatch for the wide-eyed wonder of the character.

For a terrific, hefty Shazam read, try starting back in 1994 with Jerry Ordway’s The Power of Shazam. The first half of the nearly 50-issue series are collected as The Power of SHAZAM! Book 1: In the Beginning (2020 paperback, ISBN 978-1401299415 / digital) and The Power of Shazam! Book 2: The Worm Turns (2023 paperback, ISBN 978-1779521743), plus the entire series is available on DC Universe Infinite.

The title is set in pre-Crisis continuity, which isn’t presently relevant for Shazam, but it’s a complete and well-thought-out series that sees him as a part of the larger DC Universe alongside heroes likes Superman and Wonder Woman. I read much of the series while putting together this guide, and it’s enjoyable from start to finish.

Of course, you don’t have to take my word for it! My Shazam Guide covers every appearance the character has made from 1940 through last month, with links to collected editions and digital reading options for every major starring issue. Start at the launch of one of his many series, or just jump in randomly to an issue with a cool cover.

This guide exists thanks to the ongoing support of the astonishing Patrons of Crushing Krisis. They’ve had early access to the guide for the past month! Join for as little as $1 a month or $10.20 a year to get early access to dozens of existing guides and every new guide as it makes its first appearance on CK.

Drag Race Belgique Season 1, Episode 4 – “L’émission qui vous déshabille” acting challenge & “Ceci n’est pas un look!” runway Review & Power Ranking

March 12, 2023 by krisis

Welcome to my review, recap, and power rankings of the fourth episode of Drag Race Belgique Season 1 – “L’émission qui vous déshabille,” a scripted acting challenge spoofing real-life documentary Ni juge, ni soumise. It was paired with a “Ceci n’est pas un look!” runway celebrating surrealist painter René Magritte – plus, the library was open for a reading challenge.

If that sounds like a brainy episode, it was! But, it also showed how prepared the top group of queens remaining on this season are when it comes to surmounting any challenge thrown their way… except, perhaps, a reading challenge.

These Belgian queens seemed to be literally shaking in their boots when Rita Baga opened the library for the reading mini-challenge. Several of them seemed to be too nervous to even hold their prop glasses up to their eyes.

That made me wonder to what extent reading is baked into the culture of Belgian drag. Of course, there is a certain playful cattiness to most drag queens and drag scenes, and we’ve seen that on display in the workroom and in confessionals. Yet, reading tends to be a very direct, confrontational version of that cattiness. I get the sense that doesn’t come as naturally in Belgium as it does for queens other countries – like, for instance, New Zealand.

That stands in contrast to the acting challenge and the runway, which both seemed to capitalize on the cerebral qualities of the queens and Belgium’s appreciation for the arts. I wasn’t expecting much from a spoof of a documentary or a modern art runway theme, but this cast of queens came ready to impress.

My French is not good enough to have perfectly understood the acting scenes without subtitles and translations, but I got the impression that two of them went off without a hitch and were thoroughly amusing. The script relied on the broad humor of badly-behaved citizens facing off against a dour but impulsive magistrate, which means the queens all had genuine characters to act rather than simply spouting catchlines or delivering physical humor.

The same is true for the Magritte-inspired “Ceci n’est pas un look!” runway theme. On other franchises I’d expect perhaps one or two queens who really understood the assignment of capturing the thematic qualities of a surrealist painter in their fashions. Here, no one missed the mark entirely. The same was true on their bande dessinée runway on episode two.

It seems clear that the average drag queen in Belgium is expected to know her cultural references and appreciate the country’s artistic heroes. I find it refreshing to be watching a version of Drag Race where the queen’s references are not simply drag, reality TV, and fashion. I don’t think any other franchise has seemed so enamored with connecting drag to the fine arts.

What does this cerebral episode mean for my Power Rankings compared to last week’s “Festival Realness” design challenge? One queen descended precipitously due to some factors out of her control, while a pair of winless queens jostled to secure a spot of runner-up to our clear front-runner.

(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 11 – “Two Queens, One Joke” Review & Power Ranking

March 11, 2023 by krisis

Welcome to my review, recap, and power rankings of the eleventh episode of RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 15 – “Two Queens, One Joke.” It’s a typical Drag Race stand-up challenge with the added twist of being performed in pairs, a la All Stars Season 2. Plus, a voguing mini-challenge, a “Rip Her To Shreds” runway, and an all-time best lip sync!

There’s a reason that Drag Race places stand-up comedy challenges towards the back half of the season, and it’s not just to have enough run-time to show comedy sets from every queen.

Comedy challenges are some of the most-subjective Drag Race challenges of all. It’s easy for producers to craft any kind of narrative they want for a queen purely by having RuPaul laugh more or less during her set and then matching Ru’s energy in the edit. Even a genuinely hilarious queen like Bianca del Rio could be stopped short by complete silence between her jokes..

While queens have a little bit of control over their fates in writing their own jokes, it’s not much. There have been many re-edits of iconically bad past comedy challenges where the addition of an audience laugh track or Ru’s own screaming laughter makes seemingly dead jokes come alive. There’s a version of Laganja Estranja’s iconically bad stand-up set with laughter included that makes her out to be mildly amusing!

With that in mind, it’s no coincidence that “Two Queens One Joke” was used to dismiss a queen who did perfectly okay but who would’ve likely crushed her competitors next week. That would have made the road to the finale more complicated and potentially cost us several front-runners along the way. Of course, this is exactly what I predicted last week, because I have seen a few (dozen) Drag Race comedy challenges before!

Luckily for us as viewers, the challenge yielded a highly-entertaining lip sync to Doja Cat’s wildly fun “Boss Bitch.” It’s a song I am utterly addicted to even without a lip sync to pair with it! It helped that the lip sync ran a full two minutes and five seconds of a 2:14 song.

That’s not totally unusual. The Ariana Grande lip sync on the full-length Episode 2 was a couple of seconds shy of two minutes. However, last week’s “Single Ladies” was a slim 1:47.

Eighteen more seconds in a lip sync is a lot of time for queens to endear themselves, especially when it means we get a full song with virtually no edits. Even some of our favorite evenly-matched lip syncs of all time like “Shut Up & Drive,” “Sorry Not Sorry,” and “Miss You Much” are heavily edited, and it’s obvious we lost some material to the cutting room floor. Here, we saw the nearly entire thing.

That longer lip sync was a result of this week’s second lucky turn for viewers: this was the first week of Drag Race returning to a 90-minute TV runtime on MTV, which means an hour-long episode edit! The episode had so much more room to breathe with an extra 20 minutes of footage. The return of seeing the judges in their private deliberations reinforced for me how essential they are to keeping the narrative of the show moving forward.

What does this mean for my Power Rankings compared to last week’s interview challenge? Absolutely nothing when it comes to the dismissal (which I anticipated), but this episode’s placements shook up our potential final four in a major way for the first time in several weeks.

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