Crushing Krisis

New Comics & Collected Editions: Marvel Comics – February 15, 2023

February 15, 2023 by krisis

Welcome to the third post in my trial run of a return to new release posts! This post covers Marvel Comics February 15 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 February 15 2023 Collected Editions

The Amazing Spider-Man by Zeb Wells Vol. 3: Hobgoblin (2023 paperback, ISBN 978-1302933135 / digital)
See Guide to Spider-Man, Peter Parker (2018 – Present Day). This volume includes Spider-Man’s brief intersection with last year’s A.X.E.: Judgment Day event.

Captain America by Nick Spencer Omnibus Vol. 1 (2023 oversize hardcover, ISBN / digital)
See Guide to Captain America or Guide to Falcon. While much of this run is the dour run-up to the joyless Secret Empire event, it also includes a lot of Sam Wilson being incredibly competent as Captain America, which is a decent read. However, I just don’t think this run is significant enough to warrant a spot on an omnibus shelf – especially not two books of it.

Captain America: Sentinel of Liberty Vol. 1: Revolution (2023 paperback, ISBN 978-1302931438 / digital)
See Guide to Captain America. The first collection of this Kelly, Lanzing, & Carnero run, which I am absolutely dying to dig into! I’m working my way up to it as fast as I can!

Daredevil & Elektra Vol. 1: The Red Fist Saga (2023 paperback, ISBN 978-1302926113 / digital)
See Guide to Daredevil or Guide to Elektra. This is the first collection of the Daredevil & Elektra co-starring run of Daredevil from Chip Zdarsky & Marco Checchetto that directly follows Devil’s Reign and Elektra’s stint as “Woman With Fear.” There are another two volumes already solicited to follow, and the entire prior Zdarsky run is covered in oversize hardcover – so there’s every reason to jump in (unless you are awaiting an inevitable omnibus in a few years).

Daredevil Epic Collection: The Man Without Fear (2016 paperback, ISBN 978-0785195481 / 2023 paperback, ISBN 978-1302950361 / digital)
See Guide to Daredevil. A reprint of the first in Daredevil’s 21-book Epic Collection line covering his 1964 series in full. Right now we have every volume except 7-12, most of which have been collected in other formats (including Miller’s entire run).

Doctor Strange Epic Collection Volume 11: Nightmare on Bleecker Street (2023 paperback, ISBN 978-1302951054 / digital)
See Guide to Doctor Strange. I’ve just given this guide a major shake-up to bring it up to date on collections, although I still have a lot of work to do on guest appearances and formatting. I was surprised to see how aggressive Marvel has gotten with Epic Collections of his 1988 series, since they’ve also been covering it in omnibus volumes at the same time. I would’ve guessed that they’d want to pump out some classic Stern material to coincide with last years Multiverse of Madness film, but I suppose the Masterworks line is still not too far ahead of that point.

Edge of Spider-Verse (2023 paperback, ISBN 978-1302947170 / digital TBA)
See Guide to Spider-Man, Peter Parker (2018 – Present Day). This is the prologue to Dan Slott’s Spider-Verse redux that played out in Spider-Man (2022).

Genis-Vell: Captain Marvel (2023 paperback, ISBN 978-1302946722 / digital)
See Guide to Captain Marvel, Carol Danvers or Guide to Captain Marvel, Genis-Vell (eventually) for the return of the son of Captain Mar-Vell

Hulk: Planet Hulk Omnibus (2017 hardcover, ISBN 978-1302907693 / 2023 hardcover, ISBN 978-1302949686 / digital)
See Guide to Hulk, Bruce Banner for this 2023 straight reprint of the 2017 omnibus.

Iron Man, Books of Korvac IV: Source Control (20xx paperback, ISBN 978-1302932701 / digital)
See Guide to Iron Man. I was absolutely obsessed with the first three volumes of this epic Christopher Cantwell Iron Man series, though I haven’t yet read the contents of this final book.

Marvel Knights: Make the World Go Away (2023 paperback, ISBN 978-1302949709 / digital)
See Guide to Daredevil. I’m a little puzzled about this one, as this book collecting the six-issue Marvel Knights anniversary series by Matt Rosenberg & Donny Cates was already issued in trade with the same contents in 2019… and neither collection puts Daredevil in the title, which would help it sell better! It primarily stars Daredevil and fits in just prior to his Zdarsky series.

Marvel Masterworks: The Invincible Iron Man Vol. 16
See Guide to Iron Man. This book pushes the Iron Man Masterworks collection into 1983!

Star Wars – Bounty Hunters Vol. 5: The Raid on the Vermillion (2023 paperback, ISBN 978-0785194798 / digital)
See Guide to Star Wars Expanded Universe Comics. This is one of the current Star Wars ongoing series set in the period directly following Empire Strikes Back.

X-Men: Hellfire Gala – Immortal (2023 paperback, ISBN 978-1302952099 / digital)
See Guide t0 X-Men – The Age of Krakoa. This second annual Hellfire Gala merits a much less fancy and much slimmer release compared to the special oversize hardcover gold edition from 2021’s event. It collects the Hellfire Gala one-shot, the mirth-filled Tini Howard follow-up to the prior gala from Secret X-Men (2022) #1, and a number of digital shorts.

Read on for a rundown of Marvel Comics February 15 2023 single-issue releases, including a link to their accompanying guide pages on Crushing Comics.

Unstoppable Wasp Guide – now available to the public!

February 15, 2023 by krisis

I’m happy to announce that my Unstoppable Wasp Guide is now available to all readers to celebrate the release of Ant-Man & the Wasp: Quantumania, in theatres today!

Guide to Unstoppable Wasp, Nadia van Dyne

This Unstoppable Wasp Guide includes a complete reading order of every Nadia van Dyne appearance, from her debut in Free Comic Book Day (FCBD) 2016, through her stint in The Avengers, into Secret Empire and out into the Champions on the other side – plus, Nadia’s own delightful book, Unstoppable Wasp.

Throughout the reading order, I indicate where some books are very tonally different for the character (a-hem, Secret Empire), in case you’re reading along with the kids in your life. If you’re Not in the mood for a full-on Unstoppable Wasp reading order, I also provided a slimmed-down list of “Greatest Hits” issues so you can get only the core of Nadia’s story without background appearances and cameos.

Nadia occupies an interesting space in Marvel’s mythology. She is Hank Pym’s daughter, but she is not his daughter with The Wasp (Janet van Dyne) that neatly aligns with Hope van Dyne of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Instead, Nadia is Hank’s previously unknown child with his first wife, Maria Trovaya. Maria was introduced via flashback in the Silver Age debut of Janet van Dyne. As Hank recalls in that 60s comic, Maria was abducted by foreign agents on their honeymoon and presumed dead for decades of comic continuity. Even when it was later suggested that she was kept alive and held captive, there was nary a hint of a secret daughter until Mark Waid created Nadia in 2016.

Even if Nadia isn’t the same as Hope, there’s something very clever about how she has been handled. That’s because she has allowed Janet van Dyne to take on a maternal role (even giving Nadia her last name!) without aging her to be the mother of a teenager of her own. While moms absolutely can be (and are) heroes, Marvel is always shy to make a female hero into a mom without artificially aging up her child – as we’ve seen with both Jean Grey and Scarlet Witch!

(Sue Storm remains Marvel’s mom-in-chief, parenting two teenagers who aged up off-panel alongside her during an eight-year gap spent tending to other universes after Secret Wars).

This Unstoppable Wasp Guide exists thanks to the ongoing support of the amazing Patrons of Crushing Krisis. They’ve had early access to the guide for three weeks. Now, the guide is open to the public and updated through the present day.

N.K. Jemisin’s The Fifth Season Roleplaying Game campaign on Backerkit (TTRPG Tuesday)

February 14, 2023 by krisis

While I remain committed to not making any resolutions in a new year, two of the things I’d like to try doing are having a neat bit of synchronicity at the moment with the current fan-funding campaign for The Fifth Season Roleplaying game, based on the novels by N.K. Jemisin.

One of those two things is reading more physical books. I know some people are into trying to read 52 books a year, or even 100. For me, reading in quantity is never a big challenge. I’ve read 80,000 pages of comic books in a single year!

What I’m not so great at doing is giving my eyes a rest from the screen and from digesting artwork to sit down with a book of prose. Plus, sometimes it can be hard to find a full range of diversity in American floppy comics comic authors and stories, but the work of literature is much, much larger.

At the #1 spot on my “books I’d read if I made time to read books” list is The Fifth Season from N.K. Jemisin, a book about a fractured family on a wounded planet. It has occupied that spot even since it won the Hugo Award for best novel back in 2016 – long before I read her absolutely brilliant DC Comics series The Far Sector, which debuted the new Green Lantern Sojourner “Jo” Mullein.

Not only that, but when I asked my beloved college D&D friends for sci-fi/fantasy novel recommendations that weren’t just straight white people writing about straight white worlds, The Fifth Season was their first recommendation!

As quick as I am to acquire a new comic I’m interested in reading, I’m snail-paced at snagging a book I might want to read. Even after having my interest confirmed in a recommendation from friends, it took me a full three months to remember to request the book from the Wellington library system – which had all of one copy – so then I had to wait another two months to receive it.

That weatherbeaten paperback novel has been sitting on my bedside table, waiting to be cracked open and read for all of my incredibly-busy past three weeks – including the day I received an ad for The Fifth Season’s table-top RPG rulebook.

(Somehow I have engineered it that Facebook will only serve me ads for nerdy Kickstarter campaigns. It’s the only website on the internet where I don’t have ads blocked, so it’s like I live in a world where the only things anyone ever advertises are RPGs and board games. It’s a paradise.)

As it happens, that advertisement piqued my interest not only because of the book on my bedside table recommended by D&D friends, but also another thing I’d love to do this year related to my gaming gang: I’d like to learn some RPG systems other than Dungeons and Dragons and 5th Edition! This goal was on my list even before the OGL drama of a few weeks ago, and even though that came to a happy resolution it doesn’t change the fact that I’d love to extend my game-running skills outside of D&D. [Read more…] about N.K. Jemisin’s The Fifth Season Roleplaying Game campaign on Backerkit (TTRPG Tuesday)

New for Patrons: Guide to Kang the Conqueror (including Iron Lad & Rama-Tut)

February 13, 2023 by krisis

This week I’m here with an especially rare new guide CK’s Plegeonaut Patrons on Patreon – a guide to a Marvel villain! I find villain guides to be some of the most-challenging to organize, and this villain might be the most-challenging of all because he exists in multiple time periods and has had multiple identities – sometimes all at once! After a lot of puzzling and a lot of reading, I’m proud to present my Guide to Kang the Conqueror!

Guide to Kang the Conqueror

Kang is one of those characters that my 30+ years of comic reading has suggested is incredibly complicated, but I’m here to tell you that his centuries-spanning history really isn’t as complex as the comics (and some fans) make it out to be.

First things first: Kang is from the future of the Marvel Universe, but not the future of Earth-616! He is from an alternate 30th Century future Earth that was visited by Reed Richards’ time-traveling father, Nathaniel Richards. He inspired young Kang, so he took on his name. Thus, Kang is often also known as Nathaniel Richards (Earth-6311).

How did Nathaniel Richards of Earth-6311 wind up in our present day comics? And what do Iron Lad, Rama-Tut, and Immortus have to do with it? It’s a lot simpler than you might think.

one thing leads to another

February 12, 2023 by krisis

Sometimes getting older feels a lot like the old lady who swallowed a fly. One thing leads to another. One minor inconvenience that you might not have even noticed in your youth quickly cascades into bigger and bigger problems until your entire life is a wreck.

That’s not just my pessimism at play! I’m actually hot off of a few miserable months after just such a bit of bad luck.

Image by Ulrike Leone from Pixabay

The bad luck involved our sectional couch. It was destined to happen. The day I met the couch, I turned to E and said, “I’m going to hurt myself on one of its legs. I just know it.”

The legs are set exactly at the corners of the couch rather than in from the edge, and since they are metal they’re surprisingly thin – enough so that your foot could catch on them rather than impacting and sliding off in one direction or the other.

Of course, it came to pass. I was walking across the room for no particular reason and slammed my foot directly in the middle of the couch’s leg, toe-first.

It was more than a stubbed toe. It was a collapsing onto the ground after, seeing stars for an hour, ice-packs all night sort of impact.

It felt exactly the same as when I fractured middle finger just before COVID struck, another one of these inconveniences that put the whammy on my life and my plans for months on end. Something felt internally wrong in my foot.

I visited a doctor first thing the next day. He shrugged at me. “Maybe it’s chipped,” he said. I pleaded for a X-Ray, but he said that even if it was broken, it wasn’t in a way that would require a cast or splint. He thought giving me a boot would be overkill. I’d just have to not walk it off.

Easier said than done. [Read more…] about one thing leads to another