Crushing Krisis

RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 15, Episode 7 – “The Daytona Wind 2” acting challenge, Review & Power Ranking

February 11, 2023 by krisis

Welcome to my review, recap, and power rankings of the seventh episode of RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 15 – “The Daytona Wind 2,” a sequel to last season’s surprisingly well-written melodramatic acting challenge. It was paired with a “Puffer Please” runway theme, where the queens were challenged with making puffer jacket elements look high fashion.

On Season 14, “The Daytona Wind” was a standout episode that helped to solidify the fact that we were watching a cast full of standout performers. However, that wasn’t just because the cast was so great. It was also because they were given a script that made sense and were allowed to act it in a straight-forward way – with jokes inserted later.

If Season 14 was an acting challenge high point, this Season 15 “Daytona Wind” redux was a low one. The queens were saddled with a script that was nothing but Drag Race references that left no room for character choices.

Though some of the humor was inserted later in the edit just like last season, it was the anti-humor of Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! I think it’s a tough prospect to deliver a standout performance for that sort of humor if you’re blithely unaware of the style while you are performing.

After Season 14 and All Winners, I think we can all agree that Drag Race is at its best when it sets its queens up for success with strong material and doesn’t try to squash them into obvious archetypes in the edit. Instead, this felt like return to the Drag Race riggory of seasons 11-13, where any challenge could be bent to create any result the producers wanted. That feels unwelcome after getting a breath of fresh air from the franchise in 2021.

Between the painfully awkward challenge and the continued short runtime, this wasn’t an enjoyable episode of Drag Race for me. It also didn’t do much to shake up the existing power ranking divide between the haves and have nots. (The “haves” in this instance are the all-too-obvious group of potential finalists). However, within those two halves of the cast, things did get shuffled a bit – both due to this week’s performances and the news of an impending Lalaparuza Lip Sync smackdown on the next episode.

Readers, start your engines! And, may the best drag queen win! [Read more…] about RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 15, Episode 7 – “The Daytona Wind 2” acting challenge, Review & Power Ranking

Updated: Guide to Silver Age X-Men

February 10, 2023 by krisis

I’m excited to share this much-needed guide refresh, especially in the wake of yesterday’s broadcast with Near Mint Condition – which included a key omnibus this page was missing! Welcome back to my uncanny Guide to Silver Age X-Men – covering every major collection format for Uncanny X-Men (1963) #1-66, their hiatus years guest appearances, and modern “Hidden Years” stories inserted into that period!

Guide to Silver Age X-Men

My Guide to Silver Age X-Men hasn’t had a significant update since 2016, although I did stop by to add a few Epic Collections in the past seven years.

Fortunately, the landscape of Silver Age X-Men collections hasn’t shifted too much since the introduction of the Epic line. Yet, there are still new collections to add to the guide. The big news has been the recent initiation of a new line of paperback “Mighty Marvel Masterworks,” plus the recent announcement of an omnibus of John Byrne’s retcon insert series, X-Men: The Hidden Years. There have also been a number of reprinted books along the way, including both classic omnibuses, and they’ve all been added explicitly to the guide.

I added those new collections, as well as gave the guide a facelift to bring it in line with my newer style guides. That means it now includes publishing years, full ISBNs, and links to buy and read digitally.

Many folks don’t hold this Silver Age run in high regard past the initial handful of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby issues. However, I think a lot of it is worth reading for modern X-Men fans. In particular, I’d suggest reading issues #1-6 to see Namor and Magneto’s first meeting, issues #12-13 for Juggernaut’s first story, and issue #14-16 for the first Sentinels story – as well as some of the Roy Thomas and Neal Adams material from issues #56-66.

This Guide to Silver Age X-Men update is just the first of many X-Men guide updates to come, which have been the most-demanded updates from Patrons and the general public alike. I hear you! There are now over 200 guide pages to update, but the X-Men guides will always be the closest to my heart and I know that’s true for many of you as well.

Near Mint Condition show recap: Marvel’s newest trade paperbacks & 40 upcoming 2023 Marvel omnibuses!

February 9, 2023 by krisis

I am fresh from co-hosting my first ever Marvel solicits announcement show on Near Mint Condition with the Uncanny Omar and Kurtis from the Epic Marvel Podcast! We joined forces to reveal eight new thick trades recollecting existing material, plus we recapped the staggering 40 Marvel omnibuses that Omar has announced from August through December of 2023.

(Watch on YouTube)

Altogether, that made for three solid hours of collected editions content, during which we had a lot of interesting conversations about these runs and how they’re collected. But, in case you don’t have three hours, now I can reveal what we talked about!

(I’ll warn you that if you start watching from the beginning you’ll see 10 minutes of technical difficulties that included my blind panic when I realized I was the only host connected to the live stream while I wasn’t wearing my glasses and was connected to the wrong wifi network in my house.)

First, let’s look at the even newly-announced thick trade paperbacks and one new gallery edition. Our show was the first time these books have been announced anywhere on the internet! Then, I’ll recap all 40 of the Marvel Omnibus announcements we dissected at length.

Marvel United: Multiverse enters its final three hours on Kickstarter!

February 8, 2023 by krisis

We’re down to the final countdown to the end of the Marvel United: Multiverse Kickstarter from CMON! The campaign ends in exactly three hours at 9pm US Eastern Time on February 9th.

If you haven’t pledged yet for this massive amount of Marvel board-gaming goodness, this is your final chance to purchase many of these expansions and characters forever – as a number of them will not be offered at retail and there is no guarantee of a reprint.

However, this campaign is reprinting the sets of exclusive promotional stretch goal figures from both of the prior campaigns. I have both of these boxes, and they are HUGE and packed with dozens of extra heroes and villains to expand your gameplay. They can be pricey to hunt down on the aftermarket (especially with their bonus “all-in” figures included), so now is the time to grab them.

Also, I thought it was fun to see that one of the final Marvel United: Multiverse stretch goals were none other than the star of my newly-released Guide to Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur!

I had no idea I’d be releasing the guide on the same day they would turn up in the campaign. Now that’s some terrific synergy!

The past few days have also brought us Lizard, Werewolf by Night, Mole Man, Agent Venom, Moonstone, White Widow, Stature, and KNULL!!! Right now we’re ticking toward unlocking Purple Man as a villain. Who will be next? It seems like the odds-on bet is Mephisto, but I am still pulling for Rictor, Magma, or Karma – our only missing mutants for a full set of 1980s X-book casts.

I’ll be back after the close of the campaign to recap all of the characters it contains, to make fantasy predictions for who should appear in a Season 4 campaign, and maybe even share some of my hundreds of homebrew heroes.

Watch me announce new Marvel collections with Near Mint Condition LIVE on February 9, 2023 @ 1pm ET

February 8, 2023 by krisis

In exactly 24hrs I will be broadcasting LIVE from New Zealand on the Near Mint Condition YouTube channel with my colleague and dear friend Omar and the incredible Kurtis from the Epic Marvel Podcast. We’re joining forces to announce some upcoming Marvel trade paperbacks, plus recap the astounding slate of 36 Marvel omnibuses planned from now through the end of 2023.

Watch Krisis on Near Mint Condition on Thursday, February 9, 2023 @ 1pm ET

Near Mint Condition has become the #1 source of collected edition news on the entire internet, which includes being an official source of Marvel collections announcements long before they hit solicitations. If you are an omnibus collector you absolutely need to subscribe to the channel, because Omar announces every new Marvel Omnibus and Omnibus reprint! Plus, he does awesome stuff like holding a monthly budgeting meeting to help folks manage their spending on new comics and collections.

I have known Omar online for nearly a decade – long before I started making guest appearances on his channel for our special “Map My X” series of collected edition mapping videos. You might even remember him from his guest spot on The HiX-Men Report back in 2019 talking about Powers of X (2019) #3. Past being a font of comics news and knowledge, he is a truly kind and thoughtful person. He cares about cultivating an open and accepting community of fans at Near Mint Condition and across the wider comics internet.

Tomorrow will be the first time I get to join in making an exclusive announcement of brand new Marvel material! Omar and Marvel would send a special forces team to my house in New Zealand to cut my connect to CK if I revealed a single thing ahead of time… but, I think I can safely say that one of the collections is for a series I very unexpectedly loved given the combination of writer and creator.

That’s all I can say until tomorrow, so please tune in! And, of course, if you miss seeing us live, you can replay the video any time.