Crushing Krisis

New Comics & Collected Editions: Marvel Comics – February 1, 2023

February 1, 2023 by krisis

Welcome to a trial of a kind of post I haven’t written for years: a post covering Marvel Comics February 1 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 every new release, I’ll point you to the right guide, which will be updated to reflect the current series and issue.

I last attempted this sort of post five whole years ago. Time flies! Seriously, it feels like it was just a few months ago. At the time, I had several dozen fewer Marvel guides than I do today and I was more than a year behind on reading the entire Marvel Universe. Trying to point readers toward the right collection information for every issue was like trying to bale out a boat with a sieve. I needed to spend the time guide-building!

There are still many more Marvel guides left to build, but I have much better coverage than I did a half a decade ago. I’m going to experiment with bringing this post back this month as a way to catch up on everything that Marvel is offering – both for myself and for my 100+ Marvel reading guide pages.

Marvel Comics February 1 2023 Collected Editions

Vol. 1: The Man in the Ant Hill (2015 paperback, ISBN 978-0785198505 / digital / 2023 paperback, 978-1302950354)
See Guide to Ant-Man for this straight reprint of the existing Epic just in time for the Ant-Man movie.

Captain Mar-Vell Omnibus Vol. 1 (2023 oversize hardcover, ISBN 978-1302948658 / digital)
See Guide to Captain Marvel, Carol Danvers for coverage of this series (though, a Mar-Vell guide may be coming…). This omnibus is a big deal, as the three color Masterworks that cover this material have been out of print for some time. It’s nice to see Marvel focusing on a classic hero without much current exposure.

Daredevil By Frank Miller & Klaus Janson Omnibus (2023 oversize hardcover, ISBN 978-1302945534 / digital)
See Guide to Daredevil for this reprinting of the perennial one-and-done classic Daredevil ominbus.

Fantastic Four by Dan Slott, Vol. 3 (2023 oversize hardcover, ISBN 978-1302945343 / digital)
See Guide to Fantastic Four for this hardcover recollection line, which continues to be one of the lines Marvel is reprinting most-aggressively. It’s almost as if they’re getting reading for a movie…

by Gerry Duggan, Vol. 2 (2023 oversize hardcover, ISBN 978-1302945213/ digital)
See Guide to X-Men – The Age of Krakoa for this hardcover recollection line. This completes Duggan’s run in hardcover.

Miles Morales: The Avenging Avenger! (2023 digest-size paperback, ISBN / digital)
See Guide to Spider-Man, Miles Morales for this digest-size recollection of Miles’s post-Secret Wars Marvel-616 series.

Silver Surfer Epic Collection Volume 5: The Return of Thanos (2023 paperback, ISBN 978-1302948290 / digital)
See Guide to Silver Surfer for this new Epic Collection! This brings us past halfway point of Silver Surfer’s Epic line, with 8 books released and 6 still to go to cover his material through the end of his 1987 ongoing. Still missing are Volumes 2, 8, 10, 11, 12, & 14.

Star Wars: Doctor Aphra Omnibus Vol. 1 (2023 oversize hardcover, ISBN 978-1302947941)
See Guide to Star Wars, Episode 4 – A New Hope or Star Wars Expanded Universe Comics for this new printing of the surprisingly hot 2021 Gillen omnibus.

Read on for a rundown of Marvel Comics February 1 2023 single-issue releases, including a link to their accompanying guide pages on Crushing Comics.

Guide to Spider-Man comics from 2018 to present day – now available to the public!

February 1, 2023 by krisis

I’m happy to announce that my Guide to every Spider-Man comic from 2018 to the present day s is now available to all CK readers! This guide covers every Spidey ongoing, mini-series, and event unless it’s headline by another character with their own guide, like Spider-Gwen or Spider-Ham. That includes all of Nick Spencer’s Amazing Spider-Man (2018) run, the 2021 BEYOND! run starring Ben Reilly, and the current Zeb Wells Amazing Spider-Man (2022) run that spun out the Dark Web event. This guide exists thanks to the ongoing support of the amazing Patrons of Crushing Krisis.

Guide to Spider-Man, Peter Parker (2018 – Present Day)

I have a love/hate relationship with my main Guide to Spider-Man, of which this new guide is a spin-off.

If we’re being honest, that main Spidey page less of a guide and more of a complete reading order, not unlike my mega-popular Definitive X-Men Reading Order Guide. It’s one of the longest pages on all of CK. It has literally every Spider-Man appearance from 1963 through the mid-2010s from every single ongoing title, mini-series, and guest appearance.

That’s a lot to wrangle when I want to add just one new collection! [Read more…] about Guide to Spider-Man comics from 2018 to present day – now available to the public!

Elect your favorite mutant with Marvel’s annual X-Men Vote! #xmenvote

January 31, 2023 by krisis

For the third year running, Marvel Comics is offering fans a chance to elect one member of their flagship X-Men squad with their X-Men Vote campaign and polling site at marvel.com/xmenvote!

The electoral chaos of X-Men Vote began in 2021 with the announcement of the inaugural Hellfire Gala and, with it, the launch of a new flagship X-Men team penned by Gerry Duggan. It would be anchored by mainstays and fan favorites like Jean Grey, Cyclops, and Rogue, but fans could chose the final member in an expression of direct democracy.

(According to Duggan, the vote is totally unrigged by Marvel and he truly plans potential subplots for every character in the election)

There’s no superhero comics fanbase more obsessive than X-fans. X-Twitter immediately exploded with campaigning, trending X-Men around the world and driving up the votes. We wound up with Polaris on the team from that initial vote, pulling her out of Leah Williams’ X-Factor. Then, in 2022, Firestar topped the vote, pulling her out of… well, mostly out of disuse, if we’re being honest.

This year’s X-Men Vote has a list of six selections with a clear disparity between the media darlings, the fan faves, and the dark horses. Who are our six potential X-Men, and what are some of the best runs to catch up on their comics history?

Keep reading for a deep dive! And, let me know your favorite issues and runs with these characters in the comments below.

Marvel United: Multiverse adds a Secret Invasion expansion (plus, 20 events that could be expansion boxes!)

January 31, 2023 by krisis

Earlier today, CMON’s Marvel United: Multiverse Kickstarter campaign announced its fourth new expansion box: Marvel United Multiverse – Secret Invasion!

This box, its theme, and its characters were not on my list of predictions in this weekend’s post about the Marvel United Multiverse – Civil War expansion! It includes the O.G. Nick Fury, Maria Hill, Quake, Clint Barton as Ronin, and several Skrull opponents.

I’ll admit, I’m slightly negative on the contents of this expansion box.

While I love the idea of having a set of Skrull villain sculpts, it didn’t add a group of hotly-anticipated heroes. Having Nick Fury Sr. is fun, and Quake has a following from the Agents of SHIELD TV series, but Maria Hill is relatively anonymous as a standalone hero and an alternate Hawkeye wasn’t exactly at the top of every list.

Who else can you include in a Secret Invasion set?! Most of the story was about not knowing who to trust, so it’s shorter on iconic heroes than some other Marvel Events. Yet, there were options available. Hank Pym as Yellowjacket is core to the event, but they just included him in the Civil War box. It’s a pivotal event for Janet van Dyne, and the Wasp in the core Marvel United box is technically Hope van Dyne! Why not give us a Janet figure?!?! And, Norman Osborn plays a massive role in the event, but we just got his Iron Patriot as a stretch goal.

I think including Hank and Janet in this set was the way to go, which could’ve freed up a spot in Civil War for a different hero. CMON really missed their chance here. As a completionist I’ll eventually add this box to my final pledge, but I’m not excited about it.

(Want to play Marvel United right now? Grab either the Marvel United or Marvel United X-Men core boxes right now. They are fun cooperative games that are fun to play with adults and kids alike.)

I’m much more interested in what this set means for the remaining expansion boxes in this campaign – and it’s looking like we can expect 2-3 more. To this point I’ve been predicting teams of characters, because that’s how the past two campaigns worked. However, this campaign is all stories and events – The Coming of Galactus, Age of Apocalypse, Civil War, and Secret Invasion.

With that in mind, it’s time to pivot to an all-new, not-entirely-different list of 20 predictions that repackage major characters into events-based boxes. For a list of all of Marvel’s many line-wide events over the decades, check out my Guide to Marvel Universe Events. [Read more…] about Marvel United: Multiverse adds a Secret Invasion expansion (plus, 20 events that could be expansion boxes!)

New for Patrons: Guide to Wasp, Janet van Dyne

January 30, 2023 by krisis

My newest guide for Patreon supporters of Crushing Krisis is for one of the longest-running women of Marvel. In fact, while researching this guide I realized she may be the first Silver Age female Marvel hero to merit her own series of solo anthology stories! She’s also the first woman with a lengthy stint as a team leader at Marvel. All of that makes it absolutely wild that she has never had her own solo series until this month!!! Find all of those Marvel milestone moments in my brand new Guide to Wasp, Janet van Dyne!

Guide to Wasp, Janet van Dyne
This guide is now available to the public thanks to the astonishing support of Patrons of Crushing Krisis!

I won’t lie – getting this Guide to Wasp done was a battle, even though I got a very early start on it!

That’s because Janet van Dyne has appeared in a staggering 1,296 Marvel comics as of this month, which includes 1,295 comics that were not her own comic.

Building a guide for a character who has mostly appeared in their own series is always more straight-forward than building one for a perennial team member and guest star – even if that character has many series like Wolverine. That’s because their series established their prevailing narrative. Even if Wolverine made three times as many guest appearances in a period compared to his number of solo issues, it will be the solo issues that establish his character arc at that time.

Janet van Dyne has never had that privilege. For a character who is about to celebrate her 60th anniversary, her major character moments are relatively few and far between. [Read more…] about New for Patrons: Guide to Wasp, Janet van Dyne