Bob Layton

Updated: Guide to X-Factor

January 12, 2023 by krisis

Now that I’m digging back into my comic guides, it’s time to start attacking my backlog of 150+ guides that haven’t had a significant revision in half a decade! Time flies when you’re reading comics. This week, I’ve reached back to update one of CK’s earliest guides. Actually, I re-wrote every word and rebuilt every link from scratch to make it easier than ever to find the physical and digital collections you want. Welcome to my all-new, all-different Guide to X-Factor.

Guide to X-Factor

My last update of the Guide to X-Factor was in the middle of the Reign of X, which means it wasn’t missing too many collections – just the newest Epics and the relatively fresh second and third volumes of the Peter David Omnibus line.

However, that doesn’t meant the page was easy to use! The guide had grown to be a labyrinth of collections with 20 years worth of competing oversized hardcovers, Epics, and paperbacks. That approach to guide organization predates Marvel’s more-organized approach to the contents of Omnibuses and Epic collections. Now that collection formats are getting tidier, the guide should follow! Now, major collection formats have their own sections that you can easily open or skip.

As a result, I rebuilt every collection link on the page. That’s not the only big change to this guide. I’ve added all of the features of the newest guides on the site, including a “Where to Start” section, digital purchase links, reformatted images, and links to read on Marvel Unlimited!

This was one of my milder rebuilds, since it didn’t require adding many new collections or researching character appearances. It still took a whopping five hours altogether, which is almost as long as it takes to create a small new guide from scratch! I’ve got my work cut out for me keeping everything updated, but the more often I do it the easier and quicker it becomes.

Enjoy this renewed Guide to X-Factor – and, let me know in the comments which of my 200+ guides you’d love to see me update next!

Updated: The Definitive Guide to Marvel’s Hercules

November 30, 2017 by krisis

Today I’ve updated the guide of Marvel’s marquee Olympian – The Definitive Guide to Marvel’s Hercules!

Want to learn more about Marvel’s take on the Greek God, but don’t need a rundown of every issue in which he’s made an appearance? Keep reading for a summary of Hercules’ history, a review of what he’s been up to in 2017, and a tally of how many Hercules comics have been collected overall!

X-Factor, Vol. 1 – The #31 Most-Wanted Marvel Omnibus of 2017

June 2, 2017 by krisis

(Note: This post was originally scheduled for June but is being stickied to the top of the main page during the week of November 27th so current readers don’t miss it! Regular updates continue, below.)

X-Men fans who know the team from cartoons and movies are familiar with that single title acting as an umbrella to all of the various incarnations of the franchise.

That’s about to change in 2018. Fans will get their first taste of a X-Men spinoff title with the release of New Mutants, a movie based on the third generation of young mutants at Xavier’s school who were spun off into their own title in 1984. Either that film or Deadpool will likely lead us to another movie named X-Force, which would show off a more-proactive, bloodier version of X-Men on film.

Those spinoff titles – “new” and “force” – are explicit in describing what their teams represent. That’s one of many reasons why the film franchise is skipping over another X-Men spinoff title: X-Factor.

We might eventually see an “X-Factor” movie or TV show thanks to a 2006 incarnation of the title, which envisioned it less as a team and more as the motley crew staffing a mutant detective agency.

What we probably will never see is an adaptation of the original X-Factor, which was dedicated to reassembling the original comic book X-Men – Cyclops, Angel, Beast, Iceman, and Jean Grey returned from the dead. That’s because the film series has always been smart enough to realize that those five characters are a boring combination that’s quickly dominated by the Cyclops/Jean relationship.

If the original X-Men are so boring, why were they reassembled? And, is it worth reading about over thirty years later? Those two questions are answered by the #31 vote on this year’s Marvel’s Most-Wanted Omnibus ballot.

(Note that this post was published in November, as the originally scheduled post was interrupted by coordinating my move to my new home in New Zealand).

X-Factor, Vol. 1

X-Factor, Vol. 1 is tied as the #31 Most-Wanted Marvel Omnibus of 2017 on Tigereyes’s Secret Ballot. Visit the Marvel Masterworks Message Board to view the original posting of results by Tigereyes and collect all of these issue right now as detailed in my X-Factor Guide

Past Ranking: X-Factor was #13 last year, making it one of the biggest drops in rank in 2017.

Probable Contents: Fantastic Four #286, Avengers #263, X-Factor #1 to 26 or 32, plus Annuals #1-3.

Creators: Written by Louise Simonson with Bob Layton and Walt Simonson. Penciled by Jackson Guice (#1-7) and Walt Simonson (#10-11, 13-15, 17-19, 21, 23-31, & Annual 3) with Marc Silvestri (#8 & 12)

Can you read it right now? Not entirely, and what you read will be in an hodge-podge of formats. The whole run isn’t even on Marvel Unlimited! Visit the X-Factor Guide for the full story.

**What’s in the X-Factor, Vol. 1 omnibus?**

X-Factor marked the first time the original five X-Men were reunited in over a decade.

It was a clever solution to a non-existent problem, but also very nearly a dead-on-arrival dud. Even though it turned out to be good, I’m still convinced it was the first big misstep of the X-Men franchise.

Let’s start at the beginning.

The year is 1985. Jean Grey is still dead. Cyclops represents the “old guard” in Uncanny X-Men and is increasingly unnecessary to the team, though he continues to get pulled back into their adventures despite starting a new life (and family) with Madelyne Pryor (later decided/revealed to be a clone of Jean!). Angel, Beast, and Iceman are roughly half of the New Defenders in a title headed for cancellation. [Read more…] about X-Factor, Vol. 1 – The #31 Most-Wanted Marvel Omnibus of 2017

The Definitive Hercules Collecting Guide and Reading Order

The Hercules comic books definitive issue-by-issue collecting guide and trade reading order for omnibus, hardcover, and trade paperback collections. Find every issue and appearance! Part of Crushing Krisis’s Crushing Comics. Last updated September 2024 with titles scheduled for release through December 2024.

Hercules has had a peculiar career as a Marvel superhero.

After what later proved to be an imposter appearing in his stead in Avengers #10, Stan Lee and Jack Kirby debuted the real Hercules in Journey Into Mystery Annual 1. There, he appeared along with his father Zeus in an attempt to create a set of worthy colleagues for Thor, Odin, and the Asgardian pantheon.

In short order, Hercules was established as a sort of good-time loving, screw-up demi-god, repeatedly cast out of Olympus by Zeus for his various transgressions.

During an early expulsion he rooms with the Avengers, assisting them in several adventures as repayment. Later, after a run of adventures with Thor, he moves to Los Angeles to found the short-lived Champions with other characters who were team-less in the mid-70s – Black Widow, Ghost Rider, Iceman, and Angel.

Hercules rose to solo prominence in the early 1980s with a pair of mini-series and a graphic nove. However, this Hercules penned by Bob Layton, wasn’t the one readers knew from The Champions. He was a 24th Century future version of the god who was – once again – exiled from Olympus!

In the early 90s, Hercules settled in for an official run as an Avenger with his Champions colleague Black Widow. However, after Onslaught caused The Avengers to disappear from the Marvel Universe while he was on leave, he became a hero adrift – appearing briefly in Heroes for Hire as well as his first in-continuity mini-series in 1997.

Hercules would finally get his starring turn as a result of a battle with an old foe – Hulk! In the 60s, Hercules proved to be one of the few heroes who could stand toe-to-toe with the Jade Giant. In 2007, he took over Hulk’s title in the wake of World War Hulk, becoming The Incredible Hercules! His book was a fan favorite, spawning two mini-series and another brief ongoing in 2011 before Hercules disappeared from the page. He would see revival in a 2016 All-New, All-Different Marvel series, which controversially ignored his canonical bisexuality – which was made more permanently canonical by Al Ewing in Herc’s starring run in Guardians of the Galaxy.

While Hercules still isn’t a marquee hero at Marvel, it seems that he won’t ever disappear again for more than a few years at a time. [Read more…] about The Definitive Hercules Collecting Guide and Reading Order

Marvel’s Most-Wanted Omnibuses of 2016 – #12, 11, and 10

June 14, 2016 by krisis

Omnibus on Shelf I’m back with #12, 11, and 10 from the Most-Wanted Marvel Omnibus secret ballot by TigerEyes. I covered #13-15 in the last installment.

Today we’ll examine a pair of late-80s classics by a single writer and one modern-day epic that was at both highly enjoyable and fundamentally broken.

Why just three books? Other than my fingers being a little exhausted, I wanted to have the time to dig a little deeper both into the content of the books and how they might be collected. This three-omnibus installment wound up being just as long as some of the posts with twice the books!

Marvel has released these oversized omnibus editions for over a decade now, with a staggering amount of their most-popular material now covered in the format – from Silver Age debuts to modern classics. Is your favorite character or run of issues already in an Omnibus? My Marvel Omnibus & Oversized Hardcover Guide is the most comprehensive tool on the web for answering that question – it features every book, plus release dates, contents, and even breakdowns of $/page and what movies the books were released to support.

Alright, there’s plenty more to read below, so let’s get going with the next three most-wanted oversized hardcover omnibuses! [Read more…] about Marvel’s Most-Wanted Omnibuses of 2016 – #12, 11, and 10