Crushing Krisis

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Captain America

Marvel series still awaiting an omnibus from the Masterworks Era (1961 – 1980)

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This is the final post in our series time-traveling backwards through Marvel’s era of comic books to see what books would make fantastic omnibuses, and this is a big one – it’s what I’m calling “The Masterworks Era.”

After this post, you should have more than enough ammo to fill out your 2017 Most Wanted Marvel Omnibus Secret Ballot, which is due by Sunday at midnight! I’ve suggested over a hundred possible votes!

What exactly is “The Masterworks Era,” aside from something I just made up? It refers to the period of comcis that Marvel has covered with their deluxe, standard-size hardcover Marvel Masterworks reprint line. The Silver Age portion of the line begins with Fantastic Four #1 in 1961.

The end is a little fuzzier. The Silver Age is understood to end in 1970-71, but with a handful of exceptions Marvel has already pushed past that point with every line of Masterworks collections. In fact, their newest two Masterworks lines are The Spectacular Spider-Man (1976), Spider-Woman (1978), and The Savage She-Hulk (1980)! 

Yes, that’s right – Masterworks now cover comics that began in the 1980s! That’s like when the oldies station of my youth started playing Madonna songs. Plus, the farthest outlier, Uncanny X-Men, has reached all the way up to issue #188 in 1984.

When it comes to classic Omnibuses, until this year Marvel followed a specific formula almost every time – one omnibus contained three Masterworks volumes. We’re now seeing them deviate from that formula with Amazing Spider-Man, Daredevil,  and Thor, all of which contained more than the customary three volumes.

To figure out what comics are due for potential omnibuses to feature in this post, I had to first figure out both what has been covered by Masterworks volumes and what has been skipped! That’s not really a part of this discussion, but if you’re interested, I’ve shown my work.

A list of titles that are eligible for Masterworks treatment

How am I defining “due” here? It’s any superhero universe series that the Masterworks line has skipped entirely or any Masterworks line with three or more un-omnibused volumes.

Any comic with a Masterworks line that’s in-progress with only one or two volumes is not included: Ka-Zar, Luke Cage, Marvel Team-Up, Marvel Two-in-One, Not Brand Echh Vol. 1, Rarities Vol. 1, Rawhide Kid, She-Hulk, Spectacular Spider-Man, Spider-Woman.

I also didn’t include the one-and-done Masterworks volumes Champions and Deathlok as potential omnibuses, since the omnibus would be the same as the Masterworks!

Are you ready to travel back in time from 1980 to the beginning of Marvel’s Silver Age in 1961? Here we go! [Read more…] about Marvel series still awaiting an omnibus from the Masterworks Era (1961 – 1980)

10 Marvel runs from the 80s that ought to be omnibuses – 1981 to 1989

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It’s the penultimate stop in our trip backwards through time to find all of the Marvel runs most in need of Omnibus treatment.

Why? For fun. For accumulating rainy-day reading. And, to fuel our 2017 Most Wanted Marvel Omnibus Secret Ballot votes!

Marvel in the 1980s is really a tale of two different Marvels. The first half of the decade featured many continuing 70s series, a handful of limited series, and relatively few new ongoing titles – most of which were direct spinoffs of characters from other books.

However, after Secret Wars II in 1986 the line got a serious shake-up, with many titles outside of what I think of as “The Big 9” and their satellite books getting cancelled or rebooted, plus tons of new ongoing and limited series and a whole new line of comics with New Universe!

(“The Big 9” are all of the lines of books that made it from the Silver Age to 2005 while being published continuously, even if that meant being restarted along the way – , Avengers, Captain America, Daredevil, Iron Man, Fantastic Four, Hulk, Spider-Man, Thor, and X-Men. After 2005, Thor went on hiatus, and Fantastic Four has been on hiatus since 2015.)

(In a totally weird turn of events, we can now probably add Deadpool to that list of evergreen lines.)

Marvel released a lot of comics in the 1980s, so what should Marvel prioritize getting into omnibuses? I’ve already covered all of the X-Men runs from this period, and I’m not touching Spider-Man or Fantastic Four mapping at the moment. Plus, many key 80s runs are on the survey already, like Peter David’s Hulk, Iron Man by by Michelinie & Layton Ann Nocenti’s Daredevil – but that still leaves a ton of potential runs to cover! [Read more…] about 10 Marvel runs from the 80s that ought to be omnibuses – 1981 to 1989

20 Must-Read Marvel runs (that ought to be an omnibus) from 2012 to 2015

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Each year, a mysterious and intrepid comic book fan known only as Tigereyes reaches out to some of the biggest collected editions communities on the web to ask them a single question: What are the top 10 Marvel Omnibuses you’d most like to buy?

Thus, the Most-Wanted Marvel Omnibus Secret Ballot was born.

While we only get to see the top 50 or so results of the survey each year, based on the number of voters it’s entirely possible that there are over ten times that many omnibuses nominated by voters. The long tail of the survey would make not only for interesting analysis, but terrific rainy-day reading.

To help inspire that long tail as well as your own rainy day reads, I’m covering dozens of Marvel runs that would make for terrific omnibuses. For the past four days I highlighted every potential missing X-Men omnibus from 1963 to 2015. Now, I’m going to stroll backwards through time to look at the rest of Marvel, starting with their newest comic runs released from 2012 to present.

The fact that these books aren’t currently omnibuses (and may never be) doesn’t have to stop you from sampling them – even if you’ve never read a comic before in your life! Each one is a terrific self-contained comic experience that can be enjoyed without any crossovers or companion series.

You can either pick up existing collections as outlined by Crushing Comics’s Guide to Collecting Marvel Comic Books, or just sign up for Marvel Unlimited, a Netflix-for-comics where 100% of the issues from today’s post are available to read on any device.

[Read more…] about 20 Must-Read Marvel runs (that ought to be an omnibus) from 2012 to 2015

50 More Marvel Runs That Deserve An Omnibus

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Marvel_logoWelcome to the epilogue to my epic two-week series of dissecting Marvel’s Most-Wanted Omnibuses.

Really, in comic terms, it’s more of an Aftermath – the messy ensuing action after a lengthy tale.

After weeks of going through a list of books that are largely old and generally already-collected, I found myself wondering if they really were the 59 runs most deserving of oversize treatment from Marvel.

Dazzler - 0001Let’s face it – a lot of comic collecting is focused on recapturing the magic of our youth (or, finally owning the things we couldn’t afford back then – which I suppose is the same thing). The Marvel’s Most-Wanted Secret Ballot is pretty reflective of this. If we were to exclude all of Marvel’s original Big 9 Silver Age 1960s titles (Fantastic Four, Avengers, X-Men, Cap, Iron Man, Thor, Hulk, Daredevil, & Spider-Man) and do a recount we’d be down to 37 books; if we excluded everything mostly composed of pre-1991 material, it would be a scant 21 volumes.

What about everything else? What about littler known pre-1991 runs and modern stuff that’s deserving of massive tomes?

That’s the list I bring to you today: For your consideration, 50 major Marvel runs that obviously fit well into an Omnibus edition without relying on the classic runs of those original nine titles and with flipping the ratio of pre-1991 books. Maybe not all of these runs fit into the “most-wanted adjective,” but none of them are duds.

In all seriousness, I’d probably buy every one. To help temper that enthusiasm, I’ve also argued the con side of each potential book – why should this content not be omnibused?

Think of this as your extended ballot for the 2017 survey, or your nearly inexhaustible rainy-day reading list (especially if you have Marvel Unlimited, where many of these runs are available in their entirety). [Read more…] about 50 More Marvel Runs That Deserve An Omnibus

Captain America, Steve Rogers – Collecting Guide & Reading Order

The definitive, chronological, and up-to-date guide on collecting Captain America comic books via omnibuses, hardcovers, and trade paperback graphic novels. A part of Crushing Krisis’s Crushing Comics. Last updated August 2024 with titles scheduled for release through July 2025.

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Collecting Captain America

Captain America by Adi GranovCaptain America was not Marvel’s first hero, but he’s proven to be their most-enduring.

Steve Rogers debuted in the pages of his own self-titled comic in March 1941, famously punching out Hitler on the cover even though the United States would not officially join World War II until December of that year. In the context of his Golden Age comics, he was an American Super-Soldier, leading troops abroad against Axis powers.

Though Captain America comics continued after the war with a dwindling audience, Marvel’s writers decided that the fateful day that left Steve Rogers frozen in ice and Bucky Barnes presumed dead could be inserted after his issue #48 in 1945, with well-meaning imposters posing as Cap and Bucky appearing afterwards.

Captain America would remain on ice until the legendary Avengers #4, released two years into the throes of Marvel’s early-60s superhero resurgence. The rest, as they say, is history – someone wearing the mantle of Captain America has appeared in an ongoing title from that point until the present day. [Read more…] about Captain America, Steve Rogers – Collecting Guide & Reading Order