Crushing Krisis

Comic Books, Drag Race, & Life in New Zealand

Collected Editions

Crushing Comics, S01E03 – The Infinity Gauntlet Omnibus

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It’s my second random unwrapping of a brick of book from my hardcovers shelf, and today’s selection is a doozy – it’s Marvel’s Infinity Gauntlet!

Watch as I recap the cosmic history of Jim Starlin and Silver Surfer, plus debate on if I’m going to remove the book from its plastic wrap.

Episode 3 features The Infinity Gauntlet Omnibus (Amazon / eBay) as covered by the Guide to Thanos and the Marvel Events Guide.

For an even more in depth look at this awesome book, check out this classic video from friend-of-CK Ryley Moore AKA “.”

Crushing Comics, S01E02: Thor by JMS & Invincible Iron Man by Matt Fraction

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Here’s the first full-length episode of my new show, Crushing Comics! (Episode 1 was just a brief teaser.)

The main theme of Season 1 will be unwrapping dozens of anonymous bricks of books from my collection, which each contain an oversize surprise. It’s liking unboxing my past seven years of hauls all over again!

Episode 2 features Thor by JMS Omnibus (Amazon / eBay), as covered by the Guide to Thor and Iron Man by Matt Fraction (Amazon Vol. 1 / Amazon Vol. 2 / eBay) as covered by the Guide to Iron Man.

All three books get a thumbs-up from me, but you’ll have to watch to here all about Thor’s big Ragnarok, plus learn how I cannot pronounce the names of either of the major creators on that run.

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 90s you might have missed (and that ought to be omnibuses) – 1990 to 1997

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It’s our third installment of backwards time travel through Marvel runs that could easily fit into an omnibus volume to help inspire your votes on the Most-Wanted Marvel Omnibus Secret Ballot.

Today I’m taking a slightly different perspective than I did for 1998 to 2008 and 2008 to present. For those installments, I focused on runs I knew well or at least could recommend from context. However, when it comes to runs I’ve read, the 90s are pretty thoroughly covered over both by existing omnibuses and the current votes of the poll. Add to that how much of this period are covered by the end of runs from the 80s, that I’ve already mapped X-Men, and my temporary avoidance of exhaustively mapping Fantastic Four and Spider-Man, and the pickings wind up being pretty slim!

Thus, this list comes with a caveat – I’m not necessarily suggesting you run out and buy and read all of these runs right now. I mean, I own nearly all of them, and even having not read them cover to cover I can tell you that most of them are very 90s comic books.

However, they also represent under-collected material that’s relatively unknown to modern readers. While it might be more reasonable to see all of it covered with Epic Collections, I think it would be more expedient to see them collected in this format than to wait around for trade paperbacks.

Ready to dig deep into the extreme 1990s? [Read more…] about 10 Marvel runs from the 90s you might have missed (and that ought to be omnibuses) – 1990 to 1997

12 Must-Read Marvel Runs (that ought to be an omnibus) – 1998 to 2008

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As we continue our trip backwards down Marvel Memory Lane, I’m here to convince you to read – or, at least, covet – 12 more Marvel runs, this time from 1998 to 2008.

While my concurrent period of X-Men looked at 2001 to 2008, for the rest of the Marvel Universe 1998 was a better starting point. That’s because Marvel’s Avengers and Fantastic Four franchises relaunched new volumes in 1998, and Spider-Man and Daredevil were rebooted within the next year as well.

(That wound up being less relevant to this post than I planned, since I decided not to touch mapping Fantastic Four or Spider-Man in the style of my exhaustive X-Men mapping. I also won’t hit the titles that are just waiting for a sequel – namely Thor, Captain America, and Iron Man. See my Orphan Report for more on those. And, one of the best runs from this period – Christopher Priest’s Black Panther – is already in the survey results.)

I’ve read less of Marvel outside of X-Men, so I’m being a little choosier with these runs so I don’t lead you astray! That’s not only a choosiness in quality, but in self-containment. While Marvel’s Universe was a little more siloed from 1998 to 2005, once New Avengers arrived titles became increasingly intertwined and reliant on events to launch and intersect with them until we hit peak tie-in after Secret Invasion in 2008, with the entire Marvel Universe being affected by Dark Reign in one way or another.

These runs aren’t that – they’re comics you could sit down and enjoy today regardless of your foreknowledge about a certain plot or character. While some of them intersect event series, none of them rely on your reading the main event to enjoy their chapters.

If you want to see any of these runs released in all-in-one omnibus editions, perhaps you should include some of them on your Most-Wanted Marvel Omnibus Secret Ballot – votes are due this Sunday!

However, omnibuses are not your only hope! The majority of these runs are collected in hardcovers and trade paperbacks listed in Crushing Comics’s Guide to Collecting Marvel Comic Books, and the vast majority of the issues are available on Marvel Unlimited, a $10/month Netflix-for-Marvel-comics.

Of course, all potential collection mapping comes with a disclaimer: all of my suggestions are subjective and subject to improvement, or at least spirited debate. If you have a correction, alteration, or disagreement, there’s no need to be shy – I’d love to hear from you in the comments, below.

Let’s dig in!

[Read more…] about 12 Must-Read Marvel Runs (that ought to be an omnibus) – 1998 to 2008