Crushing Krisis

The Newest Oldest Blog In New Zealand

Greg Rucka

Crushing Comics S01E039 – Greg Rucka’s Lady Sabre & Alex Alice’s Siegfried (+ a sidebar on feminism)

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After some more musing on how getting physically fit can improve your life I open a very indie brick of books.

First, I unwrap Greg Rucka’s Lady Sabre & the Pirates of the Ineffable Aether, and I spend a lot more time enthusing about Kickstarter (and feminism in comics writing) than I do explaining the book (perhaps some other time!).

Then, I pull out the three gorgeous volumes of Alex Alice’s Siegfried (plus P. Craig Russel’s The Ring of the Nibelung) – some of my favorite books out of my entire collection!

Want to start from the beginning of this season of videos? Here’s the complete Season 1 playlist of Crushing Comics.

Episode 39 features Greg Rucka and Rick Burchett’s Lady Sabre & The Pirates of the Ineffable Aether Kickstarter Edition (which you can read for free online) and Alex Alice’s Siegfried Volumes 1, 2, and 3.

Crushing Comics S01E14 – Wolverine: Enemy of the State, Wolverine/Elektra: Redeemer, & SHIELD: Architects of Forever (plus, the Jonathan Hickman indie library)

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It’s part two of talking through the massive brick of comic books I pulled off the shelf last episode, including a Wolverine blockbuster, and apocryphal tale of Elektra, and the one Jonathan Hickman book I just hate – plus, a quick overview of Jonathan Hickman’s indie bibliography.

Want to start from the beginning? Here’s the complete Season 1 playlist of Crushing Comics.

Episode 14 features Wolverine: Enemy of the State (Amazon / eBay), which was also in the Wolverine by Mark Millar Omnibus (Amazon / eBay) along with Old Man Logan; Wolverine/Elektra: The Redeemer by Greg Rucka (Amazon / eBay); and SHIELD: Architects of Forever (Amazon / eBay). Both Wolverine books are covered in the Guide to Wolverine.

 

The Punisher by Rucka & Checchetto – The #42 Most-Wanted Marvel Omnibus of 2017

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It makes perfect sense that Greg Rucka would be the author to turn in the most-memorable in-continuity Punisher story in recent memory and the one with the best-developed female characters. After all, he’s not only known for stellar super-hero runs on titles like Wonder Woman, but also beat-cops drama on DC’s Gotham Central.

However, if Rucka’s success in this story makes perfect sense, the big surprise is the superstar turn from artist Marco Checchetto on his first lengthy run.

The Punisher by Rucka & Checchetto is the #42 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, check out Guide to Punisher for details on how to collect this and every other Punisher run, ever.

Past Ranking: A 2017 debut!

Probable Contents: Punisher (2011) #1-16 & Punisher: War Zone #1-5, a crossover with Daredevil #11 and Avenging Spider-Man #6, and material from Spider-Island: I Love New York City (maybe adding the non-Rucka Punisher: The Trial Of The Punisher (2013) #1-2)

Creators: Written by Greg Rucka.

Line art on The Punisher (2011) by Marco Checchetto (with Matthew Southworth, Michael Lark and Stefano Gaudiano, Mirko Colak, and Mico Suayan). Line art on Punisher: War Zone (2012) by Carmine Di Giandomenico. Color art on both series by Matt Hollingsworth.

Can you read it right now? Yes, but the four paperbacks collecting the 23 core issues of this run have become exorbitantly expensive to track down, which is part of the reason this omnibus is such an attractive prospect. Find the details in the Guide to Punisher.

Marvel Unlimited includes both The Punisher (2011) and Punisher War Zone (2012) in full.

The Details:

It’s hard to separate the quality of Rucka’s run from fans’ sense relief and delight that Punisher was back to basics and back to the streets of New York City after less-than-beloved runs from Matt Fraction and Rick Remender. This 2011 iteration of Punisher finds Frank Castle back in New York with little explanation. It’s simply where he ought to be.

(For the record, Remender’s is good but fucking weird.)
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8 Must-Read Marvel Runs (that ought to be an omnibus) from 2008 to 2012

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Today in my best-of-Marvel retrospective, we’re looking at ten mega-sized runs from Secret Invasion in 2008 to Avengers vs. X-Men in 2012 that really ought to be omnibuses.

If you want to see any of them in that mega format, perhaps they ought to be your vote in the Most-Wanted Marvel Omnibus Secret Ballot – choices are due this Sunday!

However, even sans a mighty omnibus edition, all of Marvel’s modern runs are easily collected in hardcovers and trade paperbacks listed in Crushing Comics’s Guide to Collecting Marvel Comic Books, and 100% of the issues are available on Marvel Unlimited, a $10/month Netflix-for-Marvel-comics.

Whether you’re a new comics fan or a grizzled vet, read with this in mind: These potential mappings are just my own shot, and the may include errors, omissions, or choices that could be improved. That’s part of the fun, for me – it’s like playing “Fantasy Corrections Department”! If you see something fishy or have a vociferous disagreement, I’d love to know what that is via the comments, below.

Let’s begin! [Read more…] about 8 Must-Read Marvel Runs (that ought to be an omnibus) from 2008 to 2012

Batwoman: The female, feminist, lesbian Caped Crusader you need to be reading

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Today I’m bringing you a guide to one of my favorite characters introduced in the past decade – Batwoman!

If you’ve never heard of Batwoman, don’t worry – I hadn’t either when I first picked up a comic she starred in back in 2011. I’m going to explain everything you need to know.

Batwoman: A Thoroughly Modern Bat-Hero

I was initially intrigued by Batwoman because of her bold visual design – the v-shaped slash of red hair centered about her black mask and chalk-white skin.

I had no idea she was much more interesting for two other reasons.

First, Batwoman is a rare female hero who shares a title with Batman as her male counterpart but has never been his “girl” (Supergirl, Spider-Girl), or a secondary “Ms” or “She” version (Ms. Marvel, She-Hulk).

Batwoman’s wealth and training rivals Bruce Wayne’s, as does a traumatic loss in her youth. That makes her a similarly aloof adult when she’s out of the mask, complete with a complex history of romantic entanglements.

The woman behind the mask, Kate Kane, is an out lesbian who was discharged from the Army in the Don’t-Ask-Don’t-Tell era. As you can imagine, that experience also informs her decision to become a costumed crime fighter.

Second, this  modern Batwoman was truly a brand new character when she debuted in 2006. There’s no lengthy history or different character versions to understand.

In fact, she has been used sparingly enough that you can easily buy all of her appearances and read them in just a week or two, and she has a brand new series that just started last week!  [Read more…] about Batwoman: The female, feminist, lesbian Caped Crusader you need to be reading

Definitive Batwoman Collecting Guide and Reading Order

The Batwoman 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 Guide to Collecting DC. Last updated February 2017 with titles scheduled for release through October 2017.

There is not another character in comics today quite like Batwoman: A female legacy hero who has never been a “girl” or “ms” version and whose power, wealth, and training matches her “man” counterpart – and, who also happens to be an out lesbian with a complex romantic history.

The original Batwoman was introduced in the early Silver Age of DC, when every hero had a female counterpart, teen and kid version, and pet.

The Batwoman we’re reading today is not that Batwoman.

The current Batwoman, Kate Kane, put on her cowl in Batman’s absence during the aftermath of Infinite Crisis. Despite bearing the Bat codename and costume, for her first decade of publishing she was at best a distant cousin in the Bat family, disconnected from both their camaraderie and their drama (though she has forged a connection with Nightwing).

Kate Kane’s history is a twisted mirror of Bruce Wayne’s. Like Wayne, she is an estranged aristocrat who experienced childhood tragedy that fractured her family and relationships. While Wayne escaped Gotham for his lost years, Kane sought a path in the military before her career was prematurely ended.

Without her military career, she descends into a party-girl life of solipsism before a brief encounter with Batman shakes her out of it. Heroism fills a void for her, and she filled a void in Gotham in Batman’s absence.

In her earliest appearances Kane is shown as a long-haired, high-society bombshell, but as her story progresses she transformed into a pale-skinned, tattooed, punk-rock social pariah with a severe bob haircut. This standoffish, counter-culture version is the one that persisted.

While Batwoman was intriguing as a foil and love interest to Renee Montoya for her first two years of stories, she comes into her own in her starring run in Detective Comics penned by Greg Rucka with sumptuous art nouveau illustrations from J.H. Williams III. Williams would continue illustrating and writing the character into DC’s New 52 in 2011.

Batwoman disappeared for a while at the end of that period, only to pop back up as the co-lead of Detective Comics with equal standing to Batman in DC’s Rebirth in 2016 before returning to her own ongoing title in February of 2017.

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