John Byrne

Fantastic Four – Definitive Collecting Guide and Reading Order

The definitive, chronological, and up-to-date guide and trade-reading order on collecting Fantastic Four 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 June 2025.

The Fantastic Four are known as “Marvel’s First Family,” not only because they are the most enduring family of the Marvel Universe but because their debut marks the start of the superheroic Silver Age at Marvel! [Read more…] about Fantastic Four – Definitive Collecting Guide and Reading Order

Avengers West Coast – Definitive Collecting Guide and Reading Order

The Avengers West Coast & Force Works definitive collecting guide and reading order for comic books in omnibus, hardcover, and trade paperback format. Find every issue and appearance! Part of Crushing Krisis’s Crushing Comics. Last updated August 2024 with titles scheduled for release through March 2025.

The Avengers had the best kind of problem in the early 80s, whether your perspective was from within comic book continuity or behind the scenes: there were just too many darn Avengers!

The Avengers had gradually shifted its focus from Marvel’s major heroes who anchored their own books (like Iron Man and Captain America) to a roster of characters that needed a team book to thrive. That meant plenty of fan favorite characters would be left out during any given run.

The best solution was to follow a trend set by Spider-Man and just recently by Chris Claremont’s X-Men: launch a second Avengers book!

West Coast Avengers launched with Hawkeye as a central focus. He was chief amongst those team-based, fan-favorite characters, hot off of his own limited series. Hawkeye was initially joined by his wife, Mockingbird, Tigra, and West Coast natives Wonder Man and Rhodey Rhodes as Iron Man.

From a story perspective, the central conceit of the book was that America was a big country, and the NYC-based team couldn’t always be responsive to threats across the nation. In practice, it allowed writers like Steve Engelhart, John Byrne, and Roy Thomas to tell big stories that still focused on character history and personalities. Byrne, in particular, used it to dig deeply into the story of Scarlet Witch.

As comics became more entrenched in extreme, violent themes, the relative staid Avengers team was disassembled in favor of an Iron Man lead Force Works. (The in-continuity reason was the team’s standoff with the UN Security Council over happenings in Genosha in the “Blood Ties” crossover in the penultimate issue of the series.)

Despite a flashy launch with a pop-up cover, Force Works never caught fire like the similarly themed X-Force, and was cancelled as part of the line-wide removal of Avengers in 1996 as they headed off to the Heroes Reborn pocket universe in the wake of Onslaught.

Namor The Sub-Mariner, Definitive Collecting Guide & Reading Order

The definitive issue-by-issue comic book collecting guide and reading order for Marvel’s Namor, The Sub-Marinar in omnibus, hardcover, trade paperback, and digital. Part of Crushing Krisis’s Crushing Comics. Last updated November 2024 with titles scheduled for release through June 2025.

Namor. The Sub-Mariner. The King of Atlantis. He was Marvel’s first superhero, their first anti-hero, and their first mutant.

Namor has been around longer than the majority of people who will read this guide, and those seventy-odd years of life have seen him inhabit as many ongoing series as Wolverine!

If you enjoy Namor’s regal bearing and obstinate attitude, there are hundreds of comics to delve into – many of which have been collected into graphic novels. Namor has been a villain, an Avenger, an Invader, a Defender, and an X-Man.

This guide covers every one of those appearances, from the Golden Age to the present day! [Read more…] about Namor The Sub-Mariner, Definitive Collecting Guide & Reading Order

X-Men by Chris Claremont – Definitive Collecting Guide to Uncanny X-Men #94-280

The definitive issue-by-issue comic book collecting guide and trade reading order for the original run of Uncanny X-Men by Chris Claremont comic books in omnibus, hardcover, and trade paperback collections. Part of Crushing Krisis’s Crushing Comics. Last updated November 2024 with titles scheduled for release through July 2025.

Uncanny X-Men by Chris Claremont (1975 – 1991)

X-Men did not officially become Uncanny X-Men until issue #142. However, the cover featured the “Uncanny” adjective starting with #114. Ultimately, many fans and comics resources refer to the entire relaunch from issue #94 forward as Uncanny X-Men – a convention Marvel upholds with the titling of their Marvel Masterworks reprints.

This 16-year period of X-Men by Chris Claremont is indisputable as the most classic era of X-Men, as well as generally considered to be one of the best runs of superhero comics of all time. The vast majority of thematic material later expressed in other forms of X-Men media including films, games, and toys originated in this run.

It all begins in 1975 with Len Wein and Dave Cockrum on Giant Size X-Men, which brought back Wolverine from a single appearance in Incredible Hulk and introduced a trio of characters that have become anchors of the franchise: Storm, Colossus, and Nightcrawler. It also brought Banshee and Sunfire back into the X-Men cast from their earlier Silver Age appearances, plus introduced Krakoa – the mutant island!

Chris Claremont took over writing duties from Len Wein just a few issues later. Under his pen, the trio of Wolverine, Storm, and Colossus would persist throughout a historic 16-year run that saw X-Men go from a marginal book returning from cancellation to the most-popular comic book franchise in America.

Along the way Claremont and a who’s who of artist collaborators steered the title through many signature foes and historic plots that have influenced movies, books, games, and toys for decades.

The first half of Uncanny X-Men by Chris Claremont – alongside Dave Cockrum, John Byrne, and John Romita Jr. – features a core of the classic Giant Size team, plus Kitty Pryde, under the leadership of Cyclops and Professor Xavier.

It included classic storylines like Proteus, The Dark Phoenix Saga, Days of Future Past, The Brood Saga, and God Loves Man Kills. Claremont and his collaborators introduced characters including Moira MacTaggert, Lilandra and the Shi’ar Empire, Arcade, Emma Frost and the Hellfire Club, Dazzler, Kitty Pryde, Rachel Summers, Callisto, Caliban, Forge, Selene, and many more – including importing Mystique and Deathbird from his run on Ms. Marvel! Plus, it saw him launch New Mutants and begin Magneto’s heroic turn.

The latter half of Chris Claremont’s landmark run on Uncanny X-Men – with Romita Jr., Marc Silvestri, & Jim Lee – begins with Storm usurping leadership of the team from Cyclops, who leaves the team for X-Factor. That means none of the original five X-Men star in this period of the book. Storm, Wolverine, and Colossus have seniority, and the team features some lesser-known characters such as Longshot, Dazzler, and original-body Psylocke, while introducing Mister Sinister, Jubilee, assassin-body Psylocke, and Gambit – plus, bringing back Sabretooth from his Bronze Age run on Iron Fist. And, it featured Magneto’s slide back to villainy.

That period bears a distinctly more dark and rebellious tone, with 21 issues passing with no X-Men team in existence! It also introduces the idea of both X-book and Marvel-wide crossovers with Mutant Massacre, Fall of the Mutants, Inferno, and X-Tinction Agenda.

This guide is not a complete reading order that follows the team through all of their various guest appearances! Instead, this guide focuses only on the issues of the Chris Claremont run and issues routinely collected alongside them. For a complete X-Men reading order for this period, start with The Definitive X-Men Reading Order: Second Genesis.