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Marvel Comics
Patron’s Choice: Guide to Black Cat, Felicia Hardy
Today I’m finally here with a guide for all Patrons of CK that I’ve been preparing for by adding guides to Heroes For Hire and Spider-Man, Peter Parker (2018-Present)! I needed both guides in place because both of those titles housed this character while she was a stray with no title of her own, but that all changed started in 2019. I’m happy to share the August 2022 Patron’s Choice: Guide to Black Cat, Felicia Hardy!
Felicia Hardy is not who you think she is.
Or, at least, she’s not who I thought she was.
That’s true whether you know her from her origins or from her most-recent appearances, because Black Cat has been at least three distinctly different characters in her comic career – so much so that her current incarnation feels completely disconnected from her debut, even if her arc from start to finish makes sense.
(I know this because I’ve now read every panel she has ever appeared in to put together this Guide to Black Cat!)
I think many folks assume that Felicia Hardy is Marvel’s Catwoman – a cat burglar villain turned vigilante through the power of her attraction to the flagship hero.
That’s not entirely wrong, but Felicia Hardy was only ever a cat burglar for her first four appearances in Amazing Spider-Man (1963) in 1979 and she was never a villain until 2015! We barely even see here do any burgling on-panel between 1980 and the mid-00s unless it’s for her job as a security consultant. Instead, she quickly gave up her life of crime due to an obsession with Spider-Man. As she was originally written, all Felicia wanted to was to be Spider-Man’s partner in adventure and in romance.
Curiously, she has no interest at all in who Spider-Man was under the mask. In fact, when Peter first reveals his apartment and identity in Peter Parker, The Spectacular Spider-Man (1976) #74, Felicia reacts with a combination of distaste and horror. To her, the fantastical life of a hero or vigilante is a necessary escape from the dull routine of civilian existence. To think about the regular person beneath the spider-webbed mask ruined her fantasy. [Read more…] about Patron’s Choice: Guide to Black Cat, Felicia Hardy
New for Patrons: Guide to Heroes For Hire & Villains For Hire
Today I’ve got a succinct new guide for Patrons of CK that covers of the few Marvel teams I have yet to cover – and, it’s a team where anyone might turn up as a member. No, not the Avengers. Not the Defenders. I’m talking about a Guide to Heroes For Hire (& their Villains For Hire counterparts)!
This is a brief guide that won’t be exclusive to Patrons for all that long, since so many characters intersect with it. Right now, some of the series are linked from the Guide to Luke Cage and Guide to Iron Fist, others from the Guide to Shang-Chi, and some from nowhere at all. Once this is available to the general public, all of those collection links will be centralized to this guide.
This is a brief guide, but that’s because it’s just an hors d’oeuvre for a much bigger guide coming to Patrons later this week. Want a hint? It’s a guide for a character who is receiving one of Marvel’s most-recently announced omnibuses.
Stay tuned to find out more!
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Patrons of Crushing Krisis currently have access to… [Read more…] about New for Patrons: Guide to Heroes For Hire & Villains For Hire
Updated: Guide to Collecting Marvel Comic Books homepage
Today I’m excited to bring you a major facelift to a major page that I hope will represent a quality of life improvement for you and me both – the Crushing Comics – Guide to Collecting Marvel Comic Books.
I first launched this page twelve years ago on 1 August, 2010! Since then, it has expanded from being a simple index of X-Men team titles, to an index of every X-Men book, to an index of dozens of Marvel Guides, to now acting as a directory page linking to over 100 current or coming-soon guides to reading and collecting Marvel Comics. [Read more…] about Updated: Guide to Collecting Marvel Comic Books homepage
Guide to The Eternals – now available to the public!
I’m happy to announce that my Guide to The Eternals is now available to all CK readers as part of the Crushing Comics Guide to Collecting Marvel Comics! This guide covers ever Eternals series and every major Eternals character!
This Eternals guide was originally launched in 2021 thanks to the ongoing support of the eternally awesome Patrons of CK. I’m launching it today to coincide with Marvel’s big summer event – Avengers / X-Men / Eternals: Judgment Day!
Part of what is so interesting about The Eternals at Marvel is that their separation from human society in continuity is mirrored by their isolation in publishing.
The Eternals have rarely made guest appearances aside from some arcs of Thor while they had no title of their own, plus Sersi’s time on Avengers). They’ve never had a series run more than 20 issues, and they’ve often gone for a half a decade or more with no series or significant appearances.
(That last bit was truly surprising to me. Even the previously obscure Inhumans and Guardians of the Galaxy had a way of turning up every few years before their fame. Not so for the Eternals – they really keep to themselves!)
That means, of all of Jack Kirby’s concepts that launched at Marvel, The Eternals in their way remain one of the purest. Aside from Neil Gaiman briefly breathing new life into the group in the mid-00s, it doesn’t feel like anyone has strayed especially far from his blueprint.
In the run-up to The Eternals film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Marvel began paying more attention to their progenitors – The Celestials. They centered them in Jason Aaron’s 2018 Avengers run (which, by the way, kicked off with his wholesale genocide of all of the Eternals), and then relaunched the group into their own headlining title from Kieron Gillen, Esad Ribic, and Matthew Wilson in January of 2021.
Gillen & Co’s Eternals is a thrilling comic because it hews closely to Kirby’s legacy for the characters while also showing the connections between their history and Jonathan Hickman’s recent “Dawn of X” relaunch of the X-Men line.
The book is deliberate, intricate, but often laugh out loud funny as it follows the rebirth of The Eternals and their discovery that there is a serious flaw in their regenerative code… in the form of one of Marvel’s most-recognizable villains!
Gillen’s Eternals feels almost like a compressed version of the first two years of the entire X-Men line… which turned out to be a very intentional similarity as the Eternals come to blows with The Avengers and The X-Men in Marvel’s 2022 summer event – Avengers / X-Men / Eternals: Judgment Day!
Now you can read EVERY appearance that leads to that series by following my Eternals Guide! Nothing can stop you, since they’ve now all been reprinted in color and they’re all on Marvel Unlimited!