New Comic Book Guide

Guide to Spider-Man comics from 2018 to present day – now available to the public!

February 1, 2023 by krisis

I’m happy to announce that my Guide to every Spider-Man comic from 2018 to the present day s is now available to all CK readers! This guide covers every Spidey ongoing, mini-series, and event unless it’s headline by another character with their own guide, like Spider-Gwen or Spider-Ham. That includes all of Nick Spencer’s Amazing Spider-Man (2018) run, the 2021 BEYOND! run starring Ben Reilly, and the current Zeb Wells Amazing Spider-Man (2022) run that spun out the Dark Web event. This guide exists thanks to the ongoing support of the amazing Patrons of Crushing Krisis.

Guide to Spider-Man, Peter Parker (2018 – Present Day)

I have a love/hate relationship with my main Guide to Spider-Man, of which this new guide is a spin-off.

If we’re being honest, that main Spidey page less of a guide and more of a complete reading order, not unlike my mega-popular Definitive X-Men Reading Order Guide. It’s one of the longest pages on all of CK. It has literally every Spider-Man appearance from 1963 through the mid-2010s from every single ongoing title, mini-series, and guest appearance.

That’s a lot to wrangle when I want to add just one new collection! [Read more…] about Guide to Spider-Man comics from 2018 to present day – now available to the public!

New for Patrons: Guide to Wasp, Janet van Dyne

January 30, 2023 by krisis

My newest guide for Patreon supporters of Crushing Krisis is for one of the longest-running women of Marvel. In fact, while researching this guide I realized she may be the first Silver Age female Marvel hero to merit her own series of solo anthology stories! She’s also the first woman with a lengthy stint as a team leader at Marvel. All of that makes it absolutely wild that she has never had her own solo series until this month!!! Find all of those Marvel milestone moments in my brand new Guide to Wasp, Janet van Dyne!

Guide to Wasp, Janet van Dyne
This guide is now available to the public thanks to the astonishing support of Patrons of Crushing Krisis!

I won’t lie – getting this Guide to Wasp done was a battle, even though I got a very early start on it!

That’s because Janet van Dyne has appeared in a staggering 1,296 Marvel comics as of this month, which includes 1,295 comics that were not her own comic.

Building a guide for a character who has mostly appeared in their own series is always more straight-forward than building one for a perennial team member and guest star – even if that character has many series like Wolverine. That’s because their series established their prevailing narrative. Even if Wolverine made three times as many guest appearances in a period compared to his number of solo issues, it will be the solo issues that establish his character arc at that time.

Janet van Dyne has never had that privilege. For a character who is about to celebrate her 60th anniversary, her major character moments are relatively few and far between. [Read more…] about New for Patrons: Guide to Wasp, Janet van Dyne

New for Patrons: Guide to Unstoppable Wasp, Nadia van Dyne

January 24, 2023 by krisis

My newest guide for all Patreon supporters of Crushing Krisis is for one of Marvel’s newest characters to hold down her own solo title – two of them, in fact! In my humble opinion, hers are the finest all-ages comics Marvel has produced in their main 616 continuity in the past decade and I absolutely treasure the memories of reading them for the first time with my daughter. She’s not quite the same as her MCU sibling, nor is she quite the hero you might expect her to be. It’s my brand new Guide to Unstoppable Wasp, Nadia van Dyne!

Guide to Unstoppable Wasp, Nadia van Dyne
This guide is now available to the public thanks to the unstoppable support of Patrons of Crushing Krisis!

Nadia van Dyne was one of many Legacy characters introduced to take up classic heroic mantles in All-New All-Different Marvel in 2016.

At the time, it was obvious that Marvel’s editors wanted to replace the entire Avengers starting line-up with newer versions, even if they weren’t currently Avengers- Sam Wilson as Cap, Jane Foster as Thor, Riri Williams as Ironheart, Scott Lang as Ant-Man, and Amadeus Cho as Hulk (plus Kamala Khan as Ms. Marvel, Miles Morales as Spider-Man, and Sam Alexander as Nova, for good measure).

There’s only one founding Avenger missing from that line-up – The Wasp!

The tricky thing about that plan is that Marvel had brought back the original Wasp, Janet van Dyne, in the pages of Uncanny Avengers just as they had finished sweeping aside Steve Rogers, Odinson, Tony Stark, Hank Pym, and Bruce Banner to make way for their new cast of Legacy Heroes.

Oh, and one more complication: Marvel had just introduced a Wasp in the MCU, but she was Hank Pym’s & Janet van Dyne’s grown-up daughter. They couldn’t replicate that in the comics… could they?

New for Patrons: Guide to Werewolf by Night

January 10, 2023 by krisis

I’m excited to be back on my comic-guide-making A-game, picking up right where I left off with a guide for all Patreon supporters of Crushing Krisis to one of Marvel’s many 1970s horror characters that followed in the wake of the easing of the Comic Code. Thanks to his entry into the Marvel Cinematic Universe, there’s some renewed attention on Jack Russell, and you can read every issue of his comic book history in my Guide to Werewolf by Night!

Guide to Werewolf by Night

Jack Russell is one of those Marvel characters who appeared consistently throughout the Bronze Age and then had a hard time finding his footing afterward. I’m never sure if that’s down to the departure of creators who favored a character or simply the changing landscape of comics in the late-80s and early 90s.

In this case, I think it’s a combination of both. [Read more…] about New for Patrons: Guide to Werewolf by Night

Guide to Ant-Man & Giant-Man – now available to the public!

January 4, 2023 by krisis

I’m happy to announce that my Guide to Ant-Man (and Giant-Man!) is now available to all CK readers ahead of the debut of the Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania trailer out next week! This guide exists thanks to the ongoing support of the Astonishing Patrons of Crushing Krisis.

Guide to Ant-Man & Giant-Man

This Guide to Ant-man doesn’t only cover the current MCU Ant-Man, Scott Lang. It covers all of Marvel’s Ant-Men, including Hank Pym and Eric O’Grady, plus Bill Foster as Giant-Man and Goliath! I’ve updated the guide to include every comic released through present day, plus collections solicited through the end of this quarter.

If you want to catch up on Scott Lang’s journey as Ant-Man in Marvel Comics, they’ve collected the vast majority of his solo series and major appearances in just three trade paperbacks:

Ant-Man: Scott Lang (2015 paperback, ISBN 978-0785192664 / digital) – This collection picks up Scott Lang from his first appearance in 1979 and collects the first few years of his major stories. This version of Lang is more of a former criminal screw-up and less of the lovable goof from the MCU.

The Astonishing Ant-Man: The Complete Collection (2018 paperback, ISBN 978-1302911324 / digital) – This collection includes both writer Nick Spencer’s run across two Ant-Man series. He writes Scott Lang very much in the mold of his MCU character. Many of these stories will feel like small-time capers he pulls between the Ant-Man films.

Ant-Man: The Saga of Scott Lang (2023 paperback, 978-1302950651 / digital) – This collection includes three unconnected miniseries from 2018-2020, plus a pair of one-shot stories. If you are less interested in ongoing story continuity and just want some fun, stand-alone adventures, this is a fine book to sample!