New Comic Book Guide

Guide to Red Hulk (New For Patrons!)

January 6, 2025 by krisis

I’m back with another new Marvel Comics reading order for Patrons of CK. This reading order is for a character invented specifically to be both the equal and opposite of another existing character, but who got popular enough to spin off on his own, join the Avengers, and even have a subsequent copycat character with his own unique arc. And, now he’ll be debuting in the MCU in a few short weeks! Yes, today I am sharing a brand new Guide to Red Hulk!

Guide to Red Hulk

I know it’s easy to look at Red Hulk and think, “It’s Hulk, but angrier!” But, in creating a comprehensive Red Hulk reading order, I realized he’s something very different.

Really, Red Hulk is Bruce Banner’s opposite. It’s not just that red and green are complementary colors. Where Bruce Banner often views The Hulk as a horrific curse that leaves him out of control, Red Hulk is a military weapon who is entirely in control of himself. While Banner’s Hulk is a cautionary tale of the horrors of the atomic age, Red Hulk is about how modern nuclear powers assume the world is theirs to command and control.

Guide to Kraven The Hunter (New For Patrons!)

January 1, 2025 by krisis

Happy New Year, comic fans! I’m kicking off the year with a new Marvel Comics reading order for Patrons of CK. Sometimes I make a reading order because I love a character. Other times I launch a guide because a character has so many series and appearances. And, occasionally, I make a guide just because a character will be starring in a movie with a hunky actor, not realizing that film will be one of the biggest super-flops of all time! Of course, that means today I am sharing a Guide to Kraven the Hunter!

Guide to Kraven the Hunter

I knew virtually nothing about Kraven The Hunter before working on this guide. I mean, yeah, I knew had a penchant for animal prints, but that also describes Michelle Visage. I was often puzzled by his appearances in the past six years of Spider-Man comics, where he was himself, but also undead, but also his own son, but also a clone?

Well, now I finally get it, and so can you.

Kraven began his life as one of Spider-Man’s signature villains in Amazing Spider-Man (1963) #14. However, the thing I quickly realized about the original Sergei Kravinoff and all of the subsequent Kravens is they really aren’t typical Marvel villains, except for some recreational poaching and coming from a family of Russian oligarchs.

No. Kraven would have been perfectly content to continue his endless safari in the plains of Serengeti if it wasn’t for the emergence of American superheroes – especially animal-themed heroes. After all, Kraven is a hunter, and what is more dangerous game than man with a superhero costume themed after a beast? [Read more…] about Guide to Kraven The Hunter (New For Patrons!)

Guide to Doctor Who – The Third Doctor, Jon Pertwee (New for Patrons!)

May 6, 2024 by krisis

Welcome to another wibbly wobbly, timey wimey month of new comic book guides! As we look forward to the proper series debut of Ncuti Gatwa as the Fifteenth Doctor Who later this week, we also have another Doctor Who Guide curated by CK Contributor AdjectiveNoun for Pledgeonaut Patrons of Crushing Krisis. It’s time to travel back to the 70s for our Guide to The Third Doctor Who, Jon Pertwee.

This guide is exclusively available to Patrons of Crushing Krisis until next month.

Guide to The Third Doctor Who, Jon Pertwee

Our Doctor Who guides not only cover comic books, but episodes, novels, short stories, audio dramas, and magazines! How? Why?! Because I recruited my Down Under friend AdjectiveNoun, a major Whovian who got me hooked on the new 60th Anniversary episodes that debuted this past December.

We combined AdjectiveNoun’s Who knowledge and my established Guide infrastructure & style to create a set of Doctor Who Guides that are organized differently than any other guides we could find online.

Want to get started right now? The Guide to the 14th Doctor Who – David Tennant and Guide to the 15th Doctor Who – Ncuti Gatwa are now live for all readers.

Guides to the remaining 12 Doctors will launch over the course of the next year.

Doctor Who: Fifteenth Doctor Guide – now available to the public!

May 1, 2024 by krisis

There are just 10 more days until the debut of the first Doctor Who Series starring Ncuti Gatwa as the 15th Doctor – and, what better way to prepare than with a Doctor Who – Fifteenth Doctor Guide.

The Guide to Ncuti Gatwa as the 15th Doctor is now available to all readers thanks to the support of Patrons of CK. This guide was curated by my personal Doctor Who expert, AdjectiveNoun. It contains literally every possible piece of media related to the Fifteenth Doctor to make it easy for you to jump in whether you are a new Whovian or a long-time viewer. It includes links to episodes, novels, comics, and more!

Plus, if you want to see the regeneration (or, should we say, bi-generation) of The Fifteenth Doctor, you need you watch the finale of the trio of 6oth Anniversary Episodes starring The Fourteenth Doctor – the return of David Tennant! Our Guide to The Fourteenth Doctor is also now available to all readers.

Guide to The Fifteenth Doctor Who, Ncuti Gatwa

Guide to The Fourteenth Doctor Who, David Tennant (again!)

These guides not only cover comic books, but episodes, novels, short stories, audio dramas, and magazines! How? Why?! Because I recruited my Down Under friend AdjectiveNoun, a major Whovian who got me hooked on the new 60th Anniversary episodes that debuted this past December.

Guides to the remaining 12 Doctors will launch over the course of the next 12 months, including a new guide next week! Become a Patron of CK to gain immediate access to that guide once it arrives, plus our exclusive Guide to Doctor Who – The Ninth Doctor, Christopher Eccleston.

Guide to Superman, 1987 – Present (New for Patrons!)

April 29, 2024 by krisis

It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s one of my biggest single-character guide pages of all time exclusively for Pledgeonaut Patrons of CK. That’s right, folks, it’s my second super week in a row, because today I bring to you my Guide to Superman (Post-Crisis, 1987 – Present), including a full issue-by-issue reading order for the Triangle Era!

Guide to Superman (Post-Crisis, 1987 – Present)

For the past seven years this Guide to Superman has existed somewhere between being my white whale and my albatross. I knew I had to tackle Superman at some point. But, he is the Justice League hero who I knew the least about. Plus, I could never make heads or tails of his publishing history – with how his titles traded names in 1987 only to swap back in 2006.

Oh, plus, there was the little matter of THE TRIANGLE ERA. From 1991 to 2001, every Superman comic was coordinated in perfect reading order by a brain trust of editors and authors, with their covers clearly labeled with their absolute placement within each year of continuity.

That meant I had to make a guide that was even better at explaining The Triangle Era than the hundreds of comic book covers from the actual Triangle Era.