Power Pack

New Comics & Collected Editions Releases: Marvel Comics – May 1 2024

April 25, 2024 by krisis Leave a Comment

It’s the 18th new comic book day of the new year! This post covers Marvel Comics May 1 2024 releases. Missed last week’s releases? Check out last week’s post covering Marvel Comics April 24 2024 new releases.

This week in Marvel Comics: Blood Hunt begins, Captain America de-iced, Daredevil Unmasked, the improbable X-Men 2099, Deadpool & Wolverine go to war, Iron Man & Magneto team up, and more!

This list includes every comic and digital comic out from Marvel this week, plus collected editions in omnibus, hardcover, paperback, and digest-sized formats. I recap and review every new single issue. Plus, for every new release, I’ll point you to the right guide within my Crushing Comics Guide to Marvel Comics to find out how to collect each character in full – and, if a guide is linked from this post, that means it is updated through the present day!

Marvel Comics May 1 2024 Collected Editions

Captain America Omnibus Vol. 1
(2024 oversize hardcover, ISBN 978-1302957995 / digital)
See Guide to Captain America. This omnibus collects the start of Cap’s Silver Age return – though, since it is based on the Masterworks mapping, it omits his actual return in Avengers (1963) #4.

We go straight from him despairing over a photo of Bucky in Tales of Suspense (1959) #59 to fighting Baron Zemo in Tales of Suspense (1959) #60. Even if Lee & Kirby lean on action-oriented plots, there are still those moments of Steve being a man out of time trying to absorb the modern day and its new challenges.

Carnage Vol. 1: Born Again
(2024 paperback, ISBN 978-1302955014 / digital)
See Guide to Carnage. This is the very creepy kickoff of Torunn Grønbekk’s 2023 Carnage series, which finds the Carnage symbiote getting back to Earth after nearly attaining godhood and deciding to return to what it knows best – serial killing, one victim at a time.

Marvel Studios’ Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania – The Art of the Movie
(2024 hardcover, ISBN 978-1302956592)
See Guide to Ant-Man.

Mighty Marvel Masterworks: Daredevil Vol. 3: Unmasked
(2024 digest-size paperback, ISBN 978-1302954284 / digital)
See Guide to Daredevil. Marvel’s digest-sized Silver Age collection presses on to the third year of early Daredevil comics. I’m somewhat surprised Marvel extended the Mighty Masterworks line to Daredevil, as his early stories aren’t considered to be particularly significant.

She-Hulk by Rainbow Rowell Vol. 4: Jen-Sational
(2024 paperback, ISBN 978-1302957117 / digital)
See Guide to She-Hulk. This is labeled “Volume 4” despite being the first collection of Sensation She-Hulk (2023) because it picks up directly from the end ofRowell & Company’s 2022 She-Hulk series. While you could pick this up and easily follow it with no preamble, the 15 issues of the prior series are absolutely delightful slice-of-life romance stuff with a just-right amount of punching. [Read more…] about New Comics & Collected Editions Releases: Marvel Comics – May 1 2024

Marvel Teams Omnibus Mapping for the Tigereyes Most Wanted Marvel Omnibus 12th Annual Secret Ballot

March 29, 2024 by krisis 6 Comments

Until April 5, I’ll be loosely mapping missing and most-wanted Marvel omnibus volumes every day! Today I’ll be looking at all of the omnibuses that don’t yet exist for Marvel’s teams outside of Avengers, Fantastic Four, and X-Men. That includes Defenders, Guardians of the Galaxy, Inhumans, and more!

This post explains titles and potential Marvel Teams Omnibus Mapping for entries on the Tigereyes Most Wanted Marvel Omnibus 12th Annual Secret Ballot. You can vote right now (until 5 April 2024 @ midnight US ET) or watch our mega-length announcement stream reviewing every single voting option.

Below I cover all the non-existing omnibuses for Agents of Atlas, Alpha Flight, Champions, Clandestine, Damage Control Defenders, Eternals, Guardians of the Galaxy, Heroes for Hire, Inhumans, Invaders, New Warriors, Nextwave, Nicky Fury & SHIELD, Power Pack, Runaways, Squadron Supreme, Thunderbolts, and Warlock and the Infinity Watch!

If you’re not sure of what to vote for, stick around for my explanations. Or, if you’ve already voted, learn why the team behind the poll decided on these books and titles – including some of my mistakes and regrets as one of the editors of the options on the final poll.

Or… just find some great comics to read!

Remember: These mappings are just my suggestion of how Marvel could assemble these books. They are meant to help you decide on your votes and build your personal reading list, but your vote on the poll is NOT an endorsement of my specific map. It’s a vote in favor of Marvel creating a book with that title or covering that period.

Over-the-top comics posts like this one are made possible via the support of Patrons of Crushing Krisis. For less than the cost of a single comic issue a month you can fuel my in-depth comics coverage, plus gain access to dozens of exclusive collecting guides & reading orders – including all of the Crushing Comics Guide to Marvel Comics.

New Comics & Collected Editions: Marvel Comics – February 28 2024

February 22, 2024 by krisis Leave a Comment

It’s the 9th new comic book day of the new year! This post covers Marvel Comics February 28 2024 releases. Missed last week’s releases? Check out last week’s post covering Marvel Comics February 21 2024 new releases.

This week in Marvel Comics: Gang War ends, Tony Stark’s X-era, nostalgic Power Pack perfection, the conclusion of unexpectedly great turns on Punisher & White Widow, and more!

This list includes every comic and digital comic out from Marvel this week, plus collected editions in omnibus, hardcover, paperback, and digest-sized formats. For each new release, I’ll point you to the right guide within my Crushing Comics Guide to Marvel Comics to find out how to collect each character in full – and, if a guide is linked from this post, that means it is updated through the present day!

Marvel Comics February 28 2024 Collected Editions

The Amazing Spider-Man Vol. 8: Spider-Man’s First Hunt
(2024 paperback, ISBN 978-1302953447 / digital)
See Guide to Spider-Man – Peter Parker (2018 – Present). This collects the arc that directly precedes Gang War and vaguely follows up on Dark Web with a focus on new comedy character Rep-Rap. It was fine, but ever since the initial meta-arc of this book wrapped up in issue #25 it has felt a bit directionless. I wouldn’t call this a jumping-on point.

Daredevil Modern Era Epic Collection: Underboss
(2024 paperback, ISBN 978-1302956332 / digital)
See Guide to Daredevil. This recollects Brian Bendis’s run from the start. However, it is not the same mapping as Daredevil by Bendis & Maleev Ultimate Collection, Vol. 1 because it collects the typically skipped arc from #20-25! This is the first time that arc has ever been collected in sequential order along with the issues that surround it.

The Invincible Iron Man Vol. 2: The Wedding of Tony Stark and Emma Frost
(2023 paperback, ISBN 978-1302947590 / digital)
See Guide to Iron Man – Tony Stark. If you haven’t been reading Iron Man I imagine that title might warrant an eye-roll or the assumption that this is a big sales gimmick forcing a romance between Tony and Emma. In reality, this is a surprisingly organic outgrowth of the continuing plot of Fall of X extending out of the 2023 Hellfire Gala.

In this collection, Iron Man is 100% an X-book, and here’s a secret: Gerry Duggan is way better with a solo title with one or two characters than a big team book, so importing Emma here means he has room to really have fun with both her and Tony. Issues #9-10 are perfection, especially if you’ve also been reading Duggan’s X-Men (2021).

New Comics & Collected Editions: Marvel Comics – January 24, 2024

January 23, 2024 by krisis Leave a Comment

It’s the fourth new comic book day of the new year! This post covers Marvel Comics January 24 2024 releases. Missed last week’s releases? Check out last week’s post covering Marvel Comics January 17 2024 new releases.

This week in Marvel Comics: a ROMnibus appears, Straczynski & Gillen’s Thor runs finally reunited, Al Ewing up to something with Magneto, and more!

Marvel Comics January 24 2024 Collected Editions

Marvel Two-in-One Epic Collection: Two Against Hydra
(2024 paperback, ISBN 978-1302931766 / digital)
See Guide to Fantastic Four or Guide to Thing (eventually). Marvel is slowly-but-surely pressing on with their collections of this Thing team-up title, which included a few more significant stories than its sibling Marvel Team-Up (1972). This volume (and all collections of this material, in general) skips issue #21, which includes a team-up with Doc Savage – Marvel no longer has the rights to reprint it.

ROM: The Original Marvel Years Omnibus Vol. 1
(2024 oversize hardcover, ISBN 978-1302956714 / digital)
See Guide to ROM, Spaceknight. We never thought it could exist, but here it is – the ROMnibus! FYI, there are THREE DM variants of this omnibus cover – Frank Miller X-Men, George Pérez, and Sal Buscema. Marvel will cover this series in a trio of omnibuses, and there’s no guarantee they will print it in any other format (like Epic Collection), so this could be your one chance to finally own a reprinted, remastered collection of this material.

Siege
(2024 paperback, ISBN 978-1302952792 / digital)
See Guide to Marvel Universe Events. Marvel has been working through paperback reprints of most of their line-wide events in the past year, likely to serve as complements to the Epic and Modern Era Epic lines. This event isn’t particularly satisfying to read on its own – all three of the Avengers books at the time heavily filled out the action, in particular New Avengers.

Star Wars Legends Epic Collection: The Menace Revealed Vol. 4
(2024 paperback, ISBN 978-1302953911 / digital)
See Guide to Star Wars Legends – The Old Expanded Universe. This is not only the last Epic of this era (which stretches from pre-prequels through the prequel trilogy), but also potentially the second to last of the Legends Epics! There’s only one major uncollected series remaining – Star Wars: Invasion (2009) #0-16. After that, we’re just down to recollecting old Star Wars comics coverage omnibus format and Epic reprints.

Strange Academy: Year Two
(2024 paperback, ISBN 978-1302953003 / digital)
See Guide to Doctor Strange. This collects the back half of the original 2020 series and its “Finals” mini-series from 2022. Strange Academy had such a massive cast to start that sometimes it could be hard to zero in on the characters, their histories and powers, and how they related to each other. Here at the end the book is hyper-focused on one particular relationship and conflict, which escalates to a pretty epic level by the end. This is a rare in-continuity Marvel book that would work well for a YA crowd, though I’d perhaps call it for 10YO+ due to some themes related to drug use.

Thor by Straczynski & Gillen Omnibus
(2024 oversize hardcover, ISBN 978-1302953010 / digital)
See Guide to Thor, The Odinson. This is a relatively rare release from Marvel in that it specifically expands the content of a prior omnibus release! The Thor by JMS omnibus was a great read that kicked off the modern era of Thor, but it has always been an incomplete work since Gillen dropped in to finish off JMS’s abandoned plot threads before Matt Fraction took the reins. Now this volume completely plugs that gap, butting perfectly up against Thor by Matt Fraction and Loki by Gillen. Plus, it adds Gillen’s excellent Beta Ray Bill material. Strong recommendation from me on this one for Thor fans – it’s the ground level of his modern comics! [Read more…] about New Comics & Collected Editions: Marvel Comics – January 24, 2024

New For Patrons: The Definitive Guide to Marvel’s Power Pack

September 20, 2018 by krisis

Today’s new guide for Patrons of Crushing Krisis was actually the guide that caused me to start the avalanche of smaller guides to fill in the gaps in my Marvel Legacy era page! It’s for a group of characters who have always been curiously X-Men adjacent, despite definitely not being mutants…

Power Pack – The Definitive Reading Order and Collecting Guide

Power Pack’s long-running association with the X-Men is down to their creator, Louise Simonson.

Simonson was coming off years as an editor, and heading into several years of writing X-Factor and, later, a portion of New Mutants. Not only that, but she frequently pulled Power Pack into the X-Men’s 1980s line events – they tied in to Mutant Massacre (where they faced Sabreooth), Fall of the Mutants, and Inferno!

That’s the only tie the four siblings of the Power family had to Marvel’s mutants. They got their powers not through their genes, but in the style of Green Lantern – via an alien who was part of an intergalactic struggle dying at their feet on Earth.

Power Pack was one of the only Marvel titles to be explicitly in-continuity and purposefully written with early grade readers in mind. That made them popular both with kids and adults in the 80s, but it left them without an audience in the 90s as comics shifted towards teens and speculators. [Read more…] about New For Patrons: The Definitive Guide to Marvel’s Power Pack