Crushing Krisis

The Newest Oldest Blog In New Zealand

Roy Thomas

Crushing Comics S01E067 – X-Men, Vol. 1 & Ed Piskor’s X-Men: Grand Design (+ My Origin Story)

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This episode is all about humble beginnings.

First, I share a story about my t-shirt, Philly, and how I became comfortable performing on stage and in front of the camera thanks to a connection to a relatively new super-star, as I’ve related in the past.

Then, I unwrap the legendary first volume of X-Men’s classic Silver Age run by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Roy Thomas, and Werner Roth! Is this volume still worth reading now that you can simply read Ed Piskor’s terrific summary in 40 pages in X-Men: Grand Design #2?

Want to start from the beginning of this season of videos? Here’s the complete Season 1 playlist of Crushing Comics.

Episode 67 features the X-Men Silver Age Omnibus, Vol. 1. For more information (and details on how to collect this run other than in its hard-to-find omnibus), see my Guide to Silver Age X-Men.

Crushing Comics S01E048 – The nature of memory + The Best and Worst of Avengers: Kree/Skrull War vs The Crossing!

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After musing on the nature of how we remember things I unwrap a special packet – one that has both the apex and the nadir of pre-Bendis Avengers! It’s “one of the 90s most-notorious narratives” versus a cosmic conflict that was actually quite Earth-bound.

Want to start from the beginning of this season of videos? Here’s the complete Season 1 playlist of Crushing Comics.

Episode 48 features Avengers: The Origin, Avengers: The Crossing, and Avengers: Kree/Skrull War. See Guide to The Avengers (1963) for more.

Crushing Comics, S01E07 – Silver Age X-Men Omnibus, Vol. 2

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Today I unwrap a book I was incredibly excited to open back in 2011 because it was the first time I ever had access to this Silver Age material!

Want to start from the beginning? Here’s the complete Season 1 playlist of Crushing Comics.

Episode 6 features the Silver Age X-Men Omnibus, Vol. 2 (Amazon/eBay), which is covered in the Guide to Silver Age X-Men.

Avengers West Coast by Thomas & Thomas – The #40 Most-Wanted Marvel Omnibus of 2017

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Completionism is a a crazy impulse. There are hundreds of Avengers issues unrepresented by oversized volumes, but omnibus collectors are super-focused on getting the relatively unheralded back third of Avengers West Coast into an oversize volume to complete their bookshelves.

The funny thing is, I’m not sure all of the voters realize just how strong and cohesive this Roy & Dann Thomas run on Avengers really is.

Avengers West Coast #97The Avengers West Coast by Thomas and Thomas Omnibus is the #40 Most-Wanted Marvel Omnibus of 2017 on Tigereyes’s Secret Ballot. Visit the Marvel Masterworks Message Board to view the original posting of results by Tigereyes and head to the Guide to Avengers West Coast to see how you can read this run right now.

Past Ranking: This volume leaps up five spots from #45 in the 2016 survey.

Probable Contents: Avengers West Coast (1989) #63-100, 102, & Annual 5-8, Avengers Annual 19, Darkhawk Annual 1, and Iron Man Annual 13,

That’s 43 issues, which means the book could also include the full Bloodties crossover: Avengers West Coast (1989) #101, The Avengers (1963) #368-369, Uncanny X-Men (1963) #307, & X-Men (1991) #26.

However, that would leave behind 20 issues of five related miniseries – U.S. Agent #1-4 (after #95 & Annual 8), Avengers: The Terminatrix Objective #1-4 (after #97), Spider-Woman #1-4 (after #101), Scarlet Witch #1-4 (after #101), and Hawkeye #1-4 (after #102).

What to do? More on how to reconcile that, below.

Creators: Written by Roy Thomas and Dann Thomas with pencils by Paul Ryan and Dave Ross with Tom Morgan, George Freeman, Herb Trimpe, and Andrew Currie.

Can you read it right now? Mostly. Issue #76-79 and #83-88 remain uncollected (as is the U.S. Agent mini-series), but everything else has been captured. Visit Guide to Avengers West Coast for the full details. Unfortunately, most of this run is not on Marvel Unlimited.

The Details:

Avengers West Coast had gone for years as a forgotten era of Avengers as far as reprints were concerned until Marvel’s Cinematic Universe began focusing strongly on its core cast of Iron Man and Hawkeye, and later Scarlet Witch and Vision.

Suddenly, West Coast reprints were abounding – a set of Marvel Premier Classic hardcovers, corresponding paperback reprints, two omnibuses, half of an Avengers by John Byrne volume, and a handful of trades covering the latter run of the series. The only remaining gaps are #76-79 and #83-88, two stories split by the massive “Galactic Storm” crossover.

Comic books fans are nothing if not obsessive completists, so that makes a final omnibus edition of Avenger West Coast sorely tempting – especially since it’s all co-written by comic book royalty Roy Thomas along with his wife Dann (who was the first woman to ever script an issue of Wonder Woman!) mostly to illustration by a pair of strong pencillers – Paul Ryan through #69 and Dave Ross from #71 through the end of the series. [Read more…] about Avengers West Coast by Thomas & Thomas – The #40 Most-Wanted Marvel Omnibus of 2017

Conan The Barbarian, Vol. 1 – The #54 Most-Wanted Marvel Omnibus of 2017

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Conan The Barbarian Omnibus, Vol. 1 is the #54 Most-Wanted Marvel Omnibus of 2017 on Tigereyes’s Secret Ballot. 

Visit the Marvel Masterworks Message Board to view the original posting of results by Tigereyes.

What Is It? Marvel’s first ongoing Conan series launched in October 1970 and ran continuously through issue #275 in December 1993 alongside several other Conan ongoing comics and magazines.

Past Ranking: Tied for #38 in 2016, its first year on the survey.

Creators: Conan The Barbarian (1970) was written by Roy Thomas through issue #115 and again from #240-275. This early run featured pencils mostly by Barry Windsor-Smith with colors by BWS and Mimi Gold through #24, as well as Gil Kane, and John Buscema (with Neal Adams and Rich Buckler on the tail end).

Probable Contents: Conan The Barbarian (1970) #1 to 23-26, or even as far as #42, as well as material from Savage Tales (1971) #2-3 (and maybe also #1 and 4-5).

There’s the added wrinkle that Dark Horse would be releasing this collection rather than Marvel – more on that below.

Can you read it right now? Yes, via Dark Horse’s Chronicles of Conan, as well as the Barry Windsor Smith illustrated content in special Archives editions. See the Guide to Conan for the full details.

All of the possible content of this omnibus is available via Comixology Unlimited, and Amazon has all 34 volumes(!) of Chronicles of Conan available digitally in Kindle/Comixology versions.

The Details:

Marvel went through a craze of licensing properties and spawning horror comics in the 1970s. While many of these experimental expansions are now mostly-forgotten, one of the earliest spawned and entire group of comics and would only grow in popularity over the years – Conan!

Marvel’s Conan’s comics are neither a direct adaptation from novels originally by Robert E. Howard or entirely their own story. Instead, they are loose adaptions of key tales, inserting connective tissue between them. They are also mostly one-shot stories – even when they begin to continue more directly from the end of the previous story, each issue tends to be self-contained with a definitive end.

What is Conan really about? Conan is a Cimmerian, a people known for their barbarism, but he has thrown in against the Vanir in a regional conflict between different tribes of men. The comic follows his adventures, sometimes as a soldier, sometimes as a mercenary, and often simply as a wanderer encountering all of the brutality of the fiefdoms in his region.

These early Conan stories were written entirely by Roy Thomas, and they have a relatively set formula. Issues tend to open in the midst of conflict, or with Conan wading into a trap. There’s often a brief alliance with a gorgeous woman who is brutally killed. Conan is frequently too stubborn to retreat once gaining the upper hand, determined to continue until he slays the big bad or burns down an entire city, tower, or dungeon. [Read more…] about Conan The Barbarian, Vol. 1 – The #54 Most-Wanted Marvel Omnibus of 2017

Namor, The Sub-Mariner Silver Age Omnibus, Vol. 1 – The #56 Most-Wanted Marvel Omnibus of 2017

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Namor, The Sub-Mariner 1968 0007The Namor, The Sub-Mariner Silver Age Omnibus, Vol. 1 is the #56 Most-Wanted Marvel Omnibus of 2017 on Tigereyes’s Secret Ballot. 

Visit the Marvel Masterworks Message Board to view the original posting of results by Tigereyes.

What Is It? The Sub-Mariner (1968) was Namor’s first solo ongoing title after almost thirty years of starring in anthology series. It ran for 72 issues from  May 1968 to September 1974.

Before that, Sub-Mariner split Tales to Astonish (1959) with the Incredibly Hulk for 32 issues from #70-101 from August 1965 to  March 1968.

Past Ranking: This year is the book’s debut placement in the ballot results.

Creators: Written by Stan Lee and Roy Thomas (with Archie Goodwin and Raymond Marais) with pencils by Gene Colan and John Buscema (with Werner Roth, Marie Severin, & Dan Adkins), inks by Vince Colletta, Dick Ayers, and Frank Giacoia (with Dan Adkins & Jerry Grandenetti), and letters by Art ‘Artie’ Simek.

Probable Contents: Most Silver Age omnibuses collect the contents of three Marvel Masterworks volumes, so this volume would almost certainly contain Marvel Comics #1, Daredevil #7, and Tales To Astonish (1959) #70-101, Iron Man and Sub-Mariner #1, and The Sub-Mariner (1968) #1-13.

However, Marvel has recently shown a little bit of adventurousness when it comes to expanding the contents of their Silver Age omnibuses in Daredevil, Thor, Amazing Spider-Man, so it’s not a stretch to think this would include another 10-14 issues.

The question is – which 10-14 issues! Click to expand a discussion of further content for this volume.

Can you read it right now? Yes! This run is entirely covered by the Sub-Mariner Masterworks volumes, which are out-of-print but not terribly expensive – Vol. 1, Vol. 2, Vol. 3. For more details, see the Guide to Namor, The Sub-Mariner.Daredevil_1964_0007

Plus, Marvel Unlimited has the complete contents of Tales To Astonish, the single issue Iron Man and Sub-Mariner, and The Sub-Mariner (1968) #1-14.

The Details:

Namor, The Sub-Mariner was Marvel’s original anti-hero – the tempestuous prince of an undersea kingdom long past its halcyon days who takes out his unending aggression on the above-the-waves world of the surface dwellers.

You may not know this, but he was also the first major hero that Marvel unthawed in the Silver Age, although this unthawing was metaphorical rather than him being relieved from an actual block of ice like Captain America.

And, actually, it was Namor who was partially responsible for freeing Cap!

But now we’re getting ahead of ourselves. [Read more…] about Namor, The Sub-Mariner Silver Age Omnibus, Vol. 1 – The #56 Most-Wanted Marvel Omnibus of 2017