Crushing Krisis

Comic Books, Drag Race, & Life in New Zealand

Spider-Man

Spider-Man, Peter Parker – The Definitive Collecting Guide & Reading Order (2018 – Present)

Updated Apr 16, 2025! The definitive issue-by-issue comic book collecting guide and trade reading order for Marvel’s Spider-Man, Peter Parker comic books from 2018 to present in omnibus, hardcover, and trade paperback collections. Part of Crushing Krisis’s Crushing Comics. Last updated April 2025 with titles scheduled for release through December 2025.

spider-man-mask

Peter Parker is Spider-Man is Marvel’s flagship character.

Nick Spencer's Amazing Spider-Man (2018) #49 [Legacy #850] TextlessEven if he’s occasionally replaced by a clone or the mind of a villain, he’s a consistent seller who will always have at least one flagship title at the center of Marvel’s publishing line. That title has always been called “Amazing Spider-Man” with only a single exception in the past 60 years.

From 2010 to 2018, that title was written exclusively by Dan Slott. Slott wrote Amazing Spider-Man through three volumes, plus the exception of Superior Spider-Man from 2011 to 2014. (In fact, Slott began writing Spidey even earlier than that, as part of a rotation of writers.)

That made the 2018 re-launch of a fifth volume of Amazing Spider-Man as part of the Marvel Fresh Start era a big deal! It was the end of Dan Slott’s reign over the book, and the first truly fresh jumping-on point for Spider-Man in close to a decade.

That title was helmed by writer Nick Spencer for a massive three-year run that shipped two, three, and sometimes four issues a month for a total of over 87 comic issues in three years! Then, in the same volume number, a rotation of writers took over for the “Beyond” story arc featuring Ben Reilly back in the Spider-Man mask.

After that, Amazing Spider-Man relaunched into a sixth volume by Zeb Wells and John Romita Jr. in 2022, which roared past A.X.E. Judgment Day to have its own X-Men crossover with “Dark Web” before heading into a major 2023 event – “Summer of Symbiotes.”

However, Peter Parker wouldn’t be Marvel’s flagship hero if he was restrained to just one book – even with that book sometimes shipping multiple issues a week.

We’ve seen additional ongoing titles, like Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man, special events like Spider-Geddon and Clone Conspiracy, flashback series like Peter David’s Symbiote Spider-Man, mini-series like Joe Kelly’s Non-Stop Spider-Man, and out-of-continuity comics like Chip Zdarsky’s Spider-Man: Life Story.

Heck, in October 2022 Marvel added an adjectiveless Spider-Man ongoing by Dan Slott (again!) alongside the flagship book!

Every one of them are in this guide! Titles are grouped based on the current flagship title that was running when they were released, even if their reading order might place them slightly earlier or later.

This guide covers every Peter Parker series released from the relaunch of Amazing Spider-Man in 2018 to the present day, plus all of their supporting events. If you’re looking for Spider-Man’s titles from 1963 – 2018, see my main Guide to Spider-Man, Peter Parker (1963 – 2018). For Spider-Man Miles Morales titles, see my Guide to Spider-Man, Miles Morales.

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Patron’s Choice: Guide to Black Cat, Felicia Hardy

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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 Spider-Man, Peter Parker (2018-Present)

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Today I am swinging in with a guide for all Patrons of CK that began as an unexpectedly-sticky update to an existing guide before I realized it had become a tangled web and I needed to spin some of it off into its own page. Of course, I’m talking about a Guide to Spider-Man, Peter Parker (2018 – present)!

This guide is now available to the public thanks to the spectacular support of Patrons of Crushing Krisis!

When I started making notes for this guide, I thought I’d simply be catching up on the collections of Amazing Spider-Man (2018), its 2022 relaunch, plus Peter David’s various flashback Symbiote Spider-Man series.

Those two things alone would make for a guide’s worth of content, but as I continued making notes I realized there was so much more – including Spider-Geddon, Tom Taylor’s Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man, Joy Kelly’s Non-Stop and Savage Spider-Man, several digital series, the upcoming End of the Spider-Verse crossover, and even more!

Marvel has released fifty Peter Parker Spider-Man series and one-shots in the past four years.

I’ve worked for many years to figure out the best way to untangle the massive bulk of my main Guide to Spider-Man, Peter Parker. Just the thought of adding all of this material to its table of contents made me shudder. About halfway through outlining I realized it was time for Mr. Parker to graduate into a second guide page for his most-moden era.

Never fear, non-Patrons – I’d never keep a major Marvel guide like this one exclusive for very long! That is not a part of my mission statement for Crushing Comics. This guide will have a brief window of exclusivity with my Patrons while I update the main Spider-Man guide and make sure they match up perfectly. It will be available to all readers in time for the debut of Dan Slott’s new adjectiveless Spider-Man series launching at the top of October.

Believe it or not, not only was I surprised this turned into its own guide page, it wasn’t even the guide page I set out to build when I planned for this week! If yesterday’s Guide to Heroes for Hire was an hors d’oeuvre, this is an appetizer to the massive reading order I’ll be back with tomorrow – which references the runs in this guide several times.

Any guesses?

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The Pull List: Batman, Black Bolt, Deathstroke, Dodge City, Elsewhere, Infinity Countdown, Oblivion Song, Shade The Changing Woman, & more!

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The Pull List is holding strong as 33 issues this week thanks to a huge number of new pickups – including eleven new number one issues (plus two already-running series I finally caught up to reading)!

This was an intense Marvel Comics week on my pull list and a lighter DC week for me. Marvel had only two books out from titles I’m not up to speed on, where DC had a lot of comics out in lines I’m not yet caught up on and no “New Age of Heroes” books, plus only one new number one – a relaunch of Shade.

Meanwhile, it is a big week for new debuts from independent publishers – though a few of them weren’t to my tastes (and one was entirely unreadable!).

Artwork by Becky Cloonan.

Here’s The Pull List for the 7th of March, 2018. New adds to the pull list are marked with *; dropped titles are marked with #.

  • DC Comics
    • Batman #42
    • * Deathstroke #29
    • Exit Stage Left: The Snagglepuss Chronicles #3
    • Justice League #40
    • * Shade, The Changing Woman #1
    • Superman #42
  • Image Comics
    • * Elsewhere #5
    • *# Gideon Falls #1
    • * Oblivion Song #1
    • * Prism Stalker #1
  • Marvel Comics
    • * Avengers – Back to Basics #1
    • Avengers #683
    • Black Bolt #11
    • Captain America #699
    • Doctor Strange – Damnation #2
    • Hawkeye #16
    • Iceman #11
    • Infinity Countdown #1
    • Rise of the Black Panther #3
    • Rogue & Gambit #3
    • Spider-Man #238
    • Venom #163
    • X-Men: Gold #23
    • X-Men: Red #2
  • Smaller Publishers:
    Aftershock Comics, Boom! Studios, Dark Horse, Humanoids, IDW Publishing, Oni Press

    • *# The Ballad of Sang #1, Oni Press
    • * Dodge City #1, Boom! Studios
    • * Exo #1-3, Humanoids
    • Giant Days #36, Boom! Studios
    • * Highest House #1, IDW Publishing
    • Incognegro – Renaissance #2, Dark Horse
    • Mech Cadet Yu #7, Boom! Studios
    • # Monstro Mechanica #4, Aftershock Comics
    • *# The Spider King #1, IDW Publishing

Before we begin, a reminder that 2.5 stars on my rating scale is an average comic book! It should be my most-assigned score, but I tend to err on thinking average comics are good (confusing, I know), so 3 stars is the peak of my very distributed bell curve of ratings.

That means a 2/5 comic is not bad. That’s my rating for “uneven.” So, don’t freak out and assume a comic book is terrible because it has 2 stars. “Bad” and “Terrible” are 1/5 and .5/5, respectively, and I’ve only given those scores to 2.35% of the comics I’ve read so far this year.

Picks of the Pull

Big Two (Marvel/DC) Pick of the Week: 
Infinity Countdown (2018) #1

4.5 starsThis galaxy-spanning series is ecstatic – maybe the first time I’ve felt like the comics incarnation of Guardians of the Galaxy has resembled the tone of movie since the first film was released.

This book is built on a year of Guardians plot, but it could not possibly be more inviting to a new reader. All of the action is massive, all of the jokes land, and Aaron Kuder’s style of subtle figures paired with ultra detail is the perfect match for big space blowouts. It’s definitely the first time I’ve ever liked Drax, and the issue is full of amazing moments for Groot.

The Guardians have split their attention between a showdown with the murderous Gardener and defending a massive Infinity Stone along with the Nova Corps. Drax and the Corps start out faring better defending the stone than the rest of the assembled Guardians do agains The Gardener, but as both fights wear on the balance begins to tip.

With the [hugely shocking spoiler] scene on Earth that ends this issue, I understand why Duggan got this story upgraded from being just a Guardians story arc to a universe-wide event. He’s a writer who has been in Marvel’s big leagues for a few years now, and it’s terrific to see him writing an event that touches so many of Marvel’s big franchises without needlessly interfering with their ongoing titles.

I am absolutely subscribed to Infinite Countdown from this point forward, and it has moved Duggan’s Guardians run even further up my “to-read” list.

(Why in heaven’s name would you put a Nick Bradshaw cover on a book with interiors by Aaron Kuder and Mike Deodato? It makes no sense to me whatsoever.)

Small-Pub Pick of the Week:
Exo (2017) Hardcover AKA #1-3, Humanoids

This is the first English translation of this work, originally released as three French graphic albums and here released by Humanoids as three digital issues or a single hardcover.

Exo is a sci-fi motion picture waiting to be optioned. It combines two seemingly separate plots into one perfectly tense story – one of a NASA scientist on Earth, the other of a military strike force on the moon.

John Koenig is a perfectly average scientist who happens to have located a potentially habitable planet in another solar system and tasked a probe to fly its way. His announcement makes for a sleepy press conference, since any potential findings from the probe are almost two years away. The discovery is just another day at the office for Koenig – he goes for a routine physical afterward, and the heads into LA to retrieve his adult daughter, who calls him John.

Meanwhile, a projectile arcs from the moon to Earth, shattering part of an International Space Station en route to crashing into a field in Colorado before it starts to… branch out. Unfortunately, one of its findings is a schizophrenia man named Charles, who it is unable to control.

As Charles’s new crew seeks John, the military responds to the projectile by putting boots on the lunar ground – but they aren’t ready for what they might find there.

That describes just a sliver of the first 40 pages of this 120 page graphic novel, and it doesn’t even include the drug trip!

Exo has the same third act struggles as any massive sci-fi plot, but the tension that proceeds it is makes it worth a read. Even if a lot of the story draws from familiar tropes, it has the brash inventiveness to combine them in a way that we all hope to see from sci-fi films (think: Arrival).

[Read more…] about The Pull List: Batman, Black Bolt, Deathstroke, Dodge City, Elsewhere, Infinity Countdown, Oblivion Song, Shade The Changing Woman, & more!